Unlocking Your Running Potential Through Metabolic Profiling

Finn Melanson [00:00:14]: Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Mollanson, and this It's the Run to the Top podcast. The podcast dedicated to making you a better runner with each and every episode. We are created and produced by the Expert team of coaches at runnersconnect.net where you can find the best running information on the Internet as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget. In this episode of Run TO THE Top, MetPro founder and transformation specialist, Angelo Poli, returns to talk about the importance of metabolic profiling for runners, Why we all respond differently to diet and exercise, the reasoning behind compatibility profiles for working with a nutrition coach, Baseline nutritional testing to understand why our bodies handle certain meal prepping and meal plans better than alternatives and what it means to have metabolic leverage among other essential nutrition topics. If you've ever been curious about working with a program Like the ones MetPro offers or working with a nutrition coach for reasons similar to why you might work with a running coach or if you just wanna learn more about the relationship between metabolism and running performance, this episode is for you. Let's get into it. Don't let runner's knee keep you from your final weeks of training or your big race.

Finn Melanson [00:01:40]: An innovative new product called New Knee has been clinically proven to deliver immediate relief from runner's knee. Head to runnersconnect.net forward slash newni to learn more and receive your 20% discount at checkout. Timeline Nutrition has developed a groundbreaking product called MitoPure that revitalizes your mitochondria, which create energy in nearly every cell in your body. Head to timeline nutrition.com to learn more. Angelo, it's a pleasure to have you back on the Run to the Top podcast. How are you doing today?

Guest [00:02:16]: I am doing great, Sam. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah.

Finn Melanson [00:02:20]: It's a pleasure to have you here, and, we almost could have just recorded what we were chatting about the last 15 to 20 minutes. I found it absolutely fascinating, but I think we'll we'll probably Cover it again here in this recording. I have a holistic questions that I wanted to get into you with. A lot of it, you know, full disclosure, I am a MetPro customer. I've been, Working with, Kat on the team to sort of optimize my understanding of metabolism and my diet and my meal plan and my meal prep, And awesome. I'm sure we can talk about some of those use cases today. But when I opened up the app, you know, a couple weeks ago when I first started working with y'all, There were a couple terms that I found interesting, and I think it's always good to go through definitions to start. One of them was metabolic profiling.

Finn Melanson [00:03:03]: I feel like this is Maybe a good umbrella term to define to lead the rest of the conversation. What is metabolic profiling, and why is that, like, one of the center points you open up the app, why why is that the first thing a customer

Guest [00:03:16]: sees? That's great. I'm glad you asked that, you know, because I this was early on As we started work, we we would do high level transformations, athletes, and physical makeovers. And so what we were finding is that the missing Peace was the understanding of metabolism, because what you hear a lot in the industry is foods that are either right or wrong. No. That's a wrong food. If you wanna improve your health, if you wanna improve if you wanna faster metabolism, if you wanna lose weight, if you wanna run faster, don't eat this food. Eat this food. And while there is some truth to a there is a measure of truth to that, There we're missing the boat on a much broader topic, and that is how our body responds to Any given meal, any given food, any given macronutrient ratio, caloric intake, glycemic load, etcetera, is going to be In in parse, in response to what your body is currently used to and how much of a delta or contrast there is between the 2.

Guest [00:04:24]: And so what we found was that we would have large groups of people that we would need to identify by starting places for them nutritionally based on their goals. The fastest way to do that was not Body type, gender, athleticism, workouts, calories burned, those are all factors. Those are all important factors, But the biggest influencer was identifying their current metabolic pace. There actually is a way to do it, and you can do it fast. So we came up with the name metabolic profiling, MetPro for short. That's how we landed on that. The problem, though, in hindsight, is that that term gained a lot of popularity in the medical field relating to Blood sugar. A lot of diabetics will talk about metabolic profile, their metabolic health.

Guest [00:05:19]: That's different. That's talking about blood sugar, the body's health functions. That's not related necessarily directly to what we're talking about when we say metabolic profiling. What we mean is The speed of someone's metabolism today. And that's an important distinction because what we found, statistically, is that your metabolism changes. It changes month to month. It changes week to week, and it even fluctuates day to day. And if you can track that, then you can actually develop a reasonable strategy and answer the all stymieing question, Why does something work for 1 person and not another? The answer is different metabolic profiles.

Finn Melanson [00:06:09]: Something you told me offline which I found fascinating was that, when it comes to our metabolism, it is a math equation and we can it it appears with with MetPro, for example, we can We can figure out that math equation pretty quickly. Other things like digestion, maybe figuring out food sensitivities, that's more of a trial and error thing. Why is it the case that that is it's easier it's relatively easier to figure out the metabolism piece versus these other parts of the of the chain of, you know, Energy

Guest [00:06:36]: consumption. K. I'm gonna have to nerd out here for a second with you. So metabolism is actually highly quantifiable, And I'll give you an illustration. Everyone's experienced this. Everyone has the 3 friends. Okay? Three friends that live down the street, they all went on the same diet together. They saw on Instagram this celebrity doing this diet.

Guest [00:06:57]: They said, well, okay. We're all gonna do it together for a week. Here's what happens. 1 loses weight, 1 gains weight, and 1 stays the same weight. Now you don't have to be an expert, a metabolic expert, to now deduce here's what took place. Let's say they were eating 1500 calories a day or 2,000 calories a day. It doesn't matter. Whatever they picked.

