Episode 402: Liron Kayvan: The Truth about Plant-Based Diets + Is Creatine Crucial for Aging?

Are plant-based diets less than optimal for health and fitness? In this Fitness Friday episode, Liron Kayvan and I dive into the pros and cons of creatine supplementation and explore whether plant-based diets can fully support optimal health, especially for women. We also discuss why muscle mass is critical for longevity and how animal protein makes it much easier to build and maintain lean muscle as you age. Listen now for our candid take on why going completely meatless may mean compromising your well-being - no matter what supplements you take. Liron Kayvan founded BFLA in 2019. He's a NASM Certified Group Fitness Instructor, Personal Trainer, and Transformative Life Coach. Liron has competed in Amateur MMA, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and Rugby and has been a Fitness Coach for over 10 years. What we discuss: Creatine: most scientifically studied supplement, safe and natural Benefits of creatine for muscle mass, brain health, and pregnancy Plant-based vs. animal protein diets Importance of animal protein, especially red meat, for building muscle Recommended creatine dosage Creatine supplementation is less necessary if regularly eating red meat Thank you to our sponsors: Therasage: Head over to therasage.com http://therasage.com/ and use code Be Bold for 15% off TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com http://truniagen.com/ and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www http://www/.magicmind.com http://magicmind.com//jen and use code Jen at checkout. BiOptimizers: Want to try Magnesium Breakthrough? Go to https://bioptimizers.com/jennifercohenand use promo code JC10 at checkout to save 10% off your purchase. Timeline Nutrition: Get 10% off your first order at timeline.com/cohen http://timeline.com/cohen Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com http://airdoctorpro.com/ and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements Find more about Liron Kayvan: Website: https://www.beyondfitnessla.com/ Instagram: @beyondfitnessla https://www.instagram.com/beyondfitnessla/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hi guys, this is Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

• 0:09Jen Cohen?

  Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle Podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up.

• 0:32Jen Cohen?

  Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor Therasage. Their Trillight panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go. And I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammations in places in my body where honestly, I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach cramps, shoulder, ankle. Red light therapy is my go-to. Plus, it also has amazing anti-aging benefits, including reducing signs of fine lines and wrinkles

• 1:11Jen Cohen?

  on your face, which I also use it for. I personally use Therasage Trillight everywhere and all the time. It's small, it's affordable, it's portable, and it's really effective. Head over to therasage.com right now and use code BEBOULLED for 15% off. This code will work site-wide. Again, head over to therasage, T-H-E-R-A-S-A-G-E.com and use code BEBOULLED for 15% off any of their products.

• 1:56Jen Cohen?

  Welcome to Fitness Friday. We have my friend Liron with us.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 2:00Jen Cohen?

  Another fitness trainer slash enthusiast slash soccer player.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  That's gym owner. We just opened a brand new gym on Westwood.

• 2:08Jen Cohen?

  Slash gym owner. Congrats. I love that. What's it called?

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Beyond Fitness L.A.

• 2:13Jen Cohen?

  I love it.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  We might rebrand at some point, but for now it's Beyond Fitness L.A.

• 2:16Jen Cohen?

  Beyond Fitness L.A. Okay, we're gonna talk about creatine. Creatine's all the rage now. This is the supplement that everyone talks about. Do you think there is a way to supplement creatine that's better than others? And how much should people actually take?

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Okay, so I'm gonna give a very nuanced and boring answer. No, it's not boring, but it's nuanced.

• 2:36Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  There's a pro and con. The pro is I think creatine is the most scientifically studied supplement ever. Genuinely, I think. You can fact check me on this, but I'm pretty sure it's accurate. Yeah.

• 2:47Jen Cohen?

  I'm gonna say that again. Creatine is the most science-backed, most studied supplement, I think, on the market right now, by far.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  I think of all time, and it's not just studied by like companies trying to sell it to the masses. This is like very deep medical practice. If a woman needs to get the birth weight of their baby up, if they're like, you know, dangerously low birth weight, they'll take creatine. I know people take it for all sorts of brain.

• 3:19Jen Cohen?

