Episode 37: Living Disease Free and Becoming Superhuman. Advice Your Doctor Won’t Give You with Matt Cooper of Bluprint Nutrition

Chris Albert 00:00:01 (link to this point)

We're on a mission here at Warrior Soul. And we've been putting out a lot of wellness content. And that's because we are on a mission to what we call it free the medically oppressed. And what do we mean by that? Well, if you look at the veteran population, of course, we all know about the plague of veteran suicide.

We all know about PTS, and we know about TBI and their effects on our population. But what not a lot of us understand is the effect of nutrition on these ailments. And the likelihood that you are going to fall into depression if you don't take care of the things you put into your body. If you don't put good fuel into your body, that's going to lead to inflammation. That's going to lead to disease.

And what I worry about with us is that in addition to these plagues that we know about, that we're going to start to see young men and women from our generation of veterans quickly falling into the traps of diabetes, heart disease and cancer. That bothers me because the current treatments out there in the medical establishment, as I said during my audio essay in the last episode was that they're not there to keep you well. They're not there to keep you healthy. They're there to fix you once you've been broken. So our goal is to make you self sufficient as possible, so that you don't have to get sick, so that you're not resigned to a certain fate.

And on top of that, to build your mind and to build your resilience, so that you can recover and you can go out there and you can do amazing things. Today's episode is a conversation between myself, Andrew, and a good friend of ours, Cooper. Matt is a nutritionist and a biohacker who works up in Silicon Valley. He's worked with numerous executives up there, professional athletes, and he has worked with a lot of people on solving their addiction problems through better nutrition. Matt also has an expertise in helping people with autoimmune diseases like Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and others.

And we're seeing a lot of autoimmune disease rising in our community. I myself am affected by ulcerative colitis. And we've got numerous people with Crohn's and gut issues throughout the veteran community. Matt is a good friend of mine. He's a great human being, and he's dedicated his life to this stuff.

He's also my co author on Warrior Soul Keto Camp, our complete course for helping people to adapt and maintain a state of ketosis to burn fat, build muscle, and improve their mental states. Hope you enjoy this episode. There should be a lot that you can get out of it, not only to burn fat or get more fit, but also to improve your life, alleviate depression, and set yourself up for amazing things. Let's get into it. This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode number 37 of the Warrior Soul Podcast. This is Chris Albert, and I'm here with my brother Andrew, and my other brother, Matt Cooper. You know Andrew and I well, but Matt is a bio hacker, nutritionist, and overall fitness guru? You like to be called the guru, Matt?

Matt Cooper 00:04:41 (link to this point)

I don't know about that, man, just because of the connotations it has.

Chris Albert 00:04:45 (link to this point)

He's sitting over in his loin cloth in the lotus position right now, stroking his copy of the Tao Te Ching and and getting ready to drop some some fitness truths on you. But in all seriousness

Matt Cooper 00:05:02 (link to this point)

Exactly what I'm doing.

Chris Albert 00:05:04 (link to this point)

Exactly. Right? Matt is a beautiful human being, one of the most knowledgeable people I know of in the health and fitness community. He coaches a lot of executives up there in Silicon Valley where there are some people actually sitting in loincloths in the lotus position. And and he's he's my partner.

Andrew Marr 00:05:30 (link to this point)

Told him to.

Matt Cooper 00:05:32 (link to this point)

Yep. Picture the CEO from Grandma's Boy.

Chris Albert 00:05:39 (link to this point)

And he's my co author on Warrior Soul Keto Camp, which is a course that we put out through Warrior Soul to help people leverage their health, fitness, mental energy, and lives through the power of ketosis. Matt's also done a lot of work in the addiction community helping people to overcome addictions through nutrition, and he's worked with a good number of professional athletes, and is a veteran of the supplement industry. He's worked with quite a few supplement companies to create products, to refine products, and to sell products. So Matt, how you doing up there brother?

Matt Cooper 00:06:20 (link to this point)

Good man. Real good. Thanks for having me on.

Chris Albert 00:06:23 (link to this point)

Yeah man, no problem. We had Matt on with the Kegenix episode that we did just to bring his level of expertise and I've been I've worked with Matt for a number of years. He started out as one of my clients back when he was younger Matt, but we've worked together on a number of different projects through education, through fitness, and things like that. We're gonna be having a great conversation today just about health, fitness, nutrition, and some of the effects that it can have on the rest of your life. And one of the issues that Andrew and I have been particularly interested in throughout the course of this podcast is inflammation and understanding the impact that inflammation can have not only on your joints as far as pain and things like that, but also on your brain.

And I know Andrew's dealt quite a bit with brain inflammation in the work he's been doing with the Warrior Angels Foundation, but also in understanding the impact of traumatic brain injury on veterans.

Andrew Marr 00:07:40 (link to this point)

Inflammation is everything, and I think all the literature that continues to come out article after article after article, Chris and Cooper, it's supporting that understanding that we've had for some time now, that when you lived in this chronically inflamed state, and that also makes it way past the blood brain barrier, and then you have neuroinflammation, then that's when the body is really starting to get into these systemic dis eases because that inflammation then leads to hormonal dysregulation and things just kind of get out of worse from there. And as we've talked about so many times, there's so many ways that your body can be in this chronic state of total body inflammation neuroinflammation, and blunt force trauma is just one of it. But the type of foods that we eat, the environments that we are in or exposed to, things like radiation or simple x rays, things like that can be enough, or coupled with an environment that is not conducive to an anti inflammatory state, a diet that's not conducive to wellness. All these things together work synergistically, but in the wrong direction. And we know that inflammation, like I was saying, it's the precursor to all neurological disease.

Again, that's being validated again and again and again. That is the first thing that causes this disruption in the brain, and things then go out and can spin out from all kinds of different directions there. So being able to identify that and then make a lifestyle plan to not to live in fear, but to maximize your potential because we know these things exist. So that's why I'm so excited to have Coop on and, again, talk about these things on our podcast so people, again, can take the information, choose to apply it, and then go out and live their best lives.

