Optimizing Your Lifestyle: Key Essentials for Fat Loss, Muscle Gain, and Overall Health

what's up S fam what's up Kingdom build Fam I'm AJ Sims coming at you with another edition of the Kingdom buil

podcast in today's episode I am going to touch on as fast as I can but as detailed and methodical as I possibly

can to give you guys and ensure you guys that you leave this podcast with enough information on all things that are key

Essentials to optimizing lifestyle what do I mean by that well fat loss muscle gain cardio training supplementation gut

health sleep optimization and everything in between that you can do to optimize your physique your goals starting from

the inside out I always say you can only have an external that looks great for a short period of time if your internal

starting to fail it starts from the inside out when you're firing on all cylinders internally you will look your

best externally with all variables considered so stay tuned I'm going to get to all these details by the end of

this podcast you're not going to want to miss this episode let's get into [Music]

it all right guys so like I said today I wanted to touch on lifestyle how do we optimize lifestyle in each facet

nutrition training cardio sleep hygiene gut health supplement ment ation and everything in between so that we can

show up at our best each and every day so there's core key Essentials that I like to do going into the basics so even

though some of this is going to be some sort of a deep dive so to speak it's still going to be basic but methodically

laid out so that you leave this podcast with tons of information to optimize your lifestyle all right guys everything

I say please keep in mind your mileage may vary so these are General guideline overviews your mileage may vary not to

be repetitive but that is a key core essential to understand that your body is your body and specifically the things

that you need to do and attack will be based off what you need in customization of course that's what I do with

lifestyle clients all over the world getting these men fully churning each and every day going above and beyond the

goals that they thought they could ever experience when it comes to their physique goals and their internal health

goals all right guys so nutritionally we're going to attack the foundation of core

key Essentials of nutrition if you guys follow me you know I'm a huge proponent of carb cycling calorie cycling I cycle

macronutrients year round personally for myself it's what I do and it's what I do for the majority of my clients and

athletes all around as a whole whether you're professional wrestler getting ready for Wrestlemania or you're getting

ready for the Mr Olympia contest or you just want to get ready uh in 8 weeks you're going to the Bahamas and you want

to look ripped and jacked and just all those things in between it's all going to be the same and and it's all going to

be the same in terms of calorie and carb cycling why do I do that I love to set up the ability to have a zigzag diet as

as Jay Cutler would call it the zigzag diet I learned that back in 2001 from him great terminology too I don't think

anyone uses that today so maybe we'll uh we'll trademark that Jay the zigzag diet however I degress we want to get into a

caloric cycle now why do I want to do that because as I'm dieting an individual down or myself we want to

avoid metabolic adaptation the best way that I know how to do that one of the best ways is to implement carb cycling

yes we can Implement diet breaks yes we implement refeeds we also Implement super saturation days which we'll get

into that but carb cycling is a key core essential into my programs for clients all over the world now what I like to do

is when I set up someone with three menus high medium and low or refeed Baseline off day or lower calorie low

carard menu essentially what I'm trying to do is set them up for a super compensation effect now that super

compensation effect only really occurs at lower body fat levels but again as we are on the trajectory towards those said

lower body fat levels we want to avoid and mitigate as much ad metabolic adaptation as we possibly can so by

ensuring that we're carb cycling correctly and that we are also managing our sfr stimulus to fatigue ratio and

diet fatigue all things according the variables are being controlled your sleep your recovery and the way that you

train and attack your cardio as well as neat nonexercise activity thermogenesis which plays into your total daily energy

expenditure I'm saying a lot to say this when you set up a structured diet by utilizing things like a carb cycling

calorie cycling you have things from a physiological standpoint to your advantage but from a psychological

standpoint there's a lot of advantages to it why simply because if you are digging so to speak the term that we use

digging pushing whatever you want to call it for 2 to 3 to 4 days on a lower carbohydrate diet psychologically if you

know there's some form of a refeed or a higher Carb Day to come that allows you from a neurological standpoint to be

able to push and have adherence to that said program just a little bit longer because you know turn in that corner

