23: Zane Griggs: How to Kick Ass As You Get Older

00:06 - Michael Kummer (Host)

You're listening to the Primal Shift podcast. I'm your host, michael Kummer, and my goal is to help you achieve optimal health by bridging the gap between ancestral living and the demands of modern society. Get ready to unlock the transformative power of nature as the ultimate biohack, revolutionizing your health and reconnecting you with your Primal Self. For this episode, I have Zane Griggs with me, and I met Zane a couple of years ago at an animal based retreat, and he is in phenomenal shape. He is 53 years old now and I've been saying for the past few years once I'm your age, I want to look like you and be as healthy as you. So he has been helping people to improve their metabolic health since 98. 

00:57

He is also the author of the book Kicking Ass after 50, in which he teaches you all the ways to improve your health, to kick ass as you get older. So in this episode, we're going to talk about some of the concepts and some of the lessons learned, some of the things that he does to stay as healthy as possible as he gets older, and also some of the things he doesn't do anymore that he might have done when he was younger. So join me in welcoming Zane Griggs. Alright, zane, thanks so much for joining me again. We talked already a couple of months ago on a YouTube kind of fireside chat and I really wanted to bring you on the platform because I know that, first of all, you are incredibly fit. You are over 50 now. You were already over 50 last time we talked. 

01:48 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

Yeah, I'll be 53 in just a couple of weeks, actually early November. 

01:53 - Michael Kummer (Host)

And you look amazing. We've met in person a couple of years ago as well, and I'm like well, I want to look and be as fit and healthy as you are when I'm your age. I mean, I'm 10 years behind you, so not too far off, but still a decade is a long, long time. I would think a lot of things can change for the better or worse within 10 years, and so I just like to see where you stand now with what it means, what you are doing to stay fit, especially as you grow older. Some of the things maybe you don't do anymore, some of the things you focus more on from a movement and exercise perspective, but also nutritionally and maybe sleep and many of the other things, many of the other components that ultimately make up a healthy life. 

02:37

And let's just chat about what others can do to get in better shape, to maybe feel less pain, to move better, to just function better as they get older, instead of deteriorating and falling apart and having less and less muscle tissue and lower bone density, and some of the things that we typically notice in the aging population. But I think you and I know that doesn't have to be like that and it shouldn't be like that. That's not a default human destiny to fall apart at some point. So let me hear what's your take on this. What are you doing? What are you recommending? What are you not doing? 

03:11 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

I'm trying to do everything I can, to be honest, because I throw the kitchen sink at it, because you got one shot and you do feel that there is a big difference between 1450 and just a warning. You do feel it. That's quite a decade and I started noticing things in my late 40s regarding recovery that I hadn't noticed before and, as we've talked before about mobility, I just wasn't moving as well. Things were stiffening up. 

03:34

I was having some achiness and pains in my hip after working out, especially if it was trying to work out heavy, and so I realized, okay, I've got to do some things differently. So, because I want to hang on to the muscle and keep working out and I keep sprinting and I keep doing the things that I know are going to be great for me to retain muscle mass and speed and have my nervous system made a fire when I want it to, those things are all important. I would never neglect those, but I did have to make some time. I wanted to make time for some other things. We only have so much time and so I did back off on hitting things so hard and started working on, like you said, mobility, muscle activation, working with bands doing floorwork, animal flow type movements, things like monkey and froggers and bear walks, and stuff that made me move in ways you probably haven't moved since you were a kid. 

04:23

Like we're on the floor, we're turning, you can go from all hands and feet down, face down to flipping over back and then back again, just be able to rotate and move with or a deep squat, sitting to a deep squat, like a monkey would sit or like a. You know, we see actually a lot of people sit that way in Asia. People in Asia like they rest, they're taking a break, they're eating lunch and they're sitting in this deep squatting. I think in the west we don't move like that anymore, we don't sit like that anymore. We end up in a chair most of the day. You know, we don't even stand anymore. So, realizing that the chair was killing me and I couldn't not work on a computer anymore, I couldn't do things like this. You know I can't stop that. But I did need to add in just some movement in different ranges of motion than I wasn't doing, to open up those joints because they you know we've all seen the older guys in the gym that they spent a lot of time under the squat rack and the bench press and the and the and they're getting bigger and bigger, you know, but they move like robots, right, and I didn't want to move like a robot, yeah, or I have all the aches and pains that went with it. So I do spend time in every morning pretty much. I get one of the first things I do is get on the floor and start Opening up hips and shoulders and my spine and rotating and moving through a range of things. That that helps me start my day Right, and then I'll spend extra time during the week on that as well and that's become that's become more normal. 

