Protein Powder Pitfalls Guest: Michael Morelli, CPT

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1 Protein Powder Pitfalls Guest: Michael Morelli, CPT The purpose of this presentation is to convey information. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure your condition or to be a substitute for advice from your physician or other healthcare professional. Ian: Welcome to the Medicinal Supplements Summit! This is Ian Clark. And with more than 10 years of significant involvement in the supplement industry, it is my pleasure to join Wendy Myers as a co-host to interview the most knowledgeable experts in the high-level wellness space. The purpose for this summit is to provide you with the top information you require to make intelligent decisions when it comes to your personal supplement choices. Anyone who plans to live a long healthy life will be consuming natural supplements so you ll want to take full advantage of all the information shared in this summit. Well, let s get started. And I m here today with Michael Morelli, the founder of Morelli Fit, who has always been involved in fitness. But the journey to where he is now is an uncommon one. As someone who had all his life prized a lean, athletic body, he wasn t able to conjure up anything to say from the weight, stress, and pressure of running a business. In this dark period to cope, Michael turned to alcohol, drugs, and questionable behavior, that not only wrecked his physique, but nearly his life in the process. But the birth of his daughter changed his outlook. This made him get his act together and seek a healthier, happier, more productive life. He applied his hard work ethics and completed five fitness certifications in under six months. Through that research and his real-world training examples, Michael created the product he is known for, HIIT Max in May And in just 18 short months, he has served through his unique brand of fat loss, HIIT training, to over 140,000 people worldwide. Live to 110 LLC. All rights reserved. 1

2 He is the author of a new revolutionary new carb cycling book called The Sweet Potato Diet and has launched his own highly researched supplement line. The core of the supplement line, Superior Protein, is so clean, so tasty, and so pure, and also easy to digest, nothing comes even close. His hashtag # ItsTheOnlyWhey. So, Michael, welcome to this summit. And I m looking forward to sharing some cool information with you today. Michael: Yeah, thanks for having me, Ian. I really appreciate it. Ian: So the one thing that really stood out when it came to your understanding and knowledge was the proper way to use proteins, what the best type of protein is, how much should people be taking. What level of discernment do they need that you can share with us in order for us to make the intelligent decisions when it comes to all the different types of proteins that are on the marketplace? Michael: Yeah. Absolutely. So, Ian, everyone s different. While, I m going to give you a rule of thumb with regards to intake, it s very important that everyone does their own research. You see protein requirements, daily protein requirements can change based on goals, based on training style. What we found is that endurance athletes need less protein, less daily protein than let s say someone who does a lot of strength training or competition weight training. Before somebody even starts to take a look at their daily protein requirements, it s important also to look at what s out on the market because there are a lot of different proteins. And the supplement industry is huge. It s billions of dollars every single year. The marketers are doing their job to get you to buy their protein and so they say anything and everything to convince you that theirs is the best, the cleanest. They use words like maximal and triple this and high octane and all these different words to make you feel like their products are superior. What I teach my community is to look at the labels. The more artificial flavors, the more fillers, the more dyes, all that stuff, I teach my following to absolutely steer clear from because what we know is, is that protein is great. But if your body can t absorb it because of the fillers and all the other components that go into making it cheaper for the manufacturer Let s say your body can t absorb and utilize it the way that it should or could if you decided to use a more pure Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved. 2

3 version like an isolate, for say. And I ll go through the bioavailability a little bit. Ian: Coming right out of the gate, that s number one front central. Great info. And I m really interested to hear how you got to that place, why you are at that level versus all of the other people because you have a completely different approach from anybody I ve met when it comes to this. Michael: Yeah. So here s what I found. I built my following on Instagram starting about three and a half years ago from my mom s basement. It was a dark time, as you mentioned in the intro. I started posting in Instagram. I started to listen to the community. I found out what people were taking and consuming. And I started getting messages from kids that are 18 years old. I got a message from a kid yesterday, for example. He s 15 years old, Ian. And he said to me, I m on this mass weight gainer. I m not going to name any brands. But he s on this mass weight gainer. He s on a glutamine. He s on a fat burner. He s on a BCA. He s on like six different supplements. And he s like 15 years old. And I m thinking to myself, Oh, my gosh, you re wreaking havoc on your body at such a young age. And first of all, I don t recommend supplements of any kind to a teenager at 15 years old. I recommend that you eat your mom s food. You eat whole food, lots of meat and potatoes at 15, using your mom s money. And so that s what I told him. But the reasons why I dove in to protein as the foundation for my supplement line is because I found out what these kids were consuming. They re consuming all of these different lines and they ve got all of this crap in them. I said, You know what? I m going to create a brand that not only I can be proud of, that I can drink, that I can give my kids occasionally when they want a sip of daddy s shake, and then lastly, that I can start promoting and moving these teenagers, these young kids who don t know any better, off of the crap that they re taking. Ian: That is a great motivation. I m amazed at what is going on out there, for sure. And giving the kid the advice to eat mom s food is the best thing you could have told him. And letting that body go through adolescence is a big thing. I think that people get pretty screwed up by the peer pressure to have six-pack abs at 15 or 16. Not that they can t, they could. But how do they go about doing it? And looking for short cuts at that young age. Wow! Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved. 3

