882: Dying Young As Late As Possible and Aging Past 40 With Sean Lake

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

This podcast is sponsored by Hiya Health. It’s a company that I love for my younger kids because typical children’s vitamins are basically candy and disguised. They’re filled with up to two teaspoons of sugar, unhealthy chemicals, or other gummy junk that I personally don’t want my kids to ever eat. And that’s why Hiya was created. It’s a pediatrician approved superpower chewable vitamin. Now, while most children’s vitamins contain sugar and they contribute to a variety of health issues, Hiya is made with zero sugar, zero gummy junk, doesn’t have the artificial colors, flavors, additives that we don’t know where they came from, but it tastes great and it’s perfect even for picky eaters.

Hiya is designed to fill the most common gaps in modern children’s diet to provide the full body nourishment that our kids need with a taste that they actually like. It’s formulated with the help of nutritional experts and it’s pressed with a blend of 12 organic fruits and vegetables, then supercharged with 15 essential vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin D, B12, C, zinc, and folate, as well as others to support our kids’ immune systems, their energy, their brain function, their mood, concentration, teeth, bones, and more. It’s also non-GMO, vegan, dairy-free, allergy-free, gelatin-free, nut-free, and free of everything else you can imagine. It’s designed for kids two and up and it’s sent straight to your door so parents have one less thing to worry about, which I appreciate. We’ve worked out a special deal with Hiya for their best-selling children’s vitamin. Receive 50% off your first order. To claim this deal, you must go to hiyahealth.com/wellnessmama. This deal is not available on their regular website, so make sure to go to hiyahealth.com/wellnessmama and get your kids the full body nourishment they know they need to grow into healthy adults.

This episode is brought to you by Dreamland Baby, and in particular, a product that I wish I had had with my first baby and actually with all of my babies, which is a sleep sack with a really unique twist. So it’s super easy to use. Leads to deeper sleep for both you and your baby, and here’s how. It has a cover-calm technology that allows for evenly distributed weight from the shoulders to the toes. And this is a gentle, evenly distributed weight that helps the baby fall asleep and stay asleep because it mimics the feeling of a parent’s touch or hug. I’ve seen the benefits for me of using weighted blankets for sleep, and this weighted sleep sack really helps relax and calm babies in a safe way, which leads to, as well, better sleep for the parents. Any of us who have had babies know that sleep can be hard to come by, especially when they’re really little. And I wished I’d had this with my older kids when they were babies. And it’s now probably my most gifted item to new parents. The number one issue for parents, new parents is lack of sleep. And a mom invented this sleep sack out of desperation when her six month old wouldn’t sleep. They’ve been on Shark Tank. They got a deal on there with Lori. And I, like I said, I wish that I had always had this product and now love to gift it to friends when they have a new baby. You can check it out by going to dreamlandbabyco.com and make sure you use the code MAMA20 to save 20% off and get free shipping. So that’s dreamlandbabyco.com and the code MAMA20 to save 20%.

Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com, and I am here today with Sean Lake to talk about dying young as late as possible and ways to slow aging past 40. And his entry into this world and why it became such a passion for him is quite the incredible story that involves the tragic loss of his best friend, as well as all of the beautiful things that came from this. And his story proves that sometimes you look around and realize your moment has come and you answer the call.

In this episode, he shares the story of the loss of his best friend, what happened surrounding that and how this led to the creation of a company called BUBS that honors his friend’s memory. We delve into the health benefits and the research behind the specific products they have, but more importantly, the research behind how we can slow aging. And as he talks about die young as late as possible, maintaining our playfulness, our curiosity, and our movement as we get older. Kind of fly, in the face of the idea that we have to get slower and weaker as we get older. And as you will hear in this conversation, Sean has absolute love of life, so much energy, so much passion for helping people. And we get to go a lot of directions in this conversation that I know you will enjoy. So let’s jump in. Sean, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

Sean: Thanks for having me. This is great.

Katie: Well, I’m really excited for this conversation. I feel like we’re finally getting to connect. We have some mutual friends and I’ve heard of you in health and wellness circles, but not gotten to hear directly from you about all the things we’re going to talk about today. And later in this episode, we’re going to kind of delve deep into a topic that I love that you are an expert on, which is kind of dying young as late as possible.

But I feel like as important foundation for that conversation, people need to hear a little bit about your story and the story behind the brand that you built, because I feel like that’s incredibly relevant to the deeper parts of the conversation we’re going to go into. So if you’re willing, I know it can be a little bit vulnerable, but are you willing to share the backstory of you and the company?

