Thermo Diet Podcast Episode 21 - Questions From The Thermo Diet Community Group

In this episode of the Thermo Diet Podcast Christopher Walker and Jayton sit down and answer some questions that were asked by some of the members within the Thermo Diet Community Group on Facebook. They talk about their current lifting routines, some of the physical goals they want to hit, some ways to look at the journey of life, and more. Check it out and let us know what you think!

Facebook Group and Fanpage -

Thermo Diet Community Group ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/16721... ) - Thermo Diet Fan Page ( https://www.facebook.com/thermodiet/ ) Youtube

Channels: - Christopher Walker ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTA1... ) - UMZU Health ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2IE... )

Instagram: -

@_christopherwalker ( https://www.instagram.com/_christophe... ) - @researchcowboy ( https://www.instagram.com/researchcow... )

Full Transcript:

Chris:
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the thermo diet podcast. My name is Christopher Walker and I'm here with the Zoo Dog himself, Jayton Miller.

Jayton:
How's it going?

Chris:
Pretty good, pretty good. Today we're going to be doing a little Q & A. We've got the Thermo Diet community group on Facebook pulled up, and people are asking questions. Let's answer those questions.

Jayton:
First one we've got is from the minor himself, what's Chris and Jayton's current lifting routine and why.

Chris:
All right, that's good. Do you want to kick it off?

Jayton:
Sure, yeah. Let's see, right now I'm doing my key lifts three days a week, so Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then on the days in between I'm doing my accessory movements.

Chris:
Is it two key lifts on those days, two big lifts [crosstalk 00:00:48]?

Jayton:
Yeah, Monday is incline dumbbell with pull downs or weighted pull ups, whichever one I feel like doing. Wednesday is dumbbell overhead press with rows. Then, Friday is power cleans and dips. On the days in between I'll do my accessory movements like Rippetoe throws, curls, things like that. It shortens the amount of time that I'm in the gym tremendously. I gives me a very good routine. I can go in there, I'll work out, I'll hit the sauna. I'm in there on a daily basis, so I can just be consistent with it really easy. I noticed that my lifts tend to go up pretty well, especially on the accessory movements. I can move a lot more weight and put my muscle under a lot more stress, so that's been really beneficial. Then, on the weekends I'm skiing, then I'll probably hit the sauna on the weekends sometimes if I have time on the weekends. It's been pretty effective.

Chris:
It sounds like the thought process behind the Thor Five Day, where you're in and out a lot more quickly. Actually you can still recover pretty fast from stuff. Yeah, I like it, pretty active.

Jayton:
Yeah, definitely. Of course, yesterday I went off my routine a little bit because I went for a PR on incline on Monday, and I missed it, so I was, "I've got to get that." I went back in yesterday and I got it and I was, "Oh yes."

Chris:
On dumbbells?

Jayton:
Yeah.

Chris:
What are you up to on dumbbells incline?

Jayton:
Yesterday I got 115s for six reps.

Chris:
Dude, that's solid, very solid.

Jayton:
My best is 130s for four, so I need to get back up there.

Chris:
What? Holy shit.

Jayton:
My all-time best on barbell incline is 275 for six.

Chris:
That's good, man.

Jayton:
I'm trying to get back up there, too.

Chris:
The 130s, those are the head-turners. You see someone in the gym pick them up and you're, "What?"

Jayton:
The guy that spotted me yesterday, he was doing flat bench. He was going for the 110s. He got them for one rep and he was, "Yeah, I can't do it." I was, "You mind spotting me?"

Chris:
Crack your knuckle. Let's do it.

Jayton:
I asked him for a spot. I hadn't grabbed the dumbbells yet. Then, I went and grabbed them and I glanced at him when I was walking them back, and he was, "Damn, okay."

Chris:
Got that Texas strength. Hell yeah. Dude, once you go back to the 130s, get that on video. That's fucking awesome.

Jayton:
All right. Well, my gym only has 120s.

Chris:
Just do 120s for 12 or something crazy like that.

Jayton:
I can do that, yeah.

Chris:
I think my best was 120s for four. I think that was my PR. That's heavy man. Yeah, 130s is crazy. I'm a little ashamed to say my lifting has been on the back burner lately. I'm hitting the gym two to three times a week. I go in for, it's pretty fast, usually it's 30 minutes. I'll hit key stuff and then a couple accessory things. Key things being similar, focus on two big things first.