Guest [00:07:22]: The one who lost weight was accustomed to eating more than that before she started the diet. The one who gained weight was accustomed to eating less than that. The one who stayed the same weight was accustomed to Yeah. Eating about that amount. Yeah. So that's a very crude and simplistic, ratio, but I What I tell people is I I joke with them in our 1st session. We do a strategy session first. I joke with them and I say, I can't promise you good news.

Guest [00:07:58]: I can't control what your metabolic testing results provide more than I can control the color of your eyes. What I promise you is to give you accurate data. With that accurate data, we can actually make Make some good decisions about what reasonable, statistically logical next steps are. So When we baseline test someone, what we're establishing is really where their current metabolic rate is, Not in a theoretical sense, but in a we just observe that, that just happened. So in other word, I'll I'll use you as an example, Fin. We used to baseline test. It we used to do 7 days of baseline testing. Well, What I did was I started comparing my results mathematically.

Guest [00:08:51]: What was the accuracy delta between a 7 day baseline test and a 5 day baseline test. And the delta was only about 5% difference. So Years ago in MetPro, we had a 7 day baseline testing period. Now or more recently, we moved to a 5. Then about 4, 5 years ago, we compared 5 day testing versus 3 day testing accuracy ratios. What we found was it dropped about 15% in accuracy. That was enough for us to switch to a 3 day testing model model model because even if we missed in 3 days, we would only lose one day because we'd be reevaluating again every 72 hours. Then I got cocky, and I said I'm gonna test based on a 2 day model, and the accuracy just absolutely fell apart.

Guest [00:09:45]: Absolutely fell apart. So, statistically, Here's what we have learned. If I put you, Finn, on a meal plan for 72 hours where I know what you're eating, Per nutrient breakdown, how many times you're eating, the timing of those meals, the glycemic load, and the total caloric intake for the day. And you do that for 72 hours. I know that you're a male. You're, what, in your thirties?

Finn Melanson [00:10:11]: 32, 511, 170.

Guest [00:10:14]: Okay. With that data, I can tell you that the result from those 72 hours will have about a 85% accuracy rating. In other words, if you gain weight After 72 hours, there is an 85% probability that your day to day metabolic rate is running slower, Burning less than that intake. And if I'm not convinced that's accurate and I let it go another 72 hours, I'm gonna have about a 98% accuracy rating on that data. If you lost weight, I know with relative certainty That your metabolic rate was outpacing your intake. Therefore, it becomes a mathematical equation. Digestion doesn't quite work that way. I can feed you a meal one day and digest it well.

Guest [00:11:11]: We change the circumstances, your run length, sleep the night before, etcetera, and your body may not digest it quite as well. Therefore, a little more trial and error Then the actual energy in energy out equation of metabolism

Finn Melanson [00:11:27]: tracking. Yeah. You talked about that baseline testing where after 3 days, you can figure out Within reason quite a bit metabolically about your patient, can you put any boundaries around how long it takes to figure out Those digestion patterns, those food sensitivity patterns in clients, is it more like a month? Is it 2 months? Like, is it is it always changing? Where where do you come down there?

Guest [00:11:50]: Yeah. So with that, we usually are pretty good if somebody's consistent because what we what we would do is we would try an elimination approach where, Okay. Is this the the issue? Is that the issue? So we usually get pretty good at identifying causes and issues pretty quick, usually within a few weeks. Now addressing those, that can be very quick. It can be 1 or 2 tweaks, or that's something that somebody deals with and improves gradually over time. That's really person

Finn Melanson [00:12:18]: specific. Gotcha. I I I like the analogy made about, you know, you see these 3 people work walking down the street. You know, 1 gains weight, 1 loses weight, 1 stays the same based on just what their systems were accustomed to. When I was in the app, I did see that, there are Class there's 2 classifications you have for for patients, the ectomorphs, the endomorphs. Can you can you go into those 2 divides and Yes. How and why people fall into those 2 camps?

Guest [00:12:45]: Yes. And I'm just gonna I I'm just gonna modify one little thing for our clients, not our patients. Client. Sorry. Sorry. Not a doctor, and I don't play 1 on TV. But we we do we do with we deal with wellness and fitness, but we're not medical. So, What you're referring to is the 3 basic body types, the somo types.

Guest [00:13:05]: So you have ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph. While that is secondary to baseline testing. In other words, baseline testing is gonna tell us what what is real, what is actual, what just happened. There's no debating it. It's you ate this, you had this response. That is truth. What Your body type is gonna tell me is your likely your likely genetic predisposition. So what we have found and and we can get a little confused with media's approach to, you know, body shape and body types.

Guest [00:13:44]: Don't think of body types as 3 different buckets. Think of your body as a spectrum. So what you have is you can be leaning towards ectomorphic, which is more petite frame and musculature, tends to be longer arms and legs, doesn't carry a lot of muscle or body fat all the way over to an endomorphic body type, which is more of a stocky frame, A broader, thicker musculature, thicker bones. And so you can be anywhere on that, You know, on that kind of spectrum halfway in between body types. But what we find is people who have more Ectomorphic tendencies typically run hotter and will trigger fat loss and weight loss even at a higher intake level than someone more endomorphic. They will also burn off muscle mass and struggle to gain muscle mass Slower than an endomorph which is on the other spectrum. And a mesomorph is kind of in between. And so what that does is that just Influences our starting place.

