Listen
Listen to this podcast or watch the video. CLICK HERE
Transcript
Wendy: Hello, everyone. My name is Wendy Myers of myersdetox.com. Today I’m talking to Kyle Brown. We’re going to be talking about the worst and best fitness supplements. And we’ll talk about the best diet and supplements for fitness, fat burning, and delve into the do’s and don’ts of protein shakes.
Kyle Brown’s health and nutrition portfolio includes personal training celebrities and professional and Olympic athletes. He’s the founder of Fit 365 shakes; co-creator of Fierce, Sexy, Empowered Workshops; workshops for Fortune 500 companies; author in top ranking fitness magazines; and as a childhood obesity advocate. Kyle is the CEO and creator of Fit 365, an all- natural, complete, low calorie, delicious meal in a shake. And you can learn more about that at fit365.com.
Fit 365 is now available in Whole Foods Market and other health food stores. Kyle is the host of the ESPN radio show, The Empower Hour with Kyle Brown. Kyle brings on celebrity guests and covers topics from fitness and nutrition secrets to mental toughness to longevity to childhood obesity, a big range of topics. Kyle is also the creator of Fierce, Sexy, Empowered. You can learn more about that at fiercesexyempowered.com. This is an incredible fat- burning system used by busy women to get in the best shape of their lives in just three short weeks.
Kyle’s holistic approach to health and fitness supports mind and body and must be given everything they require to maintain motivation and vitality. In his first book, entitled How Much Does a Zebra Weigh — I love that title — Kyle empowers you to build self-confidence through a sound mind and a healthy, strong body. Kyle partners with organizations including National Police Athletics/Activities League to join the fight against childhood obesity. Kyle, thank you so much for joining us on the summit.
Kyle: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Wendy: Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself and your background in the fitness world.
Kyle: So my background basically started at about six years old. I don’t really have an overweight to in shape before and after journey. I more used fitness as a tool to help me with depression, help me with anxiety, help me with anger, and really just not feeling like I’d found my place at a very young age.
And luckily my parents introduced me to fitness really young. We had the whole weight set in the basement back in the day out in the Midwest and punching bags and all that good stuff. But I’ve just always been involved with it. I never thought it would be a career, but around 2001 I decided to see if there was that opportunity. I moved out to California with what I could fit in the back seta of my Honda Civic two door and started the journey.
So I went out, and I started working as a trainer. I got about every certification I could and then started really seeing the link between nutrition. And I was actually getting really heavy into the natural health side back around 2002. I lived with my crazy aunt at time who actually now I look at more as somebody who was just way ahead of her time, who only grew organics and wouldn’t bring in food from outside the house and really pushed me down the natural health route back then.
And I just started adding additional tools to the tool box since. And for me, on the fitness side, I started training celebrities back around 2002 as well. So I was traveling to LA and doing that type of a business back when it was all nondisclosure acts and nobody wanted to be seen or known for working out versus now it’s all about selfies while they’re training with their trainers.
So it’s a very different world. And we would sneak into high end hotels, places like the Montage — sorry Montage — and I’d train celebrities in there. And it’s been an interesting ride. But now it’s just been a really fun evolution.
Wendy: So you’ve been in the supplement industry a while. What have you learned when it comes to fitness supplements?
Kyle: A lot. Yeah, I actually entered the supplement industry back in 2003. I’ve learned what you see is not what you get. So my initial supplement intake, I was one of those guys back in late 80s, early 90s, who would pop 300 horse pills in the course of a day, everything from the beef liver tabs, so you don’t lose your muscle, to creatinine to glutamine to the precursors to precursors to steroids because you never wanted to use drugs that they’d sell at GNC. And I’d kind of done and tried it all in a natural route, which, in reality, is all artificial chemical garbage. And I believed the marketing message instead of studying the ingredients.
So what I’ve learned is what you see is really not what you get. And once you kind of become the Wizard of Oz and step behind the curtain, you realize that it’s a bit of a myth, that the FDA’s busting companies every single day for lying about what’s in their products. And the biggest thing I’ve learned is that if you can’t put it into a little kid’s body, don’t put it into your own.
Wendy: That’s a very, very good rule of thumb. Most people working out and trying to get into shape and increase muscle drink protein shakes. And you have your own line of protein shakes. They’re a complete meal, but they have protein in them. So what should someone be looking for when it comes to protein shakes? What type of protein powder do you recommend and how to take it?
Kyle: So we got involved with Fit 365. We formulated that from about 2003 to 2005. And back in the day I was just buying everything that was said on the front, all the marketing terminology, like time released protein and microfiltration, and all these things.
And once you really learn what all that really means, not from the marketing standpoint, you realize that most protein powders are just incredibly processed products, even the natural ones. Everything’s just really heavily processed. And in every dietary system the best rule of thumb is what’s called the processing principle, which is the closest food is to its natural state, the better it is for you. And that applies to protein powders as well.
So what we use is a year round grass fed whey. It’s all south Australian, which has not been processed. You’ll see some organic grass fed wheys from the United States that are actually not year round fed grass because they’re from Wisconsin, which means that the cows are eating grains that are organic and soy that are organic whenever there’s snow on the ground. So it’s a place that’s got weather like here in southern California that are all grass fed.