05:42

At first it was, it was odd and it felt tight and everything. You know I'm like is this really kind of, am I really gonna get anywhere with this? Because you just feel kind of old and stiff, you know. But with consistency it does work. And so that's what I was. And so I found like, oh, I'm actually am a little more fluid and my spine, my hips, shoulders are still working on and it's help. It's helped my strength training, so I don't have those little aches and pains, a little creakiness, and I can actually now start working on going Back to some heavier weight that I was doing right before Without pain. And if I start to feel I know what I need to do. So that's been a big component of my fitness is just as adding that mobility routine, paying a lot more attention to sleep. I track it with an ordering Mm-hmm. 

06:23 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Looking at deep sleep and the rim, sleeping in. 

06:27 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

My heart rate and as well as heart rate variability. So you, those factors to make sure I'm getting in that parasympathetic state so I can really rest and recover, because recovery is what's gonna, you know, help us keep moving forward. And that does seem to take a hit as we get older, so our bodies really to recover and handle stress right. So, trying to Realizing that a lot of what we do during the day is what affects our night sleep. So getting early sunlight, in the eyes. 

06:54

I spent years fasting like 10 plus maybe 12 years, doing a lot of intermittent fasting almost daily, so on some level and talking to sleep coaches like About what they did. Well, I talked to one who was who's also an avid faster. She said you know, I started eating earlier, getting sunlight earlier and then finishing eating my early, my last meal the day a little bit earlier. That really helped getting in that deep sleep. It just sets up your circadian rhythm to work better and not making up to digest like a heavy meaty meal, you know, within two or three hours of going to bed, and so things like that which really Allowed me to get in better sleep, deeper sleep and and helps my recovery Things I didn't have to worry about and think about 10 years ago. Yeah, and now my body such that much more sensitive to my day, to and to and to stress. 

07:46 - Michael Kummer (Host)

But but you also think I mean, I fully agree that age is certainly a component but do you also think that you know, if you spend a lot of time in trying to figure out, you know, in understanding your body and trying to do the right things, that you become more Sensitive or aware of how certain things impact your body on the plus or on the negative? I mean, you know, back in the days, you know, I know that. You know if I would get drunk, I would, you know, I would feel it. But having three glasses of whatever no big deal I would sleep. You know, right now, one glass of wine is pushing it. You know I can already feel the impact. You know. Two glasses and I, my night is gone. 

08:25

I mean, not, I still function, probably 99% better than most people around me. But as far as my baseline is concerned and that's really the only baseline I'm concerned about, right, I can feel a massive impact. And I would also argue that I think I've become more in tune in interpreting, you know, the, the signals of my body where I'm like, okay, if I'm not a hundred and twenty percent mentally, something is off, whereas you know I'm fine. You know I've been, you know I'm better now than you know Most of my life, but still, because my baseline is different, I can tell if I deviate from that, much more so than I could in the past, where I, you know, feeling crappy I thought was feeling great, you know right. 

09:06 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

No, I think there's definitely some awareness, some self-awareness and I do but I think there was some sensitivity, like what triggered me to pay attention to it Was the fact that I wasn't recovering. Like I was not recovering from my workouts. I was feeling run down. I looked good now. I looked good. I was lean, solid head muscle. I looked good. I didn't feel good, right, and that's when I'm like, okay, what am I doing? And I was over. I was pulling too many stressors, because Exercise is a stressor, fasting is a stressor, you know, if you're eating low carb, that's technically a stressor. And then work life, sleep if you're not getting enough sleep. So I had too many stressors going at one time. There are some of those could be really good tools used in the right way for the right person or the right goal, but I was pulling all of them. 

