Coachinginterview

99% OVERLOOK THIS: TAILORING A HEALTH STRATEGY FOR YOU | CHRIS KRESSER

with Chris Kresser

42:50·27 November 2023

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CHRIS KRESSER

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TOPICS

Most of us are chasing the perfect diet, jumping between different approaches based on what worked for someone else. But there's no one-size-fits-all solution—what matters is defining your actual goal first (health, performance, or longevity), then choosing a sustainable approach you can stick with. Chris Kresser breaks down why nutrient density matters more than you think, why your doctor probably isn't equipped to help with nutrition, and how to assess what your body actually needs.

Key Takeaways

Define your primary objective first—health, performance, or longevity—because you can't optimize all three simultaneously. Most people should prioritize health, which naturally supports good longevity and acceptable performance.
Nutrient deficiency is rampant even in developed countries; the majority of Americans are deficient in multiple essential micronutrients. Organ meats, shellfish, and dark leafy greens are far more nutrient-dense than most people realize.
Follow an 80/20 or 90/10 rule with diet rather than strict restriction—this prevents the boom-bust cycle of falling off the wagon hard. You need at least 2-3 months to fairly trial any significant dietary change before expecting clear results.
Indoor air quality is often 2-5 times more polluted than outdoor air and gets overlooked despite us spending 90% of our time indoors. A high-quality air filter is one of the best health investments because we breathe constantly, unlike eating.
Most doctors receive only one 15-unit nutrition class based on outdated information and see 25-30 patients daily—they're not equipped to guide you on nutrition despite their credentials. You may need to seek out functional practitioners trained in personalized health strategies.

Expert Quotes

"There is no one that thrives by eating cheese Doodles and drinking big gulps all day—that's just not a thing. There's no evidence historically or with modern research that tells us that eating highly processed and refined foods and a lot of sugar is going to be beneficial."

"You can survive for quite a while without food, maybe up to a month. You can survive for maybe a week without water. You can't survive for more than a few minutes without air—and so it's a really important piece of health that most people neglect."

"Our model of healthcare is disease management or sick care rather than health care because it's not oriented towards producing vibrant health—it's oriented towards managing the symptoms of disease."

KEY QUOTES

“according to the lonus Pauling Institute you have the majority of Americans that are deficient and not just one but several essential micronutrients and that's an Insidious effect that you don't notice right away and you might not even notice over time because there's no like there's no acute severe thing that happens that brings it to your attention”
Chris Kresser — Functional medicine practitioner and author

“you cannot optimize for each of those to the fullest extent at the same time right so like as you pointed out if you're optimizing for performance above all else you might make choices that compromise Health in the short term and longevity in the long term”
Chris Kresser — Functional medicine practitioner and author

“every single process that happens in the body every single process every cellular process every microbiological process every hormone that gets produced every time the heart pumps requires nutrients to be completed because nutrients are co-factors for enzymes which are proteins and that's what runs the show in the body”
Chris Kresser — Functional medicine practitioner and author