When you’re looking at these supplements, I would say there are a few things you really want to look at. One, you want to make sure that there’s nothing in it that you wouldn’t feed a little kid, that it’s all natural, organic, real food ingredients. Two is you want it to be more complete, full food. If you’re just ingesting a bunch of protein, your body’s not going to take in much more than 21 grams at a time anyway.
So you want to make sure that the quality of the protein’s really good in that it has side benefits rather than side effects. And you want to make sure, also, that it’s not what you digest, but it’s what you absorb that counts. So somebody may take in a plant protein because they think they’re being healthier, which I’ll say unless you’re a vegan is really not going to be the best call because you may be taking it in 21 grams of plant protein and absorbing 8 to 10 of them.
So you want all the things that you would find in nature around food mixed into your protein shake. You want a full spectrum digestive enzyme blend so that you break down, absorb, and utilize all that protein that’s going in. And ideally you want to be full and satisfied after you have it. And the only thing that’s going to leave you full is fiber, which is why we have fiber in there. And the only thing that’s going to leave you satisfied and satiated is dietary fat, which is why we added the coconut oil 11 years ago. So it’s a full, complete meal that you’re, again, feeling good. You’re feeling satisfied.
And the last thing I’ll say to look for is make sure you trust your intuition, how you feel after you drink that shake. If you feel bloated, if you feel digestive stuff coming on, your energy decreases, that’s probably not a good thing to be putting in your body. You should be rejuvenated after you drink this product.
Wendy: Yeah, I had a website designer of mine, he would drink this protein shake. And here are the ingredients. It had soy protein isolate. And he said he had major stomach pains and diarrhea after he took it. I thought, “You probably shouldn’t take that because there’s something in it that’s not working for you.”
Kyle: Soy protein, I’m a big history fanatic because I think the best way to understand what’s the right way to do things is to understand where we messed up and why, as far as when it comes down to nutrition. And soy, you just look at why did soy ever get introduced into the food system and then why was it made into protein powder. And the good news is it kept us alive. The bad news is everything else that comes with it.
So if you’re not very interested in throwing your hormones for a whack, soy protein’s just not the best thing to be putting in your body. There are way too many other alternatives that are healthy.
Wendy: Are there any other types of protein powders or ingredients in protein powers that you should look for on the label to avoid?
Kyle: Yes. So the first thing that you’re going to want to look at when you’re looking at a protein shake is what is it being sweetened with. That’s the first step that you’re going to look at if it is a natural shake, for example. So you’ve got rid of the sucralose, which is not sucrose. It’s not sugar. So if it says sucralose, that’s Splenda. You don’t want to be putting that stuff in, or aspartame or acesulfame potassium. You want to keep these artificial sweeteners out.
But if you’re looking first at your sweetener, and you’re saying, “Okay, this thing is sweetened with Stevia,” for example, well if you don’t taste the bitterness in the shake, then what you’re having is not really Stevia. It’s a most heavily processed version of Stevia called Reb A that, again, hasn’t been tested long for food safety. There’s lots of mixed research on how that’s going to be affecting your body and your hormones and your thyroid, your estrogen levels.
I personally would just say if you’re having a protein shake that doesn’t taste bitter that has Stevia in it, I would personally avoid it because we have tested everything in the book with Stevia to try to make that as a sweetener option. And I would say avoid it.
And then the next thing that you would want to look at is what it’s sweetened with. What we use a combination of monk fruit, which has been heavily tested. It’s from the cucumber family. Some places will just call it luo han. And we use a combination of that and organic non-GMO erythritol, which all passes through the human body. It’s been tested since the 1800s for safety.
And then the next thing that I would look at with your protein shake as far as ingredients to avoid is really look for the fillers. So if you see things like maltodextrin as one of the first ingredients, for example, maltodextrin is a corn starch that is literally just thrown in there as a filler. So that may make it a meal. A lot of the college shakes, for example, they require a really high carb amount so they throw in that maltodextrin, which is just not the best choice.
And then the biggest thing you want to look at is what is your protein source. So a couple of ones you want to avoid is if it says something like soy, obviously isolate concentrate, doesn’t matter. Milk protein, it’s really heavily processed. It’s not the same as just drinking milk. Calcium caseinate, sodium caseinate, all of those proteins, if you see that on there, not the best choice.
If you’re finding a protein powder that’s really inexpensive, and it says it’s a whey protein, it may say whey protein plus calcium caseinate plus sodium caseinate plus milk protein isolate. It’ll say all these other proteins on there.
And they’re just going by the marketing of the whey. And they don’t have to have that thing be anything more than one percent whey. It could say the order of what’s in it the most first. So it could say milk protein concentrate and whey protein isolate. And it could be 99 percent milk protein concentrate and one percent whey protein just to make it hit the ingredient list.
Wendy: Yeah, you have to be careful. Some of these supplement manufacturers are very savvy in what they put on the label. And the ingredients are very suspect or really not very good for you.
So let’s talk about some of the types of protein powders. There’s a new bone broth protein powder out there. There’s a soy protein isolate. There’s the whey protein. And then there are also other types of protein as well. Can you just touch on each of those that you would find on the market, maybe pros and cons?