4 Michael: Yeah, I agree. It kills me to read those messages. I m like, You re 15, go out and run around. Go play football. Lift weights. Be careful, even doing that at 15. Society and now the presence of social media and all the various platforms and all of your favorite athletes and your influencers who are taking pictures and selfies in the abs and they re doing their photo shoots, and all these things have serious ramifications. And if you don t bring in another voice to say, Hey, listen, first of all, love yourself and love your body. It s a process, I think that there s serious ramifications long term for these kids. Ian: Right. And anybody at any age, if they re putting something into their system, as you pointed out, that is substandard, the body has to deal with all that crap. You re spending money on something that s supposed to be a huge benefit to you. But at the same time, you re getting hammered by something that your body doesn t want and wasting your money at the same time. So when it comes to assimilation, do you recommend anything for taking enzymes when you re doing proteins to make sure you re digesting them properly, getting the maximum benefit? What are your thoughts around those things? Michael: Yeah, I do recommend a digestive enzyme for people that have a pretty substantial protein intake. I want to go back to the bioavailability because people don t understand this concept, at least most people don t. When you are talking bioavailability, what we re talking about is our body s ability to absorb and utilize the nutrients, the protein in this case. And so when you look at the bioavailability score, at 154 the top is a whey protein isolate. And that s in terms of a bioavailability standpoint. Yet, that s superior than beef and chicken and eggs. Now, you come down to like a 104, which is next, which is the concentrate, which is a whey concentrate and then next is eggs and then you ve got some dairy and you ve got beef and your chicken. And way down, I m sorry to say vegans, way down at like a 54, a 49, 54, you ve got pea protein and you ve got rice protein, which are the two proteins that I suggest, as a vegan, I suggest those two over like soy and some of the other things. Bioavailability is really important to understand because you re spending $50, $60 on a tub of protein, and you ve got all these fillers and crap in it. It just Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved. 4

5 decreases the bioavailability. And you re not absorbing and utilizing the protein that you re paying big money for. Ian: Yeah, that s the whole key. And the reason for this entire summit is that people are responsible with their own budget on making sure they re getting the biggest return on their investment. And we just see it over and over again, any supplement, you look at the label. And a lot of them have excipients in it that shouldn t be there. They re used for flow agents and fillers and making manufacturing smoother instead of really getting it dialed in. We see this over and over again and definitely the same applies to the protein industry. In fact, I think the Musclehead industry is one of the worst offenders when it comes to this stuff because they know the guys don t even care or the girls don t care enough to read that label clear. They just go by the marketing hype. And you re in here to save that from happening. And that s a big deal. So my hope for you is that you get to millions of people that follow you. You ve already got great traction in short time you ve been doing this online. And I think you re really going to catch a huge wave here. Michael: Yeah, and we re seeing it. Now we re getting messages back. And one of the other things that we do, and not to go too far off because we re talking about protein, but for pre-workouts, you ve got all these kids on pre-workouts. And I do coffee. I do black coffee or a double shot of espresso about 20 minutes before I work out. And I ve got my own coffee line. And now, what we re doing is it s another thing, I m trying to move people off of these pre-workouts, these harmful pre-workouts. And I m getting messages now from teenagers who are like, I never knew that coffee could do that. And we re opening the eyes of young kids. I got a 16 or 17-year-old snapping me yesterday who s drinking kombucha. What 15 or 16-year-old knows that stuff? It s refreshing to see the engagement and the interaction from the community as they grasp and understand that their body is a temple. And it s about real heath first. Ian: Right. Yeah, that s right. Fitness is the number one component of overall health. Eating right is the second most important thing. Now, that we re on the subject a little bit, what are your thoughts on CLA in combination with your coffee for the pre-workout? Michael: Yeah. So I go back and forth with CLA, also known as conjugated linoleic acid. I ve tried many different forms of it. I won t name any brands. I Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved. 5

