Biohacking, Shortcuts & Why They Fail | Elite Performance Podcast #32

Itamar Marani 0:00
I think people fall for things that are too good to be true, because they're looking for something external to save them, instead of taking responsibility for their life. If I want the results I have to actually work out. But the reality is, I don't want to do that. So hopefully like a cold plunge or waking up, you know, and for the first 15 minutes going outside and getting sunlight in my eyes is going to save me from actually doing the hard thing.

Itamar Marani 0:22
So when I started coaching a client named Jeff, now, Jeff had a couple of $100,000 invoices that he actually didn't send out to past clients of his business. And every time I would try to get him to make a plan, okay, this is the most important thing that we need to be doing this week to send out these invoices, he wouldn't do it. And what was really frustrating for me is that I would see on his Facebook, he would post about how he's trying to cycle on a very low speed to get his own twin, or how he will be doing the sound or to make sure that his whoring is up or whatever it may be. And at the end of the day, he was using biohacking as an excuse to not actually execute and do the things that he needed to get done. And I could tell that he had the story in his head that if I just get my aura ring to show a 10 score, then I can finally send out the emails that need to be sent out. But since I only have a seven score, I obviously can't do anything meaningful in this state today, so I better optimize around the SleepScore instead of just doing the work that needed to get done. And today, we're going to be talking about why biohacking becomes a dependency that can make you very weak. And I really wanted to say that biohacking makes you weak, but I haven't met every single biohacker in the world. So I can, but the reality is that every single biohacker that I've met, is mentally fragile. And I don't think they were that way to begin with, but that biohacking has created that for them. So in order to make sure that I also don't just talk about how I think things, but we back it up with some science. I have Andy Morgan here join me, Andy Morgan is from ripped body.com. They've helped over 1000 people have actual transformation. So Andy doesn't post just cool things that he looks at this is that idea. That's an idea but actual results? Anddy could you please introduce yourself to the good people?

Andy Morgan 2:01
Thank you for having me on. It's an honor. Yeah, I the website started when I wanted to help my friends out in the gym in Japan, because I saw that they were taking a whole bunch of supplements that they didn't need. And I knew that I didn't need them because I had access to English language information. And they didn't. I'm not Japanese, as you may be able to hear on on British hand, but I've been living in Japan now for 18 years. I'm going back about 12 years ago. And I was really frustrated with my friends who were, you know, working class guys, but they were spending money they couldn't really afford on the supplements that they didn't need. It was a very serious gym is a very serious dudes. And they were almost all of them were either bodybuilding or they were power lifters. And I wanted to help them out. And so I started blogging, and this was especially how can I say this is especially relevant to me, especially sharp to me, because I've been down that road myself. So I had been frustrated with my own physique. For years years, I've been going to the gym since I was 1718 ish. And I didn't really look like a lifted as one girl pointed out to me one day, as I plucked up the courage to approach her on the beach, and we, we had a conversation and I was telling her that I was doing a lot of karate and Judo, and Aikido in Japan and going to the gym, you don't really look like you train as much as you do. Well, you know, as much as the kick in the voice that is maybe she's got a point. And then I went on bodybuilding.com And I, you know, read the articles there. And, you know, I was oblivious to the fact that it's a website that's designed to sell me supplements. I didn't think of a business model. So I just took it at face value when I was taking everything I was taking, like two $300 worth of stuff. And every month and you know, I was only earning something like $1,500 a month at that point, right? But like, God, I had to fix this. And then I kind of realized that man, it was all a lie. Maybe some protein powder, which is powdered food that would be convenient. Creating good stuff can help you gain muscle a little faster. Everything else. Almost everything else, a waste of time out of very specific contexts. I say almost. And so yeah, it just pained me. And then so I started blogging, I was writing an English and Japanese and someone none of the Japanese people cared because who the hell am I? But God bless the Americans. There was a guy called Phil from San Francisco and he was like in the comments of my blog posts. He was like, Oh, hey, how much is your online coaching Andy? And you know Things went from there. So can I send you an email? Like, yeah, absolutely. So I was like, Phil, my 12 week packages includes this, this, this, this and this. It's $899. What do you say? And I'd worked with some friends and had success, but I'd never really done it. Too formally, right? Yeah. And yeah, I started working with Phil. And then I just started posting the results. And it all it was all just articles about what I was doing with clients. Simplifying, and a business, this online coaching business grew from there.