here comes some food where we're not only going to get a refill and replenishment of glycogen depending on

if it's a 24 48 or 72-hour refeed we're also possibly going to get a grin Spike leptin control and more T4 to T3

conversion now typically with a refeed that doesn't happen until you're at an extended refeed 48 to 72 hours typically

literature will show us that in 24 hours you typically don't see that hormonal shift however you will see muscle

fullness muscle glycogen retain you will also notice dopaminergic system is higher so you'll feel more motivated

you're going to have a little bit more get up and go because that dopamine's higher you're getting a lot more

satisfied you have a mood elevation Spike therefore you know that you can adhere to the diet push or dig over the

course of the next few days that are coming now for aiming for that hormonal shift which we always want to watch for

reverse T3 going up T4 to T3 conversion going down which of course correlates into the reverse T3 going up those are

all cascading effects of metabolic adaptation and things that need to transition which is why carb cycling is

such a phenomenal tool when you really know how to implement it into your program so with the dietary adherence

knowing that from a psychological standpoint and physiological standpoint you'll see the advantages to doing it I

do it year around if you guys follow me I stay lean year round and I've been able to increase my basil metabolic rate

I've been able to keep metabolic adaptation down control reverse T3 have a great T4 to T3 conversion keep TSH

where it needs to without thyroid medication only touching on micronutrients which of course we can

get into because that's very important not just to focus and fixate on macronutrients protein fats and carbs

but to also fixate your mind on micronutrients so so important because if you are deficient in micronutrients

you will not reap the benefits of being in a deficit in any shape form or fashion and everything will just feel

much more sluggish so carb cycling is a phenomenal tool to avoid metabolic adaptation to get your fat loss goals

met to the highest standard in my opinion and to avoid diet fatigue and and from a psychological standpoint

which of course goes into diet fatigue right we've all been there where we've dieted our butts off for many many weeks

and months without a said refeed or cheat meal I know for me personally in 2008 when I was prepping for teen

Nationals at 19 I did a prep for 37 weeks with not one cheat meal not one cheat meal and it didn't Aid or benefit

me whatsoever had I known then what I know now my success rate back then would been much much higher but again I

digress we're going to touch on micronutrients and how essential they are to really reap the best results that

you're trying to achieve without those micronutrients we're just going to hit a wall so let's get into the

micronutrients right now all right so micronutrients what are we touching on we're touching on magnesium we're

touching on zinc we're touching on copper iodine selenium just to name a few magnesium plays a role in 300

biomechanical reactions in the body energy production protein synthesis and insulin sensitivity just to name a few

not only those things but we know that majority of people are magnesium deficient so I always tell people go get

a micronutrient test it's important that you understand magnesium is typically deficient in most people or you can go

above and beyond that and get a serum and urinary electrolyte test those will really show you where you are deficient

in with electrolytes within the system very very important from there we have zinc which is vital

for immune testosterone production and AIDS in protein synthesis and cellular repair so zinc very very important

playing a crucial role in thyroid functionality as well as the T4 to T3 conversion which we get into selenium

which will also Aid in the same thing it acts as an antioxidant and protects against oxidative stress and will help

with the T4 to T3 conversion another precursor to thyroid support and that gets into the next one cascading into

iodine essential for the production of thyroid hormones as a whole if you're iodine deficient you will feel sluggish

low energy brain fog you may even have some weight gain so on and so forth because it is a key rooll factor in

proper thyroid Health copper being a key pivotal role to combine with zinc very important that those two go together

which is why you'll see Brands out there that formulate supplements make a copper and zinc like Bulletproof they put

copper and zinc together they know that these are vital on the cellular level for energy production as well so these

are some key vital micronutrients that a lot of people will miss there's many many more but just kind of touching on

some of the core Essentials right here and of course going into electrolyte balance sodium being so so important for

everything overall now people say well I have blood pressure issues so I can't take in a lot of sodium a lot of times

that has to do with insulin resistance not always but a lot of times there is an insulin resistant issue going on