6 didn t see the benefits. For me, the benefits didn t outweigh the cost associated with it. I believe that some L-carnitine in the morning will do much more good for you. What we re finding now, if you look at some of the studies, is that CLA isn t all that it s cracked out to be. It s a marketing play, in my opinion. Ian: Interesting. Yeah, there was a professor in the University of Edmonton years ago who patented the extract from the safflower oil and then sold that to Melaleuca, which is a big MLM. And then they touted it as the ultimate thing for adenosine blocking. And it s interesting that you ve been on the ground checking it out. Definitely the L-carnitine is super powerful and important. So that brings us into a different level of approach and discussion. What are your thoughts along amino acids like master amino acid profile where people are supplementing for the same thing that a protein would give being converted to amino acids? Michael: I think amino acids are essential. We know that there are essential amino acids and then there are non-essential. I believe in a BCAA supplement. I take a BCAA supplement intra-workout. I just posted a video on six things that BCAAs are responsible for. We don t even realize how much or how important BCAAs are. We developed custom carb cycles for our community. And we ve done almost 40,000 in the last 18 months. But we actually design custom nutrition based on your BMR, your TE, your goals, your activity level. A low-carb day brings someone in a caloric deficit. And what we ve found is that BCAAs actually tend to ward off hunger on those days. So you ve got that and you ve got all of the other extension to the rate of perceived exertion while you re training and then obviously the rebuild, the regeneration. So I m a big fan of BCAAs, for sure. Ian: When it comes to protein intake or amount you should be taking per day, obviously it s going to depend upon the quality and the bioavailability, but in your experience with the development you ve done in your product line and telling people, if depending on obviously on how much they re working out, as well as what their goals are, what is the average of a guy like myself who s, like I m into fitness, but I m not into bodybuilding, what would the average person want to consume of the highest grade protein per day? Michael: Yeah. So I give a sliding scale of.8 to 1.2 grams per pound of body weight. There are various sliding scales. That s the one that we ve used. That s Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved. 6

7 the one that we ve had success with. Maybe someone like yourself who s not really into bodybuilding, maybe.8 grams per pound of body weight. Now, the tricky thing is this. If someone comes to me and they re above 25% body fat, then we tag that to lean body mass. Because if you ve got somebody that comes to you, and we ve got obese clients all the time, if you ve got somebody coming to you that s 300 pounds or 350 pounds, and you say, Hey, I need you to eat 350 grams of proteins or more, if you use the 1.2, that s a lot for somebody. It s very important, when you get up into those other thresholds that you peg it to lean body mass. Now, obviously you know training and bioavailability also make a difference, and then timing. I believe, based on what I ve read, that protein post-workout especially weights, is important. We know that protein increases muscle protein synthesis and your body is most receptive to amino acids and protein post-workout. Now, that sensitivity goes down over time. Do you have to rush and get it in the 30-minute window? Not necessarily. But you want to get it in as soon as you can. Ian: As far as the morning, like when you wake up in the morning, what is your routine traditionally look like and where do you fit in exercise? Michael: I train at about two o clock in the afternoon. This is just what I found that works for my schedule. But I get up. I pound a glass of water or two. I ve got a few supplements and lot of brain support stuff that I take in the morning. Then I have either a shake with some greens and some powerful antioxidants. Or I have sweet potatoes and eggs. And then I go about my day. In the morning, I take chlorella. And I take spirulina. And I take turmeric. And I take black pepper. So I m pretty in tuned with some of the other supplements that go along with it. We re talking about protein. About an hour before my workout, I m having carbs and protein. Sometimes that can be in the form of a shake. Post-workout, I have another protein and carbohydrates. And we can talk about consumption post-workout if you d like? Ian: Yeah, that d be very cool. When should a person stop consuming? How much time before you re done consuming and the start of the workout? Michael: So it really depends on the person. Some people can handle food in their body right up until their workout. For me, I like to leave about an hour Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved. 7

