Hello, ladies and gents Robert Sykes ketose a.com. And today I've got special guest Steve from serious keto on the line and we dive deep into his can of origin story as to what got him started in the ketogenic diet and lifestyle, what got him into the YouTube space, which he is absolutely killing. By the way, and we kind of deep into his view on Kita, where it's going, what the highs and lows of kind of all the
dogmatism within the keto space. As we kind of went down that rabbit hole and then we talked about a little bit of everything else we talked about gardening. We talked about his other interests as other YouTube channel kind of how he's going to create more content on this holistic approach to his interest in life thoroughly enjoyed it. I've got a lot of respect for Steve. I love what he's doing. I love the content. He's putting out, I'm excited to dive deeper into his channel and
his content. I have no doubt that you will take something from this conversation. So without further Ado, sit back relax and do a podcast with Steve. And we are live. Steve, how are you sir? I'm very good. You, I am wonderful as well, man. Wonderful as well. So I do honestly, don't know a whole lot about your channel. I just kind of recently learned of your YouTube channel dove into some of it and I watched your latest video, looks like your four years in Aikido now,
yeah, it's pretty pretty close. I'm trying to think when exactly, it was probably February. January, February, 4 years ago. So 1999, 1999, 2019, that I started. And I didn't start the actual Channel until March, and then, I don't think I recorded my first video until May gotcha, but that's a little bit of the history. What was the motivation for starting to you in the first place, man?
Well, I had a and I actually have a rather lengthy six-part video series of this on my site, but I had a bad 2018. I've, I've been overweight or obese, most of my adult life and things kind of came to a head. In 2018, I'd lost my job.
I was laid off from GE and then there was just over there was a series of personal things that went wrong, it was just, it was a train wreck of a year, and I realized that If I was going to have the strength deal with some of these things, I had to get my health in order first and around that time, I'd read the book Presto by Penn jillette and how he had lost 100 pounds.
And I thought, okay, well I'll use that as my model and he had gone vegan and I tried that for eight weeks and realized that I was not going to keep doing that because that was not at all fun. And I also So at the time, I started researching, what do I do next? And I was looking at all kinds of low carb Alternatives, the Mediterranean diet, paleo Quito and ultimately what won me over to Quito is cheese. I'm wisconsinite and that kind of sealed the deal for me.
I also realized and even Penn jillette talked about this in his book that he had gone largely vegan Quito. I mean, he what he was eating as part of his vegan diet is basically, all the stuff that we eat on keto. He I wasn't eating meat so you know to me the transition was pretty smooth. I didn't have any keto flu. I was already kind of used to it.
Gotcha when it comes to diets in general and you kind of mention this in the video that I just watched as well about how there's this dissolution or dilution, I guess of the term Quito in part because of all these different sub groups that are popping up. I'd love to kind of Flesh that out because So everything that you were saying on your video, I've said, as well, it makes a lot of sense to me.
It's frustrating because for someone like you, someone like myself that have come to Quito out of and part desperation for trying to prove her own health. But then also just becoming part of all the good that it has to bring all the community. It's kind of sad to see it lose its credibility. So I'd love to kind of just flesh that idea out a little bit further and kind of figure out where you stand on that topic.
Sure. And you you kind of started to go in the direction that I was and I'm sure once I say this yellow agree, it's not just that we came to Quito in desperation, but I think we're both teachers or Educators in a way we want it. We want to bring people into this, we want to be able to share the goodness, that has happened to us besides just losing weight. Just the whole metabolic Health that you achieve through keto and I know that When I started, I was kind of confused.
There's a lot of information and a lot of misinformation out there, especially within the YouTube and Facebook communities, and, and then there's also all of this tribalism that goes on. Everybody's got their own key. Do you know? It seems like it. I'm keto for, or I'm, I'm true Quito. I'm a lot of these people that have the one true way and I'm making air quotes right there are Are also selling their plan. So there's that there are so many keto police and ingredient
police out there. And I actually plan a diving into this topic deeper in my next week's podcast, but I'll share it with you right now. I've kind of come to the mind that there are three types of Quito. There is metabolic keto, which is, are you in ketosis? Or are you not? I don't care if you're clean, keto, dirty Quito, what kind of Quito you're either in? Moses, or you're not, you're either burning fat as fuel, you
are fat adapted, or you aren't. I mean, when this diet was created a hundred years ago, that was, it wasn't a list of don't eat this. Don't eat that. You can't have this, you can't have that. It was get into ketosis. That was the goal. And so I see one type of Quito as metabolic keto, then you've got grocery store keto, which is what I touched on in the podcast
that I release today. Which is big food playing around with net carbs and releasing stuff that is not going to have people achieving the benefits of Quito.
And I've seen this time and time again, as I've done product reviews of some of these commercial, keto products breads tortillas crackers, Etc. I see, I see glucose spikes that are comparable to eating real bread or real tortillas or real crackers and people, you know, what makes Sad, is that you have people that want to get onto the keto lifestyle and they're buying these keto products and they're not going into ketosis and they're not experiencing the benefits.
So that's frustrating. And then finally, the third category is internet Quito, which is a lot of these influencers that, like, telling people that they're doing keto wrong, yeah, and and creating this tribalism. And, and to me, that's That's one of the most frustrating aspects of it all purple. I don't know if the grocery store. Keto frustrates me more or Internet? Keto frustrates me more because both of them are going to cause new people to either fail or
quit. Yeah. And that's that's what I hate to see because there are so many people that need Quito. It's kind of sad because I mean you've been doing keto for four years. Now, I've been doing it for I guess going on eight and you and I were both putting out content. In Quito reached its Zenith, I guess from a Google Trends standpoint, and at that time, like all these conferences were new, all of these products.
I mean, at the very beginning, there were no products and everybody was just like, they had this Vigor for just learning more diving into it, going into the research, creating the podcast, listen to the podcast. And there was not near the different types of key to like there was just simply keto and I feel like you know, if You are around during that time like that was its quote, unquote, Glory Days.
And I miss those times like I loved those times, like the relationships I've built when we're on the same page and we're all in level playing Ground was. I mean it was beautiful and I feel like because keto has gained so much in popularity, it just it just the way the world works. It like all these big food companies have come to kind of just be where the people are and that's resulted in all these subpar products and just faulty marketing towards ignorant.