Kyle: Okay, so yeah, there’s a lot of interesting movement within the protein industry within the last year. The paleo community’s been moving pretty heavy into promotion of animal based protein powder, which are actual animal ingredients, which has been, to me, very interesting. They’re very new to the market.
But before that the main source has originally been soy, which, again, can thrash your thyroid function, can raise your estrogen levels. It’s something I would highly recommend being an absolute last chance. If you’re stranded on a deserted island, maybe have that, or maybe just do a long time fast and just go with some coconuts and you’ll be good to go. But besides that, don’t put it in your body.
If you’re extremely allergic, like the sickest of the sick, typically they’ll go with the allergenic free options, which are like a rice protein powder, which, again, the reason rice ever got introduced to our diet was due to poverty. So if you don’t have a severe allergy issue, it’s not going to be the best source. Then there are also some of the plant based ones, which are pea, or some of them now use quinoa, which, again, if you’re choosing for moral, ethical, theological reasons to be a vegan, then totally fine.
But if you’re looking for what’s optimal, it’s nowhere near as good for you. It doesn’t have all the glutathione precursors, all the different things that can increase your immune system. What it really does have for you that is good is the allergen issues and the fact that it is not animal based. So that’s your choice.
If you’re on the other side of it, you like your canine teeth and embrace the fact that you’re an omnivore, and you want to go with one of those kind of protein options, then I still think the tried and true tested option is whey protein from grass fed cows. It’s been tested since the 90s as the best for the immune system. If you specifically have a whey allergy, then I would say avoid it.
And obviously you want to go with grass fed. If you then, on top of that, say, “I want to avoid anything that does come from whey, and I want to try a bone broth option,” that is fine. My personal take so far on the bone broth proteins is they’re absolutely disgusting tasting. I’ve tried about five of them. They are awful. If somebody has one that isn’t awful, please send it to me. Try mine, and tell me what you think in comparison.
I think at the end of the day you have to find a nice balance between being as healthy as humanly possible and sustainability. And I think sustainability comes from really truly enjoying the taste of everything that you eat, that ever goes in your body. If not, you’re just stuck with a really healthy cabinet, which isn’t going to get you anywhere. “Man, that green drink I have on the shelf right now is incredibly healthy.” “But do you drink it every day?” “No, it tastes disgusting.” So buy something that tastes amazing. And that was something we spent two years on, is making sure our stuff tasted like a milkshake.
So the big thing I’ve seen with the bone broth protein is I still put it in a to be determined category. It hasn’t been heavily researched as to when you take protein out of bone broth, powderize it, how does it get processed by the body differently. We are in guinea pig stage.
Grass fed whey has been going on since the 90s. It has been so heavily researched, stood the test of time. I never like to be first to market. I’m not the first guy go out and buy an iPhone. I’m not the first guy to go jump off a bridge. I want to make sure everybody lands in the water first. So if you’re looking for newest, greatest, latest, then go buy the iPhone 10. I’ll wait until the bugs are worked out. So bone broth protein, I’ve not see the behind the scenes to see how is it processed, how heavily processed is it, how does it then get absorbed by the human body, where’s the amino acid profile. But again, it’s not a bad option.
And then there also are the animal protein options that are going on right now, where they’re using actual beef and chicken and fish as protein, or camel milk. It’s getting pretty interesting. And I would say you know what? If that’s the route you want to go, great. But for me, I’ll eat chicken, beef, or fish, and my auxiliary meals in between when I have time. I don’t need to powderize it.
Wendy: Yeah, it just goes to show you, protein shakes and protein powder are very, very popular. People love their shakes in the morning after their workout. I really like whey protein myself. I have a sensitivity to dairy. I have a sensitivity to lactose. But I tolerate whey just fine. And so I want to just caution people. You don’t have to count whey out just because, say, you’re sensitive to dairy or not eating dairy in your diet. Very few people have an issue with whey even if they have an issue with the other components in dairy, like casein or lactose. Can you talk about that?
Kyle: My entire family cannot drink milk, cannot do ice cream, even though we do, and we shouldn’t do it, every once in a while. And we get the congestion from it. We can’t do cheese, stomach issues. I’m lactose intolerant. My whole family is. However, I also know that a lot of lactose intolerance comes from the processing of these products, where you don’t have the lactase enzyme in there.
So with Fit 365 there’s next to no lactose. And we also added in the lactase enzyme to help break down the lactose if people even decide that they want to add in some organic milk as their milk source, as their base. So if you are trying to avoid dairy, think really hard what parts of dairy do you want to avoid. It’s like I want to avoid rattlesnakes because I don’t want the venom or the teeth.
But it doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be some really nice shoes. Not that I wear rattlesnake shoes. The point being, not everything is wrong with the product itself. So you may say, “Okay, I want to avoid cheese. I want to avoid drinking milk. I don’t want the congestion or those enlarged protein molecules. I don’t want to mess with that,” which is totally fine. But whey protein, like you’ve experienced for yourself, it may sit incredibly well with your body, especially with good quality as close to its natural state. The whey that we use is a very special whey that’s only used in the medicinal side of the market. We’re the first people to ever bring it into the natural health food stores, the retail side, where it’s not a byproduct of cheese manufacturing.