Sean: A hundred percent. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t ready to kind of talk about BUBS and our DNA and what got us started and our why. I think having an important why is key in life. So yes.

Katie: Amazing.

Sean: So I guess I can kind of dive right in because it’s a bit of a wild story and one that I always refer to as nonlinear as far as career paths go. I grew up in a little suburban town in Massachusetts, and my best friend growing up was a guy named Glen Doherty. And Glen was just like the life of the party, super energetic, just this amazing leader amongst a bunch of motley crew of teenagers all trying to find their way.

And Glen and I both took off and went to college with these really big adventurous plans. I kind of wanted to become a pro snowboarder, and Glen really wanted to become a pro skier. So after our first little foray into college, we decided to drop out, move to Snowbird, Utah, and chase our dream to become pro athletes. Our parents were horrified, and we went out and did it. And, you know, it was wild to do that and suddenly be out on your own at nineteen and really trying to make your way.

After a couple of years of going at it and working all the odd jobs, having all the different adventures, I had made it as a sponsored snowboarder. And it was really cool to be able to have a photo in a magazine, get paid to ride around these different mountains and have these amazing adventures. And Glen, unfortunately, and this was back in the 90s, hadn’t made it as a pro skier, but he was looking for that next challenge in life. And he went on a surf trip to Costa Rica, got inspired, and came back, met a couple of Navy SEALs while he was in Costa Rica, and said, hey, if I haven’t made it as a pro skier by the time I turn 25, I’m going to join the Navy and become a Navy SEAL. And we had no idea what that job looked like.

But next thing you know, it’s Glen’s birthday, and I’m driving him to the Navy recruiter. And he signs up. And a year later, my best friend from childhood, my ski bum partner, my confidant in all adventures, is a Navy SEAL. I went to his bud’s graduation, and he served 10 years at SEAL Team 3.

I ended up going back to college, had a great career in snowboarding, wrapped that up. That moved me down to San Diego, where my best buddy was. Well, fast forward a lot of life adventures later, and Glen is out of the Navy contracting for the Central Intelligence Agency, and he ends up getting killed in Benghazi, Libya on 9-11 in 2012. So a lot of folks remember the movie 13 Hours, and they remember Hillary Clinton getting in a bunch of trouble, and there was congressional hearings all around Benghazi, and four Americans were killed over there, including my roommate at the time, my best friend. I was the executor of Glen’s estate, and kind of the central focus after he passed of all things Glen.

This brand is quite literally a tribute to Glen and his way of life. A couple of years after Glen passed and after the movie had come out, 13 Hours and all that stuff, my wife introduced me to a really simple protein, incomplete protein called collagen. And she had read about it on a blog and said, oh, this stuff is supposed to be doing amazing work for your connective tissue. And by the way, your knees sound like crinkled up newspaper when you’re walking up and down a flight of stairs. So all those years of snowboarding and surfing and mountain biking, they finally taken their toll and you need this stuff. And she was right. I was, you know, I was 45 years old at the time. And I was starting to slow down. We had a one-year-old and moving well with him was paramount. And all of a sudden, like, I’m just a little aches and pains. And I started taking this magic supplement and it worked.

So we’ll talk about the brand in a second. But the important part about Glen was that his legacy and his memory were worth keeping alive. And I think. We don’t do a good enough job of that in society. So honoring Glen’s name ws because he was the life of the party. He was your best friend, not just my best friend. I mean, Katie, if you had met him, you and Glen would have been best friends. And there were hundreds and hundreds of people that just loved everything that he stood for.

And Glen really stood for two things above all. He stood for self-improvement. And it could be physical fitness, doing an Ironman or CrossFit workouts, or mental fitness, like reading books, continuing education. And Glen was always helping others. And he did that by like, he’d be the guy who’d help you move that couch that no one else is going to show up for. He would be there to loan you money. He would be there to hold you accountable. And he was just there to help others. And those two traits were really inspiring to the entire community of folks that knew him. And, you know, I was really lucky I was in the forefront of it and unlucky because, damn it, he always held me to really high standards that I had to meet all the time.

But when he had passed, we wanted to keep his memory alive and keep a seat at the table. And so after I started taking collagen and it worked so well for me, I just had this little light bulb idea. You know, I was sitting down with a friend who ended up becoming a business partner. And we were talking about, you know, trends and some work stuff. And he saw the jar of collagen on the counter. And he said, oh, you take that stuff? It’s a fast growing, trending product. I said, it’s changed my life. And, you know, I’m squatting again. I’m running faster. My recovery feels phenomenal. I said, I don’t know what’s in this stuff, but it is magic. And we just sparked an idea to start a company.