Chris Albert 00:09:58 (link to this point)

Yeah. I I wanna get into Coop's take on on how to battle this stuff through nutrition. One thing I wanna get from you, Andrew, is, you know, you were somebody who was at the epitome of, I guess you could say, the the archetypical, you know, physically fit, elite performer. You know, your your work in the Green Berets, your work in Special Forces Yeah. You know, having to operate. And, you know, you literally went from somebody who was at that elite performing state to somebody who was almost completely broken down. I wanna ask you, you know, what was that transition like? How did that feel? Did it did it come on all of a sudden one day, or was it a slow deterioration?

Andrew Marr 00:10:46 (link to this point)

Kind of in between, but like you said, you brought up a good point, because operators, that's a unique set of individuals, and like you said, so somebody that has to be, achieve some level of mastery in the physical domain, in the technical domain, and in the human domain, as in being able to not only lead men into tough, ambiguous situations, but oftentimes work with indigenous people towards an end state, and this indigenous people does not speak the same language as you. So to have your cognitive faculties or to be hitting on all cylinders is an absolute must, and you can't stay in that game too long unless you are hitting on all cylinders. If any one of those areas is a weak point, then you're gonna be it's gonna be brought up to your attention by your peers, and you're gonna be given the opportunity to kind of correct it. And if not, then you're gonna be put in a position where you can't put other people's lives in jeopardy. And so being being living on that tip of that spear and and walking the razor's edge for a a number of years, you get yeah, I mean, I was very comfortable in living that type of lifestyle.

And so going from that, and I've talked about it a lot, but coming home from my last deployment, I didn't notice any signs really till about three to four months after I got home. And it wasn't just like your whole life, you go to bed one day and then you wake up overnight, it's upside down. It was gradual. It was gradual, but it was quick. The fact that over a six month period, I went from all of a sudden just going from somebody that as a man in my early 30s, having complete loss and lack of libido was number one, and then losing all energy was number two.

And then from there, we had problems with cognition, behavior, depression, anxiety, rage, and all kinds of balance issues, and vision issues, and chronic pain. In the six months, from that not being an issue to being an issue, it was very difficult because none of that was ever a problem for me before. And I thought ignorantly on my behalf that anything that I was going through before, I just thought that was a weak minded or a weak minded individual's problem, and that couldn't touch me because I was above it. But, again, I was ignorant to the fact of why these things happen. And I think to a large degree, a lot of us are just because of the fast paced culture and society that we live in.

We never stopped to look at these things until things start to come off the track. So it was a compounding effect over time, the reason those things happened. And then, but the pace at which I went from, okay, I think something is going on here, till like, I think I might just want to kill myself because my family might be better around, better off if I'm not around. That was relatively quick, Six or seven months through that progression, it was completely upside down. I looked and was somebody completely different than I would have been or you would have known a year prior, you know, if you would have saw me in that state.

Matt Cooper 00:14:47 (link to this point)

Or present day. Right? Yeah.

Chris Albert 00:14:50 (link to this point)

Yeah. Matt, what so if you're coming across an individual like, you know, that that has a case similar to Andrew's and and, you know, I understandably, Andrew was, like he said, walking the razor's edge for so long, but in your work with the clients that you take on, what types of things do you look at with those types of symptoms? What types of factors do you look for in the person's lifestyle or what types of indicators do you look for as far as physiologically? What kind of clues would be there?

Matt Cooper 00:15:29 (link to this point)

Yeah. So, it it just depends on what self quantification a person has available, right? So, if we want to talk really like left brain science, you can look at some of the work of people like Doctor Dan Stickler and the Apeiron Center and they do a lot of psychophysiologic stress profiling and they'll take a look at brain mapping in conjunction with someone who has some degree of trauma or stress in their life.

And you can actually observe physiological differences between somebody who, you know, to use the contextual example here, someone like Andrew, maybe pre intra and post treatment and you can see huge differences. So if someone does have that, that's great. Usually when you're looking at inflammation like neuroinflammation, it's going to be in conjunction with systemic inflammation or you know total body chronic inflammation. So there are other biomarkers for that too. Things like highly sensitive C reactive protein and some other biomarkers too.

However, what I find interesting because a lot of times people are not going to have access to brain maps and things like that or if they are going to get that work done at my suggestion, I have to sort of start from the ground up. And I think a big problem with nutrition, training, functional medicine is that a lot of people just chase the symptoms. And even if those are the canary in the coal mine, I think it is important to have some, you know, objective self quantification available. That being said, what I've found in my own experience, whether I'm working with a, you know, an athlete or student athlete, someone who needs to restore their health and vitality is that there really isn't such a thing as having some sort of chronic health issue, something as simple as being out of shape all the way to having type two diabetes or some neurological disorder that doesn't also have some type of trauma, stress, undealt with like stress or blockage in their life too. So in doing that, I usually actually start with like just asking the person a lot about what they have going on outside of the realm of what they would typically report to someone when they're asking about health and fitness.

So you know you could ask about someone's relationship with their mother, with their family. Do they have things to look forward to? What is their sex life like? And so at that level you're really getting to know someone and so pretty often you can kind of get somebody to like be introspective and from there it's usually easier to get them to be willing and to have buy in to get some labs done and to get some of that self quantification. One thing I will also say too and I'll show up after that, but I'll have some people take a personality test actually.

One that was introduced to me by a good friend of mine, Ryan Freisinger, who also works in some of the same cases, but it was developed by Doctor Eric Braverman. And I'll actually take a look at people's personality typing and it actually relates that to neurotransmitter testing. So it's almost like when you read it back to someone you can kind of see what sort of balance they have if they're dopamine dominant personality, if they're an acetylcholine dominant personality, GABA dominant, serotonin dominant, you know, so on and so forth. And this actually captures a rather educated educated target of what someone is even more than traditional neurotransmitter testing because neurotransmitters can change moment to moment, day to day based on what sort of external stimuli you have.