  This is what I want to talk about. So let's just back it up a second, okay? Because creatine scares me. I'm a woman. I'm scared of creatine, even though I know that it's the most studied supplement. I know that it helps build muscle. I know that there's amazing research that proves it's great for your cognitive abilities, your brain health. However, I'm not alone when I feel, and I don't know if it's just like this psychological thing, that creatine will make me gain weight. I feel like that to me because I've seen in my life. Well, listen, I've seen in my life, because it's been predominantly used by men, okay? And up until very recently, right? It's really been like a man supplement. Like every guy I know would take like a scoop of creatine and put it in his shake, right?

• 4:03Jen Cohen?

  To get like, you know, to get super mass and get like jacked.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  Protein used to be like that, but now we realize protein is for everyone and everyone needs more protein essentially.

• 4:14Jen Cohen?

  True, true. But how do women get over the psychological hump that creatine will make them fat?

• 4:22Speaker 02

  So a couple of things, as I was saying before, it's the most scientifically studied supplement ever, and it was studied not for like aesthetic, muscular fitness goals. It was studied for medical things. So this is safe and they wouldn't give it for, give it to women if it made you unhealthy. So that's the first thing you need to say about it. Second, it won't make you fat because it doesn't touch your fat cells. It only touches, it only pulls in water, like hydrogen ions, water into your lean body mass. Because fat is hydro, whatever, hydrophobic, doesn't like water. They, fat and water separate. So basically it's a water-based supplement.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  It pulls water into your cells, primarily your muscle cells. So it gives a volume to your muscle. If you're worried that you're going to swell up, you definitely won't get fat. That's, that's just something you don't have to worry about at all. If you think you're going to swell up and start looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger, realize like that type of muscularity is near impossible for a natural woman. Women who look overly muscular have either been training for 10, 15, 20 years, or they're taking steroids, which a lot of women do. So a lot of these fitness people you see at the gym or on social media, the females are taking low doses of male androgenic anabolic steroids. So you have to realize the smoke and mirrors there. Creatine is a supplement that will not touch your fat cells at all.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  So you don't have to worry about getting fat at all. It will volumize your lean body mass, which is basically every part of your body that's not fat-based. So that's everything. So it's your eyeballs, it's your muscles.

• 6:01Jen Cohen?

  Okay, but I believe that it does, you just said yourself, you can retain water on it.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  In your lean body.

• 6:08Jen Cohen?

  In your, okay, but still, if you're retaining water and that will make you bloated. And not one girl I know, not one girl I know, wants to get, take that risk of feeling bloated. It's just, it's human nature. I don't care what you say, it's just human nature. So how can we take creatine and lower our chances of getting?

• 6:31Jen Cohen?

  Loaded.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  So the second point going on from that, the fact that it's safe and it won't make you fat is it's also natural. So creatine is a natural part of red meat, which is what we are. We are red meat. It's part of every muscle fiber in nature. Okay. So it would be abundant. It's abundant in the meats that we eat, or at least red meat. It's naturally there and it's part of every, all the energy systems of our body use creatine. First, again, I haven't done any of this AMP stuff for years, so I'm probably butchering it, but it's essentially part of a natural, fundamental part of our energy system. So the idea that you shouldn't have creatine in your body is another complete myth. You need creatine in your body. We just have it naturally.

• 7:17Jen Cohen?

  Okay, so, okay, we have it naturally. What are some of the ways that we can naturally increase our creatine without taking a creatine supplement?

• 7:27Speaker 02

  That's the other side. So I said this was new ones. These are the positives for creatine.

• 7:31Jen Cohen?

  You didn't give me anything. You just kind of talked a lot.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  So the positive is creating, let me sum it up.

• 7:36Jen Cohen?

  Okay, no, be much more succinct.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  So positives creating are it's natural, it's safe, it boosts your muscle capability and it boosts your health. The negatives for taking creatine is you don't need to. All you need to do is eat red meat and eat enough red meat. In nature, we've evolved to eat red meat. I'm sure you've had plant-based people on here. Don't care. We evolved to eat red meat. That's how we've evolved. It's part of our evolution. You can look at our digestive tract, you can look at our teeth, you can look at our brains, you can look at the size of our colon, we can look at anything. You can look at archaeological records, it all adds up. Anyone who tells you that we are not meat-based, meaning a sizable amount of our calories in nature should come and we would thrive on a meat-based diet, is talking out of their art.

• 8:19Jen Cohen?

  So you think people who are on a plant-based diet, they should be taking creatine absolutely?

