The Truth about Seed Oils, Barefoot Shoes, and Keto | Mark Sisson

Welcome back to the Ancient Health Podcast, where we educate you on real health solutions that will help transform the way you live, feel, and overcome disease naturally.

I'm your host Courtney Bursage, along with Dr.

Josh Axe and Dr. Chris Motley. We're so happy you've joined us. Let's dive into today's episode.

Hey everyone, Dr. Josh Axe here. Welcome to another exciting episode of the Ancient Health Podcast. I'm so excited to, uh, I actually interviewed somebody, actually was one of my first interviews years ago, back, I want to say in 2009, Mark Sisson. And Mark Sisson is the visionary behind ancestral health. In fact, if you've heard the word primal regarding anything nutrition, Mark is the one that really sort of ran with that term and branded it and sort of brought into light primal eating along with the paleo diet. So part of the reason why the paleo diet is so popular is because of our guest today, Mark Sisson. And he's really transformed the way that we think about not only food, but in recent years, footwear. So Mark has dedicated a big part of his life to helping people live in tune with nature. And we're gonna explore Mark's journey today, everything from overseeing anti-doping standards with triathletes to selling Primal Kitchen, incredible food company food-based, uh, incredible food company that used— I said food-based company because it's one of the few food companies that actually uses real food. So, uh, but he was able to sell that company. So he's a successful entrepreneur, uh, health enthusiast, and also a person who has again pioneered really the primal and paleo diets. Mark, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Josh. Great to talk to you again. It's been way too long.

It has. And I think we've talked a few times over the years, but I remember I had a few, uh, you know, a few people in the very early days when I kicked off at radio show and podcast, and you were one of those guests. And I was so excited to talk to you because, again, you were really pioneering this idea behind this primal diet and paleo diet. And it's crazy to think about, even in 2009, almost nobody would have known what a paleo diet was versus about 5 years later, because of yourself and a few others, really, it started becoming more and more popular. And so I want to get into that a little bit today, but also I want to dive into this first. And tell you a quick story. My wife found me on the internet when I was doing a video about wearing barefoot shoes. And so, that's actually part of how my wife and I got married, crazy enough. And so, I've been a barefoot enthusiast for years walking around the house barefoot, lifting weights and exercising barefoot and wearing barefoot shoes. And you came out with what I actually think are the best barefoot shoes I've ever worn by far. And so, I want to talk a little bit. We're going to get into nutrition and all those things, but first, I want to talk a little bit about the power of going barefoot and what you did to make these barefoot shoes so incredible.

Well, thanks, Josh. As you know, I've been a fan of ancestral living. That's what it's been for 30 years. I got my degree in biology with a focus on evolutionary biology. So, for me, it's all about how is the human body designed through evolution to survive, to thrive, to pass the genes along to the next generation. And part of our thriving involved our ability to move from one place to another, to migrate across the planet and exploit all these different areas of the planet. And our ability to migrate was based on our bipedalism. We walk on two feet. So I've been fascinated with our connection with the ground ever since I started running in the late '60s. I became a marathoner. I was quite proficient at that for a while. And eventually, I actually got injured because of both the footwear and the diet. So, those two areas informed the rest of my life. Certainly, I focused on diet for a long time to overcome the inflammatory aspects of what was causing my problems, but also, the footwear was never right for me. So, I've had this fascination with feet, with foot health, with footwear. I was an early adopter of the barefoot minimalist movement in 2006 and 2007 when the first 5-toed shoes came out. And then, when Chris McDougall wrote "Born to Run," I thought that was an amazing concept. He really focused on running properly. That is, we were born to run. We know how to run. Our bodies know how to run, but we evolved to run barefoot. And, being barefoot really creates an entirely different gait, an entirely different stride than being shod in restrictive shoes that have cushion underneath them. Which throw off all of your sensory input and really cause problems further up the kinetic chain. So, you know, I spent 20 years developing supplements and food and talking about food and writing about food. And then when I sold Primal Kitchen, I really was able to dedicate, rededicate, refocus my life around foot health. How can we optimize the health of this thing that connects us to the earth, this thing that we depend on every time we take a step. And, you know, the number of people with bad feet who have complained of foot pain and bunions and plantar fascia problems and Achilles issues and Morton's neuroma and diabetic neuropathies and all these issues that people have with the very things that they depend on to get them through life. So it was, it was so fascinating to me that we would kind of overlook this as a species and put our feet into tight leather, fashionable, pointy shoes. And yeah, play attention to diet, get plenty of sleep, get sun exposure, work out, but don't worry about your feet. They're feet, you know, they're kind of there anyway. So that was really the impetus for me wanting to design the optimal shoe for human feet from the ground up. It had to have 5-toe articulation, so you have the toes have to splay, outwardly, but they also have to work up and down. Your toes are supposed to feel the difference in the change in terrain. Every time you step on a rock or a stick or a bump, your toes should acknowledge that. Your feet should feel the sense of what we call the ground feel and inform the brain of exactly how to flex the foot, how to bend the ankle, how to bend the knee, how to torque the hip, how to orchestrate the shock absorption with every time you land on your feet. So, you know, we can get into the science of this, you know, further on in the talk here. But for now, I spent 2 years in R&D, created numerous different iterations of this, wear-tested the model that you have in your hand right there, put 650 miles on that in Europe, hiking in the mountains and trails of Europe 2 and a half summers ago. So this has been wear-tested. It's I, I'm so thrilled that what we've come up with, I think is really going to revolutionize footwear.

You know, one of the things that I noticed, cuz I've, I've, I've had a lot of barefoot shoes and one of the things that happens often in barefoot shoes is, is that either there is not enough padding to where if you're ever walking in, you know, a mall or just on concrete, you, you feel like, okay, there's, there's, there's zero support. And in a way, to me, it almost felt worse than being actual barefoot. On hard surfaces, some of these barefoot shoes. And then some of the others, they would actually bring it up a little too much. And so really there was a lack of stability. That's one of, that's probably what I would say the biggest issue I saw with a lot of barefoot shoes today. One of the things that I think you've been able to do better than any barefoot shoe I've worn is you've been able to create, and I think part of it is the foam you used is incredibly dense. I think it's a really unique foam. And by the way, you know this better than I do. I'm just telling you what I perceive from using these now for, I like what you perceive so far, Josh. But yeah, the, the, the foam, this is better foam. It's better quality foam. And it's very, very firm, which I think that's one of the things people get wrong. And there's a base. I don't feel like I'm on stilts or a level of instability. I feel incredibly stable on these. And so anyways, for me, this has been my favorite barefoot shoe I've worn. And by the way, Mark isn't paying me to say this. I wanted to have him on because— now, he did give me a free pair, okay? So I will say that. But, This is my favorite barefoot shoe I've ever worn times 10. Most of them I would wear for a period of time or only for certain occasions. The great thing about this one is I'd wear them around the house. I wear them to gym. I wear them if we're going out and shopping around. And so anyways, but talk to me a little bit about some of the other things, like the way that you were able to do this. Because I mean, have you noticed a similar thing? It's either instability or the cushioning is too soft with a lot of these barefoot shoes. 100%.