Guest [00:14:54]: But, ultimately, our decisions in both training and nutrition for any given client is gonna be determined not by their individual body type alone, but how they are currently responding to their program nutrition and training.

Finn Melanson [00:15:10]: And does that genetic predisposition help explain why some people, you know I was joking with you. Like, I I run a lot, but My food life and still not quite pay the consequences in real

Guest [00:15:31]: time? So let's just do this is not a a a end all be all technical test, let's just do a real quick test right now. Take your right hand, wrap it around your left wrist. Now can you touch your thumb and middle finger together?

Finn Melanson [00:15:46]: On my wrist,

Guest [00:15:49]: yes. Okay. Can you overlap slightly? Barely. Barely. Okay. So you are somewhere in between mesomorphic and ectomorphic, Likely. Now, again, the the that's not a full proof, you know. That's just a real quick, you know, just to to consider, okay, what is your skeletal structure like.

Guest [00:16:10]: So just looking at you, I can tell you have ectomorphic tendencies. Ectomorphs tend to run a little hotter And burn a lot of calories because of your activities, and you're still a young man. Fast Forward 15 years, and we'll have that McDonald's discussion, my friend.

Finn Melanson [00:16:31]: I know. I know. I know. Okay. I, there's a lot of other things I wanna talk about. One of them is sort of, the the science and the detail behind your approach to meal prepping and meal plans, and you talked about the baseline testing there. Philosophically, Expand on why all of these parts need to be customized versus being more structured or being more more template based for each of these profiles.

Guest [00:17:00]: Well so so we blend 2 together, and that is we're very data driven. But how each person is gonna implement that, It has to be done on an individual level. So for years years, I've trained trainers and coaches, Helping them to become more effective with their clients. And I'll always observe initial, consultations. The reason that that we do that is because what I'm looking for is the insights that that coach finds relevant. Because what we can do is we can actually put a statistic on what things are most relevant globally. In other words, you're a human being, planet Earth in 2023. Here's likely the things you're dealing with because we're all dealing with them.

Guest [00:17:55]: Then there's kind of a bucket of things that will be unique to you. Now I'll give you an illustration. Yeah. I wanna know Someone's obviously activity level. I wanna know their habits, their workout schedule, but it's critical To know absolutely critical to know, are they married? Do they have kids? Do they take meals with a significant other? Do they travel? Where do they live? Do they live with access to, you know, clean food, or do they have to, you know, shop once a week or once a month?

Finn Melanson [00:18:26]: Desert. Yeah.

Guest [00:18:28]: You know what? All of these things are absolutely gonna influence our strategy. I got hired once. It was my one time getting a, I I've had the privilege of of getting some write ups in a number of different athletic magazines, but not too often in a business magazine. But I did end up getting a write up in the Wall Street Journal some years ago. It was for my work with a very unique executive who literally his company his company just exploded, but he literally had to be on a plane 25 days a month. I mean, think about that. Almost every day of the month, he had to be on a plane. Now his investors, let him know that he would be working with me because they stood to lose lots and lots of American dollars should Yeah.

Guest [00:19:25]: Should something happen to his health, and he needed to take care of his health. Do you think the standard strategy was gonna work for him? No. We had to piece something else together, and we did. We came up with strategies where he was able to order clean meals, oh, almost always doing breakfast at Starbucks and getting oatmeal on the protein boxes. He had 15 minute workouts that didn't require a lot of space. He could do in hotel rooms, and he had to have some level of structure with those workouts and nutrition. And while it wasn't perfect, he lost a bunch of weight. He got his blood pressure under control.

Guest [00:19:59]: He did excellent. So that's where It really does have to be personalized to your circumstance.

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Finn Melanson [00:22:00]: Go to timeline nutrition.com And use promo code runners connect for 10% off the plan of your choice. How did he how did he work around, like, airport food and and, you know, all the in flight stuff? That's that's brutal.

Guest [00:22:20]: It is. So the nice thing is Starbucks is everywhere. And if you know what to order, anywhere you go, they have basically the same menu. So his routine was and he carried things like protein powders and nuts and things you can't actually take and carry on, and we We have all that dialed in for all of our executives and travelers, etcetera. So he had a number of things, but then what we would do is he would go in and he would get, oatmeal at, the Starbucks. He would get 2 of the protein boxes. He would eat the eggs and the cheese and one Piece of fruit out of 1, and then he would save the other. And he would know that at lunch, he had specific boundaries.

Guest [00:22:59]: During times we had him doing Carbs, he could go anywhere and order a balanced meal. At times, we didn't have him doing lunchtime carbs. He would just order basically lean protein and veggies even if he had to stop somewhere in an airport. And then we had a strategy similar to that for dinner. So breakfasts were taken care of, Snacks were taken care of by Starbucks and our levers were his lunches and dinners. And we're able to take him through a an entire protocol. And So something worth mentioning for listeners is this isn't a, okay, here's your meal plan, go. Your body, statistically, is going to acclimate to any meal plan within a matter of days to weeks.