• 8:25Speaker 02

  I would imagine, I would imagine that creatine along with a whole host of other supplements would need to be taken by a plant-based person because it's an unnatural diet essentially. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. I'm just saying it's an unnatural diet and it's not the optimal.

• 8:40Jen Cohen?

  Isn't it crazy that like you have to? Like have all these precursors now to talk about people who are plant based versus animal based because you.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  It's a little bit woke though, isn't it? You might get cancelled, yeah. It's part of the whole woke.

• 8:51Jen Cohen?

  No, like you'll literally offend somebody if you say you have to eat meat. Like, wait, when you said, oh my god, we've been like evolved. We've evolved to be somebody who eats, who eats, yeah, who eats red meat, whatever. I literally in my head, in my head, while you were saying it, I was like, oh my god, he's gonna get in trouble. But to me, that is so.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  It's politicized, it's so, it's socialized.

• 9:12Jen Cohen?

  But it shouldn't be. It should be like, this is your opinion. That's what you think. By the way, I'm a person that needs to have animal protein as well, or else I feel. Starving.

• 9:24Jen Cohen?

  I have a friend, actually, Darren Ollie, and who's one of my best friends, who is plant based.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  I have best friends who are plant based.

• 9:31Jen Cohen?

  Okay, vegan, and it works for him. Like, he looks amazing.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  Does he take something?

• 9:36Jen Cohen?

  Maybe a couple. He takes like Tru Niagen NAD. He takes, I'm sure he takes a bunch of other things I don't know about, but the reason why I'm bringing him up is like. He has a lot of lean muscle mass. He looks good, but he's probably one of the only people I know. Who are vegan, who look that good and who feel to me like that he's super healthy. I could be totally wrong.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  He is probably really, really healthy, really dedicated. And has all his ducks in a row and would probably be five or 10% better if he had me.

• 10:08Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I mean, listen.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 10:10Jen Cohen?

  I, listen, you and me both. I believe that like, I would say everybody's different. But I will say, the majority of people in my world, or I've meet, because I meet a lot of people, that they saw a significant. Difference in their health, in their energy, the way they feel, when they incorporated. Animal protein back into their diet when they were.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  Especially women, which is another thing. We talk about women. Women, if anything, need, I wouldn't say they need more, but we know like. Women lose their period. I know, I know girls, I. They lose their periods when they go plant based. You even have to take iron supplements. What, what is the most, what is the most like?

• 10:50Jen Cohen?

  This is the problem with it, I think. Well, it's so, but it's ironic, right? I find this to be really interesting because the problem is unless you know how to do food combinations really well as a vegan, you're going to be missing out.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  You have to do math, yeah.

• 11:05Jen Cohen?

  You're going to be, no, you're going to be missing on fundamental nutrients because you don't like, you have to like know that beans plus a rice equals a protein. But if you have to be doing, like if you are a bad math student or you don't understand how combinations work, please add animal protein to your diet and make it simple for yourself and call it a day.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you don't know, then just like stick to just moderation and you don't have to take my word for it. Just eat at least a little bit of animal protein.

• 11:32Jen Cohen?

  Well, I find you become, you can look very emaciated and unhealthy in gray. Like there's a, there's a place in LA, oh my God.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Gray or great?

• 11:40Jen Cohen?

  Gray, gray, like the color gray, like yellow.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Very different to gray.

• 11:44Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, not gray, jaundice. There's a place I used to go all the time as a big, it was so hilarious. It was called the Co-op. It was like this grocery store in Santa Monica. It's probably still there.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Some like hippie thing.

• 11:55Jen Cohen?

  I would go, yeah, it's very hippie dippy. And I would take, my mom would come visit me from Canada and I would, we would go there to get like, you know, after the gym and I would take her there. And my mother was so perplexed because she looked around, it's supposed to be like a health food store. And she's like, why does everyone here look like they were like jaundice out of the hospital? They were like, they all looked very like weak and either too thin or like just unhealthy. And like the irony is that like, that's like a health food store. That's supposed to be, it was supposed to be like for all the, you know, where all the healthy people looked, but yet like Ralph's down the street had way more of a healthy, like a healthy person looking.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:35Jen Cohen?

  I just find a lot of this stuff to be so absurd, right? And I don't know, I just found that to be funny.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  I did 10 parts on my podcast about this, about that whole, just the myth.

• 12:45Jen Cohen?