So it’s actually the raw whey that’s just slightly processed. So again, the more you process something, the worse it is for you. And we’ve noticed, with our particular whey that we’ve been using for the last decade, that it really sits well with people who have a lot of immune issues and a lot of issues with a weak sensitive stomach, and no problems at all.
Wendy: Yeah, let’s talk about collagen protein, very, very popular in the market, adding gelatin and collagen. What are your thoughts on those? What are the differences from regular protein?
Kyle: I’m definitely a fan of collagen. I’m into metabolic typing. So I think for certain people it does significantly better. I think the biggest thing when it comes down to a college protein is, again, test it on yourself. See how your body responds to it. I like to use collagen more in my soups than I would like to use it as a protein source.
So I would more take a bone broth. I would more say get collagen in other sources than really a protein shake. But see how your body responds to it, I think, is really the biggest key when it comes to collagen protein. Nothing against it, but just see how does your body respond. Some people do incredibly well. Some people won’t do as well.
Wendy: So you’re a fitness expect. What does your ideal diet look like? And what are some of the best foods you recommend to achieve your ideal fitness level?
Kyle: So I’ve been paleo for about 15 years — I’ll call it paleo-ish — for about 15 years, back when paleo was not very known, Cordain and The Paleo Diet book, which I had read and loved and followed and was considered a bit of a freak from my family from it. Before that I came from the body building world, so I still now have clients where I incorporate in a lot of the skills and techniques and manipulation that they’re able to do through natural health to get the look and feel that somebody wants for their particular body.
And I really just look at all of it as tools for the toolbox. I try to not be an extremist. I’ll call myself a reformed extremist. And that definitely led to a lot of fighting and conflict. It led to not many dates. It led to not a healthy balanced social life.
I’m very big into standup comedy. And one of my favorite comedians of all time was Redd Foxx. And he had a line that said, “Health nuts will feel really stupid one day, lying in their hospital beds dying of nothing.” And I think that’s just a nice little thing for me, is that you always want to find a way to… unless you’ve got severe allergy issues that you’re whole life is miserable and you’re near your deathbed, if you’re really just trying to focus on optimal health and performance, you’ve got to find a combination of a few things.
One is, I like to take ancestral diet and how do you fit that within to your own diet. Two is how do you make it work for your 21st century, on the go lifestyle? There’s the biochemical individuality side, which is like how does your own unique body process certain foods. And a lot of that is intuition and testing and trying out different foods. And then the last thing that I really like to look at is remembering why you’re doing this stuff in the first place, it’s to improve quality of life.
I had a guy come see me, for example, who’s a year round, full time fitness model. He makes his entire living off of Instagram. He stopped by, came on my radio show. And we were at Whole Foods, which everyone would consider an incredibly healthy place, right. And he was like, “I’m starving. I just need to eat something right now.” And we walked over and he’s like, “Yeah, actually I can’t go get the chicken from that counter because the sodium levels are too high. And it will cause me to be bloated, which will affect me in photos.” Year round. And I’m like, “Are you single right now?” Yeah, exactly.
So it’s the same thing for me. I’ve got a four year old and a two year old. I’m going through that process. I used to give great nutritional advice to parents before I had kids. And then I went back and asked for penitence, apologizing for trying to give nutrition advice before I had kids. So you need to find a way that it’s sustainable. That’s really the most important thing. You need to find how do you make these conditions work for you.
And then the one thing that I do that I haven’t seen anybody else in our industry ever do — maybe there are others out there doing it; I’d be happy if they would — is that you had mentioned my book, How Much Does a Zebra Weigh. I’m pretty obsessed with the animal kingdom, realizing that we are part of it and that our biggest difference is our biggest benefit and our biggest detriment, which is our free will and this full frontal lobe development.
So I love studying the way animals eat. And realize that we’re the only ones who are in our heads. And we’re the only unintentionally overweight animal in the animal kingdom. So watch what the other animals in the animal kingdom are doing. And when you do that, you start laughing at all the things that humans do with food, like counting calories, having a food scale, not eating after six o’clock because that’s what they said on Oprah. A lot of these things are pretty nonsensical.
If you look as if you were a Martian, looking down on earth through a telescope, looking at the animals, you’d say, “What’s wrong with this one animal over here who does all of these crazy things around food?” And for me I find it very comical because I’ve been that obsessed person. And then I backed up, and I gave myself an overview of it all and realized that those are manmade concepts, not nature made concepts.
Wendy: I’ve been there before, too. When I first started learning about health, I shouted it from the rooftops, even though maybe it wasn’t totally correct information. And you can get very, very obsessive and very orthorexia nervosa, where you’re trying to eat perfect. And then you come full circle, and you kind of relax a little bit. You have to live in the real world.
Kyle: I think you need to think really hard. Some of the best advice I can give you, because, again, I’ve got a PhD in mistake making when it comes to food, only because I’ve been doing this for so long, one of the big things I try to advise people of is when they start getting on their soap box and preaching food and nutrition, that that never motivates people the way you’re trying to motivate them. It’s no different than the guy who comes to your door, knocks on the door, and tries to get you to find your savior. We’re just doing it with food now.