I mean, all of these Things that you just pointed out were very important to me. I was, again, as an early adopter of the original 5-toed shoes, the concept of a minimalist shoe seemed to mean that the thinner you could get it, the more minimalist it was, the better it was for your foot. But we have to understand that, yeah, we evolved barefoot. We did not evolve with shoes. We evolved to walk barefoot all the time. The problem is we've created a civilization that has pavement, concrete, hardwood floors, tile, marble, all manner of sharp objects that we could step on. So it's impractical to walk barefoot outside. I wore the original 5-toed shoes and I would try to go for a 3 or 4-mile walk in them and I'd get a bone bruise. I'd get, I'd get the feeling like something was wrong because there was just not enough cushion. And I think the early, what we call the 1.0 version of, of minimalist shoes tried to be as minimal as possible without recognizing that you have to account for these hard surfaces. So my goal was to create the feeling of walking barefoot on a putting surface, right? So that meant just a little bit of cushion. Literally, it's 3 to 4 millimeters extra of this, what we call soft durometer EVA, between the heel, the Strobel board, which is the bottom of the, of the upper part of the shoe, and then the 2.5 to 3 millimeters of hard rubber tread that would be the wear point. So if you, if you look at the shoe and you turn it over, It's not completely clad with all black tread on the bottom. We've only put the tread on the wear parts, on the, on the strategic, what we call the strategic wear parts. But the idea was to be able to walk 10, 12, 14 miles in Manhattan, right? And be able to get a great walking workout on sidewalks. Or I have guys, you know, trekking, uh, 3 to 5 hours with backpacks on in the hills on hard, sharp, rocky surfaces because they can feel Every time their foot lands, it lands in a different position, and that's a good thing. Every time your foot lands and your ankle and your brain senses where all these changes have to happen, all these things have to flex and bend and torque, that's a good thing, and it strengthens your foot. So between the, the added comfort of a little bit more padding, it's still very flexible and very thin, so you can feel objects underneath. The ground feel is critical. I have— when I— we do these events with, um, in running shoe stores where we're trying to convince runners to wear these shoes whenever they're not running. Like, like, wear these shoes to train your feet all day long, and then when it's time to run, put on your running shoes and go run. But we have these events, and they— we— it's called, uh, Wednesday Wine and Walk. We have Dry Farm Wines show up and pour a glass of wine for everybody. They, they try on the shoes, and we walk a mile down the street. And I'll have people, okay, step on that manhole cover and step on that, um, that bubbly surface and step on this pothole and just feel, you know, and get a sense of what it really feels like to have a shoe on, but be aware of the change in terrain, the change in direction, the change in tilt of every footfall you make, knowing that with every step, you're strengthening your feet, you're increasing your mobility, you're increasing your resilience. I mean, there's, to me, when I'm walking, I suspect you feel this too, when I'm just walking on a flat pavement with these shoes on, I feel my feet splaying, my toes splaying, and I feel them grabbing on the push-off. And it's a great feeling. And I'm like, how did I live my life with my toes pointed together toward the end of a shoe and miss out on this important haptic input that the body was designed to do?

Well, and I think part of the reason why this is so important, Mark, is because when we do anything that's not by design, now whether somebody believes it's evolutionary or more the way that God created us, but if something is violating our design and what our body is meant to do or adapted to do, it's going to cause disease, it's going to cause pain, it's going to cause some issue within the body. And so I know that as I have studied this and you, I'm sure as you've created these shoes much more than I, But you mentioned plantar fasciitis. That is a big one. Anyone suffering from plantar fasciitis, they think, oh, well, my tendon's tight. Why is it tight? Your feet are weak, your arch is weak. It's like you've never used your feet, actually. You've never actually gripped the ground. I mean, that's a big reason.

It's huge. And plantar fasciitis is another great example of miscommunication within the medical community. It's turning out that plantar fasciitis is not so much an -itis, an inflammation, as it is an -osis. It's a death of tissue. So Ray McClanahan, who is one of the most highly respected podiatrists in this country, he's a runner's podiatrist. He has a clinic, the Northwest Clinic, Foot and Ankle Clinic. And he did a deep dive into plantar fasciitis when he saw that there were so many podiatrists who were doing literally doing surgery on these painful foot problems that people had that were diagnosed, even misdiagnosed as plantar fasciitis. What he discovered is the toe, if this is a representation of the foot, the big toe is supposed to abduct. And it's that abduction that provides circulation all the way down from down the leg and across the foot out to the big toe. And that's the circulation that provides nutrients and oxygen for that plantar fascia region. When you squeeze the big toe into the other toes and then put a little bit of uplift in it, as most shoes have this, what they call a rocker, a toe rocker, it literally, it cuts off the circulation to the plantar fascia area and the tissue dies. And no amount of rolling or stretching, in fact, sometimes stretching is, is bad for it, right? The way to fix it is toe spacers, walk barefoot, do your articulation exercises. And I would suggest that wearing Peluvas, my shoes, would help with that because you're abducting the toe and you're increasing the circulation to that area, which we're already seeing people with plantar fasciitis having. I can't make medical claims, obviously, about the shoe, but a decrease in dis-ease. And we love— you and I love that term dis-ease, because that's what disease is. It's not being easy, it's, it's making yourself uncomfortable.