And the only way we decided we would ever start a company is if we were going to do something cool for charity. And a little light bulb went off. I said, well, I know the charity. We started a charity in Glen’s honor after he passed, the Glen Doherty Memorial Foundation. And Glen was always helping others. So why don’t we give 10% of all of our profits to charitable causes in Glen’s name because Glen would have done that. That’s our way of helping others. Every product that we make, starting with collagen, will stand for self-improvement, just like Glen did.

And we kind of had this built-in North Star to guide us. And then it came to quality. I said, well, hold on. If I’m going to put my best friend’s name on the jar, and a little reference point for anyone who looks at BUBS. BUBS is in reference to “BUB”, which was Glen’s call sign and nickname in the Navy. So when he was a SEAL, it was Glen “BUB” this, “BUB” that. And I’ve got countless memorabilia of him in his SEAL days that all said “BUB” on it. So the name of the company really named itself, it was BUBS Naturals was the only choice. We set out to do it at the absolute highest quality level. I said, well, I don’t want just any collagen.

So I do research like, okay, bovine hide. What’s the amino acid profile you want to elicit? Do you want it to taste like anything? No is the answer. How’s the solubility? Like all these factors that will help folks really want to, you know, taste or not taste a premium product and have a good experience with it. And if I was going to put Glen’s name on the jar, it had to be the absolute best. So we set out to do that. And here we are six and a half, almost seven years later. And we’ve been able to partner with great groups like the Whole30 Approved Diet. We test everything that we do for NSF for sport certification. So it’s like the highest level of independent testing for label claims, integrity of ingredients. I just figured if I’m going to jump into this space, which I knew very little about at the start, I want to do it at the absolute highest level.

Katie: Well, I’m so sorry for your loss. And that is one of probably the most heartfelt and amazing origin stories I have heard for a business. And I can only imagine that when it comes from a place of that much passion and love and Glen’s desire to help other people, that just, of course, ripples into every area of the culture for the business. And I’m so glad we got that backstory. When I heard that and researching for this, honestly, it really endeared your story and the brand to me so much.

And on that note, I would love to delve into kind of some of the things you guys focus on, because I think that’s very relevant to our listeners today, to the conversation about health and aging in a healthy way, or as I think you put it, dying young as late as possible. So it sounds like collagen was your sort of hero product, your first product, and that you have others now as well. I would guess most people listening might take collagen or at least are familiar with collagen. But can you just give us a little bit of an overview about the many benefits? I know it sounds like it was magical for your joints, but it does so much more beyond that as well.

Sean: Yeah and thank you. I think when it comes to collagen, I started taking it purely selfishly for joint health. I was, again, I was 45. I had a whole long life of impact-related injuries. And I wanted to run around and CrossFit and, you know, put in some miles and ride my bike and surf and do all the fun activities that I love and not be impeded. Like, I wasn’t ready to roll over. I was like, no, no, I have way more stuff I want to do and having young kids. Really lit that fire.

So what is collagen? Collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body. Like when you rank proteins in your entire body, you’ve got more collagen than any other protein. And unfortunately, after you turn 20, 25, like somewhere in your early mid-twenties, your body just stops producing it. And all of a sudden, your collagen stores, which were like way up here in your early 20s, start inching down year after year after year after year. And if you eat a great diet loaded with bone broth and marrow and various tissues from animals, you can keep supplementing from your diet. Ground beef is a great source for ingesting collagen. But we’re talking pounds of ground beef every single day and, you know, like 32 ounces of bone broth a day. Like it’s really high volume to continue to put enough collagen in your body to kind of fight those effects of aging, if you will.

Well, the collagen protein affects your connective tissue. So think of it as like a glue that holds your body together. That’s like probably the most Googled thing on the Internet is, oh, the glue protein. Well, think of your hair, skin and nails and the tightness in your skin, the strength in your nails, your bone density, something you never really experience until it’s a problem. But that is also affected by collagen muscle repair. And of course, my favorite joint health. And there’s even some great links to intestinal health and gut health. All of that is your connective tissue. Think of all of those parts of your body holding the body together.