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT2 SECTIONS

Why Doctors Aren't Nutrition Experts

A lot of people assume that their doctor is a really good person to talk to about nutrition because they're a doctor right they're heavily influencing the data that doctors see often times they're not very well educated they're not the person that you should be talking to about that and furthermore they don't have time to talk to you about that because they're seeing 25 or 30 patients in a day you know it's a terrible system for health Chris welcome to the RO mon podcast Anthony pleasure to be here I'm always intimidated not So Much by people's accolades and their Publications and the depth of knowledge which you undoubtedly have when somebody's been on Joe Rogan it's just like oh no this is serious and I've had quite a few guests now at this point that have been on Joe Rogan and I don't know why it adds an extra layer of intimidation you're like they've been with the master he's a good guy you know he he's just as exactly as he seems on his show really down toe and humble and I think he makes it really easy for guests but just just like you you know it's just like having a normal conversation except there are few cameras around and a few million people listening or watching so it's wild the way that's played out he had a conversation recently uh with F Kennedy's nephew who's running for a president um someone just clipped out the last section of it and sent it to me where he was talking about the different mediums through the years that presidents have used to attract and Garner attention and his speculation is that podcast is going to be quite a valuable medium for the upcoming electoral cycle it's like it's really interesting that dudes in their bedrooms and their spare Realms to start with microphones are now these like King makers around the world well yeah I mean it makes sense to me because most of us know that conventional media is just BS you know like you I don't know anyone who watches the news and pays much attention to that at this point because it's really shallow and vapid whereas you get a chance to listen to someone talk for two hours or three in the case of Rogan's show like you really get a good sense of who they are and whether and what they really know and you know where their heart is and if they're a good person and I I just think that's so much more valuable than the way things have been done in the past so it's I think it's a good Trend overall I think a lot of the confusion that not confusion is the wrong word a lot of the skepticism people have around watching the media is the interests behind it okay like am I going to say something negative about this big Pharma company when they're contributing 20% of total revenue to my station but we do have this same slight confusion around diet as well and I can't think of many areas outside news and diet that have a comparable level of confusion and I've had so many guests on recently and it was a tweet that I got this morning on a private DM that said hey like you mark s on last week and he's talking about keto you know it's uh Cynthia turlo on and she's a different angle on it where she's talking about fasting it's like they're confused people are overwhelmed because we've so many experts in and experts are brilliant but you know my background being LW it's like you go into a trial and we're both arguing defense and prosecution both arguing to entirely different cases we both have experts on our side it's like who does the judge find more credible set of experts on side a or set of experts on side B so I'm hoping today's conversation is going to be that sort of something that binds together a lot of these experts and that's where I'm kind of hoping we can go with it yeah my hot take when I was thinking about diet and how to phrase this a question for you I think everyone's searching for the perfect diet and that DM I got from a listener he's looking for the perfect diet so he listens to Mark siss and he's like okay this could be the perfect diet but then I have a pro aete on who's a professional cyclist or a physiologist and he's talking about the perfect diet but I think what we're failing to recognize is there is no perfect diet it's like the lens through which we view the world for the pro athletes who performance is the only lens through which they view the world they don't care about like the marginal decade the last decade of their lives they only care about performance this week this month this year whereas you have someone like Mark sisen who their athletic career is over now his focus and not putting words into marks Mount but his focus is more on longevity and health as he ages you think that's a fair synopsis of whether there's a little bit of confusion around diet absolutely yeah I mean I like to talk about a Triad of longevity health and performance and you you cannot optimize for each of those to the fullest extent at the same time right so like as you pointed out if you're optimizing for performance above all else you might make choices that compromise Health in the short term and longevity in the long term if you're optimizing for longevity above all else you might follow a calorie restricted diet and end up shivering in your room you know and being miserable and compromising your your health and quality of life in the short term and certainly performance I think the best option for most people you know edge cases aside is to optimize for health and that generally leads to Great longevity and very good performance that would be acceptable to the vast majority of people you know outside of maybe the highest level athletes in a particular Sport and so I think that's the first way that people go astray is they hear somebody talking about a diet that worked for them maybe that's an Olympic athlete that was talking about what they did you know in preparation for training uh and it's not really applicable to someone who mostly just exercises on the weekend like the typical weekend warrior so in some cases it's a situation where people are hearing about an approach that has work for someone else that's not actually relevant to them because they have completely different circumstances but I think it's it's also the case that there is legitimate controversy around what is the best diet for humans and and that's confusing to people because you have Advocates of entirely plant-based diets like vegan raw food vegan diets and then on the other end of the spectrum now we have not only paleo but also carnivore people who say we shouldn't eat any plants at all and people are exposed to this you know on social media through their friends whatever and they and most people have heard stories about someone whose life was saved by one of these diets like so someone who was on death's door and they started a carnivore diet and now they're fine or someone same situation but they started a plant-based diet now they're fine so for me what that highlights is that there's not a single path to the top of the mountain they're actually human beings are pretty resilient and if you look at ancestral diets all around the world you can see that they shared some common characteristics and that's what I try to talk about when I talk about diet or like what are those common characteristics that Human Being Human diets for the vast majority of evolutionary history followed and then let's start with with that as the foundation and from there you can go off in different directions depending on your goals your Fitness your age where you live your preferences like do you like these kinds of foods do you not like these kinds of foods and you can create a personalized approach that works for you based on that Foundation that is right for everyone so like I'll give you an example there is no one that thrives by eating cheese Doodles and drinking big gulps all day like that's just not a thing that I don't care what anyone says there's no evidence historically or with modern research that tells us that eating highly processed and refined foods and and a lot of sugar is going to be beneficial on and and so we know like eating a diet that's based on Whole nutrient-dense Foods should be the starting place for everyone and then from there you can customize it based on your particular needs