Well, right now I'm day three of

segueing into ketosis. And we're always

producing ketones, but I'm probably just

because I've done this a lot, I'm

probably at right now like 1.2 millmers

in terms of blood concentration of like

beta hydroxybutyrate after ketosis. You

like how it feels?

>> I love how it feels in terms of mental

acuity. I also because I have

neurodeenerative diseases in my family

>> and metabolic dysfunction see doing

let's just call it four to 6 weeks of

nutritional ketosis once or twice a year

to appear to be very cheap insurance.

>> What's your APOE profile?

>> ApoE 34.

>> You're 34.

>> Yeah. 34. There are other risk factors.

I also have relatives who are 33 but

nonetheless developed early Alzheimer's.

So, I'm like, yeah, you know what? I I

like how I feel. I need less sleep when

I'm in ketosis. I naturally wake up

very, very alert, which is unusual for

me. I wanted to mention that first just

to set the stage in a way.

>> So, I for decades did minimum 30 g of

protein within 30 minutes of waking up.

I still think that is a great option for

me now for a host of reasons that I

could get into, but I'll keep it simple.

I almost always do intermittent fasting

where I am fasting until 2 or 3 p.m. in

the afternoon, but when I wake up, like

this morning, I woke up at 7:30 and I

was preparing for this conversation. So,

I wanted to block out a few hours to do

that, but woke up had, now this is

mildly stimulating, but I wanted to have

a little bit because I'm also jet-lagged

and arrived at around midnight last

night. had some cacao with a little bit

of cacao butter mixed in.

>> Nice.

>> Just enough under three grams of net

carbs.

>> Cuz you're keeping your net carbs to 30

a day probably, right?

>> I'm keeping my net grams to for me

personally right now under 10 grams.

>> Under 10. That'll get you into ketosis

fast.

>> Under 10. Yeah. Especially if I am

already adapted to intermittent fasting

so that I'm doing 16 to 18 hours of

fasting with a short 68 hour window of

eating. Once you get to 16 to 18 hours,

especially if you're doing some

exercise, let's just say in the morning

or any other point, you're depleting

your liver glycogen and you're going to

get into the habit. Your metabolic

machinery will develop the habit and the

capability of producing ketones even

when you are eating carbohydrates in

that limited window of eating.

>> And you don't take exogenous ketones. I

will occasionally on a day like today

because I know that I'm on effectively

let's call it day 2 and a half of

segueing into ketosis. I think my

natural production is roughly where I

mentioned my natural production right

now is probably around.9.

>> Mhm.

>> Let me just back up. So I wake up at

7:30. I have the the cacao plus some

cacao butter.

Then I sit in and I have a hot tub. This

is like one of my indulgences. It's not

actually that expensive, but I sit in a

hot tub and I meditated for 10 minutes

with an app, the Way app. Henry Shookman

is my spirit animal. Amazing

mindfulness/zen

focused practice. Did that 10 minutes,

that's it.

>> Got out. It is pretty chilly right now

in Austin.

>> Gets down to I think last night it was

37 low. got into my pool for a few

minutes and got out, cold shower, came

back in and then sat down and this was

my kind of deep work prep, right? No

interruptions.

>> There's non-trivial similarity to what

I'm trying to do neurocognitively.

>> Yeah, exactly. And then on the way here,

about 15 minutes prior to arriving,

knowing my start time, there were a few

other bells and whistles that I threw in

nutritionally in terms of supplements

and so on earlier in the morning, but

had one nitro cold brew from Starbucks

and about 15 milliliters of exogenous

ketones.

>> Mhm. In this case, it's BHB bonded to 13

butane dial, which I do have some

reservations about. Long-term chronic

use, I think could be liver toxic, but

I'm doing it very intermittently. And

so, for the let's just call it 4 days of

segue into

nutritional ketosis, I will use

exogenous ketones sometimes as a boost.

>> Mhm.

>> And that's it. That was the

>> And it's working great for you. Here's a

big takeaway. I think you got to that

through experimentation.

>> Y

>> you didn't get that by getting it off

the internet. You learned a lot about

these different

>> variety of protocols.

>> Mhm.

>> And you tailored it and tried it and

over a number of years

>> came upon what worked best for you. And

it's exactly what I've done too. And

everybody watching needs to treat their

life like a lab.

>> Yeah.

>> Experimentation is king. The precursor

to good experimentation is information.

