Unveiling Truth In Running Nutrition: The examine.com story

Finn Melanson [00:00:13]: Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Melanson, and this is 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. Without a doubt, in some ways, it's getting increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction in the health, nutrition, and supplementation spaces. But there are reputable resources out there for folks like us to turn to, And we're featuring one of them on the show today. Saul Orwell is the founder of examine.com, a powerful resource on the Internet for evidence based nutrition in supplements information. He joins the Run to the Top podcast to share stories about his personal path to cofounding examine.com and its dedication to scientific integrity in the health and wellness scene.

Finn Melanson [00:01:16]: Specifically, we discuss his battles against health misinformation, debunked supplement claims, Current challenges in the health information arena, what sets examine.com's commitment to unbiased research apart within the industry, howexamine.com stays updated with evolving research and their impact on public health decisions, and much more. Tune in to understand the resources you have at your disposal to make informed decisions about the nutrition and supplements you consume to fuel your running journey. It's that time of year when Black Friday deals are rolling in. One of my favorites This is from Bioptimizers who are having a mega sale all through November. Head over to bioptimizers.comforward/run to thetop to learn more. 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. And finally, don't forget about the Runners Connect Black Friday deal where you can save 30% on a 16 week custom schedule.

Finn Melanson [00:02:27]: Give the gift of a new PR to yourself or to your running friend. Just head to runnersconnect.netforward/black to automatically save. Saul Orwell, it is great to have you on the show today. How are you doing?

Guest [00:02:45]: I am doing great. How are you?

Finn Melanson [00:02:47]: I'm doing great. I was telling you offline, long time admirer of the work that you have done in the health and wellness space, and, I'm excited to introduce you to our audience. For context, a lot of people here are pretty active. They're pretty embedded in the running community. They're kinda like the weekend warrior types, long time running hobbyist getting ready for races like the Boston Marathon, their local five k's. You know, we're 10 days away from Thanksgiving, so they're local turkey trots. So It is a baseline active audience that's interested in health span and lifespan and, yeah, just being as as healthy as possible. So that's the context.

Finn Melanson [00:03:24]: The first question that I wanna ask you, is is just to to share your personal journey and your experiences that that led you to To cofound this website called examine.com and sort of how that all meshes with just being like a sort of a prominent advocate for, You know, evidence based nutrition and supplements, all that kind of stuff.

Guest [00:03:46]: Yeah. Sure. So my path, It's a little bit different than most. My actual background is computer engineering. And and just to be clear, anyone listening, I don't do a single word of research on examiners. Obviously, I've read a lot. I know more than the average population. But part of the the kind of the journey is, I'm an immigrant.

Guest [00:04:04]: I came here when I was 14. I say that because, you know, there's a lot of people growing up like, oh, I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to do this. I, on the other hand, was a very good, quiet boy. I listened to the rules. I did all that jazz. The other thing kind of related to is I had EDS Ehlers Danlos syndrome. It usually manifests in women.

Guest [00:04:23]: It's usually is shown as kind of like I have relaxedity, you know, people who can bend their elbow past like 180, that kind of stuff. So I've torn both ACLs, I've torn both, labrums, I've had jaw surgery, I've had multiple Nasal surgeries. I have another 2 or 3 I'm gonna need in the next 90 to 180 days. So that's all kind of part of it. So, what actually happened was used to be significantly heavier. And I started losing weight and this isn't like 2009 2010, it's a little bit better today now. But there was no real evidence based information on EBM exists, evidence based medicine, but it wasn't really kind of in that space of nutrition. And I still remember, I got sucked into buying all these supplements as I was losing weight.

Guest [00:05:04]: I had maybe 40, 50 of them, right? Everything you can imagine. The example I always love using is Glutamine, right? It's sold as a 300% muscle builder. I don't have huge biceps, but 300 would be like, up to my hands, right? That's like Arnold would be like, this is preposterous. And so the genesis of it actually was I've been on Reddit for, I don't know, 17, 18 years. So Reddit Fitness has like eight, 10, 15,000,000 members now. Back when I was on it, there was, like, 4, 5000 of us. And I saw these people continually come and ask the same question. Right? Is creatine a steroid? I might be aging myself, but back in the day, Mark Maguire got busted, quote unquote, driving creatine, and it was, you know, pitched as some kind of steroid.

Guest [00:05:44]: And so, like many businesses, I realized there was no source of where you could go from nutrition information you could trust. Because the problem, and this is even endemic for the internet now, is the incentives are misaligned. Right? If if I am generating revenue through ads, I'm gonna try to sensationalize things. I'm gonna try to scare you. I'm gonna try to make absolute statements. You're gonna come to my page. My page views are gonna go up. I'm gonna make more more revenue.

Guest [00:06:09]: Or I sell you supplements, which again, you can't trust what I'm saying. Or I sell you services, which again is kind of a little bit dicey because I'm basically trying to pitch my self at the end of the day. And so that was the original genesis of the exam is, can we build something you can trust? And the only way you can do that is with service where you're basically, like, take this information, take it or leave it. I don't really care, but we're just gonna try, to give you information that's nuance that you can trust. That make sense?

Finn Melanson [00:06:37]: It makes a lot of sense and I I have a couple questions based off of it and it's funny. I was I was just on a run last night with a friend. He is a Primary care physician here in Salt Lake City, and he was lamenting to me how much of a backlog there is, Not just for his services as sort of the router to all these specialists, but specialists themselves, and it makes me wonder, like, How much individual initiative people like myself and yourself who don't necessarily have medical background should take to take ownership of their health and to get to solutions faster, and it seems like that's kind of what you decided to build here. But I guess the question I have is, Like, are we driving towards this future where more and more information and correct advice and just, like, Things that people can do on their own versus having to go visit someone to figure out the solution for is the future that we're gonna arrive at soon, or are we still in the same murky Space that you experienced 10 or 15 years ago?

Guest [00:07:40]: I think both, to be honest. I think for people who are supremely interested, who are self Starters like yourself and I, I think resources like Examine are super powerful. I'll I'll I'll give you an example. This is my favorite example, I tell this to the team all the time, so a few years ago, an employee was at a conference, you know when you come back from a conference, you're just exhausted, right? Just wanna go home, I wanna vegetate, sweatpants, you know, eat too much food or whatever. And so she's in this car, his Uber driver's like, I just started, working again, I couldn't work, and she's just Pegging our employee with questions like this, this, this, this. Eventually it comes out like, what do you do? I help run this nutrition company. What do you do? We analyze research. What's a call at examine.com? For those who've been to Toronto, she pulls over on the major highway at Gardner and she just starts bawling like ugly crying.