yeah I always like to think about as you know even disseminating and simplifying for the audience what you've said Parts there so we lead with that objective you know what is our overall objective is it health is it performance is it longevity once we've Define that objective then there's a bunch of different strategies that can get us there we call these different dietry philosophies but I think where so many of us get lost is the layer down where we start getting into tactics straight away and we're instead of you know getting into one dietary strategy and saying okay this is the vehicle that's going to take me to the destination I want they keep jumping Vehicles we have a similar debate in the endurance world where we have you know polarized training reverse polarized training you have like 8020 training the reality is any single one of those Vehicles if you get into it and you I I think the lever that moves them all it's compliance if you get into the vehicle and you adhere to your training sessions you're going to get pretty close to your destination there might be small nuances on where you arrive where you're going to get basically there but we're in this oh like instant gratification type culture where somebody gets into vehicle a like a reverse periodization they try this for maybe like two three weeks they don't see like the instant like Instagram Tik Tok results that they're seeing on viral videos so they're like oh maybe I'll change vehicle and it's that process of changing from one to the other and I'm wondering is this similar in the dietary world where somebody's jumping into paleo and then over to carnivore when the reality is if they stayed in any of these vehicles they're going to get a pretty good outcome yeah I think that's generally true um there are some situations where I I think it's or some dietary approaches that are whole food-based that I think are harder to follow and meet all of the nutrient needs so and this is maybe where I start to diverge from some other people in my field but I believe that most human beings are evolved to eat a combination of plant and animal Foods so I'm I'm I'm not a big advocate of the carnivore approach for most people nor am I a big advocate of a a plant-based diet or or a exclusively plantbased diet I think I mean I certainly know people who've been successful with both of those approaches I've had patients that have been successful with both of those approaches but whenever you restrict an entire category of foods of Whole Foods from your diet you increase the chances of deficiencies of nutrients because there are certain nutrients that are much more prevalent and common in animal foods and there are other nutrients that are much more common and prevalent in plant Foods so if you only eat one or the other you're going to have to figure out a way to make up for that shortfall and you know it can be done with supplementation it can sometimes be done with special Foods um but it you're just it's harder let's just put it that way whereas if you eat a general omnivorous diet with some combination of plant and animal Foods it's easier not to go wrong and you have a better chance of meeting all of your nutrient needs so I would say that within that framework it is uh what you said like it's it's better for people I think to not follow a diet that is too rigid or too strict because what I typically see happening there is they'll do it for a week or two then they'll fall off the wagon and it it often isn't pretty you know when they fall off the wagon they sort of rebound into a really unhealthy diet then maybe a month later they get they start to realize that's harming them and then they start another strict diet maybe it's a different one like you said then they fall off the wagon I would rather see people follow what I call or you know of course I didn't make this up but it's applied to food the 8020 rule or maybe the 9010 rule where 80 90% of the time you're staying pretty close to what you know are the most nutrient d best foods for for your body and your situation then maybe that 10 20% of the time you go out with friends and you just don't worry about it too much you focus more on having a good time connecting with your friends enjoying yourself and I think that's a more balanced sustainable approach for most people and it actually leads to better choices over time because you not you don't have this rebound back and forth between really strict diet and chaos yeah I think it also moves us away from the Aller nutting culture this idea of a may as well be hung for a sheep as hung for a lamb I have friends who track macros all the time and they'll debate and they'll argue with me that the way I track my calories where I just kind of eyeball stuff I'll be like okay I had two turkey burgers two eggs and two pieces of toast for breakfast it's roughly 600 calories give or take they're like but you don't know the exact calorie breakdown the exact metrics in that I'm like I don't but it's like it's very sustainable for me to do this like mental arithmetic as I go through the day then my girlfriend will say hey you want to go for a Ben and Jerry's tonight and I'll kind of add up and go uh you know what I'm already on 2,200 calories maybe I'll go on a day when I'm a bit more of a deficit they'll go with the hardcore waiter oatmeal in the morning track everything through the day and this will last maybe like eight weeks 12 weeks but maybe more but they eventually crack and fall off the wagon and when they do crack like you say it's not pretty it's not pretty at all yeah it's also not that fun I mean I'm like personally I don't like to live my life that way I don't I'm not judging anyone that does because I I mean I've had patients when they come to see me they bring in spreadsheets of data you know that they're tracking on a on a daily basis they have all their lab results they have it charted out so I can see graphs and you know there's a part of me as as a clinician that gets really interested in that and I geek out I like to geek out a little bit but when you think about the actual amount of time that goes into that kind of tracking and the way that time could be spent otherwise you know that I think for most people food should still be a pleasurable experience and eating should still be a pleasurable experience and it's not generally healthy to get too rigid and too F hyperfocused on all of those micro details unless you have a really good reason for it you know an epileptic for example who's following a ketogenic diet they have to be really strict and be in really deep ketosis to get that benefit or they'll have a seizure so you know in that case it makes a lot of sense to me but in the case even of a pretty high level athlete I think the approach that you're talking about is healthier mentally healthier and also more sustainable over the long term for most people let me take a second to talk about today's show sponsor because of something really exciting to share with you it's a game Cher it's been making a notable difference in my performance recently especially when it comes to sleep allow me to introduce you to pillar while we're all familiar with the importance of electrolytes and carbohydrates in our race preparation pillar is taking a different route it's focusing on something called micronutrition ensuring that you're ready to perform even before you ever hit the start line it's all about promoting a good night's sleep facilitating effective recovery and replenishing those crucial micronutrients so you can perform at your best over the past month I've been incorporating pillars triple magnesium supplement into my routine I take it every evening about 30 minutes or so before bed and I've seen a remarkable Improvement in My Sleep Quality I've been tracking my sleep my whoop device and the results they're there every morning when I wake up in black and white I'm waking up with about a 10% Improvement in my restorative sleep I'm waking up feeling refreshed having had that deep restora of sleep I'm now ready to attack work training and life the next day but don't just take my word for it let the data from your Fitness tracker tell the story so so if you're ready to elevate your performance and the quality of your sleep why not give pillar a try head over to pillar performance.