which you want to check your hba1c which is over the course of 3 months of your glucose reading remember glucose uh is

just a snapshot in time on blood work or if you're taking your acute blood glucose with a glucose monitor waking or

post prandial it gives you an overview but it's just a snapshot where you want that 3-month correlation with

hba1c all right so sodium also playing a pivotal role in m chondrial functionality and optimization very very

important for cellular hydration you guys have heard me say that all the time and if you're my client you're laughing

because you know that's on your program cellular hydration key role in what sodium does which is also leading into

thyroid production so sodium is a key player in having a proper thyroid functionality and optimizing thyroid

functionality on all facets so you cannot miss having the right amount of sodium in your body at all times now

that will vary again your mileage may vary because if you're sweating and excreting more due to the climate of

your area your needs will be higher with sodium also with proper sodium intake you can have a reduction in cortisol now

one thing that I have people do in myself is if I feel a little more wound up and I'm more into a sympathetic uh

autonomic nervous system state so fight or flight I want to shift into parasympathetic so I will get into some

box breathing and I will also take a/4 teaspoon of Redmond's real salt or Celtic Sea salt before bed which will

reduce overall cortisol it will allow me to relax and I always sleep that much better at night so very very important

don't miss out on potassium too because potassium is a key player too these two will correlate together in the sodium

potassium pump which is very very important to have proper electrons going through your body and it does so so much

which I touched on in my last episode of mitochondri Ral optimization if you haven't seen that one go back after this

video and check out how to optimize mitochondrial functionality so that is your micronutrients right there real

quick brief synopsis on some of the key pivotal roles that you need to make sure that you're taking in with

micronutrients now we can't forget about fiber fiber intake is very very important and where you're getting the

fiber from fiber is essential for so many things one being insulin sensitivity now we all know that it's

going to help with having regularity and bowel movements and all those great things also help with cholesterol and

lipid regulation will also help with insulin sensitivity so fiber is very important but the type of fiber you get

is super super important in my gut Revival by cements at cement factory.com sunfiber is a trademark patent version

of fiber and that's why I put it in my cement gut Revival which you can find at ca.com but at the time of this taping

we're actually sold out right now what a blessing that is you guys love gut Revival stay tuned because we're going

to be restocking that really soon and uh if you get on the website right now ca.com for you viewers right now

listening 10% off your first order with promo code cement 10 cheap plug but I had to do it sunfiber is one of the

purest forms of fiber that you can take on the supplement Market the reason I love it is because you can literally put

it in some water you stir one time it is dissolved it's going to do the same thing in your GI you won't get any

gastric distress you're not going to get any bloating that you we get from other fiber products so sunfiber great form of

fiber you can get fiber of course from different organic fruits low sugar berries different vegetables that maybe

are on the low FODMAP vegetable list as well so we're not causing any stomach distress and also low gas vegetables as

well so not a huge fan of broccoli but I do love broccoli sprouts for sulphoraphane which is amazing amazing

modality uh for oxidative stress to fight cancer cells and to help with any GI issues as well like helicobactor

pylori candida overgrowth sibo broccoli Sprouts containing sorane awesome awesome awesome stuff can also help with

mitochondrial functionality and optimization as well so that's fiber so now we've

touched on carb cycling micronutrients now we're going to get into everybody's favorite topic refeeds do we refeed or

do we do a cheat meal so what do we do when we are in a diet phase as a lifestyle client or a lifestyle person

and we want to live life do we go for a refeed or a cheap meal well listen your mileage may vary and I'm going to

explain why right now so you could go for a set cleaner refeed utilizing foods that are already in your diet and maybe

adding in a fun a few fun foods that maybe you don't eat on a regular basis but they are low anti-inflammatory food

sources obviously when we refeed our focus is on carbohydrates these are key core

