Episode 539: Angelo Keely: Essential Amino Acids for Fat Loss Without Muscle Loss and Better Recovery

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins, you're listening to Habits in Hustle, crush it.

Today we're talking about something almost everyone gets wrong when it comes to fat loss

and staying toned.

Thinking the answer is simply eating more protein, but what actually drives muscle repair

are the essential amino acids inside that protein.

And this matters more than most people realize.

Fatal loss doesn't start in your 60s, for many of us it begins after 30.

And if you're dieting, training hard, or trying to stay lean as you age, that process can

accelerate even faster.

That's why I'm super excited to talk to Angelo Kiwi today.

Angelo is the CEO of Keon and has spent more than two decades studying nutrition, performance,

and the science of amino acids.

In this episode, he explains why not all protein works the same, why essential amino

acids can outperform protein powder for muscle synthesis, and how they can help you lose

fat without losing muscle.

We also talk about the hidden muscle loss risk during GLP-1 weight loss, why losing

becomes more important as we age, and how amino acids can improve recovery.

If you care about staying lean, strong, and metabolically healthy, as you get older,

this conversation is definitely worth paying attention to, so let's get into it.

All right, you guys, welcome to Habitson Hustle.

We have a friend of mine, a new friend, actually, who's on the podcast today.

His name is Angelo Kiwi.

He is the founder of a company called Keon, and I really wanted him to be a guest for

multiple reasons, one being that he is the expert of experts on something that I think

most of us don't know anything about, which is amino acids, very overlooked.

He has graced me and us with his presence to tell us everything we need to know to really

optimize our health, one thing that we never seem to ever focus on.

Without further ado, thank you for being on Habitson Hustle.

Thanks for having me, Jen.

It's so great to see you.

I'm excited to be here.

I just see you again.

I know.

We met really for the first time face-to-face.

What was that?

You pneumonia, right?

Yeah.

And we'd like deep-dived into so many things.

First of all, you are the most fascinating person that I've met in a very long time.

Your story is very interesting, unique.

Can you kind of just give us an overview before we've been deep-dived into aminos and all

the things?

Who you are, what you're about, and what kind of led you to where you are sitting here?

Those are big questions.

I know.

Who you are and what you're about.

I think, honestly, a lot of who I am and what I'm about, it's maybe not as relevant to

amino acids.

As we talk before, I really love my family.

So who am I?

I'm a dad and a husband, and I just really like being part of a family and raising kids

and just relationships.

Well, you figured that out well.

You figured it out.

But if the question is more like, how did I end up here on the show, how do we know

each other down and why do I know so much about amino acids?

I can tell that story.

Well, I think there's a lot of like, there's like a lot of dovetails here, right?

Because how you grew up with your parents and how you became like someone who became

very specialized in this one area, I think is very interesting.

So yes, why don't you kind of just say, like, what kind of how did, what kind of was

your story to kind of even start a supplement company in the first place?

So it does go back really far.

It goes back to childhood.

My parents, I was born and raised outside Austin, Texas to very hippie parents, like born

at home, not vaccinated, didn't go to a doctor till I was seven, like whole school very

hippie.

My parents owned a natural health food store, a natural health food restaurant, and we

actually moved to Austin because my dad was like an early partner in Whole Foods trying

to do a restaurant business.

And so like, they were very, they were like hippies, but they're also entrepreneurs.

And I.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

That's like kind of an oxymoron, right?

Like that to me, they're so hippie, but yet also very, they had a business.

Yeah, I think that's a good, yeah, I mean, so maybe, yeah, I mean, they're very hippie,

but yeah, they were, they were like, I mean, my dad's from the East Coast and he's like

a kind of old school East Coast, like alpha intense dude, hustler, not in a hustle, I think

in the bet, I think in the terms that you use the word hustle, you know, and so like make

things happen.

So of that spirit, but, you know, he was, went to Woodstock and got exposed to like herbs

and, you know, and so, yeah, so I mean, imagine this guy with a super long beard, crazy

long hair, who's like the exclusive importer of Korean jinsing to Mexico.

Yeah.

That's my dad was.

Exactly.

Okay.

It was very interesting.

The way you describe them to me and in your story, I found it to be fascinating.

If you don't remember, I was like, like hanging on every word and so was my friend with

all the stuff.

So okay.

So that's that.

So yes, so you grew up, your parents had a, had like a health food store, the whole food

thing.

I thought was very interesting.

Then what?

So the one other thing I'd name in that is that my parents were pescutarians and I think

that was maybe like a thing at that time.

It was more popular in that region.

And yeah, so we ate a lot of vegetable based, like plant-based proteins, tofu, but we

also ate fish some.

And because of that, my parents talked a lot about protein.

Like as a little kid, I knew you need to eat beans and rice together.

You should eat quinoa and lentils together if we're not going to have like fish tonight.

So I was, I was brought up in that and my mom gave me amino acids as a kid.

She was a very committed master swimmer.

And so my parents weren't a fitness and they were in the health, but they're also like

hippies.

And so I was just like brought up in that.

I, you know, naturally though as you grow up, you, you create your own path.

At some point, like you know, just take the program that your parents give you.

And I think one maybe thing that makes that more intense in my environment was that my

parents were very, more entrepreneurial, kind of like very untraditional alternative.

Man, it's not really maybe the right word, but like you got to like figure out your own

path.

Like there was not like a, right, you should just do this and do that.

It's like even at the dinner table, so you got to like fight for your ideas, et cetera.

And so when I grew up, it was always me like creating my own path, learning my own lessons.

And I learned very hard lessons.

So when I was, you know, when I was around, you know, I got getting into high school.

Like now I'm eating whatever I want to eat, doing whatever I want to do, taking lots

of drugs.

And I have this very terrible experience when I'm 16 and a half where I take too much

LSD.

And the wrong neighborhood provokes and people that are way more hardcore than me.

And they stab me twice in the back.

They stab me in the knee.

So I have, you know, huge scar down my abdomen.

I had to get my patella tendon reattached and then they beat me literally to almost like

a pulp.

So I wake up in the hospital days later from this.

And that began like a really long journey for me in terms of healing my mind around it.

Like obviously like emotionally and psychologically, like I had PTSD from that and totally, which

I mean, just a really bad trip will do that to you.

But you go through that kind of, or that kind of a physical trauma, but you combine them.

It was like deep and physically like I, you know, I couldn't walk for a long time and

I had to recover.

And how long couldn't you walk for?

It actually was fast.

Then you think that's amazing, like just contemporary medicine and being a kid.

It's like, I think I was, within a few months, like I was laid up for a while.

But to be like, if you tour, you know, your ACL, whatever 20 years ago.

Wow.

Yeah.

So, you know, but, but I go through that and it's a crazy story.

You just woke up one day, like stat, like woke up, like being stabbed and you don't even

know who did it.

How it happened?

Nothing.

I mean, I blacked out a lot of the experience.

I mean, there's a more, I mean, there'd be a whole other story to go down that whole

route.

I know.

I know.

But basically, but you remember, I couldn't believe like that.

Like when you told me that story initially, I was like, like that's just, that's like,

you did, you said it so by the way, like it wasn't a big, like that, that is that actually

would, I would think would kind of define the trajectory of your life.

That's a major trauma in your life, right?

That would change how you do everything.

It was very transformative.

Yeah.

And I think there's all different ways of talking about it.

You know, one, I think when I was at that age, two big things came up for me.

One was this idea of like, almost like the absolute value scale in life.

Like we're always trying to increase and get more and more and more positive.

But actually when you experience something that dark or suffering or like these really

terrible things, it broadens your whole perspective and suddenly like the palette of life

experiences broader and bigger and like you, I was able to value more things in life

than I was prior to that because before I had just hadn't suffered like that ever.

Right.

And then I think the other thing that comes up too is just when you, this is what I realized

to that was that whether I make decisions or I don't make decisions or I define something

I want or I don't define something I want, I am creating my life all the time.

Whatever I have in mind, the actions I choose to do every day, the beliefs that I have,

like that is going to manifest what my life becomes.

And actually like might these other kind of hippie friends of what the parents of one

of my friends gave me this book like Creative Visualization by Shakti Goblin, which is

like an old school kind of creative visualization book.

And I read that and it really, it influenced me to, I think to to understand and see that

like, yeah, like I, I'm going to create my life.

And I think a lot of people that doesn't happen until you're 40 maybe, like you realize

you've just been following the recipe that your parents or society or whatever gave you.

Totally.

And so that was the blessing for me.

A while it was this like terrible painful experience, it made me really value life.

It made me realize I can create my life.

And you know bad things don't actually have to be that bad, they can just be part of

the recipe.

It's so interesting.

You say that it's like all about how your perspective is and how you choose to, like

how you choose to utilize whatever that experience is.

I'm reading a book right now.

I think I was telling you, maybe I wasn't the courage to be disliked right now.

Oh, yeah.

I was telling you.

And it's the book starts by talking about that.

Like you're not a victim of your past, it's all about how you choose to, or what

you choose and how you choose to perceive that and then move forward with that, right?

And how you see something, it can be very different how someone else sees something.

And then it's a ripple effect, right?

I mean, I, I 100% believe in that.

Yeah.

And I think that whole experience and even now reflecting back on it in my life gave

me humility around, this is kind of paradoxical what I'm saying now.

It's like I create my life and the decisions I make are going to define what happens to

me next.

I don't want to sit around like kind of blaming things in the past or all that.

And what is it?

Like what was it in me that opened me up to this possibility of like having even this attitude

or being positive about it?

Right.

And it's like, I don't know, but I'll accept that as like luck or grace or there's also

a bunch of stuff I'm not in charge of.

You know, I think I think of all different types of people in life right now that have

gone through something hard and some people figure it out and it turns into this positive

thing and some people get stuck in it.

Yeah.

I guess I don't sit around judging the people that haven't figured out as like, why

don't you like suck it up?

Right.

Figure it out.

Right.

Part of it's like, I'm just, I'm grateful that I got like that you don't just suck it

out.

That you actually suck it up and just get.

Yeah.

And I got that.

And whatever that is, like whether it's some willpower or I'm blessed or whatever, like

I accept it and I'm grateful for it and it has worked out for me.