Well, when you supplement with a high quality collagen peptides, and I’m a biggest fan of bovine hide because, you know, marine, the amino acid profile is not quite as good. So it’s good if you have dietary restraints and you can’t get into the cow, but go with the cow. That’s where you’re going to get the best quality. Those amino acids, glycine, leucine, proline, hydroproline, all of those, hydroxyproline rather, all of those amino acids work together to replenish your collagen stores, which means your hair is going to grow faster and fuller. Your nails are going to be stronger. Your recovery times are going to be that much better.

And there’s four grams of glycine in one serving of BUBS. Glycine is the amino acid, it’s linked to great sleep, which is awesome, but it also produces synovial fluid, which lubricates the joints and helps create that little bit of cushioning. So, you know, you’ve got so many benefits from one ingredient. And that one ingredient is basically ground-up cowhide. It’s a throwaway in the leather industry. So that inner part of the hide is not used for making shoes and purses and all the leather goods and belts usually gets thrown away. Well, now it can be repurposed and put into a high-quality dietary supplement just by giving it a great enzyme bath, lifting up those amino acids, drying it into a powder. It’s a really straightforward process. And all of a sudden, you have this rich source of glue to keep holding your body together.

Katie: Yeah, I think that’s a great way to explain it and think of it as sort of as that glue. And like you kind of touched on, like this used to be something that was very prominent in our diet as humans when we ate animals in a much different way. And now we’re able to sort of only eat the muscle meat. And there’s a lot of data and the research actually that shows that we’re kind of deficient in the specific amino acids that exist in, for instance, collagen and how important those are. I think the glue analogy is so relevant there. But that was a phenomenal explanation for that.

Also, it sounds like you have maintained a high level of activity as you’ve gotten older. And with that idea of dying young as late as possible, I know this is something I think about now that I’m getting older as well. And we hear a lot about all of the changes that come with each decade of aging, whether it be muscle loss in each decade, bone density loss in each decade, that we get slower. I know I read the stat and I’m determined not to be that stat that most people, I think 95% of people will never sprint again after age 30. But we just read all that data about aging. And I would love to hear your take on how you think of this and sort of what are the things that you do as your sort of 80-20 most impactful things to allow you to maintain that youthfulness as long as possible and die young at an old age.

Sean: You know, first of all, I got to go back to that stat. I can’t believe after the age of 30 or whatever that 95% of folks just won’t sprint anymore. I’m stunned to hear that. But I guess this is part one is kind of maintaining staying young at heart. I mean, I used to be a professional athlete. That’s cool. Like snowboarding, I barely can even call it a professional sport. It was really just more of a lifestyle that you got lucky enough to get paid to enjoy.

But taking care of your body was important back then. And I really got into it in my mid-30s. In my mid-30s was the first time I felt the effects of aging. And it’s different for different people. But the first time you recognize it’s a little bit harder to do something than it used to be, that’s a wake-up call. And if you don’t see it as a wake-up call, it’s time to maybe do a little digging in your head and figure out what’s important to you. And if quality of life is important to you, then movement should be absolutely paramount in your guiding principles moving forward.

The more energy that you have in your body, the more you’re able to do things, the better off you are for longevity and that’s just indisputable. You got to stay moving. You got to stay active. You got to stay doing the things. And look, my thing is riding a bike and surfing and running and lifting weights, but it’s also a means to an end. I want to be able to do all the gym activities so that I can chase my kids around and have a full experience with them. I want to coach my kids’ soccer team. And I want to do it, you know, as long as I feel like. I don’t want age to be the inhibitor.

So when I felt those effects of aging, I knew I had to double down. And it started just with training. But then the training led to the body aches and pains because I’m pushing my body more. And, you know, it really just came from a headspace originally. Like my headspace told me, hey, I don’t want to slow down. I really enjoy running fast. I still want to run fast. And, you know, at 53, I want to do some sprint workouts. I think they’re amazing. And studies prove how important they are for longevity. Now, I don’t think I’m going to beat my 30-year-old self at a sprint workout. But damned if I don’t want to not do one. I mean, I want to do it until I’m 80 if I feel like it.

So, I think it starts with that mindset. Like, hey, just because your body’s getting older doesn’t mean you have to accept it. You can make such small changes in diet, in your mental state, in your exercise. And if you can’t change, you know, all three, focus on the ones you can. And I’ll bet that third factor will come along. You dial in your diet, and if you, you know, don’t feel great mentally, well, the better your body gets, you’re going to be unlocking your potential to get into a good headspace. And that takes a lot of work. And obviously, we could unpack that for hours and hours. But if your body is feeling good from a dietary standpoint, all of a sudden exercise makes, you know, the barriers to entry are so low and you can dial up your exercise.