Guest [00:08:25]: And she recorded a 17 minute video to Kamala and I. I hate watching videos, but she, of course, has a massive video about how she couldn't work because she was in so much pain and she couldn't they couldn't figure it out. She found Xamarin and she was able to solve this Oh, and now she's starting to work, and that is life changing, right? Like, I don't wanna demean someone who makes a phone case, but I mean, at the end of the day, there's a million of them. So to people I think who are intrigued and interested, yes, I think this kind of stuff is important and powerful. Yeah. Right? Carnivore diet is the way to go. Vegan diet is the way to go. We can go in both directions, right? So I think there's a possibility of grifting.

Guest [00:09:12]: So I do think this is a position for health professionals who are vetted. Because here's the thing. Right? Damage isn't 0 to 100. Like, our advice let let to use it as a baseline. Let's say our advice is 100 inaccurate. But it's a little bit tough. Right? It's a lot. It can be a little bit overwhelming.

Guest [00:09:26]: Let's say doctors are 80% accurate. Right? They're still 20% wrong. But compared to the grifters who are 5% right, they're still a net positive. So I think if you're more of a skeptical person, I think if you're more discerning resources are Like, ours are phenomenal, but I do think there's an incredible spot for because the other thing with health is it's not just physiological, it's psychological. Right? You might love breakfast. I might not love breakfast. Studies may show on average you should do this, but when you look at the distribution curve, it's no longer that simple. And I'm getting a little bit more advanced because your audience is likely a bit more advanced too.

Guest [00:10:01]: Right? So, just because something works for someone doesn't mean it'll work for someone else. And too many times when when you get information, someone's like, oh, I went on the keto diet, I lost weight, thus, everyone must go on the keto diet, or vegan diet, or whatever. So I do think there's a very strong need for health professionals, but it's almost more Psychological than any physiological specialty that, they are disclosing. Does does that make sense? Like, it's not so easy, but it's like both.

Finn Melanson [00:10:27]: Oh, yeah. No. No. No. It make total sense and I'm realizing I I kind of forgot to ask you. So the part of the context here is In the health information market, we can call it that sort of nebulous term, there has been a lot of noise and not so much signal, and examine.com is one of the Services slash products that exist to create more signal in the marketplace. But what exactly is examine.com, and what's an example use case for A listener or viewer here.

Guest [00:10:54]: Oh, right. Sorry. So what we do at Examine is we analyze nutrition research, we built our own health taxonomy, We basically tell you what tell you what works and what doesn't work. Easy example is creatine, right? There is a robust amount of research that Shows creatine will improve power output. Power output is generally associated with obviously lifting weights, but power output also connects to endurance running for just general Availability of, energy. So what we do is, as new studies come in, we summarize recent Paper, so if you're interested, let's say you are suffering from diabetes or you have a loved one who has it, we will tell you here's the latest research on blood sugar control. And then subsequently, let's say you're listening to Huberman and he mentions Ashwagandha and you're like, what the hell is Ashwagandha? You'll come to our website. So we get 50, 60,000 visitors a day.

Guest [00:11:45]: We have maybe 4,000 frequently asked questions that we've generated on our website based on what people are saying, so we've got all the frequently asked questions for Ashwagandha, what does it do, How does it work? And then more specific ones. So ashwagandha is often, connected to testosterone. Does it actually increase testosterone or not? We answer those questions, and all this content is free. And then we have an examined database where we put all the research and all the in vivo, which is, like, in human body research, not the petri dish stuff. We put it all together. That's the paid part. We are like, hey. If you wanna get into the nitty gritty of what are all the outcomes and health conditions that Ashwagandha impacts, Here is the raw research.

Guest [00:12:21]: And then finally, we throw them into guides. So if you're trying to improve your memory, we're like, hey, you know, Most things online is do this or don't do this. We kind of like, we're nerds, we're like teachers, we give you grades, basically a, b, c, d, f. And so we're like, definitely take this, maybe take this, Take this, we don't actually know, there's no research, and then definitely don't take it. So it's easy example. If you have high blood pressure, you should not take caffeine. It's only gonna increase your blood pressure or worse. Right? That kind of stuff.

Guest [00:12:48]: If you have low blood pressure, yeah, you could take caffeine. You don't have to worry about it. So depending on your specific health goals and outcomes, We will then tell you what the research says, works and doesn't work. And and to be clear, this is not we don't touch prescriptions, But this is not only supplements, we also have a lot of NPIs, non pharmaceutical interventions. So, walking, saunas, very, very trendy, right? Binaural beats, Menstrual cups. Anything that impacts your health, we want to look at the evidence and tell you what works and what doesn't work.

Finn Melanson [00:13:21]: You know, one of my complaints about a lot of academic research, I'm sure it's a common complaint, is that it's it's written in, Sort of murky terms or terms that only a fellow academic could understand. If you go to a website with examine, is the research gonna be sort of Translate it into lay terms, some so someone that doesn't have a medical background can can understand it and understand the takeaways and and apply it versus being Sort of confused by, you know, super complex terms and all these numbers and stuff like that?

Guest [00:13:53]: Sure. Yeah. So that's exactly what we do for anyone who's aware of full text papers or PubMed abstracts. We're basically halfway in between. We have copy editors that look specifically to make sure it's accessible. We also summarize information, right? So you can read 10 paragraphs on our site about all the research, but we will then summarize it at the end. So it's kind of like This is what you need to take away from it. This is what you don't need to take away, and this is how it applies to websites.

Guest [00:14:17]: So, yeah, the application to your life is a huge component, of what we do as a as a business.

Finn Melanson [00:14:24]: You mentioned like ashwagandha and and creatine. I think those are Two great examples for this audience I mean, I know in my personal life, you know, I run a lot. I did used to do a fair bit of weightlifting in the In a previous life where creatine was more like readily accepted in that community, I think a lot of people are worried about its applications in our endurance running context, But, like, generally speaking, can you provide some examples of, like, specific health claims or trends that you've seen in the market In the nutrition or the supplement space that you've either debunked or you've clarified through the research at Examine?