And it’s whatever diet or nutrition program or workout program that we’re into. And proselytizing nutrition or fitness religion is just as obnoxious as proselytizing any type of religion. And maybe that’s a newbie sort of thing that we learn over time, like, “Wait a minute, what worked for me at one time may not be my passion right now.” So find a way to do it in an inspirational way. And when you learn something new with fitness and nutrition, don’t jump ship on everything else that you were doing thinking everything you’re doing is wrong. Realize that these are just new tools for your toolbox.
Wendy: Yeah, and you have to do what works for your body. Everyone is different. You can’t just follow to the letter everything you read in a book. Everyone is different.
Kyle: Yeah.
Wendy: So what are your favorite foods to help improve fitness, if you’re looking to improve your body and burn fat and whatever you’re trying to accomplish? What are your favorite foods to do so?
Kyle: So on the supplement side I think what people start noticing when I make supplement recommendations is so many of them are food based. The first thing that I ever start with, what I say is, “Okay, what is the best fitness supplement on the market, the best one for athletic performance, fat burning, energy levels, proven results in athletic performance regardless of sport? And that supplement is water.
And people go, “Well, water, okay. That’s really boring. That wasn’t that interesting.” I’m like, “No, water, straight water.” Dehydration just destroys every one of those things. When you think you’re hungry, you’re really thirsty. When you think you’re thirsty, you’re already probably dehydrated. So I start with that whenever I’ve been working with anyone on an athletic side. It’s the best thing you can do for fat burning and athletic performance. And it just makes sense. If you think that we’re 70, 80 percent water, why would water not be the most important thing? It literally helps with the rebuilding, regenerating of every single cell in your body.
So then I get into certain supplements for sports performance. And a lot of them are just food based. I think the best supplement manufacturer in the world is Mother Nature. She’s just got this stuff dialed in at a level that we don’t even understand yet, beet root juice powder, for example. So if you don’t like eating beets on a regular basis, and you want some vasodilation, beet root juice is just incredible. I usually recommend about a 500 milliliter shot a day.
And I think that that’s one of the best things you can do as a pre workout. It’s a really nitrate rich food. And one of the things that we notice with that is not only is it really solid pre workout, but it’s also just an awesome way to get that pump increased. I’ve noticed that when I’ve gotten beet root juice mixed in, or I’m having a greens drink or something, for example, with a little beet root juice as a pre workout, just a really big difference in athletic performance.
Healthy fats, I notice that most people, when they’re going through a fat loss journey, they focus on this calories in, calories out concept. Or athletes are really fat and deficient, and they’re carb loaded. I’m also a big fan of avocadoes. I think a lot of athletes and also people who are on a fat loss journey really focus on calories in, calories out. They’re typically pretty calorically deficient. And they’re missing out on those good, healthy fats. I think avocados are incredible. There’s a lot of research with avocados for fat loss, for increasing your muscle mass, really giving you a lot of those basics to get those hormones up. And it makes a pretty good transfer for people who are finding themselves starving all the time or just carb loaded, thinking that they need to finish their athletic performance, for example.
So they’ll run marathons, and they’ll load up on carbs afterwards. They’ll do pasta or rice, I know from years of traveling to go speak in Disney. I would see all these people show up to the Disney World Marathon. And they were 40, 50 pounds overweight. And I’m wondering how are these people, one, running the marathon, and two, how are they doing this much exercise and still not changing their bodies.
And it’s because they’re following these old school concepts of thinking that you need to go for a quick run, load up on carbs. You need the carbs for energy. Go for a run. And I really think people do a lot better using fat as their primary fuel. And I think that’s one of the biggest mistakes in the English language, is the use of the word fat for dietary fat and also for body fat. I think that creates a lot of fat phobia.
Extra virgin coconut oil, I think, is huge. I typically do anywhere from one to three tablespoons a day. I tell people, “When you’re starting with it, see how your body responds. You may get a bit of a stool issue if you’re going too heavy too quick.” But I think it does a pretty incredible job.
We actually added coconut oil from the beginning, back in 2005, in the Fit 365 for that exact reason, is its effects on thyroid function, its effects on really just helping your body get good clean energy. With the medium chain triglycerides it works almost like a carbohydrate burning in your body. And what I’ve really noticed is the more I up people’s coconut oil, the better they get result wise with body fat loss, with energy, with mental clarity, with performance. So I try to keep people pretty high in that.
And then obviously good quality, year round grass fed whey protein, as long as they don’t have any kind of allergies to it, just making sure that they’re properly nourished. What I like to do with clients post workout is I’ll literally finish up their session, blend up a shake, hand it to them, that anabolic window post workout, where your body can basically absorb and utilize those nutrients the quicker the better.
I think a lot of people, when they workout, they think if they’re lifting weights, they’re building muscle, not realizing that when they’re lifting weights they’re actually breaking down the muscle. And getting that good quality protei n and good nutrients in your body right afterwards, when it’s most susceptible, is pretty key.
And then the last thing that I think is pretty cool from the natural health community is raw honey. I watch all these endurance athletes just down all this goo and all those products. Then I just look at my little kids and say, “I wouldn’t feed them anything like that.” But I would give them some apples and honey. And I do typically a couple of tablespoons of raw honey. There’s incredible research on raw honey for performance, for also on the healing side.
So I look for supplements that are food based, that have health benefits not health consequences. Like the side effects are you might accidentally get better GI health. You might get better immune responses. You might get some of the antibiotic effects of raw honey. So it’s just good, clean energy for those endurance athletes that take it to a little bit more of a level than people who are just doing short burst stuff.