I'll give you an example. If you are an achievement based person, let's say a business executive, and you're constantly in a state of achieving, achieving, achieving one project after another, and that's what your day looks like, your dopamine levels are going to fluctuate a ton. And that's because that's the primary neurotransmitter that drives achievement. In fact, there's actually certain genetic mutations that you can look at that show people who are going to be a little bit more dominant in certain types of neurotransmitters and their balance as well, Including one I believe it's called the DRD4 gene and that actually is a gene that's found rather prevalently if you look at the work of Doctor Patrick Davidson everywhere outside of Africa, right?

So back when we were all in the place, it's actually thought that this dopamine driven gene and these dopamine driven people are the ones who were the original explorers, conquerors, the curious types who wanted to go out and achieve. So we got a little off track there, that's usually things that I'll look at first. And then if someone is willing to do the labs done to get that background work there, then that provides, know, confirmation substantiation more n equals one thinkering as Keith Norris would call it to kind of further guide us. But yeah, those are the things I look at to give you a long answer.

Andrew Marr 00:20:27 (link to this point)

You know, Coop, what are some other things that you've seen and that would kind of hit on that contribute to this total body chronic inflammation other than just a blunt force trauma? Like specifically with the diet, like what types of things would lead to that or what type of stressors would lead to that as you've seen it with your clients?

Matt Cooper 00:20:48 (link to this point)

Yeah, so certain things like you know common ones would be like eating wheat gluten containing items, excess refined sugar, having come from the supplement background I see a ton of people doing a lot of things that I would call excitotoxins. Things Things like the food dyes that you're going to find in a lot of energy drinks, supplements and unfortunately children's cereals, although they're now taking those out finally. You know, in addition to that too, a lot of things that you wouldn't think, some things that are healthy for a lot of people depending on your genetic predispositions can actually cause imbalances and issues with your nervous system. I'll give you an example, spinach. That's something that is absolutely healthy for you, but in certain circumstances, depending on the state of a person's nervous system, doing that in excess can actually over excite your nerves.

Think of like almost like frying your nerves in a way. So sometimes these things are unconventional like that, sometimes they're more conventional like you know your wheat, fine sugar, things like that. I also agree with you guys too in taking a panoramic view because I don't believe that any sort of health condition is not, I should say this, I'll rephrase this clearly. I think all health issues are multifactorial in nature. And so I'll actually look at things that people aren't really taking a look at, like EMF sensitivities. Like I'll make sure that people have their phones off or set on airplane mode. As I find a lot of people are actually you know charging their phones right next to their bed.

And you know the research isn't fully out there yet to show like testing for this, but the mechanisms are there. We know that EMF causes some levels of genotoxicity and inflammation, including neuroinflammation in people. So oftentimes just, you know, having them blackout the room from, you know, the type of light they're getting in, basically detox from this technology, unplug items that are close to their bed, will experience a lot of profound differences in their inflammatory levels. Yeah, some conventional diet stuff, some conventional environment stuff.

Chris Albert 00:22:56 (link to this point)

You know what, I think that one of the interesting things when you look at Andrew's case and you look at a lot of the cases of TBI and PTS we see coming out of the the veteran population, this particular generation of the the veteran population, You you look at the lifestyles they lead up to the point where they may sustain an injury or experience have a traumatic experience where, you know, that could induce some form of PTS. These lifestyles, I mean living off of MREs, living off of chow hall food, undergoing a high stress environment, you know, getting a lack of sleep, And I think that, you know, in large part, it's part of the job. Know, if you're a Marine Corps infantryman, a US Army infantryman, living off of MREs. You're gonna be eating chow hall food. You're gonna be getting a lack of sleep.

I think that one of the interesting things that we need to be looking at that we're not looking at is how those lifestyles tend to contribute to the severity of the injury once it happens. So in a lot of ways, from the second these guys get out to the field for the first time, they're already setting themselves up to be more affected by injury when it happens. So, there's probably a good deal of chronic inflammation that happens even before an injury like that occurs. Andrew, to what extent do you think that not having anti inflammatory compounds in your diet or not controlling levels of inflammation leading up to your injuries. To what extent do you think that led to problems down the line?

Andrew Marr 00:24:58 (link to this point)

It's hard to say for my case specifically, because I treated myself like a lot of other guys, like a professional athlete in every regard of that game, tried to be ahead of the curve as far as recovery, prevention, mobility, diet. We weren't as knowledgeable about the anti inflammatory diet, but, you know, we were doing intermittent fasting, you know, like it was a thing in the on the teams in like 2010, 2011.

Chris Albert 00:25:34 (link to this point)

That's cool.

Andrew Marr 00:25:35 (link to this point)

Yeah, in doing that. There wasn't as much talk about gluten that I was aware of at the time, but the point I'm making is we were doing everything we could with the resources and the professionals that we had available to us, which was better than most, to mitigate all risks. And as an operator, or in the military, that's what you do. When you go on a mission, you're looking to mitigate any and all risks that you can mitigate, and the ones that you can't, you have to accept them as a risk. And is the risk, is it in line with the mission, is it not?

But knowing that, you then can look at your life prior to whatever you're doing, operating wise and saying, Okay, am I mitigating every risk that I know about in order to perform at my best? And I was able to do that, but I think the majority of the time, we'll look at any private, if anybody's listening and they're not familiar with the military lingo, that's the very lowest enlisted or the lowest entry level point into the military, usually it's somebody in their late teens, early 20s. They're probably not going to have access to this information, or they're probably not going to be educated on it. They're probably going to be eating their food and diet is going to be shitty. And on the weekends, they're gonna be getting hammered. They're probably smoking their food.

Chris Albert 00:27:19 (link to this point)

You're speaking about my life from 19 years old up till about 25.

