The Science of Fitness, with Terry Crews

SEASON PREMIERE: It’s time to get pumped up when Neil deGrasse Tyson interviews former NFL star and actor Terry Crews about physical fitness. In studio, Neil and Chuck Nice team up with exercise physiologist Dr. Felicia Stoler and neural science professor Wendy Suzuki. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the hall of the universe. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and tonight we're featuring my interview with actor Terry Crews. No, Terry Crews, you might know him from his chest muscles. Because there's he, his face, and his chest muscles. From Old Spice ads, he was in the movies White Chicks and he's in the series The Expendables. He's also a former NFL linebacker and basically a poster boy for strength and fitness. So, let's do this.

• 0:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As you know, I don't do this alone. I got my comedic coach Chuck Nice. Chuck?

• 1:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love me some Chuck, just so you know.

• 1:06Chuck Nice?

  I love you too.

• 1:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We also have a, an expert in nutrition and health. We have Dr. Felicia Stoler. Felicia, welcome. You're a registered dietitian, nutritionist, exercise physiologist. Yes. Who are all of those things. All of those things wrapped up in one. You better be as healthy as all get out.

• 1:24Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, because it's like being a dentist with bad teeth.

• 1:28Chuck Nice?

  You gotta be as healthy as healthy can be.

• 1:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can be. So, we're gonna, we're gonna draw heavily on that expertise in my conversation with Terry Crews. I asked Terry where his path to fitness began. Let's check it out.

• 1:42Speaker 02

  It was a lot of lonely nights and days as a 14-year-old boy in my room, looking in the mirror, doing this stuff and stuff. And it's like, oh, and now I get paid to do it. But what so crazy is that?

• 1:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you were buff as at fourteen.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Well, you know what, I have to say, I always wanted to be strong. That was the thing, I think it comes from, I had a father who was addicted to alcohol and a mom who was addicted to religion.

• 2:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  So it makes a very caustic mix, I mean, very.

• 2:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Combustible.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Combust, I mean, it was like.

• 2:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, there's no, there's no, there's no common path out of that.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  No, no, no, because your, your, your life, you deal with shame and then you deal with being a child of an alcoholic parent, you, you want to be a pleaser.

• 2:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  And the only thing I had to myself was the need to be strong, like the, the, the physical thing.

• 2:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so. Plus, we're of the generation where, where if, if you were bullied, the advice was, become strong so you can kick their ass.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I just felt the need to be strong and I remember, you know, I actually, my earliest memory is I would lift couches and, and chairs and stuff and I actually had a hernia when I was five years old because I was always walking around, and my earliest video footage, I'm going, I'm making muscles and I'm like, I wanted to be strong and um, once I discovered weights, I was like, I can, I'm going to do this, I'm going to get my, I, I think it was because of fear, you know, I was always scared, I was scared when my dad come home drunk, I was scared I didn't do something my mom didn't want me to do, you know, it was that fear of just everything, fear of the world, you didn't know and I had to protect myself.

• 3:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Felicia, in your life experience, do people lift weights more out of fear or out of fitness?

• 3:36Speaker 03

  I think more people lift weights out of fitness, I think.

• 3:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Today?

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Today, I think they do, I can totally understand where he was coming from, that it was something that he was able to put his energy into for himself and he could make something of himself with that, but I think most people today, I mean, there's a difference between lifting weights for health and well-being versus bodybuilding and he sort of is on that fringe of athlete and bodybuilder.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  He was afraid, I understand that, I had the same kind of experience and then I discovered weights and I was like, oh, this is hard.

• 4:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he had a hernia at age five from lifting stuff. And all we can think of is Bam Bam from the Flintstones.

• 4:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so that seems a little early in one's life. So, let me just ask then, if you go into a fitness center, yes, there'll be the bodybuilders, then the health, fitness people.

• 4:26Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 4:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But then, how about the people who, are the people who do it for sex appeal?

• 4:31Speaker 03

  I mean, being fit is sexy, right?

• 4:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but, but, but what I wonder if evolutionarily, there's a driver for that. In your studies, does that come up?