Nurse and people that are getting into the space now and doing a simple Google search on what is Quito. Like I can't even imagine being in their position because the different types of conflicting information. They're receiving with a simple Google search. Would leave them. Not knowing where to go next because it's just, oftentimes conflicting.
So I don't know. Like I don't like where things are going but I don't know if there's any way to change that because it's inevitable with the interest in Quito that has arisen. Like that's just what's
happened. With every type of diet, it seems, yeah, it's it's been very frustrating and I don't have a lot of Sleepless sleepless nights, but when I do, it's thinking about this thinking about where does keto go and does, there need to be a different name for it because it has become so diluted both between, you know, people breaking it up into all of these different factions in there in
fighting. And, you know, the I hear countless stories about people that they want to learn keto, they find a Facebook group, they Out there. They asked a benign question like you know, can I eat corn starch or something like that and they get banned.
Mmm. It's it's not an especially welcoming environment just because in some situations you have people that are just militant about it absolutely dogmatic and in other situations you've just got so much conflicting information from different sources and like you said it just I would love to just Have us call it keto, are you in ketosis? Good. You're doing keto for some people. That may mean counting net carbs. For some people that may be total carbs, and the numbers may
be different. What knocks you out of Quito? May knock, may not knock me out of Quito. What spikes, my blood glucose might not Spike yours. It needs to be, I think an individual thing, but the problem is we've also gotten to a point in history where we don't want to learn. We just Answers. Yeah, just tell me how to do it. I don't have time to understand. Keto, just tell me what to do. And the problem is, there's multiple people telling them what to do and the answers
aren't the same. Yeah. And I feel like, you know, with, I mean, with key to like ketosis key to adapt to. These are all medical terms, scientific terms. Like it's not like a like a South Beach Diet or something. That is a little bit more buzzworthy that may kind of rise and fall in popular. This is rooted in In scientific and medical literature.
So it's got that going for it. But I mean it like like you said, like it just becomes diluted with all of the noise that comes into the equation and I don't know what the solution would be because I don't know. I mean for you you have a YouTube channel called serious keto. Like do you Rebrand or do you just stick to your guns and stick with the name? If if I could go back in time there would be a different name for a couple of reasons. Since one, I'm not all that serious.
I mean, I'm, I I joke around a fair amount, I like having fun. I think that some people may misinterpret serious to mean that I'm dogmatic. And I'm not, I think, well, first off, and you probably know this when you were looking for websites for yourself, it's hard. It is hard to find a website a.com that isn't taken. It is so, you know, you're going through domains dot Google.
Just trying every idea. Now that you have trying to find something and I think that maybe I just watched a South Park episode and I had Cartman on the brain. So I was thinking like serious. Yeah, seriously keto Beefcake. And so I typed in Syria sceeto and it was there and I'm hit register and set up the website. And now I can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, but I probably own about 30 different Quito and or low carb URL names. Just in case If I decide to switch?
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. So, the other problem is the word key. Do you know what happens? If, if the word keto becomes completely meaningless? Is that, you know, do I need to just change the channel name, do I need to get a new URL? What do I do?
I don't know if I'm right at all and thinking this this is kind of been my approach to it because I mean, all of my stuff is Quito to, I've got keto brick, I've got keto Savage, having maybe things either keto savage or live savage or some variation of and I feel like live savage. Obviously is more generic in that sense, but I don't really see myself deviating from the keto name because I feel like with a lot of this Noise. It's come.
It's not going to last like all this big food that has brought the noise into the consumer packaged goods, for instance, or all the nonsense, you know, bickering back and forth with people on YouTube that are supposed experts. Like they'll move on to the next big hype whenever that big hype comes, which it will. And if that means the overall volume of people in the keto space dwindles, but the quality of people increases, then I'm fine with serving a smaller more
qualified audience. I Don't know if that will be the case. But that's kind of where I've wanted to take things and kind of where I'm planting my flag in the ground so to speak and I think that's certainly a possibility. There are, there are a number. Well I mean you see it just on a daily basis.
So you people start up a YouTube channel because they think it's the hot thing and they're going to turn it into money or whatever Fame Fortune glory and the The, the influx of new keto channels, even since I started is just amazing and I don't mean that necessarily in a good way. It's just, it's there are certain people that maybe shouldn't have keto channels. Yeah. Or need to recognize that at
best. It's just going to be sort of a hobby for them but I think a lot a lot of people get into it and they think that it's going to be an income stream because it is a hot thing and that's what happens. People see a hot thing they get in on it.
Then you've got certain keto companies that may take advantage of that, you know, you you see generally once people get into that five, ten thousand subscriber range, there are certain key tow companies that I wouldn't call them predatory but they pounce on people like that and say oh let me send you some free stuff for you to review and at that point since you're you're small, you're growing, you're flattered your flattered, when you know, keto Corp Sentinels.
As you a package of powder and you want to get in on that and then you want to be an affiliate marketing partner and then you it just it kind of spirals from there. Yeah. But I think you do hit a point where it just either. These companies are going to get more selective and say. All right, so such and such a channel is not good for our brand because of the way they're behaving because of some of the things they say, perhaps the way they treat their Community, maybe maybe.
You see a decrease in that that that drives that maybe flushes away. Some of these other keto channels and keto influencers or maybe like you said there's the next big thing that comes along. What was your personal motivation for starting the channel? Because you're you're killing it, whatever you whatever you're doing, you're doing it right. My eye was a foodie and that was sort of reflected in my weight as well. I have just had a passion for cooking since childhood and and
a passion for eating as well. And what I found when I started doing keto was There were a couple of things that I saw, as I got out on YouTube, One, a lot of really just not very good recipes. There's things like, you know, the healthy substitutions like it instead of a burger bun. Use a leaf of lettuce. Yeah, I'm like that's not a burger anymore. That's a lettuce wrap. Come on. Let's go. We can do better A lot of recipes that were just.
They felt like Sort of like the stuff you see on Tick-Tock it's like I would have come up with this if I came home from the bars and college drunk one night and just said all right let's whip some stuff together. Some really not very great recipes and then some people that just do you know maybe maybe they know how to cook but they just didn't have the the screen presence or the editing skills or something like that. And I thought maybe I can I don't know.