And maybe also that, that really bad thing that happened to you gave you the impetus and

the power to kind of do all these things because you didn't want to waste your life.

You didn't want to, you had much more of an expansive idea of like how to like live

life to the fullest and experience things and go places because like your life is so

interesting.

And so that's a whole other podcast completely.

But then how did, like how did, how did it end up in supplements?

Yeah.

How did it end up in supplements?

Yeah.

So I think, so that, that basically kick started this like personal health journey for

me.

It wasn't my parents that was mine and that was around like, and not just playing sports

but like real fitness and trying to become really fit and become really healthy and

heal myself with food and taking, you know, starting to take protein powder and thinking

about amino acids again and all these types of things, not because like my parents told

me to or because I want to be good at sports or something but because I really want to

like live, I want to, I want to have this like awesome body that's, it's awesome vessel

and I want to help my mind, some doing therapy, all this.

And I think it just kick started this kind of personal development project that just kept

going and it didn't take me directly back into starting a supplement company, right?

It took me into, yeah, I'm without counting my whole story like I lived overseas for

many years and explored a lot of different types of careers, but during that whole time

it was always this search of like trying to find mental health, emotional health, physical

health.

I ended up back in Boulder, Colorado, well, so I was based in Austin, but I ended up back

in Boulder, Colorado.

I built and ran this behavioral healthcare company that was focused actually on really

helping youth like me, like that kid that we just talked about over 16, very much helping

kids like that for many years.

And then it kind of reached its end and I, I think I, yeah, it's hard not to talk about

it like fate almost or the same way I described before, like yeah, I have a will power to

like do, you know, to like lean into hard things and to have courage.

And I think I only realized after starting Keon, like, well, I started like a supplement

company where amino acids, which is like my mom's favorite supplement when I was a little

kid would be the focus and I didn't do it like I want to make my mom proud, but it's

pretty weird like that I, I just circled back to this space.

I mean, consciously I cared about protein, I cared about amino acids, I cared about

fundamental nutrition, like what are, what are the, what are the nutritional supplements

that we actually really, truly need and can benefit from to live much better?

Not just like some new hip product that someone wants to make, but like the stuff I want

to take every single day, I want my family to take, like that's, that's where it's, that's

where it like, that's why I was committed to it.

But on some level, I'm like, it is weird.

It's almost like I built the company like my three year old mom would have been proud of

it.

Yeah.

Like very subliminally.

The fact that your mom even knew about amino acids back then, it says a lot because

this is what I found interesting when I like deep dived into all of this about amino acids

in my own journey, which we'll get to in a second or more than a second is it's such

a basic fundamental foundational thing, the amino acids, yet so overlooked, you hear

so much about protein, you hear so much about creatine, you hear so much about collagen,

nobody ever talks about amino acids, which by the way, the benefits and like what you

can get from it are they actually supersede everything else.

So let's start with this whole thing, right?

Like first tell us what are amino acids because I am sure most people listening are like,

they've heard the word like in the kind of like in the vortex of life, but they still

don't know what it is.

And why is it important?

So I'm going to answer why it's important first is like the headline, make sure we all

stay interested because we might go through some science here and you check me if we're

getting like two boring or going through like, I'll see me falling asleep actually.

How about that?

You'll be snoring on the sofa.

No, I promise.

I promise I'll be that morning.

Okay.

So I'm going to say this and then we're going to come back to this essential amino acids

are the active part of protein that basically create most or all of the benefits.

Okay.

And they're this essential nutrient that if you don't get them, you're going to suffer

with issues related to your skin, hair, nails, muscle, organ function, et cetera, on and

on.

So it's okay.

It's this key thing that's that's basically driving the health of all of these different

types of organs and bodily functions.

So now what is it?

Why is it?

Why is it?

So I think this is a time actually kind of helpful to take a step back and link up to

things that people maybe think they understand.

Okay.

But let's see if they like, we'll see if you do.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there's three, these three main macronutrients, protein, carbohydrates and fat.

If you think about, I like to use the metaphor of your body basically being like a house, right?

So like to run this house that we're in, you need energy, you need energy to run these

lights, to run the dishwasher, et cetera, to do everything in the house, the toaster,

all these things.

So that is, that is really what carbohydrates are at their most fundamental level in the

body.

Like it is an energy source that you bring into your body and you actually convert it

into this thing ATP and like you beat your heart, you move, like that's what it is.

It's an energy source.

And fat is similar to that.

Fat is like maybe an alternative energy source.

Think about like natural gas that you like run into your house to, to run the stove or

something like that, right?

It's another energy source.

It also can be used in this part of like building cells.

Those two, like their primary role is truly energy.

Okay.

That is not why you eat protein.

Less than 10% of the protein that you eat is used as energy.

So why do people eat protein?

So why do people eat protein?

It is because we are made of proteins and the proteins that we're made up of get old

and break down and have to be replaced.

So if we go back to the metaphor of like your body's like a house.

So this house that we're in, which by the way, is a beautiful home.

At some point though, like the hardwood floors might start to wear out.

Right?

The carpet needs to be replaced.

You don't have any carpet, but you know, like the sheet rock got a dent in it.

You know, the kid ran into it or threw a ball at it, right?

Like over time things break down and they start to fall apart.

That's just what happens.

And particularly you might think of like appliances, right?

Like a toaster is going to break down before, you know, a really nice, you know, stone

countertop or something.

100%.

And that's a great analogy.

You're right.

So just over time things just end up breaking down.

Yeah.

Or getting worn out.

So here's a perfect example.

Yeah.

The proteins associated with your, so, okay, so let's go down to like what your body,

like what, what is protein in your body?

Over half of the solid mass in your body.

So you take out the water and the things that are like hard solid mass.

Over half of that is made up of proteins.

That's a large portion of your bones.

That's all your muscles.

That's your vital organs.

That's your skin.

Your hair.

Your nails.

But also things that are solid that you might not think about like hormones.

Or made up of proteins.

Your neurotransmitters in your brain, the chemicals through which you experience emotions.

Those are made up of, they're really the derivatives of proteins.

So all these things are, all these things that are made up of proteins.

And they degrade a different ratio, a different time period.

So your liver has a lot of proteins that it utilizes and it makes 30% of them have to

be remade every day.

So we're talking like, that's like paper towels in your house, right?

We're talking like super quick turnover.

Yeah.

Your muscle, it's somewhere between one to two percent of your muscle every day has to be

broken down and remade with new proteins.

That's a pretty big difference.

You got it?

Yeah, it makes sense.

But is that why people in middle age start, like all you hear about now is, I need to

eat more protein.

I need to eat more protein.

Protein protein, it's become like the swan song.

Like everyone just keeps, it's impossible to consume.

Not much, people feel like it's impossible to consume that much protein.

So does that mean that when you hit a certain age, that's when things really start to break

down?

Like, you know, it's like the, like the, at the 40 mark or the 35 mark, like, what is that

mark when really protein starts to break down and we have to really supplement?

It starts at 30.

Okay.

And it progressively gets worse every decade after that.

At 30 even.

Yeah.

It starts at 30, but you won't start.

You know, it's, I mean, it's like lots of things in aging.

It starts at 30.

You don't really notice it, but at 40, 50, 60, it gets worse and worse and worse.

And I'll foreshadow this, but we should come back to it because like the aging impact

is really its own really interesting part about why you would think very differently

about protein.

Protein needs are not the same at all stages of life.

I know.

They're very different.

Yeah.

And so, and I also want to know how are people would know you said they won't know

at 30.

So what would be symptoms at 40 or 50 that you know that you're protein deficient besides

muscle mass?

That's muscle mass.

It's harder to maintain muscle, your skin quality, your hair quality, anything that's

made up of these proteins.

That's a depression maybe even like your mood.

Mood could be an issue, but I think in lots of cases, people are experiencing with like

with kind of pure vanity metrics.

Yeah.

And what you can just think of like the proteins associated with your skin, your hair,

your nails, your muscle, those are like luxury proteins.

Yeah.

Your body is going to make sure you have heart tissue.

Yeah.

And the necessary liver proteins before it makes sure that your skin looks good, right?

And so that's why your body starts as your body's ability to digest protein and more

importantly, it's its prioritization and sensitivity to amino acids, which again, we're kind

of diving deeper.

We'll kind of keep hitting this so people get it.

It decreases over time.

So the body's less responsive to the protein that you eat.

And that's why you need a much higher concentration of particularly loosening enriched essential

amino acids.

A certain amount of essential amino acids, you want a lot more loosening in them to overcome

that.

Any type of stress, aging is one type of stress, but so is weight loss.

If you are like restricting calories, your body again, it's not prioritizing keeping your

skin, your hair, your nails, your muscle, all that looking good.

It's going to use the protein in a really different way.

Or if you're injured or recovering from an illness or you're training really hard for

exercise, any of these things where there's a lot of stress, your body needs a different

amount of those essential amino acids and it needs them in a much higher concentration

to get the benefits.

So going back to this protein analogy where it's like your body is made up of these proteins

and they're breaking down.

So here's what happens.

And now it ties back in this amino acid thing we were just talking about.

So right now, literally, if I look at my skin, it's made up of millions of proteins that

you can't see them.

They're microscopic.

But some of them right now are breaking down.

And the reason why they're breaking down is because they're just old.

They're not as functional as they used to be.

And when that one little protein breaks apart, now I'm going to give you another metaphor

with the house.

Think about bricks.

Like lots of houses are made of bricks.

So think about these proteins are like bricks.

And so in my skin, I just see like a wall of skin.

But that wall of skin is made up of a bunch of little bricks of protein, all right?

Yeah.

Inside of those bricks, just like a brick in your house.

Like a brick in your house is not made up of one brick.

It's made up of like thousands of little grains of sand.

Right.

So these, this little protein is made up of lots of little amino acids.

It's like the little grains of sand that make up the brick.

And those amino acids, some of them are still good and some of them are no longer good.

So when this little protein in my arm breaks apart, I literally pee out some of the amino

acids.

The ones that aren't good anymore.

Oh, really?

Okay.

Yeah.

They get converted into urea.

You lose them.