• 4:42Speaker 03

  Not so much in terms of sexy. I mean, we look at art throughout the years and you look at what the evolution of beauty was and what was maybe perceived sexy a few hundred years ago versus today.

• 4:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think the male Greek statue still holds today. I'm thinking lady, is that right?

• 4:56Speaker 03

  But, but...

• 4:57Speaker 04

  David, anyone?

• 5:01Speaker 04

  Ladies?

• 5:03Speaker 03

  But when you look at who's the sexiest man or the sexiest woman, they're usually fit. They're not necessarily bodybuilder-esque. So I think that there's a very big difference in that. And then when people are training for those types of events, they don't look like that 12 months of the year. That's the one thing that I always caution people about. When they are training for those events, you're looking at one moment in time.

• 5:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When they have to look that way.

• 5:26Speaker 03

  When they have to look that way for competition.

• 5:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're saying it's all a lie? Well, it's a charade, a one-day charade. A one-day charade. Yeah, a one-day facade.

• 5:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 5:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. So I, but I can tell you flat out that when I was a kid, any incentive to lift weights was not for health. It was really because there were bullies out there. Bullies back then were physical bullies.

• 5:48Speaker 03

  Right.

• 5:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It wasn't any of this word stuff. It was physical bullies.

• 5:51Speaker 03

  Right.

• 5:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we were told, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me." So, "I gotta stop the sticks and stones from breaking my bones. The only way I can do that is to go build muscles." And the ads in the back of comic books, "Are you a 97-pound weakling? Go come lift weights with Charles Atlas and then you can come back and kick some ass." And so, so I have to agree with Terry. At least in my childhood, the motivation was for protection. And so... But you were also an athlete as well when you were a kid. Yeah, but I wasn't lifting couches and stuff. And I'd have a hernia at age five. It was later, I mean, late, middle school. You got your hernia at 13.

• 6:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, so, so for me, I viewed myself as, because I, once I got bigger and stronger, I was protector of the nerds.

• 6:40Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 6:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I was, I, if I were to be a superhero, that's the superhero it would be.

• 6:44Chuck Nice?

  Like nerd shield.

• 6:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 6:47Chuck Nice?

  I am nerd shield.

• 6:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, so let me just get back to this, so, does lifting weights make you healthier?

• 6:59Speaker 03

  Yes, it does, absolutely. So lifting weights does a few things. One is it increases your muscle mass, and we all want to increase our muscle mass because the flip side is that we burn more fat for fuel at rest, like when you're sleeping, right? The other thing is that the-

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that we, that allows you to eat more?

• 7:15Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 7:17Chuck Nice?

  You actually have to eat more, right?

• 7:18Speaker 03

  You do need to eat more. Well, it depends on what your end goals are at the end of the day. So it's good for bone density, it's also good for overall like strength, so for activities of daily living, right? As we get older, we should continue to, to lift weights and to do resistance exercise. And the other thing is that when we're getting toner and our muscles get bigger, actually the circumference of our limbs gets smaller because our whole body, everything is round, right? Our arms, our waist, our legs. So as you get tighter and you get toner, everything gets smaller. So there's-

• 7:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is if you're not trying to get big muscles, if you're just getting, trying to get fit muscles.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  Right, fit muscles.

• 7:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fit muscles, okay.

• 7:54Speaker 03

  Right, correct. So hopefully you're balancing out any of the strength training that you're doing with some stretching and flexibility training as well.

• 8:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love being well stretched, as I was when I wrestle. I could put my foot over my head and do a split. It was, it was the best kinda-

• 8:12Chuck Nice?

  I'm just envisioning.

• 8:15Chuck Nice?

  Just sitting here enjoying the visuals. Kneel with his leg right here.

• 8:22Chuck Nice?

  Hi. Do you like the cosmos?

• 8:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so normally we don't think of lifting weights as strengthening joints. That's an interesting added feature to this.

• 8:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 8:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, um, so can you lift weights too much?