Essentials for leptin T4 to T3 conversion reverse T3 staying down replenishing muscle glycogen and we love

carbs man come on let's just be honest we love carbs so we want to hit our refeeds with our focus on carbohydrates

protein being more at maintenance or even below maintenance and dietary fats being at a very low if not Trace amount

during that day during that said refeed and we are going to see all the benefits come throughout that day now I love

people to be very hungry on this day I don't want them to feel super super satiated I actually want the food and

the gastric emptying to be at an all-time high for optimal results this is usually not always but usually

correlated with someone's body partitioning these nutrients the way that they need to because there's

usually a correlation in blood glucose being regulated and dropping lower to hunger signals and gin signals again not

always but the majority of the time what I've seen and anecdotally those two go hand inand they correlate together that

means we're fully churning and the body is doing exactly what it needs to do to partition these nutrients correctly on

said refeed or we do cheat meals now cheat meals at the age of 36 is a lot different than when I was 20 when I

wanted a cheat meal at 20 I was going to go eat whatever I wanted I lived in Vegas around that age so we were going

it Inn out we were getting four double doubles animal style with fries animal style were getting Golden Spoon which

was lowfat frozen yogurt but throwing on Butterfinger and Oreos and maybe if there was a Wendy's across the street

we're going to get a junior bacon cheeseburger or Chipotle or pizza we were don't go into an all you can eat

sushi place sushimon Yama Sushi my Vegas residents may know what I'm talking about

$24.95 all you can eat sushi high quality and we would stay there for 2 hours and eat till we almost exploded

that's how we rolled back then when we were trying to grow or or post show uh now at 36 my focus and what I want to

present to the audience you guys at home is that you need to focus on foods that make you feel good and don't cause a net

negative impact the following day what do I mean by that eating foods that are highly processed with lots of sugar and

foods containing high amounts of Omega 6 ladened seed oils that are going to cause a systemic inflammatory response

throughout the body the following day you may feel brain fog you may have joints that are achy you just may feel

sluggish overall because you have this inflammatory response in the GI going throughout the entire body because

there's a gut brain access vagal nerve tone all these things are correlating cascading together causing this issue

where you just feel like trash the next day and not to mention more than likely your sleep was negated because it was

down regulated due to an elevated heart rate so you'll see that your HRV was discom ulated for a lack of

better terms or downregulated it wasn't where it needed to be or its normal average due to the amount of food you

had that were highly processed with high sugars at night or in the evening and it correlated trickled into that night so

you're having a lot of these issues that are being impactful into your next 24 to 48 hours I just don't see the need for

that so when I go for a cheat meal I'm all about sushi still but I will stay away from cream cheese I will stay away

from fried sushi rolls and I will stick with fish that I know digest really well I also stay away from the eel sauce the

spicy mayo high sugar high gluten containing sauces when I eat sushi I love the taste of sushi now if Sushi is

not your jam that's fine you got everything like grass-fed bison Burgers grass-fed burgers using sour dough bread

sour dough buns um you can even cook up a lower fat sourdough pizza base at home topping it with chicken breast turkey

pepperoni lean ground beef lowfat low sodium pasta sauce you can make your own spaghetti and meatballs at home with

sourdough Texas toast or you can go for breakfast foods so basically and that's a short synopsis there's so many more

foods that you can eat that are going to digest really well another one I love I can't can't go without saying this I

would I would definitely be remiss if I didn't mention Turkish food Mediterranean style kebabs with rice and

hummus and olive oil that stuff is phenomenal it digests beautifully it tastes amazing and again you're going to

get the benefits of that higher caloric intake that day into the next day possibly aiding you and bringing you out

of diet fatigue but also bringing you out of that sfr stimulus to fatigue ratio so you're not feeling us run down

because now we're well fed and we're going to be able to push over the course of the next 2 3 4 days or possibly a

week depending on what your goals are where you're at and your body's response algorithm bio feedback your mileage may

vary but you need to approach cheat meals in the mindset of is this going to benefit me into the next coming days

listen gentlemen we're busy if your father a husband or you're becoming a husband or going to become a father but

you're also moving quick in this world we're all trying to grind and churn and we stay busy whatever the case is you

need to be functioning at the highest level possible and that is with the food that you put into your body that also

comes with the amount of sleep you get but the quality of sleep I posted something yesterday on Instagram and I

talked about how sleep can be disregulated if you're going to sleep in a sympathetic a autonomic nervous State

fight or flight you will not be fully recovered HRV is going to be thrown off like I said with highly processed high

sugar containing foods you will never feel fully rested you'll never get out of that fatigue you're not getting all

the benefits of the sleep that you need so it's so important that we're getting into that rapid eye movement sleep that

