Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
A podcast about practices to promote healthy lives featuring experts, businesses, and clients: we gather to share our stories about success, failure, exploration, and so much more. Our subscription episodes feature some personal and vulnerable, real-life stories that are sensitive to some of the general public.
Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
Rethinking Health and Fitness: A Conversation with PJ Glassey
What if the path to better health isn't about working harder, but working smarter? In this fascinating conversation, certified trainer and biohacker PJ Glassy reveals how his X Gym methodology helps busy people achieve functional fitness without injury or excessive time commitment.
PJ shares his journey from psychology student to fitness innovator, explaining how he developed exercise techniques specifically designed for adults aged 40-70 who want to improve their health span—not just their lifespan. Unlike traditional gyms focused on aesthetics, his approach emphasizes overall wellbeing, incorporating physical training alongside nutrition guidance and even AI-powered health coaching.
The discussion dives deep into what biohacking really means. Far from being dependent on expensive gadgets, true biohacking starts with a scientific mindset—questioning everything, including your own biases, and conducting personal experiments to determine what works for your unique biology. Both host Joe Grumbine and PJ agree that health optimization requires moving beyond knee-jerk acceptance of conventional wisdom or trending diets.
Perhaps most compelling is their examination of comfort zones and growth. PJ observes how modern lifestyles can trap people in controlled environments with minimal human connection and physical activity. This comfort-seeking behavior ultimately leads to poorer health outcomes and reduced happiness. By contrast, embracing discomfort creates resilience and stimulates both physical and mental growth—something our adventure-filled childhoods once naturally provided.
On nutrition, the guidance is refreshingly simple: "Just eat real food." Both extremes of the dietary spectrum require significant research to implement healthfully, while most people benefit from a balanced approach focused on whole, unprocessed foods. The conversation concludes with insights on intermittent fasting and the importance of personalization in any health journey.
Whether you're looking to optimize your exercise routine, understand biohacking fundamentals, or simply live healthier longer, this episode delivers practical wisdom for anyone seeking to take control of their wellbeing. Discover more about PJ's methodologies at xgym.com.
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Well, hello and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, joe Grumbine, and today we have a very special guest with us. His name is PJ Glassy, and PJ has got a wealth of experience and, just to touch on it, he's a certified trainer. He's developed his own exercise methodology, he's a biohacker, an author of a book called the Cracking your Calorie Code, and we have a lot in common as far as our approach to health, and we're about the same age and we've got a lot of things to discuss. Pj, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, Joe. It's great to be here. I'm doing awesome. How are you doing today?
Speaker 1:I am doing fantastic as well. I'm on the other side of a very difficult spot in my life, and the practices I've learned and the biohacking I've been doing have created a miracle that doctors can't understand, but I don't care.
Speaker 2:That's great. Yeah, I was reading up on it, and good job on all that. What most people do when they get a diagnosis like that is they go into paralysis like a freeze. We go into fight, flight or freeze right. Most people freeze.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then they just kind of do what they're told and they don't do any research of their own and they just kind of follow along blindly. Because they're numb, they're scared, they're numb. It's totally understandable and it's actually a natural reaction.
Speaker 1:Scary as hell yeah.
Speaker 2:But some people like you don't go down that road and it pays off.
Speaker 1:It's better to live. Yeah, don't go down that road. And it pays off. Yeah, I love my life and I plan on being around for a good long while, and you know so, here we are, so tell me about your story.
Speaker 2:Well, I started out as a psych major at SPU and that was all fine and dandy, but my real passion was fitness. So my senior year I switched to exercise science. I always liked science and the exercise science major is made up of a lot of classes, as opposed to PE, you know, because in the PE department. But it's not teaching me how to be a teacher, it's teaching me, you know, the biology and the chemistry and the anatomy, physiology, kinesiology, all those things in the chemistry, in the anatomy, physiology, kinesiology, all those things, and which is fun but also kind of matched up more with my passion for fitness. And then I became a personal trainer after college and then opened up the X Gym and along the way developed a methodology that helped people save time but also was safer so people weren't getting injured like they are with traditional training.
Speaker 1:That sounds interesting. I'd like to hear more about that. I know that yeah you know the latest thing is always the latest thing and you know we've got hit training and crossfit training and all these things that are really intensive, and you know people that are running marathons and they all get hurt yeah, and let me just say that all forms of of exercise are great and I view everybody is on.