• 8:41Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely. Overuse injuries can happen all the time. So it's important to allow rest in between. So that's actually a common problem. I see that a lot with individuals that I'm working with. I see that with people at the gym that think they can work out every body part every single day. The truth is, you need to allow your muscles at least two days of rest in between working that muscle.

• 9:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To recover.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  To recover, because of order.

• 9:02Chuck Nice?

  That's where I'm a Viking.

• 9:05Chuck Nice?

  Allowing rest in between. I just never go to the gym first.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  So really allowing that rest in between muscle groups. I'm not saying you shouldn't exercise every day because you actually can exercise every day. Do something physically.

• 9:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Upper body, lower body.

• 9:21Speaker 03

  Yes, that's how I actually do it. Because that whole back and bicep, chest and tricep thing, I got a problem with that.

• 9:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that, back and bicep, chest and tricep. That's a whole thing.

• 9:29Speaker 03

  Right, right. Well, but that's been like the traditional mantra of weight training.

• 9:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back and bicep, chest and tricep. Alright, I got you.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  But the problem is you need the other muscles to do those other exercises. So you really need to do everything from your chest to your fingertips in one sort of day of resistance training. Do your core and your abdominal stuff. And then do from your tush down to your toes, right? From your butt down.

• 9:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can say ass on this show.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  So then you would do your lower body and hopefully you're doing cardio in between. And doing a little bit of everything.

• 10:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So is it possible to lift weights too early? You said I couldn't have looked like that at 14, but suppose I tried to?

• 10:05Speaker 03

  Well, I had a feeling you were gonna ask me this question. So I checked. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends not doing any strength training until the age of seven.

• 10:14Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 10:15Speaker 03

  So, yeah.

• 10:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That still kinda feels a little young.

• 10:17Chuck Nice?

  That's a little young.

• 10:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I don't see any sort of, you know, muscle-bound 10-year-old.

• 10:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 10:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, alright, so age seven, which to me feels a little young, but okay. And how about, uh, how, how old can you be?

• 10:28Speaker 03

  Well, until you can't do it anymore.

• 10:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Until your arm falls off? I mean, there's evidence that you can't do it.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  It's always like use it or lose it. I mean, there's some great videos online. You can look at people well into their 60s, 70s, 80s, even 90s, doing resistance training. So, a 90-year-old can actually do resistance exercise. And I would encourage people to do it as long as you can because we want to be able to have strength. And like when my kids were born, I said to my mom, "You should be doing strength training. These babies are gonna get bigger." So, having babies is like added resistance exercise. They keep growing and incrementally getting bigger. So, for activities of daily living and just, you know, simple like things in life, we just need to do it.

• 11:06Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something. If you are 90 years old, every single day is resistance training. Because you are resisting death.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  There was an article about a 96-year-old yoga instructor in New York. I mean, I think that if you really can embrace a lifetime of physical activity, I mean, look at Jack LaLanne, right? Look what he did for fitness and he was looking pretty good till the end.

• 11:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, there are no books written about yoga instructors who died at age 65. Just, there's a selection effect of what books get written. Alright, so, it's one thing to work out, obviously, but it's a very whole other thing to reach the level that Terry Crews has achieved. So, I just asked him, "How does he do it?" Let's check it out. How do you maintain your body physically? Because you're, what's your percent body fat?

• 11:56Speaker 02

  I am probably right now 4%.

• 11:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ouch. Well, can I lend you some? Put some of this right there.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  No, when I eat a sandwich, you actually see the thing. It's still in sandwich form. Pizza, it's like, what's that triangle? It'll go away in a minute.

• 12:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are so low-fat. Anything you eat just shows up right there. Like, oh, hey, what's up? But I... But to have achieved it and sustain it, that requires some kind of homework that you've been doing to figure out how to do that.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  You know, it's one of the things that I enjoy, but I have to get it in.

