Welcome back to part two of our Make America Healthy again breakdown. In this part of the conversation, after wrapping up the last of the key elements of the MAHA platform, we dive into the key personalities.

Specifically, we went through many of the participants from "American Health and Nutrition: A Second Opinion," a roundtable discussion hosted by Senator Ron Johnson. It essentially served as a mainstream declaration of MAHA's priorities, and clips featured prominently on social media.

Our discussion features the following key players in the MAHA community:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Dr. Mark Hyman

Vani Hari (Food Babe)

Dr. Casey Means and Calley Means

Max Lugavere

Dr. Jordan Peterson

Jillian Michaels

Join us as we dive into both the good and the bad of MAHA, with a particular focus on the ways some of these initiatives could positively impact American public health.

We're starting the new year by diving straight into a politically sensitive topic.

According to their platform, Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) seeks to drive a transformative agenda by aligning health-conscious, independent-minded voters with candidates who have the ability to disrupt the status quo. This includes prioritizing regenerative agriculture, preserving natural habitats, and eliminating toxins from our food, water, and air.

The face of MAHA is RFK Jr., who is the presumptive nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services under the incoming administration. Other key personalities associated with MAHA include Vani Hari (aka Food Babe), Senator Ron Johnson, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Dr. Casey Means, and celebrity trainer Jillian Michaels.

Join us as we dive into both the good and the bad of MAHA, with a particular focus on the ways some of these initiatives could positively impact American public health.

This is a rerun of an episode we did a year ago. As our last holiday rerun before we get into fresh content, this one helps to set the stage for our first couple episodes for 2025 which will discuss the "Make America Healthy Again" movement, aka MAHA. You might be surprised that many of our biggest problems today are the results of solutions to the problems we faced a few decades ago.

This episode is all about nutrition in America: How did we get here? (Hint: there are actually some very good reasons for all the processed food) What problems is our diet creating? (Hint: it's more than just obesity) And what can we do to start fixing it?

That's a huge topic, but our guest is one of the most qualified person to tackle it. Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian is a cardiologist, Jean Mayer Professor of Nutrition at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, Professor of Medicine at Tufts School of Medicine, and an attending physician at Tufts Medical Center. Recently he also became the founding Director of the Tufts Food is Medicine Institute. His work aims to create the science and translation for a food system that is nutritious, equitable, and sustainable.

Dr. Mozaffarian has authored more than 500 scientific publications on dietary priorities for obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, and on evidence-based policy approaches and innovations to reduce diet-related diseases and improve health equity in the US and globally. Areas of focus include defining healthy diets, nutritional biomarkers, Food is Medicine interventions in healthcare, business innovation and entrepreneurship, and food policy.

He is one of the top cited researchers in medicine globally, he has served in numerous advisory roles including for the US and Canadian governments, American Heart Association, World Health Organization, and United Nations. His work has been featured in an array of media outlets. Thomson Reuters has named him as one of the World's Most Influential Scientific Minds In 2023, Dr. Mozaffarian was nominated by President Biden to serve on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition (PCSFN).

Dr. Mozaffarian received his B.S. in biological sciences from Stanford University, M.D. from Columbia University. He took his residency at Stanford, and was a fellow in cardiovascular medicine at the University of Washington, where he also received his MPH. He earned a Doctorate in Public Health from Harvard. Before being appointed as Dean at Tufts in 2014, Dr. Mozaffarian was at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health for a decade and clinically active in cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is married, has three children, and actively trains as a Fourth Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo.

For an overview of the initiatives that the Tufts Food is Medicine Institute is tackling ⁠see their fact sheet.⁠

If you want to learn more about the Food Compass drama that we briefly discuss in the episode, ⁠check out this blog post summarizing the situation.⁠

You can find ⁠the text of the SWEET Act here⁠, which is a proposal to tax sugar sweetened beverages and use the revenue from that tax to fund research on diet-related health conditions.

This is a rerun of an episode from 2022, if you joined us recently it's a great introduction to building smarter physical training plans to improve performance and reduce injuries. We'll be back in a couple weeks with fresh content. Until then, happy holidays!

No guest this time, just Alex and Drew trying to answer one of the most commonly asked questions we get here at MOPs & MOEs. Many of you are tactical professionals out there leading your teams without access to professional coaches. Or there are a lot of you training on your own with no guidance at all. So how do you build a plan that will produce results? This conversation will provide you with a few foundational principles you can apply to make sure you're on the right track. We discuss foundational movement patterns, conditioning modalities, frequencies for different types of training, balancing intensity and volume, and more. But we start with the most important thing, which too many people seem to forget: how to set a good goal.

Happy holidays! This is a rerun of an episode we published back in March 2023, but this topic has been getting a lot of discussion again recently so we wanted to revisit it!

MOPs & MOEs merch is now for sale on our website! Check out the shop for tees, hoodies, stickers, and more.