Chris:
Actually I started doing little warm ups. I'll do a leg warm up. I think Robert figured that one out last year where he was, "Try doing a leg warm up before you go for you're big upper body lift, instead of just swinging your arms, doing a little warm up and then just going for it." I started doing that last year and it helps a lot. The gym I'm at now doesn't have this, but it's the mule kick type machine, the glute kick back. That one is a great warm up because if you go really heavy and full-stack it, it engages your whole body, your core, everything, but it's mostly focused on the lower body. Then, by the time you're done with three sets of that on each leg, you're ready to rock. You're in it.

Chris:
I like to start with a leg warm up. I've been doing face pull, high face pulls over my head just to really engage up here in traps and shoulders and everything, upper back. Then, going into doing an overhead press, weighted chins, weighted dips, those sorts of bigger lifts, just building up the heavy on those. Then, just do some accessory movements on whatever I focused on the big lift and/or back and forth between, let's say it was overhead press and weighted chins. Then, do lat raises, the face pulls, lap pull down type thing, or rows. Then, some curls.

Jayton:
Nice.

Chris:
I'm usually in and out in 30 minutes. I should be lifting heavier. I've been pretty tired lately with all the stuff at work, all the stuff we're doing. By the time I get home I'm, "Uh, just do it. Get out of the house. Walk to the gym. Get over there."

Jayton:
I noticed that I have to go home, change and leave as soon as I can because if I sit down then there's no chance of me going to the gym, so I've got to stay moving.

Chris:
It's a good point of just going to the gym every day, as a habit, is actually pretty good as long as you're not lifting super heavy every single day. Your program that you're doing is pretty well designed because you're focusing on still on two or three days a week of the big lifts, and then the accessory movements in the middle, so you can recover pretty fast. It actually feels awesome to get in there and get out, even if it's 20 minutes. You feel good, refreshed, "I'm glad I did it." You never say, "Oh, I shouldn't have gone to the gym." It's always, "All right, I'm glad I did." It's only 20 minutes, just go. You're not that tired.

Jayton:
For my warm up, I usually do the rower for five minutes-

Chris:
That's a good one.

Jayton:
... Just to get my core body temperature up. Every once in a while I'll forget to raise the level on it. There was one time, I thought I broke it because I pulled really hard and the resistance is based on the amount of resistance that you put on it. There was no resistance whatsoever and I fell off the back of it because I pulled so hard. I'm definitely in the habit of making sure the level is up on that thing. But, whenever I go in there and I don't have anything to do, I'll usually do some band work and then some jump rope or something, just work on a skill. Then, I really enjoy the sauna, the dry sauna is really nice.

Chris:
Get those heat shock proteins up.

Jayton:
Definitely, yeah. I noticed that getting back into my body, afterwards it's a lot easier for my cognition to get back into something. That's been beneficial.

Chris:
I've been thinking about, once this big push of getting all these funnels done is over, I'm going to shift into focusing again on a couple key strength movements, especially weighted chin ups. I got so heavy last year. I think I can get the world record on those because the world record is 221 for one rep.

Jayton:
You got up to 180 for one rep, didn't you?

Chris:
No, I did 190 for two reps was the highest I got.

Jayton:
Damn.

Chris:
180 for four, 190 for two. I tried the 190 for two after. I did a 180 for two whereby the time I got to the second rep, "I'm feeling really good. I'm just going to stop here," but then I tried to wait for about 10 minutes, recover, then go for the 190s. I probably should have tried fresh for those. I'm going to work on those again.

Jayton:
It would be nice to have that title, too. I'm the strongest in the world at this.

Chris:
It's already close. Right now, because I haven't been focused as much on the lifting aspect, it's just been something I'm trying to keep in my routine, maintain. It's hard to maintain pulling 180 for four because it's a lot, but I can do 135s for whatever. Yeah, I'm pretty sure if I focus on it I'll get back to it really fast. It would probably be three or four weeks back up there. I was thinking about that because you feel so good when you're doing heavy weighted calisthenics movements, dips and weighted chins. My whole body feels better as a unit because it's so full-body engaging. Even upper legs when you're holding a lot of weight on the weight belt, you're lower back gets stronger, your hips get stronger, your upper quads get stronger because you're hanging on to that stuff.