Itamar Marani 5:33
Yeah. So I'll say this. And he's gotten like, if you look at his website, there's 1000s of results. And the main thing is, the reason I wanted to bring Andy on board is like, as you guys can hear, he actually focuses on what creates a result, not about the latest fad. And I wanted somebody else who has experienced in this field, we talk a lot about entrepreneurship. And a lot of entrepreneurs trying to optimize their health in order to get better results with their business as well. It's a big thing. And so I want to talk about that angle. And the first thing I'd love to dive into is the law of silver bullet, instead of foundational discipline, how people don't just keep it simple, and not do the stupid things. And instead, they give themselves permission, like, well, let me do the stupid thing. But then if I also do a cold plunge on top of that, it'll nullify the stupid thing. And I love your failure. Like, why do you think so many other people like they just they struggle with and just do the simple things, the foundational principles, you know, eat your macros, get good sleep? And why do we try to fall into all this biohacking thing, hoping that something will save instead of just doing the right thing?

Andy Morgan 6:35
So we, we have businesses, the people listening to this podcast, most people have their own businesses, right. And we've all found through our experiences, as we've as our businesses have gone through different levels, that we've been able to turn certain knobs that have had outsized results for us. And so this may be a specific form of marketing. This may be a specific operations, efficiency method that you implemented in your business. And it's just been absolutely a game changer for our businesses. And so we have experience where Small changes can make can give us outsized results. And so this curse of looking for optimizations, I think, is even stronger in the among the entrepreneur, community, or this, this tendency to look for optimizations is even stronger among us business owners. And we, the, the problem is that health and fitness and nutrition is not like that, sadly. But we want to believe that there are things that will get us outsized results that don't require too much effort. That's natural, that's absolutely human nature, and especially in our nature, because we've decided to swim away from the mainstream and go and create and build something ourselves. Right, right. We think a little bit differently. It's, if,

Itamar Marani 8:20
yeah, because like, for me, I would, I would hope that it wouldn't be the case. Like most entrepreneurs, they know not to go buy lottery tickets. They know that's not what's going to be the thing that they that's safe. But this is kind of what they're doing with their health. And in regards to all this optimization being like higher performance. So it's interesting that like, we should be smarter than that, to not go buy lottery tickets and hope for a silver bullet to save us.

Andy Morgan 8:45
Are you a gambler? No, no, I'm not either. I've been to Vegas, I haven't touched the machine. I just got no interest in that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So there's, there's this nature within us. And then there's also the, the industry and the current algorithm. And the rewards, and the algorithm amplifies the most outrageous stuff. Always. That is what gets attention. I want you to think of everyone listening to this as an expert in something, right? Whenever your field has come up in the newspaper, so there's a headline about it, said the average newspaper here. How often do you nod your head and say, Yeah, that's a good article. I'm willing to bet it's not very often because when it comes to my industry, it is not very often I nod my head and I think yeah, that's a solid article. And that is even with a degree of journalistic standards and editorial there. Now, when it comes to the social media algorithm, there is nothing there stopping people from exaggerating or just lying that asses off. And they don't always know that they're lying. That would be pathological liars. It in fact, I'm not even sure if that's the correct term, but that just lying for benefit? Yeah, they could just be deluded. Right, they've said something that they thought was right. In even if they figure out that it's wrong, then they're locked into a position because they're getting so much attention from it, they become the outlier in one specific area, and then they become a guru in that specific area. And now, of course, they can make a lot of money from that. And it's very hard to get someone out of that when their income depends on them not changing their belief, right. And so

Itamar Marani 11:01
maybe I'll have to ask you from the flip side of that, so that I can understand I think that's pretty obvious. Everybody knows that, like, okay, this person has this incentive. That's why they're being outrageous. That's what they're making these claims. That's why they're eating raw liver or whatever it may be. Yeah, the question, I would love this podcast, that's the question. The thing I would love this podcast to provide for people is how they can avoid that alert. Because if we weren't naturally inclined to say, Okay, this is interesting, why is he just doing this one magic trick, that little known secret from the Amazon from 50 years ago, or whatever? It may be nonsense, right? Like, why do people think that? Why do you think people can just keep that basic discipline, saying, okay, like, these are nonsense optimizations. But this is a discipline that actually no will get results.