Guest [00:14:59]: Yeah. Yeah. So we can use creatine as an easy example that is bad for your, kidneys. We can get it in the research where basically it's not. It's a false positive. So it is not bad for your kidneys. There's case studies of people with 1 functioning kidney that has renal issues and still it's fine to use creatine. The other favorite one obviously is high protein intake.

Guest [00:15:17]: For the longest time, right, high protein was cons was associated with like leaching bone calcium and whatnot. And it's bad for your kidneys. There is more than enough robust research out there now that shows there's very few downsides of high protein. Obviously, protein farce are a consideration depending on if you're getting sufficient fiber or not in your diet. But things around like, you know, even diets being magical, like, yeah, Ketogenic diet is really good if you suffer from epilepsy, but as again some kind of patisceum, it's not that great. MCT, same thing. It's just another version of of an oil. It has maybe some slight benefits in these specific conditions, but in the grand scheme of things, You know, none of these come close to sleep and stress and overall diet.

Guest [00:16:03]: So I I can literally go on and on, but There's many many nutrition myths that have been debunked over the years.

Finn Melanson [00:16:10]: Maybe we could do 1 more, like, and again, feel free to pick 1 that's top of mind, but, like, for me, one of them is Ketones. Ketones. Exogenous ketones are certainly having their moment in the endurance community space. We're seeing companies like Delta g, companies like HVMN come in.

Guest [00:16:26]: All the

Finn Melanson [00:16:26]: influencers are showing it. What's an example there? Like, do you see what they're promoting being debunked through Examen, clarified, and supported? What do you think?

Guest [00:16:35]: So I wouldn't for them, I wouldn't use the word debunk. I think it'd be more clarification. It's like ketone, exogenous ketones can help you get to a ketogenic state. At the end of the day, the question is, is a ketogenic state would you wish to be in? Especially for runners who are, in an endurance situation, the high availability of energy is far more important than anything else. And I I think people don't understand, you know, if you wanna go to the debunking component, I don't think people fully understand how not easy it is for your body to convert from 1 macro ingredient to another, right? The idea that oh, you eat too much carbs, you're gonna get fat. Well, your Body has actually a really hard time converting carbs to, triglycerides to store it as, fat. So similar thing here with with ketones. I would Personally, imagine if you're not on a ketogenic diet, or are not super duper strict with it, the addition of exogenous ketones, would not be great.

Guest [00:17:30]: But If you wanna get one that will be possibly spicy with your audience, we can get into one of those. Let's do it. Okay. Okay. The the the difference Between, table sugar, and high fructose corn syrup is effectively negligible. We have a Oh, no. Yeah. We we have a page on it.

Guest [00:17:48]: It's don't quote me on the exact details, but effectively, there's just like a slight difference in the bond. But in terms of how your body digests it or how your body absorbs it, it is effectively no difference to the body. We're talking about, like, maybe 0.001% Kind of different. So if you're trying to break 2 hours for a marathon, maybe HFCS versus sugar makes it matter. But if you're trying to just hit, like, you know, Even under 3 hours, it I mean, I'm not even close. I'm not even trying to make that sound. It's a small goal. That's a huge goal.

Guest [00:18:17]: But, yeah, HFCS versus table sugar, Vastly overrated. I'm not commenting on the flavor. If you think Mexican Coke tastes better than North American Coke, That could very well be true. I I can't comment on that. But in terms of the physiological process in your body, it is it is a a nothing but and we can add a link, In the show notes that goes to the page, people can read more about it to learn for themselves.

Finn Melanson [00:18:41]: The the more I learn about Nutrition with the asterisk that I am a layperson Mhmm. The more I I hesitate to demonize Anything. It feels like everything has its its time, its moment, its place in your diet.

Guest [00:18:56]: The only thing I can think of is maybe trans That one I think we can universally agree on is not that great, but it's it's all big picture. Right? If you're having 40 cookies a day, that is not ideal. If you're having 1 cookie a day And and the other thing, this is where it goes back to psychological side that I kinda get bugged out. Right? If you are trying to be a 100% clean, let let let's use clean in a in a in a Good faith manner. It is likely easier to be clean by eating that 1 dessert a day or cookie or treat a day versus trying to be 100% clean and then you'll fall into a binging pattern. And I can say this to someone right, who's lost a significant amount of weight, That that purity test that a lot of people consider for nutrition and exercise, it's just not based in in reality. So, yeah, totally, on board with your statement that almost nothing is truly good or bad. It's in the context of everything else that you are doing on your day

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Guest [00:21:20]: Sure. So there's 2 major things here. 1, nothing goes live by itself, or by 1 individual. Everything is checked by 3 people. So if The primary researcher says x and any of the reviewers, which are usually clinicians in that specific realm, and the copy the medical copy editors, if they see anything or I or doesn't agree with kind of the references, that's one thing. So there's nothing generated by, 1 human. Secondly, in terms of a business model, we just do membership that's monthly or yearly. We have 13,000 paying customers.

Guest [00:21:56]: This is very, very, very, very important to me because one of the real so I I do a lot of nonprofit work, and one of the realities is if you're one big donor, they exert a lot influence because they control a lot of the revenue that you are generating. So from our perspective, if the most you can generate for us is, what it is, $200 a month kinda say, we don't have to worry about someone coming in and saying, hey, I'm paying you $100,000 a year, why are you saying HFCS is not That bad or why you're saying Herbalife, is great or not great, that kind of stuff. The the last thing, and this is kind of interesting. So I got this from a friend of mine. He had a huge company that was in nutrition space to be, to be, to clarify. Sorry. And he sold it for, like, 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars. And he basically said that it's not money that corrupts in research, it's actually friendship.

Guest [00:22:47]: And, obviously, this is a bit of a simplification, but the idea is if someone gives you money, there's almost this level of pride that we were, like, oh, they gave me money, but I'm still telling the truth. But let's say you and I are best friends and you put out a shitty study. It's really hard for me to publicly say, you know, this study is kinda garbage. I might ignore it. I might downplay it. Right? And so we're very, very clear that there's no association between any of the researchers any of the study authors in anything we do. And separately, it's like obvious stuff. Right? COIs, no one can be connected with any kind of supplement company or, Nutrition service or anything like that.

Guest [00:23:24]: So everyone either works for us full time. We have a couple of we have reviewers, obviously, you know, Industry or or specialty specific. But, again, they can only work in health care settings. They cannot be working for a supplement company. They cannot be working for a food company, that kind of stuff. So that's generally how, we we've built a moat. We basically tell everyone we're Switzerland. And the final thing is We do not take any money outside of subscription services.