Andrew Marr 00:27:25 (link to this point)

People who are smoking or using tobacco just because that's big in the culture of the military, just because usually they see somebody that's more senior doing it, and then you start doing that. And, you know, you pick up those habits. Unchecked unchecked emotions, not knowing how to deal and regulate our emotions, or like you said, living in a stressful environment. Or if you're constantly thinking about something that you can't affect, but that's dominating all of your thought processes, then all of these things are working towards putting yourself out of balance. Then you live a life of a soldier. Well, that's going to put you in environments that we know are less than conducive. That's a risk that you take.

That's something that you signed up to do. You realize that you're serving. So that's something that you have to be aware of. So if that's the case, then you have to say, how can I mitigate or lead a life that can put me in the best possible position to mitigate those risks? And when I come back or I'm out of that environment, how can I live a lifestyle so I can recover, be the man I need to be in my home life, in my regular life, and or woman, and then come back and do my job again?

And so it's a long answer there, Chris, a short question, but it's such a big deal. All the areas of life contribute to it. And we can't just say somebody had an injury, and like Coop was saying, that's it. I'm a wholehearted believer, and now being intimately coupled with tons of people going through different treatments through the foundation, a lifestyle, how lifestyle traits can inhibit or maximize your potential to recover and go back to living a better quality of life. So it has everything to do with it.

Chris Albert 00:29:43 (link to this point)

Yeah, dude. I I mean, I think back to those days when I was 19 years old, 20 years old, I was I was dipping a can and a half of Copenhagen a day, smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day, doing nothing really. I was lifting weights, but I would most of my my PT was long, slow distance, steady runs.

Andrew Marr 00:30:01 (link to this point)

And you were doing cool we know now. Neck, dude.

Chris Albert 00:30:04 (link to this point)

Yeah. Exactly. I mean, it it was it was it was beach workouts, Jim. Yeah. But, I mean, that's I went I went in in '19 what did I go?

What year? 1998, 1999. And, you know, back in the nineties, that's what it was. We didn't have CrossFit back then. And the runs we did, they were all long, steady pace, slow runs.

And we know now that a lot of those types of runs actually add to levels of inflammation.

Matt Cooper 00:30:35 (link to this point)

Yep.

Chris Albert 00:30:36 (link to this point)

We saw a lot of triathletes dropping dead back in the ninety's because even though they were following healthy diets, their training was actually contributing to their levels of inflammation. And I think that's a huge aspect that we have to get out there to the line units, the line companies in the Marine Corps and the Army is a different idea of training. I know that that knowledge is out there now more and more. But even some of the things we thought were healthy, smoking, drinking, boozing and womanizing aside, the rest of the stuff was actually contributing to this as well.

Andrew Marr 00:31:19 (link to this point)

Yeah. Or trying to get like two grams of protein per body weight. You know what I mean? With a substandard protein source. Like, you know, I I had no idea.

That was probably not a good idea.

Chris Albert 00:31:33 (link to this point)

I used to take this I had this supplement that I ordered. It was called the Russian bear five thousand or something like that. Oh, yeah. It had 5,000 calories in it. And I remember I was like, I was drinking it, and I was thinking, man, I'm gonna get so freaking swole from this.

And then I spent the of the day in the bathroom, man.

Matt Cooper 00:31:53 (link to this point)

5,000 calories and 500 trips to the bathroom is the nutrition facts on that label.

Chris Albert 00:32:00 (link to this point)

Yep. Exactly.

Matt Cooper 00:32:03 (link to this point)

Go ahead. Go ahead, I know I was just picking up a lot from what Andrew was saying and from what you were saying as well. I was taking some notes just to kind of loop back on a few things that stuck out to me. I think what's interesting too going back to Andrew's narrative and tying in health to the hero's journey and distress, things like that, things that don't often get looked at. You know, I find that athletes tend to really underreport their symptoms and I think that the military in a lot of ways is very similar to an athletic setting in a team sport. You know, you kind of have this collective hive mind.

There's a common goal even if that changes specific mission to specific mission and and there's a lot of collective buy in there and and whatnot. And so I think that mindset from an athlete to somebody in the military is very similar. One guy that would be cool to interview on here in the future would be Mike Franco or Graham Betchart from Lucid then they actually do mindfulness and mental training for athletes. I actually personally recommend that to some of my athletes and student athletes as like a really good gateway drug if you will into mindfulness. Things that like Phil Jackson used to do with Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.

What's interesting to me too is I think that another real hidden variable here for people who are specially deployed but is the very real disruptions in circadian biology. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you guys are getting woken up at all kinds of hours of the night, probably getting your REM sleep disrupted anywhere from basic training all the way to deployment. So I think not having your body in line with being awake when it's light out and getting deep quality sleep when it's dark out is going to have a huge negative consequence on inflammation in the brain and the body. Not to mention the fact that certain genes that regulate this known as clock genes actually have tie ins with levels of glucose disruption when they're not actually being the epigenetics if you will, how your environment is intersecting with these genes isn't parallel. Meaning that you're not actually like doing what you ought to be doing and so because of that your epigenome is expressing these genes in a negative fashion.

So that's I mean that is probably the biggest health consequence that people just don't talk about with the military.

Chris Albert 00:34:25 (link to this point)

Yeah the idea of blood sugar regulation and insulin sensitivity is something that I think is definitely underexplored there, both in the active military and in the veteran world. You know, just like we said in the active duty military, a lot of the MREs, most of the MRE, a lot of it is so much sugar, you know, that I used to snack on a lot of pound cake and things like that. You combine that with the lack of sleep, and like I said, the type of exercise we were doing back then, and you do, you have a big epigenetic bomb of a potential for blood sugar dysregulation and insulin resistance. And to put a cap on that, you know I suffered from Ulcerative Colitis, I was in the VA hospital for a few days back in December. And when they put me in the hospital they put me on what they called their special liquid diet.