And once those two things are going, diet, exercise, there’s no way self-esteem, mental confidence, and kind of a reassessment of what’s possible starts happening. It can’t not happen. And so you can all just find your starting place there. And what you’ll realize is that there’s a kid inside of all of us. I just happen to live in a state of arrested development where that kid has got the mic most of the time. And I want that kid to have the mic. I want to maintain that spirit. I mean, I’m basically a barely functioning teenager at 53 loving it and I wouldn’t change a thing.

But it does take discipline. It takes, you know, the commitment to eating well. It takes a commitment to knowing what you’re putting in your body. It takes a commitment to getting up in the morning when you don’t want to get up in the morning, hop on that exercise bike, rack out 30 minutes of work or 45 or whatever time allows and make the most of it. So, you know, I think to anyone out there , this is really about those, those baby steps. So, you know, I could say like, hey, there’s a couple of things I do every single morning. I meditate for five to 10 minutes. It’s not long, but it’s very intentful and purposeful. And that just helps clear my head. I drink a warm glass of lemon water every morning with a sprinkle of Himalayan salt. And I don’t know if it really does anything, but I love the ritual of it. I’m religious about making my bed.

My wife’s a newscaster, so she’s out the door by 4, 3 o’clock in the morning sometimes. So I get up with the kids. But, you know, starting your day with a couple of hits under your belt is just a great way to go and attack it. And, you know, if the kids allow, go to the garage. Grab a kettlebell, grab that exercise bike, get some work done, and then, you know, get the kids off to school and start your day. But like, you just start that day with like, man, I did four things already. I feel great. What else can you accomplish? And, you know, it’s a mental space. Just create a little bit of discipline with some easy attainable habits. And I think the rest starts to fall into place.

Katie: I love that. And I love that you said you’re still a kid at heart. I would say my kids have been my absolute best teachers in this for sure in life. And I think so much of staying young really is keeping that childlike curiosity and the importance of play. Like we forget all about that. Maybe you didn’t, but a lot of us forget all about that when we get older and even how we categorize things. Like as you were talking about just adding movement, like we’ve made exercise its own category that we go do only at the gym. But as humans, we’re meant to do that sort of as part of our lifestyle all day, every day in different ways. And so I think like you said, finding that thing that you can do and make a habit and enjoy, that’s going to be such a high ROI thing for you as you get older.

And for women, especially, I think, thankfully, we’re rewriting some of those scripts around exercise and how for a long time, it seems like we only focused on cardio and we did only workout classes. And now we see women lifting weights and getting faster. And I love seeing that, but I kind of think of that in categories as well, you know, like low-level movement like walking, if I’m wearing a weighted vest, things like that, as much as possible, like humans are meant to do that as much as possible. I don’t even categorize that as exercise, but then adding in like those heavy lifts to really build muscle as we get older. And then same with the sprinting, like we talked about, like, I don’t think people realize even just sprinting, like max effort sprinting a few sprints twice a week is one of the best things you can do for growth hormone and for anti-aging. And it’s free if you just go find a park to do it.

Sean: Yeah. And everyone’s got a backpack and a little bit of weight. And it’s funny, one of my most favorite people is this combination, but it’s Michael Easter who wrote a couple of books and he’s really big on rucking. And when he talks about rucking, it’s the simplicity of it. Hey, man, like if you’re going to the airport, carry your bags. Like don’t use the roller bag like carry it. Like see what life used to be like but enjoy those benefits. And he’s like, you’re engaging all these muscles of your suitcases in one hand and it weighs 30 pounds, you know, you’re offset. So you have to like, you use all these different muscles to create balance there.

And it’s, it’s so simple, right? But it makes so much sense. So I love the Go Ruck backpacks because I can put my laptop in there and I can throw a 30 pound weight on top of it if I want to in separate compartments and, and just go for a walk. So I will do a lot of phone calls. And when I know I don’t have to take notes and I’m going to do more of an ideation session or, you know, like just a conversation, I will literally just go for a walk. Throw on a backpack, go for a walk. You’re in zone one, zone two. But guess what? You got 30 pounds on your back or pick a weight that works for you. And you’re doing two birds with one stone. It’s perfect.

