Cooper Brunner Podcast

if done right, vegetarians may have lower cholesterol levels and blood pressure, well below the average rates of normal meat eaters. This study also concluded that they have a lower body mass index, lower cancer rates and lower risk of chronic diseases.

But let's not get this confused, in no way is this the perfect diet, but it can for sure lead you down a healthy path of eating plus give you a completely new perspective on food. The whole point of why I wanted to take on this diet was to show you guys that you don't know what you don’t know, you could have amazing results, lose or she a ton of weight and feel absolutely amazing if you try out the vegetarian diet.

But let's look at this from a different lense because science may say differently about the vegetarian diet. 

A vegetarian diet won't necessarily lead to weight loss. I came into the challenge weighing in at 197 on the dot and actually lost about one pound touching 196ish so nothing crazy. But one of the hardest things I had to deal with, and keep in mind I only went vegetarian for one week so I didn’t fully grasp or get the full experience of going vegetarian, but I had a tough  time planning my meals and not going out to eat. When you go out to eat, it can be extremely difficult to find healthy vegetarian options, I found myself being stuck with vegan burgers or eating a simple salad that would leave me starving later at night. I definitely struggled with the cravings, and I struggled with keeping myself full. If I were to do this over again, I would probably take on a different strategy and take in smaller meals throughout the day I.E. drinking vega protein shakes with oats and fruit or eating more hummus with vegetables, peanut butter and celery and dried fruits like dried mangos (dried mangos are amazing).

One question I want to answer and discuss because this a big one, how did I get my daily amount of protein? Was it hard to get my protein? For one thing, I actually didn't eat any eggs so I was pretty proud to say that I ate only plant-based protein other than cheese. Not going with cheese would've been extremely hard, I don’t think I could've done the diet without that. My bean and fake cheese burrito would probably be a little interesting 

Especially as someone who is physically active 5-6 times a week, I want to ensure that I am getting the right amount of protein to sustain my muscle, build muscle, and recover properly 

the was big thing  for me was to understand and do my research about this diet and how to prep my meals. One issue that many vegetarians lack for the athlete are crucial amino acids like lysine, methionine, threonine, and tryptophan. 

The most important being lysine, which I did my research and found beans and legumes to be my main source of protein like pinto beans, kidney beans, lots of black beans. Other foods I ate that are known to have high protein are nuts like sunflower seeds, almonds, pecans, crushed walnuts  and cashews, many other options but foods like nuts and seeds definitely need to be in the vegetarian diet. It was crazy making these meals, like I made a meal for dinner that asked for walnuts and cauliflower florets, I smashed these fellas in a blender and it created a substance similar to meat and actually tasted really, really good but it tripped me the heck out, I was like no way is not meat that is some mad scientist concoction. 

As a one-week veggie, here are some of the drawbacks I experienced. After coming off of a high protein or high meat diet, I knew that I would experience fatigue and that’s exactly what I felt for the first few days. I did a little digging in some clinic studies and this is completely normal if you aren't getting enough protein. What happens when you go pretty strict vegetarian after eating a meat heavy d

Your brain is sophisticated; it will only recruit as many muscle fibers as are needed to raise the weight.

You can’t trick it.

For maximum gains, you must raise the weight at a speed that forces the muscles to perform all the work.  No bouncing, no cheat reps or jerking your body position. If you cheat on reps and use heavy weight you can’t handle, the message sent to the brain recruits fewer muscle fibers.

For example, while performing a leg curl, pause in the legs flexed position. Any bounce indicates that the muscle performs little work through that range of motion.

Hamstring problems happen when the muscles around it aren’t fully developed through any range where momentum contributes to the action.

If you are trying to build strength, momentum on each rep isn’t going to create gains, slow and controlled movements have proven to optimize strength and muscle building.

After being in the contraction position, it’s important to emphasize the lowering of the weight. Due to gravity, it is easier to lower the weight. To see better results from your workouts:

• Take longer to lower the weight each rep
• Add more weight during the lowering phase
  • spotter can add weight

How Many Reps should you do?

6-12 reps.