And the diet consisted of each meal was two containers of Jell O, fruit juice, and what was the other thing they were giving me? Two containers of Jell O, fruit juice, and some tea or coffee. And I was doing the numbers on it, there was like 120 grams of sugar per meal in that process. And I'm in there, I'm suffering from Ulcerative Colitis which is obviously caused by total body chronic inflammation. And they're feeding me one hundred and twenty grams of sugar per meal.

Matt Cooper 00:36:12 (link to this point)

Wow.

Chris Albert 00:36:15 (link to this point)

I mean, it's crazy. It's I don't I don't get that disconnect that's there with the medical community, and I don't get the disconnect that's there as far as as what we're feeding our active duty troops. And I don't know, Andrew, if you had similar experiences in in in the hospitals or anything like that, but something there has got to change. I mean, it's ridiculous. Sugar is probably one of the greatest sources of these plagues we are seeing.

And we talked about how sugar plays a role in neurological dysfunction, but you know what we're finding now is that it also plays a huge role in heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer. And you know that we're looking more and more at cancer as a metabolic disease. And I think that if we're going to seriously help our veteran population, not only our veteran population, but our society as a whole with health, I mean there's so much that's got to change here.

Andrew Marr 00:37:18 (link to this point)

Yeah, well, it's the model, man, the Western medicine model. Anybody's heard us talk about it before, it's predicated on sickness as opposed to wellness. And that couldn't be more apparent than the story that you just told in the hospital, going in there for a condition, knowing why it originates, and they give you the very things that we know is going to make it worse. Know what I mean? It doesn't make any sense.

So that's a system that's based on what? It's based on keeping somebody sick, so they keep that person coming back in, or needing some kind of pharmacological intervention, or so they think, to just manage symptoms. But like Coop was saying earlier, and this goes with everything in your life, if there is a symptom or we're sick, it means somewhere there's something that's come out of balance in body, in our body's ecosystem. And we have to It's saying, Hey, stop, take a time out, and listen to the signals that we're trying to get across to you because this needs to be fixed. And if it's not fixed, this is only going to get worse.

And so that's going and looking and trying to find then what we call the underlying condition. Absolutely. Yeah, and that is the birthplace of responsibility. Because once you awaken and you figure out that that is the way the world works, then you can never blame anything on anybody else. And you realize that you're going to be the one that either puts yourself in that situation, fixes it, or keeps it going.

And at that point, you need to go out and start looking despite what the quote unquote professional in front of you is saying, it's very easy to diagnose here personally. Is this information they're giving me, whether it's a doctor or whoever, is this really getting to the underlying condition? And if it's not, it's time to stop, pause, reflect, and go do your own work and start looking to identify the underlying condition and then to alter, treat, adjust that to drive and produce new outcomes.

Matt Cooper 00:40:03 (link to this point)

Yeah, absolutely. I think all of us here can relate to that. I know that for you, for Chris and myself, we've all kind of been failed at some level by both mainstream health and fitness in Chris and I's case and then all three of us by the Western medical establishment. It's not to say that it's all evil or anything like that, but just as a system as a whole going through that and having to be your own doctor and do your own research definitely shifts your perspective and realize it makes you realize that a paradigm shift is needed.

Chris Albert 00:40:38 (link to this point)

Matt, on the health and fitness level, you know, I think we covered a lot as far as, you know, the medical establishment and some of the things that are going on there. What are some things you see people doing maybe in the gym or in personal nutrition that they think is contributing to their health but that is probably hurting them more than anything?

Matt Cooper 00:41:04 (link to this point)

Yeah, that's a great question. Eating five to eight or whatever number it is, small meals a day, eating every two to three hours, that one, even in the keto community doesn't get looked at enough. I know you you talk about it obviously and and how that is not correct, but a lot of people choose to look at methods over principles and I don't think they realize that doing something like that even if you're eating a healthier scope of or by that I mean ratio of macronutrients is still not healthy. From what we do know and understand of how we evolved, looking at our genetics, looking at our physiology, we know that it's healthier for us to spend less time actually eating. It's better to spend more time away from food and more time in a non fed state than it is in a fed state.

And that's really the biological under the hood mechanisms of why intermittent fasting works, is it gets you away from that. Or if you are going to still eat breakfast, because I know a lot of people, people with a lot of stress, hormone issues, women a lot of the times don't do well with fasting, splitting up your meals into like two to three meals a day is usually what I'm recommending for people. So again, you if you're overfeeding yourself with glucose or if you're just overfeeding yourself in general, you're going to open yourself up to a lot of health fitness issues and also a lot of the disease. This is kind of where the health and fitness industry and the medical side of things we were talking about intersects.

Chris Albert 00:42:38 (link to this point)

And how do you balance that with say performance? You know if somebody does want to be putting on muscle, if somebody does want to you know max out on their physical fitness test, how do they balance that need for fuel with the idea that they should be eating less and getting less, you know, causing their blood sugar to fluctuate so much?

Matt Cooper 00:43:01 (link to this point)

Yeah, that's a great question. So I actually will cycle calories with people On a day off or day of maybe just cardio or conditioning, particularly on a lighter level, those are the days where it's much safer and more effective for me to put people in a calorie deficit. Whereas on days where someone's doing more intense training, like you know, one of my MMA athletes or someone's doing like strength training, whether you're an athlete or just a gym goer like an urban athlete, I call them. On those days, you're going want to give yourself a bit of a calorie surplus. Those are the days where it's better to be a little bit overfed, but I still don't believe in doing more frequent feeding unless someone is at such a young age where their insulin sensitivity is still really intact.

Some people keep that their whole life regardless of age, but what I'll do is I'll make sure that the meals closest to when they're training are more robust. Those are when they're gonna get their highest source of calories. And you know there's also like what I call ergogenic aids. If you look at a lot of the Soviet bloc countries back in the day and what they had their Olympic athletes doing, they would still do acute supplements like whether it's amino acids, D aspartic acid, HMB, things like that closer to the workout to augment performance. And I also think too that when you look at these things instead of looking at them as mutually exclusive, help really drives performance.