• 12:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. You have to get it because, dare I say, you are two characters. There's you and then there's your body.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's a whole other contract you're signing.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  That was great, that was great. Yeah, I mean, can you imagine? All I can say is, imagine how disappointed everybody would be if I gained like 75 pounds, just let it go. People, I would have very obese people going, dude, get in the gym, what's wrong with you? You know what I mean? I mean, people would come up to me, I don't know, grandma, they go, what the hell? You, I believed in you. I, it would be.

• 13:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'd be the end, end of the world as we know it.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  It would, it's kind of become this billboard, poster boy for it. So there is a little bit of pressure, but I'm, I enjoy it.

• 13:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's very easy to say, I go to the gym, lift weights, and I look like that. But you gotta be motivated. And that's gotta be half of what you deal with every day with people.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  Well, it's about getting them to make the commitment to take care of themselves, you know?

• 13:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As a broader issue.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  As a broader issue. I mean, he likes to really do.

• 13:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have you met America?

• 13:40Speaker 03

  Yes. All the time, I travel a lot. I see America everywhere and airports and across the country. And, you know, in speaking with people regularly, they say they just don't like to work out. They don't like to exercise. And I'm like.

• 13:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, they do, they like to exercise tomorrow.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 13:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  They like to exercise bringing their fork to their mouth instead of pushing away from the table, you know?

• 14:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But here's what I wonder. At some level, it seems to me, and I have a bias, a physics bias, in everything I see. So to me, it seems at some level, it's just physics. So, you know, what is it, 3,500 calories is a pound or something?

• 14:19Speaker 03

  It's a pound, right.

• 14:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 14:20Speaker 03

  Well, it's the energy balance, right?

• 14:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, so if I eat 3,500 calories, but burn 7,000 calories in a week, or in a few days, I've lost a pound.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 14:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No matter what else you tell me, isn't that correct? That has to be true.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  That is correct.

• 14:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so why isn't, why isn't, why isn't your, your diet book, consume fewer calories than you burn?

• 14:42Speaker 03

  It's called.

• 14:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's the entire book, end of book.

• 14:44Speaker 03

  Shut your pie hole, that's really it. I mean, really.

• 14:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. I'm buying that book, I'm just letting you know. Okay, because I'm thinking it's just physics. And I, and I actually, you know, I don't know if you knew this, Terry Crews and I are gym buddies. You, you didn't, did you know this? I did not know that. You didn't know this, right. And, and he, I alerted him about. The physics? Let's check it out.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Damn Neil deGrasse Tyson, how are you doing that?

• 15:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's physics Terry, it's physics.

• 15:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Told you.

• 15:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was a clip from his show Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I had a cameo. By the way, the weights they gave me were still serious weights. I mean, because they didn't want it to look all jiggly like it was air. But it was enough weight so that it actually went down feeling heavy. Although it clearly wasn't as heavy as.

• 15:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, we don't believe you Neil.

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, next we're gonna get into the science of diet and nutrition when StarTalk returns.

• 15:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. This is my interview with actor and fitness freak Terry Crews. Let's check it out.

• 16:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's one thing to lift weights, but what are you putting in your mouth?

• 16:11Speaker 02

  Oh man, super high protein.

• 16:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  High protein.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  High protein diet, low carb, and lots of fruits and vegetables, lots of, I do lots of protein, meat, I'm a big carnivore. That's one of the things, I know people wanna go vegan.

• 16:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, people.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  Not me.

• 16:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you know they're gonna get, you know they'll talk about you.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  I've had some delicious vegan meals. After a steak.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  Delicious vegan side dish next to the most awesome chicken breast I've ever had. And I have to dog them out.

• 16:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I eat vegan all the time. After my T-bone steak.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  It's starting to get really like, okay, you're, I'm like, okay, anytime that finger's pointing, I'm like, come on guy, relax. I didn't, you know, I, I, I just need the protein.

• 17:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what is this, what's this dynamic?

• 17:06Chuck Nice?

  I don't, I don't, I don't.

• 17:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have you seen this?

• 17:08Chuck Nice?

  I don't think the vegans hate on us. I don't think they're as judgmental as people think. A- a- as a matter of fact, I don't think we hate on vegans either. I mean, there's a lot of vegans you love that you don't even know are vegans.