Andy Morgan 11:45
Unfortunately, because the basics are hard to do. There, they need to be done every day. Most things, right, sleeping well needs to be done every day. Or for the most part, training needs to be done most days, some form of exercise. And nutrition is something that we have to look after every day, or certainly for most of our meals most of the time, if we're looking to get to a place. So for weight loss, fat loss, for example, you know, we know that we need to combine that with consistent resistance training, it'd be a good idea to do some form of cardio for our health, our heart health, cardiovascular, respiratory health and to. Yet anyway, and, and these things, they just, they just have to be done. There are no shortcuts around that, sadly, people get this is where like, the gimmick of say, polyphasic sleep where your what is it every, every three hours, you have a 40 minute nap or something or people trying to arrange their lives their hands. But if they miss one, they're absolutely screwed. This is where this is why people tend to go for shortcuts. And but anything that is sounds too good to be true. Pretty much is this is your I would say filter number one to look for. And it sounds too good to be true. It is. And then we can layer another filter over Yeah, I know you're gonna speak it gone, please.

Itamar Marani 13:22
I would add even a pre emptive layer to that. I think people fall for things that are too good to be true, because you're looking for something external to save them instead of taking responsibility for their life. So on a financial level, I hope that this new technology, crypto or whatever it may be, is going to save. So instead of me actually getting serious about my business, I'm just gonna go all in on right health, I'm not going to take responsibility for it. So like I need to do some things that are hard that I can't outsource, I can't automate, not in the business where I can automate a lot of things or I can outsource and actually have to get good sleep. If I want the results I have to actually work out. But the reality is I don't want to do that. So hopefully like a cold plunge or waking up, you know, and for the first 15 minutes going outside and getting sunlight in my eyes is going to save me for actually doing the hard things. And I think before that it's like people don't want to take responsibility for actually helping themselves out. They're hoping from some external effects can save themselves. Does that resonate?

Andy Morgan 14:21
It does and I don't know if there's a way to pull people's heads out of their asses really. They just have to get to a point where they are so frustrated with being messed about. They're so frustrated with the lack of results from program or gimmick hopping, that they're then finally open to putting in the work. Like if you were to go to my website is ripped body.com. Or even worse, I'll say athlete body art JP, that's a Japanese one, which is even more geeky, right? You're gonna find pretty detailed articles that talk about how to do all of this stuff and it will teach you how to Think and then apply the fundamental principles to yourself. But for that kind of sounds like

Itamar Marani 15:05
a lot of job calls that are

Andy Morgan 15:08
telling me what to do, man, right? This is like for that to be palatable, like you have to have been, you have to have reached a boiling point of frustration. And until people get to that point, often that they're just not ready for it, they're not willing to accept that.

Itamar Marani 15:27
And you feel like that boiling point is crucial for people to take responsibility, like you don't see people to say, okay, you know what I get it, this is nonsense. Like what I would hope perhaps naively that people can recognize, you know, what, this was something that natural, my natural human tendencies have kind of caused me to get drawn to these optimizations, because I hoped they would help me, but now that actually, you understand the logic behind that it doesn't. And that's why I also want to talk a little bit, we're gonna get into like, what, how much actual impact of this stuff have things, okay, you know what, this actually isn't that impactful. So I should act like a mature adult, and I hope to rely on it, but I'm hearing from you, they don't think that's going to be the case for most people.

Andy Morgan 16:07
So it's, it's almost like you're building a house without having the foundations there, a storm is gonna come along, and it's gonna all collapse. It may look good. It may be livable initially. But it's, it's not going to get you to where you want to go, which is consistent long term health. And you have to have these foundational layers in there. You have to take care of that stuff. The other or the rest is just nice to have. And potentially, it's, it's the icing on the cake, right? But if you haven't got the cake there, then Hey.