And then a brick can actually get reused to make a new piece of skin tissue, a new little

protein.

And now the question is, okay, well, if I just peed out some of the grains, like I lost

half my brick, you know, I lost half the brick that made up the skin.

How do I rebuild it?

That's why you eat protein.

When you eat protein, chicken, beef, quinoa, whatever it is, you digest the food, you

digest the proteins, the amino acids in it get released into your blood.

And they go throughout your entire body and they help to rebuild your skin, rebuild your

muscle, rebuild liver proteins, make new hormones, turn into your neurotransmitters.

And the thing is there are different qualities of protein based on how dense they are in

these essential amino acids, how bioavailable they are, the proportion of them.

And so it really, really matters that the quality of the essential amino acids you're getting

in your diet will directly impact all of these things.

Okay.

That's quality amino acids, proteins that we should be focusing on.

So what I'll do is I'll give you like a spectrum of like what the impact is.

Okay.

So on the, I would say on the, first of all, I want to say, if you're not under stress

and you are young, like let's say you're 20 years old and you're not training that hard

and you're not overweight, you generally eat pretty well, everything about to say is

less important.

Yeah.

But protein you need to eat, the quality of the protein is less important.

All of these things become more important if we're overweight and we're trying to lose

fat or we're particularly over 40 or we're really trying to train hard and like put on muscle,

you know, it's like it's under stress where everything about to say matters a lot more.

Right.

And aging and aging.

I would say over 40, and honestly, aging is the greatest stress-induced physiology.

Like if you're talking about a state of being that this matters the most for, it's

aging.

And thus it's all of us over 40.

Yeah.

And only gets more intense as you get older.

So on the very, very far end, by the way, when you're 20, you could do anything.

Yeah.

I mean, that's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying.

And I think that's the, I always, these arguments, like plant protein versus animal protein

or this protein powder amino acids and people like go and use studies and talk about things

and like, yeah, it all gets blended together and it's like, for some groups, this is less

important for others.

It's more important.

Yeah.

I think this is extremely important for people who are over 40, for sure.

Yeah.

This is why I'm, that's why we're here.

Extremely important for people over 40.

And I would just say like, I mean, like, I mean-

And who are active?

Yeah.

Quick side note, like, my son is a very competitive basketball player.

He's, you know, almost 13, but he trains a lot.

For him, it actually does matter.

He's under a lot of stress.

Yeah.

So like, for him, I do think about protein nutrition and amino acids because he's not,

he's exercising like three hours a day, dude.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I was going to say, also for people who are active, who are very active, who are, who

are trying to like operate in terms of, in their brain at a high level.

You want to be like really optimist.

Yeah.

You want to be optimist.

Yeah.

You can't eat like a little, as you get older, it's impossible.

Yeah.

That's why, this is so important because I don't think anyone knows.

You don't know what you don't know, right?

Yeah.

So go on.

Okay.

So on the very far end of the spectrum in terms of protein quality, you have plant proteins.

Right.

And that's not to like offend anyone or begin to argument, but it's like, it simply

is the case that plant proteins outside of a very few like tofu and like soy, soy proteins

are very high quality.

They're like the closest to like animal proteins and they get a lot of bad rep because of

phytoestrogens, but like it's honestly pretty bunk.

You look at like even male bodybuilders who consume a lot of like soy and like they have

higher testosterone levels than the ones who don't like really?

Yeah.

The soy thing's like, that's a whole other argument too.

But like if I was, if you're plant based, I would encourage you to eat soy.

Interesting.

You got to look out for other things like GMO and I just find you eating a lot of extra

calories when you're eating plant protein.

Yeah.

So here's going to say on the very far end, you have plant proteins and this is basically

any kind of protein that comes from a plant.

And the reason why it's the lowest quality protein is because our body's ability to digest

that protein and break it down, right?

Via like proteolytic enzymes, like and this is not about like, oh, I, you know, how much

do I chew?

Or what do I need to eat?

Like we have certain chemicals in our body that help us break down proteins.

Totally.

And they're less compatible with the plant based proteins.

And so when we try to get the amino acids out of them, we can't get as many.

On top of that, they're covered in carbohydrates, typically.

Exactly.

So they're very caloric.

So you have to eat a lot of it.

You have to eat five, ten times the amount of it as you would if you ate our super dense

animal protein to get the same amount of protein.

Yes.

Like I was telling you yesterday when we were taught when we were together, you know,

you said this.

Yeah.

And you said, you didn't eat beans, for example, for protein.

You'd have that like 750 calories versus like a 250 calorie piece of steak to get the same

quality or caliber protein or amount of protein and amount of protein.

Impact.

I would just say like the impact of the protein, because rather than just talking about

grams of protein, it's like how much of it can actually digest and also like and bloating

and okay.

So anyway, so that's kind of on the very, very far end, right?

Then there's a few, a spirulina actually is a remarkably good plant protein, but how

much spirulina are you going to eat?

I was going to say spirulina is a really good, but also it's not like a lot of these plant

proteins are not satiating.

No.

That's the other issue.

Yeah.

So you're going to have to eat again, a lot of calories of like carbs, et cetera.

You know, so that's kind of on the far end.

Then you start getting into just honestly, whole food animal proteins are all, what about

dairy like yogurt?

Dairy is excellent.

As I say, if you choose to be vegetarian, like, I mean, yogurt is incredible.

Dairy is like one of the highest quality protein sore eggs, so the most bioavailable protein

there is.

Awesome protein, but also beef, chicken, pork, fish, like these are all great, excellent

protein sources.

Yeah.

But here's what I think becomes more interesting if people don't realize, and this is where

we're really get into like essential amino acids.

So in a protein, all of these proteins I just talked about, they're made up of these

20 amino acids.

Imagine like 20 little different types of grains of sand that can make up the brick.

Nine of them are essential, which by definition means you have to eat them.

Like if something's essential and nutrition, it just means your body can't make it.

Non-essential, literally your body can take those essential nutrients, it can take

lucine, isolucine, and turn it into another amino acid, like glycine, like it actually

has the ability to synthesize new amino acids your body does.

But you have to eat the essential ones.

On top of that, the essential amino acids are the active component.

And I will describe what that means now.

When I eat some beef, and I'm going to give you a specific amount because there's really

interesting studies on this, I eat 30 grams of beef protein, and I digest that.

There's a certain amount of essential amino acids in that.

And this is what kind of shocking though, but it's like only about, you know, a quarter

of beef is actually protein because it's full of water, like when you weigh it.

Of course.

Of the weight, right?

It's full of water.

There's other micronutrients in it, there's fats, there's other things, about a quarter

of it.

And then of that, less than half of that is essential amino acids.

So you get this big piece of meat, and actually 12% is the essential amino acids.

It's a quite small amount.

And what your body is doing is when it digest that meat, the 30 grams of beef protein, it

really is just reading for the essential amino acids.

And that peak of those essential amino acids when they hit the blood, that is what tells

your body, hey, gin, it's actually okay for you to break down these old skin tissues,

these old liver proteins and rebuild and make new ones.

And the more amount of essential amino acids that hit the blood at once is what corresponds

to your body saying, let's, it's called turnover, like whole body protein turnover and muscle

protein turnover, like let's break down the old proteins and make new ones.

So here's what's shocking, 30 grams of beef protein generates more whole body protein

synthesis, this whole protein turnover in your body than if you ate twice the amount

of that, 70 grams of beef protein, but you ate that beef protein as part of a mixed

meal.

When you eat the beef with broccoli, with potatoes, which I just want to be really clear,

I'm not in any way, like endorsing some kind of orthorexic, like, you know, I eat,

like, you know, we had dinner, like I ate a nice whole mixed meal, and that's part of

like, I think being a healthy person is like eating whole meals and getting lots of

micronutrients.

But when you talk about protein synthesis, and why this would start to matter as we

get older, and how to optimize our diet, we're not-

When you say eating protein by itself is way more effective than eating mixing protein

with other foods.

For the purpose of stimulating this protein synthesis, of telling the body to break, to

make new proteins.

That is so interesting.

So let's say, for example, I have a piece of salmon with green beans.

It should be less effective than we just eating a piece of salmon on its own.

For the purpose-

For the purpose-

For the purpose of protein turnover, yes.

But that's not how I would suggest that you try to construct your diet.

I wouldn't be like, all right.

And I'm going to start eating my salmon on its own, and then I'm going to wait an hour

and then I'm going to eat my-

Well, because there's a whole-

There's a whole thing about that too, people eat food separately because of all the other

theories and benefits, they say, they say.

And this is not theory.

This is-

This is very well-documented protein and amino acid nutrition science by the leaders of

the whole field of academia over the last 20 years.

This is like multiple studies, multiple people.

Again, and for anyone who's really interested in this stuff, go check out the International

Society of Sports Nutrition.

They have a great paper on-

Specifically on essential amino acids that is overview of this, but they'll link out

to tons of other pieces.

So that-

That alone should kind of blow your mind, but here's a crazier thing.

Way protein powder stimulates three times-

It's actually here's where I really want to break it down.

What is important is the amount of the essential amino acids that are in your blood.

Okay.

Okay.

And when you consume way protein powder-

Yeah.

Because it's even more bio-available.

It has less of the other, you know, even fibrous material attached to it and minerals and

like it's a more concentrated form of the protein, right?

It increases those EAA levels three times as much as beef protein does.

Like a whole steak.

You take 20 grams of steak or 20 grams of beef protein from steak or 20 grams of way

protein.

You'll get three times the impact from the way protein.

From way protein.

Why?

And again, it's not- it is simply because it is more bio-available and these amino acids

hit the blood more quickly.

So kind of quick hack and we're going to get to essential amino acids in a second now.

For me, rather than saying like, yeah, you need to always separate all your meals.

I'd be like, no, like have an awesome dinner with your family where you eat fiber, which

is also good for you.

They are all micronutrient.

So like all these other things and have a piece of salmon and have some rice or whatever

else you like for like a healthy carb.

And when you think about, how am I going to snack in the middle of the day?

Maybe it's not just like one more meal or even, you know, like beef jerky or something.

It's like-

Right.

The protein shake might actually be a much better bang for your buck.