Katie: I love that. And it seems like when it comes to actual ability, I’m actually a firm believer, like one of my goals is I want to get stronger and faster every decade of my life. I did not start out as a professional athlete, so I had an easier path there. But what it seems like to me is not that our ability changes or our ability to be strong or fast. It’s actually just that I feel like we have to become more aware of those recovery factors like you talked about. Like we can maintain our strength and our speed, but perhaps we need either a little bit more support or a little bit more time in recovering from those most intense movements. I’m curious if you find that as well and any recovery tips you have, because it seems like that is the factor as we get older that at least is important to have in our awareness a little bit more.

Sean: That’s actually a great thing to touch on because I am horrible at this. This is one of my biggest challenges that I have been working really hard to overcome. So when I look at recovery and I look at, hey, here’s my activity. What am I doing post-activity, pre-activity? Am I warming up? You know, if you’re 30 years old, you’re probably not warming up that much. But guess what? I warm up my eight-year-old kids on the soccer pitch. Well, I’m doing that because they need the warmup. Like they need to get their bodies moving. Well, it doesn’t get any shorter as you get older. You need more of that. What are you doing to get the blood flow going?

Now on the recovery side, stretching, like what parts of your body are tight? Guess what? You’re not getting any more limber when you turn 30, 40, 50, 60 years old. A really good post-activity stretching is key. And this is all free on the internet. I mean, you could say, oh, go for a run, top five post run stretches, and you’re going to get a myriad of YouTube examples to go off of. I just lifted weights and I did this thing called the deadlift. Oh, here’s a bunch of posterior chain activation activities, and here’s some recovery and stretching activities. Put 10 minutes on both sides of a big workout or a small workout and you’re covered and your body will thank you.

If you have access to the old ice bath, you know, not everyone does, but everyone’s got a shower or a bath and they’ve got the ability to make it cold. And three minutes in an ice bath or in cold water will do wonders for that recovery. I mean, I’m lucky I invested in an infrared sauna. So on off days, I will do a little, you know, hot/cold therapy. That’s getting a little bougie. Not everyone has access to that, but everyone’s got a cold shower. And that’s really all you need because take a cold shower, let your body naturally warm up to room temperature. And guess what? You just took care of a lot of inflammation issues and you’re just a little bit crisper up top.

It’s just a lot to that discipline that unleashes some great benefits because once you manage to mentally overcome the cold shower, think of what you’re capable of. And it just makes every other task a little bit easier. And isn’t that great? Like that’s completely worth it in itself. But really boils down to like get a good stretch in, activate those muscles before activity, take care of yourself after activity. Because look, you’re not a spring chicken anymore. So don’t pretend like you can’t be one. And that’s a lesson to myself I have to remember all the time.

Katie: What other things would you put in your like personal 80-20, whether it be like things you kind of just loosely hold as guidelines when it comes to optimal diet or supplements you take often and or any other lifestyle factors that are kind of your non-negotiables?

Sean: So, diet is key like it there’s this great old adage again everything’s on Google and chat gpt so go check it out around the expression that abs are made in the kitchen. So think about if we’re talking about fitness a lot and you go like, oh, yeah, I really want a good six pack or I want good defined abs. That’s always like this age-old metric of being in shape. Abs are made in the kitchen. What are you eating? What’s in your diet? I’m a big fan of the Mediterranean-based diet because it’s loose. It’s got tons of interpretation. But you’re pulling back on a bunch of seed oils. You are eating a good ratio of proteins, a ton of leafy vegetables, greens, and you’re getting from that, you know, like appropriate from nature starches, whether it be a whole grain rice, whether it be potato, sweet potato, you can do so much with that diet. So that one works well for me.

Other folks have to be strictly paleo. Some folks might respond really well to a ketogenic diet. I think keeping it simple is really important. And when you put a really hard to maintain diet in front of yourself, you’re setting yourself up for failure. So I would say try and find the simplest things that you can do.

Hey, if you don’t have a gym near your house, what do you have in your house that you can leverage and use for exercise equipment? You just need your body. A carpet maybe so it’s a little softer on your body. You can squat, you can push up, you can do sit-ups, you know, you can do mountain climbers there’s so many variations of movements you can do.

What do you put in your fridge? These are choices we make. If you can avoid processed foods, or observe that 80-20 rule, just 80% of the time. So the way I break it down is I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So I have three meals a day that I can affect the quality of what I’m putting in my body. So let’s say on Wednesday, I’m going to go out and do a team lunch with a bunch of folks at a restaurant. So I kind of know that lunch is going to be maybe in the toilet because I’m going to be with a bunch of crew and, you know. Who knows? Well, what do I do Monday and Tuesday before that? Eat a good breakfast, make sure I’m having a sound lunch, eat a quality dinner. Stack those wins so that when that lunch comes around, I don’t feel horrible that I’m going to have, you know, a couple slices of cheese pizza with the boys. And then go right back to good discipline after that.