Speaker 2:we're all on the same team. We're just helping people get off the couch and helping our country and the world get more healthier. Really, I I mean, it's all about health and that's really what the X Gym, the main focus and goal of the X Gym, is to help people get healthy. We're not concerned with helping people get jacked, getting that six pack looking good, just because most people think a lot about that and it's skin deep in the fitness world, but we're more about overall real health. So physical, mental, spiritual, endurance, functional fitness so people can enjoy their life and a longer lifespan, but also a longer health span so while they're living longer, they're able to enjoy it better. So you know we're doing a lot of biohacking and anti-aging and all that kind of stuff, as opposed to the other gyms that are mostly concerned with how you look in the mirror and it's all around them, don't they?
Speaker 2:All around. We don't have a single one in the next gym, nice yeah. So it's been a journey of coming up with a methodology that can help people, because we created a niche. That's a time hack workout that is safer and helps people tone and define and develop functional fitness without bulking up. So if you go to traditional training and go to a bodybuilding gym, they're all about getting jacked and stuff and that's great. I went through that phase of my life too and it was very helpful and it helped me get motivated and kept me in fitness. So if that works for people, if CrossFit motivates people to get off the couch and go out and get exercise, awesome they're all great and they're all different markets.
Speaker 2:Our market is very specific and very unique in that we service really super busy people. They don't have time to work out that are those who don't want to be injured or have been injured and so they're afraid of getting injured again and don't want to get jacked. They want to look toned and defined, look and feel fit and be fit functionally, and so that happens to be 40 to 70 years old is the biggest part of our bell curve. Yeah, yeah, because those are the busy people and the people that want all that other stuff I mentioned. But also, you know, we have, we have 80 year olds, we have uh gosh, we have two 90s people in their 90s now. Yeah, then we have some teens, so it. But the biggest part is that 40 to 70, because those are the busy people and those are also the people that are really thinking about their health.
Speaker 2:In your 20s and 30s you're not really concerned about it so much because you're so resilient.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's easier, but then, when you get into your fourth decade, then you're thinking about it more Hit the first wall. When you get into your fourth decade, then you're thinking about it more Hit the first wall Right, and so then, anti-aging and biohacking are more interesting, and so we can help people with that too. So it's not just a place to come and get workouts, because we do a lot of online training and we have an app where people can use for our workouts and methodology, but we're also about health, and that's where our newsletter comes in. Everybody gets enrolled into an automated course on health and nutrition and stuff like that, so it's not just workouts. Plus, I have an AI in my website that members get to access and they can go in there and just kind of like chat GPT, ask it questions about health and nutrition and meditation and prayer and whatever you want, and it's probably going to come up with an answer because it's powered by my book and almost 500 blog posts. So it's just my information.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's different from what that. Yeah, so it's different from what that's just scrolling the web. Exactly, it's a lot different than that. It's not the web at all. So that's another benefit of this whole holistic attitude with the XGEM on health.
Speaker 1:So tell us about biohacking. You know that's a term that came up. You know I considered myself a biohacker as of about eight years ago and after my dad died and I realized I was going to become him if I kept going down that road, which was overweight, diabetic, heart disease and eventually dead by 70, and I'm like yeah oh crap, I can't let that happen.
Speaker 1:And I began my journey um of biohacking. But you know, it's a phrase that you hear a lot. Anti-aging kind of speaks for itself. Right, we want to reverse the aging process, but biohacking why don't you explain what you mean by that?
Speaker 2:Well, technically, the definition is somebody that uses information, research and technology to become healthier, and that is kind of a broad definition, and there are different levels of biohackers. I am kind of a gadget freak, so that's why I've got, well, just here at my desk, you know, I've got my, you know, my blue light blocker glasses that I usually wear when on the tv or on the looking at a screen. Uh, here's my hydrogen water bottle. Um, I've got my, my co2 machine that I can put on here and and breathe a co2 mixture for co2 tolerance and it's just, you know, endless as far as that goes.
Speaker 1:But my gadget tricks, I've got my gadget tricks too. Yeah, I've got an ozone generator and infrared sauna, steam sauna. We've got working with frequency Rife machine. Oh, rife, yeah. All kinds of gadgets and tools Love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, gadgets and tools Love it. Yeah, and anybody can be a biohacker, even if they don't get gadgets. Basically, the bottom line is you're a biohacker if you're constantly doing your own research and your own experiments.
