You know, when I was younger, I would eat every three hours because that was kind of the trend. And now, I probably eat once a day. Once per day. All right, let's break down Frank Gorillo's diet that he uses to stay absolutely shredded at 58 years old. The dude looks incredible and he kind of explains a lot of interesting things that he does here and a lot of interesting philosophies that maybe aren't so mainstream.
But clearly it works for the dude because at 58 he legitimately looks like he's probably in his 30s, at least his physique does. So let's go ahead and break this down a little bit more. And after today's video, I put a link down below for Create Creatine Gummies. Yes, they're gummies, but they're sweetened with allulose. So you're not having a giant sugar bomb of a gummy, right?
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And that link is in the the top line of the description underneath this video, so make sure you check them out. I mean, when I'm not on a movie set, you know, I'll wake up about 5.30. Sometimes I have my kids with me, so I'll have to make them breakfast and lunch.
But I usually get up early and I have my Bulletproof coffee, which is some ghee and some collagen protein and stuff, and that's basically my meal. Okay, interesting. Now, the Bulletproof coffee thing is not as popular now in 2024. I'd be curious if Frank is still doing that. I have some mutual friends with Frank, so I reached out to him.
I'm trying to get him on the channel. Let me know if you'd actually like to see that. I think we'd have a lot to chat about. So it's not really intermittent fasting, technically, if you're having the Bulletproof coffee.
Just want to put that out there. That being said, people that are metabolically healthy. Get some solid benefit out of this.
The thing with Bulletproof Coffee is I don't think that people that are metabolically unhealthy or very overweight should just be doing this for the sake of doing it. In my opinion, the way Frank is doing it is the way to do it. It almost becomes a breakfast replacement.
But make no mistake, you're still fasting, right? You have the butter, the ghee. I like that he mentions ghee. Ghee is butter without the milk solids.
And it is rich in what are called short-chain fatty acids. So there's evidence that it could be good for your gut. in that sense by helping support the short-chain fatty acids that normally produce after the microbiome has kind of had its way with fiber.
So you're almost like streamlining that process. That being said, a little bit of collagen in the coffee. I mean you're getting some protein but you're not really having high amounts of leucine so you're not breaking a fast.
But the calories, I mean you're probably talking 200, 300, 400 calories depending on how much fat you're putting in that coffee. That being said, my brain always lit up but I was much more of a fan of using MCT oil and a small amount of ghee. and leaning heavier into the MCT. I got more of a brain boost out of it. And the evidence is there for MCT oil on the brain.
The evidence is not really there for ghee and butter in the brain. Not saying it's bad, but the evidence is stronger with the MCT oil. Anyhow, that's his typical breakfast.
I don't know if I'd recommend doing that all the time, maybe a couple of days per week, because that's a pretty light breakfast, if you want to call it a breakfast. Either way, it's working for him, clearly. Then I go to the gym for two and a half hours. All right, not everyone has the luxury of going to the gym for two and a half hours, but I appreciate the fact that he's not like trying to have this pre-workout carb meal. He's just going straight to the gym and he's working out early and he's getting it done somewhat close to fasted state.
And then an hour after that, I'll probably do a little bit of protein shake, but light, not, you know, a 16 ounce gulp shake that I always often see people drinking. That's interesting. He keeps it really light post-workout.
I know a lot of guys, like he mentions, that want to load up the calories post-workout. All that really matters is where you land at the end of the day. That's really the main part, okay? The whole carb backloading thing only matters if you're ultra depleted, okay? But the whole calories like right after a workout, you don't get into this magical state where you like can incinerate extra calories because you just worked out.
The law of compensation there is not what we think. It's going to be extrapolated throughout the course of the day. and that's when it's going to matter. Maybe even the course of the week, because I could go train hard, be in a deficit like a mad dog today, and overeat a little bit tomorrow, and probably come out in the same spot as if I were to try to load a bunch of calories right after my workout. As a matter of fact, I might even put myself in more of a deleterious state for building muscle and burning fat if I like overloaded food right after my workout.