Is scientific information. And then it's

getting experience through the

experimentation and figuring out what

your own protocol actually is.

>> Mhm.

>> Because as they say in the ads, your

results may differ.

>> Yeah. Right. Exactly. And so for me, if

I'm weight training, I will typically

weight train late afternoon. That's just

always been my preference.

>> But if we had not had this podcast

today, I would have done zone 2

training.

>> Mhm. In the morning.

>> Right. Exactly. After the meditation

>> before you eat.

>> Before I eat.

>> You like fasted cardio? I do like

fasting.

>> Yeah, I do too.

>> Especially when I'm trying to get into

ketosis or intermittent fasting because

it'll help me deplete the stored

glycogen at a faster rate. If it is too

high, just for people who may be

interested in intermittent fasting or

ketosis, if the exertion level is too

high or if it is resistance training,

sometimes it will spike glucose in such

a way that makes it a little

counterproductive if you're trying to

get into ketosis. So the zone

>> because your stress hormones are

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And you're

already going to have increased cortisol

in the morning. You need that to wake up

>> and also with caffeine often times

you'll see a pretty noticeable spike in

glucose. So I try not to compound it by

doing the weight training in the

morning.

>> At this point in the cycle of getting

into ketosis, do you you have headaches?

>> I had a mild headache yesterday. I will

say that the biggest cheat for me in

terms of getting into ketosis quickly

and relatively painlessly is training my

body to intermittent fast.

Intermittently fast. And I have been in

ketosis dozens of times in my life. And

I've done extended periods, 6 months in

ketosis and so on. Particularly when I

was actually training for sports, which

seems counterintuitive, but I was doing

something called the cyclical ketogenic

diet, which is really interesting. When

I was training for the national Chinese

kickboxing championships in 99, that was

an amazing system for cutting weight,

getting lean, but also maintaining or

adding some muscle mass. In any case,

people can look it up.

>> Confusing your system in a cycle, right?

You're staying out of equilibrium in a

way, right?

>> You're definitely doing that. What

you're doing with the CKD, people can

look it up. There are many people who

have pioneered this. Maro de Pasquali

with the anabolic diet. There are

different names for it. Dan Duchain way

back in the day also talked about this,

but you are providing a short window

once a week where you are, in my case,

doing a glycogen depletion weight

training workout and then you are

spiking the hell out of your

carbohydrate intake for let's call it 15

hours, something like that. And you are

really piling in carbohydrate and you

are leveraging insulin as a storage

hormone and anabolic signaling pathway

to ensure that you can pack on some

muscle

>> while you are in on average kotic state

which is very very hard to do otherwise.

I don't do that anymore cuz it's just

too much brain damage frankly.

>> Well that's a lot to think about that

becomes a full-time job is the protocol

becomes the full-time job.

>> Yeah. which is not the point, right?

Like in my case, I'm sure in your case,

it's like the protocol is in service of

life.

>> Life is not in service of the protocol.

>> The protocol is supposed to work for

you. You're not supposed to work for

your protocol.

>> And I mean, we're not going to be labor

this point, but in a world and people,

there's a great Chuck Palanic quote that

I don't want to get wrong. People can

look it up, but basically says, you

know, big brother isn't watching you.

He's entertaining you. Like entertaining

you to death. And like just talking

about the sort of modern digital

ecosystem and the role of technology

etc. But suffice to say if you can

single task for 4 hours from a

competitive advantage perspective

>> not using pharmaceutical grade you know

psycho stimulants

>> you're in an elite group.

>> You're in absolutely elite group and you

absolutely can do it with proper health

and exercise disciplines. And also I'll

just say to your point right managing

the physiology had a great conversation

with Dave Bazooki recently who's the

co-founder and CEO of Roblox and he and

his wife are the largest well their

foundation is the largest funer of

metabolic psychiatry research including

ketogenic therapy which includes Chris

Palmer at Harvard.

>> That stuff's super interesting. Ketosis

for me it is like taking medapanyl and

all of the kind of short-term powerful

but long-term penalty drugs that I've

tested over.

>> Have you ever tried you've ever taken a

selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor

an SSRI?

>> I have never taken one for

anti-depression. I have taken what is

similar. It's not exactly an SSRI but I

have used trazadone for sleep.

>> Well, tradone is a monocyclic, right?

It's a really early early generation

anti-depressant.