09:48

Yeah and my body was like no, you, you could have powered through this at 42, but at 48 not so much, and so there was a where I had. I think there's a. We get older, we have to be more, more diligent and more, like you said, more sensitive to what our bodies are telling us and more consistent with our good habits, because we don't have the hormone, the hormones to really power through it, like we did when we were kids, like, I mean, think about how you lived when you were in your 20s. Could you survive like that now? No, no, we'd be dead or we Get out of bed. And we're lucky. We had to change, because we may not have lived this long. If we kept living like we did in our Docks, you know, we would have found some way to does die stupidly. 

10:29

Yeah and I think you know so some of that wisdom that comes with age. It certainly plays a part and that sensitivity to what your body is telling you. But I mean, age is definitely a factor and we have to get smarter if we, if we, if we don't, if we want to continue to thrive and Perform at a high level as we age and that is my, that's my goals too. I look at Mark Sisson, who's 70 and ripped and starting a company with his son, and he's just very, still very active and I think, okay, that's, that's, that's a good, that's a good target for me. He's, he's, he's got like 17 years on me and I'm like okay. 

11:06

I mean we need to find those Targets, I think, and and those, those icons or those I mean role models, really the better word. But he is an icon and he has demonstrated from, from being open about his mistakes, about doing too much endurance training and too much. You know how that affected his heart to now. You know he sprints, he lifts, he walks, he does a lot of activity, he eats really well. I mean, people have done it. 

11:28

It's just the majority of our population isn't right, and so I think there's a bit of a flex or some motivation there where, if you're over 50, especially if you're over 60, you walk into a room and you look fit, you're a fit, healthy person, you stand out, yes, in this society and you, you have an advantage in that your body is working better, you're probably thinking a little faster and you can still keep pushing the limits in your career. Yeah, with that wisdom we've acquired and we everybody acquires wisdom over time but if you can physically still put out that energy in that level of you know, drive, you know, into your career or just with your family or whatever it is that you're pursuing that's important to you Right, then you get the benefit of both of those of the energy and the wisdom right, which just a lot of people. Now they, they've lost something and I, to me, that's, that's a motivator, that's a huge motivator for me and like. 

12:20

I don't need the alcohol, I don't need to. You know, I want to go to bed so I can have enough sleep. 

12:28 - Michael Kummer (Host)

And I. 

12:28 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

That's what motivates me to go what I don't always Mentally want to, but go get under the bar and lift something heavy or go out and sprint across the grass. It's, it's understanding that benefit. If I stop, the benefit, stop, mm-hmm. And because I can look around and see plenty of examples of people who stopped, yes, or never started. Or never started, yeah. Where are they just let that, whatever the advantage they had, their youth, disappear, yes, and I'm trying to fine-tune that and get and get smarter with my workouts and allow recovery. Twin words I'm not. 

13:01 - Michael Kummer (Host)

I certainly don't work out the way I did in my 20s or 30s. 

13:04 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

Yes, but I pay attention to recovery. I, I spell, I stick and still get some intensity in there and I can still hold muscle obviously, and for me that's a motivator, mm-hmm. 

13:13 - Michael Kummer (Host)

I don't leave money on the table. 

13:14 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

You know, I don't want to give up on health as I age, just because it it it seems too difficult. Now it's more difficult than it was in my 30s. 

13:24 - Michael Kummer (Host)

That's not a good excuse for me, yeah you know, I think one of the One of the main issues that a lot of people have is, you know, living a healthy life or making healthy choices appears to be a struggle, meaning it's it's almost like you're fighting against yourself to do better. And If you're in that mindset, you know there is a very little anyone can tell you. I feel like to say, okay, you know what I, you're right, you know, I need to make those changes. And I don't know at what point in my life, something in my head changed where I now suddenly enjoy doing those things. You know, for me, eating clean, working out, doing all of those things, they are not a struggle, they are not like, oh, today I have to, you know, go to the gym again or I have to. 

14:09

No, I want to, I choose to, you know, and I enjoy the process and I wish I could tell you know everyone, okay, this is, this is how you do it. To make that switch. What is your, what is your take on this? How do you increase the likelihood of making, of having people make that switch? That's tough. 