So I like that he just keeps it light. He basically just stops the muscle breakdown. He stops the catabolism, stops that, gets some protein in the system, and then moves along. And then I'll wait till about 5 o'clock. So he's not eating until 5?
It's interesting is that he's not actually fasting. He's just doing ridiculously low calorie until like five. So he eats like one actual meal, which we're about to find out what it is. But really, he's having like bulletproof coffee, a quick protein shake, and then doesn't eat till the end of the day.
So we're talking about probably here a pretty extreme deficit until we find out what he's actually eating. Again, it's working for the dude. He looks incredible and he's super, super active. I have some beliefs that you could override some of the caloric deficit thing.
as long as you're keeping your body in motion, right? If you were calorically in a deficit and sitting on your bum all day watching Netflix, that's a different ballgame than if you're like restricting calories, but you're still putting your body through motion. I'm a firm believer without a ton of science to back it up that a body in motion stays in motion and that the more you use it, the less you lose it. And then I'll wait till about five o'clock and I'll have an eight ounce piece of fish or beef, a ton of salad, lettuce, and some avocado. And then I go to bed at like 8.30 or 9 o'clock.
Okay, so he's eaten his meal three hours before bed. That's amazing. He's not eating much though.
So I'm inclined to think there might be a little bit more there that we're missing. But essentially, he's doing one meal a day. Maybe his proportions or his portions, excuse me, are not like what he thinks they are. Because eight ounces of steak or eight ounces of fish, I mean, you're talking maybe a few hundred calories. You're talking greens and avocado.
I mean, his calories based on my count here are probably like 1,200 to 1,500. And he's training two hours a day. He's got to have some other stuff coming in. So my guess is that maybe there's some like additional fats that are making its way into that meal, or maybe he's going with a ribeye and he's getting fattier cuts.
There is evidence now that one meal a day type diets work just fine as long as your calories are where they are. He also is, there's a chance that his metabolic rate has just slowed so much as far as what he requires to eat. Full disclaimer, I don't eat that much.
I probably eat like 2,500 calories a day, but for a guy that's 185, 190, runs as much as I do, lifts as much as I do, that's pretty low. But if I overeat, I don't really gain fat. I just thrive in that lower range when I feel more mentally optimized. And he's an actor, so he's got to use his head. But very low carb, so he's definitely in a ketogenic state in combination with this one meal a day type thing.
Let's keep listening. So it's boring, but if I kind of stray too far from that, I don't feel well. I do like drinking wine, so there's that. All right.
I mean, you got to have your vices where you have your vices. A lot of the newer evidence does suggest that like no amount of alcohol is good for longevity. However, he is clearly fit and I think a little bit of wine is probably doing him just fine. I'm not worried about that. He says his diet is boring.
I mean it is. Whether or not there are other things coming into his diet that we're unaware of because this is one snapshot interview, the guy is realistically probably between five and seven percent body fat at his age. our caloric needs kind of go down as we get older.
But one thing that does go up as we get older is our need for protein because our rates of muscle protein synthesis decline and our rates of muscle protein breakdown increase. So after age 40, training becomes so much more important, but you almost have to 1.5x the amount of protein you were taking in when you were 30, when you're 50, right? So you got to increase that protein.
So that'd be one concern for Frank is if he wants to keep up the training he's doing, I'd encourage him to increase that protein a little bit more, maybe just... even stick with that one meal a day protocol, but double the protein intake, and then just maybe eat it a tad earlier so you have time to digest before bed. A couple of years ago, I did a movie called Boss Level with Mel Gibson. I was kind of like an action figure in a game. So next, he goes into what he did when he trained for a specific role and talks about his diet then.
It's kind of interesting to hear his insights here. I trained twice a day for five months with my trainer, and I ate every three hours. Lots of chicken and steak.
I put on about 20 pounds of muscle, which it's taken me about two and a half years to get back to a place where I'm starting to feel normally. Interesting. So clearly he's a hyper responder, right? You do have these people that are just genetically gifted. They eat their protein, they increase that protein and they're just off to the races and they just gain more muscle.