Itamar Marani 16:57
Let's talk about this. I think this can be really interesting. From what I gather, you're saying is that people focus on the optimization is the icing on the cake instead of building the foundation? Yep. And it's the breezy one. I've heard from a lot of people that actually know a little bit. They're like, listen to the biohacking. That's like the point 1% of the variant. That's like the cherry the sprinkle on the cherry on the top. But the reality is that most people end up focusing their attention on that hoping that'll that can build my foundation. So like your opinion, how much when should someone actually actually give any focus to this biohacking stuff? Before doing the foundation's, like one of the one of the financings they have this needs to be in place. And if you don't have this in place, don't play with that. That's nonsense.

Andy Morgan 17:42
Almost at all. Unless you've got the foundations in place, I'll just say donor, those

Itamar Marani 17:46
donations, like dumbing down for us.

Andy Morgan 17:49
Sure. And I want to put a pin in the idea of not following anyone who considers themselves a biohacker. Because they're just going to be a magnet for nonsense. But doesn't mean everything that they say will be nonsense. But there's a high degree of likelihood that there's going to be a lot of nonsense in what they're talking about. So opinion that we'll come back to that. So foundational layers, kind of what what we said before, but we'll dive a bit deeper sleep, sleep enough so that you're waking, feeling rested. If you're, if you're having to wait with an alarm clock or not, and I understand that many people do that's natural, right. And when you're hitting that alarm clock, you are exhausted, well, that's not a good sign. I don't want to give a specific number of hours that you need to be in bed. But for many people, it's going to be that seven to eight number, right? And there are times in your life when you're not going to be able to get that number, and that's okay. But you got to try to be working towards waking up feeling rested and ready to go. If you have to smash three coffees, and like have a cold plunge and walk outside and get sunlight in your eyes. Before you're feeling like ready to function. That is an issue. And the cure is sleeping more and perhaps weaning yourself off of caffeine so much. So that sleep, nutrition, the 8020 of nutrition, make sure you're not eating too much in terms of calories. And the way that you know that is you are gaining weight or you're currently overweight and you're not losing weight. If you're overweight, the best thing you can do for your health, your appearance, but also your health in many cases is to unfuck yourself if you are overly fat and then leave those definitions to the individuals like

Itamar Marani 19:58
us that will need to be said Yeah, there's no way. You have to be a simple sales like, a lot of times, don't eat the things you know you shouldn't be eating. Oh.

Andy Morgan 20:10
So it's not that simple because

Andy Morgan 20:18
for me for you, you can eat the things I can eat the things that I know that we shouldn't really be eating, as long as it's in moderation. And it's occasion because we're the product of our habits, not our occasions. Yeah. Right. So if on like Friday night, we decided to go out and smash some beers and wings. Is that a problem? No, it's absolutely not. Because we're good the rest of the time. And we're already at a healthy body weight. We're already training, we're already sleeping while we're looking after everything there. And if someone is say they need to lose 40 pounds, they've got a journey ahead of them. That's going to be probably eight months to a year. Yes, technically, they could lose one pound of body fat per week, right? Okay, fine. But they're unlikely to do that. Every week, week in week out perfectly right, you have to give yourself some grace here. So let's call it like nine to nine to 12 months. Now. If you were to say to yourself, I'm not allowed any chicken wings, no beer, no Twinkies, no barbecue ribs, for nine to 12 months. They're not going to be able to make it, they're going to end up binge eating on those foods. Usually on a holiday weekend. And so I don't think that abstinence is generally the way you need to build yourself in some degree of flexibility. But it has to be the occasions. For the most part, though, yes, it's a case of being an adult about what you eat and taking responsibility. And just for the most part, eating more fruits and vegetables, more lean meats and fish, bit more dairy you know, less stuff out of a packet, generally speaking, less Ultra highly processed stuff. And more of the, quote unquote, good stuff, which of course, nutrition, people will argue about no end, but like, you know, rice, potatoes, pasta with, you know, not to high fat sources, because it's lots of calories, right? If you do all of these things, that's gonna help nudge you into a calorie deficit generally, and then that will help you sustain weight loss. And if, if you're not losing weight, then you need to pull back a little bit. And so that's like, layer one of this. And then layer two would be the macronutrients. So this is the protein, carbs and fats. And before anybody's eyes glaze over, I'll just say that, if you think of protein in the sense of it helps to maintain our whole body is made of proteins. But Soy Protein is essential for that, but also is essential to help us maintain and build muscle mass. And so if you want to keep things simple, you can focus on a protein number. Perhaps your height in centimeters. It's yours six foot 511 Six foot

Itamar Marani 23:44
meter. 87 not sure exactly what that oh, sorry.