I mean I'll give it a shot. I wasn't so. Full of myself that I thought for sure. I could do it. But that's the great thing about YouTube. When you first start nobody's watching so you have the ability to make a lot of mistakes and learn from them. So my motivation was really, I wanted people to enjoy food on keto as much as I knew that I could enjoy food on keto, do you feel like the recipe market, like the people that are creating food blogs food
channels? Like you think that has become over saturated or do you think that there's still plenty of room there because like I am I'm not a foodie, I love good food but I'm a body butter, that would eat dirt if it made me better. So like a lot of people that are, you know, that our food is trying to make these channels, like, is that a viable outlet for them? Or is it just like way too many as it is? It is, it's saturated. I wouldn't I wouldn't try and
start one. Now, if I were to her, if I were starting keto today and had the idea to start a channel, I wouldn't I wouldn't do it. It's It is, it's gotten very iterative as well. You know, someone will do a recipe and then everybody else will do that recipe. And then you start getting into who invented this recipe. First? It's just it's hard to keep coming up with new stuff and Innovative stuff. And that was one of the things early on in my channel I wanted
to really innovate. I wanted to come up with a corn tortilla that tasted like a corn tortilla and I started drawing on some of my experience. Molecular Gastronomy and using certain modernist ingredients. And you get to a point where it's just, everybody's trying to one-up the next person. So I've kind of pulled back and am looking at recipes that I call. Coincidentally Quito. Incidentally, I own that URL. But things that is as I go through a cookbook, like an older cookbook something by
shocked, by pain, for example. Sample and I see a recipe and I'm like, wow, everything in this is Quito or could be made keto with, you know, small substitution instead of cornstarch I'm going to use Santa and gum as a thickener. For example, it's coincidentally Quito and it's a classic recipe and it's great. So you know, let's let's get away from this notion that it's just all bacon and eggs and butter and beef. We can we can actually eat stuff
that looks and tastes. And in fact is Regular food that we can also serve potentially to our non-kyoto family and they'll
appreciate as well. Yeah. I don't I mean kind of going back to all these different versions of Quito like I consider carnivore a subset of Quito, but from a recipe generation standpoint, I would think that with the popularity that carnivore has received in recent years, that's probably made it harder for my recipe standpoint because there's just fewer options, you have it for following a street corner for diet, when it comes to formulating recipes, well, I've made a couple of car Of our
recipes. And I'll have some carnivore people that are little say, oh, that's great. That's perfect. I love it. Thank you so much. And they agree that you're allowed a certain percent of sort of non carnivore. Like, okay. You can have some seasonings or something like that. I've had other people that have crawled down my throat because I had some herb in along with the meat. They're like, oh, that's a plant that will kill you. How come on, you know.
All right. Fine. Your Carnivore pancake can be a beef patty enjoy, you know it, but it's just everybody. Everybody has gotten so uptight. Well not everybody. That's I hate sweeping generalizations. So many people, I think I've gotten so uptight. I think a lot of it maybe is the fact that, you know, for a couple of years, we were kind of denied human contact. You had everybody getting used to being at home and all of their human contact. Was through a keyboard and a webcam.
And I think it's just It's resulted in a little bit of a breakdown in politeness. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think they're like when we first started putting out content. Oh, came up with a product and everything like like my wife and I people were brutal, man. Like when we were selling our products or we made a product. People didn't like, I mean, they were just ruthless. And like, before we start had any experience with this, like we didn't have thick skin to it.
So it was just amazing that people could be so rude. We had a lot of really positive feedback too. But like when you start Content, you really have to just learn to, you know, hard in your skin, to that kind of feedback. I mean, we get an overwhelmingly large percentage of our feedback is positive, not negative, but the negative seems to Fester much, much more. So, like that's the the comments
that draw your attention. You can get 100 positive comments and one negative one that negative ones, one that eats at you at night, but that's tough, man. So I call those workout fuel, you know, I had to die devil little mental shift because I was burning out on ants, you know, you would get I get, you know, I don't know, 500 comments a day, sometimes more and I try and read them all and I reply to a fair number of them. But you'll get three, four, five, a day, which is a fraction.
It's one percent, but it just, you know, it raises your blood pressure. Yeah. And you know I decided. Okay, I can't, I can't let this bother me because the the bigger I get the more More of this I'm going to get. So instead I only now look at comments right before. It's time to lift that way. You know you you can focus on that and bang out a few extra
reps at smart. That's Mars, Listen to, I don't know if it's a podcast or if it was the audiobook never finished by Goggins. But he was talking about how he takes all these negative comments that he gets people. Give him all kinds of negative comments. Oh yeah, he'll read them. That you'll print them off and he'll read them out loud and record him reading him and then I put like music over to it. He's got his own Own playlist of
haters talking shit about him. And I'm like, man, that is some dedication right there. That's a good way to take that negativity and leverage it to make yourself better, which I like. So I haven't read the new book. I read his first book and I read living with a seal by the guy that's married to the woman who runs Spanx. It's about, I'm totally drawn a blank, but he had basically paid Goggins to live with him for a month. And train them like a seal. And that's that's a pretty
interesting book as well. And not read that one, but I'll definitely check it out. He's got guns. Is pretty motivating guy, man. Like I listened to his first podcast with Rogan and I literally signed up for a marathon having not run in seven plus years to just run a marathon to see if I could. I mean that's kind of motivation
that people need. I also though there's there's part of me that I temper it with a little bit where I wonder just how much longer is body is the last You know, there's I think there's a certain degree of abuse that you can put a human body through and he gets to the point where it's it's almost masochistic. It seems like totally totally. And honestly that's one of my main, you know, motivations for sticking with Quito from Michael longevity standpoint.