• 17:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 17:21Chuck Nice?

  I have some. Here's, here's the first one.

• 17:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you compiled a list?

• 17:24Chuck Nice?

  I compiled a list. There you go. That's Neil's friend and my senator from New Jersey, that is Cory Booker.

• 17:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cory Booker, vegan.

• 17:32Chuck Nice?

  That's right. He's a vegan. And he doesn't have time, does not have time to eat meat because he's too busy saving ladies from burning buildings.

• 17:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which he did recently.

• 17:41Chuck Nice?

  Which he did recently. And by the way, that's a perfect time to cook up a steak.

• 17:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, wait. So what we should ask him is, was he vegan when he was playing football in college?

• 17:52Chuck Nice?

  No, he was not.

• 17:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'm just saying.

• 17:54Chuck Nice?

  Cause there are no vegan football players.

• 17:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'd be funny if you had like the vegan NFL. That'd be like a whole other.

• 18:02Chuck Nice?

  Or the vegan Olympics.

• 18:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The vegan Olympics.

• 18:04Chuck Nice?

  Where you just, you, one vegan uses another vegan as a pole for the powerball.

• 18:11Chuck Nice?

  Alright, let me stop before this goes too far. Hey, bring up the next one. Who's the next one?

• 18:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got more?

• 18:16Chuck Nice?

  That's your friend Neil.

• 18:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's my boy, Brian Greene.

• 18:18Chuck Nice?

  That's your buddy Brian.

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  World renowned.

• 18:20Chuck Nice?

  World renowned astrophysicist. Who does a lot about string theory.

• 18:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, he's leading string theorists.

• 18:25Chuck Nice?

  He knows everything about string theory and nothing about string cheese.

• 18:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right, cause vegans don't eat cheese.

• 18:33Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 18:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 18:34Chuck Nice?

  Who's next? This is our last one, yes. And that's right. It is President Bill Clinton. A lot of people know he went vegan recently.

• 18:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:44Chuck Nice?

  And.

• 18:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And a former guest on StarTalk.

• 18:46Chuck Nice?

  And a former guest on StarTalk, Bill Clinton. I did not have dinner with that burger.

• 18:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so Felicia, I gotta ask you. It's one thing to tell people what to do in the gym, but what do you tell them to do at dinnertime? Or at any other meal of the day? Do you get in their face with their diet?

• 19:07Speaker 03

  Well, they pay me to do that.

• 19:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 19:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, I get paid to tell people what to eat.

• 19:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  So, yeah. So, you know, it really depends on what people's goals and objectives are. But, you know, it's funny, you're talking about being vegan. I find most people are crapetarians.

• 19:19Chuck Nice?

  Crapetarian?

• 19:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, because a lot of vegans don't even eat a lot of vegetables.

• 19:24Chuck Nice?

  A lot of vegans don't eat vegetables?

• 19:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's left?

• 19:26Chuck Nice?

  So what have they eaten?

• 19:27Speaker 03

  Garbage, right?

• 19:28Chuck Nice?

  You mean literally picking through people's trash?

• 19:30Speaker 03

  No, I'm talking like junk food. They're eating a lot of junk food. There's a lot of stuff, you know, chips, candy bars.

• 19:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are crapetarians?

• 19:37Speaker 03

  Crapetarians, crapetarians. I mean, somebody will send me their food journal and I look at it and they tell me they're a vegetarian. They tell me they're a vegan. I'm like, where's the vegetables?

• 19:46Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 19:46Speaker 03

  Right, so that's a bit of a problem.

• 19:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 19:48Speaker 03

  So, yeah, I mean, you know, I was listening to Terry. He was talking about how he says he eats lots of meat, lots of protein, and he doesn't eat low, he eats low carb, yet he eats fruits and vegetables. And I just want to clear up a myth here, that fruits and vegetables are carbs.

• 20:03Chuck Nice?

  Yes, they are.

• 20:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He said low carbs, he didn't say no carbs.