So he ate chicken every three hours and he put on 20 to 25 pounds of muscle. I mean, who knows? how much other stuff was going on, what the training looked like. Two and a half hours, it's a lot of training, he said. But it took him a couple of years.
So he is one of these people that responds well to a lower intake diet. Like people like that just exist and you might be one of those people and that's okay. But just know that if you do have surpluses, it's going to be a bigger lever, right?
So think of it like this. It's called energy flux. If you have more energy moving through a system, if I eat 10,000 calories a day, but burn 10,000 calories a day, If I accidentally go overboard 500 calories, it's a small blip on the radar.
But if I eat 1500 calories per day and I go over 500 calories, that's a whole third of my calorie intake that I just increased. So I'm going to gain more weight. So he is so dialed, he probably doesn't have to worry about it. But for regular people, bringing your calories down this low could be...
Very scary because the moment you slip up, your body's adjusted to a lower caloric intake and you're going to just gain that back. Dr. Tommy Wood put it well for me. He's like, Thomas, you're such a machine that your body probably just incinerates and disposes of extra calories. That's probably the case of what happens with Frank, right? Like he is in such a deficit all the time, but his body thrives on that.
When he overeats, his body's just like, get it out, boom. And it moves out because it's happening as such an anomaly compared to like... someone that has a slow metabolism but is metabolically unhealthy or sedentary. I mean, it was similar.
I was lifting a lot of weights. All of us lifted a lot of weights. Who could outdo the next guy? With Evans and Mackey and all these guys are ego-driven, young bucks.
So just lots of quality proteins. I don't like to eat. I'm not a good chewer. And so it's difficult, you know, every three hours to stuff food in your face.
I like eating the things I like to eat, but to eat frequently is just a chore for me. That's where I agree. I agree with the guy. Like, I'm a busy person. And one thing that I've noticed is as people get older, eating does become more of a chore.
I used to really enjoy eating and I still enjoy food, but the act of eating annoys me. It's like I have better things to do with my time. And I know a lot of people that are getting up there.
Even though it's over 40, they're busy and being able to consolidate meals just makes more sense and it reduces the sort of brain damage that comes with having to think about it all the time. So I relate and I understand and I'm here to tell you that these methods work. You just have to make sure you're eating enough in those short condensed blocks. Next up, he's asked if he counts macros, proteins, fats, and carbs, which I think is kind of interesting.
Let's see what he says. No, no, I don't count anything. I don't step on scales.
I just, I kind of know what my body needs. I'm also not one of those guys who walks around with a gallon jug of water. I believe people over hydrate themselves, which is not the greatest thing either. So... I drink when I'm training and then I drink when I'm thirsty.
I don't kind of just force myself to drink water all the time. That's interesting. I am not a fan of counting macros unless you are getting down to a granular. I will do it every now and then to just see where I'm at, but he just listens to his body, which is something that some people cannot do if you're not finally in tune with it. But the water thing, I want to highlight this.
I do think that hydration is critical. There was a study that demonstrated that 500 milliliters of water can actually increase metabolic rate by up to 25% for 60 minutes after that. So you can burn more fat by drinking more water, but you also dilute and demineralize.
You sort of flush out minerals. I think we are built in or have a system that's built in that tells us when to drink water. And I don't think from an evolutionary standpoint, our ancestors walked around looking for water constantly.
They knew when to drink water. And there were periods where they probably went a long time without water. And if you continue to drink water all the time, then maybe it makes you a little bit dependent where you need more water.
So I try to drink when I'm thirsty as well. But one thing I do is I make sure I hyperhydrate in the morning, right? And that makes more sense ancestrally as well.
When you're at camp, at your village, maybe you would hydrate a lot in the morning when you wake up. And then you go out, venture out, do your thing. Maybe you'd have water, maybe you wouldn't. But it also makes it so I don't have to pee in the middle of the night. If I hydrate too late in the day, I end up having to get up in the middle of the night to pee.