It's going to have less calories and it's going to have a way greater impact on this

protein synthesis.

Like why are you even trying to consume the protein?

Like there are ways to kind of- and that's how I think supplements can really be used.

Rather than replacing your core meals and real nutrition-

That's when like supplements-

That's when supplements start to make sense.

But here's now the mind blowing impact of what you- when you think about essential amino

acids.

So now there's this other- there's other category of product called essential amino acids.

And even when you get way protein powder, which I love, like my company makes way- we

make- am I being like the best way protein?

But like way protein is awesome.

But even when you get way protein, a way protein- grass-fed, way protein isolate, highest quality,

most premium, cleanest thing of that protein, less than 45% is essential amino acids.

Most of it is the non-essential, which are not bad.

They're good.

They have good things that they do, but they don't increase the protein synthesis at all.

Zero.

And there are very clear studies that show this.

Increasing the amount of non-essential, no increase.

So when you take an essential amino acid supplement- and it's all-

The essential- it's only the essential amino acids.

You're only getting the active component.

When you give that to young adults- and we're getting to like aging adults, the impact

versus way protein is 3x.

So like you want to take five grams of essential amino acids, it's going to have three times

the impact as 5 grams of way protein.

Or more equivalently, it's more like 5 grams of essential amino acids is going to be the

same as like, you know, 15 grams of way protein for a young adult.

And the reason for that is somewhat obvious.

One is it's entirely- it's only the essential amino acids, whereas half of the way protein

is these other things.

But on top of that, it's immediately digested.

It goes into the bloodstream immediately.

So even better than say, just try to have a way protein shake in the middle of the day,

just take some essential amino acids.

And you're getting a way bigger impact than a way protein shake.

But even a hugeer, what's huge is not a real word, a much larger impact than trying

to eat, you know, a can of tuna or chicken breast or one more meal, like it's a way more

efficient and effective way to get that boost.

And I think as we see as we talk about getting older, like you need every edge you can get.

Yes, exactly.

That's what I've noticed.

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Now, let's get back to the episode.

So you're telling me, just so I'm break, I want to kind of just like summarize that.

Or maybe so having a scoop or two of way protein is

actually more effective than actually for your protein synthesis than having a stake.

Yes.

Okay.

And then how about in turn, is way protein more effective than having salmon?

Yes.

Okay.

So overall in jet, like the overarching thing that you said is way protein is the best

form of protein that you can get overall.

Okay.

So I want to be honest with you.

We're talking less about the idea of way protein because when you have yogurt, then there's

that clear liquid on the top, that's way protein.

So don't throw it away.

Stir that in.

Yes.

So stir that in.

I always throw it away.

Really?

Yeah.

I mean, there's other liquids in a tube, but I would definitely keep that.

Oh, that's good to know.

Maybe more tips like that.

Yeah.

So way protein is a protein source that naturally is a part of dairy.

Okay.

So what I'm saying is isolated protein powder, particularly way protein powder.

It's the one that has the most amount of studies behind it and studies that compare it

in this way that we're talking about, taking a way protein powder as a supplement on

its own is definitely going to outperform any type of whole food animal protein.

A piece of salmon, a piece of chicken, a piece of beef, et cetera, by many times.

Is that mean that we would build muscle easier or better with that way protein than we would

with a salmon, a steak or whatever, whatever?

In the context of supplementation, I would say yes.

I think the only reason why I want to like kind of, you know, hedge that is I'm not encouraging

people to stop eating real food because there are other good things in the salmon.

There are fats in the salmon and eating it and even a mixed meal and having carbs are

really good for you and like recovering from training, et cetera.

But when we're talking, you know, just for one very specific point, but for building

lean muscle, for building lean muscle, if you're trying to hit much higher daily protein

targets, like to do that, a way protein powder is going to be way more effective than just

trying to eat more whole food protein.

Okay.

So here's the thing.

Now, what if we just take our aminos and not do the other things?

Like let's say we, if you replace it, if instead of way protein, instead of way, you

only did the amino acids.

Yes.

Better.

So the better than the way protein, the better solution for supplementing, you know,

already like a high protein diet and trying to live the super vibrant life and have really

good muscle and be lean and have good hair and skin and all that.

Amino acids are the supplement that are going to outperform way protein.

And basically a perform and also get and will allow you to get your, the amount of protein

you actually need for all the other kind of benefits you bought.

Yeah.

Because when your body's eating protein, it's trying to get these essential amino acids.

That's what it wants.

And you're giving it that in this more highly concentrated form.

So you're saying, okay, there's 20 amino acids, like your supplement gives you nine essential.

What happens to the other, other ones?

What happens to them when?

Like what yours, yours, like for example, I've been taking your, I've been mixing your

amino with water, the main, the one I like side issue.

And it has nine amino acids, right?

Essential nine.

So the other 11, we don't, so we're, that's not obviously in thing.

Our bodies are producing it itself.

It's not as essential because what happens to them, like why, why is it, why does the supplement

not have 20?

Why does it only have nine?

Okay.

So in, like, I'll glue, okay, I'll glue it means a different example.

Yeah.

So here, which is a good amino acid and has other specific functions that it does.

So it's not like you don't need these things.

But here, maybe here's a, here, well, you get it.

Here's why you should eat meat every day.

Okay.

You do need some of that every day.

Okay.

You do need it.

So if I was just giving you basic guidance, what I would say is like, don't go below

0.6 grams of protein per pound of body weight of real food every day.

Okay.

That's what I would, I would just, I would like make that a fundamental base.

I think that's, that's pretty clear.

And that is because there's a certain amount of protein you need to just function like

for your immune health for, well, here's the deal.

If you eat less protein than that as a young healthy adult, I'm saying 20 year old again,

not performing et cetera, you literally, all of your luxury proteins, your muscle, your

skin, your hair, all these, they're going to start to, they're going to start to degrade.

And why is that?

It's because of this, like literally if I go a few hours is technically all it takes.

But let's just say I go a day without consuming any protein.

And now I literally have these liver, these, these parts of my liver that need new liver

proteins to be replaced, they're breaking down, they have to be rebuilt.

And it's pulling everything, all the amino acids out of my blood that it can to help

rebuild them.

And it can't find them, right?

Where does it get them from?

I'm not, I'm not eating new protein.

What does it do?

Right.

It literally breaks down my muscle tissue.

Your muscle tissue is your reservoir of amino acids for the rest of your body.

And that is why it, like when people diet, oftentimes they start to lose lots of muscle.

That's why when we get older, we start to lose lots of muscle, it's because our ability

to utilize proteins in our diet to get these amino acids to like rebuild our heart tissue

to sort of deliver.

Right, right, right.

So, so the main idea is like there's a certain amount of amino acids you just need to like

even just have basic functioning.

Bushing, yeah.

And there's a certain amount of non-essential amino acids that you wouldn't want to like

force your body to have to synthesize them all.

Like, and by eating them in food, you get them.

But what I would say is like the cow, right?

The cow's meat, like its proteins are made in an ideal way for that cow to just be a cow

for it to like function and live like, like the structure of its tissue.

It wasn't made, it's not like made so that it's perfect, it's the perfect protein for

us.

So when we eat a cow and we eat some of that beef, what happens is some of the amino acids

we like really want and really use all of the essential amino acids.

And we can use some of the non-essential, but a lot of the non-essential we don't actually

need.

And so they get converted into sugars, they get converted into urea, et cetera.

They get converted into other things and we don't actually use them all.

So it doesn't, we use them for energy, but we don't use them actually in a substantive

way to actually help rebuild our proteins.

And so maybe the simplest way of describing it is it's good to eat whole food protein

because it's got micronutrients, minerals, et cetera, and it has some of these non-essential,

but we need a lot less of them than we need of the essential.

So can I go to a bunch of questions just about this?

Because number one, I went to get my blood work done and I was told to take algutamine,

which is an amino acid, right?

Do I need to take, if I just took your amino acid, which are the non-essentials, can I

not take the algutamine, or does that have a separate function and benefit?

That has a separate function and what that is likely pointing to, like I don't know your

specific health situation, but there's a unique, you have a unique health condition that

is necessitating you to consume more algutamine, it's not just like every woman you're

age is in that situation, so that you're talking about a very unique situation.

And those cases do exist for people, like where they need more algutamine, they need

more iron.

This person needs to consume more vitamin D, this person needs to, I'm just depleted

in everything.

Which is true, which is by the way, what I was saying before we started, is that I think

it's so crucial for people to not just, this is what I learned, that, and when I got

I just got my blood work done.

And I think what people get stuck in this loop is when they get their blood work and

they start taking all the supplements, they end up just taking the same supplements for

like years on end without really kind of checking if they even need those, if they're

deficient in it, what their body actually needs now, because what I need now at my age

was very different what I need three years ago, or even ten years ago, right?

So now these amino acids are essential for my overall wellbeing.

And what I was going to say to you, and so now that's become part of my daily morning

routine.

I never took amino acids before.

I didn't know about them, but what I was going to, I didn't know about the importance

of like how you need to incorporate them.

But what I was going to say is like, if you, if you're someone who's even on a GLP

one, or even a runner, where it breaks down your lean muscle mass, if you just incorporated

like this amino acid supplement, would it enhance and benefit you like exponentially?

So let's, let's just talk to GLP one user, and I'm going to make it even broader.

Okay.

If you were cutting calories, and it can be drug-induced, or it can be my fitness pal and

main diet coach, whatever is getting you to eat less food, right?

If you're eating less food, you are going to lose weight.

So there's, there are these kind of basic rules of thermodynamic dynamics in the way at

the body works that it's like, I burn a certain amount of calories per day.

And if I consume less than I burn, then what happens is two things happen.

One is my fat stores, I start to use them.

It's actually like people like are always frustrated with our body fat, like in contemporary

society because we have too much of it.

But it's actually a very cool mechanism that it's like, if you have a bunch of food at

one time, you can eat it, and you'll actually store the excess food on your body.

So that then when you're hungry later on, you can live off of it.

It's like imagine living in the woods, and it's like, you kill this animal, and you eat

it all, and you can like actually store it rather than just trying to like, you know,

keep it in a cooler.