For upper body, 8-10 reps and perform 12-15 reps for legs.

Reps aren’t important, it is the amount of time a muscle is exposed to an exercise and the intensity of that exercise. Time under tension is the name of the game. Time under tension is the key to maximum gains regardless of the equipment used or the methods employed.

Some athletes are more concerned with how much they lift, rather than how they go about lifting the weights.

This is the wrong mindset and will likely lead to injury.

Of course, to gain strength you must constantly strive to lift more weight and/or more reps each exercise. However, do not sacrifice good form in efforts to increase the amount of weight used.

Now How Many Sets?

Your goal must be to perform as few sets as possible while stimulating maximum gains. You can gain strength doing one or ten sets. Your body will respond based on how much work it exerts throughout each set.

Below is an example of a maximum effort workout for the bench press:

Set # 1 – 185lbs. x 8 reps

Set # 2 – 165lbs. x 8 reps

Set # 3 – 155lbs. x 8 reps

For optimal gains, use as much weight as you can safely handle on the first set. Each succeeding set the weight must decrease if the first set was a MAX OUT effort.

Why perform a set if you don’t give it a max effort?

What are you saving yourself for?

You are in the gym to “tear” or build your muscles, recover, and repeat it 5-6 times a week. Don’t waste your time and energy on a non-productive exercise.

How much time between exercises?

When a muscle has been exercised to near exhaustion, research has shown that it takes approximately 90 seconds to restore depleted energy supplies.

Summary

1. Raise the weight at a speed that forces the muscles to recruit as many muscle fibers possible
2. Allow more time during the process of lowering the weight
3. The key to maximum gains is not what equipment you use, it’s how you use the equipment
4. The quality of each rep will greatly benefit you rather than quantity of reps per set
5. Perform a wide range of exercises to develop each major muscle group

Podcast Overview:

What do saunas do?

What are the health benefits?

After reading articles and listening to several podcasts, I’ve found many amazing benefits of sauna use on heart health that can maximize your fitness goals from just utilizing a sauna every other day for just 20 minutes after a workout.

I’ve found this information on various credible sites, books, and articles which include people like Ben Greenfield, Dr. Rhonda Patrick, and several other doctors from The Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. 

There are A TON of Benefits that will impress or even shock you, but I’m only going to talk about 3 important ones that everyone should be aware of.

3 Key Health Benefits of a Sauna Session

1. Increases HGH Levels (Human Growth Hormone)

 It’s widely known among biochemists and exercise physiologists that certain types of exercise can raise circulating human growth hormone levels.  What’s less widely known is that sitting in the sauna can have a comparable effect under certain conditions.

There is a period of around 30-60 minutes immediately following a workout when your body will be doing the most active rebuilding of muscle and replenishing of glycogen (the muscles’ energy storage).

Raising circulating HGH during this window can potentially further bolster the already-heightened rebuilding and repairing your body is doing in this window.

This support of your body’s rebuilding efforts will translate to greater gains in muscle and fitness, as well as being less sore the following days.

It is also linked to strength gains, better sleep quality, and pain relief, but there’s also a lot to talk about with regard to heat shock proteins.

There’s a lot of evidence that saunas can take it to a whole new level, with some research suggesting that two 20-minute sauna sessions in a week can elevate GH levels two-fold over baseline, and that increasing the heat can result in even bigger jumps.

In one study, subjects who endured two one-hour sauna sessions in a week temporarily increased their GH levels by 1,600 percent — of course, an hour in an extra hot sauna might be a big jump and sort of ridiculous.

Therefore, it is probably a better idea sticking with doing a 20-minute sauna every other day for maximum HGH results.

1. Saunas increase Longevity

Sauna use robustly activates a class of stress response proteins known as heat shock proteins, and heat shock proteins have been implicated in aging, where increased expression has been shown mechanistically in lower organisms to confer increased longevity, and, similarly, polymorphisms in human populations that increase heat shock protein production have also been shown to have an association with increased longevity.

Heat shock proteins help all other proteins maintain their proper 3-dimensional structure in the cell which is important for each protein for it to be able to perform its function.