Speaker 1:There are dumb biohackers out there, and there are smart biohackers out there, I think it's important for people to realize that one of the themes of this podcast is that your health is your health, and finding your way to it is not necessarily just listening to somebody's book and doing what they say it's. You've got to find your answers and everybody's got different metabolism. Everybody's as unique as your thumbprint and there's things that work for everybody, but not everything works for everybody the same.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and it's important to be a skeptic.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And I know that, yeah, that's your thing too. So, question everything, believe no one, don't even believe yourself.
Speaker 1:Put it to the test everything.
Speaker 2:Believe no one, Don't even believe yourself. Put it to the test, yeah, Because when you, when you have that attitude, you're going to be doing your research in an unbiased way Well, as unbiased as possible it's. It is impossible to be unbiased. And so when we're doing research, we're unconsciously doing research with a bias already, and we're we're out there looking to confirm our bias.
Speaker 1:Yes, which is the worst thing we could do.
Speaker 2:Yes, but if we're aware of that, then we can actively work against that and go with all sides of any topic.
Speaker 1:Make an effort to try to prove yourself wrong, and then you can find some truth prove yourself wrong and then bingo, you can find some truth.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And what I like to do is I I look at myself and I think, okay, what bias do I have? And then I'm probably. So there's a scale here. There's going to be the person who has the opposite bias and there's the person over here who has more of a bias than me. So I'm going to go and I'm going to, I'm going to research this person first, the opposite bias first. I'm going to learn all about why I could be wrong. Then I'm going to learn, I'm going to go to the other extreme and figure out who's more extreme than me on this bias and what are they saying? Because the truth is somewhere in there. It might be here, but it's not going to be here and it's not going to be here.
Speaker 1:Correct. I love it. I love it. That's a good approach. I've been studying Kuhn's book, the Structure of Scientific Revolution, and you learn about how a paradigm is changed and you think about what we know today as opposed to what we knew 50 years ago and what we knew 50 years before that, and there were completely different worlds that had completely different players and completely different understandings of things. And you think to yourself, where are we going to be in 50 years from now? And it'll probably be different from that that. And then you understand, like, why changes happen and how they happen and how they get accepted and how long it takes before anybody even begins to accept it. You're like, wow, okay, I got a lot of work to do all right, yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:And when new things come out, you know they're. I think it's mark twain that said you that people react negatively at first and then they're ridiculed and then you know it goes through its iterations and the people that hang in there and stick with it and and can take the ridicule Right Know that they want and the best things in life that people have developed are by people who want to help people. They're not necessarily people who want to make a lot of money. It's the people that and those are the people that stick with it through all the persecution and trials.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You know, it's like anything. If you have a passion for something and you're willing to stay the course, eventually you can make a living at it, but you're going to do it with everything you got. You're willing to stay the course, eventually you can make a living at it, but you're going to do it with everything you got. You're going to put your heart into it and you'll probably make a difference.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, and you know, my dad always taught me to to pick something that I love, that doesn't feel like work. And I did, and that's why I switched from psychology to exercise science. I use both a lot in what I do psychology and exercise science but I'm happier and I probably could have made more money as a psychologist. But I'm happier now and that's really what it's all about, because that is such a huge part of overall health. When you're stressed out all the time and you're trapped in fight or flight all day, every day, then life is completely different and it's not fun. And then, sure, you make a ton of money and you retire at 65, but then what?
Speaker 1:Then what Right your life is?
Speaker 2:mostly gone Exactly, even if you live to 100, you've wasted most of it and you were unhappy most of the time. It's just not worth it.
Speaker 1:No, and that's actually you know. You ever come close to death. You really come to realize that you know all these other things. You throw them away, it doesn't matter, and you think about things like your happiness, relationships, the things that bring you joy, and you start focusing on that and all of a sudden, things start changing.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yeah, that's the key, and it's when you ask people on their deathbed what they want regret they never say things like I really wish I would have got that nicer car or that bigger house. It's never anything like that. It's always about relationships, about others, about missed opportunities with connection with people.
Speaker 1:I wish I would have seen that. Totally Made that leap and asked that girl or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no one ever says I wish I would have made more money Nope, never. Agreed others that yeah, no one ever says I wish I would have made more money nope, never agreed so you know you're coming into this, the, these pillars.
Speaker 1:I, I totally agree with these pillars. You know the, the happiness, the passion. Um, sometimes it's a, you know, it's a necessity somebody finds out that they've got some condition, or they find out they're pre-diabetic or they've got you know something that they've got to solve and, uh, you know that gives you the same motivation. You know you want to decide, you want to live and live a healthy life, and it gets you up and moving and so so you know you're talking about these biohacking and and gadgets and and tools.