Most people don't want to be storing it, but I end up saying that that's where it came

from.

And so that's what happens.

Like now you suddenly eat less.

And what happens is you burn off that fat, that excess store.

Okay.

But what also happens is that you burn muscle.

You burn a lot of muscle when you lose weight.

And so what a lot of people.

What's the percentage you think do you know, like 30%.

Yeah.

So it depends.

Here's what I'd say though.

And this math is not perfect math, but I'll give you a few pretty clear validated figures

in general.

There's this idea that about a 3,500 calorie deficit.

If I eat 3,500 calories less than I need, I'll burn about a pound of fat.

Right.

And it's about 750 calories for a pound of muscle.

So considerably less of a caloric deficit will burn, will eat away at your muscle.

Yeah.

Now it's not a perfect mix of these, but it's like, well then how does your body choose

which it's burning and why and you know, like what happens?

But typically what happens if you do a very aggressive calorie restriction.

And that could be, you know, like I'm trying to lose, and I'm saying aggressive, like two

pounds a week, which I think lots of people think is not crazy, but that's actually on

the upper limit of like what's sustainable over time.

Right.

And if you're on a GLP1 or something and you're losing four or five pounds a week, the

likelihood is that out of the first 10 pounds that you lose, about four pounds will be

muscle and six pounds will be fat.

So 40%.

Over a long term over the course of like nine months, it ends up being about 25 to 30%

is muscle loss.

So that's a lot of muscle.

And what I would tell you is no one is like, I promise you, you're not wanting to lose

muscle.

No one's wanting to lose muscle.

It's hard to build back muscle is very metabolically intensive.

When you have more muscle, you burn more calories at rest when you're working out.

Totally.

It helps you stay strong, helps you look lean and tone, et cetera.

So it's like you don't want to lose muscle and the difference between losing 10 pounds

of fat only or losing six pounds of fat and four pounds of muscle is very different.

It's different for your metabolism, you're going to look totally different.

So the ideal situation would be whether you're dieting or you're taking a GLP1, how can

you lose 10 pounds of fat and lose no muscle?

How can you lose 20 pounds of fat and lose no muscle or maybe 19 pounds of fat and one

pound of muscle?

And there is a way to do it.

And so a series of really awesome recent studies actually sponsored by the Department

of Defense and it was through the University of Arkansas Medical Branch that did all this

research.

Basically, they were trying to study it with people in the military who are undergoing

like calorie deprivation, carrying large packs, et cetera.

What happens when we cut calories and how much more of essential amino acids do we need

to give these people to ensure that they stay in a net protein balance meaning they don't

lose muscle.

They don't start breaking down their muscle to serve their liver and to serve their heart.

And what they found was that a 30% caloric deficit.

So let's just say for simple terms, a 2000 calorie a day diet is like, this is what you

eat every day.

The same way, if you cut 600 calories, which is about 30%, which over the course of a

week is a little over a pound of weight loss.

So it's not something super aggressive.

You need a 300% increase, a threefold increase in essential amino acids in each serving to

not have muscle loss.

That's a lot more.

That's like a ton more.

That's a lot more.

Well, that's a lot more.

I think the GLP one is super important because people are looking, they're looking not necessarily

better.

They're smaller versions of what they were potentially, but they've, a lot of the people

I see have lost a lot of their muscle mass.

And once they get off of that drug, everybody I know who's gotten off of it has gained their

weight back very fast within like a month, like 40 pounds in a month.

And it's because they lost all of their muscle, which we just talked about is how they

burnt, how you end up having a higher metabolism to burn calories, right?

It's going to be that much harder to ever lose the way to get that.

Exactly.

And it's the same problem that always existed with yo-yo dieting.

It's like you starve yourself and then you go back to the behaviors and you start like,

you have to find a sustainable way long-term in order to, and I'm not against GLP ones.

I'm saying if that's your long-term, what I'm saying is this is a half, but you have

to be thinking about muscle during it.

And it is possible.

What I would say is if you are doing some type of restrictive dieting or a GLP-1 medication,

I would be looking at taking essential amino acids and we should get more into this

loose-seen-enriched essential amino acids.

It matters.

It's not just like any amino acids that you can find out there on Amazon or something or

whatever brand or even the famous person's promoting it.

The science is very specific.

A loose-seen-enriched essential amino acid supplement, I'd be taking two servings of that

or three servings of that a couple times per day.

Really?

You get a bit, but again, that's if you're doing this kind of aggressive, you're taking

a drug.

Right.

You're definitely not eating enough protein.

Yeah.

Or you're doing this very aggressive calorie counting, like, really, you have such a good

chance of having little to zero muscle loss if you do that while also doing this type

of aggressive dieting.

This is a massive hack if you're taking a GLP-1 in my opinion.

And the only way I thought you were famous, rather than almost being a hack or a shortcut,

it's actually like a really thoughtful way to actually be healthy.

Like, if you really, you're not just chasing the short-term high of like, I lost a bunch

of weight.

Like, who do you really want to be?

No, I think you really want to be this like vital, strong, fit, beautiful, handsome person.

You know, whatever you're thinking, it's lived a long time.

It's like, you can't, you got to think about your muscle.

Well, I also, I think that's true.

The reason why I'm calling it a hack is, number one, people understand the fact that

like, well, well, I would hope that most of these people are lost their appetite.

So it's really hard to get that much protein intake, right?

So they're struggling on that.

I think also you need to do strength training all these things.

But if they are at least taking us, this is an easy way to kind of, an easy integration

into their daily routine that can really help save their muscle.

Why wouldn't everybody do it?

That's the first part.

Totally.

Okay.

Like, to me, I'm all about no brainers.

Like, make my life as easy and simple as possible to get the maximum, like, you know,

effects.

To me, that's what it would be.

Another one is like, I was saying running or like high, like running because I'm a big,

I love, like to me, there's no better, like cardio than running to clear my mind to enhance

my mood.

I love running.

I love running.

And yet, I know as I'm an old woman now, my joints are falling apart, you know, like

it breaks down a lot of the muscle mass, all the things, but I can't stop it because

of the mental health benefits, right?

So I want to, but I'm like, oh, shit, what am I going to do?

Because I love it.

But yet, like, I don't want my muscle to break down.

So if I started to, if I take these amino acids, that would also help me preserve my muscle.

Incredibly.

And that's one of the, I think a really cool tool for something like Keon Aminos is that

you take it before you run and you don't, it's not like you ate a bunch of food.

It's not like you're heavy.

Exactly.

You also could try to eat some like chicken, 45 minutes before you run, it's like, it's

pretty hard.

But you can take a serving or a couple servings before you go run and you're not only helping

preserve, this is actually really important, you're not only helping preserve that lean muscle

during that period, but you're also actually helping replace the older proteins that are

in your muscle.

You're literally going to enhance your muscle tissue by doing that.

See, that to me again is a major improved hack.

I would call it hack or like,

so I need to challenge you by challenging hack, I was just trying to go to that word, I hate

that word.

But to me, I would say strategy, strategy tool, like, obvious thing to do, like foundation

old, like this makes too much sense.

Well, because like I'm so concerned with being older, like over 40, loving to run, it's

not as easy when I was 20, right?

Like I didn't have to care, even 30, now I'm like, oh shit, like I am not, I'm not building

muscle as fast, right?

So, or as I'm very concerned with like breaking down what I do have to preserve, right?

So I'm looking for any easy tool or strategy to maintain everything I have as long as I

have it, right?

So my question to you then is, how does Aminos, how are they different than creatine?

Because everyone talks about creatine, oh my god, creatine, creatine, protein, creatine,

it's all you hear, right?

Like maybe my algorithm is different than yours, but every second real, every second post

is happy to know the creatine, and now I'm taking this, and I'm adding protein, I know

that.

Like, what is the difference between creatine and aminos if I take aminos, do I need creatine?

Like can you talk about that stuff?

So a couple quick sound bites, creatine's awesome, I think it's worth taking, if I could

convert you to take it too, I would, I would say that the essential amino acids are more

important.

Okay.

And here's why.

And it actually ties into something that you said, but I'm also going to get to what

creatine is and how it works and why it's cool.

Okay.

So you were saying, like, hey, strength training is also important.

I 100% agree, like actually doing strength training is something that you cannot get from

nutrition alone.

Like we're having all this whole conversation about, should I take the weight protein or

the amino acid as the food, it's like, it really does matter and choosing those essential

amino acids as a supplement is going to outperform everything else.

But they ultimately will not replace training your muscles, like actually putting your muscles

under duress and picking up everything and moving them, like you're just, there's a lot

of other really important things that happen in doing that.

Okay.

But what is incredible about essential amino acids is that they work even when you're not,

they help exercise.

Like I said, you take them before you run, you take them before you exercise and they

are going to have an amazingly synergistic effect with the, with the exercise.

The blood flow from the exercise pushes them into the muscles and you get way more benefit

from the exercise than if you had not taken them.

You take them on their own and they have amazing benefit.

That is not really true about creatine.

And an amazing study that exemplifies this is quite old.

It's actually from, there were a series of studies that NASA sponsored, but the really

big one is in 2005.

And basically they were trying to figure out how to help astronauts not lose muscle mass

in space because there isn't resistance training, right?

It's very difficult.

There's no weight.

There's no gravity, right?

Right.

And so you know, they sponsored a lot of different studies, but one was essential amino acids.

So they actually, this is with young adults where they put them at bed rest for 28 days.

So imagine, imagine agreeing to that study.

I'm going to like be a bed and go to the bathroom and spend like, be it all day long, 28

days.

They got to eat normal meals, three meals a day.

But on top of that, they had to take essential amino acids, 10 grams twice a day.

And then they were trying to see like what would happen.

After 28 days of bed rest, there was no net muscle loss.

The lack of movement, these people did nothing.

They're in bed for 28 days, no training of the muscles, nothing.

And yet they lost no muscle mass.

They did lose some muscle function.

Like when they went back to train, they couldn't lift quite as much weight, but they literally

lost no muscle mass.

And so why and how is that?

That is the kind of quintessential explanation of how when you consume a high dose of these

essential amino acids and they hit the blood, they literally help rebuild and maintain

your existing muscle mass.