Additionally, a sauna will improve your cardiovascular system and capillarization, which improves blood flow to muscles and improves oxygen delivery.

While being in a sauna your heart rate can increase up to 100 beats per min during moderate sauna bathing sessions and up to 150 beats per min during more intense warm sauna use.

150 beats per minute corresponds to moderate-intensity physical exercise, which as we already know, also has a positive effect on cardiovascular health.

Plus, heat stress from sauna use also increases plasma volume and blood flow to the heart, known as stroke volume.

This results in reduced cardiovascular strain so your heart must do less work for each beat than it does to pump oxygen-rich blood to your tissues and brain.

1. Sau

I am going to go into detail about a supplement called Medium-Chain Fatty Oil or MCT Oil. The reason why I wanted to bring this topic up is because it has hit the fitness industry with a bang and I really want to help you understand how these oils work inside the body and what a fatty acid structure is. After reading clinical studies about MCT Oil, I decided to give this supplement a try and so far I have seen amazing results. 

Why is fat important to have in my diet? And what does MCT Oil do in the digestive system to benefit my health?

We first have to understand what a fatty acid structure is. When looking at dietary fats, all we are looking at are different chains. There are can either be short chain fatty acids, long chain fatty acids, or medium chain fatty acids or MCTs. Simply put, these different dietary fats are carbon atoms linked together. A Short chain fatty acid is anywhere from 2-6 carbon atoms linked together. Long chain fatty acids are fats that we would normally consume in the standard American diet, these fatty acids have anywhere from 12-22 carbon atoms linked together. MCTs, or medium chain fatty acids, which is a medium length chain, has roughly 6-10 linked carbon atoms. 

Now that we have explained the different chains, let me walk you through what triglyceride means because I know most of you are probably confused. Basically, triglyceride is a super fancy/technical term for fat. That's it. Triglycerides mainly do two things for the body. 

• The can go into the cell and be used as energy 
• Or they can get stored as body fat

Okay, now that you have a basic understanding of this, lets begin our conversation about Medium chain triglycerides and their unique properties.  

The MCT Oil can help you lose weight because it is quickly burned and metabolized. Normal fats or long chain fatty acids don't work like MCTs because they have to go through a completely different pathway within the body and link with carotene to travel into the mitochondria where it can begin to be used as energy.

 MCTs move quickly and are easily absorbed into the bloodstream. These triglycerides travel straight from the gut to the liver, where they are converted into an immediate source of energy or converted into ketones. Now I know you are probably wondering, what are ketones? Well for those of you that don't know, ketones are chemicals made in your liver. Your body produces them when you don’t have enough insulin to turn glucose or sugar into energy. 

Ketones have been a hot topic lately due to the Keto Diet trend, which is a low-carb, high fat diet that can help you lose weight. To give you guys a little background…. The standard Keto diet guideline consists of 75% of your food coming from fats, 20% from protein intake and only 5% of your food intake to be carbohydrates. 

there are plenty of clinical studies that show the Keto Diet to be a highly effective diet in regards to weight loss or fat burning. I personally choose not to be Keto because I love my bread and rice, I couldn't imagine only eating meat but people do it and see amazing results so kudos to the only Meat and bean eaters.

If the MCTs are converted into ketones, they may be able to pass the blood-brain barrier to supply energy to the brain. Since the brain is receiving a direct source of energy, the fatty acids in MCT oil may improve your memory. Again, this occurs because the ketones from MCT oil create an alternate source of energy, helping repair brain functions. 

MCT Oil is also a very good supplement for improving blood circulation. This leads to better organ functionality and cell growth. 

Improved blood circulation is important for your health because if you have poor blood-flow throughout the body you may experience irregular heartbeats, muscle cramps, headaches, and dry sk

In this episode I am discussing the major health benefits you can obtain when incorporating intermittent fasting into your diet plan. I discuss ideas and tactics about intermittent fasting that will help with either maintaining more muscle while low carb dieting, help you stay leaner during clean bulks, and provide human growth enhancement for building more muscle.