I feel like I feel like if you're doing things in a healthy manner, like you're not sacrificing form and your body allows for moments and time to be at 100%, but like you can't operate at 100%. Indefinitely because you will
break down and burn out. But I feel like from a longevity standpoint pairing, a well-formulated ketogenic diet with weight training, and then a cardiovascular activity, like that's the best Trifecta that you can, you know, input into your life to give yourself the best, bang for the buck long-term. So I'm hopeful that I'll be able to keep doing the stuff that I'm doing years down the road because of the dietary and lifestyle you know, changes that
have made up to this point. Well, I get comments. Almost on a daily basis from people, especially if I show any picture of myself. From 10 years ago, I look younger. And I feel way younger than I did 10 years ago I feel younger than I did when I was 30 and I'm going to be 55 next week. It is it is truly Quito is the Fountain of Youth. It is absolutely amazing. How much your body feels better than it did before. When you get rid of inflammation I bring this up a lot in
podcasts. People don't know what inflammation is they think, oh it's just I'm just getting older. That's why it hurts getting out of bed. No, it hurts getting out of bed because you're eating grains and sugar and just trash. Highly processed foods and Seed oils and that's what's making your body hurt. That's what's making your body perform sub-optimally. That's why you grunt. When you get off the couch give that stuff up. And it's unbelievable. How how things change just
holistically within your body. Yeah, I totally agreement. I feel like having I feel like with with a classy, a 20 oz of natural choices, like if you just simply remove all the processed junk and eat real Quality Foods and ideally avoid, all the process grains and sugars carbohydrates, like that's 80% of what most people can do to yield the vast majority of the returns from a dietary intervention.
And then, once you do that, then you could really start going to the nuances of all the other little minor tweaks that can get you closer to. Hundred percent but like that would be the best bang for the buck without a doubt. So let me ask you a question by all means what. So one of the things that I probably am going to cover in a future podcast or I've also started this series keto for beginners where I cover I'll dedicate a full 15, 20 minutes
to one topic. And one of the ones that I want to talk about is Quito myths and some of the things that you hear either, within the keto Community or outside of the keto Community, what would you say outside? For both for both which would you say is some of the biggest keto myths, you would love to see dispelled because, you know, their myths? Well, as a bodybuilder, I get a lot of pushback from people more, so tell you, you need carbs, you need carbs to work out.
Yes. And you have to have carbs to build muscle. And a lot of times people will say, they'll point to people that have muscle indicator, space myself, Danny, Vega Logan. I mean, lots of people that have muscle to Quito space and they'll be like, yeah, but all of their physique was built when they were Still eating carbs, and that's just not the truth. I mean, I've been bodybuilding for 14 years. I've been keto more than half of
that time. Yes, I built a lot of muscle before I went keto, but a lot of that is simply because when you first start weight training, your body has a very new stimulus that is subjected to and you're going to put on a lot of muscle relatively quickly in that initial period of time. But then you continue to build muscle. If you do things properly, especially the Natural Body Butter. It takes very, it takes a long time. Time to build muscle tissue.
After you've reached some degree of muscle maturity in your body has acclimated to that stimulus. So I've built a lot of muscle post Quito, it just takes a long time and I feel like that rumor certainly needs to be dismissed him.
If you're eating ample calories, a protein and of dietary fat to fuel the workouts and you're able to feel the workouts in a way to subject, your body to Progressive overload principles, then you will grow and you're recovering properly, then you will grow, and you will put on Muscle, so, that needs to die, that that myth. And then the notion that you can't get lean and can't fill out for a competition and have vascularity and actually Peak properly for a competition day,
is also totally inaccurate. I mean, all of the best Peak weeks that I've had as a bodybuilder have come since I went Chi-Town that I've got better muscle pumps better, vascularity better performance on stage and I've done. So in a healthier fashion like without having to manipulate my fluid intake. Well, I have to go drastically
low, with my electrolytes. Without having to do anything like diuretics, it's much, much healthier in that regard in my opinion and it's more sustainable in my opinion. And I feel like a lot of competitors that go through, traditional dietary means with the high carbs, high protein low fat. They're left with a lot of hormonal imbalances, post-show, and they left with binging Tendencies. Post-show, and if you do things properly with a ketogenic diet, you don't tend to have near the
negative repercussions. Post-show and that post-show chapters, what a lot of people don't talk about, About. So, I'm glad you you. That was the one, you came up with because I was not a big fella muscularly. I was a big fellow around the waist for a long time, but really started getting into strength training more last year and I'm, I go out of Quito a couple of times a year, you know, they'll be a family event a party, something like that. Where I decide, you know what I can do this?
I'm fat adapted. I'll bounce back, I'll be back. Back in Quito, in a couple days. But for the most part I am well for the other 363 days a year on keto. Yeah. So I'm lifting keto and, you know, I put on an inch through my upper arms last year. So to me, the people that say you can't gain muscle on keto or you can't gain muscle over 50 or you can't gain muscle over 50 on keto. I think I've sort of become proof that that's not true. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Your proof that, that's not true.
Is going to be people that say, yeah. But what is optimal? Like, you need to have carbs to optimize muscle building. And what I have found is that, you know, from a carbohydrate standpoint, you may put on a little bit more muscle, but then you're also going to put on more body fat and then when you lean down for a competition, you're going to lose a little bit more muscle than you are with a
ketogenic diet. So at the end of the day, when you step onstage, the net result is not any more in favor of a carbohydrate base protocol. When it comes to building muscle, that's been my personal experience. Yeah I just I think I'll leave it there. I think I'm you summed it up quite well. I've had nothing to add but yeah I think I mean for me I think like I don't ever want to be dogmatic about attrition either.
I don't ever want to say that my way or the highway like you have to do this in order to succeed, like people have been able to get lean build muscle, sustain, a healthy lifestyle with a variety of different types of diets, but for the people that don't do well with carms for the people that are better eliminators, the moderators for the people that don't do well. L hormonal e with a bunch of carbohydrates. I want to be somebody that they can point to and say, hey look,
he's done and it's possible. I feel like that resonates with me, let me do this. Let me have this lifestyle and not feel like I'm less than or subpar sacrificing by, not having the cars because that narrative is the main one that needs to be broken. The the idea that you can't excel at a high rate and perform at a high level without carbohydrates, because that's just not true.
Yeah, I agree 100%. So let's turn the conversation slightly man when it comes to you and your channel and where you're going to take things, I noticed in that video that you also have another YouTube channel.
What was the motivation behind that like from a YouTube standpoint and this is something that I've kind of gone back and forth with because I've got a YouTube channel that was initially all ketogenic bodybuilding but now like we have a nine-month-old son, so we're talking about parenting We're talking about homesteading, going to get some
chickens. Like I've got office of random stuff that is not ketogenic bodybuilding, but it's all part of our life which is why we're trying to make this whole inclusive live savage thing that umbrella encompasses at all. But like from a YouTube standpoint, I'm assuming you found it more beneficial to have a separate Channel entirely than
separate playlist. So my other channel lean body mind was really the channel I wanted to do and I thought I'll experiment on Kito because, you know, you got to start with one or the other and I thought, I'll experiment with serious keto, see what happens. Learn some skills, learn video editing learn about cameras, things like that.