Jayton:
Do you think that has something to do with the muscle tissue activation and the hormonal response from that?

Chris:
Yeah, I'm sure it has a huge role in just feeling good. You feel like a monster when you do something like that. You're, "Yeah!"

Jayton:
I bet that's a benefit in itself, too, just poking the ego a little bit.

Chris:
Yeah, exactly. That's a good question.

Jayton:
Heck yeah. Let's see, Joe [Orreno 00:11:07], joined Thermo. Best decision ever, but realized how much work I have to do to get back into good health and balanced hormones. I take responsibility, but do you have any tips to mentally prepare for the long road ahead?

Chris:
Tip number one: don't think it's a long road. Life is a road to walk down, so you're just walking down a different one than you've been walking down. Don't think about it as a long slog. Thermo is pretty damn fun. Once you get going in it, it's just a lifestyle. It is your life. You don't have to think about there being an end to it, really. Just go.

Jayton:
Definitely. I view it as a constant creation, you're constantly creating yourself. There's really no end point into that.

Chris:
Yeah, it's enjoyable. There's nothing long about it. It's a false thought, I think.

Jayton:
I feel like whenever you have an end goal, and you meet it, and you don't continue on top of that, then that stagnation is what results in catabolism, in a lot of cases. For instance, whenever people retire ... You see people who are constantly working, they tend to live a lot longer than people who retire and have that end goal.

Chris:
Oh, absolutely, yeah. I was reading that article. There was some guy who was 107 years old or something. He was releasing a music album.

Jayton:
No way. That is sick.

Chris:
That was basically what he was saying. He's had apparently seven or eight careers in his life. That was part of his secret to living a long time, "I just don't stop working. I try new things, learn new things. When I want to change careers, I'll pursue something else seriously, and try to figure out and try to learn, and just keep going, and work all day. But, choose work that you like to do." I agree with that because I think a lot of people die, or start to die, because they have no reason to live. As long as you have something that you're doing, you can live a really long time. Actually one of my mentors, he's an entrepreneur. He sold his last business years ago for over 700 million dollars. Then, he said one of the worst things he's ever done in his life was that he took two years off after.

Jayton:
Really? Interesting.

Chris:
He said that two years threw him into such a funk and a depression. He didn't know what to do. I believe that. A lot of people have this false idea that you just get to a destination and you're done. Technically you are done, if you choose to be done, you're done. It's not as rosy as everyone thinks, even if you had 700 million dollars. If you ask people, entrepreneurs who sell a company like that, they'll say that they're bored. They get depressed. A lot of people get into drug issues because you start to look for another stimulus. If that was your goal, then you reach it, and then you're, "What now? What do I do?"

Chris:
I was talking to another mentor of mine. He has a buddy who sold a company for 1.5 billion. He said they had a conversation very similar to that. He's, "What do you do now? What's next?" He's, "I don't know. I can only watch so much Sports Center."

Jayton:
You don't find that traveling fills that gap, maybe?

Chris:
It could, probably for a period of time, though. I don't know, I can only speak from my own mind because that's all I can experience, but I would get really bored. I think, 90 days, I would be so bored if I took it off. I would come up with something else to do, and dive into it, and spend all my time doing it.

Jayton:
Yeah, definitely. I can see that. I can't see myself not creating anything for some reason.

Chris:
I think when you stop creating. We're creators, we have to create stuff, and that's how you feel "happy." You just have to grow, and be better, and make something. When you don't do that, that's when it can be easy to get into that depression. Moral of the story is I think it's a false thought to just think that this is some long slog road. Do something that you like doing, then view it as a way you eat, the way you live, and then it instantly becomes enjoyable. I think you're setting yourself up for failure if you believe there's some end in sight.

Jayton:
Thank you. Synergistic effects of taking Mucuna, Cortigon and Miracle Morning?

Chris:
Actually there's been a lot of questions about that. What's the difference between them all? Should I take them all at the same time or should I just use one? Good question.

Jayton:
Miracle Morning is more of a stimulant, so it's going to give you that kick start. Whereas, I view Cortigon and Mucuna as maintenance supplements in order to allow your brain to function at its optimal capacity.