Guest [00:23:49]: So we had a battle about, like, 9 years ago for CrossFit journal. We wrote about adrenal fatigue, And they were, like, hey, we gotta pay you, and we're, like, sorry, we don't take money from anybody, that's part of our entire thing. And there's this huge back and forth, and eventually, We agreed to a, $2 check. I think we're all comfortable getting a $2 check, but then we took a picture of it and we immediately tore it away. So we're very, very, Very particular, nothing is paid, nothing is free. No books, nothing. We have a policy page where, like, hey, if you send us a book, we're not even gonna donate that book, we're just gonna recycle it. It will be trashed effectively, so people know not to give us anything, not to churn out, no freebies, no free supplements, none of that jazz, Because that's just not how we operate and that's just not something, we are okay with.

Finn Melanson [00:24:36]: And maybe you just described what your key differentiators are, but When you look at other sources out there on the Internet for, you know, health information and and discovery and Mhmm. You know, Comparing and contrasting supplements and stuff like that, what else sets you apart from alternatives out there on the market?

Guest [00:24:55]: For sure. So, one of the things is we are not owned by anyone else. Kamal, my co founder, who is in charge of all the research, and I, we own 100% of the company. Healthline, for example, is owned by a $1,000,000,000 company. WebMD is owned by a $1,000,000,000 company. Everyday Health, all of them are owned by giant $1,000,000,000 companies. The other thing is, again, we have no ads on the website. We gain nothing and we don't sell anything.

Guest [00:25:17]: We don't gain anything if we tell you creatine is amazing or creatine is garbage. At the end of the day, the information is what informs your knowledge, and so by having that strict adherence to the only way we'll ever make money is through the information itself, That is I think the the unique selling proposition. I don't think there's any other company in the world In the nutrition space like us, there's a few in the medical prescription side, but nobody else in in the nutrition space.

Finn Melanson [00:25:47]: Maybe coming back to what we were talking about earlier on, like, the debunking side of things, what do you see as the Biggest challenges that you and your team face encountering misinformation out there in pseudoscience and, you know, sort of like maintaining the fight towards, not just more truth in the world, but more widespread truth and easier access to truth.

Guest [00:26:10]: So, I am well known for butchering idioms, I'm going to butcher this one. But there's that famous one that like the truth is still putting on its Shoes when a lie is like halfway around the globe. Right? The reality is that, Our information is boring. It's nuanced. It's not sexy. It's not flashy, and it doesn't promise you results. That's just the reality of the situation. Right? So when ketogenic and paleo and primal diets blew up, let's say, a decade ago, Like, why were people attracted? And again, I can empathize with this because I was significantly heavier.

Guest [00:26:44]: The attraction is, oh, I'm gonna get lean. I'm gonna get ripped. This one magic thing is the solution. And it's not even just about getting lean and ripped. Right? It's, like, I'll get lean and ripped. And then people of the Opposite or same sex, whichever one you want are attracted to me and there'll be underwear throwing me in. There's there's this, like, sexy idea, right? And you'll see these pictures from P90X to any fitness website, right? Before and after. Never mind that, you know, results are atypical, 1 out of a 100% pea 1 out of a 100 people are doing this, They're on strict diets, all that kind of stuff.

Guest [00:27:16]: So our problem is, when you're not in the industry, right, when you're not in health, you don't See someone who's huge and jacked, like liver king, right? Anyone who's in the health space, no one was surprised that dude was on steroids, right? It was more just like, why don't you just admit you're on gear? And if and and the and the problem itself isn't that you were using gear. The problem is that you're lying about using gear. I don't care if you're on all the Steroids in the world, the clan, HR, GH, TRT, all that. Who cares? Right? So our problem is, Someone on the outside comes in and they see this dude who's huge and yoked and shredded and he's like, oh, eat liver, and that's the only Solution you need versus us, we're kind of dweebs and, like, well, you see it's actually the calories and you have to eat your vegetables and you need to make sure you get enough sleep and all that. They're like, psh, the the solution examine says is boring and hard, which it is, versus here's the panacea. So this is, This is a problem in all facets of, human development. Right? You wanna get, be better at writing. There's no magic solution.

Guest [00:28:19]: You just gotta write more. Right? Wanna get better at lifting weights. You wanna get better at running. Right? You can't just be like, I'm gonna do 1 HIIT workout a week and, you know, that's gonna increase my VO two max and now I'm a huge endurance runner. Now you gotta put in the work. And so that's the problem is everyone wants that simple, Easy magic solution, magic panacea, but the reality of the world is not that at all. Even intermittent fasting, I fast because I don't like breakfast, but I would never tell anyone an intermittent fasting is anything magical because some people really, really need breakfast. So it's stuff like that.

Guest [00:28:54]: We're just So unsexy is the is the truth.

Finn Melanson [00:28:59]: When you think about sort of at least one of your missions to, you know, create a world where Health information correct health information is widespread. What have been the wins so far in the history of examine.com?

Guest [00:29:12]: So I gave that example of the the woman who recorded a video. That is my favorite example. But the the the wins are what people say about us. Right. So I've mentioned we get 50, 60,000 visitors a day. We don't buy any ads. Our membership is too cheap to make it worth the arbitrage of buying ads versus selling, Membership. And the fact that you can pretty much look us up anywhere on the Internet.

Guest [00:29:38]: And and there might be 1 person who thinks they're genius and is like, oh, yes. This one specific page on the website is slightly outdated, but generally, the reception has been Credibly, incredibly positive. Kamal recently wrote to our email list about this methodology of learning Called I plus 1. That's what he called it or that's what it's called. Incredibly esoteric, right? Who kinda cares? We almost got a 1,000 email responses. For anyone who's run a website, getting a 1,000 responses via email is huge. And we got almost that many saying much they loved it, how it's interesting, how they wanna see us develop it. So that has been amazing is that even though we are relatively a niche, at the same time, we're not.

Guest [00:30:20]: We got a lot of traffic. We it's amazing seeing, I think I mentioned this, so I might not have it right in my head. New York Times, like a few years ago, did a section on strength training, and their entire on supplementation was basically go read examine.com. So the fact that we can influence people's lives, the fact that we still have like 6, 7,000,000 words for free on the website that help people understand health. It's awesome. Any anytime I come across someone who knows I'm examined, And then they find out that I'm one of the owners because most people don't know I exist. Like, I'm on the 25th person listed on the about page. Everyone knows I'm Kamal.