So it's a very unique thing that happens.

Now, you cannot get that from creatine.

Why?

Well, what is creatine?

Creatine in its simplest terms is an energy source.

It's not as simple as this, but it's like, it's closer like the way I was talking about

carbohydrates and fat, but it's like this super, it's like nitro, like if you ever played

video games as a kid, it's like a nitro boost.

Yeah, it's like, I played Donkey Kong in that, man.

But if you think about like a night, like it's like this boost, and what it is basically

is that when you eat creatine, which comes from red meat, some fish, or you supplement

it, it gets stored in your muscle tissue, as this thing called phosphocreatine.

And then what happens is when you're doing different types of exercise, you know, you're

familiar with aerobic and anaerobic exercise, that's different times you get from running.

And basically it's about how your body converts sugars and carbohydrates to create this

thing called ATP.

Well, when you're lifting weights or you're doing something really intense, you're doing

muscle ups, or you're doing bench press, or you're squatting, your body is not thinking

about aerobic and anaerobic energy systems.

There's this energy system called the phosphocreatine energy system.

And basically what it does is it takes the phosphocreatine that is stored in your muscle,

and it converts, it uses it to very quickly convert ATP more quickly.

So when you have more phosphocreatine in your muscle, you're able to oftentimes do two

more pull ups, two more reps of that whatever way you are before.

You're basically able to lift more and do more intense exercise.

So creatine's real benefit is for strength training.

It is going to make it to where you can do strength training better because you have

more energy stored in your muscle to lift more weights and to do more, you know, intense

exercise.

That is its primary most steady benefit.

Now there's a whole set of like cognitive benefits we can get into.

I was going to say what about the cognitive benefits in the brain health and people are

now are like upping it from five milligrams to 10 milligrams because of the brain.

Yeah.

And that's also good and there is some good signs for that, although I would just caution

and say a lot of it is overstated and over marketed.

Really?

And there are really good things and I am what person who takes 10 grams a day for very

specific reasons.

But so just one last thing.

So comparison between the aminos and the creatine, the aminos are going to protect and

build your muscle even if you don't exercise and makes tons of sense to just take generally

for that reason.

And they are ultimately going to, they're going to correct and overcome the anabolic resistance

that comes from aging.

When you get older and you can't utilize this protein that you used to use as well.

And you need more essential amino acids, you particularly need a higher dose of lucine

with them.

Which again, I think when we get to like formulas, I'll explain why this matters, creatine

will never do that.

More chicken will never do that.

The only thing that will do that is a lucine enriched essential amino acid.

It's the only thing that is going to help your body gin to maintain and build that muscle.

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What about branch chain?

I mean, like the BCAAs that we all hear.

So branch chain amino acids are basically a stepping stone in the research around amino

acids.

Got it.

That at one point in time, we thought if you consume them, it's basically just the three.

It's three very important essential amino acids.

You need all nine.

It's only three of them.

And in the process of research at one point in time, 20 years ago, we thought 25 years

ago at least now.

We thought the research community that maybe you could just take them.

In the same way I'm saying, you know, these essential amino acids are way better than

way protein.

At one point in time, we thought maybe those branch chain, those BCAAs were.

And what's been uncovered is they're not.

They're insufficient.

If you take them on their own, there's zero anabolic impact and there's even potentially

catabolic impact.

But a lot of people built businesses around them.

A hundred percent.

So there's a ton of money in it and so people still understand it and so people are still

making products and selling it.

That's really good info because that's like, you know, when people were like our gym rats

or people who are really into like health and fitness, they're like, they're take their

BCAAs.

They take their Elkhornateen.

They take all these things that like maybe most people don't maybe know about.

Yeah.

So you're saying those BCAAs are just three amino's.

Like what we're talking about are nine amino's.

Which is.

It's inclusive of those three.

Of course.

Like if you're trying to run a football team and you only had a quarter back.

No, you had like the, you like, oh, we're going to, with this whole team, all we need

is the quarter back, the running back in the wide receiver.

And it's like, well, like, where's your offensive line that's like protecting all these

guys?

Right.

We're going to get crushed.

And so that's what happened is you get crushed.

Okay.

That's interesting.

I like to thank you for telling me that because I didn't know that and actually people

were asking me when I was talking about me starting to take amino's now in my water

and like how I met you and I really liked all the stuff.

They're like, I take BCAAs.

I'm like, okay, let me find out about it.

You know what I mean?

Okay.

So my next big question to you is for every decade.

I know that I think this is, you're saying every decade, the amount of protein we need

are different.

What happens?

Can you kind of talk and tell us about what we need in our 30s, 40s, 50s and so forth?

Yes.

Okay.

So when you eat protein and you're younger, your body is more optimized to get the essential

amino acids out of it.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know.

I know.

And no offense to the people who are 20 listening.

And it actually goes back to this, it's a quick connection to this BCAA conversation.

The quarterback is this, is this one amino acid called loosing and I would say it's like

the quarterback and then we used to think, can you bring it up a lot?

Yeah.

What if you just take loosing, right?

Yeah.

And it's like, it doesn't work.

You can't run a whole football team with just your quarterback like it doesn't work.

But as we get older, what happens is two things.

Then how are abilities to digest the protein degrades?

So when you're 50, you don't digest the protein as well as you did when you were 20.

But more importantly, even when you digest that protein, like you eat the chicken and it

gets broken down and the amino acids go into your blood, your body doesn't read the signal

as strong.

It's like it, it, it, it knows that there's the essential amino acids there.

It sees that there's some loosing, but it's just kind of like timid.

It's like it doesn't really.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And exactly why that is, there's not a very clear explanation.

It's more, it's more like a, it's a behavior in the body that we have observed and that's

very clear.

Okay.

And so what we realized then is like, well, then your body needs a higher dose of protein

at once or a higher dose of essential amino acids and ultimately a higher dose of this

loosing all at once in order to get a better response.

And what we found over many studies is that if you just increase that loosing, you'll,

you'll actually overcome all of the resistance.

So I'm going to give you an example and I'm going to go back and tell you the 20, 30,

40, 50 thing.

So as I said earlier, when you take essential amino acids, it's about three times the impact

is way protein, right?

Right.

Gram for gram.

Yeah.

When you're 60, if you add more loosing to that formula of those essential amino acids,

it's six times the impact as the way protein.

Wow.

And so like, why is that?

Did like the amino acids get more powerful?

You know, what happened?

No.

Our body's ability to utilize the amino acids in the way protein goes down and we get worse

and worse at utilizing it.

We're just simply not as sensitive to it, but that extra signal, like basically spiking

it with more of that loosing, our bodies like, oh, I see it.

It basically can read the signal and it can understand it.

So as you get older, this importance around eating, either eating more protein or the importance

of getting higher amounts of loosing in an essential amino acid supplement, or as part

of your protein powder, whatever it is, it is going to overcome that.

And so really the guide is this.

It's like, it's less like exactly how much protein you need to eat, which I can give

you a guide for.

But what I would say is essential, a loosing enriched essential amino acid, just like basically,

the key on amino is this 40% loosing.

That's the threshold you need to hit.

When you are in your 20s, it's going to be about three times as impactful as way protein.

By the time you're 40, it's about four times, by the time you're 50, it's about five times.

And we've seen very clearly in studies that in your 60s, three grams of loosing enriched

essential amino acids has the same impact as 20 grams of way protein over six times the

impact.

Wow.

But this tiny, like one scoop, you know, is equal to 30 grams of way protein.

And we already saw before too, it's worth even more than like steak, you know, it's going

to be the equivalent to 60 or more grams of like, of like a steak protein.

The wire people not talking about aminos, and they're always talking about creatine.

Everything.

It's like in middle age I'm talking.

I think that there's just always different, I mean, this is like, maybe I'm being too

cynical here.

But it's like, it's marketing trends.

I think it's why is creatine suddenly being talked about?

Like creatine is a true, creatine's been around forever, but this is an interesting

also situation, because you could say the same thing about creatine five years ago.

And when the ISSN International Society of Sports and Nutrition did their report on creatine,

I think they had like 120 studies cited when they did it on essential amino acids, they

had 137.

Really?

So we're talking like, we're talking a scope of something that's been studied a lot,

you know, not like on par with something like creatine.

But five years ago, no one was selling creatine to middle-aged women, like no one even

talked about it.

It was just as beneficial to them.

It made just as much sense.

Simply they're marketing and business trends that come and go and develop, and sometimes

they're great.

Like I would say, creatine is a great supplement that makes a lot of sense for middle-aged people

to start taking.

And particularly women who were never marketed it before.

If they work out.

So if a woman is listening to this and that.

Well, but you should work out.

I know.

I have to listen.

You're preaching to the converted.

Okay.

I understand that.

Trust me.

Yeah.

But if someone is not working out.

Right?

Is it worth taking creatine?

Like if they're just doing hikes and walks, they're not lifting heavy weight.

They're doing hikes and walks and an occasional Pilates class.

Do they need to take creatine?

First of all, you don't need to take anything.

Right.

Life.

There's all kinds of ways of doing life.

What I would say is you're going to get a lot less benefit from it.

The primary benefits that I think you're going to get in terms of body composition and

being stronger over the course of your life is going to be from taking creatine and doing

strength training.

Right.

Those two together where you get the bulk of the benefits and where there's been the

most amount of research.

Right.

Quick caveat.

There is research for cognitive benefits.

What I would say though is taking creatine is not just going to make you smarter.

Basically, in the same way that your muscle stores these phosphocreatines, stores to like

create energy quickly, your brain does the same thing.

If you give yourself enough creatine, and that's why you have to take these much larger

doses because your muscle absorbs most of it.

There's enough extra leftover to put into your brain than under-dress.

So you're really sleep deprived, for example, or you're under some kind of like crazy stress.

It's really that we don't have a study for stress.

We have a study specifically for sleep deprivation.

Then your ability to focus and for memory, there are some slight improvements.

There are improvements to focus and memory.

That's why I take it and I experience it.

It's kind of like my insurance for whether I slept good or not that night.