Yeah, it's so good. I also want to mention too, and I know that again Mark isn't making any medical claims here, so I will, but just to say, just generally regarding going barefoot, it's better not only for your feet, but think about your feet are the foundation of your entire body. And so what it does for knee issues, right? As Mark said, a lot of times if you are walking in a lot of these shoes and it's forcing your body to do something it shouldn't, or it's creating instability, it's putting more pressure on your knees, that's putting more pressure on your hips, it's putting more pressure on your low back. And essentially what caused a lot of injuries, and I saw this when I used to have my function medicine clinic that also we did chiropractic in there as well, is a lot of joint issues today are due to, you used the word a few minutes ago, torquing. And so when your body is sort of going in the— and your foot is planting properly, starting at that foot. Well, if your foot is planting properly, then your knee tends to be in proper alignment and your hip and then your back. What happens if you start off with your foot not planting properly as it is barefoot? Well, now it's causing up that entire chain issues and you may feel it in a different area. Again, you might be a person where you had a knee injury in high school, so now you feel it in your knee. Or you might be a person where you've got chronic low back pain, it's for that. But that's another big reason why I encourage everybody to consider going barefoot and doing something like getting a super high— I also say, listen, there are cheaper Five Finger shoes than what Mark puts out there, but these are the best. I would say this is the 5 out of 5, the top grade. And so if you're saying, okay, I want to do something that's really good for every joint in my body, This is a really good thing to do for alignment of your spine. This is something I'm sure a lot of chiropractors are recommending, a lot of orthopedists are recommending as well. And Mark, is that something— have you, have you worked or talked with many chiropractors or orthopedists or PTs? And have they, have they, have they tried your, your shoe?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, we're, you know, we thought we were going to be big in the running community, for instance, and we thought we were going to be big in, in the weightlifting community. And turns out that PTs And the, you know, the movement arena has been the greatest for us. That area where people are really quite aware that every move you make as an athlete, for instance, begins with your contact with the ground. When you strike a ball, you know, when you hit a golf club, when you hit a baseball bat, when you even, you know, shooting a 3-pointer from outside, every athletic move you make starts with your contact with the ground. Why would you not want that to be optimal all the way up the kinetic chain? Now, one of the— one of my pet peeves is after the minimalist shoe movement sort of came and went, and it went because people did get injured because they thought, okay, I'm going to go run in these wickedly thin shoes. And then they, you know, they get injured. And so the shoe industry said, oh, okay, we're going to go to maximal shoes. We're going to give you the most amount of cushion possible. And so the industry went to HOKAs and MBT and big Skechers, and now On is adopting this thick, thick, thick concept. Every runner who's running, trying to run in a marathon, is running in these shoes. I was in a running shoe store a couple weeks ago and I put on a pair of New Balance. It felt literally like I was wearing a trampoline. I'm like, how is this even good for your body? I know what I know about, about kinetics and, and the kinetic chain, and particularly the posterior chain. And these shoes feel good when you walk down the aisle of the running shoe store.

Oh, well, Mark, the, the other thing to your point earlier though, I just want to say is there's a difference between, hey, you're training for a marathon in them, but also, but now you're wearing them all day. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I mean, for instance, and that's a great point, I, I can't wear regular shoes and walk 3 miles because my knees will hurt. And they will hurt because when my feet land, there's not that input to tell my brain exactly how to load my knees. Because knees sometimes want to bend slightly. They actually want to bend sideways sometimes, you know, they want to track a little bit, they want to roll with— if you step on a rock and you go over the side of the rock, the ankle wants to give a little bit, but the knee wants to help a little bit, the hip wants to help a little bit. And if you bypass that information and you put your feet in these thick pillows, then when you step the wrong way on a medium-sized rock, the knee goes, oh geez, whoa. I mean, like, I don't know which way to bend because there's no information here. So the rest of the body has to kind of guess at which way to move to absorb the shock. And as you said, it just depends on which is the weakest link of the body. For some people, it's the knees. For some people, it's the ankles. For some people, it's the hips, lower back. Some people, it goes all the way up to the neck. So, you wanna recreate this concept of walking barefoot on matted grass or on the plains of, you know, the savannas of Africa. And, you wanna do that with some footwear that will help you recreate that without being overly cushioned but without being so thin that you get bruised by walking on hard surfaces all the time.

Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. This is something, again, PTs are adopting and a lot of those functional movement experts. I mean, we've seen functional movement continue to grow and thrive and for good reason. I think for a lot of people, I think when I was in college, in high school and a little bit after college, I did semi-pro and it looks like the shape you're in, you maybe did something similar in terms of more of the bodybuilding sort of workouts, right? And that was the biggest focus on whether it's bench press or curls or rows. Now I just wanna be trying to move still when I'm in my 90s, right? And going on hikes and doing those things. So now, I mean, when I'm at the gym, I'm doing functional movement exercises. I mean, it's sort of, I mean, almost my entire workout, that's what the focus is. And so, it's not to get big, it's to live big, it's to live longer. And so, anyways, I love what you're doing and that you're able to help people do this. I do want to mention just before, I do want to talk a little bit about some nutrition stuff here and we can jump back and maybe talk about the shoes again at the end and this barefoot idea. But, if anybody wants to check out these shoes, by the way, at the end, I've got a big discount code for everybody. That Mark was so generous to offer. The brand is called Peluva, P-E-L-U-V-A, Peluva. I actually gotta say this too, Mark, I got, I love the socks. Oh, good. You also have socks, these barefoot socks. And let me tell you why I love these. So I'm a sort of no-show sock person. I like, you know, not showing. And so even if I were going out and I do have some sort of dress shoes on, but you put the, you know, the, not the stickers, but kind of a little bit of that stickiness in the back so it sticks to your heel. And I've never seen barefoot anyone else do that with barefoot socks. So anyways, kudos. Also my favorite new socks that I wear constantly. I actually have to order more because I've already, you know, the couple pair that I have, I've already almost worn out. I want to talk to you about dietary philosophy. So again, I interviewed you, I think back in 2009, quite a few years ago. You were one of the first guests on my podcast. And, I know for myself, now my dietary philosophy has evolved some. I think before I practiced for a while, when I was a practitioner, I think I thought there's one sort of perfect diet for everybody. And, I obviously believed a lot in real foods, eat a lot of real foods. And, I think over time and then I thought, well, it should be actually more heavy vegetables, small piece of meat. And then, over time I thought, well, it actually needs to be a lot more meat kind of nose to tail with some vegetables and fruit and things scattered in. And then I got introduced to Chinese medicine and I realized, wow, I think that so much of the diet is personal today in terms of what people can tolerate, what they should. Now, I do think there's some overprint general principles that really are overlapping for a lot of people. But I say all that to ask you this. Are there anything that you believed 20 years ago when it came to diet and nutrition, when you were kind of starting off and leading that Paleo Primal movement that you maybe think a little bit differently about today or your philosophy has changed in terms of, of diet?