Guest [00:23:45]: Now there are some exceptions to that rule. Somebody who is morbidly obese, eating excessive intake, and has a radical change, your body may give you months. But for the average person, likely most of the people listening to to this podcast, you're gonna get a matter of days At at minimum, 2 weeks at the most before your body goes, okay. That's good. I'm used to it. And now something needs to change. And if you don't have some level of baseline that's consistent from one day to the next, If it's broken, you won't know what to fix. If it's working, you don't know what's working.

Guest [00:24:26]: And if we need something to change, What will we change? That's why the key is anchoring and having a few stable items in your day, and I'll give you a perfect example of that. A lot of my clients know I like people to do a snack, simple things, fruit, nuts in the afternoon, 2:30, 3 o'clock, whatever works for your schedule. Angelo, why do I eat this apple and nuts in the afternoon? Is there something about the combination of the of the The fruit and the almonds and the protein and the fat in the almonds that's revs my metabolism. No. There's not. The reason I have you do that in the afternoon or any particular snack that we may land on in the afternoon is so your metabolism acclimates to it and gets used to it. Therefore, 5 weeks from now, when I need a lever, I can take that out. I can trade it for a different macronutrient ratio as a snack, and because your body is used to this, when I change it, I will get a predictable result.

Guest [00:25:31]: That is why if you're listening to this going, well, how do I know this is true? That is why here's words you have said to yourself. The diet I'm on used to work. Why doesn't it work anymore? You've said that at some point in your life. Everyone has. So here's why. Your body is used to that. There is nothing wrong with that diet. It's that nothing is changing.

Guest [00:25:54]: Therefore, your body doesn't need to change. And this isn't a radical Principle, everyone who's worked out in the gym knows if you do bicep curls with 15 pound dumbbells, your biceps will grow until it can handle 15 pound dumbbells, and it stops growing. What do you have to do? What do you have to do, Finn, if you want to grow more?

Finn Melanson [00:26:12]: You gotta lift more. You gotta change you gotta change you gotta change the program too, like different types of reps, different cadences, all that kind of stuff.

Guest [00:26:18]: And so here's the secret that I have been for almost 2 decades now shouting from the rooftops when it comes to nutrition, and that is Body change, performance change is not simply a matter of healthy, unhealthy. That's important also. That's a different conversation. Body change is a function of contrast. So for years, I used to train people in physique sports. Yep. K. So bodybuilders Yeah.

Guest [00:26:51]: Fitness, etcetera. K. That a long time ago, but for years, I did that. Every show, someone would come up to me. Mister Pauley, wow. Your athletes look amazing. You know? And they're on stage, 4% body fat, 5% body fat, very lean. What do you have them eating? You know, I give the tongue in cheek body builder diet answer, boiled chicken, brown rice, oatmeal, you know, all the things you hear all the time in the in the muscle magazines.

Guest [00:27:16]: And then I wait for it because I know it's coming. If I ate that, would I look like them? Nope. You wouldn't. And here's why. And it's not that you might not see some benefit from that, But it's not about the boiled chicken. It's not about the broccoli. It's not about the brown rice. It's about the contrast.

Guest [00:27:37]: See, what they're not seeing is that bodybuilder or physique competitor, or fitness competitor, female, whatever, For weeks weeks, maybe months before this show, this competition, we had him or her eating more And more and more and working out and training and eating more and more, often towing them up. I've had females well over 45 100 calories a day well over, if you can believe that. And then when we get ready for the show, Now I drop them to 1900 calories of boiled chicken and brown rice. What do you think is gonna happen? The body fat incinerates off of them. Not per se because of the ingredients, but because of the contrast between what the body was used to, What we then changed it to. This is a little oversimplification

Finn Melanson [00:28:35]: Yeah.

Guest [00:28:35]: But here's how the math works, roughly. As we work with someone, we will initially determine, based on their metabolic rate, if they have and I'm assuming someone wants to lose body fat because, It's statistically 83% of people who hire Upmetro experts want to lose body fat as part of their goal even if their primary goal is performance. But a lot of people wanna gain, so there nothing wrong with either. I'm just using this statistic. The first thing we're gonna determine is, metabolically, if you have enough Bandwidth. Enough leverage to start with a cutting cycle. It's either a yes or no. In other words, if you're eating 900 calories a day when I meet you, You can't lose weight.

Guest [00:29:16]: I'm gonna make you eat more first. You have to do a revving cycle, then we could lose weight. If we determine Someone has enough leverage for a cutting cycle. What we're going to do is we're going to cut fast and then increase slowly. And that that's really the whole secret. Cut fast. Increase slowly. Now the first time we diet someone down, we do it gradually because we're assessing toleration.

Guest [00:29:44]: But after the 1st time, cut fast to create contrast, increase slowly, And that's where people miss the boat. Anyone can lose weight by eating less. And I wanna I wanna, you know, dispel a bunch of myths, so we do Just research ad nauseam. We have discovered earth shattering. You ready for this? Because this is I'm being ironic here. We have discovered the diet that results in fastest weight loss, so we can end the debate now. You ready for it? I'm ready. Water.

Guest [00:30:15]: In fact, anything you add to water slows the rate of weight loss. Now the problem is if you only eat water, you die. So we can't do that. So it's not some mystery. You lose weight when you eat less. The problem is your metabolism Always chase what you're eating to keep you alive and reclaim homeostasis. I don't care what your says, I don't care what the treadmill, what your Fitbit, what your Apple Watch says. Congratulations.