14:28 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

I've had someone else, a good close friend of mine, who coaches people a career coaching and stuff. He's this is his thing that's helped people move forward. He says what is the voice in your head that says I need to go out there and put myself through this work? What is the voice? I'm like I don't. I've had a. I've had it in a desire to understand longevity For a long time, like 20s, my 20s, right, and so it's always been kind of us, like a place of curiosity for me and just learning and so tinkering, and so I Enjoy tinkering, so I'll try different things, like I tried with fasting or with a little carbon, and so those things were where things like before I made my ask my clients to do them, I was doing and I was. So I'm a tinker, I just play with with stuff and to me it's. I have a natural curiosity about it. But there are still plenty of times when I was like I have to tell myself to go start Doing the thing that I really don't feel like doing. 

15:16

Right then, and once I start I'm good, but I have to still have to tell myself to start and I and I, you know it's really it's seeing like. For me it's real simple. I see people who are my age or older and the condition they're in and I just have no desire to be that way and that may sound Judgmental, but it's really just what do I want? And then I make the choices to get what I want and I want. If I want a high level of health and performance, as I until like so I'm still, you know, cranking it out in my 70s and 80s Then I do what I can, what I know to do best, and that may change. 

15:53

My understanding of that changes every three, four years, certainly different than what I knew ten years ago, and it may continue to change. But my plan now having a plan, any decent plan moving in the right direction is is it's not ever gonna be perfect, but it's better than no plan at all, right, and so if you just say, well, I don't know, I can't figure that out, or I'm not sure about this or I'm not sure if I'm, I don't feel like I look in the mirror and I get discouraged. I'm it's, you've got to do something and take steps forward, because but whatever you're doing is better than doing nothing. You're at least moving the right direction, and so I try not to get perfectionist about it but I think okay, what, what can I do today? 

16:30

What if I have a rough day? Because there's no, everyone has good days and bad days or busy days. It's like, well, what can actually do today? And I do what's positive, but oh, but again over time. 

16:39

Like you said, with alcohol, for instance, it's like I I desire the good, the benefits of not having that drink, more than I desire the drink. Right, I desire the benefit of eating food that I have. I understand what's in it, I made it, I understand that you know it's whole food and my body's gonna use that better than a processed food. So to me that that's a reward. And so I've gotten to the point where those, the reward of how I feel and how I reform, is higher for me than the short-term Pleasure of whatever that thing is that I'm giving up and that's just. That's just where I am, and I don't know how to convey that to another person. It's almost there's got to be a drive in there already, I think, to have that, but, and not everyone's gonna have it and I had to resolve this up to understand not everyone is going to have that same desire, a drive enough to make the changes. 

17:28

They need to check me and I just let them go, you know. 

17:30 - Michael Kummer (Host)

I mean, it's like okay that's, that's your call. 

17:31 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

I'll help you as far as I can help you, but I can't help. I can't want it for you right more than you do. 

17:36 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Yes, and there is, you know, certainly, the argument that many people make as well. You know, I only have this one life and I want to live it to the fullest. And you know, living to the fullest it means something different to me and right in on and you, then it means to someone else who, you know, just wants to be drunk every day, you know. But but ultimately, you know, it's a choice, you know, at least you're making the conscious decision, you know, to spend it in a certain way or to live it in a certain way. That's better than not thinking and just, you know, running with everyone else and not, you know. So you know, there, there is certainly, you know that thing, because you know who says that. 

18:08

You know, being healthy, you know, makes you more happy than being drunk. Maybe if you're drunk all the time, you're happy. I don't know, you know. I, I like not to think so, but you know right. Then again, you know who knows. I don't know everything, but one thing that I have come to realize is, the more and more I deal with, you know, homesteading and raising animals and stuff, you know, animals always eat dessert first. 

18:29

If you put a cow out on a pasture they eat the most succulent, you know grasses, the clover and eat Exactly before everything else they always eat dessert first, and you know Joel's alathein likes to, you know, really, make that point and I'm like, well, ultimately, in a we're animals too, you know, if you put something that's very tasty in front of me and something that's not so tasty, I mean just to give you a, you know, maybe not a great example, but if you put steak and liver, cooked steak and cooked liver in front of me, I'm gonna have to steak first because I enjoy it better. You know, honestly. You know, even though one could argue, you know, liver is the more. But I have, you know, I have the luxury of choice, you know. And so I think, and obviously you know, choosing between those two, there is no terrible choice. But if you choose between a donut and a steak, or the donut and the liver, you know there is a difference. 