• 20:05Chuck Nice?

  He said low carbs, right.

• 20:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, low carbs, so.

• 20:07Chuck Nice?

  And I think I find you mocking him because he eats a lot of meat. The way you said it like.

• 20:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She did cop a chew right there.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  I did, I did.

• 20:15Chuck Nice?

  Are you against eating a lot of meat?

• 20:17Speaker 03

  No, but I just think that.

• 20:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Felicia, he could kick your ass if he wanted to.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  But he wouldn't want to.

• 20:28Chuck Nice?

  All right, girl.

• 20:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You go, girl.

• 20:31Chuck Nice?

  I tell ya, I'm gonna go eat some vegetables.

• 20:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, okay, so not to make them distinct and different things, but what does the science of nutrition say we should be eating?

• 20:46Speaker 03

  What it says is that we should be eating nutrients, so forget about where the foods come from, we should be eating nutrients in the ratio that we need them within our bodies. So carbohydrates are like gasoline in a car, right? It's sort of our renewable resource that needs to keep being put in. We can only store-

• 21:01Chuck Nice?

  And it's there for you right when it's there.

• 21:02Speaker 03

  Yes, right away.

• 21:02Chuck Nice?

  And you use it as the car is driving.

• 21:04Speaker 03

  That's right. And then when the tank goes empty, you need to put more in. We can only store six to seven hours' worth of carbohydrates in our body. Fat is like, you know, the lube in the car, right?

• 21:13Chuck Nice?

  So that's your oil.

• 21:14Speaker 03

  It's your oil, right? We have lots of storage of fat. We don't need to necessarily consume large quantities of it. And protein is like the parts of the car, right? That's the best way to think about it. So eating more protein doesn't give you muscles. We need it for muscles, but at the end of the day, all foods that are in excess of need, so going back to our whole physics here-

• 21:34Chuck Nice?

  They become fat.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  Everything that gets stored is fat. Everything in excess gets stored as the F-word, not Felicia, fat. So, we want to make that go away, so-

• 21:43Chuck Nice?

  So it sounds to me, when I was a kid, I remember this all the time, they had public service announcements about a balanced diet. It sounds to me like you just explained a balanced diet.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:56Chuck Nice?

  Not in terms of foods, but in terms of what the foods become that your body needs and uses.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  Right. So in terms of protein, protein comes from animal foods, it also comes, it's in dairy. Amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein, are in grains, they're also in vegetables, nuts and seeds, if I didn't say that, fish, eggs, and all of that stuff. So what we get in fruits and vegetables, we also get fiber, which is sort of another important nutrient, but not a calorie-related nutrient. And, and so, you know, we think about, more specifically, you know, eating mostly plant-based is the healthiest way to go. I mean, when I was going, this is my third career, so when I was going to school for chemistry, my professor said she came to America because, because protein is cheap in America.

• 22:40Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, it is.

• 22:41Speaker 03

  And that's the truth. I mean, we eat, I mean, you've probably traveled around the globe, I've traveled, and I see that most people from around the world eat predominantly plant-based, they eat smaller amounts of animal-sourced protein. And sometimes they just use it more for flavor, and more as a condiment and a side dish. Where here, it's like the whole cow's on the, on the plate, and there's like-

• 22:59Chuck Nice?

  Or you can eat steakhouses, yeah.

• 23:00Speaker 03

  Right, right, and there's like one little, you know, pea.

• 23:02Chuck Nice?

  That is why we are the number-one nation in the world, baby.

• 23:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:07Chuck Nice?

  That's right, America. The monk, America. We got the meat.

• 23:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look, we have restaurants where the meat is bigger than the plate.

• 23:18Chuck Nice?

  That's right. We have restaurants where we will serve you a steak big enough to kill you, and if you eat it, you get it for free.

• 23:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. Okay, so nutrition, of course, is not only about what we eat, but it's also, I think, when you eat, relative to when you wake up and go to sleep. And Terry Crews takes that very seriously. Let's check it out.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  I don't eat till 2. I eat from 2 o'clock to 10 o'clock. I eat in an 8-hour window.