Yeah, you know, I was early on, I was into the true Paleo diet as put forth by Loren Cordain. So, I was an anti-bean, anti-legume guy. I wasn't quite so adamant about the dairy part of it as he was. But I was, you know, I, there, there were, I was more restrictive than I am today. Today, I'm, you know, I would say I'm keto-ish. So over personally, over the years, I've cut my carbs back. I've cut my starches back, even though I'm fine with people eating starches. I, for me, it's a combination of intermittent fasting or a compressed eating window, if you will, with a, a real focus on protein as the main center part of my diet. And then I just sort of fill in the blanks with whatever I'm hungry for at the time. So I have a list of all these things that I feel fine eating and I'll eat, and then I'll sort of, you know, add them in as I go along. I don't count macros other than I just wanna be sure that I'm getting my protein complement taken care of. But the thing that's really shifted for me is not so much a dogmatic approach to diet as even a one template fits all, We came up with this term, the industry came up with this term a bunch of years ago, and Robb Wolf and I have kind of popularized it. That's the concept of metabolic flexibility. So really, the holy grail of any eating program is metabolic flexibility. How do I get to the point where I can extract energy from the stored body fat on myself, or from the fat on my plate of food, or from the carbohydrates on my plate, or the glucose in my bloodstream, or the glycogen in my muscles, or even the ketones that my liver makes? In the absence of glucose? How can I be— how can I shift from one energy substrate to the other without feeling hangry or without feeling like I've been kicked out of keto? It used to be the big thing. And whether you do that through a carnivore diet or a keto-ish diet or even through a semi-vegetarian diet combined with intermittent fasting so that you do withhold carbohydrates for long periods of time and sort of stimulate all of those enzymes to take fat out of storage and burn them. However you get to that point of metabolic flexibility, that's really what I want for everybody. So then, once you're there, you can sort of intuitively consume what makes you feel good and what you know will serve you in the moment, rather than having to choose not to go to this restaurant, even though everyone else is going, because they don't have something on the menu that I can eat. Or, you know, deciding that you're not going to fill your refrigerator up with these things because there's no way you're ever going to eat those. I, I try to be as inclusive as possible with my diet now. I like to eat. I mean, I'm— I want to enjoy life. At the end of the road, everything we talk about in this world that has to do with this realm of ancestral health still comes back to how do you feel and are you pleased with your life? Are you extracting the greatest amount of enjoyment, contentment, fulfillment? Out of every possible moment. And so I find that some people get so in the weeds about the dogma of, I've chosen to eat this way and I have to eat this way, and even though it's a sacrifice and I don't exactly like what I eat sometimes, I'm doing it for, you know, the long haul. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of over that. So that's kind of been a shift in my life. I'd rather make sure that everybody's enjoying now, within reason, obviously, within this list of things that you can eat and obviously there's a list of things that you should not eat. But, but, you know, I'm, I'm much more accepting of some of the, you know, some of the falling off the wagon, if you will, that some people engage in.

Yeah. I remember going to your website years ago and you had a food list on there and I remember you, you were one of the, now Lorraine Cordain was the first for me. I remember reading his book. I was doing triathlons at the time. And so I think I read the Paleo Diet for Athletes and I remember reading that book. Actually, this brings me to another question I'm curious about. I remember when I read that book, one of the things that I generally disagreed with, which, which dietarily, again, I thought it was a brilliant book, really, really brilliant book. But he recommended essentially eating no salt. Do you recall this?

Yes, of course. That was another example. Yes.

Yes. Okay. So, so I, as a triathlete, I realized very quickly that was not going to work for me. You know, and so anyways, any thoughts on, on that?

Well, great example. I mean, we, you know, I think so, so Lauren had the thing on lectins and then I think the lectin thing was overblown and, and most of us came back to, you know, lectins aren't that bad for, for most people. Even though my, my good friend Steve Gundry still thinks they're, they're, they're pretty bad for him. Yep. Yep. But the, but the thing about the salt is another example that, I think part of it was based on his not wanting to fly in the face of current medical dogma, which was that salt raises, it's hypertensive and raises blood pressure. Well, James DiNicolantonio and all of the guys that have done some work and written books on salt the last couple years have certainly convinced me that salt may be the missing ingredient in a healthy lifestyle. And that we may, in our exuberance for trying to reduce blood pressure, We may have cut way too back, way back on salt, maybe too much. Hence my, you know, our friend Robb Wolf and Element. They're crushing it now because, and this, you know, stay salty.

Yeah, it's so, it's just so crazy. It is crazy. You had Loren Cordain there with NOW and then you have Robb Wolf now with Element.

That is, and they were, they worked together, you know that, right?

They were, you know, yeah, yeah.

Robb worked at Lorenz in his research group.

Yeah. Wow. I mean, that's just wild.

But I mean, that's the nature of what we do. I mean, look, there is no right answer, I think, in the world of dietary advice. There are just good suggestions, right? And some of them work better than others for some people. Back to your Chinese medicine paradigm, which is Everybody's different and there's certain things that work for some people that don't work for others. And so what I've tried to teach my whole career is this intuitive sense of how the body works. Well, I wanna teach you how the body works and then give you an intuitive sense of how your own body fits within that construct.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. You know, this is this past year, I did a Levels glucose monitor. You know, you put those, you know, put it on the back of my arm, was, was reading my, my glucose levels for, for 24 hours. And it was so helpful to look at that because I, there were certain things I thought, well, I'd probably just do fine with. Again, fruit, fruit was the biggest surprise for me. I'll just say this. If I did about a half a cup of fruit, nothing, just shh. But if I started doing what would be considered ju— anything above one serving, I mean, just even a bite above one serving, boom. I mean, insulin just spiked and I was just so surprised at how fruit affected me if I wasn't very careful with it. And then I started noticing too, I'm like, wow, I really am tired if I have one bite or just a little bit of too much fruit. But then there were certain things like potatoes. I thought that, hey, that's gonna really cause me to jump up and they didn't. But then I noticed with some other people, they did better with a little bit more fruit. If they did potatoes or rice, I tended to do pretty well with rice and potatoes. So anyways, it's pretty interesting, but I don't know, have you ever done a glucose monitor and see how your body responds to this?

The CGM thing is very interesting to me, but I don't know if you've heard, but I am like the anti-quantified self. I don't like much of the data. And I think my line is bad data is worse than no data. In many cases. I always come back to how do you feel. So I know how I feel. That's good. I've eaten certain foods. I know how I feel if I've had, you know, too much alcohol. I know how I feel if I haven't had enough sleep or if I overtrain. And all these things, there are devices that I could wear that would tell me that I didn't sleep well or that my HRV was inappropriate for training today. But I have had enough occasions to wear these things and find out, you know, I actually did sleep pretty well last night despite what, you know, despite what my ring said or what my bed told me. I did have a great workout today despite the fact that my HRV was, you know, was saying it was not appropriate. Or the converse, right? They said, go train your ass off. And then I did, and, you know, it got, it got winded and got gassed. So, I always come back to how do you feel? How do you feel in your life? How do you feel in your jeans? How do your jeans fit? How do your, you know, what's your energy level when you wake up in the morning? Do you wake up without an alarm clock? How do you feel when you, you know, you're out in the sun and you've, you know, you've cut back on seed oils and I could spend an hour and a half in the sun without burning? All of these things are available for anybody to sort of play with without needing a device. To tell them. I mean, I've been to dinner with friends who say, "Well, shit, it's 10 o'clock, but I can't go home now. I have to walk another 3,000 steps to get my 20,000 for the day." I'm like, "Yeah, you're just sort of missing the whole point here of enjoying life." And in this case, enjoying a night out on the town with friends.