You know, to the extent that that I can I don't consider myself a top-tier videographer or anything like that, but I thought this is where I'll get my feet wet. And then once I've got some experience, I'll start lean, body mind, and I didn't expect serious. Keto to take off the way it did. Lean body mind is more of my holistic channel. It's more where my interests lie. First, you know, lean is sort of
to two meanings. One is just having a low body fat physique or having a not a lot of waste which draws upon my previous career in continuous Improvement. / process Excellence where I spent 15 years as a lean Six Sigma Master
black belt. I was the lead trainer for GE Healthcare. G Medical Systems GE Capital and and then Cooper Power Systems for a while which is where, you know, when I came down to your neck of the woods, but that process Improvement is always been a passion of mine, especially how to incorporate this into your life holistically. So, physically diet airily, that's word, emotionally spiritually.
There's probably one other way. Just be more efficient in life to get Get more out of life to remove some of the waste from life to have flow in your life. So, you know, I've got a lot of passion around, self-improvement Beyond just keto. I love to meditate. I noticed as I was scrolling through your Savage site that you had Ryan holidays book. Yeah, I love that book. So if it's too bad, we don't
have cameras on right now. Because I would show you out, hold up right next to my desk here, I've got the daily stoic. Next I'd assume printer 365. Meditations on wisdom, perseverance and the Art of Living and just every day, I'm on my second pass through that. Every day I go through and I read the, the one-page, the daily stoicism and every day, even though I've already been through it. I feel like I'm I'm learning again. Yeah, I've got so many of these little 3M post.
It sign here. Stickers marking pages with things that have been you know, really meaningful to me. So I lean body mind is going to be all of that as well as I do like reviewing products and either you know, telling people. Hey this is great. I can endorse this particular product, this supplement, this workout tool, you know, this meditation, Matt, whatever it is. Or I tried this for 30 days and this is hot garbage. I took the I took the hit so you don't have to.
Yeah and I found that on He's kedo. I was starting to kind of ease too much into this. You know, what? I had planned for lean body mind and I realized at that point, I needed to bifurcate and, and create two separate channels. So that I didn't water down the keto stuff that makes total sense for me. Like, my YouTube channel is not near as large as your I think mine's like 28,000 or something like that.
And I've done a lot of daily vlogging and with those it's just been like a bunch of randomness Anyways, so I don't feel like, plus I don't make shit from YouTube. I mean, it's like laughable what I make from YouTube. So if I make nothing, but it's all Under One Roof like that in
my mind, flows more sensibly. But I totally get where you're coming from and I think, honestly, that's exciting that you're being able to dive deeper into that aspect the channel because, you know, like I've got the very Ultra Nitschke, do bodybuilding, you know, piece of content. I'm always going to continue to add content there as I learned more but I think like with live It sounds pretty similar to what you're trying to do with lean body mind.
And then there's there's so much more to an individual's life than just the food they consume. And with, within the keto, space is very easy. Like, when you have a brand, when you have a business, when you have a channel to really become hyper focused on that one thing, and I think there is so much to be said for going Ultra Niche.
But I think at a point, you don't want to do so at the exclusion of a holistic view of one's life and like, for me with live savage once once we start actually, Diving into that putting content to, I've basically got a divided into five primary pillars. The Five Pillars that most people's lives can probably be defined as in some form of fashion, like health wealth, relationships spirituality and
self improvement. And I want to kind of like great content around each of those five pillars. And that's what's got me really excited. Like, I'm excited to learn how to become a better duck hunter, but then also make a wooden table, learning some new skills that surrender for woodworking tools. But then also So how to best raise chickens and become a
better. Homestead like all these things that are not directly related to Quito in any form or fashion, but all things that I think make me a better human being. And I think there's a lot of value to that from two different aspects. One, when you are Ultra Niche people, I think start to see, they don't see you so much as a
person anymore, is a character. You are, you know, keto guy, Steve's your serious Steve and That then, you know, it's you might as well be a cartoon character or an actor or something like that because that's sort of what they see you. As they don't see you holistically, they don't see you as a person and that's that's I want to be a person. So that's that's one thing I don't want to just be a character but the other thing too is like an Investment Portfolio.
It pays to diversify. What if? And this is a little bit of Steve's conspiracy theorist sneaking out, what if big food, you know, one of the ten companies that runs all of food decides, it's time to put their foot on the throat of Quito and start pressuring YouTube. To, you know, to shut keto down, because it's misinformation or,
or whatever. It's good to have something else to fall back on. Especially because this is my job, this is, this is my income stream right here and if serious keto goes away, I need, I need someplace soft to land, right? Yeah, no, I think that makes total sense, man. I feel like one of my favorite, Tim Ferriss quotes is specialization specialization is for insects be to come.
Plex to categorize, I think that sums it up quite nicely like a few plus, I mean, you have you are a person, you have a lot more to you than just recipes. So like for your audience that want to know you, on a deeper level, been able to offer them that complex, you know, arrangement of all the things that you're interested in is is rewarding for them and you Absolutely. So on that note what are some things that you're excited to dive into?
I mean let's totally switch gears and I'm talking about Kita, what are some things that you're trying to put out in the channel That that interest you that you haven't really been able to pull the curtain back on prior to this point. So on for lean body mind, I want to start getting into animated explainer videos. You know you see things. I just it's something that I think would be a lot of fun. It appeals sort of the the creative child in me to create
animated videos. One of the things that I really prided myself on back in my days as an instructor was taking some of these complex Concepts within lean and Six Sigma and especially statistical analytics and making them understandable to normal people and Using relevant, real world examples of visual management for example, and showing people just how easy this stuff can be when someone explains it the right way. And I think animated videos like that would help.
I think that then also, it potentially opens up the opportunity for me to do Consulting work. Again, if somebody wants to hire me as a speaker or to come in and do a lean assessment or something like that. So there's there's multiple reasons for wanting to do animated explainer videos with within Syria sceeto. I think my big passion is just making people better Cooks.