Speaker 1:I guess I would say you know, gadgets is kind of a cheap word. I like tools, um yeah, but when you're getting into this, you know, there, you, there's motion, there's there's stress, there's the things that make exercise, exercise and and, and you know what causes fitness and strength is resistance and the. You know movement. So how do you approach that?
Speaker 2:Well, anytime that you're doing something hard, you're improving yourself, and exercise is no exception. We all know that a hard workout is way better than an easy workout. An easy workout is better than sitting on the couch. So I still tell people that it's better to get up and walk around your house or outside of your house than sitting there. Anything's better than that. Right, and that's what most people are doing all day, which is really sad, but it's really.
Speaker 2:It's all about your comfort zone, because change never happens within your comfort zone, and if you want to change and most people should want to change because that's how we improve as people then you have to get outside your comfort zone. Now we help people with that with our exercise program, because it's guided in a certain way, with a certain methodology, to help them get further outside their comfort zone than other methodologies and other exercise techniques. But we also help people with that on a brain level, and that's why I developed my brain type test, so people can take it and determine which of the 16 brain types they are, and then they get half a dozen brain training techniques that literally rewire their brain, so it's easier to achieve their health and fitness goals and mental goals instead of just wandering around and trying different things and seeing what works or doesn't work, because I've got to boil down to those brain types and I figured out what does work for those brain types, including helping people get outside their comfort zone. But that's really the whole thing is not to hate getting outside it, but even, over time, become addicted to that, because the process is what you want to become addicted to with any habit change or any lifestyle change exercise, nutrition, mindfulness, whatever it is is building those great, healthy habits and pushing yourself, because that's great for the brain too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, people that don't push themselves mentally will decline. But if you, if you make stuff hard and you do stuff that's hard and still enjoyable, then you can improve mentally and you would be the first to say, over your journey, you chose the hard road.
Speaker 1:Always. Yeah, and it's interesting that you say that, because I've come to. You know you spend a lot of time reflecting on yourself when you, you know my one of my goals is to be the best person I can be in all aspects, so that's a constant job. I'll never be there, but it's, it's. You're always when you, when you have those goals, you get presented with increasingly difficult challenges, and I always realized that when a difficult opportunity approaches me, I go oh wow, I'm going to grow again.
Speaker 1:This is and and, but you go, it's going to be uncomfortable, so let me walk into it, and and it's. It becomes, like you said, almost an addiction. It's like you know, like you're always on an adventure. You're going down this river, you don't know what's going to be around next. All of a sudden, something jumps out at you and you got to deal with it. And instead of it being oh no, what am I going to do, it's like, oh OK, let me pull out my toolbox and see what I got to do. And it does not make it easy, does not make it fun, but you know that on the other side of it is going to be a reward and you're going to gain something from it and become a person.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and you just hit the magic word there and that's adventure. Some people are fearful of adventure because there's an unknown there and we're wired to fear the unknown. We like to have everything known and we like to know what's coming next and we like to know what color it's going to be and what it's going to look like, and we don't want to have uncertainty. That's really the certainty is a basic human need, but so is uncertainty. So you can't get too comfortable with certainty.
Speaker 2:You know, I think about, I hear I live here in the Seattle area and this is the tech area. So there's there's Amazon and there's Microsoft and there's there's all these companies that have these coders, and so coders can fall into this trap really easily because they are typically an introvert and they were typically raised to be able to, and their parents let them stay inside and play video games and be a front of a screen, and so they kind of that was kind of their thing. And then they learn how to code, and then they like to be by themselves a lot thing, and then they learn how to code and then they like to be by themselves a lot, and so typically a coder's day is wake up late-ish and then go to work or work from home and code, and then order pizza and the food comes to them and then they're in their thermostat-controlled environment all day and sitting most of the day. And then they get off work and then they're in their thermostat controlled environment all day and sitting most of the day, and then they get off work and then they they turn on their video games and so they're in this. They're alone in this environment.
Speaker 2:That isn't natural. That's all controlled. They're comfortable all day long, and so when they think that that's their norm and they're in always in their comfort zone. So then when they think of an adventure that's scary right Is that? This is what they know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's too bad. But those people need to stretch and need to get outside and form more relationships, because even the most introverted introvert has to have connection with other humans, even though they don't think they do and even though that might scare them. They've got to push themselves, get outside that comfort zone and find relationships and the best relationships they can have are the ones they have to work on, because anything, even relationships, if it's easy and you get along really well with that person, that's fine and you can still be on a nice deep connected level. But it's the working on the relationship that is so good for the brain. And the sad thing about these coders is with the sedentary lifestyle and no connect or low connection to most humans and very few relationships and being inside all day, they die early and they get dementia really early and cancer and all these other things because of this unhealthy lifestyle and lack of connection and they're not happy.