Job Fransen is a skill acquisition specialist working at the University Medical Centre Groningen in the Netherlands and an adjunct fellow at the University of Technology Sydney’s School of Sport, Exercise, and Rehabilitation. His research focuses on optimizing skill acquisition in athletes. He has worked with high-performance athletes and individuals from around the world, across elite sport, esports and gaming, and the military. Job is also a skill acquisition consultant, assisting some of the world’s best coaches to design practice that optimizes learning across a range of sports, most notably rugby, Australian football, soccer, and basketball.

We discovered Job's work because of a preprint article he released that provides extensively resourced evidence to argue two main points:

In this episode, we start off by defining the concepts of "near transfer" and "far transfer" and then set off on a wide-ranging conversation about how to better deliver actual evidence-based cognitive training. We address the heated debate among researchers in this space, critique some of the popular technologies, and arrive at some pretty valuable insights on how to integrate skill acquisition principles into the ways we train, such as the optimal challenge point model.

If this is a topic that excites you, you're in luck. Both ahead of and during our conversation Job pointed us toward a wealth of resources. We'll include links to numerous references below, but if you want to contact Job directly he is very open to that. You can email him at [email protected] or reach him on his LinkedIn.

References:

A critical systematic review of the Neurotracker perceptual-cognitive training tool

Near and Far Transfer in Cognitive Training: A Second-Order Meta-Analysis

Far Transfer: Does it Exist?

Do “Brain-Training” Programs Work?

Business leaders praised Lumosity's success then just two years later Lumosity settles for millions and admits lack of evidence for their claims

We stumbled onto Michaela's story because of this hilarious video explaining her pretty traumatic experience. We love a good comeback story after injury, especially when it includes a life being saved by strength training.

We won't ruin the whole story, you'll just have to listen to the episode to find out, but there are several valuable lessons in here for both service members facing their own challenges, and for the medical professionals who care for them.

The parallels between Michaela's experience and our previous episode with F/A-18E pilot Kegan Gill are astonishing. They both faced the unique combination of physical injury, brain injury, and mental health issues, and they both describe the mental health recovery as being far more challenging than the physical recovery.

Find her on Instagram @maneuvering_mic where she discusses everything from aviation to outdoor adventures to resilience.

The year is coming to an end and there are a few topics that we didn't make full episodes out of that we thought were worth discussing.

In this episode we hash out:

A grab bag of nutrition topics including eating local, raw milk, processed food, and other hot topics in the nutrition space.

Fitness during the holidays (or during travel in general).

Some moderately spicy political stuff, mostly tied to "MAHA" and what we might see under the incoming presidential administration.

Military medical accessions standards (the consequences of MHS Genesis on recruiting, conditions that require waivers, and some recent pilot programs).

Tune in for a wide ranging conversation and little light debate. If you're interested in a deeper dive on any of the topics, let us know! Or better yet, recommend an expert guest we can bring on.

This episode continues a theme of bringing on guest's who crossed paths with Alex in the Army and helped shape his perspective on human performance. SGM Jaime Espinoza's career started with troubles involving weight gain, mental health, alcohol abuse, and more. But thanks to help from several people along the way (some human performance professionals, but also just fellow soldiers) he managed to overcome those hurdles and excel professionally. He joined us to talk about how, and how lessons he learned in the process can help improve outcomes for people experiencing the same challenges.

Sergeant Major Jaime Espinoza is a native of Azusa, CA. Upon enlisting in the Army in August 2006, he attended basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, followed by advanced individual training at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. After completing advanced individual training, he was awarded the MOS 35F Intelligence Analyst.

His assignments, in ascending order, were with HHC 2-6 IN, 2 BDE, 1st AD, Baumholder, GE; Bravo Company, 304th MI, Fort Huachuca, AZ; HHD, 525th MP BN, Guantanamo Bay, CU; HHC, 4 BDE, 1st CAV DIV, Fort Hood; HHT, 1-9 CAV, 1st CAV DIV, Fort Cavazos; HHC, 4th BDE, 1st CAV DIV, Fort Hood; HHC, 3rd BDE, 4th ID Attached to Foundry Fort Carson, CO; Delta MI Company, 299th BEB, 4th ID, Fort Carson, CO; HHD, 1ST IO CMD Land, Fort Belvoir; United States Special Operations Command (USASOC). He has deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom
(OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).

He served in a variety of leadership and technical positions, including Junior Analyst, Targeting Analyst, S2 NCO, ASAS-L Master Analyst, Special Security Representative, Detainee Mail Analyst, S2 NCOIC, Senior Intelligence Sergeant, Platoon Sergeant, First Sergeant, Operations NCO, Observer Controller and Trainer, Foundry Instructor, Operations Sergeant Major.