>> It is effectively a failed

anti-depressant because it put people to

sleep that was repurposed as a sleep

drug is my understanding.

>> Like unisome was supposed to make you

not sneeze and it's a succinate actually

was supposed to make you was an

antihistamin that was repurposed as a

sleeping pill.

>> Yeah, there you go. That is it. But why

do you ask about SSR?

>> The reason I ask that is because a lot

of people will say that they find that a

proper keto diet is better than an SSRI

too for the serotonin effects. Oh yeah,

people should look up Chris Palmer. I

had a conversation with him as well. But

for mood stabilization, mood elevation,

but not in a peak and trough type of

way, I have found nothing better than

the ketogenic diet.

>> That's interesting. So for mood

management, this is fundamental for you.

>> It is without exception the number one

with no close second.

>> So poets take note.

>> Yeah, poets take note. And maybe you

should just we have to revisit this.

People are like, "What is this mad

scientist poet stuff?" You want to just

explain what we're talking about?

>> There are four affect profiles. And

affect profiles mean the intensity of

your negative and positive emotion.

>> You're born with this. So there are

times in your life when you have more

positive emotionality or more intense

negative emotionality depending on

circumstances. But this is your baseline

state. You can be above average positive

and above average intensity negative

emotion. Those are the mad scientists.

That's me.

>> You have high highs and lows. all about

it's great or it sucks, you know, and

it's impossible to be married to a mad

scientist. My wife reminded me of that

this morning.

You can be above average positive and

below average intensity negative. These

are cheerleaders. These are the happiest

people. They have some weaknesses. They

tend to be bad bosses because they won't

accept bad news and they can't give

criticism like no bad vibes, man.

>> There are some people who are low low.

They're just low affect people. These

are the judges. They make really good

surgeons. You know that you don't want

somebody to cut you open and go, "Oh my

god." That's not what you want. You want

somebody who's going to be like, "I can

take that out." Or, you know, nuclear

power reactor operators or something who

are really

>> low low means low positive, low

negative.

>> Low positive, low negative.

>> Got it. Their sine wave is flatter.

>> They're steady, man. I mean, they're not

freaking out about anything. And then

there are those who are low inensity,

positive emotion, but high intensity

negative emotion. And these are the

poets.

>> And the poets are the most interesting.

And the reason is because they tend to

be the most creative and most romantic.

>> And part of that is because there's this

research, all neuroscience research is

contested. I should preface this, but

there's a part of the lyic system called

the vententralateral prefrontal cortex

that that is involved in your rumination

when you're depressed.

>> Yeah.

>> Ruminative depression. Ruminative sad

depression is a heavy activity of the

vententralateral prefrontal cortex. You

also use it when you're ruminating on a

business plan or writing a symphony. And

when you're ruminating on another person

because you're falling in love.

>> And that's why poets tend to be

depressive, creative, and romantic.

>> Tim Ferris, my friends, this is Tim

Ferris.

>> That's me in a nutshell.

>> Yeah. And so the whole point is that you

need, no matter who you are, you need to

appropriately manage your mood. The

essence of self-management is mood

management starts with knowledge about

who you are. And they people can go to

my website and take a test and figure

out who they are, which profile you are.

And then you got to figure out what you

need to do in mood management. Do you

need to elevate positive emotion or do

you need to manage? You don't need to

eliminate negative emotion. You don't

want to do that. You'll be dead in a

week. Negative emotion is really

important for protection,

>> sadness, anger, disgust, fear, but you

want to manage it so it's not

disregulating. So, it's not exaggerated.

And there are lots of techniques for

doing it. But you got to know what your

bigger challenge is by knowing yourself.

Then you can proceed to some of these

protocols that we're talking about here

for appropriate mood management based on

your challenges is how it works. for you

it's managing positive up and managing

negative down and ketosis is really

really good for both. Yeah, I would say

for folks who may fit the profile or who

are curious about my personal experience

that repeatedly I mean I've done this

now dozens of times it is very

consistent. It completely removes the

lowest 50% of my negative and bumps my

positive baseline up 20%. This is really

interesting because this might be the

poet's protocol.

>> Ketosis might be the poet's protocol.

For me, it's what I eat, how I

administer caffeine, and it's actually

how I do my exercise when I'm super

fasted first thing in the morning is

incredibly efficacious for managing down

my negative a effect without

accidentally managing down my positive

affect.