Guest [00:30:54]: It's awesome. People start yelling at me in in in an Excited away. Like, I love this website. You guys are amazing. I'm like, you're accurate. We are amazing. Thank you. But it it is, it is very gratifying Hearing that you are impacting someone's life, and that can never be, to be honest, it can never be understated.

Finn Melanson [00:31:16]: Conversely, what do you see as the next achievable challenge for examine.com? Like, where are you not Quite there yet. It's sort of in your road map in terms of impact on, society.

Guest [00:31:29]: Yeah. So, one of our holes this might get a little bit nerdy in tech, one of our holes or or the biggest hole we have on our website is we don't talk about interaction, safety, and toxicity. And so one of the realities of the world, like, you would think that there's a schism between people who rely on allopathic medicine. Let's say, you know, MDs, physicians, that stuff in people who are into alternative medicine, right? But the reality is, especially because of guys like Rogan and Huberman, there's a bunch of people who go to the doctors and also take supplements. And so one of the things that we haven't done that we're not working on, we just did an internal version 1 literally 2 days ago, is how do we, give users, that's safety information. And one of the big ones that I'm actually very excited about is also around pregnancy and lactation. Right? That's when people are especially, ultimately concerned. Right? You have a newborn.

Guest [00:32:20]: You're terrified, especially when it's your first one. Like, I've seen my sister through her, kids and how much more lax you get. And so having the safety information where people know, hey. If your kid is on a blood thinner as an example, You should not take vitamin k because it's actually a, has issues with coagulation or St. John's horses at time interaction. So I'm actually really, really excited. And we we always try to do it in a way where, like, hey, how do we make the basic information available for free so anyone who's impacted by it can get it? Then how do we possibly just monetize on the health professional side who then need to get much more esoteric about drug classes, and all that kind of stuff. So, I'm very, very excited, that we're gonna, hopefully, in the next 6 months, add safety information to the website.

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Finn Melanson [00:34:04]: Mhmm. There's a bunch of guides. Like, I'll I'll click on, you know, skin, hair and nails, and then it will say x y z supplements that work, 4 supplements that may work, 20 to avoid. But even more basic than that, like, where where is your mind at right now in terms of the general need for supplements to begin with? Like, is there is there something About the diminished nutrient value in normal whole foods that requires the need for more supplements, Is supplements just this thing that has won out because marketing is so powerful? Like, do you see it as really this essential thing we need in society or Has, like, marketing outpaced reality?

Guest [00:34:46]: I think every single thing you said is spot on. I think our overall our diets have become worse. Right? Like how many, I remember, this might age me, but you know you grew up having these veggies and all this kind of stuff, but the average Family meal today is not the same as 30 years ago, and I'm not saying this in a good nor bad specific way, but the reality is in some ways our diets have become much more diverse, right? Growing seasons, shipping, you can get, I'm going to say kumquat at any time you want, pretty much at most major grocery stores any time of the year, which is kind of ridiculous as an idea. Right? That fresh food and all these other vegetables are always available to you. But the diversity in our foods is So going down. People are getting busier. They don't have time to make more, complicated meals, more, ingredients. Made kaffanata the other day, which is basically like, it's simple like 10 vegetables thrown into one thing.

Guest [00:35:40]: It took me forever, right? Just chopping the vegetables, I was like, oh this is exhausting, I need a weekend for this. So I think the reality is people's diets are no longer as, nutrition rich as they were before. I think it's underrated how complicatedly devilishly delicious unprocessed uh-uh foods are ups right ultra processed foods are It's literally it. Right? It's delicious for, like, that split second, and then it goes away, and you're, like, shit, I forgot this flavor. On the other hand, something like Fanta, you can fill up on it very quickly. About half a fan time. Don't wanna see it again. So there's that one thing.

Guest [00:36:22]: But the other thing is we're also learning much more about diets, and there's just things we had never considered between Baseline and optimal. We may know that we need, you know, a 1000 vitamin d a day so that the reason something is called a vitamin in case people don't know Is if you're in a deficient state you get a disease, you enter a disease state. So, the famous one is vitamin c and scurvy, right? The sailors Started licking lemons and that was enough vitamin c, they don't have the disease. Vitamin d for example is rickets. But a lot of our health Standing is around a baseline of health but what is optimal? Protein is the same thing, right? You might need, I am making this round numbers here, you might need a 100 grams a day, but if you get 150 grams a day, it's better because it puts your body in more of an anabolic state. Actually, protein is important for bone, bone health, joint health, all that kind of stuff. So, I think there's I don't live in utopia. I would love to live in utopia, but I don't.

Guest [00:37:12]: And so the reality, right, is people will be, being sold that Glutamine is a muscle builder. And I would rather live in the real world. And and to be honest, if people buy less supplements, That is a huge win for me and for us. And from everything we've surveyed with our users, in some ways, People do spend a lot less on supplementation because they're like, I don't need this. You told me it doesn't really work, so I'm gonna skip on it. So It's pretty much everything you said and a few other factors involved too.

Finn Melanson [00:37:44]: So maybe maybe upstream of all these Are the lifestyle challenges we've created for ourselves, and until some of these lifestyle factors change, there will be probably a pretty important need for supplementation.

Guest [00:37:58]: Yeah. I I I think that, you know, like, I could live my cleanest, bestest life, but vitamin k, that's a great example. Vitamin k is one of the few supplements I do take on the daily. It is important for bone health. The 2 major natural sources of vitamin k are kale, but kale cell wall. So you need to blend the kale because the cellulose structure is too hard to extract vitamin k from your stomach acids, Or natto, which is that, like, fermented seaweed or see something from Japan, which is incredibly stinky and most people don't like it. Okay. You don't need that much vitamin k not to enter disease state, but, so I have the genetic disorder I mentioned, so I have soft bones, that's what the surgeon described my bones as, which is not something you ever wanna hear a surgeon that your bones are soft and blue.

Guest [00:38:42]: And so I take vitamin k to help strengthen my bones, but I will never get it from even my lifestyle changes. Those are both. Right? Like, yes. Yeah. There is definitely an issue of lifestyle changes. We're no longer as a society as active as we used to be. Right? And and In a very simplistic sense, you can even look at people's childhoods 30 years ago where you're just wandering around and running around versus today. And it's not even that Parents are safe or it's dangerous or whatever, it's just you know, we replaced it with phones and other media that always follows us.