Andy Morgan 23:47
No, no, yeah. Yes, it's one. Yeah. Okay, thanks. So make sure if you were to aim for 180 grams of protein, 185 grams of protein a day. Wonderful. All right, 160, maybe a little bit less than that. Great, that'll be perfect. And then if you want to let your carbs and your fats fluctuate, that's totally cool. Just make sure that of the fats that you're eating, you're not having too much. Animal fat in there, not too much. Red meat and sausages, you know, your steaks and because that could be that's indicated. That's highly correlated with cardiovascular disease risk and coronary heart disease risk. But that's kind of getting into the weeds there. Essentially, the basics

Itamar Marani 24:36
Yeah, like if I'm not eating 180 grands, probably 260 grams of protein. I'm not avoiding on a consistent basis. That's enough that I know I should be avoiding. Then the cold plunge isn't going to save me. The sound isn't good all sudden make me healthy. No, basically, shattering news you're saying

Andy Morgan 24:54
shattering news. Like that. He's shattering news and before like, you know those great moments make anybody His eyes glaze over even further, let's simplify this. What does that actually look like? Okay, it probably looks like a piece of meat the size of your palm, eaten three times a day. But that's pretty much it doesn't have to be much more complicated than that. That some vegetables, fruits, carbs, not too many. Not too much fatty stuff. Wonderful. Yeah, that's it. Training, shall we? This is kind of the third pillar. Yeah. What did your training look like in your military days?

Itamar Marani 25:36
It will definitely overtrained. So there's no there's no recovery period. So like, let's no random week. Let's say we're not doing navigation weeks, which were very physically grueling is every night, you're also walking about like 2030 kilometers, usually with what's pack on your back, you would do four workouts a week. Basically, like Monday morning, you would probably run 10k. And then you would do rope climbs, calisthenics, all that kind of jazz. And then on Wednesday, you would run 10k. Again, on Thursday, you would do the same. And then we'll see what would be like the different kind of work how we work in Israel a different week. But basically, on Saturday, you would run, let's say, 6k. And then you do 400 meter intervals, plus Cal stacks. And that's on top of the fact that you're always just running around, doing actual exercises, tactical drills, whatever it may be. So you're never just, you know, between workouts completely rested, and all that jazz. So it's pretty intense.

Andy Morgan 26:42
And part of that is not just to keep you fit, it's to weed out those who aren't mentally tough, right, those who are likely to let their squad I don't know the exact time down when shit hits the fan. Is that Is that fair to say?

Itamar Marani 27:02
No, actually, I don't think so. I think those workouts aren't where that gets exposed. Where that gets exposed, is when you're sleep deprived, and you already think 20 hours into a drill. I think it's pretty doable to be mentally tough for, you know, 15 minutes for a 10k run whatever it may be. It's much more difficult to do that. When you're sleep deprived, when it's already been a couple of days where they're playing with your sleep and with your food. And yeah, like in the Navy Seal is talking about like hell week. That's where most people quit, quit not doing the physical extra. It's kind of the same thing.