Rim sleep is so important for proper recovery but also from a neurological standpoint so you know critical thinking

emotions mood regulations all going to come through that Rim sleep but we also need to get into that slow wave sleep

the SWS you may not have heard of that it's really not talked about much in SWS the slow wave sleep is vital it's vital

to repair tissue and replenish glycogen as well as clear out any metabolic waste that's happening this is the only way

that you can truly truly recover and during this time you're getting the most growth hormone release and it's

essential for like I said recovery so you will always be in a fatigue hole if you're not getting s SWS slow wave sleep

and rim sleep so very important that ties into the foods that you eat and the timing of those nutrients so key for the

autonomic nervous system fight ORF flight sympathetic rest and digest

parasympathetic you want to stay in a parasympathetic State and the majority of us are always in fight ORF flight

because we're constantly working we're constantly on social media we're constantly scrolling we're constantly

taking text messages phone calls from the moment we wake up you know you do this you look at your phone you check

for who's liked your pictures who's validated you who's in your DM box all this nonsense that's keeping you in more

of a sympathetic nervous State fighter flight so very important nutrition will correlate into quality sleep so that's

how you need to really approach cheap meals is this going to benefit me over the course of the next 24 48 72 hours or

is it going to cause a net negative effect and I'm just getting that psychological benefit for 15 20 minutes

which of course is going to give you a natural dopamine release it's going to feel great the long-term effects are

actually going to cause a net negative so you have to approach these methodically to mitigate metabolic adap

ation as much as you possibly can so they're they're crucial you can use both you can use them together super

saturation days is what I call it's integrating both of these strategies together to get the most out of

mitigating metabolic adaptation keeping that basil metabolic rate up and making sure that T4 to T3 conversion is still

happening controlling leptin levels gin levels we're controlling all these fat burning hormones and we're attacking it

properly through nutritional strategies so that is an overview nutritionally how we can approach this and optimize

ourselves in lifestyle now I want to touch on real quick because I don't want to make this to 2hour episode I'm going

to break this down Episode by episode next we're going to get into training cardio approaches how we have those

modalities work to the most of our benefit so we avoid too much stimulus to fatigue ratio and listen sfr is a Hot

Topic word I get it there's going to be days you feel fatigued there's going to be days don't really feel like getting

into the gym you may go to the gym and we've all experienced this where we get in there we don't feel like being there

we feel tired and we have the best training session of our life so sometimes it's more psychological but

there is a point of no return where you hit that brick wall and stimulus to fatigue ratio is too high and you just

cannot get recovery and rested and you start going backwards in all of your progression you can't figure out why

cortisol is all over the place sleep disturbances your appetite is shot all these things are happening down to

gastric distress and inflammation that you can't get rid of and that's controlling the sfr stimulus to fatigue

ratio also correlating it to diet fatigue we're going to go over that I'm also going to go over how do we optimize

our brain brain functionality brain deriv neut Tropic Factor coleric system dopaminergic system seratonin all these

things cascading so that we're happy we got mood elevation we got word recall we got memory we're not sitting here saying

you know what was that word I can't fig um I'll have to get back to you we don't want that come on we want to be sharp as

attack as much as we can listen there's nothing wrong with having days where we're kind of in the middle but for the

most part if we want to Excel and achieve the most success in every Avenue but also show up as a leader in our

homes or show up as a leader with our clients if you're a coach whatever you're doing we want to be optimal

that's what this podcast is all about so we're approaching this lifestyle and all these different facets so I'm going to

go over as we go along in this episode series of Lifestyle optimization how I approach it with my clients we always

