AMA 5: The Health Rules I’ve Changed My Mind About

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Max Lugavere (0:54)

What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of The Genius Life. Let's rock.

The Genius Life.

What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to The Genius Life. I'm your host, Max Lugavere. Today, we're doing another Ask Me Anything episode of the show, AMA number five. You guys sent in some fantastic questions, and in this episode, we cover a ton of ground. We're going to talk about whether red meat deserves its bad reputation, which creatine gummies might actually contain the creatine promised on the label, and why walking may be one of the most underrated forms of exercise on the planet. I also share my advice for lifting safely as you get older or if you're injury prone. What I personally eat when I want something indulgent, how to maintain a balanced approach to wellness without allowing health to become your entire life, and some simple tips for constipation. We also get into how much cardio you really need, the ingredients that make me put a product back on the shelf, my current weekly workout routine, and the persistent nutrition myths that desperately need to die. Health doesn't have to be complicated. Certainly not as complicated as the Internet makes it seem. So, I hope that this episode is reassuring. I hope you're having a wonderful summer, and yeah, as always, listen through all the way to the end and please don't forget to share this episode with friends and loved ones that you think may benefit from it and now with all that out of the way, here's episode AMA number five. Let's rock. What up everybody? Happy summer. How's it going? Hope you're all doing well. Just wanted to check in and it's been a minute since we've recorded one of these AMAs, one of these ask me anythings, but I felt like with our reduced volume of episodes, you know, we're now putting up episodes one a week, which we tend to do through the summer and the holidays. I just felt like what better time than now to record a new AMA, check in with you guys on Instagram, answer some lingering questions that you all have had, and also just to send my well wishes to you wherever you happen to be in that you're enjoying the summer healthily, happily, surrounded by people that you enjoy being around and being safe and all that good stuff. So what up?

The questions per usual were really fantastic. I mean, you guys are such nuanced thinkers, and I know it's hard to convey a lot of nuance in the little question box that I post on Instagram, but you guys, nonetheless, you asked some really good questions. So let's just dive right in. MSERI wrote, there are still many nutritionists who consider red meat bad, but it's my preferred protein source. Well, I think calling red meat categorically bad is an oversimplification, and I would seriously question the credibility of any nutritionist who just says universally that red meat is bad, because while you don't need to consume red meat, it is one of the most nutrient-dense foods available to us. It's a rich source of iron, highly bioavailable protein, zinc, vitamin B12, creatine. It's tasty. It's palatable, which matters.

So I think that it is, again, pretty negligent oversimplification to just universally blanket make the claim that red meat is bad. I actually don't think that it's... I think that that would... I would consider that to be an extraordinary claim for which there really isn't the extraordinary evidence to support it. If you look at observational studies, red meat consumers, typically, because red meat has been so demonized for the past couple of decades, people who tend to consume more red meat also tend to be more likely to smoke. They tend to be more likely to have obesity and insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes. They tend to be more likely to consume alcohol. So the observational evidence on red meat consumption, I don't think is very trustworthy, useful as a hypothesis generator, which observational studies tend to be. But when you look at the randomized controlled trials, I mean, in the context of a high quality diet, red meat is perfectly healthy. And again, it's an incredibly nutrient dense food that I think is definitely worth integrating into your diet. I consume red meat maybe every day.