  I should plug your podcast on my podcast.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Isn't, doesn't everyone do that? Wouldn't literally everyone do that? First of all, yeah, that's what I'm supposed to do. Second of all, no, genuinely, I've done, I've just done this to death. Like, I've, I've done ten parts on this and I, I, I explain and I, I kind of meander away from the, the actual kind of lie itself, that meat is bad for you. And you kind of trace the roots of it. And you start to see like Big Pharma and the big food companies. And like, people are benefiting from this. And again, we were talking about business. We're talking about like capitalism, business and like, there are people profiting off of this idea that you shouldn't eat meat, you know? And there are also people profiting off the idea that you should be sick. Like, being sick is very profitable in America, hugely profitable.

• 13:31Jen Cohen?

  It's very profitable, but at the same time, if you say that, just to play devil's advocate, then there should be people profiting on the meat side, saying that you should eat meat. Because, I mean, you have people.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  It's the meat industry and.

• 13:42Jen Cohen?

  You have people on both sides who profit. I'm talking from actual personal experience.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, like neither of us are going, I'm not, I'm not going to make a cent off of people eating meat.

• 13:54Jen Cohen?

  No, but what I'm saying is like, I know when I'm not eating protein, like, like animal protein, I have less energy, I can't work out as hard, I don't look as good. Like, how do you build lean muscle without eating more like animal protein? I, it's very difficult.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  It's very difficult, like, you need, I mean, I reckon if you're on steroids, you probably don't need as much. So my theory, and this is like maybe wild and whatever, but like, I think a lot of the plant-based athletes were probably either built their muscle when they weren't plant-based. So for example, Arnold Schwarzenegger, like Arnold Schwarzenegger spent seventy years eating three steaks a day. And then he goes, oh, you know, you don't need so much meat, like you can go meatless Mondays or whatever. That's horrible impression, but.

• 14:39Jen Cohen?

  That's actually a good one.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  But it's too, like, it's like, okay, well, it's all well and good you being seventy years old and having dominated like Hollywood and the bodybuilding industry, eating three steaks a day and being on steroids. But now you're, now you can say go meatless Mondays, like, it's too late. If you, if you did that in your prime, fine. So I think one is they either built the muscle with the meat. And then once they were just maintaining it, they weren't plant-based and so that was okay. Two is they're on steroids.

• 15:06Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I think that's a good, okay. By the way, I think, I think that's a great impression. I also think

• 15:11Speaker 02

  It's not my best.

• 15:12Jen Cohen?

  But go meatless. I think having the idea of meatless Mondays is a fine thing because

• 15:16Speaker 02

  I do it sometimes on Saturdays. I actually do meatless days.

• 15:20Jen Cohen?

  I have no problem with that because it gets like a one day or two days a week.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:24Jen Cohen?

  But as like a general rule where you're just, you're like excluding meat from your diet completely. It's crazy because this is the bottom line. Muscle is the answer and the, I guess, the secret sauce to overall longevity and to aging well.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  Mental health, yeah.

• 15:44Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  It's an organ.

• 15:45Jen Cohen?

  No, but especially as you're aging, especially middle age, you need to have muscle on your body.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  The leading cause of death is lack of muscle, right?

• 15:54Jen Cohen?

  Well.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  In elderly.

• 15:56Jen Cohen?

  Yes, but let me finish what I was gonna say. I was gonna say that if muscle is the main driver for longevity and for aging well, right? And you need to keep muscle on and as you get older, it's harder and harder and harder. You're depleting and you're losing so much muscle. How much is it a year just by, by?

• 16:15Speaker 02

  Depends on.

• 16:16Jen Cohen?

  By overall age, right? So the problem is how do you keep it on? What's the easiest way to keep it on?

• 16:22Speaker 02

  You've got a weight lift.

• 16:22Jen Cohen?

  Besides heavy weightlifting, you gotta, you gotta lift weights heavy and you gotta eat a lot of protein.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Protein, yeah.

• 16:29Jen Cohen?

  A fuck ton of protein.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:31Jen Cohen?