And a lot of people, I know everybody in this conversation does, but a lot of people don't realize that. So while they may experience an initial dip in performances they're adjusting, ultimately these things are going to enhance the functioning of their mitochondria along with the rest of their physiology, you know, hormones, body fat levels, blood sugar levels, sleep quality, nervous system, and then they adapt and essentially evolve, right? And so their performance does become pretty supercharged.

Chris Albert 00:45:01 (link to this point)

Awesome. And you know, I know Andrew said they were experimenting a lot with intermittent fasting back when he was in the teams. Know, I think that things like fasting and things like ketosis there's so much potential benefit there for people who are in that particular line of work or for athletes. Like you and I always say Matt, when we give our webinars, ketosis isn't the only way, but it is a very good and efficient way to optimize your energy and to really get your blood sugar a lot healthier and burn fat and to build muscle. What would you say to a lot of the people out there who, you know, they've been they've had this thing driven into their mind that, you know, in order to build muscle to get big to get strong, you got to eat a plethora of calories.

What would you say to them as far as easing their fears on approaching these methodologies?

Matt Cooper 00:46:09 (link to this point)

Yeah, so especially older you get, the less there's going to be a need for that. I think a lot of people focus on overfeeding themselves to just simply bulk up rather than looking at their biological like again under the hood mechanisms that actually drive building muscle. Like how about making sure that your hormones are on point, you know what I mean? Making sure that your blood sugar is regulated, getting down to a lean enough state so that everything from you know your vitamin D receptors, your hormones, your physiology, your mitochondria is working right and then you'll find it's actually quite easy to build muscle while staying lean. You actually have been great about spreading this word, but I think the idea of bulking in large part is dead.

And that doesn't mean gaining muscle is dead, it just means that strategically overfeeding yourself for a period of time is not only going to let's just say you don't care about health, yeah it's going to feed into a lot of disease pathology but it's also just going to make you a worse athlete, devolve your fitness and make you or if you're just like in you know looking at aesthetics, making you look less attractive and less towards your goal. I think if you are going to basically reset yourself, you're gonna want to get down to a lean body fat percentage, and then from there you can start upping your calories a little bit, little by little. And again, even when I'm working with somebody who wants to build muscle, they're still having days where they're at a calorie deficit on days where they're just relaxing, just chilling out. And so I'm really big on, you know, giving people food when they need it, taking it away quote unquote when they don't, and just sort of having them eat for their exercise demands.

Chris Albert 00:47:51 (link to this point)

Yeah. Andrew, you used to used to operate at two hundred and seventy pounds. Right?

Andrew Marr 00:47:58 (link to this point)

I had before. Yeah.

Chris Albert 00:48:02 (link to this point)

How how was that? What did what did that feel like? You know, just being at that that heavier weight? Because I know, you know, the max weight I ever had in the marines, I think, was a hundred and seventy five. And and and I used to get winded myself, but but did you did you feel the impact of the weight?

Andrew Marr 00:48:19 (link to this point)

I was about two sixty five, man. But, I mean, I I was fit. We were doing long operations and and long movements, you know, to contact, and never had an issue with it. I mean, I was probably 13% body fat, 12 to 14% body fat range. So it wasn't like it was I wasn't the fastest guy, but it didn't cause us any problems. I would have caused a problem if I would have went down. And so looking back, you know, and somebody had to carry me off a mountain somewhere, that would have been a bad day if I just would have left. But I didn't have any problems operating. But looking back at it, I wouldn't do it again because I don't think that I was doing as good as I could have, even though I was getting the job done.

So I didn't have any issues there, but that's one of those things like, you know, we were on deployment and I was just probably falling in all the traps that are wrong ways of doing things that Cooper's just talking about. And like, let's just get big and see what happens. Well, we got big. But, you know, at the end of the day, I don't think something that, you know, was sustainable.

Chris Albert 00:49:47 (link to this point)

That's a I mean, about professional athlete status and and also probably intimidation factor. I mean, walking into a place and having a big two hundred and sixty five pound bearded Texan, you know, with you probably probably kept people under control a bit.

Andrew Marr 00:50:05 (link to this point)

Yeah.

Matt Cooper 00:50:06 (link to this point)

Yeah.

Andrew Marr 00:50:06 (link to this point)

It was it definitely yeah. It def as far as, you know, trying to look the part, that that definitely played to our advantage.

Chris Albert 00:50:15 (link to this point)

Definitely. You know, one of the things that I've I've been very interested in over the past few years is is the idea of the gut microbiome and gut bacteria and the role it plays in our bodies and and how it can almost it can affect almost everything else in your body. Know the way it affects inflammation in your gut. I mean your gut health affects your brain because they're connected via the vagal nerve given the fact that the immune system is housed in the intestinal tract, can cause a lot of food intolerances. A lot of ways food intolerances develop because of that permeability between the membranes in the gut and immune system.

Matt, what types of measures do you take in your practice to ensure proper gut health and to ensure that the gut microbiome is in order?

Matt Cooper 00:51:17 (link to this point)

Yeah, I think they're calling the gut the second brain for a good reason. It's linked to our nervous system via the vagus nerve. So you're not taking care of your gut you might experience differences in not feeling like yourself, not being able to think clearly, not having enough energy, having cravings, getting out of shape. I'll give my recommendations in a moment but one thing that's interesting to note is that about roughly 70% from what we know of serotonin, again another neurotransmitter, feel good hormone, is produced in the gut. So if you're throwing that off, you're also going to be throwing off your neurotransmitter levels which again, if you're not having those imbalances, you're not going to feel like yourself.

In a lot of ways, those are behavioral in nature. So they make us who we are. And if those are out of balance, know, you might be experiencing depression, burnout, lack of energy, libido issues, difficulties getting motivated to train, and so on and so forth. So you know, for basics, I make sure everybody's eating things that come from the right sources. For those of you who are listening, you have listened to Chris and I's webinars on nutritional ketosis.