Wendy: I do the honey myself. I love manuka honey. It’s also from New Zealand, amazing antibacterial properties in addition. Regular honey has that too, but it’s just amplified, and just a delicious way to be healthy.
Kyle: Definitely. There are a couple of supplements that I like to get into that I think may help some of our listeners, some universal supplements that can help them out on the side if they’re looking for fat loss goals, if they’re looking for the sports nutrition side of goals. Glutamine, I think, is really key. It’s an amino acid. It helps a lot with recovery.
It helps with immune system health. I think in general the better you get your gut biome, the better you get your intestinal lining, the more it’s then going to transfer into energy levels and your whole body for athletic performance and for fitness and for fat loss. I’m a big fan of covalent bonded glutamine. I tell people about 5 to 15 grams a day. When I’m first starting with somebody on a fitness regimen, I try to have them take in about 5 grams three times a day.
Some athletes that I work with, I occasionally will get the client that wants to – – when I’m saying athlete, I’m not saying somebody who’s just a competitor or a professional, I’m saying anybody who’s coming to me to transform their body — I get them into an athlete kind of a mindset versus somebody who’s in a fat loss mindset. So if you feel like you’re a fat loss mindset, then you identify all your friends as people who are in this struggle, and now you’re a fat loss person. And then what if you actually lose it? Are you going to lose your whole identity?
So I consider everybody more athletic. So if I’m getting an athlete that’s coming to me, and they’re trying to put on a little bit more muscle mass with some increased energy, I may get them on a Kre-Alkalyn creatine. You can get a good amount of creatine just from eating red meat, but I’ve noticed some pretty nice effects with people with their strength and their ability to lift a little bit heavier weight.
But I tell people when you’re doing creatine, some things that typically don’t get talked about, and it’s not required by the company to put on the label, is really watch your caffeine intake. And also, if you’re on NSAIDs, nonsteroidal inflammatories, really be aware of that when on creatine. It could give you some digestive issues.
Wendy: Any brands of creatine that you like?
Kyle: NOW is a company, and Jarrow’s. A lot of the natural health brands are now starting to come out with some glutamines and creatines and some sports supplements like that. And I feel like those brands have really stood the test of time.
If a product is sold in Whole Foods Market, for example, even though there are some people out there who may not be the biggest fans of Whole Foods, being on the manufacturing side, Whole Foods is so rigorous in their testing to mak e sure that what you see is what you get that the supplements that are sold on their shelves are what you’re seeing. They make all manufacturers send them every single ingredient, the supplier, all your behind the scenes secrets.
They check things. They walk through your manufacturing facility. They really do a phenomenal job of making sure that the products sold in there aren’t going to have artificial ingredients or Chinese ingredients or anything along those lines, which is not the same thing that can be said for any of the mainstream stores, some, yes, but not most.
So definitely I would say most of those products that you’re getting at Whole Foods Market, they really do a great job with making sure of that. And they put companies through the ringer, which I think is a great thing. It’s kind of like TSA, basically, for supplements. TSA may be annoying, but I’d rather have TSA checking for those crazy [inaudible] coming through with bombs or guns.
The last supplement that I’ve seen some pretty awesome results with is I get a lot of people who are type A and shaky and nervous. And they’re trying to get into a fitness weight loss regimen. And they’re stressed out, and their cortisol levels are crazy. And ZMA, zinc, magnesium, I think, is just absolutely awesome. It’s just two minerals that we’re very deficient in.
And the guy who did most of the research at it originally for athletes is actually the guy who’d gotten busted in the steroid stuff back in the day with elite level athletes. But he did bring some amazing stuff to the table. And ZMA is definitely one of one of them, which is basically zinc and magnesium put together. I like to tell people to take it without calcium because if you’re body’s calcium deficient, it may just be bringing in the calcium and not taking in all the zinc and magnesium.
But I really think ZMA is awesome. We’ve been taking ZMA, friends of mine from the natural body building world, since all the way back in the early 90s. We’d take it right before bed. And I find that it makes me sleep deeper. I get a lot more dreams. And a lot of the research on it is that it helps your body hit REM better in your sleep so you’ll produce more natural growth hormone, which is great for men and women. And you know we all need deeper sleep, especially parents. So I think it’s just something that can be very beneficial to a lot of athletes.
Wendy: Oh, yeah, I take a magnesium every night before I go to bed. You need it for so many things in the body. You have to take it to be healthy or if you’re trying to achieve peak fitness. It’s so important.
So there are a lot of really bad fitness supplements on the market. Can you talk about a few of the ones that people should definitely avoid?
Kyle: Yeah. So I have used many of them. Luckily I stopped before it got really bad and everyone realized they could make a buck manufacturing supplements or private labeling them. So the last time I tried a lot of these things were way back in the day. I’ve bitten into their marketing messages. I’ve stood behind companies. I’ve been sponsored by some way back in the day when I was involved with competitive body building.
And I can just tell you that bottom line is, there is nothing that happens at the age of 18 that all of a sudden magically your body can now process these chemicals, artificial sweeteners, artificial ingredients, supplements. If it’s warning, “keep out of reach of children,” aren’t we all just big children? There’s nothing that happens that makes it okay for your body.