Yeah. And showing them that there are techniques that are applicable, whether you're keto or not, that are going to serve you really well in Quito, especially when it comes now to some of the food prices, how can you do things? I call it recipe. Sequencing. So you make a recipe and then there's going to be leftovers. What do you do with those leftovers or you make a recipe and it calls for a certain ingredient? Okay, well, now I got this ingredient.
That's going to go bad on me, you know, within a couple of days. What's, what's on? Tuesdays menu? That I can follow this up with.
So whether it's things like you know instead of buying boneless skinless, chicken breasts at three and a half dollars a pound, go by bone-in skin-on for A buck twenty nine, a pound and peel those skins off and throw them in your air fryer and eat them as snacks, slow cooker, pressure cooked, the you know, the chicken and you know, whatever recipe it is or braised, it save those bones make some some chicken stock things like that where there's, you know, two three.
Even four steps in a row or recipes in a row where you're optimizing what you have for food and then kind of back to your homesteading thing. All right. Well now I got some scraps. What I do with these? Well, Roman the composter, and you make, you know, the most wonderful compost for your garden? Yeah. I think, looking at again, I'm certainly not a chef by any stretch of the imagination, but I appreciate people that prepare Foods in a way that is more
holistic, in nature. Like, are you familiar with dr. Bill Schindler, I am not, he he's, he's great. And he wrote a book called eat like a human. He's anthropologists archaeologists, but he took him hunting this past year at my family farm. And, you know, we killed some deer and And he was out there like, he processed the deer with us and he was using all the
organ meats and ways. I didn't even know was possible, he was out there picking up, mushrooms that he knew were edible off from the ground and making like a brown butter. Sauteed mushroom, like, you stood, all the stuff that made like it just transformed the food that I'm used to eating but
in a totally different way. And I feel like when you when you bring that kind of holistic nature from like literally an animal that was walking just moments prior to some ornate dish that Satisfies, all your, you know, all of your Cravings, all the smells, all the taste, all the flavors, the textures, like there's an art form to it for sure. So for people that have that desire to lean into that and perfect that, I mean, hats off to you.
Well, and the sad thing is so many people don't even know what food is anymore. Yeah, because they shop in the nutritional Wasteland, that is the middle. 90% of a grocery store, you know, they you have children, that can't identify an apple versus a tomato and it just, it's that that to me is frustrating, you know, there's the fact that people have never had produce that was grown 15 feet from from where they live, rather than 1,500 miles from where they live.
Yeah. And it's just if there's such an incredible, incredible difference in it. So I mean I had thought there's been times I've toyed with doing a gardening Channel. But most of the time when I'm gardening I'm just I'm, it's like a Zen thing for me. I just I get into it. I lose track of everything else. But getting dirt under my fingernails and to have to be thinking about camera setups and stuff like that, I think would take away the joy that I get out of gardening.
No, I totally agree, man. So, on that note, I'm at the pick some homesteading questions from here with the gardening. What do you do? Like, do you have like a particular idea of a Large garden, small garden. What are you go to foods? Like I was in Tractor Supply, Co the other day, looking at seeds and in my area. I need to start planning next month. Apparently, in April, I wish, I wish. I had that kind of growing window. What do I need to do? Man, get me started for Success
here when it comes to gardening. So you do plan on, starting your seeds yourself like inside or to me, that's it. That's what I'll do. All right, that the challenge with that this this starts turning into a full Full full job or a full-time job, Growing Seeds, starting them yourself, you know, down in the basement with a grow light and, you know,
heating mat is cool. You know, because it's like all these are my babies and then you got to start gradually, transplanting them, you know, moving them to bigger and bigger pots. And suddenly, you realize, okay, this, this area that I had suddenly is 20% of what I actually need because all my plants have gotten so big then. You got to go through the whole hardening off process because and I learned this my first year of gardening there, there, the plants are looking wonderful inside.
You take them outside and they die within a day because they're not ready to deal with real sunlight and wind and unstable temperatures and things like that. So, you know, you need to go through the process of taking them outside just for an hour and then bring them back inside next day. Maybe they get an hour and a half and, you know, gradually ramp them up until they can
handle being out. side for a full day but for me if all my seedlings are down in the basement I'm carrying you know eight trays of seedlings up the stairs and then back down the stairs and And then if something goes wrong and they die your heart broken because it's your baby that does some good ole time this man. As he is a man, it's the closest I can come to giving birth. You know, these were, these are my, you know, I nurtured these from from, from seed.
And now what I do is I'll just, uh, go to a farmers market. I'll let somebody else grow the seeds for me and, you know, I'd rather get it from them than some big commercial chain Garden Center. Or you know Home Depot or some place like that. I would rather have know that someone else nurtured these and cared for these. And you know then I'll then I'll take them. I do if you get out on the lean body mind I do.
I did a little bit of a video blog of me, prepping my garden and what all I do in terms of irrigation and all of that stuff. So you can get out on to lean body mind and check that out. Meanwhile, I'm going to be jealous of you because you've got chickens and I would love chickens. I don't have them yet that that will be something. We have soon in the past we've like my folks have always had a garden and you know when I was
living with them like we'd help. I'd help him, you know, with the garden and we would just like, you know, till the ground, make some rows Mound up the rows, then punch a bunch of seeds in and that tend to work. Is that not the best way to do it? Mmm, it'll work at you but you know, like like like all things is time goes on people, learn better and better methods and you know, so I run down so Air hoses. And so I'm irrigating directly
at the base of the plant. I don't want to lose water to evaporation. I don't want to risk any sort of fungal diseases by wetting down the leaves and then I lay down what's called red reflective mulch. It's basically, like red plastic wrap. You lay that down on the ground and it does a few things, one you're supposed to get, I think 20 to 30% better yield because it reflects the red sunlight, the red Rays back.
Up at the plan from underneath. So it's getting it from the top and the bottom, but also, then it just it makes a cleaner Garden. It's just called terms of demure, you know, I lay down, we'd tarp for my Pathways. I raid lay down the red reflective mulch, where the plants are you can you can walk through my garden, wearing a pair of white socks and you know, and they aren't going to get dirty with fruit drops off. It's not going to land in the
dirt. And, you know, potentially You know, start getting moisture, hold on to some sort of disease, or, you know, whatever, whatever it may be, slugs, may show up it. It's great. I mean it's worked out very well for me. It's a little more work upfront, but it makes for a pretty gorgeous Garden, huh? And you get video footage of your garden on that channel. Oh yeah, I'll definitely have to check that out and take some Nola. I can shoot you a link once we get done.