Chris:
They all have very different mechanisms of action. They are synergistic. You feel great when you take them all, and throw a little Choline in there, too, and you're good. There's only so many behavioral manifestations of certain areas of your body when you're optimizing them, but they're all working on a different part of your brain. The behavioral outcome could be focus, or a calm focus, or an energy, or something like that. There's only a limited amount of variables that you're going to behaviorally feel from improving your brain health. That's where people might be confused, "Will I feel focused when I use this or I feel focused when I use this?"

Chris:
They all have a different effect. Cortigon, obviously the chief purpose of it is stress regulation and cortisol management because the [inaudible 00:17:45] is so good at lowering cortisol. Part of the reason people feel focused and energetic when they lower their cortisol is because cortisol has a catabolic effect, and it has a brain-foggy effect when it's chronically high. High cortisol is so common because it's just part of our lifestyle to be stressed about something. There's always something going on. A lot of people don't prioritize stress management, so it just builds up over time. When you lower the cortisol you start to feel good again, your brain fog goes away, you feel focused and energetic, and you sleep better at night, and that sort of thing.

Chris:
Mucuna contains the precursor dopamine. Dopamine, obviously, when you're producing more of it naturally by using something like Mucuna, you again start to have a better sense of well-being, you feel focused, your T levels are going to go up. Again, the outcome is very similar, it's just you're optimizing a slightly different part of your brain.

Chris:
Then, Teacrine, like you said, is a stimulant, which is the chief active ingredient in Miracle Morning. That's more like an acute action. "All right, I'm just going to take one or two of these in the morning, drink my coffee, boom, feeling good at work all day, good and focused." But, you can have a similar good effect with regularly using Mucuna and Cortigon and Choline, but it's going to more of a build-up effect. Miracle Morning is more acute, "I need to focus right now. This is what I'm going to use."

Jayton:
Yeah, definitely. Cortigon and Mucuna would be the oil in the engine, whereas Miracle Morning would be the jet fuel that you're going to put in there in order to get going.

Chris:
The nos. Hit the nos.

Jayton:
Next question, Thermo for diabetic type 1. Diabetic type 1 is whenever they are not able to produce insulin from the beta cells within the pancreas. From my perspective, off the top of my head, the first thing that I would do is probably down regulate the amount of fats that you're in taking because of the Randle Cycle. You're going to have less free fatty acids competing with glucose to get into the cell. Glucose is going to be more freely available to enter the cell with that. I would say as far as the ability to produce insulin, I'm not really sure. What's your perspective on that?

Chris:
Well, one thing I've seen is we've seen testimonials come in from Sensolin in using the Berberine and the gluco help in it with a really good effect for type 1. There's something to that, that might be a good support supplement for people. I think in general, what's the main thing that people tell type 1 diabetics to eat? I think honestly it comes down to the same type of foundational optimization as anything else. I don't think it's that radically different. If you're optimizing your Thyroid and your reproductive hormones in general, naturally the balance with improve of everything.

Jayton:
I would say as far as carbohydrates, I wouldn't be afraid of them because once you begin to mix macro nutrients to the glycemic index, it's completely irrelevant. Protein is going to slow down the release of carbohydrates into the system, so is fats. I wouldn't necessarily say that that's important as people tend to lead on. I wouldn't isolate any macro nutrients. I wouldn't eat them in the isolated form because of that.

Chris:
I think it doesn't change much about the approach to eating Thermo.

Jayton:
The food choices and stuff like that.

Chris:
Fruits and roots, some white starch type stuff, but less of it. Then, focus on your micro nutrients. Get your protein sources and fat from good, high-quality animal sources or the Thermo oils, like coconut oil or avocado.

Jayton:
Chocolate.

Chris:
Chocolate. That's about it. I don't think it changes anything.

Jayton:
Hairline supplement update, from the hair master himself.

Chris:
Hair loss? If people don't know, Aaron grew back all his hair doing Thermo. Damn, hell yeah.

Jayton:
His testimonial is crazy.

Chris:
It's an amazing video. I remember when I first saw it I was freaking out. I was, "This is amazing!" I had the theory years ago that I put out on YouTube. I was, "I think it's a myth, the whole DHT testosterone thing." Then, Aaron put it into action, was using the Thermo diet, UMZU supplements. What was the other thing he was using? Derma roller, I think?

Jayton:
Yes.