Originally, I was just taking 10 grams, like on days when I didn't sleep well, and I built

it into a habit where it's like, I take it every day because it's like a slight cognitive

edge, particularly under stress.

When you look at older adults, it's much higher doses.

We're looking at 25 grams a day, so five scoops.

That's a lot more than a typical person takes.

It has this impact in older adults in the elderly to improve things like memory and focus.

It doesn't improve overall executive functioning, and there are not studies that it prevents

or corrects dementia.

That is not something that is real.

The studies that have been around there, like even in a dementia-based population, they

just showed that they were increased creatine stores in the brain, which we would think

and know already.

If you take a bunch of creatine, you're going to store more in the brain.

I just share that because I think these studies, these claims get stretched and pushed, and

I'm my company makes creatine.

I love creatine.

I take it every day.

You've got to be real with people about what it actually does and doesn't do, and not

like mislead people.

Well, listen.

Recently, my mother, like last year, got diagnosed with Alzheimer's, which has been really horrible.

I'm really sorry, Jim.

Thank you.

I was all about this creatine, like, oh, she takes 40 grams, but 50 grams with it really

help.

Honestly, I've spoken to so many different doctors who are the best in the world in brain

health and Alzheimer's, and they're like, that's a myth that creatine is actually helpful

for things like that.

When you're younger, it can help you with brain fog and cognitive, you know, all the cognitive

things.

But once you hit, like, if you have that gene, or if you're already on that path, creatine

is not going to...

It's not coming to save you.

It's not saving you.

And the only slight modification I'd make to that, it's like, I try to enter everything

with, like, humility.

And I would just say, like, it hasn't been proven yet.

Yeah.

Like, people act like that is a thing, and there is no data that shows that.

And so giving people that hope, it's just people wanting to, like, have a smart take

on something and make a bolder claim.

I know.

I know, because you've got these...

And here's an interesting context.

And this is going to be for a whole other conversation, but if there is something that

does help prevent that.

Okay.

The number one thing I would look at is omega-3s.

Yes.

We talked about this.

Well, there's going to be a whole other podcast.

But with omega-3s, they do have long-term epidemiological data that shows that greater intake

of omega-3s and thus greater amounts of your red blood cells being made of them is directly

correlated to...

I can't remember if it's a 15 or 20% reduction in, like, the risk of dementia.

So that's...

That's pretty significant.

If your mum has been diagnosed and you want to avoid it, like, I would start taking a

higher dose of a high quality omega-3 every day.

Like, that is a real thing.

Creatine has not been shown to do that.

Well, exactly.

I was going to say, I got my blood work back and I did talk about that and then that's

what really was the outcome.

Like, omega-3 may help move the needle, but creatine, that's just very much like...

It's kind of like a wives tale, like, a myth at this point.

There's no real data that...

I don't even know how it happened to wear it.

Well, there are...

There's at least one study where they measured...

Probably the benefits.

Yeah.

Definitely.

There are definitely studies giving it to older people to improve things like focus in

short-term memory.

And memory, yeah.

But not dementia memory.

We're talking about totally different type of memory.

That was my point.

But then there's another study where they gave it to people with dementia and they measured

if they had, like, increased phosphocreatine in the brain, which they did.

And they'd be like measuring, like, hey, if I give you this creatine, is there more in

your brain?

Yeah.

And they show that, like, yes, there is.

And it was in a population that had dementia.

And so then people stretch that to say, like, oh, it's got all these other benefits that

this other study showed.

It's just people...

Honestly, it's people who, I think, don't know how to read studies and or are more focused

on doing marketing and trying to get attention and having a hot take than, like, actually...

If it behooves them in a way to talk about it.

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, riddle me this.

If it was one, okay?

And this is not...

And this is...

You sell both creatine and aminos.

So people...

He's not biased here.

If you can only take one, if you're a 50-year-old...

Aminos.

I love it.

If you're a 40-year-old...

Aminos.

Okay.

If you're a 60-year-old...

Aminos.

So aminos...

Aminos over creatine every single time.

Absolutely.

Like, for my parents today, for my mid-40s wife...

For me, for like, if you just look at the research around it and around the benefits you're

going to get from it, like, that's the one that I would choose.

That said, the first thing I do every single morning is I take aminos and creatine together.

So it's...

You're not choosing.

I'm not choosing.

But if you are someone who doesn't want to take...

I'm not choosing.

No, no, no, no.

I'm trying to get someone to start a new habit.

Because this is the big thing.

We actually started this towards the beginning of this conversation.

You're saying someone starts taking a supple in and they just keep taking that.

Exactly my point.

Which, honestly, adherence is the biggest part of health.

We can debate all day what the best exercise is or what the best blah, blah is.

But it's like, what do you want to do every day?

And what I would say is, like, if I'm just trying to help someone just do one more thing

every day.

Like, there's one nutritional change I would make.

One supplement to take.

I would absolutely always tell them take the aminos in all these cases we gave.

And I would say, do the creatine.

Then, once they started taking the aminos every day and they started getting those benefits

and they're like, hey, is there anything else I should take immediately?

Maybe like, creatine or omega, like those are the ones where I'm like, hey, these are

things that aminos is your number one.

That's my number one.

Okay.

By the way, if you take aminos when you're fasting, does it satiate you or can you?

Yes.

So, like, is there like some type of study or any type of like data on if you are a person

who fast and you also take aminos?

Does it satiate you?

Does it help you keep your lean muscle?

I'm not a fasting person, but I know a lot of people do these fasts.

Yeah.

And here's the, I think, like, really interesting data on this when you go through any extended

period of time.

And again, if you're 20 years old, this doesn't matter.

If you're over 40, this matters a lot more.

So, like, listen up.

Like, fasting is different for us as we get older.

When you go a few hours without consuming protein and you stress the body even greater

through something like exercise, right?

You are provoking the body to want to break down muscle tissue to supply the rest of

the body with amino acids.

You are provoking the body to do that.

And so if you don't want to do that and you want to maintain your lean muscle, then

it is crucial that you think about timing and you try to consume amino acids, either via

piece of salmon, protein shake or essential amino acids every few hours throughout the

day, regardless of whether you're like doing some kind of extended fast or not.

And if you're doing extended fastening, then you definitely, like, you're having even

more stress-induced physiological state.

Did it break your fast, though?

No, it doesn't break your fast.

Right.

Because at the blood sugar and all the things, right?

Yeah.

It's not spiking your blood sugar.

All this thing about breaking your fast, it's like, how do you even define it?

But like, there's no digestive, there's like zero digestive stress.

It's not having some kind of spike on your blood sugar.

And more importantly, and this is getting into like a bit more of like the cell impacts.

But there have been studies that have shown that taking essential amino, again, leucine

and rich, essential amino acids stimulates more mitochondrial biogenesis than fasting

alone.

So if you actually take it, you're encouraging your body to develop new mitochondria.

Now, this is not like a human out, there's not like a human study, these are like

in vitro type studies, but all of these types of cell-based studies are, you know, cell-based

studies.

How about for, and just overall, because it helps you feel satiated, and if you eat it,

if you, sorry, if you drink it or take the supplements, would you, would it help satiate

you to a place where you're not as hungry to eat junk food?

Because of that.

I eat a lot of protein, right?

Yeah.

Because I don't want to eat, like, it satiates me.

It's the only thing that satiates me and keeps my blood sugar stable, right?

Would I have that same benefit or same?

Yes.

Yeah.

And the simple answer is that basically the essential amino acids are hitting those same

types of accused that help satiate, like that need to try to basically get your protein

requirements met.

Yeah.

On top of that, and this goes a little bit more into like how mood gets regulated, etc.

Yes, yes.

So when you take an amino acid supplement, and this would matter again around formula,

but when it has these higher amounts of phenylalanine in it, we're getting a little nerdy here,

relative to like very low trip to fan, it actually improves and increases the amount of dopamine

levels in your brain that also have this more like alert, focused, attentive level to

it.

So when you think about like not being hungry, part of it is like, you know, blood sugar,

part of it's feeling kind of cranky.

So part of it's having your actual like neurotransmitter balance being slightly off and feeling kind of

sleepy.

Like there's a lot of things that are going on and there's like hunger hormones that

are getting triggered.

Yeah.

And so amino acids are playing on multiple levels all at once.

It's not like just one thing's happening.

I just find it so interesting how it's completely so under the radar.

Yeah.

I mean, it's one of those things where again, I think you could say the exact same thing

for creatine five years ago to Jen Popp.

Five years ago, any 20 year old Jim bro knows what creatine is, but like my wife did,

I mean, like she may be heard like her high school boyfriend took it, but she didn't know

what it was.

And now every single one of her friends, you know, and now they're all interested.

Now she's like, you've been making creatine all these years.

I was like, yeah, I've been making creatine all these years.

That's hilarious.

It's not funny, but I know a lot of women who are also don't want to take creatine because

they're such a stigma against like people think it's a Jim bro, you know, meathead type

of supplement because they remember when they were in high school that their boyfriend

or it were taking it and they were getting really buff and yeah, and there's like fear

of like bloating, bloating, water retention, and there's probably even fear of like, maybe

building too much muscle like there's all kinds of ideas or like bulking up, yeah,

bulking up.

Which I would just say that's another interesting point about creatine research is that what

has been shown is that creatine absolutely increases like strength gains in women, but

almost little to no hypertrophy, meaning the muscle mass doesn't actually get bigger.

Really?

Isn't that interesting?

That is.

Yeah, it's like, which is kind of normal in general between men and women.

Now all people are different and you have dudes who can't put on muscle, you have women

who can put on muscle really easily, but typically men build more mass more quickly.

So it's not, it's pretty in an alignment with like general biology of men and women.

Would you say that amino acids would have the same, like can it bloat you like creatine

or there's no side effects?

No, there's no side effects.

There's no, I mean, and again, I would caution people about like the ideas of bloating

on creatine and potentially should maybe take less, but there is an aspect of creatine

is drawing more water with it into the muscle and thus you're having more intracellular

water in the muscle and your muscle is actually filling up more with water.

Your muscles are getting a little bit bigger, a little bit puffier.

Right, right.

Whereas like with aminos, there is none of that.

There is no, you're not drawing any more water into the muscle.