Andy Morgan 27:36
Yeah, okay. Yeah, that makes sense, right? We're talking now about maintaining an elite level of physical capability, rather than that mental toughness component, okay. Now, you said that it borders on overtraining, or for you guys, you could just about handle it, because you were the elite of the elite. For the, the average person, if they can get if they can do some form of strength training, ideally, three times a week, maybe four. And you can do some kind of cardio training, something that you enjoy that gets your heart up, it could be cycling, could be swimming, could be running, just be careful of your knees, soft steps. If you're overweight, or a soft, you can definitely cushion shoes, I'd say. And if your knees hurt, stop, don't run through the pain, right? You're not going to get booted out of the military here, right? Think of the long think of the long term, right? If you can do that, two, three times a week, get your heart rate up for like, 20 to 30 minutes and maybe build up from there. This is a really good, good base and keep getting your heart rate up and you will get fitter over time. It could be pickable. It doesn't have to be cardio in the sense that like there's an identifiable machine in the gym, right. And when it comes to the strength training, progressive resistance so that you keep challenging yourself is key. And as I said, like three or four days a week, you could rotate upper, lower, upper, lower, upper body, push pull, vertical pull, vertical push, horizontal pull, horizontal push, some kind of squat, some kind of hip hinge pattern, picking something heavy up off the floor like a deadlift. And you're doing well if you're doing that, like couple of times a week, each one of those a couple of times a week. And I think, although bodyweight is what you guys would do in the military for a lot of stuff, which absolutely makes sense given that you're going to be in many situations where you don't have access to equipment. The easiest thing for us as regular people to do is get to a gym, where we have Wait, select two stacks on different equipment or easy access to plates that we can add on to a Bible or a row of dumbbells. And that way we can incrementally make things harder. Whereas if you're doing push ups, yes, you can do them from your knees. And then you can do just regular push ups. But then as you get stronger, you have to raise your feet, and then all of a sudden, you're so strong, you're doing a half assed a headstand with, which isn't really a shoulder press, because the range of motion is limited by the fact that you've got a head on your shoulders. And obviously, you'd have to be exempt from this wrong for that, but you know, it just gets progressed, it gets quite hard to make these calisthenics harder or hard enough to adjust the loads. So yeah, that that's really the 8020 of it.

Itamar Marani 30:44
So unless you've done that, you get that dialed in. No biohacking. No advanced,

Andy Morgan 30:50
you know? No, no, that's the absolute basics. Find time for that. I mean, for God's sake, the plunges like really, unless you've got a cold river outside the back of your house, and I imagine it would wake you up really well in the mornings, right? You're gonna fill up like this bath, like, come on.

Itamar Marani 31:11
Time. Time. Come on. Yes. Instead of something else more productive. Yeah,

Andy Morgan 31:14
exactly, exactly. Like, behind me. They have a pull up bar. I've got a cup, two dumbbells, which are, they're adjustable, they go up to 32 kilos, which I think is about 70 pounds. I've got some resistance bands. And I've got a little collapsible bench, I can do pretty much everything with that. And it doesn't take much space, like I've got a Tokyo apartment, it's not big, like I could train at home, if necessary. This was my COVID gym. I would just do that and get the work in and everything else. This is an optimization on top of that it should never come before that.

Itamar Marani 31:57
It should never come once it before they recognize it shouldn't come instead of that. That's what it when you said before that that's what it actually means it shouldn't come instead of that. That's what people end up doing. Cool. So, Eddie, I want to say thank you for coming on. And just giving a little bit of actual insight into this and not the nonsense. And if people want to learn more about you, or what you do, how can they find out more?

Andy Morgan 32:20
Yeah, sure. I've written the website, I've tried to write the website in a way where you can get everything you need. And learn it all yourself for free. And that's so that's red body.com. And if you would prefer to buy a book, that's all that same information, but curated, then it's just, you'll see a button in the menu for books. And we do make money from coaching. And so if you did want to hire, hire us to take you through that that's what we've been doing for 12 years now. Just click that coaching button in the menu, and you'll see, you'll see what we do. And it might be for you, it may not be at all good either way. I just hope that you can learn from my journey and my pain so that you don't have to go through the just the time waste that I did. And if you're ever thinking, I can't do this. I want you to know that whatever your situation, you're not alone. And I've done my best to make our results page this report.com/results It's in the menu. A whole bunch of varied physiques, not just a bunch of rip 30 year olds, because like, you know, you can't relate to that unless you're a nearly rip, 30 year old, right? Like, I've got a real wide variety of people on there. They're all men, frankly, that I work with. I will say that. And I've put their stories in there. And then recently on the podcast, I've been interviewing people and talking them through their stories and their issues. So you're not alone. And you can make some great changes, whatever your age

Itamar Marani 34:09
is awesome. So to recap, we got the website, we'll have all the shownotes below. We also got the podcast, what's the podcast that

Andy Morgan 34:14
it's just rip audio comm slash podcast.

Itamar Marani 34:17
Okay, how do we find you on Apple or Spotify if I'm looking for

Andy Morgan 34:21
the ripped body podcast? Two words, the ripped body podcast. Yes.

Itamar Marani 34:27
Awesome. All right. Thank you very much, Andy. And I hope everyone enjoyed this episode. We will see you next week.