Well, I’m going to enjoy that meal, but I’m going to really enjoy going back to eating something proper, grilled chicken, steaks, or various proteins, some good green sources, broccoli, Brussels sprouts. Pick your poison. I don’t much care as long as you’re getting good quality decisions. And by following a Mediterranean diet or pick a diet that is based in large part on a high-quality protein intake, you’re not going to fail. If you start drifting into potato chip land and processed foods, well, I can’t help you there, but you’ve been warned. Just eat sensibly and kind of shop the perimeter as the expression goes.

Katie: Yeah, I think that’s a great general guideline. And like you, I’ve gotten much less dogmatic about diet as I’ve gotten older, but I do hold to that very strict rule of I don’t eat industrial seed oils and vegetable oils. I think that’s like one universally beneficial step, no matter which kind of category of diet and lifestyle you pick, like that one seemingly is beneficial for all humans.

But I also love your advice of just like, it doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive, like work out at home, even outside, even better. You’re getting the benefits of nature at the same time. And for women, especially, I’m like, if you can put up a pull-up bar, even if you are only hanging from the pull-up bar for as long as you can each day, and you can like extend the length of time you can hang, that’s super correlated to longevity. Your grip strength is very correlated to longevity. For women, being able to do 20 pushups without stopping is like actually a great sign that you are aging well and that you’re not high risk for all-cause mortality. That’s like a great marker and you can do both of those at home. So I love the simplicity of your approach with that.

Sean: And I want to jump back in on what you were saying because, like, you can tell a woman, like, oh, you should be able to do a pull-up. And like, that could sound like you’re climbing Mount Fuji, like the hardest thing in the world to do or Mount Everest. Like what? I can’t do a pull up. But you can. Just not today.

But I’ll bet you could do one in three months if you hang that pull-up bar and you just hang from it. And you start by hanging for five seconds. But do it five times. Then go to 10 seconds. Then add a little shoulder shrug in there. Then add a shoulder shrug and bend at the elbow a little bit. And incrementally, you build yourself up. And all of a sudden, you realize that you’re lifting yourself almost to the bar. Almost a little further. And after enough practice, if nothing else, your grip strength is going to be through the roof and you’re going to realize you can hang on to that bar for over a minute or longer, but you’ll get that pull up.

Ashley Van Heutten, who goes by the, I don’t know, I think her Instagram handles Muscle Maven. She wrote a little book on, like an ebook, on teaching women how to do pull-ups. And she knew what an important marker it was. She’s like, I got to break this down so that women realize it can just do a pull-up. And knowing that that information is all out there and so attainable, I think is key. And look at if you can’t do 20 push-ups in a row, don’t worry about it. Why don’t you do them off your knees? Do five off your knees. And then I’ll bet you can do six and then seven and then eight and then nine.

And all of a sudden, you’re going to do 20 push-ups off the knees, which alleviates about, you know, 60% of the body weight. But then, move to your legs and do a full pushup. Maybe you’re only going to do three, but you’ve already set yourself up by doing 20 from the knees. Like there’s so many little ways you can kind of move yourself forward. And who doesn’t want progress? You know, like just get a little bit better than you were yesterday, just a little bit.

And then all of a sudden, if you can stick with it, again, the word discipline, well, three months down the road, you’re doing a pull-up. Three months down the road, you’re racking out a bunch of pushups. And it didn’t take that much. All you needed was a bar in your house to do those pull-ups, and you got it. And all of a sudden, grip strength has improved. And all these longevity markers are working for you.

Oh, and if you do that with that diet component, 80% of the time, you’re 80% better off. That, you know, if I have one meal a day that I affect positively, that’s a third of my life in food. If I can do it twice a day, that’s two thirds of my life in food. If I can hit all three meals, oh man, like, you know, I’m looking good on the report card. So, you know, gamify things as you need to to give yourself those challenges. Put the pull-up bar, you know, next to some spot where you’re doing a bunch of chores and just, you know, hang from it for a little while.

Katie: Yeah. My trick for that is I have one in my bathroom. So anytime I walk into my closet, I have to hang. And then we also have a climbing hangboard literally in my kitchen. And so anytime I’m like in between cooking or like, it’s just there, it’s in the way. But I read the statistic that the average number of pull-ups women can do in the U.S. is less than one. It’s zero. Basically like the, that is not common for women to be able to do pull-ups. And I think the average pushups is like two or something. It’s very low.