8 in between my last meal and my workout. And then I usually try to get a meal in, carbohydrates and protein, no fat, post-workout, within about an hour. Ian: Now, is all of your training pretty much high intensity? Michael: Well, no. So I look at high-intensity interval training as like HIIT. So it s periods of or bursts of high-intensity exercise followed by slower periods of exercise or quick pauses over a 15 to 20-minute span. While I do incorporate that, the workouts that I was just mentioning were more high protein-based workouts, so more dumbbells, more free weights, lots of stuff to grow the muscles. Ian: Now, let s talk about post-workout. Michael: So rule of thumb for somebody post-workout is four to one or three to one ratio protein to carbs. Now, that s just a rule of them and an approximation. What we have found is that 20 to 48 grams of protein postworkout are a good place for most people. Now, you ve got the bodybuilders and you ve got the extremists. And they re going to need more than 48 grams. But 20 to 48 grams of a nice isolate with some carbohydrates is perfect postworkout because what we know post-workout is that it s the carbohydrates that shuttle the nutrients into the muscle. So it s very, very important to have carbohydrates. No matter what time you go to bed, it s very important to have carbohydrates post-workout. And people are like, Well, I work out late and should I still have the carbohydrates? Yes. Yes. How many depends on your goals, depends on how late it is. But you always have to have some carbohydrate post-workout. Ian: All right. Excellent. Now, where should people go online to get the most value from your knowledge in this regard? And I know you re on different social media platforms. What s your favorite and where should people go? Michael: So my favorite is Snapchat. I hang out on Snapchat all day, every day. My personal Snapchat is Morelli s World. And then our brand is Morelli Fit. So just like I m on Snapchat as Morelli s World, I m also on our team Snapshot page where you ll see a number of athletes who take over on a daily basis to share their day and recipes and so on and so forth. And that s Morelli Fit. And then the website is MorelliFit.com. That s where we post two or three blogs every single week. We ve got a YouTube channel. We re always talking Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved. 8

9 about something new, something fresh. It s always backed by the real health piece. I don t sell fat burners in my supplement line. There s things that I stay away from because they don t embody the real health perspective that I believe this world so desperately needs. Ian: So that s where it is. It s Morelli. So make sure you get the two L s in there, MorelliFit.com. You ll definitely find Michael on this social media platform. Just type in his name. I think you re the only one out there in this space that I ve seen. As soon as I typed your name in, I see you right away. So you ve done great work getting yourself optimized online. Michael: Appreciate it. Thank you. Ian: And is there any other recommendations you can give? Now, do you hav e your own product line? So that s going to be found online, as well? Michael: Yeah, if you go to MorelliFit.com, you ll find our protein. You ll find our BCAAs. We ve got our brain support supplement. We re extending the line slowly, again being really careful. We re doing a lot of proprietary formulas, lots of herbs, and lots of things that again, I think we need. I believe we need. Ian: Yeah, I appreciate the fact that you re patient with it because we were the same way. It took us 10 years to develop our line. And we have a very small line, even now. We re not in your space. We let guys like you do the top-level in your space. But where we live in the functional foundational like nanonutrients and micronutrients, it took a long time. And we just had to keep the filer really tight because there s no point in bringing something in just because it s trending or there s a whole bunch of money to be made out it. Let everybody else do that. Michael: Yeah, it s short lived. And you guys are honest. You re setting the bar. You guys are the bar, as far as I m concerned in your space. Ian: Well, I appreciate that, Michael. Yeah, it s been a long road and it s been a lot of fun. So it s only going to get better in to the future. Is there anything else that you d like to add in right now that you think would be a good close off or are you pretty much summed it up? Michael: I think we ve summed it up. I think it s important when people go in to fitness that there are patience, that they understand that just like anything else, you get good at fitness and supplements and all these things through Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved. 9

10 repetition. When I started four years ago, I didn t know anything and it was very scary. And I know how that can be. And oftentimes, we don t get started in fitness or supplementation because we think it s so scary or the fear of doing something wrong or putting something in our body that doesn t gel. And it s important I think to read your labels, go for the products with as few ingredients as possible, even if you have to sacrifice taste a little bit. Now, you ll find we didn t sacrifice taste. We actually figured out through two years of trial and error on how to master the isolate, five total ingredients and killing it on the taste. And so I just think be patient, understand it s going to take repetition to be really good at anything, including health and wellness. Ian: Beautiful. Discernment is key, get the hat on and make sure that people are wearing their thinking caps very clearly. And I appreciate you sharing all this great info. And there s lots more that you re going to bring out. So, everybody, connect with Michael online as much as you can. And he s got a tremendous free information, as well as the definitive products where you re going to get the best bang for your buck. So thank you again, Michael. And we ll wrap it up for now. Michael: Ian, thanks so much for having me! Look forward to the future. Take care! Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved. 10

Episode 6: Can You Give Away Too Much Free Content? Subscribe to the podcast here.

Episode 6: Can You Give Away Too Much Free Content? Subscribe to the podcast here. Hey everybody! Welcome to episode number 6 of my podcast. Today I m going to be talking about using the free strategy