Guest [00:30:45]: You just burned 600 calories. If your body is in a metabolic state where it is enduring adaptive thermogenesis and metabolic drift to keep you alive Because you're not consuming enough calories, your watch is lying. Your watch is lying. So your body's gonna acclimate to that. So what we do is we slowly increase. Nobody goes, you know what? I'm not losing any more weight. I'm gonna diet harder, And, oh, I'm still not losing any weight. You know what I'm gonna do next? I'm gonna add a quarter cup of sweet potato to my diet tomorrow.

Guest [00:31:21]: Nobody does that. We diet. We diet harder. We get frustrated. We go to McDonald's. And And that revs your metabolism, but you gain body fat in the process. So what would happen is if we take that person, we add just, you know, a few ounces of protein, There's a quarter cup of rice, a little bit of fruit. Just gradually increase intake in step with training.

Guest [00:31:45]: Your metabolic rate goes, oh, I can adapt to that, and it just closes that gap with little to no weight gain. And slowly, we bring someone's metabolic rate. We tow them all the way up to a high calorie, a high carbohydrate intake for them because that can vary a lot by person. And then if they wanna cut fat, then we cut a bunch out all at once, And then there's enough contrast. Sometimes even the same diet they've done before will once again work because weight change is not a function of any particular ingredient. It's a function of contrast between what their body is used to and what we change it to, and that's Basically the science behind what we do at MetPro.

Finn Melanson [00:32:31]: You know, 1 I mean, you mentioned a lot of fascinating stuff there. One thing you mentioned earlier that I wanted to make sure we because I I think that this is a really interesting offering from MetPro is the fact that you get to work with a coach through all of this and they're tailored to sort of Your personality and how you maintain adherence to the program and to the results. When you think about acclimating to all these programs and all of the goals that you ultimately wanna reach, can you can you talk about this compatibility profile you have and, just like what you've discovered in the process of, you know, the best ways to get people started on the program, to make sure they're sticking with it, And then ultimately that they're getting results.

Guest [00:33:13]: So much to my chagrin. As you can tell, I'm a data junkie. I, you know, I love looking at the That's the numbers. But I have had to acknowledge over over 2 decades of doing this That there is a very strong component that you can't put a statistic to, and that is adherence, compliance, inspiration, and motivation. And what we have found is by pairing by pairing a a client With the right coach. Now you you can do that when we have a very tight knit exclusive team. We're not one of those companies that Basically, just dole out. You hire, you know, 250 coaches, and then it's just essentially working as a, referral based, you know, type deal.

Guest [00:34:06]: All of our coaches literally work together each and every day. Our exercise physiologists are experts in athletics, work with our registered dietitians. We all talk about clients. Yep. But at the end of the day, there's gonna be 1 coach It's gonna be your contact holding, you you know, holding you to the straight and narrow. When that coach Meets your motivational needs, magic happens. That's what we have found. And and this is not a this is overgeneralization.

Guest [00:34:38]: We'd never put people in buckets. But people, self included, are motivated by different things. So there's the type of person who is motivated when they have High social accountability, and they have a lot of support. Yep. Then there are people where that that helps everyone. Right? But there's people that really thrive under that scenario. Then there are people who are really into the data and the numbers. It's like, no.

Guest [00:35:09]: I have a lot of intrinsic Motivation. I can do it as long as I believe in the science and the strategy and approach I'm taking. So I need a coach Who's gonna teach me all the nerdy details and the science behind it and the why? That's how I tend to be. Then there's the personality type. And I have a feeling, Finn, you might be able to relate to this. I'm not sure. Then there's a personality type. It's like, yeah.

Guest [00:35:32]: Don't bother with the details. I just need a challenge. And so with that client, it's not about here's the details and the nerdy stuff. It's, hey, Finn. Here's what I ate today. See if you can do better.

Finn Melanson [00:35:50]: I'll be first to admit, I was a little skeptical about how much a greens supplement like AG one could actually help me. I generally eat healthy, try to get in whole fruits and veggies, and know that Oftentimes, supplements aren't as well absorbed as real food, but I made it a big goal of mine to get healthier overall after the 2020 quarantine. So I dug into the research about how much Greens could help in what was the best on the market. All of my research pointed to AG one being the most comprehensive and well dosed green supplement on the market. In fact, One of the things I liked the most about AG one is they list all of their ingredients in quantities. They don't hide behind, quote, unquote, proprietary blends, which is almost always a quick way to know if a supplement is a scam. The sheer number of ingredients is overwhelming at first, but once you dig deeper into All of it you can see, this is actually what makes it the best product in the market. They're also NSF certified, which means they go through rigorous testing to prove that the contents of the product match what is on the label.

Finn Melanson [00:36:45]: I also did a lot of research on how AG one are made. I mean, how do they squeeze that many ingredients into a single goop. And does that diminish the nutritional value? Well, it turns out they actually dry or dehydrate the ingredients and crush them into a powder. This results in almost zero nutritional loss. If you've been skeptical about using a greens product and how effective it could be, I really encourage you to give AG one a try for 30 days. You can get a free year's supply of vitamin d and 5 free travel packs if you start now. Just head over to athleticgreens.com forward slash r t t t to give them a try. I I gotta admit, I as someone in the podcasting space, I I enjoy looking at the I I I you're right.