Chris:
Then, I think it was a little over a year and he had this amazing hair re-growth.

Jayton:
Long, too.

Chris:
Yeah, it looks great. It's thick, long hair, long locks. The supplement updates, basically what we're doing right now is we're working on adding a module to the Thermo course about specifically what to do if you're experiencing hair loss. Then, after that, that would be the time where we would start to bring the supplement out hopefully later this year. In the meantime, I think Thyrite is an amazing thing to use.

Jayton:
Big time.

Chris:
Collagen, bone broth.

Jayton:
For sure, and I would utilize red light therapy, too. That's going to be really good. Heck yeah.

Chris:
It's in the works. First, it's going to be the modules to the course, though, so look out for that.

Jayton:
Colostrum benefits, is it worth purchasing? I wouldn't be taking it for any other reason than just trying to better my overall health.

Chris:
I don't know much about Colostrum.

Jayton:
Colostrum is the first milk that mammalians have whenever they're born. It's the very first nutrient-dense form of milk, I guess. I know there's a lot of different growth factors in it that are really good for recovery specifically, like tissue generation. Then, I do know that there's a lot of digestive benefits, so it's really good for the gut lining and stuff like that.

Chris:
Makes sense.

Jayton:
It's really good for muscle growth, too. I would say overall, it's probably worth supplementing with, especially if you're just curious about it.

Chris:
As long as the source is good. Where do they get it from? That's probably the key element.

Jayton:
Definitely. How much fat there is in it, antibiotics, hormones, all that good stuff. I think that it's a valuable supplement to experiment with for sure, especially if you have the extra income to put into it. Why not? Thermo market update.

Chris:
Thermo market, I really want to do it. Business-wise, we always have to look for prioritization and energy spent, and resources spent. Right now the prioritization is on certain UMZU initiatives to bring the top 10 supplements that we have out over a wider audience, in terms of the marketing. The whole team has been super focused on that. However, we built everything we wanted to build way ahead of schedule. That being said, if they begin performing the way that we need them to perform, and want the outcome to be, then I think bringing Thermo market back into the initiatives is an appropriate thing to do. You already have good relationships established for us with some key food companies, so that's good. It wouldn't be a very difficult thing to do, we just have to make sure that we have the bandwidth to do it. That's the constant struggle when you're building a business up, to make good choices about that sort of thing.

Jayton:
Definitely. We're also going to do things like hair care and body products, and stuff like that, aren't we?

Chris:
Yeah, we had a call with the manufactoring sourcer for deodorant two days ago. I had one lined up before and then the dude just disappeared. I wanted to buy the deodorants from him. I don't know if he went out of business or something. That's a constant thing that you've got to deal with sometimes in manufactoring is inconsistencies with stuff. We're getting referrals. We have some friends who own an all-natural personal care product line. They're helping us find good manufactoring right now. We're building out a really good retention program this year in terms of subscription incentives, free gifts, loyalty programs, ways to really help build UMZU products, Thermo lifestyle into people's lives that's easy and affordable and fun. You can earn loyalty points, get free products, free gifts and that sort of thing. I think doing the personal care line will be a good part of that, of getting good personal care options into people's hands easily, a better deodorant, a better toothpaste, better soaps.

Jayton:
Definitely. I can see a giant box coming in with toothpaste, deodorant, soap, supplements, everything.

Chris:
Yeah, it's going to be great. It's in the works.

Jayton:
I think that's all the questions that we've got so far.

Chris:
Cool. Well, thanks for leaving your questions. If you're listening to this, and you're not in the Thermo Diet community group on Facebook, go check it out. We're going to be periodically taking questions like this. It's a really awesome group, really active, a lot of cool people, everyone is pretty helpful. Then, we've got some crazy chefs in there that make some insane stuff, delicious.

Jayton:
Yeah, I know. Steve the Taco Guy.

Chris:
The Taco Lord. We've got Jake Minor, the Thermo Chef, the original warrior.

Jayton:
His spaghetti, I swear. That spaghetti looks like it's going to have to be in the book for sure.

Chris:
We've got to add some of that stuff to the Thermo Chef cookbook. Great, well thanks for listening. Subscribe wherever you're listening to, and leave us a review if you like it. If you don't like it, don't leave a review. Just move on. Thanks for listening. We'll see you on the next show.

Jayton:
Have a good one.