We like to say when you're shopping, think you are what you eat has eaten. And by that I mean the circumstances that an animal was raised in, what it was fed, are going to ultimately be passed on to you when you eat that animal. So that's going to have a huge role in shaping what goes into your gut. And that also goes for plants too and making sure that they're not doused in pesticides. You know what I mean?

Making sure people are getting in daily fermented food and you know things like apple cider vinegar, kimchi, sauerkraut, depending on the person, getting in good quality probiotics as well is going to be huge. Those are just some basic.

Chris Albert 00:53:19 (link to this point)

Nice. And and you know, it's we've been talking a good bit about things that Andrew and I have experienced in the past and and and mistakes we made. For for those of us who who really have lived hard and and, you know, who've done the the 12 pack of beer a night maybe and and had had a period of our lives where where we might have been smoking or doing things that could potentially lead to health problems later on, you know, what's the first thing that you would do to try to fix yourself? What's the first step you would take as far as nutrition? What's the main thing that they should focus on?

Matt Cooper 00:54:02 (link to this point)

So if we're not, let's just say we're giving something general here and there's not a specific major target problem, I think one of the best things that people can do with nutrition is just take it to basics and focus on food groups. And I'm a big fan of if someone wants to scale this, if you could just take something away from this, check out what the people are doing at Whole30. And we can maybe link to that. But there's PDFs, free PDFs online. And a lot of times if someone's not necessarily, they can't either afford to make a change and work with someone one on one, but they're still in a position where they really need medical help and they can't afford it.

I mean, I'm sympathetic to that. That's why I do all my, you know, initial consults for free and get people information to walk away with no matter what. That's why I do all my seminars for free. I always like giving people something and so I think starting with Whole30 or a diet that's maybe 80% that is your north star. And following that

Chris Albert 00:55:00 (link to this point)

What is Whole30, Matt?

Matt Cooper 00:55:02 (link to this point)

Whole30 is a program created by the Hartwigs and it's essentially like an orthodox, more like an orthodox paleo diet. And I'm not saying that people have to eat super strict paleo, but if you're trying to, you know, for lack of a better word reset the system, I think it's a great north star to follow for a period of time, let's say thirty to ninety days. And then from there you might be able to branch out and have some of these other things that maybe are not orthodox paleo but we know we can still have in moderation. Things like you know white rice which is a no no on paleo. Know supplements, plant sweeteners, things like that.

Things that like Mark Sisson or the Primal Blueprint, if you look at his grocery list, there's a lot more lateral movement in that paleo framework. So I'm a bigger fan of someone adhering to that for more long term adherence. But yeah initially, if you're just trying to fix yourself I would say obviously make sure you're moving, sleeping right. But nutritionally, give Whole30 a shot, especially if you want to try something that's free.

Andrew Marr 00:56:06 (link to this point)

That's awesome. I think people really benefit from that information. Chris, having trained so many high level performers, and also just regular people who are looking to optimize their life, what would you say is the difference between somebody attaining their fitness goals and are not getting it? I know it's a broad question, but is there something that comes to mind that like was a definite marker for success or failure?

Chris Albert 00:56:39 (link to this point)

There's a combination of things there man. Just in my experience, think the biggest factor that is going to improve anybody's life in general, whether it be in nutrition or it be in life success, is humility. And understanding that you always have something to learn about yourself and about the world. And the reason I say that is because I've seen so many people, they know they know in their minds that they have the truth. They know in their minds that they know everything about their bodies.

And the biggest biggest stumbling block I see in clients is that a lot of times when you approach something maybe in an unorthodox fashion or when you bring something to them that they might not be used to, they start to question it, and they question it to a point that they are constantly jumping from thing to thing that they hear on the internet. And so when you're working with a client who is like that, it's really important to keep them focused. And then coming off of that, a really big factor is the ability to stay consistent. I see so many people, they stay on track for a few weeks, or they get to a particular goal, and then they completely drop it, and they go back to doing exactly what they were doing before. And I think in those cases, the biggest factor in success mentally is to understand why you're doing it.

You know, what's your reason overall for doing it? And it has to be stronger than I want abs or I want to look good at the beach or I want to squat 500lbs because otherwise once you get to those goals, you're going to be like alright, did it, now it's time for pizza. You have to really tie it to an overall life goal. I'm doing this because I want to be a better father, a better parent, a better husband, a better spouse. And if you do that and you understand the importance of fitness in your life, not only to help you to perform, but to help you to remain free, this is a huge thing too, people don't understand that if you continually deteriorate your body, and you get to a point where you have a major health ailment, you're literally putting yourself in prison.

You're literally putting yourself in a situation that you're going to be trapped in your own body. And I say this because I've been there with the ulcerative colitis and this was something that gave me huge perspective because you know, being in a situation where you have to run to the bathroom 30 to 50 times a day, you literally feel trapped in your own body. And I look at people who have health problems, who are up there in their 60s and 70s and their bodies are starting to break down, their hearts are starting to give them issues, they can't do what they used to be able to do. I don't ever want that in my life, and I don't think anybody does, but they have to understand that when they are feeding themselves trash, and when they're consistently beating themselves up, they're going to be putting themselves into that particular situation. And you know, you might think that you don't have time to train right now or that you know, you're improving your your diet isn't gonna work for your family situation.

But I'll tell you what's not gonna work for your family situation is when you can't play with your grandkids because you don't have the strength to lift them up or you don't have the strength to go outside with them or you don't have the strength to walk. That's that's gonna put a huge huge, problem on your family situation. If you experience a heart attack at the age of, of 40 or 50, that's, you know, you're not gonna be able to work to support your family anymore. And and, I think those are things people have to keep in mind.

Andrew Marr 01:00:56 (link to this point)

Great. Great advice.

Chris Albert 01:01:01 (link to this point)

Well, guys, I think this was a a fantastic conversation. We're gonna wrap up. But, Matt, any final words on any of the stuff we've discussed today?