So I was, and I had to train hard to be able to do pull-ups. That was like a long-term training for me. It’s not, I don’t think easy for women. It doesn’t come naturally if you’re not used to that, but to your point, it’s possible. And I would love for like, you know, women to kind of change that statistic, maybe for the listeners of this podcast to be kind of defy those odds and be able to do at least one pull-up. Like how awesome would that be? All these women.

Sean: I think it’d be amazing. I mean, if you just ask yourself an honest question. What do you want to be? You know, what do you want to be in this life? Do you want to be the person who turned 40 or turned 50 and just doesn’t move as well as you used to? Or do you want to be, again, this is just a headspace thing. Do you want to be someone who’s just as active as it came naturally to yourself in your 20s? And if the answer is, boy, I’d really love it if I could run around and chase my kids and give them all that energy that I had back then. Well, then you’ve made a realization.

Next up is taking action. And then having the discipline to be consistent with that action. And it takes time. Nothing happens overnight. And there’s going to be ups and downs. And there’s going to be some low moments in there where you just feel like crap because you can’t do that pull up. And oh, my God, I listened to this podcast and they made it sound so simple to just do a pull up. And the fact is, it’s not simple.

I used to coach at a CrossFit gym, and I will never, ever forget this woman, Nancy learned her first pull-up. I think I worked with her for four months of doing pull-ups with a rubber band, like, you know, one of those tense rubber bands to assist the body weight. And she went from the thickest, widest rubber band, which practically flung her over the pull-up bar to one a little bit thinner, a little bit thinner, a little bit thinner, until eventually she stepped away from the rubber bands altogether. And it was like a major celebration when she knocked out that first pull-up. But it took months. But she was disciplined. She showed up at the gym. She came back four days a week. She was committed to the process. And if you realize that, you know, movement’s important in your life, and it truly is, then you’ll make the changes necessary to see it through.

Katie: I love that. And I love that we got to go deep on that part in this conversation today and to circle back to sort of where we began and the story of BUBS. I know you guys have other things besides just collagen, but can you walk us through what you have available and where people can find it? And I will, of course, have links in the show notes as well.

Sean: That’s awesome. Yeah. So we did start with collagen peptides and we are really, really proud of ours from a solubility standpoint, flavor, the NSF for sports certification. That’s really our foundation. Collagen, if you take one thing in life, I believe, you know, in addition to observing a proper diet, collagen peptides is it.

Second to that, we have a functional creamer based on coconut oil. So coconut oil broken into an MCT or medium chain triglyceride from coconut is really, really helpful for mental acuity, just a little bit of mental focus, and energy. Healthy fats for energy that just rocket fuel your body through the day. We have one that’s purely vegan. It’s MCT oil and tapioca starch. So those two ingredients together makes your cup of coffee really creamy or your soup. And our creamer line is just awesome because it’s loaded with those healthy fats for functional benefit.

We also have a line of electrolytes. We actually have the world’s only USDA organic electrolyte that is based on Himalayan salt, evaporated coconut water, and is both Whole30 approved, USDA organic, and is also NSF for sport certified. So we get to work with a bunch of teams in Major League Baseball that all get to drink our electrolytes which is awesome.

And one of the most fun products that we have is actually a line of organic and fair trade coffee. And the kicker on the coffee is that we test every roast every couple of weeks for mold and aflatoxin. So we make sure that we are certified mold free for all of our coffee. And we micro roast on like a two-week schedule. So we’re constantly pumping it out fresh beans because I love coffee. I will always love coffee. And if I’m going to put collagen and my creamer in coffee, we might as well make the best coffee that you can get. And we do that. It’s funny. The regions that we picked are all based on areas in the world that Glen served. So if you read the back of the bag, you’ll see that every single roast is tied to different geographic regions where Glen served his country. So kind of a fun little nod to throw in there.

Katie: I love that. And like I said, I will link to all of those in the show notes. But I love the passion and the value you have behind everything you guys create, the incredible story that led to it and everything we got to talk about today. I’m so grateful you and I finally got to connect. And thank you so much for your time today. This has been so much fun.

Sean: Katie, this has been awesome. Thanks so much for having me on.

Katie: And thank you as always for listening and for sharing your most valuable resources, your time, your energy, and your attention with us today. We’re both so grateful that you did. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.