  So how, I'm gonna, I am.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  Creatine is very good for aging too. Just to pull it back to creatine, but I think where, what I was gonna say about the downside of taking creatine is you don't actually need it. It's, it's present in red meat. It's the reason why it's so studied and the reason why it's so pumped by the sports industry, by the, you know, the muscle building industry, by even the medical industry is because in nature, we would have it just as part of our, our body, our makeup, because we would eat, you know, a, a healthy society would eat a good amount of red meat. We would hunt and eat a good amount of red meat. We would be getting in all the creatine we need naturally. But in modern society where we're divorced from red meat, where most people maybe eat red meat once a week or something like that,

• 17:13Speaker 02

  then we need to supplement. The only reason why we need to supplement is because we're divorced from our natural. Natural habitat and our natural diet. That's the only reason. And the reason why creatine is good for your hair and good for your muscles and good for your pregnancy and good for your, when you're old and you have Parkinson's or whatever, right? I'm throwing things out. The reason why it's good for everything is because it's such a fundamental part of how we are. It's a building block of everything. So it's gonna have all these benefits aside from just muscle gain, right? Muscle gain is interesting, but it's just one thing.

• 17:46Jen Cohen?

  Okay, how much do you take? Like, okay, cause for a woman.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  Me, nothing, but yes, how much should someone take?

• 17:51Jen Cohen?

  Oh, my God. So you, after all that big yelling and screaming about creatine, you're not taking it.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  But I eat meat.

• 17:56Jen Cohen?

  Cause you eat a ton.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:58Jen Cohen?

  But so you don't take creatine as a supplement because you're getting it from your red meat?

• 18:02Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:03Jen Cohen?

  Okay, so let's say this. For someone who's not eating red meat, maybe they're just eating chicken and turkey, let's just say, or salmon or whatever, then they should be taking a creatine supplement.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:14Jen Cohen?

  Definitely.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  Five grams for men, three grams for women.

• 18:16Jen Cohen?

  Okay, and for people who are regularly eating red, red meat, who regularly eat animal protein, to take the creatine supplement is not as necessary. Is that what you're saying?

• 18:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:28Jen Cohen?

  Okay, thank you.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  Exactly what I'm saying.

• 18:30Jen Cohen?

  Okay, good, thank you. All right, guys, that is, and the end. Okay, so by the way, should we do this shot of Magic Mine before we leave?

• 18:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:39Jen Cohen?

  Speaking of it, have you ever done this before?

• 18:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:41Jen Cohen?

  You should have done this before.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  I gotta go build my gym right now, I need some Magic Mine.

• 18:44Jen Cohen?

  Oh, I should get you some, they're delicious. They're my favorite shots because it's A, good for great energy and great for our focus. We should have done it before the podcast, but.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  Ashwagandha, yeah, there's a lot of good stuff in there.

• 18:55Jen Cohen?

  A lot of great stuff.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  Rodeo, I love rodeo, huge fan of rodeo.

• 18:58Jen Cohen?

  You know what rodeo is, by the way? Rodeo is the natural herb for like what people use for like, for ADHD. Like it's like a natural, what do you call it? It's a natural Adderall, that's what I heard.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  Really?

• 19:12Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. It helps you like really with like your focus and your attention.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  I've been, I've been actually, um, I've been on the rodeo tip for a while. I've, I love it, I've always loved it.

• 19:22Jen Cohen?

  Well, why do you take it then?

• 19:24Speaker 02

  I think initially it was for stress adaptation, but now I take it as a tea just cause. I like it, but it's got a just general, I think, yeah, mostly it's like stress adaptation, but it's got this general feeling, like you feel it pretty quick. Like you can, like I can drink a tea of Rhodiola, I can feel it within half an hour.

• 19:42Jen Cohen?

  But what are you feeling?

• 19:44Speaker 02

  Like I just sort of, I know you don't like this word, but balance.

• 19:46Jen Cohen?

  Oh, God.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  Like I just feel like I'm.

• 19:49Jen Cohen?

  Just drink your, just drink your shot so we can finish this podcast.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  You're not gonna do it?

• 19:52Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I'm gonna do, I did like two already today. I forgot, I can't take more than two.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Down the hatch. Are we live, by the way, or are we just rambling?

• 19:59Jen Cohen?

  No, go, go ahead. And by the way, guys, before we say goodbye, I should say this at the beginning of the podcast, but if you're still here listening, always, if you guys can leave me a review, subscribe if you haven't, it really helps with the podcast. So I always am remiss in saying that to people, so I'm gonna, even though I said the end of the podcast.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Like and subscribe.

• 20:21Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, like and first, like and subscribe. Yes, thank you, bye.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  Bye.