Podcast Transcription: The Big Mac vs Salmon Debate: Why Your Bloodwork Tells the Truth About Your Diet

Ted Ryce: Have you ever told yourself, well, you pretty healthy? Or Have you ever heard someone else say that? And then they go on to describe their diet to show you how healthy it is. I'm gonna talk about why that's one of the biggest mistakes you can make. The story you tell yourself about your diet is the least important aspect of your diet. 

Don't believe me. Disagree. Well keep listening and you're probably gonna find that I'll change your mind. What is up my friend? Welcome back to the Legendary Life Podcast. I'm your host, Ted Ryce health expert and coach to executives, entrepreneurs, and other high performing professionals. And in today's episode, I'm gonna talk to you about why the story of your diet is not that important and what to focus on instead. 

And to give you some background, I. Recently made a post on Twitter. By the way, if you're ex rather, if you're not following me there, I'm, I post there every day. Uh, also, I'm gonna be doing a big push on videos on Instagram, so make sure you follow me there if you're already there. So I made a post because, uh, on, I'll start like this. 

There's an account that is like a carnivore diet account, and they mention that Hong Kong has the highest life expectancy true, and they also have the highest meat consumption per capita, which I also think is true. Whether it's true or not is not that important by the way. 'cause we're gonna be talking exactly about why this type of narrative misses the forest through the trees, if I said that correctly. 

So the claim is this. Hong Kong has the life, uh, longest life expectancy because they eat the most meat. And then I countered that and someone said, it doesn't matter if you eat Big Macs or salmon if you exercise and don't drink. So this gets into this food quantity versus food quality debate. But here's the nuance no one is talking about, or we're gonna get into the nuance that nobody's talking about. 

Today I'm gonna show you why relying on the story of your diet is one of the biggest mistakes you can make and what actually determines your health and longevity. So look, people love to romanticize their way of eating carnivore, vegan, Mediterranean. The reality is this, calories are the primary driver of how healthy your diet is. 

I know that a lot of you are like, is that true? I wanna give you this at the extremes. It's 100% true. For example, Google starvation. What is starvation? People don't have enough calories to eat. If you don't have enough calories to eat from any source, you will die. Do you understand? You will die? I don't think you do because Americans who are. 

The biggest listeners of this show have never usually even come close to starvation. I only did in Cambodia where I saw people who didn't have enough to eat, but people literally still today, in 2025, don't have enough to eat. And it is the biggest argument for having processed foods, by the way, is to get enough calories to people who are food insecure or as, as the term is, or don't have enough to eat. 

Right, they're starving because if you don't get enough to eat while you're young, you can actually have brain development issues, meaning your brain is screwed. There's nothing science can do for you, nothing doctors can do for you. You're screwed. On the converse, uh, on the other side of that is too many calories from any source leads to fat gain. 

And if you, uh, have too much fat, no matter how healthy the food sound, if you're eating acai super bowls, right, super food acai super. Oh man, I'm like too excited about this topic. Eating acai from Brazil where I am right now actually. We're eating, um, you know, butter from a small organic farm in Vermont and coconut that's flown in from Thailand. 

It doesn't matter, or ribeye, avocado and olive oil. They can all still make you fat if you're eating too much, too many calories from those sources relative to how many calories you output. From your daily activity, et cetera, you're gonna get fat. It's going to cause metabolic dysfunction. You are not gonna be healthy. 

So what really drives health? Leanness, low, visceral fat, and activity. Okay. The strongest predictor of health and longevity, it's VO two max, which is how do you develop a high VO two max through cardiovascular exercise? How do you develop, uh, some of that's genetic too, by the way. Also leg strength. How do you develop strength in your legs? 

Well, you train them. How do you, what about grip strength? Another marker. A strongest predictor of health and longevity. Again, according to the data grip strength. How do you do that? Well, you train your upper body. Whether you're, whether it's by manual labor, like being a farmer in the old, old days, right. 

To, uh, getting into the gym and lifting weights. So look, Hong Kong has high meat consumption. Yes. But more importantly, they have low obesity rates, higher activity. They have the highest number of steps recorded out of a study of 111 countries. So the average steps for the person in Hong Kong, 6,800, the average steps for an American is like four to 5,000. 

Now that might seem like a small difference, maybe 1800 to 2,800 steps, but it's huge. So the takeaway is it's not the food story, it's the context. And so I want to talk to you about the power of data over stories. So saying I eat pretty healthy. It's meaningless. It's meaningless. You think it's, it's meaningful. 

And that's okay. But what actually matters is getting data. So when we're talking about data, what are we talking about? Well, you can go get a DEXA scan. That's what I have my clients do. And what do you learn from a DEXA scan? You learn someone's body fat percentage. Not all DEXA scans will do this, but you can, many DEXA scans will measure visceral fat. 

If you go get a DEXA scan, you'll have to ask them, Hey, does this measure visceral fat? 'cause that's what I'd like. And it also measures lean mass. It also measure, measure your bone mass density as well, which is also important. Just kind of outside the context of what we're talking about today. So getting a body fat scan, Dex is gonna be the gold standard, but you can also do a BOD pod. 

You can do bio impedance like an InBody, but get your measurements done. And even if you don't want to do that, you can even do your BMI and BMI guys who lift weights. Love to say it's not important. But it's pretty, it's pretty on point. I don't like using it because there are better options, but you gotta pay, you gotta find a place to get a DEXA scan or some other type of body fat scan. 