You're literally just replacing the older muscle fibers with newer, better ones and if you're

doing it with exercising especially too, like you're pushing the amino acids into the muscle.

I know you said earlier about taking your aminos first thing before you work out, right?

Does it really matter if you take them at night or if you take them in the afternoon?

It's for those tough things where it's like from like a brand perspective or if I was

trying to like sell the product, it's like when any time, just take them every day.

Just take them every day.

Just take them every day.

Make it a habit.

It doesn't matter exactly.

You know what it's like for me in my little customized life, it's like I like taking

it first thing the morning because I'm not really hungry first thing in the morning,

but I want the benefits of that, of what protein gives me first thing in the morning.

It sets up my day well.

So I'm getting this hyper concentrated form of that immediately and then I can wait

a couple hours until I eat, but it's just things that it sustains that, like that satiate,

like that satiate.

Oh yeah, it feels great.

Yeah.

And it gives me, and so I'm not intentionally trying to, I'm not like trying to be a fasting

person, but I guess I naturally do, right?

Like I don't eat first thing in the morning, but we all fast to some, to some degree you

don't eat all the time, right?

Yeah.

You go to, we're joking yesterday, right?

I know, I don't know about that.

I like to eat all the time.

I like to eat too.

Yeah, so I mean it does.

I appreciate me and, like for me, that's a really good habit.

So I always know I'm going to take it first thing in the morning.

And then after that, it becomes, you know, I talked to another time with you where it's

like sometimes I know I want to eat, I need to eat, I only have so much time.

I'm going to try to eat some, I'm going to try some fiber, vegetables and fruits, and

I want to get some protein in.

But I don't want to eat five eggs.

Yeah.

So it's like I eat a couple eggs and I take some aminos with it.

And so it can also be taken with food to basically enhance the total amino acid intake

of that food.

That's what I do actually in the morning now, I've been eating my eggs because it's part

of my habit.

I habit stack it, right?

So I have my eggs and my fruit.

And then like maybe like 40 minutes later, I have my little mixture of my aminos and

then I work out.

That's great.

Yeah, that's what I do.

That's great.

And again, what's most important is if you do it every day.

Exactly.

That's how you're going to get that.

With anything in life.

Anything you have to be consistent.

If you do anything once in a while, does nothing.

People always, you know, people ask all the time, well, what's the most, most effective

exercise?

The one that you actually do.

That's the bottom line, right?

I can tell you to do this, the other thing, but if you hate it and you don't do it, it

doesn't matter.

So you have to be consistent with everything that you want any kind of results with.

Is there anything else about aminos that I'm forgetting to ask you that is really relevant

and important that people can really benefit from?

I think just like in this kind of conversation, we've like circled around it and talked

about a lot, but I would just say if this is actually something that someone wants to

look into, like, you know, what's like the right product to get, right?

We come on here, we talk about this educationally, right?

But like, what's the version I should get?

I would just offer a guide to like how to find the right amino acids supplement.

Go ahead.

And the first thing I would start with is, does this necessarily have to be true for every

single product out there, but for amino acids, proprietary blends are bad.

What that means is if you look at the back of a amino acid label, and it says five grams

essential amino acids, and then it just lists the amino acids, but doesn't tell you how

much of each one do not buy that product.

Really?

And the reason for that is because the proportions of amino acids really matter, and we'll

get into that in a second, right?

Like, I'll tell you what the right proportions are, but they really matter.

Like, all these things we've been talking about today, these are based off of a very open

public debate and set of different research groups doing studies, particularly the other

person study, trying another study, like, it's pretty clear what the formulas should

be.

And there's no good reason to hide it, and the proportions of them really matter, and

I get into that in a second about why.

But the other point I would say is, when it's hidden like that, it's just for business

reasons.

I'll just tell you that.

I have some proprietary blend, and I can tell you whatever my blah, blah, blah marketing

story is about it, but it also enables me to have much looser quality specs.

I don't have to meet label claim on exactly how much amino acid is in there.

I can change the amount of each amino acid with each batch if I want to, because I don't

like, I'm not held to any specific thing.

All I have to do is make sure there's five grams in there.

I can use with, I can use cheaper sources.

I can use different amounts of like the potency.

It is, it's a, it's a hack if you're trying to like have much more flexibility around

your quality standards.

So when you see proprietary blend on amino acids, I wouldn't, you would run, run.

You definitely want it to tell you the exact amount of each one.

So that's number one.

Number two is you need all nine to be listed.

Yeah.

Right?

And just three or some just do eight and they say like, that's his to mean is conditional,

histidines conditional.

And it's like, it's, it's not like it's, again, there's lots of, if there's anyone that's

the least important for, particularly for muscle protein synthesis, it's tryptophan.

And you're going to see it should be the lowest and at the bottom.

And that's, it's because it's the least important.

But definitely not like leaving out histidine or any amino acid.

Well, I think it's really important that you said that.

And I'll tell you why I've talked about this many times on the show is that because it's

the wild, wild west in the supplement space, you have to be extremely discerning of where

you get your supplements from.

So the fact that I know you, I know how you source, I know your manufacturing, I know,

I know you as a human being, you're only doing the highest level of everything, the quality,

the way you do everything.

Super important, not just with your aminos, but with the creatine and with all, Omega's,

like we had a whole conversation last night over the Omega's.

I think to me, knowing where you're getting your stuff in general is extremely important.

So like, Keon, I know is at that high standard, but people should be like, do their research.

And that was a great point that you said about looking in the back for the aminos because

people just take things at face value and they think, well, this, this company selling

aminos.

What this one's exactly the same as that one.

Not true.

It's not true.

And sometimes even like maybe someone you respect or I respect and like that has a platform

that's on board and promotes it, and it's like, you got to, you got to look at the label

yourself.

Like you got to do some of your own research on it and look at the label out there.

And that's some saying like, I did my own research and that's the thing like people can trust

me, but not, they can trust me to an extent.

They should also like look on their own, right?

Yeah.

That's a very important part of it.

Also, I didn't ask you, I've been remiss to ask you, and I was curious, it's probably

a whole other podcast too, Collagen because Collagen is also one of these very spoken

about supplements.

Everyone's taking Collagen.

There's a lot of miscommute, like misrepresentation of how, how good or bad Collagen is, like

some say it's a garbage as a supplement, some say it's not garbage, what's your take?

So I'm going to answer the Collagen question, but I want to, I want to finish it by doing

a segue from the formula thing one last point because I mentioned losing so many times.

Oh my god, did you ever?

But here's the last thing.

When you look at the label and I'll just, I'll give you a shortcut on this.

You don't, no one needs to buy, you don't have to buy a keyon or whatever, but it really

is the fault.

But is the formula that's keyon and basically it's based off of, and by the way, you guys

should buy keyon.

I'm not just saying that.

The reason why he's on here is not because he is the leader in this area.

I'm not putting on some like mediocre person.

He's doing it right, and that to me is why you're here, so anyway, continue on.

So it's like the proportions of the amino acids, they're based on human skeletal muscle within

very specific increases to certain amino acids.

You get losing to 40%, you increase the iso-leucine in the valine, and you increase to match

their original proportions, and finally I'm getting nerdy here in the last day.

You're losing people at this point.

I know, but I'm just telling you, if you do, or trust me, whatever, I'm trying to give

you the research and increase the lysine because the lysine is slower to get into the muscle

tissue.

And that's how we end up with that formula.

And then you don't need any other stuff in it.

If it's flavored, it should be flavored with clean stuff.

You don't need other fancy mumbo jumbo, whatever they're new.

Whatever the thing is.

Whatever they're trying to sell that week, you need the nine essential amino acids.

That's what it is.

In those proportions.

Okay.

So now collagen.

So with collagen, it's an interesting idea, and I think the hypothesis is like made sense

to pursue, which is, hey, like our skin has a lot of collagen in it, and it's made up

of collagen, the certain type of protein, and so is like joint tissue, et cetera.

What if we ate a bunch of another animal's collagen, like we literally grabbed the collagen

animal, would that then help our body develop more?

Do you sell collagen?

I don't sell collagen.

Okay.

There you go.

That's all I need to know.

That's all I need to know.

Thank you.

So it's an interesting idea, and it hasn't been proven out very well.

Thank you.

It hasn't been proven out very well.

It hasn't been proven out very well.

Well, there are studies by the collagen industry, specifically, that show improvements.

But what I would say is that if, yeah, like, it's just very light.

Just tell us right.

Oh, right.

I want to clip this one, because I think it's important.

What are the main benefits of taking amino?

Go.

Lean muscle, overall improved metabolism, better skin, hair, nails, and mood.

So six.

I mean, that's what comes to my recovery, recovery, energy during exercise, incredible

recovery from exercise, energy.

I'm going to tell you one more.

Yeah.

Body composition.

Yeah.

It's a big one, like lean muscle and metabolism is basically, it's going to help you to maintain

lean muscle and burn more calories, and so that's less fat, more muscle.

People like that.

People like less fat, more muscle, don't they?

I mean, typically, to most of us are trying to get.

I think so.

All right.

Angelo, thank you for being on the show.

I think we would, like, this is probably like a very long podcast.

Yeah.

It's about an hour and a half.

Oh, my gosh.

I know.

Well, thanks for almost more.

Sorry for joining on.

No, it's okay.

I'm not even drawing that much.

I stopped you at the last row.

I know.

But okay, guys.

So, Keon, I know you're not really much on Instagram, which I don't, which I love about

you.

You're not interested in that.

I don't care.

This is what I like about this guy.

He's not interested in promoting himself.

He is here because he really truly believes in what he does and his company and what he,

like, and the production and the benefits.

And I really admire that because everyone here is always like promoting themselves, like,

blah, blah, blah.

You don't give it rats ass.

You don't want people to know about the benefits of Aminos, you built a whole company

around it.

And so, anyway, I'm happy to sat down with you.

I've learned a lot.

I hope you guys at home or wherever you are have learned why Aminos are so invaluable

to you for your life.

And if they want to know more about Keon or Aminos or whatever else you have going on

in the Keon world, where can they find you?

This place called the internet.

Oh, the whole way internet.

No, okay.