19:18

Yes, so what I've come to, you know, and knowing me, you know I'm also not a person of moderation. You know if I, if I go for something, I go for something, and if it's good or bad, it doesn't really matter. You know if, and so you know the once every two months, or whatever, we have pizza. You know, if you put two pies in front of me. I'm going to eat two pies. You know about the consequences. 

19:37

Enjoy them I enjoy that, you know. Yeah, but you know I also realize that you know I also have the capacity if I feel like, ok, this is not going to go well for me, or if, if I choose to feel great the next day versus accepting that, the fact that I'm probably not going to feel great the next day, I might make a different choice. But not everyone, you know, has that capacity or that. You know, whatever it might be, to make the right choice. And so I think controlling the environment, in particular with kids, is a major factory. You know, if you don't have wine at home, you're not going to be having a glass of wine in the evening. You know, it's as simple as that. 

20:14

If I have wine at home, you know I might choose to open that bottle and then that bottle is open. I'm like shoot. You know I don't want to pour it away after one glass, not tomorrow, I have to drink again or in the day after, because I don't have more than one glass and those I have, I have four days of drinking. You know, even though you know not going to, you know, destroy me, but no, it's again not having a wine at home. I don't even have to make the decision. I don't even run into the mental issue that there might be of having to make a having to make a good decision. 

20:42

If you can only make good decisions and again particularly true with kids if there is no food at home they shouldn't be eating there is no battle, there is no, you know. And so I think, setting yourself up in the right environment and that obviously not only includes what you, the foods you have at home, but the people you interact with, that you surround yourself with, and if those are all people who strive to do better, versus the ones that let's go out and get hammered tonight, you know you're not going to go get very far. You know because making that call and being the odd one out very often that you have to be that I'm sure you've been very often as well. Oh yeah, you know that's not everyone's cup of tea. I thrive and being a contrarian or being different and doing exactly the exact opposite of what everyone else does, but most people don't, you know Right. 

21:24 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

I'm the same way. Yeah, it didn't bother me. I was an odd ball in high school. I continued to be an odd ball at 52 years old, you know, for different reasons. But yeah, I'm odd. But I'm also odd that I don't have many people are at my level of fitness at 52 years old. So that makes me odd as well, Like my choices make me odd in a lot of ways. But people and people are going to be, oh, you're not going to have a little. 

21:45

Are you worried about getting? I'm not worried about getting fat anymore. It's not about it's not about the abs anymore. It's about how am I going to feel tomorrow, or how am I going to sleep tonight if I have that. How is my stomach going to feel all day tomorrow if I eat that, you know, and so those are things that I know enough. That's like I'm not going to enjoy this tomorrow. So why am I worried about the next five minutes of eating this? Now, right, and so I really my head really does go there. I've taken another step further. 

22:09

Where I was eating, I realized I was eating a lot more. When I was getting kind of run down and, like I said, pulling all those stressors, I was eating a lot more like a dieter and I'm not a dieter Like I'm not trying to diet, I'm not trying to get smaller, I'm not trying to get. I was already lean, I was already. I needed. I started to get a little bit more fat. I started eating a lot more like an athlete. I started paying attention to how much protein was getting what. What's my carbon take, what's the quality of this food, when, you know, am I placing it around my workout. So I started thinking a little more like, wait, I shouldn't. I know I'm helping people who are dieters, who are trying to lose weight, and that those tools are great for them. 

22:42

But I got kind of caught up in that where I was doing a little too much for me and I had to make a big shift where I'm feeding myself a lot more like an athlete, right, and it's kind of weird at this point the way I'm working out, the way I'm eating and eating whole food. I can't eat enough food, yeah, like I can't get enough calories in. I'm struggling to gain weight at 52 years, 53, 53 in the next couple of weeks and so I'm lifting, I'm getting stronger, I'm, you know, the muscles coming on and it feels good and I'm recovering. But, yeah, when I'm eating, you know the way I know to eat, which is a whole food based diet, animal based diet with animal protein, right, the center of it, right, my appetite one is not ever an issue. 