Guest [00:39:12]: So even if we fix Underlying lifestyle things, you go for an hour run or you walk in, and hike for 2 hours every weekend, Still, you can make it better. Now, if you have to choose between the 2 things, if you're like, hey, should I go for my hike or take a supplement? I would actually tell you to take a supplement because It's not just about the hiking. Right? The walking is great for digestion. The sunlight, if it's sunlight, is good for your mood, all those kinds of things. So, I don't think it's an exclusive thing. I think they're both, very potent, possibly in their own ways.

Finn Melanson [00:39:45]: Another thing off this that I'm curious about is you often see, like, if I look at a multivitamin Mhmm. Profile, for example, you'll see these Outlandish percentages associated with each vitamin, like 1600% daily value of vitamin c, 400% vitamin d and a, I'm curious why they set it up like that and then b, is there any danger or or toxicity associated with, like, Taking too much of any one of these given vitamins?

Guest [00:40:14]: So from pretty much anything in multivitamin, there should be no worry about Like vitamin a, vitamin c, usually the ones they OD on or versions of vitamin b. They're pretty safe in very, very large doses. You can also even almost know you're safe because all the large brands are selling that shit, and their legal liability team would be the 1st ones to be like, yo, Someone is definitely gonna take 50 pills, maybe not 50, but 15 pills. Make sure we're under the toxicity threshold for that. Be like, yeah. Yeah. Easy. As far as and don't call me on this, but as far as I know, your body is pretty good at filtering out these vitamins and just urinating it out anyways.

Guest [00:40:48]: You don't have to really, really, worry about it. As to the why, I honestly don't know other than it just sounds impressive. Right? If I'm like, hey, what is getting me more of my money's worth? Right. Am I getting 200% of vitamin c or 18,000% of vitamin c? Right? You're like, yes. And you're like, somewhere On Oprah, I heard that vitamin c is good for your immune system and so obviously 18,000% is better than 200% because that's just obvious math, Thus, I will take this multivitamin. But the other thing also is, they're cheap filters, basically. Right? The one of the problems with multivitamins that if you think about it, it's kinda hilarious, It's physically the pill is too small to have enough of the ingredients you need in a sufficient quantity. Think about, A scoop of creatine, it's not that big, right? It's like maybe a teaspoon is 5 grams, but think about the multivitamin pill you take, that is not even a teaspoon's worth of a pill.

Guest [00:41:41]: So we're forcing in, you know, 15 different things into 1 tiny pillar, maybe, you know, like, animal pack and whatever, there's, like, 5 pills. But if you think about it literally, physically, there's just not enough space. And so their mindset is, hey, we're gonna cram it with vitamin a, which is cheap because it's Everywhere. Like, vitamin a, vitamin c are some of the last things in the world you ever need a supplement with. Right? It's so cheap. We'll fill it up. It's impressive. It gives you this giant pill or this pill, even though in reality, it is absolutely we always tell people, and I and if If you're listening, I hope this is the one thing you take away from it.

Guest [00:42:14]: Do not take supplements for the sake of taking supplements. Take supplements because you have the specific issue or health condition that you wish to improve. I take vitamin k, because I got unfortunately, I've now admitted soft bones. If you don't have soft bones or if your bones are incredible because you've done a, you know, BMD test, DEXA scan, whatever, Your bone health is great. You can skip that. Take it if you need it. Please do not take it otherwise. It's just not

Finn Melanson [00:42:42]: A special announcement here to give yourself or your running friend the gift of a new PR this year when you save 30% on our 16 week custom training plans. The custom training plan can be written for any distance, 5 k to the ultra marathon, and will be completely tailored to your current training, weaknesses, and goals. The schedule is good to start anytime, so you can save 30% now and activate for your spring or fall race whenever you're ready to start training. All plans come with strength training and injury prevention built directly into the plan, Adjustments from our coaches anytime, direct exposure to Garmin in most running watches, and access to all of our premium courses on nutrition, form, and more. Just head to runnersconnect.netforward/black to save 30% and take advantage of this awesome deal for yourself or as a gift to your running friend. Changing topics in a little bit. One thing that I am I'm in awe of is the decision making that must go into your team's process for, you know, building pages on this site And I don't know what the exact numbers are. Maybe you do, but I have to imagine there is a ton of research that's published either on a weekly, monthly, annual basis And it it's a challenge to keep up with it, to synthesize it, and to make sense of it.

Finn Melanson [00:44:04]: What can you say about that process and The level of challenge that's there and maybe what what what tough decisions you have to make when it comes to interpretation, Organizing, etcetera.

Guest [00:44:19]: I I gotta be honest, it's a lot. I'll I'll give you a simple example. So most people know of PubMed. It's basically a clearinghouse of almost 99.9% of published studies in in nutrition space and end up there. If we are trying find new studies on creatine, you don't just search for creatine, you have to have what are called MeSH terms and specific PubMed searches. We actually have a part time librarian that works for us that generates us the exact search phrases we need to find exactly what we are looking for. Your question could literally take hours to answer. My favorite example is we have an internal researcher guide, right? It takes a new hire roughly 90 days to get up to speed to be able to contribute to the website.

Guest [00:45:00]: That is a lot of learning they have to do. We have our own internal classes, but our researcher guide, we have 2 pages in the guide that distinguishes between a hyphen versus an m dash versus an n dash. If you were to ask me right now what are the differences, I'd be like I have no idea. I know instinctively this specific type is the one that goes next to omega threes or sixes, and this one is for Conjoining words. There is a level of precision that cannot be explained in any kind of pithy way. We generally work as a holocronic organization. We have about 40 people now. For those who aren't aware of holocracy, it was made That's a Tech, that's

Finn Melanson [00:45:42]: a tech term. I've heard that thrown around a lot.

Guest [00:45:45]: We're getting tech brody here now, my guy. Holacracy was made famous by Zappos, the shoe store, that Amazon bought for, I don't know, a billion or something. And the idea basically is instead of having, managers and bosses, you basically have roles. You have responsibility. So your responsibility is actually your responsibility is why. And so every a lot of stuff we do internally is collaboratively. It's not like, Hi. I'm the hand of God.