Yeah. I do think what you're sharing in terms of this sort of, physiological awareness. People are aware of their own body, they're aware of how food affects them. And just so you know, I generally agree with you on what you're saying. I mean, I definitely lean more towards what you're sharing. I think it depends on the person. I think for some people, a buddy told me this the other day, he was a guy I work out with, and I said, hey, are you still wearing this device he was wearing? He goes, no, it was stressing me out. He said I was getting less sleep and I was more, And there probably are a significant amount of people that feel that way. But I also do know, like for myself, if I eat too many egg white, you know, if I eat too many eggs, my nose starts running. If I eat dairy, I get phlegm in my throat, right? I do well with almost everything else, but there are certain things I know I feel tired, I feel run down, I don't respond to. So I do think for everyone listening, I do think there's so much wisdom, Mark, in what you're sharing here, and that is become more aware. I mean, by the way, awareness is important for you and I would probably agree with this, with everything, spiritual awareness of the greatest mystics and spiritual gurus of all time were incredibly aware of certain things. People that have the most emotional intelligence, they're incredibly self-aware and aware of the feelings of others. And so I think the same thing goes for our physical health. If we can be incredibly aware, as you're sharing, it's important. And by the way, I do want to say this with medical tests. One of the most inaccurate medical tests I've ever used are food sensitivities and food allergy tests. I mean, it is unbelievable how many people I use that with over the years. And then you test the differing results, including myself. And so to your point, there definitely are some incredibly inaccurate tests.

But I mean, there's a great example, Josh, because I just had— my wife is into this stuff, and God bless her, because I love the fact she's into exploring and finding new ways to address our lives. And she just did one of those very complex food sensitivity tests. And so, she had me do it as well. And, it comes back and I have a wheat, a gluten issue. I could have told you that. I'm the guy who gave up wheat. It changed my life. But, it says I'm sensitive to eggs and I'm sensitive to dairy. And, I eat eggs a lot and eggs don't bother me. And, it says I can eat all the peanuts I want. If I have 20 peanuts, I am bent over in pain the next day and unable to do anything. So, you know, I have a better sense of how these foods react with me than a blot of blood on some paper that then is used to judge how 700 different types of food cause your immune system to, you know, flare up or not. It's, it's a, these are complex tests. And like you said, a little bit of phlegm is a lot more indicative of, of a sensitivity than being told that you shouldn't eat this when the whole, your whole life you've been having it and you feel fine eating it. So yeah, I, look, I was, you mentioned in the beginning, I was, you know, I was involved in the anti-doping movement for a long time with triathlon, and I was in charge of writing the drug testing rules for the sport of triathlon, and I held— I, I oversaw the adjudication of every positive test for 15 years. So I know what goes on in the world of sports anti-doping. I also know what goes on in the labs. And, and these tests sometimes are like, oh my God, these are just wavy lines on sheets of graph paper, and they're being interpreted by people with varying degrees of expertise. And then you're maybe threatening some kid's career because they had a— they took a hit of epinephrine so they could sleep with a cold the night before a race. So anyway, I'm sorry I'm getting too, too deep in the weeds here, but I've been very suspect of a lot of the medical tests that we, that we engage in for a long time.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I, I think, I, I think going back to the, the topic of nutrition, I think this is somebody— something people are— would be interested to hear, hear hear from you on based on you being so aware. As I mentioned, I think there's a lot to be said about being self-aware and being aware. I know you've also worked and consulted a lot of clients over the years and their health and nutrition. What do you think some of the most important foods are we should be trying to get in our diet? What are some surprise foods that maybe, again, if listeners are new to you saying, okay, this is a food that will really impact your health in a positive way. And then I want you to go to the other side there too, or you could start with this if you want of, hey, what are some of those foods that are even being promoted in health food stores and some doctors are out there promoting today that absolutely are going to start— are going to affect your health negatively?

I guess I'd start with the things that I would not eat. We've made a big deal of industrial seed oils over the past several years and how they might be worse than sugar for a lot of people.

Hey, but by the way, please point this out for everybody. Sunflower oil is in everything. And so, so, so is safflower oil. What are your thoughts on those?

I still have not seen anything positive on sunflower or safflower, even high oleic, which some people seem to think is a, you know, as a reasonable compromise in those oils. You know, so I've been, I've been on that bandwagon about just like eliminate canola. And, and that's another thing, like it, To this day, I think Whole Foods still serves up a lot of canola oil in some of their dressings and stuff like that. I know. And even though they should know better, the problem is it's just so cheap compared to the healthier oils, right? The avocado oil, the extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, obviously. And so I would say getting rid of the industrial seed oils is an important first step for a lot of people. Getting rid of the sugars, the added sugars, and the refined grains. So those are the things that I would say, the, you know, as I said for the longest time, the less sugar you consume in a lifetime, probably the better off you are. So try to reduce that. What would I add? I mean, look, I'm a huge fan of beef. I mean, I think regenerative ag is the way to save the world. It's a way to feed the world. It's a way to generate more topsoil. It's a way to sequester more carbon. It is the answer to everyone's current nightmare, whether it's, yep, you know, climate change or depopulation or starving countries or just the malnutrition within the overfed American society. So I'm a huge fan of beef, right? So I think animal protein is still the ideal human food, has been for millions of years. Beyond that, I would say some amount of green leafy vegetables, almost more for the variety and the crunch and the whatever. I don't think, I think if you're, have eliminated a lot of the stuff, the refined grains, the starches, the, you know, the sugary sweetened beverages and the industrial seed oils, then you're also, your requirement, the requirement of the body for added minerals and added vitamins goes way down, right? The original RDAs were based in the 1940s based on a diet that was large in had a lot of grain in it, a lot of, a lot of cheap sources of calories, which leeched minerals out of the body. So you had to like add more minerals back in to maintain bone density or to maintain, you know, calcium channel functionality. I think if you have a meat-centric diet or an animal protein-centric diet, you don't need a lot of other stuff. Then the other stuff becomes, okay, what am I hungry for? What would I love to eat? Would I like to eat some broccoli, some bitterness? Would I like the bitterness of the crunch of broccoli with some butter on it? Would I like a little bit of seafood over here? Would I like some— I still like a salad. I mean, I was the salad guy for years, right? I popularized the term big ass salad. And then I went sort of away from that and I just said, I'm more— I think the problem with that was it was the bulk of food. It was the quantity of food. And one of the things I realized in the last 5 or 10 years is I was just eating too much food. I could get away with it. I didn't gain weight, I didn't gain fat, but I didn't— you know, I felt like maybe there's, maybe there's an amount of food that's less than I'm consuming that is still optimal for me, still maintain muscle mass, still grow muscle, still, um, have all the energy I want all day, still not get sick, and still not be hungry, not be tethered to hunger and appetite cravings. So, um, if I meet— if I make meat and the satiety of protein, the centerpiece of my diet, knowing that protein is critical to anybody my age, anybody over 50 for that matter. I'm 70 now, so I want to maintain muscle mass. Once I've dialed that in, then I just sort of layer on things that I bet from a list of great possibilities that I feel like eating in the moment, whether it's salad, whether it's broccoli, whether it's Brussels sprouts, whether it's a sweet potato with butter on it and a lot of salt. You know, it's, you know, that's, those are the types of what I would say, those are the comfort foods and those are the superfoods. You know, if you go outside there and say, well, you should be eating açaí and mangosteen and, you know, aloe and all of, you know, all of the MLM products from years ago. No, there's no real superfood here. And kale, I hate kale. I just, I despise it. I wouldn't, even though again, it gets, various and sundry put at the top of people's list as the number one ideal thing you can eat. I don't agree. I don't like the taste of it. I don't like to— it doesn't digest well with me, so forget it. It's maybe a superfood for you, but it is not for me.