And, uh, that costs time and money. It's worth it, but it, it takes time to do. And sometimes it's hard to even find a body fat scan. The next thing though, that you're already doing, if you go to the doctor is getting your, your labs done. What's your fasting glucose? What's your hemoglobin A1C? Both of those are what your doctors should be doing in your blood work, and those are markers of your blood sugar. 

The health of your, let's say your, how do I say it? Fasting glucose measures the amount of blood sugar circulating in your system. After a 12 hour fast, which it should be under a hundred. And if it's over a hundred, it's like you got problems, major problems. Hemoglobin A1C is a long-term marker of blood sugar elevation. 

So fasting glucose is like, Hey, after a 12 hour fast and you go in and get your blood taken, what is the amount of glucose in your blood at that time where hemoglobin A1C measures elevated blood sugar or blood sugar levels? Over the course of a three or four month time period. So while fasting glucose can show what's going on today, you can look at hemoglobin A1C to look at what's been going on over the past few months, how elevated has it been over the past few months, and if that's, if that's five point, it's measured in percentages. 

So if it's like 5.7 or higher, you're in trouble. You're on your way to diabetes. You're, uh, I believe that's on the verge, if not pre-diabetic. In fact, I'll look it up right now. So. Get your he hemoglobin A1C, and it should be less than 5.7%. If it's 5.7 to 6.4%, you're pre-diabetic. If it's 6.4% or higher, you are a diabetic. 

And why is it important to get this? Well, I had a client who doctor wasn't giving him, wasn't testing his hemoglobin. A1C. And his blood sugar, his fasting glucose was elevated. I think it was like one 10, maybe one 20 high. But the doctor didn't really do much about it or say much about it. Then he got his hemoglobin A1C tested when I ran his blood work and we ran a bunch of other tests as well. 

And it was clear he was pre-diabetic. His hemoglobin A1C was in the six, I forget what it was, six point. 'cause this was a couple years ago. It was in the low six, uh, low six percentage or how, however you'd say it, it was like 6.2 or something like that. He wasn't diabetic, but he was in the 6%, which is really high. 

And then I asked him like, Hey, do you have a history of diabetes in your family? He's like, yeah, my mom's diabetic. I'm like, oh my gosh, your doctor's not doing anything for you. And he also told himself that he ate pretty well. Yeah, he'd have a couple beers and a pizza and a subway. Uh, not a subway, but a sub sandwich. 

And some, you know, he would eat some sandwiches, but he felt like in general, his diet was pretty healthy. When we ran his labs, it was like, dude, you're nowhere near me. Healthy is not a word to describe. You are nowhere near that. Okay. Pre-diabetic blood sugar levels. It, it's like you're about to crash into your, your train is, is is about to fall off the tracks. 

Okay? There's nothing healthy about that at all, regardless of what the diet or what you're eating. Right? And we can also say, regardless of the food choices. Your food choices are driving this. Uh, you know, these, these levels, and I should add this. There is some. Genetic variability here. Okay? And that's why you need to get your your blood tests done because some people might have the same diet as this guy, but they don't have the high fasting glucose and high and pre-diabetic hemoglobin A1C levels. 

And you should also be having a full lipid panel. You should know what your apo, lipoprotein B is your LDL cholesterol, your lipoprotein A, and your HDL cholesterol. Those are all things you should know. And again, if those aren't optimal, then you need to do something about it because your lifestyle, your diet and your exercise program are not working for you unless they've been, you've been taking your, uh, data over time and they've improved. 

By the way, I wanna mention lipoprotein a. Typically that's not tested for, but it's, what would you call it? It is an independent marker of heart disease risk, and it's less affected by diet. It's more affected by genetics, but it's something that you need to know other things you can test blood pressure of the O2 max. 

Calcium score. These are all things that tell you what direction your health is going. What is it right now, what direction your health is going in. So I wanna talk about this Big Mac versus salmon because I agree to some extent with that guy. It's like exercise and low body fat are the biggest levers, but again, Indo individuals respond differently. 

There are people on keto who eat high amounts of saturated fat and their LDL cholesterol and. Apro, uh, APA lipoprotein B are not elevated, and other people, they'll be elevated. So that's why blood work matters. It's not Big Mac versus salmon. It's like what does the food do to you? What does your diet do to you? 

So let's move away from, let's move out of the dark Ages where we tell ourselves a story about what we're eating, and look at the data. Look at the data and look. If you're a high performer, you need clarity, not diet dogma. Your health is way too important to gamble on stories or fads. So the real winning move here is to sure, eat whatever diet you want, track the data, optimize for body composition, and adapt your nutrition based on physiology, not belief. 

Okay? Physiology, not belief data, not your feelings. So stop telling yourself stories about what you, what you eat. Start looking at your data, and if you're ready to drop the guesswork and finally, master your health with evidence, not opinions. Head over to legendary like podcast.com/apply, and let's book a call to talk about your health and how to optimize it with a combination of both exercise, nutrition, as well as stress management, sleep optimization supplements, which we didn't even talk about today, right? 

So look, you can make major changes in your health. It's not your age that's causing the problems. Definitely age has an effect on your health. A negative one. The older you get, the worse your health, right? But it is not the main driver. It's mostly your, it's mostly what you do and there's a lot you can do. 

So that's this. That's what I want to leave you with. And again, you want some help getting fast results. And again, this is only for executives, entrepreneurs, and high performing professionals like attorneys, doctors, consultants, et cetera. Go to legendary life podcast.com/apply and let's hop on a call. 

That is it for me. Hope you learned a lot. What will you do different after listening to this episode? That's what I'd love to know. Look me up on social media. Have a great one, and talk soon.