Guest [00:46:08]: This is how we're gonna do things. It's more like, hey, guys. This is how we're thinking about it. People contribute ideas and whatnot. So the research process, It's kind of hard to to describe because it is a continually evolving beast. We have, we use a lot of Airtable to get a bit techie again, to manage the thousands of studies we come across all the time, we have different ways of, grabbing studies. For those who don't know, A study might show up in a journal but it'll show up in PubMed, let's say 2 weeks later, so is it worth for us to wait those 2 weeks for it to show up in PubMed or should we go straight to the journal? Should we go to the biggest journals that have high impact factors, which you can kind of guess what it is based on describing it and otherwise go to PubMed. So There's a 1,000,000 little decisions that happen along the way.

Guest [00:46:52]: It is constantly evolving, and one of our battles, is How do you disseminate 1 piece of knowledge so that it spreads across the entire website? So, if we get a new study that says, hypothetical, let's say, that says creatine, may increase DHT to a level where it causes hair loss. Okay, now we've got to update the DHT page, now we've got to update the hair loss page, How do we do it in a seamless way where we can almost slide a study across and someone else can catch it and see, like, okay, I gotta add it to this page, I gotta add that page. So Let's just say there's a lot of moving pieces internally. It is a forever ongoing project of how do you Synthesize the information you need, but also store these studies because you're gonna use them later. Easy example. Again, like, let's say, there's a study that shows, you know, ashwagandha's x dosages, how much you need, and we put it as a study summary that's there. Now we have to update the dosage section. Updating the dosa section, we have to worry about the toxicity levels.

Guest [00:47:49]: Right? Is it getting closer to the toxicity levels that we have to make a mention of it? So everything is intertwined, and they're basically a 1000000 balls that we're juggling in the air simultaneously, and no single person knows everything that's going on. It's impossible. Right? Anyone? Personal beef, personal grief right here. Anyone who claims they know everything about one subject matter, I don't fully believe that you might know core essence of it, but there's a 1,000,000 tangents that arise. Protein. You might know everything about protein, but how does protein impact fertility? That's a whole different subject. Right? That's like a Entire thesis right there. So that's why, like, no one person knows everything, and it's it's almost like, an ant colony, to get weirdly right there.

Guest [00:48:28]: Everyone kinda knows the role and everyone kinda works together and, like, this entire thing comes out of it. Does that make sense? Sorry. Like, it's it's Oh. It's hard to make a message.

Finn Melanson [00:48:37]: It makes a ton of sense. Well, a, I love I this might that might have been the 1st mention on this show. This show's been around for 12 years of holacracy, so I love that.

Guest [00:48:44]: I see.

Finn Melanson [00:48:46]: But but but, b, you know, I kind of to make another tech reference, like, I have been following pretty closely all the innovations around OpenAI, and one of the most recent ones is how you can create individual GPTs for different subject matters. And I'm wondering in your case and maybe you guys are already doing this, but is it beneficial to create, you know, a subject matter GPT, like A GPT that you can feed all of the information out there around creatine research. Mhmm. The same thing for, you know, vitamin k. The same thing for, you know, the interaction of, you know, diabetes and, you know, certain, like, glucose monitors and stuff. I don't know. The list goes on and on. But, like, Does that potentially become an answer to, like, some of the, I don't know, like, efficiency challenges that you face with interpreting all this stuff?

Guest [00:49:33]: So we are constantly testing, AI tools. The problem for those who aren't aware, there's a very technical term called hallucinating, We're basically, the let's call it the GPT doesn't know any better, and it just makes up a total answer. There's a famous one currently going on with Google right now, Where if you ask Google SGE, hey, are there any African countries that begin with the letter k? Kenya being the answer, it says no. And it's been saying no for months. So the the downside of GPT, for those who aren't aware, is it's so it's like you know you meet those, confidently incorrect people, it is that personified, it knows a lot, but it also doesn't know a lot, and it doesn't give a shit effectively. So the concern is, for those who don't get fully understand the g p t, it's basically pattern matching, right, LLMs is is what it really is. It's basically trying to match patterns and trying to ascertain what works and what doesn't work. When your base data is so spread out, we cannot rely on it.

Guest [00:50:30]: So we test out tools all the time. We even test out tools for the most basic of, like, data extraction, which is like, what are the demographics? Right? Was it male, female? What were their ages? What were their body types? So what were their physical attributes? You know? What were they did they suffer from menopause or not? Maybe not suffered another word, you know, have are postmenopausal or not? Even then, it still fails. And the problem is, it doesn't really tell you how likely confident it is. It'll give you some random numbers at a time. But because GPD is kind of a black box, you don't know if it's generating it on a true probability, or if it's just trying to generate what the LLM tells it to generate, which is generally, you know, 70, 80 kind of confidence. So we looked into these tools. We will likely, at the most, use it only to be, like, just use our dataset And generate these answers there. The problem again is, generating those answers there is because of hallucination.

Guest [00:51:25]: You don't know if always if the data is wrong or if the Answer is wrong. So you have to dig into the data anyway. And I know like from a list of to what is it consensus, and there is a bunch of other ones, site, all these other ones. They do an overall good job, but from our perspective, one hallucination can cause so much damage to someone's health. Right? Like, basically, being It's like 90% of the time it's us, but 10% of the time it's a grifter. We would rather not have any grifting available, which is why I'm a little bit not as bullish. I'm a I'm a copywriter background. Right? So I've seen this kind of stuff for forever.

Guest [00:52:00]: I'm not as bullish in the immediacy, that this will be useful. Maybe in 5, 10 years' time, when we can get a bit more stringent about the datasets for it to train, but not at this point in time.

Finn Melanson [00:52:14]: Okay. Actually, yeah, that fascinating.

Guest [00:52:16]: The other thing, if I may, like, for someone who wants more technical understanding, there there's no context of The summary of a full text paper. A full text paper can go into this large thing, and different languages can be used. You're a researcher, you know that ADP and adenosine diphosphate are That's an easy example because it's an obvious, shorter form. But there's a lot of these little implicit things that are not explicitly defined. And So one of the things we've done for eventuality is we've started building our own glossary. And so this glossary can then feed into it. So, like, there's ways to mitigate it, but, yeah, It's it's it's it's a very complicated, situation.

Finn Melanson [00:52:54]: The all and again, maybe this isn't a fair Critique or comparison, but like by contrast, I wonder how often in real life we see people, even even certified Reputable people in the medical community, have their own version of hallucinations where, you know, they very confidently but incorrectly Advocate their patients to have a certain surgery or to do a certain medical protocol, and like, what is the comparison between that To the frequency of hallucination in these GPTs, you know?