start from the inside out so getting blood work is vital detailed blood work that is not

just 90 bucks but detailed blood work that you don't have a problem spending 3 four 500 bucks because we need to look

under the hood and see what's going on it's very important down to a Genova diagn agnostics GI test we need to see

what's going on within the gut the microbiome how do we correct it how do we fix it death starts in the colon if

your gut is not healthy forget about it everything else is going to be disregulated there's a gut brain AIS

like I said veal nerve all these things correlate together which can correlate into thyroid functionality which

correlate into metabolism which can correlate also into systemic inflammation so then we're hurting all

over we can't sleep we can't burn fat cortisol is disregulated all these things down to

circadium Rhythm we can't do anything so we have to make sure that our gut health is optimized key role in all of this so

we start from the inside out and then we fix what we need to gentlemen once we fix what we need to then we can start

attacking and approaching everything that we need to to get these goals that we're trying to shoot for from an

aesthetic standpoint but also again feeling great you know there's a saying that no food tastes as good as feeling

amazing or nothing tastes as good as feeling amazing and being healthy that's got to start from the inside out believe

me when I tell you I went many years when I was competing not being very healthy internally I looked great

externally but you could start to see the shift in my body where I was chronically inflamed I just felt

horrible and that inflammation went into my brain so it was trickling into neuroinflammation which caused a brain

fog that was just crazy to have as a 20-year-old so we want to make sure that we are attacking every facet so you're

optimizing your lifestyle because this is for longevity this is not just prepping for a 16 or 20 week show and

you bodybuilders and competitors alike that are hearing this there's life after hanging those trunks up and I've seen it

more times than not some of our favorite bodybuilders from the 9s are just a picture of poor health because they

didn't live the lifestyle of Health it is simply a focus fixed on being a champion bodybuilder after that

everything just goes you don't want to be there you want to feel good at 65 years old and be able to perform each

and every day have Mobility longevity have libido have energy that just goes throughout the entire day like the

Energizer Bunny you're optimal and I want to encourage you guys to start focusing on being optimal on every level

so we need to touch on blood work and getting detailed blood work taken care of that's going to come in the form of

of course CBC and lipids but also going to go and correlate into things like total and free test estrogen management

hemoglobin A1c cortisol DHEA pregnanolone because we want to make sure those neurosteroids are properly

balanced within the brain it's going to really help when you're doing things like trt or if you guys are taking super

supplementation and additions to that that we're regulating those things that are being down regulated by that it's

going to help with mood and memory very very important and vital as well as a B vitamin profile vitamin D very important

as well we can get into apob and the factors and how important that is with lipids and cholesterol and heart and

cardiovascular health alike see Statin egfr is one of the gold standards for your kidney functionality very important

there as well and there's so many other levels of blood work that we can get all the way into Dutch test Dutch test is

phenomenal dried urine test for comprehensive hormones very very important the Dutch test will show you

things from DHEA to cortisol to cortisone to daily cortisol rhythms very important that you understand the

natural rhythm of your cortisol very very important to your methylation Pathways too and all your

neurotransmitters the dopamine the norepinephrine the epinephrine all those things that are going on neurologically

Dutch test is phenomenal so don't don't negate the Dutch test as well so extensive Labs Dutch test goova

Diagnostics GI test and you guys are thinking oh my gosh AJ this is expensive stuff you can't invest in anything more

important than health so you have to stop thinking in those terms you can't put a price on your health CU you're

either going to pay for it now or you're going to pay for it when you're laying in a hospital bed the choice is yours

gentlemen so with that being said that's going to cover episode one lifestyle optimization we're going to keep this

series rolling I'm going to continue to dive deep on certain things that maybe you've never heard before maybe you have

heard them but I'm going to try to help give you a better understanding on the why and the reason behind it all guys if

you like what you're hearing please hit that like subscribe Bell notification for the next time I drop another video

cuz you're not going to want to miss this stuff I'm AJ Sims thank you so much for joining that is a lifestyle full

churn I'll see you guys on the next video God bless