23:31

It's not something that draws me the wrong direction, right, and I actually need to wait, I need to get a little more. So I have to think strategically about how am I going to get this much food into my body with the type of food that I want to eat. Right, what a problem to have. It took me back to college, yeah, I mean it's well, I don't know. If we didn't have processed food, if we were all still eating whole food, I don't think we'd have this many obese or overweight people, right? 

23:59

I don't think you can get. Get fat Now, once you're overweight, yeah, you need to manage some stuff, but eating whole food with a decent just a decent amount of protein, you'd have a hard time actually getting that, yes, I totally agree. 

24:11 - Michael Kummer (Host)

And my wife always makes fun of me because we have like a full meal, like steak and everything, and then six eggs, and I'm like I'm hungry, you know, I'm going to get a pound of raw cheese, you know. And she's like you know, how do you do that? You know, and it almost seems like the more I eat, the leaner I get, you know. Oh yeah, and I mean I sometimes feel like I'm overeating, but if I really look at, ok, how many calories, you know I'm not counting calories, but you know I need to. 

24:40 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

Oh, I started tracking everything you did. Yeah, I started tracking everything on. Like my fitness palate got a food scale. I was like I want to find out how far off I am, right, because I'm like something's off. So I started tracking, started weighing my food, weighing my meat, weighing if I had a piece of fruit or a sweet potato or something like that. I weighed it and I put it in my fitness palate and I'm tracking. Ok, what am I? What is my Alpawatch saying? And I don't know how with the accuracy of it, but the Alpawatch is saying my base calories, my active calories, and I have a hard time hitting maintenance calories, right, and I'm trying to get to, or I'm trying to get to, 200 calories over my maintenance calories, right. It takes thought. I have to be deliberate about getting over the calories I need to keep up with my activity and it's not like I spend. I'm not a endurance runner, I'm not out there. I lift three or four times a week for maybe 45 minutes. 

25:26

I do some sprints here and there. It's not like I'm out there, just I spend two hours a day exercising. 

25:32 - Michael Kummer (Host)

No. 

25:33 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

I work. 

25:33

I have a family, right, but I'm struggling to get over maintenance calories if I want to try to gain weight or even sometimes to even reach maintenance calories. When I started paying attention because of my food choices Right, because I wasn't eating processed food, and I really I mean it just opened my eyes. It's like, okay, we have done this to ourselves with our modern food system. If we were eating like we did 120 years ago, like the food off the farm, we would not be fat. We would not be fat as a nation, and neither and we weren't then, right. 

26:07 - Michael Kummer (Host)

And I think that's actually great news for anyone who says you know, but I like to eat, I enjoy food. Well, so do. I eat like a pig, but yet, you know it's not going to negatively impact me. And the other day I saw, you know, a breakdown of how much protein versus calories are in a piece of meat, versus, you know, tofu and plant based proteins and you, if you like, eat canola to get your protein, let's say, because you're on a vegan or plant based diet, I mean you get like five times as many calories for the same amount of protein as just eating meat, you know so. You know that's all extra energy that you probably don't need. You know, maybe if you're an athlete, you know you can compensate for that. 

26:41

But you know, I'd rather stuff my face full of steak and have all the protein, all the micronutrients that I need right, and maybe some eggs and whatever, without getting 5000 calories that I'm not going to need. I need the protein, you know I need. I need to fat, I need the micronutrients, I need some. I don't need carbohydrates, but I enjoy some carbohydrates, but I don't need 5000 calories worth of carbs. You know that you get with. You know, making the wrong food choices, and so I think that's really good news for anyone who says you know I like to eat. Well, if you eat the right thing you can. You can stuff your face until you're really full and you're still going to be in good shape, yeah, yeah. 

27:20 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

Especially if you're active, if you're in any way active. You don't have to be a bodybuilder, you can just be somewhat active. You do a little bit of strength training, movement, and then you just get out and move with right, you know something, basic movement, I mean. If you're just in any way active at all and you're eating some level of whole food. It doesn't have to be a specific diet, just don't, you know, keep animal protein in there and whole food. For anything else you may feel like you want or need. 