Critiquing an Athlete's Daily Diet

Shop and use the code roadman on your local website for 15% off your first order or for us listeners if you head over to De feed.com pillar and use code roadman for the same 15% off your order the details of this offer are in the description below now back to the show I've tried to break down conversations like this and incorporate them into my dietry practices day today and I'll kind of run through what I'm what I'm doing with diet and you can sort of maybe point out where I'm erroring in this so through a process of trial and error I reckon my base metabolic rate about 2,200 calories a day then I aim for about 120 grams of protein that's roughly like 1.5 grams per kilogram of body weight then I'll distribute my remaining calories into either fats or carbs depending on the session I have planned for the next day this is assuming I'm not trying in that day if of an early morning session the next day I'll use my curb allocation later in the day and if I'm training I'll basically do the exact same thing but I'll look to replace my calorie expenditure during the ride so if I burn 2,000 calories I'll look to replace pretty close to that either on the ride or directly after in that kind of glycogen replenishment window and then I'll take every day I'll take an atic grains of vitamin D and creatine and that's kind of my base nutrition Hobbits at the moment so pull them apart yeah so I mean I think the the overall approach sounds good and to macros and calories and then how you're how you're sequencing that with your training days and and rest days and um that that all sounds fine to me I think where most people tend to go wrong is actually not with macros it's with micros uh there's there's a lot of discussion in the athletic Community uh about macro ratios calorie intake and that's appropriate there should be I mean that that's those are big factors and really important factors for sport um but I what I find and and I've worked with very high level athletes in my clinical practice you know uh people we've all heard of I'm uh I ski 100 days a year myself mountain bike you know 60 70 days a year kayak paddle paddle board like I'm very active person myself uh so this is something I've thought a lot about and have a lot of experience with is micronutrients so we're talking about vitamins minerals and phytonutrients you referred to some of those with athletic greens um but the thing about micronutrients is that every single process that happens in the body every single process every cellular process every microbiological process every hormone that gets produced every time the heart pumps requires nutrients to be completed because nutrients are co-factors for enzymes which are proteins and that's what runs the show in the body and most people know that you know on some level that they have to get adequate nutrition but here's the tricky thing like we've yes we've mostly eradicated scurvy and rickets and paga and Berry burying these very serious diseases of extreme nutrient deficiency in the developed world I mean those are still happening in the developing World um but we still have Sky High rates of nutrient deficiency so according to the lonus Pauling Institute you have the majority of Americans that are deficient and not just one but several essential micronutrients and that's an Insidious effect that you don't notice right away and you might not even notice over time because there's no like there's no acute severe thing that happens that brings it to your attention so imagine someone an athlete who's just not you know over time their performance is starting to decline they're not you know they're they're no longer achieving any PRS uh they're not recovering as well they're getting injured more frequently um and they're just it's a slog you know I've seen lots of athletes that that experience this and and the you know often times people will say things like oh you're just you're just aging you're just getting older and yes of course that is a factor but nobody's looking at nutrient status uh if you go to the doctor the doctor certainly isn't looking at that like when's the last time your doctor really did a deep dive into all of your nutrient levels test a full blood panel to test all of your nutrient levels and see where they're at it rarely happens uh in the US or anywhere else in the world in my experience and this is one of the easiest ways to boost and elevate your performance and your just overall health and well-being is to supercharge your nutrient status so athletic greens I think is a decent product and there's some some nutrients in there that are worthwhile um but I'm gonna throw some some things out here that might be surprising um in terms of what the most nutrient-dense foods are and this is this is from both ancestral wisdom and also modern research so this is a study that was just published in 2022 in the Journal called frontiers of nutrition and it was it was done by uh a scientist named Ty beel who uh and his colleague flaminia ortenzi who are part of an NGO that is trying to end malnutrition around the world and so they they were tasked with hey find the foods that are the most nutrient dense per ounce so in other words you eat the smallest amount and you get the greatest level of nutrients so that we can start you know using these Foods in places where malnutrition is common to to bring nutrient levels back up and the four out of the top seven most nutrient-dense Foods were organ Meats so liver spleen kidney and heart the other were small dried fish dark leafy greens oysters or other B valves uh Crustaceans like shrimp goat beef eggs and cow milk so this is pretty surprising for a lot of people um most most of us have the idea that foods like blueberries or uh you know dark leafy greens which is on