Matt Cooper 01:01:16 (link to this point)

Yeah, you know we kind of left this like an open conversation and bounced around a bit. You know there's a number of different rabbit holes to go down. I would say if there's anything to walk away from this conversation with whether you're in the military or you know a veteran out of the military or just a regular day, every day you know civilian listening to this. I just like you to think in terms of constellations with your health. Know try sleeping better, eating better, moving a bit, you know making sure that you're taking enough downtime too.

Know all of these things are going have a collective effect. So don't just focus on one thing and miss the forest because you're staring at the trees. I would just say again, know, you are looking for any sort of direction, I like what you guys have put together with the Warrior Soul Fitness Foundations because it gets people to look in all of these directions, focusing on mobility, focusing on sleep, focusing on nutrition, and getting the fundamentals down before going anywhere else. I also think people need to play the long game too and realize that have intermediate goals to keep you going, but realize that health is not a destination. It's a journey that's always unfolding too.

Chris Albert 01:02:36 (link to this point)

Absolutely. And Andrew, I really want to mention this too. You know, you've got your book coming out about your experience with traumatic brain injury and and overcoming it. You know, and and I know there's gonna be so many lessons in there for for both for people in the military and I think also for for civilians who who may or not may or may not experience this in their lives or may be in contact with somebody who who've had who's had traumatic brain injury. You know, what piece of major advice could you give from your experience to everybody out there?

Andrew Marr 01:03:13 (link to this point)

Thanks for bringing up the book. And the best piece of advice that I guess that I could give is a new question that I've been starting and ending the day with, And it simply says this: If I died tonight, can I look myself in the mirror and say, I lived my values today? And then, knowing that I left it on the table, say, Okay, let's go. If the answer is yes, then continue to do it. And that doesn't mean that it gives us a pass on our responsibilities or to eat ice cream or anything else.

I'm saying in our everyday lives and what we think is mundane, am I doing this to the best of my ability? Am I empowering everybody that I come across? Am I putting things in my body that allows me to give love at every second Or is it going to take away from it? And starting to look at it that way, Chris, has been a big change for me. And then if I can look at it at the end of the day and I see some things that I came up short on, I say, Okay, well, I'm going to change that tomorrow.

You know what I mean? And that's the definition of, I think, man, a life of fulfillment. And it's saying, Hey, did I leave it out there? If I went today, could I go and know that I I did what I had to do? And I think if we can all strive for that, this world's gonna be a much better place.

I think that's where we're heading.

Chris Albert 01:04:51 (link to this point)

Absolutely. And I think there's there's so much that goes into that, you know, as far as taking care of yourself so that you can serve others. And, you know, we're all really looking forward to the launch of the book. It's called the Tales from the Blast Factory. And for those of you at home who are interested in learning more about the book and getting on the preorder list, I'll put a link in the show notes.

At www.talesfromtheblastfactory.com. And when you sign up for that list, you also get membership in the Warrior Soul Agoge, which is our free fitness mastermind. Both Matt and I are on there dishing out advice and

Andrew Marr 01:05:35 (link to this point)

Tons of and benefits. Tons so much, you know, you're gonna get out of just signing up. Not even not even committing to pay for anything. Yep. Just good stuff.

But if I could give the book in in one sentence, and it's for anybody, it's how to elevate your internal state to be better than your external circumstance. And that to me is what life is about, I think. Can we do that? And the answer always is yes.

Chris Albert 01:06:03 (link to this point)

Absolutely. Absolutely. And Matt and I are giving weekly webinars at the moment. And know, each week we take people through a webinar we call Becoming Superhuman with Ketosis. And that's not to say that we believe that ketosis is the only way, but it's to give you an idea of the power that your body has through its own fat source.

And the amount of endurance you can develop, the amount of strength you can develop, and its ability to regulate your blood sugar and to help you to burn fat and build muscle. And I will be putting a link in the show notes as well if you want to attend one of our free webinars. You can definitely do so. We do them each week. Matt, where can people find you online?

Matt Cooper 01:06:59 (link to this point)

Yeah, they can, you know, I'm kind of a lone wolf. I'm a low key brother man, but I love talking to people and in spite of that, I just got to balance it. So my website is evobiologix.com. That's evobiologix.com. You can also find me on Facebook.

You know, again, Matt Cooper, but I'm not sure how helpful that's gonna be because it's like one step away from John Smith. But have at it.

Chris Albert 01:07:29 (link to this point)

Yep. And and and one very special thing about Matt is he's a very fit individual. He is a very knowledgeable person in the realm of health and fitness. But unlike every other trainer in the industry, including myself, you will have to work to find a picture of him shirtless. But I have some special news for all of you.

If you do wanna see a picture of Matt without his shirt on Send me I do do have one. So just let us know and I will email it out or you can find it at warriorsoulketocamp.com.

Matt Cooper 01:08:06 (link to this point)

Is that gonna be in the show notes?

Chris Albert 01:08:08 (link to this point)

Yes. It will.

Matt Cooper 01:08:10 (link to this point)

I've never been I've never been hit up for nudes on a podcast, but I I guess I can oblige.

Chris Albert 01:08:15 (link to this point)

It's cool. Alright, guys. So, Matt, thank you so much for coming on today. And to everyone out there, you know, think about some of the stuff we said today. I know we ventured a little bit off into the weeds scientifically, but the things you put in your body, the way you live your life is going to affect everything you're going to be able to do in this life.

And if you want to live a happy, healthy, productive life where you have an impact on this world, an impact on others, and are able to elevate yourself and be resilient, We really need to think about this stuff. The medical community is simply there to fix us once we're broken and in order for us to advance ourselves, advance the veteran community, and advance the society here in The United States in general, I think we all have to take turns to be proactive and to take care of our health and to ensure that we are living in a state of being that's gonna elevate us before we get to the point where we're ever broken. So thank you all, and we will talk to you all very soon. We've got some very special podcasts coming up this week, and I'll be announcing our special guest within the next few days. So talk to you guys soon.