27:42

You're not going to get fat, right, you're not, and you're going to have the, you know, and you're going to feel good and you're probably not going to have the. The hormonal issues you know the. The metabolic hormonal issues. You know the leading towards metabolic syndrome that the other people around you are having because they're eating food that's been made with high carb, high fat, very inflammatory fat Combined to make this really addictive food. That's so low protein. Like you said, most of it is grain based and that's where we have gone off the rails and that's what has taken us. You can track it with the introduction of processed food into our system and into our food system and the increase of metabolic disease and obesity. It's not hard. 

28:24 - Michael Kummer (Host)

No, no, it's not rocket science, it's straightforward. One thing I want to get back to. You know what you said in the beginning like moving like an animal. You know, like the other day we went to the zoo and I saw orangutans, you know, I mean just, you know getting down one of that, those high towers on ropes, and I'm like it's unbelievable how smooth and effortless they move. I want to be able to do that and if, if I'm hanging on that rope, you know, and just doing one pull up and you know getting to the next rope or the monkey bars or whatever, I don't look like a monkey. 

28:54

I mean I don't necessarily have to look like a monkey, but I feel like I want to feel as smooth and as painless as a monkey doing this. You know, for them it was nothing. If I have to do the monkey bars, you know, and then maybe climb something up and something down, you know I'm like, oh, that was, you know, tough and I'm stiff and what have you, and it shouldn't be like that. So, you know, for me it's like, okay, I want to be able to. Or, you know, I would recommend for anyone just get on the floor and try to get up and really assess how you feel. How stiff are you getting off that floor, you know? Or rolling out of bed, you know, do you have to like lean and hold and brace, or is it just a smooth, painless movement that feels good? 

29:33

And I would argue for most people, especially as they get older, you know all of those simple movements like getting into a squat, getting up from a chair. There are some people I see that have like that struggle getting up from a chair, you know, holding your knee and what have you. You know, if you experience that there is, you know you got to do something about this because it doesn't really matter how strong you are or how good you look in the mirror, if you cannot do those basic movements pain-free, you're going to be miserable for the rest of your life. You know, and I think that's a good like indicator, or you know check for you to do yourself how pain-free and smooth do you move in like? You know stuff that you do every day and if there is something off, I think there is, there is incentive for you to work on that using. You know, do you follow, like certain programs or what do you? 

30:19 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

There's a few that I've pulled from Instagram. There's one that's an. I said oh, we forgot the name of the thing IMB but basically it's just a kind of an online program. That was a that showed you how to move through these simple, simple movements I mean on a basic level, made a huge. I mean they have like three tiers. The first tier would get most people moving so much better within a matter of weeks just because you're getting down those floor positions and moving in ways you don't normally move and you're getting engaged with your body Like you're in. 

30:49

If you have to think about how do you move and rotate this way while on your hands and and feed our hands and knees, then you're engaging your mind, the muscle connection, you're engaging with your body. In a way, your proprioception, your awareness of your body and space is going to improve just by doing that, because most of us move thoughtlessly, because we're doing the same movements every day and we've become so efficient that takes little energy and little thought, and so when you actually have to engage and move in a way that makes you, you have to think, you have to engage your core, you have to hold some balance. Well, now your brain's working. It's certainly great good for your brain to stimulate both sides, you know to maintain balance and and to engage right and left side movement in a way that you haven't been Right, but you make those connections again, you, it's like you're reconnecting with your body in a way that, again, like you probably haven't since you were a kid Right, and I think that's important. 

31:40

If you, if you don't use it, you, you definitely lose it. 

31:42

But look, just look at a child, the way a child moves and they get on and off the floor, they do a somersault, they jump off of something and they don't think about it, they just do it, but they're doing it all the time and so, yeah, their nervous systems obviously a little fresher than ours, but we can still reengage that and just take, make the time to, and I think that is that is what makes simple things like getting out of a chair, getting out of bed, getting off the couch, much more effortless, without pain, because your body is like oh, we know how to do this, we've moved through a greater range of motion than this before and so if you're, if you work out in a larger range of motion, like the deep squat or dead hangs, or you're doing some kind of animal flow, and then you, you know that's like a workout, we spend 45 minutes doing that, maybe once or twice a week, and then you start moving throughout your day, which is well within that range of motion, and that's going to your body is like oh, we got this. 