Finn Melanson [00:37:30]: I did not come necessarily from a data predisposition, but I have found Over time, I have evolved into the state where it's fun to see the numbers go up and down or maintain stuff like that.

Guest [00:37:41]: Isn't it?

Finn Melanson [00:37:42]: Yeah. Yeah. The the dashboard component is fun.

Guest [00:37:45]: Nice. Nice. But anyways

Finn Melanson [00:37:49]: so, like so in in my case, you know, Kat is my coach. Kat is, I I believe, a former Olympic level weightlifter. She real like, I like her because she's tough. Like, And I I think I respond really well to, like, sort of, like, the tough love motivation and, you know, you have this goal. You know, I'm not gonna apologize you if you if you mess up on this day or that day. Like, I like that. And that's just one of 1 type of coach, but you have a whole sort of spectrum of people that meet people where they're at in terms of Their personalities and

Guest [00:38:20]: stuff. But I do want to emphasize that the data is the data. So what you what you're seeing, Fin, on, you know, on the app that has the meal plan that's been developed for you and all those details Yeah. Is the tip of the iceberg. On the back end, we have a a CRM that is really built for the coach. It's built for the coach to really be able to see the data that's going on. In fact, I'm not gonna use the word AI because that that conjures up the wrong ideas now, but we have an engine that runs That basically, estimates and predicts based on your current intake level and it factors in adherence and throws out Days you're not adherent, so it doesn't weight that data very much. But then the days you are adherent, it will put a heavier weight on that data.

Guest [00:39:10]: It will shoot out a, predictive algorithm telling the coach that you are likely to continue losing weight Or if your goal is weight gain and muscle development, continue gaining weight on the con on the current meal plan or if you are likely to reach homeostasis and level off. Now that algorithm can be wrong on a day to day basis, but it's never wrong as a trend because it's factoring in everything you're doing, and it's looking at the data that just happened. So it's always evolving. So regardless of what coach you're working with, They're all gonna have access to the same data, so the methodology and the approach is going to be similar between coaches. The method of getting you motivated to act on it, the nuance of how you'll apply it, that will vary from coach to coach, But the basic science is gonna be uniform across our company.

Finn Melanson [00:40:07]: I think because this was I was just trying to, like, reverse engineer the parts of My personality as I was interfacing with MetPro for the 1st time, the part where I felt like I would have the hardest time, sort of, like, making this a habit in my life And maybe one of those is putting together all of the like, going out and, like, purchasing the ingredients for baseline testing and then meal timing. So I think I know this is a podcast, but I think it'd be fun to visualize isn't the right word, but sort of, like, Break it down. Break it down. Summarize, like like, what goes what what what is incumbent on the client to do In that whole process of, like, compiling the ingredients, all the resources, and then, like, the execution part of it.

Guest [00:40:50]: The hardest part of MetPro is literally the 1st 3 days. If you can survive the 1st 3 days, you can benefit from MetPro. And we have people who are, You know, the umpteenth degree adherence, and they go in for the most advanced iterations of a meal plan, and they're competitive. And then we have people that are applying it for just lifestyle hacks and best of op practices and optimization. But if you can survive the 1st 3 days, that is when, yes, we are gonna ask you to do the most work, but it's not really that bad. We're gonna give you a meal plan Based on foods you are accustomed to and you like, but we're gonna give you very specific ratios. And we need you to eat the same thing for 3 days. The reason we need that is that's gonna give us our baseline to see Exactly where your metabolism is so nobody has to guess anymore.

Guest [00:41:47]: Yeah. Nobody has to guess. I have people all the time that tell me, oh, I have such a slow metabolism. Turns out they have a blazing Fast metabolism. I have people that say, my metabolism is just fine. No. Your metabolic rate is statistically in the bottom 6%. I have thousands and thousands of clients.

Guest [00:42:03]: I can tell you exactly where you're at metabolically based on how you reach homeostasis. That baseline testing allows us to reach that. And so here's here's the basic principle. We've done this, Thousands and thousands of times, I the very first assignment I give my clients is I want them to prepare lunches And snacks for 3 days. Don't worry about breakfast. Don't worry about dinner. Lunches and snacks. And here's why.

Guest [00:42:36]: If you have the basic ingredients in your house because you're gonna have lots of options. You have the basic ingredients in your house, breakfast won't be a problem. Very few people that are that fumble the ball at breakfast. It's after breakfast when we hit the ground running and we have Crazy busy days, that's where everything falls apart. But if you have your lunches and your snacks prepared in advance for 3 days, It's a piece of cake. Everyone is intimidated by food prepping. I'm gonna fix that. Change one thing about your approach Food prepping and meal prepping, and it will completely transform, the intimidation factor.

Guest [00:43:17]: Most people think of food prepping meal by meal. You cannot do that. That you'll live in the kitchen. That's not realistic. When you food prep, you prep macro by macro. So let's count them. Most of my clients, You really only need 1 of each macro, but I don't want them to get bored. So I tell them 2 proteins, Two carbs, fruit and a vegetable.

Guest [00:43:47]: That simple. Go to the grocery store. Buy 2 sources of protein that you like. Chicken, turkey, fish. If you're plant based, there's lots of plant based options that you can go with. We won't get into the nuances of picking specific ingredients, but Two proteins. Don't measure it. Do not measure it out.