I'll email it to you. Yeah. Yeah. Because there were that's a few the Savior the work I'm definitely but you would ask what I grow. I grow I grow stuff that generally either. I can't get a grocery store or it's More cost-effective for me to grow. I used to grow everything. I used to grow potatoes. There's no point in growing potatoes, really, especially now that I'm Kido, but even before, like, I can go out and get a five-pound bag of potatoes for two bucks.
Why do I want to spend months growing them, right? Doesn't make sense. So, I tend to grow a lot of heirloom varieties of plants, you know, whether that's, you know, some really unique varieties of lettuce or tomatoes, or I'm, I'm a total chili head. So I love hot peppers of all varieties, so even though jalapenos aren't inexpensive pepper, I love them so much. I want I want to in my yard and I want to be able to grow them and harvest them and canem and Grill them and all of that
stuff. So there tends to be a pretty big focus on heirloom tomatoes and peppers and kind of anything that you might put in a typical keto salad. I'd grow a lot of herbs as well because I love cooking with fresh herbs. Yeah, I'm definitely going to have an emphasis on herbs and also Peppers. Love It, habanero peppers. Just hot stuff in general. So I'm definitely going to peppers in Arkansas. Grow really, really well. So that should be pretty. It should be an easy stepping stone for me.
I don't think I can mess the peppers up to ban, I probably can, but hopefully not the problem. Unfortunately, peppers are not prone to disease very much unlike heirloom tomatoes but The problem in Wisconsin is very often on the really hot peppers. You know, if I'm doing ghost peppers for example, right about the time. They're ready for Harvest. It's going to be the first Frost of the year. Yeah. You know so very often our Frost window can be between Labor Day.
I'm sorry, Memorial Day and Labor Day. That's sort of like probably the safe area, but one year I had everything planted on Memorial Day weekend and the Tuesday, after Memorial Day we had a frost and everything. I planted died. That's the worst man. Heartbreaking only gets this is June. What the hell is this? Why do I live here? Have you ever played around with? Like a greenhouse or polytunnel or anything? I've done some of the mobile ones.
The problem is it's tremendously windy up here as well and unless you plan on kind of screwing these things down you know into your deck or something like that. It's going to blow. And, and I don't, I, I would
love to have this space. I would love to expand my house and take what's currently deck and, you know, stretch that out maybe into a three Season room where I could, I could grow and, you know, the sunlight can come in and extend my growing window, but that's not in the budget right now. That would be cool, though. That would be cool. And one of my employees has a grow tint, like he's using it
for mushrooms. So we've been cooking lion's mane for us and Blue, oyster, mushrooms and whatnot. But that thing is incredibly efficient at just, you know, having the perfect scenario for growing like the right humidity level. He's got everything temperature regulated so I could start seeds off with that pretty well, it's just that hardening process. They were talking about earlier that I might have a little trouble with yeah. It's the the issue is sort of the schedule.
You know, you're now at a point where you you need to be taken care of this every single day. Day and at that point, you know, it's fun the first time, maybe but then you get to a point where you're like, I'll just let somebody else do this for me. Yeah, I'll let somebody else get the seaplane going and Harden it off and I'll buy it at the farmers market and I'm good to go. Yeah, that makes those things. I got to take care of it every single day out.
I might as well get a dog or something. You know what I mean? You already got a baby and I lost you need. Exactly. Exactly. Well, Steve, what does he get coming to Pai employment? What are you excited about is? Just round out this podcast with a with the what the future holds. Old for you, you get the chance, well, apart from that. So you know this year is going to be an exciting year for me first.
I think I look at 55 as sort of a bit of a landmark birthday and I want to be in the best shape of my life. Physically, spiritually emotionally. I, you know, I've been getting they're getting better. I think every year. But you know, with last year really kind of getting into strength training. I want I want my body to be my moneymaker that age 55, you know, To you. Look at the guy like Mark Sisson, for example. I think he's 60.
Yeah, you know, if I'm doing, you know, start start making some thumbnails wearing a tank top and, you know, got some good guns going on, you know, that sells? I mean it's clickbait. Yeah, I admit it and it's shallow, but hey, you know, why do you think so many people? Click on, delete our videos. He's not wearing a shirt and he looks great. So, part of it is that the, the whole on 55, I'd love to have people think I'm 35.
But the other thing is, my son is getting married in August and they're getting married in Hawaii and I just, I want to look great for that as well. Especially with the shirt off. Well, you can damn sure do man. I've got several plants that are 50, 60, 70 years old, and a lot of have done a competition prep because they just have that on their bucket list to do.
And I've been amazed at seeing some of these 55 60 year, olds get freaking lean with a ketogenic diet so I think Think it's totally within reason totally doable. So I mean by all means man freaking rock and roll. Yeah, the the one the one thing I've struggled with is, you know, because you know like if you blow up a balloon and you leave that balloon inflated for 20 years and then deflate it,
it's going to be saggy. Yeah, and you know, even though I'm starting to see, you know, the shadow of a six-pack showing up, have got this deflated Tire kind of hanging around. My belly button just hanging there. It's just it's so gross. I hate it. You know? And it just for years it's been four years in the thing isn't going away. Yeah, means a tough one man. Like there's different opinions of thought on that. Like some people just doesn't
let doesn't bother them. They wear it like a badge of honor like hey look this is this showcase. How far I've come which I think is a really healthy way to look at it. Some people they hate it so they get like skin removal surgery. No shame there either. And And it's just hard to get it to go away.
I mean you can build more muscle to fill that void but if you have a ton of loose skin there's not really any you know, miraculous thing that you can do or eat or, you know, no amount of, you know, cold plunging are saunas, going to remove it entirely. Yeah, it's one thing if you got some loose skin on your arms. I mean I try filling that up with some muscle but there's not a lot of like muscle. You're going to add around the love handles and you know the
girdle there. Yeah. That's mostly where you want to be. Rid of stuff. And my wife works at a plastic surgery center and I've toyed with the idea of having some skin removal, but then, you know, she says, oh you're well you're going to have to wear like an actual great girdle type brace for. I don't know how many weeks and no no more exercise for eight weeks. Mike I don't like the sound of that. Yeah it doesn't sound like awesome.