I remember the first time my dad came to my house in Nashville and I was serving him kale and he gave me a hard time because he's like, this is not food, it's a garnish. Yeah. You know, that, so—

No, or as we— I have a t-shirt that says, You know, kale is what food eats.

There you go. Yeah, that's good.

I like it.

We, by the way, so I know you know Jordan Rubin. So Jordan and I own a farm in Missouri, about 4,000 acres where we do regenerative agriculture. We also own one in Tennessee. Nice. And we grew a big field of kale and we weren't able to do much with it. I mean, you know, we had some family take it and those sort of things. We were just growing things just to test some things out and our cows, loved them. They loved the kale. So, so to your point, uh, that's right, that's right. That's good, that's good. So, so, so just, just for everybody listening, like, Mark, so your dietary philosophy, as you said, it seems like you're a lot more flexible these days, but you're focusing on, again, meat as that centerpiece and then a lot of real foods. You mentioned, you know, doing vegetables, doing things like sweet potatoes, doing, you know, doing a lot of real food around there. Makes a lot of sense. By the way, I actually think I made myself, gave myself some digestive issues because I was doing what you were doing my first couple years of practice. I was eating salads that were the size of a, you know, this just massive size of, you know, two soccer balls and, you know, the biggest mixing bowl in your house, right?

The biggest mixing bowl in your house. Yeah. Yes.

And then I started noticing, I just, yeah, it gave me digestive issues later on. And so I realized that, hey, a salad here and there that's small, That's typically enough. You know, I am curious. I interviewed James D. Nicklantonio not too long ago, and one of the things he told me, we were talking about carnivore diet a little bit. And of course, he's a big promoter of eating meat, right? And getting a lot of protein on a daily basis. But he said something. It was the first time I'd heard anybody get into this when it comes to a carnivore diet is he said, you know, my research, he said, I actually did a study on this and that if you're going only meat and that's all you're doing, it's going to be too much acid. And so what it might do is, according to him, it might start pulling some of the minerals out of your bones and your fascia and connective tissue. And that was really the first time I'd heard that. And I think that when it comes to any diet, there are some positives and negatives. And this is why, again, this self-awareness thing is so big, figuring out your own body, what's working for you, what do you tolerate well, is really, really, really important. Now, I'm a huge fan of eating a lot of meat. I mean, I probably try and get 40 grams per meal or so. But what are your thoughts overall on— and specifically, I want to ask you a question. Feel free to share any thoughts on what I just shared, but also, do you eat organ meats? That'd be another question I have for you.

Yeah, and I do, but I don't eat enough. And so when you talk about carnivore, I would say that one of the things that you got to put an asterisk in front of carnivore is do you eat enough nose to tail? Because if you're eating just the choice cuts of meat, that's probably not enough nutrition for you, and that's probably prompting the body to, to, you know, to, to go toward that, uh, for lack of a better term, I don't like the term, but acidic route where it, where it tends to be, um, you know, net negative on the mineralization. Um, but if you're eating nose to tail, if you're, if you're consuming organ meats, if you're consuming the bone broth and the collagenous parts of the animal, which are contributing to your connective tissue, then I think you're probably better off. Having said that, Paul Saladino still pulled back from his carnivore ways and said, "I'm going to start eating berries and honey because I didn't feel exactly right eating carnivore." I know Shawn Baker is full-on carnivore, eats a giant steak every day and seems to be doing okay. But I think for Most people, full carnivore might be a great, you know, short-term palliative solution to a gut issue or to some other issue, but I don't think it's sustainable in the long run for most people. And one of the reasons I say that is it's like, I like to eat, so I get bored eating just meat. That's why I want to eat some crunchy vegetables. I want to have a handful of nuts once in a while. I want to, you know, I found a new, my wife found a new dessert topping. It's a whipped cream made with coconut and it's spectacular. And you put that on blueberries and you have not only the best tasting dessert you could possibly have, but it's sort of guilt-free because it's berries and it's coconut, right? Because I like to eat and I like to enjoy the process of eating and whether it's the, the socialness of it, or whether it's just the pageantry of it. I like a glass of wine with dinner. It's not dinner without a glass of wine, you know? So eating is an important thing to me, and I want to reinforce that when I've been talking about diet and cleaning up the diet and getting rid of all these foods and, you know, focusing on natural whole foods, I'm the guy who said, whoa, if we're going to do that, we have to have a lot of choices of sauces and dressings and toppings.

That's right.

To put on this food to make it taste better. And that's what prompted me to start Primal Kitchen.

Well, can I tell you, with Primal Kitchen, we've used a lot of your stuff. And first off, I mean, we've gone through so much of your mayonnaise, you know, the mayonnaise you made. One of my favorite dressings that you, you came up with was you have this golden barbecue sauce. I mean, I use that constantly on chicken and other things, too. So again, your barbecue sauce, your mayonnaise, you know, if you come into the Axe household, everybody's going to be seeing that. Company you founded, Primal Kitchen, all over the place.