Guest [00:44:07]: Just get as much in the basket as you can fit and you can fit on your oven. Take it home. Cook it all in one shot. If you open my fridge, you're gonna find 2 metal bowls. Right now, you you chicken in one And, well, I had fish in another. I usually have, you know, some sort of red meat or something like that for me personally because I like to go back and forth, but it's done. Two carbs. If you open my fridge, very common to find brown rice, sweet potato.

Guest [00:44:37]: Big bowl of it. And then I just keep ingredients for vegetables. You know? I just keep that you need to keep fresh, you know, shop for at least once a week And same thing with fruits. Fats are no problem. I bet everyone at home has some sort of oil in their, you know, in their, cabinet right now. You know? So you you you don't really have to worry about that. It's really just the proteins, carbs, cooked by bulk macro. Now you have that cooked bulk.

Guest [00:45:06]: It's just a matter of taking a scoop, putting it on the plate, weighing, measuring, Moving on to the next macro, make enough for 3 days. Have it all prepped. Even your snacks. Even if you're like, well, I could just grab that and put it together. Even your snacks as simple as they are, put them in a little baggy so it's just grab and go. Yep. And now it's easy. And believe it or not, It will take you more time the 1st time you food prep if you're not used to it.

Guest [00:45:31]: But after a few weeks of doing that, It will actually save you time in your day. You will spend less time than you would finding something to eat meal by meal if your midday meals are taken care of. Dinner, don't worry about. Dinner, as a as a society, will actually take time for dinner. That means we'll either cook at home, we'll eat as a family, or we'll go out to a restaurant. But whatever the case is, we're usually not As rushed at dinner, so you can either order well according to your meal plan if you're at a restaurant, or you can take the time to cook and make something that meets your assignment at Dinner. It's the midday meals that are critical. Get them prepared just for 3 days.

Guest [00:46:16]: You can baseline test. Magic will happen.

Finn Melanson [00:46:19]: Are there any talk about any common things to avoid in this process, that you notice. It could be, like, certain foods, Could be eating at certain times a day. Are there any parts of the protocol where you're saying like This is where we need to be rigid in terms of, like, please don't go do

Guest [00:46:40]: this or that. So my response to that's gonna probably surprise you a little bit. So I, You know, this needs to be something that accentuates your life. And I have this conversation with clients all the time. There's no one food that's off limits. That's not gonna be you know, you're not gonna find pizza anywhere in your meal plan. Just saying. You're not gonna find it.

Guest [00:47:03]: That does not mean I never want you eating pizza again. What it means is when you're not at Special occasion when it's middle of the workday on Tuesday, I definitely don't want you eating pizza for lunch. We're gonna have our prepped clean meals. See. So we we have reverse engineered. We look statistically. We can I can go in and I can Take parse? Okay. I can even just grab guys about your age or women, a certain age, and say, okay.

Guest [00:47:33]: Here's a database You know, 25 100 women, this demographic, of the top 10% that are the most for what are their habits like, and we can actually look at their tracking and statistics. And the number 1 predictor of results is advanced prep. Advanced prep because people don't it's a it's a misconception that people fail to follow through with a eating strategy solely based on willpower. I can't follow a diet. You must lack willpower. You can ask any of our coaches. We've been doing this, some of us, for decades. We'll get the text message.

Guest [00:48:18]: Coach, Yesterday, I blew it. Alright. What happened? How does that text message from them start? It starts the same way every time. Starts like this. I got busy and Your consistency and ability to follow a meal plan most of the time is always related to Time management. When I get invited to do, like, these CEO retreats and speak to executives, they know who I am. They know who some of my celebrity clients have been. They always wanna know, Angelo, What's the secret food? What's the best exercise? And I tell them all, you're asking the wrong question.

Guest [00:49:03]: The secret To our success and to your success, time management. If you can do one thing, Put on the calendar. Dedicate just 45 minutes, couple times a week to food prep, middle of the day meals. If you can do that even if you have special occasions I had 1, guys. I don't think I can do Net Pro because, you know, this month, I can tell you I have this date and that date and a wedding on this day. I'm like, anymore? I'm writing them down. You get a free you get a free pass on those special events. And I said, here's the deal.

Guest [00:49:42]: I've never had a client only go off their diet 3 times in a given month. Trust me. You're gonna cheat way more than that. It's not about the 1 social occasion here. It's really about what happens when nothing special is going on. Because you're gonna be eating, You know, how about we eat it 4 or 5 times a day, 35 meals a week between meals and snacks? What I'm looking for is give me 31 or 32 of them on point, and we are

Finn Melanson [00:50:13]: golden. I I like that phrasing. What happens when nothing special is going on? Right. I'm gonna I wanted to make sure I asked you this question before we wrap up. So it's a little bit it's detouring from our reach where but Metabolic leverage. I love this phrase, in addition to metabolic profiling. What does it mean to have metabolic leverage? How do you determine how much you have? Like, what are in that realm, like, what are some of the questions you should be asking yourself or how should you be looking at the data you've logged to answer this question?

Guest [00:50:46]: Great question. Okay. So ties into stuff we've already talked about. Baseline testing tells us where our metabolic leverage is. But now we're gonna go kinda 1 nerd level deeper. So that is where are our levers? Well, they come from 3 categories. So that's why weight loss and weight gain and performance is a mathematical equation to a degree. What are those 3 levers? You have calories.