SGM Espinoza’s military education includes the Joint Special Operations Forces Senior Enlisted Academy (Class 74). Other schools include the Small UAV Course, Army Basic Instructor Course, Foreign Disclosure Officer Course, Military Police Pre-Service Course, Army Space Cadre Basic Course, Master Fitness Trainer Course, Critical Thinking Course, Integrated Data Sources and Enhanced Analytics Course, Information Operations Capabilities, Application and Planning Course, Army Operations Security Program Manager / Officer Certification Level II Course, Anti-Terrorism Officer Basic Course Airborne Course and SERE course.

He holds an Associate of Arts degree in Applied Sciences in Intelligence Operations from Cochise College, a Bachelor of Arts in History with a concentration in Military History from Southern New Hampshire University, and a Master of Arts in International Relations from New England College.

SGM Espinoza’s awards and decorations are the Meritorious Service Medal (2nd Award), Army Commendation Medal (7th Award), Army Achievement Medal (6th Award), Army Good Conduct Medal (6th Award), National Defense Service Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal (1 Campaign Star), Iraqi Campaign Medal (2 Campaign Stars), Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal,
Humanitarian Service Medal, Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal (2nd Award), Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbon (5th Award), Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon (3rd Award), NATO Medal, Luxembourg’s International March of Diekirch Medal, Presidential Unit Citation (2 nd Award), Meritorious Unit Citation (3rd Award), Army Superior Unit Award.

He has earned the Parachutist Badge, Army Basic Space Badge, Canadian Jump wings, Italian Parachutist Badge, German Bronze Parachutist, Polish Parachutist Jump wings and Netherlands Parachutist Jump wings, Norwegian Foot March Badge, Driver’s badge with wheel and track clasps. SGM Espinoza is a recipient of the Military Intelligence Corps Association Knowlton Award.

One of the toughest challenges in military human performance is how to implement programs that work for reserve service members. With only a couple days a month of direct interaction, how do you improve their health and fitness behaviors the rest of the month?

Who better to workshop solutions to this issue with than the Chief of the Army Reserve? Lieutenant General Robert Harter was an H2F skeptic at first (we discuss why), but now he's a believer and trying to mobilize the right leaders and resources to improve human performance for his part time soldiers.

LTG Harter was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 1, 2024, and assumed the dual role of Chief of Army Reserve and Commanding General, U.S. Army Reserve Command.

As the Chief of Army Reserve, LTG Harter is the principal advisor on Army Reserve matters to the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff of the Army. As Commanding General of U.S. Army Reserve Command, he leads a community-based force of more than 174,000 Citizen Soldiers and 11,000 Civilians – with a footprint that encompasses all 50 states, five U.S. territories, and more than 23 countries across the globe.

His previous General Officer assignments include Commanding General of the 81st Readiness Division, Deputy Chief of Army Reserve, Chief of Staff for Army Material Command, and Commanding General, 316th Expeditionary Sustainment Command (deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom).

After graduating from Virginia Tech in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication, LTG Harter received his Active Duty commission as a Field Artillery Officer. He also holds a Master of Science degree in National Security Strategy from the National War College.

As his initial Active Duty assignment, LTG Harter served as a platoon leader in the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, Bad Hersfeld, Germany (deployed to Desert Storm). After branch transferring to the Ordnance Corps, he completed Active Duty assignments with the 101st Corps Support Group, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and the U.S. Army Munition Center and School, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.

LTG Harter then transferred from Active Duty to the Active Guard and Reserve (AGR) program in 1999. His AGR assignments include Support Operations Officer, 55th Sustainment Brigade, Distribution Management Center Chief, 316th Expeditionary Sustainment Command (deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom), and Assistant Chief of Staff, Office of Chief of Army Reserve.

LTG Harter and his wife Erin have been married for over 35 years and have three children. They currently live in Stafford, Virginia.

In this episode we're discussing endurance training with an extremely qualified guest with a world class competitive ultra marathon resume.

Alyssa Clark is a professional mountain runner, coach, podcast host and training plans director for Uphill Athlete. As a military spouse, running and coaching have been the constants she can bring with her no matter the duty station. She is also a multisport athlete with pursuits in winter adventures including large mountain link-ups through ski mountaineering, Alpinism, and ice climbing with her husband, Codi who is active duty Navy. Alyssa and Codi currently reside in San Diego, CA with their two Italian cats named Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute.

To get an idea of the level of competitor she is in ultra running, here are a few of her race performances:

1st female finisher at Canyons Endurance Runs by UTMB 2023
1st female finisher at HURT 100 2023
1st female finisher at Moab 240 Race 2022
Ran 95 marathons in 95 days in 2020
FKT on the 350-mile Pinhoti Trail
Ouray 100-mile women's winner in 2021

And since recording, she also won the UTMB Puerto Vallarta 100k through Mexico’s Sierra Madre mountains, qualifying her for the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB).

You can find her on Instagram @theory_in_motion

We mentioned Uphill Athlete's recent podcast about fasted training, you can find it here.