#127 Carb Cycling, Fasting, and Digestive Enzymes with Matt Gallant

Matt Gallant (0:00)

I think the biggest thing to avoid is inflammatory foods. I think sugar isn't that much of a threat to the body compared to inflammatory foods. And of course, sugar can be inflammatory if it's used.

But fats, bad fats and bad protein is way more inflammatory than sugar. The other thing too is if you take proteolytic enzymes on an empty stomach, let's say when you're fasting, it's a great idea because they'll actually go into your body, go into your bloodstream and actually start breaking down old undigested proteins which might be accumulating in the cells or even creating inflammatory or allergic responses.

SPEAKER_2 (0:43)

Do you want to know what it is?

Siim Land (0:47)

Body Mind Empowerment.

SPEAKER_2 (0:49)

Get stronger, faster, smarter, quicker, friendlier, more helpful, more driven.

Siim Land (0:55)

Everything the body needs.

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Control your mind.

Siim Land (0:59)

Welcome to the Body Mind Empowerment Podcast. I'm your host Siim Land and our guest today is Matt Gallant. Matt is the CEO of Bioptimizers and has a bachelor's degree in Kinesiology.

He's been a strength and conditioning coach for multiple pro athletes and he's a self-defense instructor. Matt, welcome to the show.

Matt Gallant (1:18)

It's great to be here. I'm a big fan of your show and we met at the blood proof conference and here we are.

Siim Land (1:24)

It was great to meet you in person. It was in the beginning of April, so it's been a few weeks.

What have you been up to since that time?

Matt Gallant (1:34)

I've been busy and focused. We're really diving into some exciting new ingredients and research and doing a lot of tests. I'll talk more about that later.

I've been doing keto for 26 years, on and off. But right now, I've been on nonstop for four years.

I started experimenting with keto when I was 16 First, it was Atkins. I gained some weight and I heard about Atkins. But then a few months later, I discovered the anabolic diet by Moro Di Pasquale. That's still what I follow today, which is a cyclical keto. You do five or six days of keto, and then one day of carb loading, which is really anabolic for muscle building. We can talk about the benefits of that. That's what I've been up to.

Siim Land (2:30)

I also remember reading the book by Dr. Di Pasquale. The anabolic diet or the cyclical keto diet has been around for decades. In the 50s, already bodybuilders were using it. Like Vince Giron, who was a cyclical keto diet. Different versions of it are popping all the time.

Matt Gallant (2:50)

I think bodybuilders in general, I don't consider myself a bodybuilder. I've probably built 50-60 pounds of lean muscle mass since I've been working out. But bodybuilders as a group are probably some of the most hardcore.

You can call them biohackers. They're just willing to do anything to get a result.

Which a lot of times is to sacrifice their health, and I think that's where I don't identify with them. But their willingness to experiment with their bodies and try things, I think is as extreme as it gets. It's a good place to learn a lot of things from.

Siim Land (3:29)

Yeah, it's so true. They're self-experimenters, but you don't really want to be that guy who is pushing the envelope, so to say, because who knows what's going to happen?

And you want to kind of look at, okay, what's the results based upon them? Let them be the guinea pigs.

Matt Gallant (3:45)

But like you said, though, Vince Duranda, what he would do, which was interesting, again, it was a cyclical approach. He would get guys on really high fat diets for about three weeks, three to four weeks, and then he'd switch them over into a vegetarian diet for about 10 days.

And was getting great results. I mean, arguably, Vince was a decade ahead of his time when he was training people. So yeah, he was a genius, definitely way ahead of his time.

Siim Land (4:15)

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. But when I was talking with your business partner, Wade Lightheart, a few months ago on this podcast as well, and he was saying that he's doing a vegetarian diet and you're doing keto, so how do you get along with each other?

Matt Gallant (4:31)

We get along great, you know.

Yeah, that's a great question, and we've actually debated it pretty deeply. So first of all, I think the number one consideration for everybody when you're doing a diet is, is it sustainable?

And sustainability is a really big topic because the spiritual side of a diet, which for me, there's no real spiritual side to a diet, but for Wade, there is, becomes his number one consideration, right? So sustainability also means, you know, can I psychologically handle eating like this for the rest of my life? Because I'm not interested in doing things that are not sustainable, like doing something for 12 weeks, knowing that I can't sustain it. I've never been able to really do that. And even as a coach, when I used to train a lot of people, that was always my approach. So there's that side of it. I think we both mastered the diets, because I think both diets require... I mean, the general concept is really simple. If you're a vegetarian, eat vegetables. If you're keto, avoid carbs. But, you know, this is what we'll get into today. The mastery is in the details. So for example, with Wade, he eats enough protein. Like, his awareness around protein and his commitment to making sure that he gets enough of it on a daily basis is critical. Because when he doesn't, he doesn't feel as good. He'll lose strength, he'll lose muscle.