Speaker 1:And they don't really know why. Most importantly, they're not happy.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, and that could just yes just loneliness and depression can cause disease, even if everything else is right, because it's a cellular level, and I'm sure you've studied a lot about water and structured water and Dr Emoto's experiments and all that photo, the flash freeze picture of their water molecules.
Speaker 2:It would be awful. But then you you get the flash photo of of uh, you know somebody who is joy, has joy every day because they love their life and they're connecting with other humans and doing hard things and learning new things all the time. That's going to be a completely different picture of their water molecule. 100, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:You know, I feel so blessed that I was born when I was born, because you know I grew up. You got thrown outside and go play with your friends. And you know, we were basically feral, you know, and there was no computers, there was no cell phones, we had bicycles and dirt and dirt, and and and baseballs, and and yeah everything was an adventure. We went exploring and we went. You know all those huckleberry finn stuff, you know right and it was all about relationships.
Speaker 1:There was no like ghosting people or whatever you know. You picked up the phone and you called somebody, and and you yeah met up and you hung out all day and if you had a fight, you just got into it and fought and then yeah, for it and went and got some ice cream.
Speaker 2:You know right yeah, we didn't hold things in, we didn't, we didn't try to be careful, we didn't wear bike helmets, we broke bikes and got you know we had issues.
Speaker 1:You know we were always getting beat up and hurt, but it was always an adventure. Always, every day was an adventure.
Speaker 2:It was an adventure and it taught us that adventure is fun instead of being scared by it.
Speaker 2:Agreed, yeah, so that's great. I remember going to see my grandma. We went over there a lot and she lived on a river and there was a gravel road to get to her place and there was the shiny red two speed and I made ramps and I did jumps and I wiped out and then I'd come down to her, you know, with scrapes and everything, and she'd clean them out and she'd put bandages on them and went right back out, send me back out, yeah totally agreed.
Speaker 1:You know it's crazy. So you know you're dealing with all these people, um, and is there. You know america especially. We have obesity. We have, you know, sedentary lifestyle and all the the problems caused with that. We have processed food and all the problems caused by it. We have a difficulty even getting, you know, good quality food. It's an effort, it's expensive. Um, I I'm assuming you know diet based on you've got a book about it is is a big part of your biohacking. What's your you know what's your pillars of that.
Speaker 2:You know it's pretty simple Just eat real food. And then the kind of food is different between people and you know there's hundreds of different preferences of different people and I tell people, just don't go too extreme.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And if you do want to go extreme, then you need to do more research. So what I consider extreme? Because we've talked earlier about the two edges of it, right, so there's, there's the, the militant vegans over here, and then there's the militant carnivores over here, right, and I know both. Yeah, and neither is going to be a healthy lifestyle. You can make it healthy-ish if you do a ton of work and research, or you can just be not so extreme. Right, agreed, but the bottom line is whole foods and avoid processed foods as much as possible, and that would include, you know, most vegetable oils, because you know they're extruded and manufactured and all that kind of stuff and they don't come off a plant or an animal, and so you know, just don't eat it. And then even with animals it's different, because if people do eat meat, then it's even more important for that to be very clean, wild, free range, grass fed, all those things, organic cow that's roaming around, like he did since time began and a feedlot cow is completely different animal.
Speaker 2:The feedlot cows are literally poison yeah and the grass-fed cows are amazing. It's a.
Speaker 1:It's a real food one of the the the sayings that I've taken into my life is you are what you eat eats, and it's important to consider that. If you're eating a commercially farmed anything. Go and look at what they eat and what they're injected with and realize that that's what you're eating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even fish farms. Fish farms are like eating a you're eating. Yeah, you think again, even fish farms. I mean fish farms are like eating a bag of chips.
Speaker 1:Yes, horrible.
Speaker 2:A bag of chips fortified with fake protein. Agreed, I mean, it's so people don't realize this, but they've got to get back to. Our country is probably the most developed, yet we have the worst food.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So explain that it's so sad and stuff that we're doing with our food supply are illegal in most other parts of the world.
Speaker 1:It's cheap, easy and we're lazy. That's really comes down to it. It's work. You know I grow a lot of my food now and you know current situation. I have to live a vegan diet because of what I'm dealing with, but not by choice, and when I am cancer free I'll I'll go back to eating some, some, some meat, and you know the.