• 23:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So wait a minute, what happens at 1:59 in the afternoon? Are you a monster?

• 23:51Speaker 02

  Well, the thing is, what happens is, just like habits, your body gives up hunger pains. It says, "We're done." I've been doing this for almost 4 years. And it says, "Ah."

• 24:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not, it's not working, so it's gonna stop.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  It's, your body does what you tell it to do. I truly believe you are the aggregate. Your body is the aggregate of your spirit. Like, whatever you think and feel and know, your body starts to... It's almost like, it's the DNA. It just starts to come out. You know what I mean? You ever see somebody who worries a lot? Then they wear it. You can see the worry on their face. But for me, I always knew, I said, "I don't need..." I'm 48 years old. I don't, I would never recommend this thing for, kind of that for an 18-year-old guy or whatever. But as I'm older, I don't need as much food. I just don't. And I do eat really well during that 8-hour window.

• 24:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So from 2 to 10 p.m.?

• 24:49Speaker 02

  2 to 10. And I just put that on myself, just to say, "Think about back in the day, when you had to find food. A salad was an all-day affair."

• 24:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  That's, you had to go get the food. You had to go chase the chicken. You had to go kill it. You had to put. You couldn't eat meat every day.

• 25:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's an equation. The equation is, how many calories did you burn to consume the calories that you caught?

• 25:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 25:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you burn more calories to get to the food that you then just ate, you will eventually die.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Yep, that's true.

• 25:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in modern civilization, we perfected this.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can sit here... Order takeout. While you're watching the teaming, you don't even have to move. And a thousand calorie dinner could show up in your lap.

• 25:37Chuck Nice?

  We have evolved into bacon, putting bacon in your pizza crust.

• 25:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Felicia, do you eat bacon in your pizza crust? Was that bad for business?

• 25:51Speaker 03

  I like bacon. I eat all foods.

• 25:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that bad for business? The tabloids will catch you chowing down on...

• 25:57Speaker 03

  Don't catch me at a McDonald's drive thru. I gotta put the glasses on, you know, when I go through there.

• 26:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what of the research on people who are slightly undernourished who outlive everybody else?

• 26:10Speaker 03

  In terms of the star, the, like, the calories? They're not starving. They're the lower calorie.

• 26:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lower calorie, and they outlive everybody?

• 26:18Speaker 03

  Well, you know, the people that outlive everybody are the people that live in the blue zones. And they don't eat really low calories.

• 26:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know what's a blue zone.

• 26:25Speaker 03

  The blue zone are the places around the world where people live to be around 100 years old. So it's in Greece, it's in Japan.

• 26:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a blue zone?

• 26:31Speaker 03

  They're blue zones. There's about six blue zones.

• 26:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What zone, what zone, what do we?

• 26:34Speaker 03

  New York is not the blue zone.

• 26:37Chuck Nice?

  We are clearly in the red zone.

• 26:38Speaker 03

  Right.

• 26:39Chuck Nice?

  Clearly.

• 26:40Speaker 03

  Right. It has to do with diet, physical activity, lifestyle. In terms of people being so, they're socializing, in terms of stress and stress management.

• 26:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Genetics?

• 26:50Speaker 03

  Some of it is genetics, but some of it really is about lifestyle. It's like the whole thing with the Mediterranean diet. It's Mediterranean lifestyle. It's not just about...

• 26:58Chuck Nice?

  So it's not just the food, it's the whole thing?

• 27:00Speaker 03

  It's the whole package.

• 27:01Chuck Nice?

  Sitting around, smoking cigarettes and drinking wine every day.

• 27:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Drinking wine on the Mediterranean.

• 27:05Chuck Nice?

  Right. And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that you're on a yacht in the Mediterranean.

• 27:09Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 27:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, coming up on StarTalk, we're gonna find out what science has to say about exercise and the brain when we return.