I love that. By the way, the Golden Barbecue Sauce was absolutely the first product we made in 2014, and we couldn't figure out at the time a way to make it without using way too much maple syrup. So, it was paleo, but it had 30 grams of sugar per serving. And so, I had to wait another 6 or 8 years until I could offer one that was fit more of the profile of what I wanted.

Yeah, well, I probably had this in 2020. I'm trying to think exactly when I, when I probably had it, but it was, uh, to me it wasn't sweet at all. It was more sour, or, or how would I describe it? No, tangy. I feel like it's pretty tangy.

But we call it a Carolina Gold barbecue sauce, and, and we abandoned it. We abandoned it in 2014, not to pick it up again for another 6 years because, oh God, there was too much sugar, and we you know, every time we came up with a new product, we had to figure out how to make it fit the criteria, which was it had to have no nasty ingredients, only good ingredients. It had to taste good, right? And, and if we couldn't check off all those boxes, we weren't going to launch it. And in the case of, um, first is no added sweetener. So even though, uh, maple syrup is a natural sugar, it's still a lot of sugar. It's way more than I would advocate for. So we had to kind of shove that aside until we could figure out how to fix it. Same with the ketchup. You know, we wanted to do ketchup from day one, but it took us a couple of years to get ketchup right. And when we did, it was a huge hit.

Yeah. Yeah. I've had it. It's fantastic. It's a hit in our household for sure.

Yeah.

Well, I wanna ask you, and by the way, I didn't know you were 70. I mean, I, it's pretty amazing. I mean, I actually thought you were closer to 60. And so I, and that's of course, that's a, Uh, you know, that's, that's definitely a compliment. You know, I, I know that like when I look at you, I said a similar thing on my show recently, you know, I, RFK Jr., I saw sort of the shape he's in. I mean, I, I think that society today, and I don't know why most people can't get this, but there's a principle and I think it's a biblical principle. I think it's a principle also that the Stoics and many other wise people have said over the years, but it's this, Jesus has this quote of, by your fruit, you'll recognize them essentially by Hey, if you want to know who to follow, follow the person that is flourishing in this area, right? And so today, I mean, we've got a group of people, and again, I'm included in this, of like, I'm very intent on what you're saying because I want to be in your shape when I'm in my 70s. I want to be in the shape of somebody like an RFK or somebody I admired many years ago, Jack LaLanne, right? So, it's like, I want to be like that in the future. And so, when you're sharing something, I'm taking it to the heart versus there's a lot of people, and I'm not trying to get political here, but it could be, you know, a Dr. Fauci or another medical expert. And a lot of these people that are, you know, could be grossly overweight or having major medical conditions. And, and, and that's who people are listening to. And so I guess my question is for that, um, you know, why do you think so many people today don't under— don't fully accept or understand this idea that we should be following the people that are the fittest and the healthiest?, in their life and sort of, you know, being, being a, uh, you know, these, uh, being that person we should look up to?

You know, it's a good question. I mean, there are certainly a lot of people who do follow, uh, the people in our, in our field. Um, but the, you know, the vast majority do not. And I think they, uh, long ago ceded control of their health to the machine, to the, to the pharma, to the, to the medical machine. They'd rather not do anything about it. I mean, I think a lot of people gave up out of frustration. That's one of the things that prompted me to write "The Primal Blueprint" was this notion that, you know, people gave up on trying to lose weight because they were told that exercise was the best way to lose weight, and it's not. It's actually a horrible way to lose weight. Or they were told that cutting back on fats was a good way to lose weight, and it's not. It's a bad way. And, you know, all of the advice from the '80s and '90s that people who really wanted to do the right thing and who got in there and rolled up their sleeves and tried to do it and then failed, it was a real, you know, a real frustration with that for a lot of people. And so I think at some point people just go, all right, I'll just do what the doctor says. You know, I'll, you know, I'll cut back on calories. I'll try and do it that way. I'll fight my way through this. I'll go to the gym, I'll work out. I won't pay attention to what I look like. I'll, you know, I'll try to get enough sleep. They try to do all these things, but they, because there's no real, there has been very few people that they could look up to. And I built my whole career on educating, right? I've spent 20 years educating people on ways in which the body works and how the world works and how food is supposed to work as a source of energy, but as a source of pleasure. And I've brought people onto my side as you have. I mean, you've been doing this for a long time too, but it takes a lot of cajoling and a lot of educating and a lot of people resisting before they say, "Oh, I've seen this guy a couple times. I've read some of his stuff. You know, it's starting to make sense." But, you know, I have friends who I've been talking about weight loss and, improving their lives for 20 years. And then my book comes out and all of a sudden, it gets some good reviews and they start incorporating some of the ideas in my book. And they go, "Oh my God, Mark, this is amazing." I'm like, "Well, I've been telling you this for 20 years, but finally, there's some..." I guess writing a book has some level of credibility added to otherwise the sort of throwaway advice that I've been giving you for the last 20 years. It's tough. I mean, people, Look, people don't want to change that much. They don't want to invest so much if there's the possibility of failure, right? If they knew that this was going to work, I think they'd embrace it. But so many times people have been let down by the wrong information, by the wrong products, by the wrong medical information. For the longest time, avoid butter, right? You stay away from butter. It's horrible for you. And Olio and margarine is the best way to go. And then the next thing you know, it flips completely on its ass. And that's right. It's, it's, it's, uh, I would, I'm, I'm very fortunate and I have tremendous gratitude for my having spent the amount of time I did educating myself because I know, you know, I feel so content in how I view this world from the prism, from the perspective that I have having spent that time learning about it.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I think, I think there's a level of, you know, character involved. I think there's a level of work ethic. I think it's harder to, um, you know, you had mentioned sort of giving it over to the machine. I mean, I think there's an idea of, it's a real, it's really easy just to say, hey, doctor, whoever doctor you, you have complete control of my health or government or whatever it is versus saying, no, you know what? I'm, I'm going to pursue wisdom. I'm gonna pursue allowing myself to be educated from experts like you. And so I think there's a real element of wisdom and work ethic it takes in order to understand and learn what's gonna be best for us in the long term. Mark, one of the last questions I have for you here, What, what are some of your biggest pieces of advice? We talked a little bit about nutrition. We talked about going, you know, barefoot in your incredible barefoot shoes that I love so much. What are some of your top pieces of advice that are maybe lifestyle-based that have allowed you to, you know, live to 70? You're thriving right now. You just sold a company, you started a new company, you're incredibly healthy. What are some of those other lifestyle factors that have really made a big difference in your own health?