Guest [00:53:27]: That is, a 100% an issue. So there's a lot of data that suggests, that newer doctors are in many ways better than older doctors. You would imagine all the experience to be powerful, but all the doctors were taught Older techniques, they don't have the newer stuff because staying up with the research part of what we do for everyone else is really, really, really, really difficult. But there's also a lot of data that shows that AI in specific health care situations is superior to, non AI solutions, even in stuff like radiology. Right? That's perfect for AI. Right? It's basically pattern recognition. Here's this weird gobbledygook of pixels effectively. Right? Ascertain what the pattern is.

Guest [00:54:05]: It was this pattern a concern, a potential tumor or is it a cyst or is it something not to worry about? So I do think this is a 100% a legitimate concern of, hey, is my medical professional, obviously, they're on 100%. Are they actually better than an l l m or not? I think in some cases, absolutely, there is. I haven't dug into it enough where I can confidently say yes, for x y z, I would use this, and for a b c d f, I would use that because part of the problem is, llms are no, are not really flexible. So if there's some novel thing that comes up, You need so is there a way to even arguably merge the 2, right, where LLM generates the answer, but a doctor double checks it? We're also humans. Doctors have huge egos, and doctors might be offended that this LLM got the answer, and they didn't. So, obviously, it's very complicated, but I would Eventually, see something like that where LLMs are you know, when you go to the doctor's office, the nurse asks you a bunch of questions, and then they leave, and then the doctor comes in. In that meantime, the l l m can run, try to distinguish what it is, and even identify the doctor, hey, maybe look into these different things. That I think would be a great improvement in medical service.

Guest [00:55:13]: But don't call me that as examined. That is my personal thoughts.

Finn Melanson [00:55:16]: Right on. No, I love it. I love it. Okay. 2 more questions for you before we go. The first one is maybe a bit unusual, but when you think about your own content consumption habits in alignment with Examined .com, Where else do you enjoy going on the internet to, to sort of like buffer your knowledge and your curiosity around this type of stuff?

Guest [00:55:39]: So I I mentioned I've been on Reddit forever. For those who don't know, Reddit Reddit is basically the world's largest forum, and it has forums for any topic conceivable. So my favorite ones is there's a a Reddit, called Long Reads and In-depth Reads, and it's just a bunch of Basically, long form articles. I am, even though I have a computer engineering degree and I code and all that kind of stuff, I love Magazines, I love reading physical papers. So I'm subscribed to a bunch of magazines. My one favorite one I tell everybody to read is called New Philosopher. It's out of Australia. Every quarter, they publish, a topic based, magazine, so it might be power.

Guest [00:56:20]: There's a bunch of philosophers talking about what does power mean, and why do people care about power, and how does power manifest, etcetera etcetera. Most of my reading is, A a lot of people who run businesses, they're always some of these self development books or, you know, PD, right, personal development, business books. I have no energy for that. I read a Ton of nonfiction that has nothing to do with business. I read a ton of fiction. I love short stories. So I love reading, but almost none of it is, nutrition based or health based or even business based, and that is because I think a bit of knowledge in a bunch of topics makes much more interesting, and then it makes you much more empathetic. Right? I'm a nerd, but if you wanna talk about sports, dude, I follow I have season tickets to NBA, all NFL.

Guest [00:57:01]: I'm not a jockey dude. Right? Who's

Finn Melanson [00:57:03]: your team?

Guest [00:57:04]: What's that?

Finn Melanson [00:57:05]: Who's your team?

Guest [00:57:06]: Raptors, man. Raptors, for sure. Toronto based. It was, 2019 was a was a good good year, also very stressful. I gotta be honest. For someone who's a sports fan, if your team if you never had your team have an actual chance to win. It's actually very stressful because, you know, when they're not good, you know they're gonna lose, and it's just all, you know, bonus. But when you expect them to possibly win a chip, and they do or don't.

Guest [00:57:27]: It is incredibly mentally I don't know. Maybe I I just put myself too much into it. It is emotionally exhausting.

Finn Melanson [00:57:34]: But yeah. Celtics fan, so yeah.

Guest [00:57:36]: Oh, okay. Well, wait. You're Celtics specifically or a Bostonian, New England fan?

Finn Melanson [00:57:42]: Boston across the board.

Guest [00:57:43]: You guys are so spoiled. Get out of here. Ugh. Your last chip was 2009 across the major 4 leagues. Ugh. You guys have no idea what to feel. You know what? As a maybe you're a Patreons fan, you can now a little bit enjoy what it feels what futility feels like. Welcome to the rest of all of us.

Finn Melanson [00:58:00]: We have no patience.

Guest [00:58:02]: None. It it's kinda crazy. I said it out loud. 2009 was the last was is your oldest big four league Championship that is a wild wild statement to say for most cities for 1 team much less 14. But, yeah. I I I love reading, but I think as a better human, it's more important to read things out of your normal. There was this, I forgot the author's name, but he made this famous thing where he was like, I bought some books and my friend said, oh, yeah. Those look like books you would read.

Guest [00:58:29]: And he was offended, but he was like, shit. Like, they kinda looked into my soul. So I've been trying to buy and read more books that would normally not be something I would read, and it's been 5050. It's been both amazing, but I also believe in quitting books, so half of them just don't go finish.

Finn Melanson [00:58:44]: Awesome. Well, Saul, it's been an absolute pleasure to chat with you here today. I I don't even think we got into 2% of what we could have covered, and there's probably a reason to have an episode 2 at some point. Sure. But when you think about anything to leave listeners and viewers with before we go that is either mission critical to what you're doing or helpful to what they're doing. Does anything else come to mind that we haven't covered yet?

Guest [00:59:09]: No. Actually, the one thing and I kind of alluded to it with with targeted supplementation. Before you worry about supplements, Before you even worry about your diet, please get enough sleep. I am bewildered by how especially in the tech scene, how proud people are of, like, 5 hours a day. I was like, that is my hellish nightmare. So never mind even examine to be a 100% honest, go get your sleep right, go get your stress right, go get your sex right, Then start worrying about running, lifting weights, optimizing all that, because if you're not getting that baseline done, you're already, you know, starting way, way, way, way behind Everyone else.

Finn Melanson [00:59:45]: Awesome. Well, we'll make sure to link to all of the relevant social media and links in the show notes. Thank you so much, Saul. 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 in Apple Podcasts players.

Finn Melanson [01:00:28]: 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.