So the first thing I’ll tell you is anything thermogenic. We’re already under so much adrenal stress and fatigue that the idea of pre workout we need our adrenaline pumping, we need our body totally messed up and firing like crazy before we work out, is terrible. And it doesn’t make your workout more effective. It’s just going to make you peter out.
I’ll give you a perfect example. Look at professional fighters. If a boxer’s getting into a ring, or an ultimate UFC guy, the ones who typically win are guys who are walking in the most calm, cool, collected, knowing what they’re going to do. They’re in a really good, solid situation. And they’re under good emotional neurological control. The ones that walk in all wired like they just drank 17 Red Bulls, usually come in all crazy, and they get knocked out within a few seconds. And it’s the same thing for us when we walk into the gym.
If you’re all fired up and crazy and like I just want to punch something going in, you’re going to peter out really quick. You’re probably going to hurt a muscle. You’re going to hurt yourself. And it’s really not the best call. Plus, what is it doing on your internal organs? We think so much about the superficial, like the muscles, but we never really think about the organs when it comes to fitness and transformation.
And I always say, “When it comes to checking somebody out and seeing if they’re attractive or not, I want to see the inside of their grocery cart, not what they look like on an Instagram selfie.” It’s the same thing with supplements. If you’re sitting here taking supplements that get you wired and all jittery and are thermogenic, you’re playing with fire here. I have watched people take ephedrine based supplements for example — that’s the first one I’m going to say — back in the day and had full grand mal seizures from them.
And they aren’t in the reported side effects because these people are in their 20s and 30s, and they’re not going to take some time to go call a company, report it, get it put into the data. So none of this stuff is showing up in the data. Also, here’s another interesting thing with ephedrine, from my own personal experience. I used to take the highest recommended dosage of a very popular ephedrine based supplement when I was like 20 years old and competing. And I didn’t wean off of it.
So I went cold turkey. But what happened, I was getting all that great serotonin benefit from it. I caught myself my senior year of college slipping into a little bit of a mild depression. And I didn’t know why. And I really then looked into it. And the only variable that had changed in my life is that I got off of that particular supplement. So if you put anything exogenous into your body from the outside that your body naturally is producing, your body’s going to produce less of it because it’s going to say, “Oh, I don’t need to produce as much.” And we’re messing with our delicate hormone balance. So I say really keep away from thermogenics, extreme caffeine dosing.
So the next thing that I’d really take a look at avoiding is anything that is a testosterone boosting product. Food-based testosterone boosting products, like maca root, are totally fine. But if you’re going to a health food store… let me take that back. If you’re going to a retail outlet store — just trying to be careful not to call out any billion dollar corporations — and you’re seeing any of these products that can raise your testosterone levels and make you more of a man and make you more anabolic, avoid them like the plague for many reasons.
One, the FDA, on a daily basis, busts these companies for having illegal Chinese ingredients in them, actual steroids from China, actual fat burners, products that are out there that are actually speed. If you were to see what gets pushed under the table and covered up on a daily basis, you would be scared out of your mind. And you would never put these supplements in your body. Just because they have a good marketing budget doesn’t mean that they’re worth putting in your body, which brings you back to the golden rule of don’t put a supplement in your body you wouldn’t put in your kid’s body.
So if we’re looking at these testosterone products, there could be huge issues with those types of side effects. You may get amazing gains, or you may just get gynecomastia or any of the side effects without any of the benefits. There is really next to no regulation on these. And if they’re not being sold in a health food store, they’re not being looked at at all for what is the company really giving you. I would never, never put that kind of stuff in our body.
Wendy: Do you consider GNC a health food store? I’ve seen some pretty crazy products in there, like the Nitro Max and things like that, that you know are questionable.
Kyle: Don’t put anything in your body that they could then make fun of on South Park. That’s a good rule of thumb. Weight Gainer Explode 2000, if it says explode, what is exploding? That’s what I want to know. Is it your digestive system that’s exploding? It’s sure not your results.
So I personally am not a big fan of any of these types of stores that don’t deal with the regulation and that really just focus on cool, neon, muscle building type of labels and products. The best way to grow muscle is to treat your body with respect through real food, through sleep, through water, through all the things that aren’t as sexy as pop this magic pill that makes you feel awesome.
And here’s the thing. This, again, is not that interesting. And it’s not going to be seen on a Facebook ad. But it’s just the facts. And this is going to save you years of frustration. There is no secret sauce. There’s only one secret sauce that you will ever see used by certain celebrities and pro athletes who make incredible gains.
And it’s steroids. None of these people are using any of these other supplements that they’re promoting. They’re not. They’re just not. They’re not using Nitro Max Burner Fat — I‘m just throwing a bunch of words out there because I don’t want to call out a certain brand.
But if you start seeing all of these “get shredded” supplements or “get giant muscle” supplements or any of that kind of stuff, that’s not what the people are using. They’re using steroids, plain and simple. They’re promoting these brands to pay their steroid bills, which are incredibly high.
On the other side, a little Hollywood behind the scenes, again, never calling anybody out but just telling you a little bit about what happens, if all of a sudden you see an actor gain 30 pounds of muscle with zero fat in a sort period of time on a five to ten million-dollar movie contract, and he said, “Well, I started Pilates, and I’m training at the gym twice a day,” they don’t have different genetics because they chose the profession of acting.