I think the best way to look at a man is like make the rest of your physique. So freaking impressive that when you're anybody's looking at you, they're drawn to all of those areas instead of the little bit of loose skin around your midsection That's, uh, that's a good idea. I've also thought about maybe just getting a tattoo of a six-pack abs, you know, that way I can just, you know, you could do that for sure. Well, Steve man, I thoroughly
enjoyed the conversation. Where do people go to follow with along with you on your YouTube channel? There's two of them. Serious keto? And I just drew a blank. It's lean body mind. Yeah. Lean Body Mind. Where else? Yeah, yeah, I don't do a whole lot else on social media just because I mean, I've got, I've got an Instagram account. I post not very regularly to it. I've got a Facebook account. I think the last recipe I posted
on that was July of last year. It's just it is difficult to manage so many different aspects of social media that I just I put really all of my focus on to Syria sceeto.com and the serious keto YouTube site and lean body mind on YouTube is just to do more than that is hard. Yeah no, I totally get him in there. So many about medium. I would tell people don't you maybe don't watch my Kido brick review. Hey, that key tobruk.
Have you brought us together. So even if it was not a Stellar review, we're having a great conversation. So, in my mind, it was all worth it and not to be a suck-up, but they're starting to grow on me to the point that, you know, especially after lifting. Like that's all I want to eat. I'm not in the mood for a protein shake. I want I want to Quito bricks so I'm glad that you sent me some more. Likely. Well not just likely, there will be a part to review sort of a
Steve has changed his opinion. Which you know, it wouldn't be the first time I've changed my opinion initially. I didn't like keto chow and I developed, I have now developed the fastest selling new flavor of Quito Chow in their history. So, well, let me ask you this the, the whole reason I wanted
to send you. Some, some bricks personally is because it seemed as though, the bricks that you had received from one of your listeners or viewers, Were probably a pretty old batch of bricks that may have been sitting in their car for 15 weeks, Milton and reharden in, which is going to negatively impact the flavor. I'm assuming the ones that we sent tasted and had a different texture all together, right?
I haven't gotten the ones that you sent me yet because I wanted to the ones that I had sampled for the video. I wanted to finish kind of get through them. I really do need to do and I as I was eating one of those today, I thought, oh my gosh, he's going to ask me. He's going to ask me how I knew. Bricks. And I'm not going to have an answer for him because I haven't tried them yet. Hey, I will tell you that one of the ones that we had sampled in the video, I had the other day.
The chocolate peanut butter cup or peanut butter, chocolate cup, or something like that. And I loved it. I'm just like, wow, what the hell did I eat in that video? That I didn't like, because this is really good. This strange thing you can tell me if this is the case on the texture of all the bars. Or if it's just a fault of these being maybe a little bit older, there's something odd the first time you have them in terms of mouthfeel because it doesn't
stick to your teeth. It depends what you think about her. Anything you eat in the world, it adheres a little bit to your teeth. Yeah. You know, it's going to require a little saliva. It's going to Tire require you to kind of like your teeth off to you know get it off. I don't care what it is. Everything kind of sticks to your teeth a little bit. The keto brick seems to it's like the equivalent of soft water. It just it does it rolls right off?
Well, the the way based bricks The Way Way in general, has a stickier nature to it than the plant-based plant-based protein that we use in some of the other bricks. So the way bricks I find to be A bit more, stickier for sure. But the bricks that are that are so they are shelf-stable, you know. Like if you have them at room temperature, that will be totally fine to eat.
But for me and when I try and recommend to everybody that eats them as if you're going to store them for extended periods of time, like months on end, then keep them cold because they will retain their freshness for longer. And, you know, like, if you have a brick that has melted, Andre horned multiple times and Transit. Like the the ingredients are going to separate, they're going to resolidify. Science. Cow butter is the main ingredient and that tempers.
So, you know, if you mess up the tempering of the cacao butter, it's not going to taste as well either. So that's why I wanted to send you some fresh bricks. I mean, you may still not like them but I wanted you to have an accurate representation of an actual brick that is, you know, in the right condition. So hopefully you like the new ones but it should have a much different texture than the ones
that you had received. And honestly the temperature has a massive impact on Textures. Well, I mean we don't put preservatives in there, we don't put A binder filler ingredients in there that most other bars do. So if you get a brick in Wisconsin's four degrees outside, it's going to be a frozen brick. If you get a break that's, you know, in the summertime, it's going to be much softer and nature. So it really kind of depends on what the ambient temperature is.
Well, I figured if I went to the new bricks and then love them, it would be hard to go back to the ones that had been sent to me very. And since I'm really, really opposed to any sort of food waste, I thought. Okay, I'm just gonna tough it up, I don't know. I'm going to work through all of these older bar. Ours. And then I'm going to move on to the new stuff but I'll let you know the moment that I do. Well if I was you I appreciate not wanting food waste.
I mean, that that's very admirable and also don't like throwing away any food but I would, I would highly encourage you to put the other ones in the compost pile. If they have, in fact been melting a reharden a million times and then just eat the new ones and I'll make sure your stocked up there if you like them. All right. Well, you can tell that they have melted it's when they've got sort of the Alized rapper looking marks on it. Those were definitely melted.
Like I could see in the thumbnail video that it had definitely melt into reharden which is just I mean kudos to that guy for sending you some bricks. That's awesome of him. But like I want you to be able to taste an accurate break. If you're going to do a review on it for sure. Well you you have my word as a gentleman it will happen soon. What?
Shoot, man all that to say, you know, even if it doesn't happen I appreciate the fact that somebody sent me your review video and I got in touch with you. And now, we're having this podcast so interesting turn of events for sure, which I appreciate. And certainly, it seems that we share a lot of similar
interests. So this may be the beginning of a something a tell whether it's whether it's collaborating on lean body mind or on, you know, if you, if you decide to go down that more holistic site, I think, I think we have a lot of similar interests. There could be some some guests opportunities for each of us. Well, I'm all for it and I will most certainly be picking your brain for More gardening tips as we stored our garden here. A few months. Awesome. I look forward to it.
Appreciate Steve. Thanks again, man. All right. Thank you, Robert. Take care.