the list uh maybe some other fruits and vegetables are the most nutrient-dense foods but these organ meats and shellfish and also beef and dairy products and eggs actually are far more nutrient dense when it comes to these essential nutrients and so very few people eat organ Meats at this point I I mean I don't know how it is in Europe in the US it's not common anymore yeah it's pretty low I don't even know where you would get organ Meats I don't even know if they sell them in a regular store I think got to go to butchers maybe to get them uh yeah and most people don't like them it's it's an acquired taste and usually if you don't acquire it when you're a kid it's you know you don't you don't tend to acquire it later in life so I guess going back to your question I would say you know if there's a way of incorporating shellfish fish organ Meats uh dark leafy greens of course you're taking athletic greens but you know dark leafy Greens in your diet those are going to have a pretty big impact from a nutrient density standpoint and of course now you can supplement with organ Meats instead of T eating them that's you know like my company adapt Naturals we have an organ supplement because after treating patients for 15 years I can I can count on a few hands the number of people that I was able to get to eat organ Meats on a regular basis you know for the reason that I mentioned es you know and then maybe liver but then kidney and spleen those were even tougher cells when it came down to it but you touched on that idea of excuse me you touched on that idea of you go to your general practitioner and they just don't do a deep dive into your nutrients and I know we have a big audience of corporate listeners and I think one of the lessons I've learned from friends in the corporate world is kind of around problem solving and planning like they Define where they want to go very early like they have a vision and now they reverse engineer the steps needed to achieve that Vision why don't our medical professionals have this approach I remember going to the general practitioner here a few weeks back with gastro issues and the approach was totally to just trace the symptom there was no analysis of what's causing it it's pretty sad um and I think you astutely hit the nail on the head the I call our model of healthc care disease management ra or sick care rather than health care because it's not oriented towards producing vibrant Health which is what most of us want it's oriented towards managing the symptoms of disease and so an example would be just the one you used if you go to the doctor with GI issues instead of trying to figure out what caused them in the first place most of the treatments that are offered are going to be focused around symptom management uh if you go to the doctor and you have high blood sugar they're mostly going to give you a drug that lowers your blood sugar instead of talking to you about your diet choices or exercise physical activity Stress Management sleep Etc same thing with high cholesterol and so many other conditions that are common in our culture today and you know that just that's a whole another discussion of how we got to this place like why that why why that is but it's unquestionably the approach that we see now in the US and the average length of visit with a primary care doctor in the US is 8 to 12 minutes now so that's barely barely enough time to say hello and collect I guess it's shorter over here is it honestly I mean I was like five minutes in and out and I actually remember reading this statistic when I was in the waiting room and I was uh I was just flicking through studies a couple of friends sent me on like a tread and some friends sent me on some stuff they think could be interesting for the podcast and I seen one that Americans make up 5% of the population but they're consuming 65% of the world's Pharmaceuticals at the moment I believe it yeah it's crazy and and you know I I again I don't think this is a this is not a CR criticism of individual doctors because they're victims of the system as well and I've trained uh over 1,200 doctors and other health care providers in 50 countries around the world through my program so I have a lot of empathy for for medical profession profs and the challenges that they're facing I think this is a systemic problem where big Pharma as you alluded to before is paying for both medical research they're heavily influencing uh the data that doctors see and medical school has essentially become a process of learning various health conditions and memorizing the drugs that are used to treat them there you most most medical providers have one class in nutrition one 15 unit class and it's typically based on information that's 40 or 50 years old like a textbook that was made in the 1980s or something like that you know when lowfat diets and boneless skinless chicken breasts and egg white omelets were still all the rage and you know none of the they're not exposed to any of the new research on the benefits of low carb diets and some or keto in some situations and so a lot of people assume that their doctor is a really good person to talk to about nutrition because they're a doctor right often times they're not very well educated about nutrition and they're not the person that they you should be talking to about that and furthermore they don't have time to talk to you about that because the they're seeing 25 or 30 patients in a day and still having to do paperwork and everything after that I you know it's a terrible system for health excuse the short Interruption but I wanted to find a way to bring our little community together to problem solve to share training advice and to support each other in what can sometimes be a lonely road as we all Chase health happiness and Longevity through cycling