Having grown up an athlete, Thomas DeLauer quickly found that without the intense exercise, his then-current way of eating lead him to gain 100 pounds. Deciding that he wanted a different life, he was introduced to the keto diet though forward-thinking physicians and decided to try it for himself.  

He lost the weight, got super fit using bodybuilding and the keto diet, and has even been featured on the covers of several health and wellness magazines! Not only that, he started a whole new business helping other people to reduce their inflammation, lose weight and reclaim their health. 

Thomas DeLauer describes keto as a “gateway drug” to other fitness and wellness tracking and biohacking strategies, such as intermittent fasting, tracking HRV, heart rate, sleep, temperature and more. 

If you’re interested in bodybuilding without trashing your health, this episode is for you!

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• About Thomas DeLauer and what brought him to where he is now – from teen athlete to 100 lbs overweight and back down again to transform into a bodybuilding keto influencer, fitness model, and nutrition and business performance coach [2:55]
• As a physician recruiter right out of school, Thomas developed a lot of physician relationships with concierge docs who were really progressive thinking. In fact, this is where he first learned of the keto diet [3:50]
• Merging his business background with his experience as an athlete and a drive for self-transformation led him to create his current business [6:50]
• As an analytical thinker looking for something different, he discovered how much keto appeals to that because it’s more black and white and easier to control than overly simplistic “calories in calories out” approaches [9:15]
• He views keto as a gateway drug to the Oura ring and sleep tracking, HRV, nutrition genome data, mouth taping, etc. to improving health and becoming a biohacker [12:10]
• That for blood sugar support, keto can give you an opportunity and sense of hope of how to control what you’re doing regarding weight loss, etc [13:00]
• How Thomas DeLauer tracks HRV with Oura and Whoop to see the big picture as another piece for overtraining or being under-recovered. Rather than believing overtraining to be the problem, he puts more emphasis on proper recovery as the key to improving health and fitness [14:45]
• That heart rate variability takes it all into consideration, and assesses where you’re at now, and whether your under-recovered or not. It takes all the data and computes it, and it takes all the hard black and white part of trying to compute it in your head out of the equation of wondering if you worked out too hard today or didn’t recover enough. 
• Thomas describes how HRV and proper recovery can support you in your training, and also how not being recovered can feel and affect you [17:00]
• How alcohol and late meals can trash your HRV [18:20]
• “Bodybuilders are pushing their bodies to the limits and they need to have these periods of taxation, but then follow it up with enough recovery time but bodybuilding culture teaches us that we need to be constantly pushing ourselves.  If we were tracking the data on it we would probably be having very poor HRV all the time. They think it’s the training that’s taking the weight off of them, but it’s the diet and the recovery time that ‘s taking the weight off of them. A bodybuilding cutting cycle could be cut in 3-4 weeks if you apply these principles” (of keto diet and recovery) [21:03]
• “Only a small percentage of the bodybuilding community is tracking, but their outcome could be much different if tracking became more popular in this area.  Bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Franco Columbu, Frank Zane was much more in tune with their bodies and there was much more respect for the body, whereas today we are much more disconnected. We are out of touch, and it’s so difficult to get in touch with your body…it’s a meditative thing” [21:50]
• Thomas talks about how out of touch we are with our bodies and how we can use the technology, which is ironically keeping us from being in touch with our bodies to our advantage. Using it, we can  get biofeedback on how we are recovering from our exercise routine and what our food is doing to our bodies [23:05]
• Direct to consumer testing allows individuals to learn more about their own bodies.  Keto tends to open the door, and then intermittent fasting usually follows as it’s a natural step that easily flows from burning fat for fuel.  Following that usually is mitochondrial support like cryotherapy, HRV, photobiomodulation, redlight therapy, sun exposure, cold therapies, high sympathetic nervous system exposure in a controlled way [25:35]
• How safe sun exposure has benefits and yet wearing sunscreen all the time blocks the benefits of vitamin D from the sun.  Covering up and limiting time in the sun is a more effective way to manage sun exposure safely than chemical sunscreens for average sun exposure [28:34] 
• Why cryotherapy is great, but getting in cold water regularly can be really effective without the high cost of cryotherapy, and why regular exposure is better [32:15]
• Breathwork and how it can be incorporated into meditation to master the mind-body connection [35:04]
• Working with breath for performance, using breathing through your nose. Using box breathing, as a way to get out of the sympathetic response before doing a cold shower, and utilizing the breathing during a cold shower can really affect the changes in the autonomic nervous system [39:18]
• Practicing belly breathing helps to reduce hiccoughs by strengthening the diaphragm [41:24]
• Learn about the top metrics that Thomas DeLauer currently tracks [47:30]

Thomas DeLauer YouTube Channel

Thomas DeLauer website

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PuraTHRIVE Curcumin Gold

PuraTHRIVE Turmeric Extract

PuraTHRIVE Keto Balance

Whoop

Oura Ring

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The Oxygen Advantage

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Learn more about LEVL, a clinical-grade ketone breath meter, which measures your level of fat-burning and ketosis through a simple breath. Find out more at HeadsUpHealth.com/LEVL.

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