They have the same stuff on the line as a world class professional athlete does, which is multimillion dollar contracts. And they are professional entertainers. So are they probably doing certain things that I wouldn’t recommend anybody do? Yes. My goal is very similar to your goal, which is why we are so synergistic, which is I love the live to 110 concept. They focus on the live in the now, what’s going to get me and my career to a certain level.
And the ends justify the means. And for them the ends is the financial end. So save yourself the tens of thousands of dollars, the mental stress and anguish that’s going to come from not achieving the results from popping those supplements, the chance that you’re probably throwing some Chinese ingredients in there from people who really don’t care about what they’re putting in your body.
They’re just saying, “It’s not personal; it’s business.” It’s always personal. Don’t put these things in your body. Focus on the real food first. And the good statement that I like to make to people is, “Supplementation is an addition to the foundation of proper nutrition.” Get your food and your water dialed in completely. And then see where are you supplementing certain things that are missing. It’s not the supplement’s going to justify the poor nutrition, or the running’s going to justify the eating of the pizza all the time. It’s the same thing.
Wendy: So fat burning is definitely helped with some supplements. But we need to employ lifestyle changes as well. What are some of your top fitness tips that you use with your clients?
Kyle: So when it comes down to fitness, start first with finding a sport or activity that you love. It’s a lot easier to make it a lifestyle that way. So the first thing I tell people is, “Think back to the days you were playing s ports,” even in school. So let’s say you weren’t very good at sports. And you got picked and had to play PE basketball. And that wasn’t your thing. So you weren’t really good at it.
So you’re like, “I hate basketball.” You don’t hate basketball. You just haven’t practiced basketball. You may all of a sudden start playing basketball and start to really like basketball because you get good at basketball, and you can get that ball in the hoop many times. So realize that when you start fitness you’re probably going to suck at fitness the same way I totally suck at speaking Japanese, because I haven’t practiced it before.
So, for example, a woman will come in to me and go, “I hate pushups.” “Why do you hate pushups?” “They’re hard.” “Why are they hard?” “I don’t know.” “Have you done pushups a lot?” “No.” And then all of a sudden they’ll start doing incredible different types of dynamic pushups, and that same woman now loves pushups.
So I tell people when it comes down to it it, one, find the sport or activity that you love. And, two, realize that some of these things aren’t going to be that fun until all of a sudden you get good at them and competent in them. It’s just like any other school you go to.
So the thing I try to tell them when it comes to finding a sport or activity that they love is that that sport can be like a meditation in motion. And it can get you to a point where you aren’t worried about the time. You’re not worried about the calories. You aren’t worried about the heart rate. You’re focused on enjoyment of the sport. And you’ll go way longer.
So for me basketball is a perfect example of that. When I’m playing basketball, I’m completely in the moment, focusing on exactly what I’m doing. If you’re not, if you start checking yourself and you get smacked in the face with a ball. So you’re totally in the moment. I don’t know what my heart rate’s at. I don’t know what intervals I’m doing. I don’t know if I’m doing 20 minutes of cardio or 30 minutes of cardio.
It’s not monotonous. It’s exciting. Just find some sort of sport or activity that you love. That may be hiking, swimming, fishing — active fishing, I guess running after the fish, spear fishing. But find a different type of activity that you love, that gets your body to transform from it. Don’t feel like you need to be a slave to the gym.
And if you get into the gym, make sure you understand what you’re doing, that you’re not just going through the motions. Find a coach that can teach you the basics of the mechanics first so that you’re not getting hurt and that you’re actually enjoying what you’re doing. I think that’s one of the most important things.
Now, when it comes down to fat burning, it’s all about the fuel. It’s all about the fuel. You have to make sure you’re fueled properly and that you understand what to put in your body before you work out, what you put in your body after you work out, and that you’re really treating your body like [inaudible] that you’re really making sure that your body is properly fueled.
Wendy: Well, Kyle, thank you so much for contributing your expertise to this summit. Can you tell the listeners more about where they can find you and your work?
Kyle: Well first off, thank you so much for having me. I just think everything that you’re doing is world class. I really appreciate it. This has just been incredibly enjoyable. So thank you. And for the shakes, if they’re interested in learning more about the Fit 365 shakes, go to fit365.com. And we do a money back guarantee. You can check them out. And then the other thing, if they’re interested in learning about any type of the coaching I do for transformation, for fitness or nutrition, go to coachkylebrown.com or go to strive4fitness.com.
Wendy: Kyle, thank you so much. And everyone, thank you again for listening to another bonus talk on the Medicinal Supplements Summit. If you enjoyed this talk, please enjoy 36 more talks by purchasing the Medicinal Supplements Summit so you can listen to it at your leisure when you have time. We discuss every aspect of supplementing, how to take supplements properly, what ingredients to avoid, the best testing to customize supplements, even toxins in supplements. People don’t realize even rice proteins have a lot of arsenic in them. We talk about a lot of concepts related to that, toxins in supplements. It’s all covered in the Medicinal Supplements Summit.
My name is Wendy Myers. And my hope is that you experience the health that you deserve. And that all begins with taking the right supplements for you.