Speaker 1:Thing is is we do things in extremes and you know we always do too much of a thing, like you said, and most people eat way too much meat Not that you can't eat some meat and be fine, but they generally just do too much and then you get more harm than good.
Speaker 2:Right yeah, and because you're a biohacker and because you like to research and learn new things, you're able to do vegan in a healthy way, absolutely, and that's great.
Speaker 1:And for this time in your life, it's perfect for you and you should what it needs to do it's, it's working, it needs to, and and a big part of it, too, is having goals and and monitoring yourself. You know when, when I began this journey, I was 80 pounds heavier than I am and lost 50 pounds over the course of about a year and maintained it for seven years, and then, when I got cancer, I've had to go to this vegan route, this really extreme diet, and I've lost another 30, and now I'm building back up and I went below what I wanted to be, but it's what it took to beat this thing, and so now I'm in the process of rebuilding and it's a difficult path with this vegan diet, but we're doing it and you discipline yourself and you do the things you don't necessarily want to, and you do it.
Speaker 2:Right, and you know you'll, I'm sure you'll agree that cancer is there because we gave it a certain soil to grow in. Exactly when you change that soil, soil, it can't grow anymore. And there's there's lots of ways to do it. There's not one right way to do that.
Speaker 2:There's lots of ways, but every single right way and there's lots of them is real food always and staying away from all that process stuff always and just going back, basically going back 200 years, going back in time, 200 years when that stuff didn't exist and just eat like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah exactly no, it's like ingredients are food and that's it. You know it. If, if you gotta put a dish together, it needs to be made of food and yeah, and you start putting things that aren't food into your food, then you're no longer eating. I know we're getting a little light on time. What are your thoughts on fasting? I know that that's in a lot of people's world. That's a pillar.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that would be an experiment someone would need to do, because I think it's appropriate for most people, but it isn't for some. Now, it's also something to phase into, because if somebody is eating processed food and they're overweight and they're out of shape and they immediately start fasting, they're going to feel awful, they're going to immediately assume it's pretty horrible anyways, even when you're good at it.
Speaker 1:But coming right off of a fast food diet man, it's the worst.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and so it kind of depends on the person. Personally, I do intermittent fasting, so I'm doing the 8-16. And so I'll eat for eight hours in the day, and that's what's worked great for me. Now it's easier for me because I'm largely I. Some people say I'm keto. I would say more like I'm low carb, and the reason I differentiate is because I eat more protein than your classic keto person, but I'm about that low on carbs and so it's easy for me to do intermittent fasting because I just don't get hungry.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, protein makes you stay full for a while.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and so, and I don't have the sugar highs and lows and so I don't get that kind of hunger either. So it's easy for me to to do that. And other people do it different. You know they'll, they'll pick a day and they just won't eat the whole day, or they'll do once a month. It'll be, you know, three days off and do that. But I, I do think fasting is a good idea, but you have to work into it. And then there are some cases with some women, with some conditions and other other examples, but that's just one that I threw out there.
Speaker 1:Some people can't do it yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a horrible idea. So you just gotta you gotta work with your. Hopefully you know a good functional medicine doctor, a holistic doctor, um, that can guide you through this and and help you decide if it's right for you. But yeah, it's not for everybody, but it is for me and I found a way to do mine because of my specific experimentation and what I'm doing isn't right for everybody and, in fact, I don't recommend a low carb diet to most people because it's too hard to do.
Speaker 1:I tell people, do the Mediterranean yeah.
Speaker 2:I start people on the Mediterranean all the time because that's the easiest one and it's really healthy. It's a whole food diet, yeah, right. And then, over time, I help people find their perfect diet based on what works for them, because everyone's different. What works for them? Yes, because everyone's different.
Speaker 1:I couldn't agree more. Well, listen, we are just about out of time. I, as I suspected this conversation was going to be easy and and we got a lot more to talk about, so I'm hoping that we can get you back on, but I always like to give a guest, your elevator pitch and a chance to let everybody know how to get a hold of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everything's on xgymcom. You know all the social links and everything there, xgymcom, and you know that's how to get a hold of me and see all the stuff and get in touch if you want or get more information on different things you know, like the book and the brain type test and the app and online training and live training at our kirkland club and all that kind of stuff fantastic well pj.
Speaker 1:It's been an absolute pleasure. I look forward to a further conversation and to all the listeners. I thank you for your support, and this has been another episode of the healthy living podcast right on, thank you.