You know, my cheat meal, this is going to sound boring. But. I was just in Rome and what I loved the most was the artisan bread and olive oil. I love bread. It's my dirty, naughty lover.
If I could just live on bread, olive oil, and red wine, I would be the happiest person on the planet. I'm with you on the bread thing. But I was also 300 pounds before when I really loved my bread.
Now, the thing is, as many of you know, I spend a fair bit of time in Europe. And when I'm there, I can eat carbs, I can eat gluten, not have as much of an issue. Something about...
it in the States, I just don't agree with. And I know thousands of people on my Instagram and YouTube have commented the same thing. So French bread in France or French bread in Italy, locally created, freshly baked, I'm perfectly okay with. Is it a refined carb?
Yeah, it is. But I think that there's something to having a fresh baked sourdough that's fermented properly. I think that's okay.
I just think it's this sugar-laden, high fructose corn syrup, weird mystery gluten stuff that we have in the US that doesn't seem to click with a lot of people. And he's clearly Italian. I come from Italy as well. I get it.
I understand the bread, the coffee, the espresso. I'm just not a wine drinker. But he probably just has a psychological emotional affinity to that.
So it's not about like his body thrives on it, but I get it. I totally respect that. Oh wow. The best fruit smell in the world is my mother's sauce.
On a Sunday morning when I would wake up and she's making her pot of sauce for Sunday dinner and it would permeate the house and it was absolutely the best thing I've ever smelled. Another thing he mentions a lot in this video is olive oil. Now I know it's the Italian Italian thing. But you look at the Mediterranean culture, and I just want to talk about this for a second. The Mediterranean culture consumes a fair bit of carbs.
Not as many as we might think, because they're not just always eating pasta and things like that. In fact, if you get into Northern Italy, it's a lot more like rice dishes. And then you get on the Amalfi Coast versus Adriatic and the different shellfishes, things like that. It's not as ridiculously high carb as people think. It is high carb, but not like what people think.
And they're not just sitting down eating pizza and pasta all the time. But one of the things that's interesting is that they're fat. selection is just better than ours in the U.S. Our fat selection in the U.S. is trans fats, it's saturated fats, partially hydrogenated fats, and it's seed oils.
And independently, all of those have their own vices and issues. But when that makes up the lion's share of our fat intake, what is left? Like, where do we have a seat at the table for monounsaturated fats, for good cholesterol, for hydroxytyrosol that you're getting out of olive oil, these amazing antioxidants?
Like, there's no room at the table left for them at a sheer displacement. So that's the problem that I have is, yes, these individual oils we have in the US are not exactly the best in their like independent fashion in isolation. But what really bothers me is that when the lion's share of our diet is made up by them, we have less room for the healthy fats, right? And a fat is not a fat is not a fat. It's not the same.
A fat is a fat is a fat. No, they're all very different, have very different things in our body. The Mediterranean's eat a lot of olive oil.
They consume a lot of cheese and get a lot of those C15 fats that are coming from those types of foods. But they also get a fair bit of polyphenols and whatnot from their fruits and vegetable content. And they're also active a lot, right? So a lot of the things he's talking about actually reflect that Mediterranean approach.
So in many ways, you look at his diet and you're like, you're doing a low-carb Mediterranean one meal a day type diet. What could I apply this to a regular person that is over 50 that wants to look jacked? You could eat his style, but what I would recommend is doing one meal a day or two meals a day, three days a week.
Don't do it every day like him. He's highly adapted to that. If you went and jumped into that immediately, you drop weight, but your metabolic rate might slow down. So eat more Mediterranean style, moderate carb, four days a week, and three to four days a week, do the style he's talking about with a one meal a day or a two meal a day. What I would slightly change about his diet here is at the end of his workout, and he has the light protein shake, I would go into my workout.
protein shake plus a serving of protein and some fruit or veggies and then go longer and then eat my dinner meal. So I'd basically add one meal surrounding my workout. And I think that might give the regular person a little bit more longevity with Frank Grillo style diet.
But all in all, the dude looks amazing. Let's adopt the principles from him and apply them to us as individuals. I'll see you tomorrow.