Guest [00:51:11]: You have macronutrient ratios, but for simplicity, we're gonna say carbs because that's gonna be the other lever that we're really gonna manipulate if need be. And we're gonna have activity, exercise, expenditure. Those are your 3 grandfathers. Now we could break each of those down into subcategories and influencers, But the 3 grandfather dials or levers are going to be calories, Carbs are

Finn Melanson [00:51:39]: macros Yep.

Guest [00:51:39]: And activity. So that's what we're looking at. People ask me this all the time. I say, Angelo, it's interesting. You know, I've had such good results cutting carbs before. How come my initial meal plan isn't cutting a lot of carbs? My answer is because you already cut them. There's nothing more to cut. The delta would be so small.

Guest [00:52:02]: People come to me like, well, what what's always worked for me before is cutting carbs. I'm like, but why are you reaching out to me now? Well, I'm not where I wanna be. And, like, well, how many grams of carbs are we eating a day? We do the math. Oh, I'm I'm only eating a 100 grams of carbs a day. I'm like, well, I can cut 40 grams out. That's not a big enough change, so I'm gonna pull a different dial. Sometimes the other way around. Sometimes someone's eating plenty of carbs, but they're not eating a whole lot of calories.

Guest [00:52:28]: So we're gonna have the biggest leverage by manipulating either carbs or calories based on what they're used to. And sometimes, it's like, well, guess what? We have to burn a few more calories this week. And in almost all cases, it's a combination of all 3. And when somebody's bottomed out, that's when we have to take them through a metabolic revving, a restoration cycle So that once again, cutting calories, carbs, or adding activity will once again be effective for them. And the same exact principle works in reverse when it's the person who's a hard gainer trying to put on muscles. Same exact science just in reverse.

Finn Melanson [00:53:13]: Angelo, I I I've so enjoyed this conversation. I know this is our 2nd time chatting, but this is the 1st time we've chatted since I've become A customer of the program, a client of the program. We were talking offline about how in in my activity, Ultra Trail running, A lot of performance comes down to the eating contest component of it, and there are a lot of uncertainties in that arena as it revolves around, like, You know, what you can consume mid race, for how long you can consume it, how and you know, predicting how and when things turn south. So I'm really excited to to work with, Kat and the team and you over the next couple months to, really, you know, figure out that black box a bit more and just to put myself in the best position because It's been the thing that has curtailed my performance for the longest period of time, so I'm excited, on that note because this is this is a running audience and everyone's in the ultra trail space, but there are people that are training for, like, 5 k to marathon on the road, stuff like that, wanting to achieve some version of peak performance. Do you have anything to say about the MetPro service? Any yeah. Anything you wanna talk about there before we go?

Guest [00:54:22]: Yeah. My The final thought is just a little background that the MetPro was developed for very, very high level athletes. It was basically how to min max athletic performance through nutritional optimization using a host of different data points to identify where a person is responding best. It just so happens that fast forward a decade, 83% of people who use MetPro are doing so for weight loss, but that is not what it was originally designed for. Originally, it was Developed around the time I was working with a number of NFL athletes to enhance performance. If you want to enhance and it's that's why I love endurance sports because The feedback from the change to your nutrition is almost instantaneous. A lot of people know they need more Fuel. They've heard that from other experts if they wanna optimize their performance, but they don't know how to implement it in a way that's going to help them achieve their objectives.

Guest [00:55:26]: Because often, they recognize they need more fuel, but they also want a Light or lighter body weight, and they don't know how to rectify those 2 to optimize cycling, running, Ultra whatever, you know, whatever your goals are. And so it's really neat to be able to see the data in real time, What your metabolism is doing and have somebody who's done this a couple times by your side taking you through the whole process. And we, I can speak for my entire coaching team, love our running community because they're so passionate about it. They're Passionate about athletics. They're passionate about their sport, and that passion almost always spills over into their nutrition. And so it's a blast. We love getting to work with So I am honored to have been able to visit with you today, Finn. And you are gonna be a walk in the park, my friend.

Guest [00:56:23]: This is gonna be a blast getting to work

Finn Melanson [00:56:25]: I'm excited. Yeah. I think, at least in the trail running space, you know, the last 10 years, the the narrative in terms of Outsourcing expertise or or or adding expertise to your own performance has mostly been around, like, the x's and o's of putting together, like, a a training plan From the running standpoint, I do feel like, you know, the the 2020 is are kinda looking like, you know, nutritional coaching and and sort of the mental performance side are are the next things that are becoming more commonplace, and I'm excited about it. So I'm glad we had a chance to, to talk about this today. We'll make sure to add all the appropriate links in the show notes, and

Guest [00:57:01]: Thanks again. Excellent.

Finn Melanson [00:57:19]: Thanks for listening to the Run to the Top podcast. I'm your host, Finn Melanson. As always, our mission here is to help you become a better runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on Instagram at Wasatch Finn and the rest of our team at Runners Connect. Also consider supporting Our show for free with a rating on the Spotify and Apple Podcast players. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content, behind the scenes experiences with our guests, Premier access to contests and giveaways, and subscribe to our newsletter by going to runnersconnect.netback/podcast. Until next time, happy trading.