to facilitate this I've set up a Discord Channel I'm going to leave a link in the description down below it doesn't cost anything to join it's totally free plus I'm also picking out random winners for spot prizes inside the Discord Channel if you'd like to join it click on the link down below so we now have this concept of Bio individuality where we're all slightly different each person has unique needs and responds to various interventions in different ways how do you assess and determine the best course of treatment for an individual considering their unique circumstances and their health goals yeah uh so it's a combination of I do I I do a lot of lab testing with patients I my My Philosophy is tests don't guess in in in general um and there's some pretty amazing I mean this is one thing that is phenomenal about conventional allopathic medicine is the Diagnostics that are available through blood testing uh all kinds of different Imaging and uh saliva testing now and herid and urine testing you can get so much information uh that was not available to US 10 15 years ago and so that's a good starting point to get a general sense of what's happening in the body also the very important and maybe a bit old school is just talking to people like so taking the time to do a very thorough history is really important and and kind of a lost art in medicine because it tells us you can you can uncover clues in that history that might might otherwise be overlooked entirely and then you learn more about their goals and what it is that that they want to achieve out of the interaction and then from there like I said before we start with that foundational nutrient-dense diet and then we might go in different directions depending on that patient's needs for example if it's a if it's somebody who has an autoimmune condition I might make specific recommendations to to remove foods that can provoke a hyperactive immune response and add foods that tend to balance and regulate the immune system if it's somebody who is an endurance athlete I might ask what their goals are and then I might suggest you know po possibly a lower carbohydrate diet if they're trying to lean out and they want to explore that as an option doesn't work for everybody as you know um but there are lots of endurance athletes who are succeeding with that approach if they do it correctly and not too R too rigorously and and still have some refeeding days occasionally so yeah it's really based on that combination of a thorough history understanding people's goals lab testing and collecting data in other ways and then uh personalization so how is a listener that's listening to this now how do they get plugged into this system so they're going to their normal general practitioner they're frustrated around this they want to take ownership but they're held back but maybe geographically they can't get into your clinic it's like how are they taking ownership of this companies like 23 and me inside tracker like what's the patchwork of companies they should be interacting with to kick this s yeah I think inside tracker is doing a pretty decent job of trying to systematize this and scale it and make it available to you know a much greater number of people um you you know to be honest I wish I had a better answer to that question Anthony and I I I've spent the last you know since 2016 I've been training clinicians um through a 12- month program all over the world so you know creser institute.com you can search The Practice practitioner directory there might be a practitioner in your country or in your particular area that has gone through that training and and knows some of these principles um but that's why I launched that Institute because there there is a lack of practitioners available for people who want to follow this kind of approach and it gets you know it's hard to do on your own because some of the testing requires a doctor's order or CL you know some kind of clinician's order but here's what I would say if you're in situation where it's DIY then old school trial and error is still a legitimate approach you know where you say okay as we've been saying through this whole show first get clear on what your goals are um a lot of people start before they are clear on that and then they end up like you said bouncing back and forth between all these different approaches wondering why it's not working well it's not the right approach for your goal so start start with what your goal is and then from there do a little research online start the start learning about different approaches that people are using to achieve that same goal so again you know if you're an endurance athlete and you're curious about ketogenic diet or a lower carb diet as a as a as an approach then you can there's lots of information out there that you can start reading and learning about and then commit to trying that for a certain period of time so not a not three days not a week but at least two three months probably uh is is a fair is is what you need to do to give something like that a fair trial because as I'm sure you know if you talked about this with Mark Sison or any other guests on your show when you're used to burning carbohydrates for fuel as your primary fuel source and you switch over to fat burning Machinery that that takes some time and it can actually be a somewhat challenging transition so you need to give it some time work it was interesting because Mark was advocating for a 12 months transfer change over and I can see people people's skepticism around this because you're asking them to conduct a 12mon experiments with quite an uncertain outcome and it's quite a big Buy in if you're on the fence and you don't have you know considerable weighted evidence to say you're going to have a favorable outcome on the far end yeah 