Well, I think the number one for me is family. And I've, you know, I've been married 33 years. I've been with my wife 35. We have 2 children. We have grandchildren. And as I was building my businesses and as I was writing my books and as I was grinding it out trying to build a brand, I spent time with the kids and I spent time with the family and I spent time with the wife. And that's paid off hugely in that we are now closer than we have ever been. We were always close, but now we're closer than we've ever been because I didn't sacrifice the now for some possible future payoff. So I encourage entrepreneurs, I encourage people who are just grinding it out for, you know, at their job, at work, you know, live your life, enjoy every possible moment. Stop every once in a while and go, oh my God, this is it. This is life. This is now. This is right now. What's going on right now? Oh my God, there's the sun is setting or the sun is rising or there's a great wind on my face or you know, my child is kicking a soccer ball, or whatever it is for you, appreciate the moment and have that fill you up with the realization that at some point you have to realize that this is all, now is all there is, right? So that's been my greatest realization over the years is that we have to enjoy every possible moment. We have to extract the greatest amount of enjoyment fulfillment, contentment, pleasure out of every possible experience in life. Not to say that there aren't going to be bad days and bad moments, but also, this too shall pass. That's one of my favorite mantras. Anything that's getting you down or it's bad, it'll blow over, it'll pass. Beyond that, I would say, you know, I don't apologize for getting 8.5 to 9 hours of sleep every night. I love getting sleep and waking up, you know, ready to take on the day. It's an important part of my regimen. I'm walking more. You know, I was, I was all into HIIT workouts, high-intensity interval training, and, you know, the CrossFit type stuff or the, you know, as a, as an endurance athlete doing long hard runs. Dude, I'm into walking now. I think walking is the single greatest thing a human being can do for oneself. In fact, my, my new book, which is due out in April, is called Born to Walk. Okay. It's a, it's, it is gonna trash the running movement as, as inappropriate for all but 1 or 2% of the population. And, uh, it's gonna blame the running shoe industry on a lot of problems. Uh, and yet walking is, walking is the best thing you can do. Walking is anabolic. Running is catabolic. Walking is, you know, it's, it's restorative. That's a, when you're injured, right? As a runner, you walk to get better. And we are literally born to walk. We are bipedal. We are supposed to be walking. And the fact that people choose not to walk because their feet hurt them or because their shoes hurt them, we're trying to fix all that. We're trying to create an environment in which you want to go walk multiple times a day because not only you know that it's good for you and you know it's good for your spirit and your psyche, but it's also good for your feet. You're training your feet the whole time. And you wanna lift to 90, the best way to lift to 90 is be able to exercise every single day to get to 90. Once you stop exercising, once you stop moving, once you stop walking, it's a slippery slope. It's a, it's a real fast decline from there. So you gotta keep moving.

No, that's amazing advice. You know, I, I very, very similar lessons I think I've been learning as well and that I've been living by. And I think walking, as you mentioned, and there are some great studies on this, I've continually over the last 3 years seen some really great research on walking for longevity, walking for mental health, walking for keeping a healthy weight and a number of things, anti-aging as you said. And so, I think it's powerful, powerful advice and doing it in nature. The more we can get out in nature, the better. Well, hey, I want to let everybody know about a few amazing things Mark has going on. One is he's got a book now. I think it's a reprint from his first book, but "The Primal Blueprint." This is a book I read This is a long time ago, Mark. I'm trying to think, 2008 or so. But again, I want to encourage you guys, check out Mark's The Primal Blueprint. Also, he has a company that, again, we love their products. We mentioned it earlier, Primal Kitchen. But one of the biggest things I want to recommend, and this is how I started the show, is talking about these Peluva shoes. If you're a person that wants to have healthier feet, healthier knees, healthier hips, healthier low back, And for me, I injured myself weightlifting and bulged a couple discs, had back pain, and it's getting much, much better now. But this is such an incredible product, doing barefoot shoes for this. And again, not just barefoot shoes. The problem with most of these barefoot shoes, they either don't have enough of the right type of really firm cushioning as he has in the shoe, or you're more unstable. So it's actually putting more torque or pressure on your knees. These are great to wear around the house. This is what I've been working out in every time I go to the gym. This is what I do. This is what I've been walking in. So as Mark's talked about the importance of walking, and when you can splay your feet, strengthen your feet as well, it affects everything up the chain. As I mentioned, knees, hips, low back, all the other areas as well. So I wanna encourage you, and Mark was kind enough today to give a discount code for this product. And so it's simply Peluva, the company's Peluva, if you go to peluva.com, that's P-E-L-U-V-A.com, peluva.com, enter the code AXE, that's A-X-E, and you'll get a 15% off discount. Now you can match me and get this one. There's actually a few different colors on there. And by the way, you got to get the socks as well. The socks are the best socks I've ever worn. So I encourage everybody, check out Peluva Footwear here by the founder, Mark Sisson. Mark, want to say, hey, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom with us today.

Such a pleasure, Josh. I appreciate it very much.

And again, it was good catching up again. I know you were one of my first— I don't think I ever told you— one of my first guests I ever had on my podcast back almost 15 years ago now, which is kind of crazy. But again, thanks to all you've done for pioneering both health and wellness, both in the food category and now in the foot health category. Hey, want to say thanks to everybody for joining us on this episode of the Ancient Health Podcast. I hope you this, uh, this conversation with Mark really enlightening as I did. Like I said, I am always committed to learning from people that have walked the walk. I mean, Mark is somebody now for over 30 years, and for myself, over the last 15 years, I've followed, I've been impressed with all the great things he's done. And Mark is 70 and thriving, incredibly healthy. I'm sure he's gonna be one of those centurions we're reading about, uh, 30 years from now. And so I wanna say he's somebody that you can really trust in terms of Hey, what should you be eating? How you should be living with your lifestyle in court in order to have better health. And hey, if you're not subscribed, hey, make sure to subscribe to the podcast and please leave a review if you love this episode and any others, and your feedback's always appreciated so we can continue to bring you the best in content. And hey, if you also wanna follow us on social media, you can go on social media. And actually, I'm gonna ask you this, Mark, where is the best place for everyone to follow you on social media?

I'm Mark Sisson Primal on Instagram. And if you want to look at the shoes, the shoes are Wear Peluva, W-E-A-R-P-E-L-U-V-A, Wear Peluva on Instagram.

That's great. So, go to Instagram, follow Mark. You can also find me at @DrJoshAxe on Instagram and YouTube as well. Well, again, hey, thanks so much, Mark, for sharing your wisdom today. Thanks everybody for taking part in this podcast. And we'll be back next week with another show. Hey, Dr. Axe here. I want to say thank you so much for listening today. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to like and subscribe the show so you don't miss a thing. Also, if you're in search of more natural health content, you can follow us @healthinstitute on Instagram or subscribe to our newsletter using the link in the show notes below. Hey, thanks a lot and have a blessed week.