32:40

Yeah, you know this is, we've been here, we can, we can do more, but it's it's. There is a different fluidity in your movement when you're consistently kind of just activating those muscles and getting those joints to articulate. 

32:53 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree, and you know as much as I like. You know strength training and lifting heavy stuff. I mean, I really enjoy squatting and cleaning and you know all of those things. But I realize you know strength. As far as my, the quality of my life is concerned for the next, hopefully, 40 years or more, very much depends also on my ability to move, you know, painlessly and pain free, right, and so I really want to make sure I incorporate those movements which, for the most part, are free. You know. Once you know what, what to do, what you know what movements to practice you can, you can do them at home. You don't need a coach, you don't need to a gym membership or anything to do those right. 

33:29 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

No, you don't want a floor. You go and grass if you want to do them Right. They're really simple. 

33:34 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Yeah, and it's just a it's. I consider it just as important as strength training is resistance training. You know, because, again, you know I can. I can still lift fairly heavy. But if I feel like you know I'm in pain getting out of bed in the morning, you know what is a 400 pound front squat going to do to me. You know it's not going to bring me forward. You know I'd rather get out of bed pain free and only squat 350, you know. 

33:57 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

Right, right, it's really about. I mean, I think of lifting is just, really just a way to hold on a muscle as I age and I know I'm not going to be able to have the strength I had in my 30s, but that's okay. I don't need that top in strength. What I need it I can. I can challenge my top in strength here, but I don't need to compare myself to my 35 year old self. What I need to think about is I'm I'm looking forward. 

34:16

How do I have X amount of muscle on my body when I'm 60 without injury, without constantly injuring myself? So I lift smart, but I do lift heavy in such a way, with intensity, to make my body build muscle, yeah, you know. And so it's not some sort of like unrealistic goal. It's a very forward thinking sort of like what, what, what process do I need to go through to get to where I want to be when I'm 60 or 70 years old? And you can be very smart about that, like you're saying, adding mobility, not worrying about the top end of your strength, but it really comes out of consistency. Yes, and I think that's probably the biggest component of all of it, whether it's diet or exercise is being in sleep too. It's just being consistent. You know, do your best to be as consistent as possible and avoid those you know, there's, there's always. 

35:08

you know, you have choices, we always have choices to make and there's times when things are like it's not perfect, but we can get 80,. 90% of most of us have a lifestyle that allows us to be on 80, 90s per the time, If we just put our minds to it. 

35:22 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Yes, I totally agree, all right. So if someone watches this or listens to this and say, okay, I want to be as healthy and as fit as, as as sane as when I'm his age or maybe they already are where can people find you, find out more information, and now you have a book that talks about many of those concepts, right, kicking ass after 50, over with Dr Ken Berry and basically we talk about like we're talking about diet, exercise and sleep the basics of of a healthy. 

35:47 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

You know, three pillars of a healthy lifestyle. It's on Amazon and we do get into a lot into the process food here, the how that affected our bodies and how it does. We dig into that and what we need to do to just to give our bodies what they would actually need the proper human diet. But I'm at Zane Griggs fitness on Instagram, on Zane Griggs on YouTube, and then my podcast is the healthy AF podcast, which is healthy after 50. So if you put it healthy after 50, it'll come up. 

36:16

So now you can interpret healthy AF to motivate yourself however you want, but for me it's after 50. And that's how the podcast will come up. So, but those are the main places to find me. In Zane Griggscom We'll have all my other socials. 

36:27 - Michael Kummer (Host)

All right, sounds good. I'll make sure to include all of that in the show notes. I appreciate you making your time Very good information and hope we'll we'll talk again soon, maybe when you're 60. 

36:37 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

And I'll see you and I'm finished. 

36:43 - Michael Kummer (Host)

All right, man, I appreciate it. 

36:45 - Zane Griggs (Guest)

Thank you, Mike. 

37:40 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Thank you.