100% and I'm I'm Mark's a good friend I have huge respect for him what I would say is that yes you will continue to get benefits be beyond that three-month period that I'm talking about and it might take a full 12 months to make the the complete adjustment and really be like firing on all cylinders with the new approach but in my experience if someone has done it for three months and they don't see any positive signals or any sign that things are moving in the right direction it doesn't usually get better at like six months you know it doesn't go for like five and a half months of feeling terrible and all of a sudden this the clouds part and the sun shines through and you know you're killing it I I just don't see that happening I I usually see some positive changes within those first three months yes it might be not linear it might be sort of a two steps forward one step back kind of thing but you generally should expect to see some progress in the first three months of any dietary change or any change that you make that's meant to improve your health and performance you should see some results in in a three-month period And I think that's a much more reasonable time frame for people to commit to so Chris to wrap it up and to take a little bit of a U-turn something I'm curious about and I've heard you speaking about it in the past most of us are spending large chunks of our day indoors the study showing people are spending upwards and 90% of their time indoors and I've heard you talking about air quality indoors being a real problem in some cases two to five times more polluted than outdoor air what effect does this have on us and how come we address it yeah it can have a huge negative impact I mean whether you're you can talking about the developing world or the developed world the developing world like indoor cooking uh releases a lot of all to organic compounds and pollution that has Toxic effect on people but in the develop developed World it tends to be more things like mold or other um biotoxins that are that are released after water damage in a in a more humid environment uh it could be like not having adequate venting uh from your sto from your stove and cooking like a lot of older houses don't have any venting at all and uh it's very simple to test this you can get a meter at a you know homegood store store that looks at uh that will test carbon dioxide levels and particulate matter um and Vol to organic compound and you can put that in your kitchen and you can see what happens when you cook it will go those levels will go way up but if you have a vent they'll go down you know so it's not it's not alarming if they go up a little bit while you're cooking as long as they go back down but if there's no venting those levels can stay elevated for quite a long time another situation like I just mentioned is water damage and then mold that can that that can uh form as a result of that water damage and then the mold releases mot toxins and those mot toxins I mean they can be fatal in extreme in extreme situations but in other situations they just drag down our health and well-being can cause pretty serious illness that most people don't even know is happening because it's invisible right you unless you have seen the mold in your shower or something like that often times it can form in places where you don't even know it is and um and then the last the last thing is if you're in an urban area just the particulate matter from um you know industrial sources of pollution of course we hear about this in places like China and Shanghai you can see it in the air but it's it's in most Urban areas so this is this could be another three episodes but know we're running out of time I think that the number one thing you can do with this like regardless of the source of the air pollution or indoor air contaminants like mold or voc's is to get a really high quality air filter uh these are pretty affordable in most cases now um there's different ways of doing it you can get if you want to go B like really like make your house the best possible POS environment to be in you can get a whole house air filter that connects into your HVAC system and it just purifies all the air in the house uh a lower cost but still great way of doing it is buying individual free-standing air filters um you know that are appropriately sized for your house or your living space your apartment your flat whatever and those some of those air filters the better ones um uh molecule is a good one air doctor is another good one the IQ air Health Pro Plus is a good one um these can remove 99.9% of viruses volatile organic compounds and other pollutants in the air so I think it's one of the best investments that we can make for our health you know we eat a few times a day some some of us more some of us less but we're breathing all the time you know like you you can survive for quite a while without food you know some up to a month maybe sometimes longer you can survive for maybe a week without water you can't survive for more than a few minutes without air and and so it's a really important piece of Health that most people neglect so I'm glad you asked about that Chris there's so many valuable take-homes in this conversation uh really enjoyable G to link up your website your YouTube channel your socials and all your other various resources which I think and i' encourage everyone to follow you there because they're super informative and I get so much out of all on them Chris it's been a pleasure thanks for joining me on the RO man podcast Anthony pleasure is mine thanks for having me if you enjoyed this chat you're going to absolutely love the conversation I had with intermittent fasting expert Cynthia turlo her advice specifically around breakfast changed how I eat forever you can click it just here

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Why can't my doctor give me good nutrition advice?+

Most conventional doctors receive fewer than 25 hours of nutrition training across their entire medical education, and typical appointments leave no room for personalised dietary guidance. Chris Kresser points out that a 25-patient day simply does not allow a GP to analyse your goals, tolerances, and lifestyle in any meaningful depth. For tailored nutrition advice, a functional or ancestral medicine practitioner is far better placed than a standard physician.

Is there a single best diet for health and longevity?+

No single diet works optimally for everyone. Chris Kresser argues that health, longevity, and performance form a triad that cannot all be maximised at the same time, so the right dietary approach depends on which of those goals you are prioritising. Age, activity level, and individual food tolerance all shift what the best nutritional strategy looks like for a specific person.

What do paleo, carnivore, and ancestral diets have in common?+

Despite their differences, ancestral dietary approaches consistently share one foundational principle: minimally processed whole foods. Chris Kresser notes that this common ground is more important than the specific macronutrient ratios that separate these approaches. The disagreements tend to concern the finer details, such as carbohydrate proportion or animal-to-plant ratios, which should be personalised rather than dogmatically fixed.

How do I personalise my diet for my specific goals?+

Start by clearly defining whether your primary aim is general health, longevity, or physical performance, as Chris Kresser explains these priorities require different nutritional strategies. From there, factor in your age, training volume, and how well you personally tolerate different food groups. Build the programme around whole, minimally processed foods first, then adjust macronutrient ratios to suit your goal and individual response.

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Key Takeaways

Define your primary objective first—health, performance, or longevity—because you can't optimize all three simultaneously. Most people should prioritize health, which naturally supports good longevity and acceptable performance.

Nutrient deficiency is rampant even in developed countries; the majority of Americans are deficient in multiple essential micronutrients. Organ meats, shellfish, and dark leafy greens are far more nutrient-dense than most people realize.

Follow an 80/20 or 90/10 rule with diet rather than strict restriction—this prevents the boom-bust cycle of falling off the wagon hard. You need at least 2-3 months to fairly trial any significant dietary change before expecting clear results.

Indoor air quality is often 2-5 times more polluted than outdoor air and gets overlooked despite us spending 90% of our time indoors. A high-quality air filter is one of the best health investments because we breathe constantly, unlike eating.

Most doctors receive only one 15-unit nutrition class based on outdated information and see 25-30 patients daily—they're not equipped to guide you on nutrition despite their credentials. You may need to seek out functional practitioners trained in personalized health strategies.

Expert Quotes

"There is no one that thrives by eating cheese Doodles and drinking big gulps all day—that's just not a thing. There's no evidence historically or with modern research that tells us that eating highly processed and refined foods and a lot of sugar is going to be beneficial."

"You can survive for quite a while without food, maybe up to a month. You can survive for maybe a week without water. You can't survive for more than a few minutes without air—and so it's a really important piece of health that most people neglect."

"Our model of healthcare is disease management or sick care rather than health care because it's not oriented towards producing vibrant health—it's oriented towards managing the symptoms of disease."

KEY QUOTES

“according to the lonus Pauling Institute you have the majority of Americans that are deficient and not just one but several essential micronutrients and that's an Insidious effect that you don't notice right away and you might not even notice over time because there's no like there's no acute severe thing that happens that brings it to your attention”
Chris Kresser — Functional medicine practitioner and author

“you cannot optimize for each of those to the fullest extent at the same time right so like as you pointed out if you're optimizing for performance above all else you might make choices that compromise Health in the short term and longevity in the long term”
Chris Kresser — Functional medicine practitioner and author

“every single process that happens in the body every single process every cellular process every microbiological process every hormone that gets produced every time the heart pumps requires nutrients to be completed because nutrients are co-factors for enzymes which are proteins and that's what runs the show in the body”
Chris Kresser — Functional medicine practitioner and author

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Why can't my doctor give me good nutrition advice?+

Is there a single best diet for health and longevity?+

What do paleo, carnivore, and ancestral diets have in common?+

How do I personalise my diet for my specific goals?+

99% OVERLOOK THIS: TAILORING A HEALTH STRATEGY FOR YOU | CHRIS KRESSER

Key Takeaways

Expert Quotes

KEY QUOTES

Why Doctors Aren't Nutrition Experts

Critiquing an Athlete's Daily Diet

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

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Key Takeaways

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KEY QUOTES

1.Why Doctors Aren't Nutrition Experts

2.Critiquing an Athlete's Daily Diet

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

NEVER MISS AN EPISODE

READ THE GUIDE

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Why Doctors Aren't Nutrition Experts

Critiquing an Athlete's Daily Diet

Why Doctors Aren't Nutrition Experts

Critiquing an Athlete's Daily Diet