• 27:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back! Starkoff, under the belly of the Hating planetarium. We're featuring my interview with peak physical specimen Terry Crews. And he associates exercise with creativity. Let's check it out.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  Most of my good ideas I've got on the treadmill during my half-hour run in the last 10 minutes. So strange. And I think this is the way the brain operates. There's the thing about the steady, you know, hitting the ground and the steadiness of it. All of a sudden, activates something in your subconscious that brings up ideas. You get past your consciousness into something else. And I truly believe that. I think that, you know, it's like there's something, some repetitive motion that happens that all of a sudden, Terry, you click in.

• 28:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Terry, our distant ancestors walked from Africa to Europe, across Asia, into North America, into South America.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 28:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They were some walking folks.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 28:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, evolutionarily, if walking made you less creative...

• 28:46Speaker 02

  Wow, right!

• 28:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then our species would have ended long ago.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  That makes a lot of sense.

• 28:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so I've always felt when I, when I do something long and continuous such as that, less so running all out, because then you just want to...

• 29:01Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 29:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just want to collapse. You need something that you sustain for a long time. There's something, I don't want to quite call it cathartic, but it's, the mind can then take on a whole other zone of thought.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  I truly believe that. And it's...

• 29:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it may be genetic...

• 29:22Speaker 02

  It can't be too far. It can't be, like you said, too exhaustive, like, ah, full speed.

• 29:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  It's gotta be steady, and then all of a sudden, your mind, just all these ideas come.

• 29:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's nothing more natural for the human species to do than to, than to walk. And, and think about it, when you're walking, you're like, you're in new places and you're new...

• 29:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so I'm pretty sure what you tapped into goes very deep within our species. So this connection between exercise and the brain, we've actually found someone with just the expertise to help us explore this connection. Neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki. I think we've got her standing by right now on a live video call. Is she there? Hello?

• 30:02Speaker 05

  Hello.

• 30:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hello Wendy, you're professor of neuroscience and psychology at NYU?

• 30:09Speaker 05

  That's correct.

• 30:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So tell me, what does neuroscience say about exercise in the brain?

• 30:15Speaker 05

  Well, the studies that I'm doing in my lab are showing how exercise can specifically change brain function. It not only improves your mood, but it actually improves your attention and your long-term memory function. And to go back to the interview that you did with Terry, there's also studies showing that walking can significantly improve creativity.

• 30:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, so he was absolutely right there. So he made a discovery that you were doing in the lab. So you didn't need that grant money that you spent.

• 30:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You should have just called Terry. Just called Terry.

• 30:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And do you have a connection between certain exercises and certain brain features? If you want to be better at math, what exercise regimen do you recommend?

• 31:04Speaker 05

  Here's what we know. So we know that aerobic exercise, exercise that increases your cardio, increases your heart rate, is the kind of exercise that will improve your attention, your memory, and your mood. So what I'm trying to do in my lab, find that specific exercise prescription that will maximize your brain functions with the minimum amount of exercise. Usually, people ask me, Wendy, what is the minimum amount of exercise that I have?

• 31:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so we're waiting. And what is that?

• 31:40Speaker 05

  Actually, this is amazing. Only two regions of your brain as adults are regions where you can build new or grow new neurons. One is the olfactory bulb, important for smell, and the second is the hippocampus. And the only way we know to stimulate the birth of new neurons in the hippocampus is to increase your exercise.

• 32:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Terry Crews is a big man on the hippocampus. Yes.

• 32:06Speaker 04

  Did you see what he did? Did you see what he did there?

• 32:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well Wendy, thank you for sharing your insights.

• 32:14Speaker 05

  Great.

• 32:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Wendy Suzuki.

• 32:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Up next, we'll be taking your questions about the physics of fitness when StarTalk returns.

• 32:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. We're talking about the science of physical fitness. And right now... It is time for Cosmic Queries.

• 32:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is where we answer questions from our fans. And Chuck, you've got these questions.

• 32:56Chuck Nice?

  I've got the questions.

• 32:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I've not seen them.

• 32:57Chuck Nice?

  You have not?

• 32:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're on the physics of fitness. I know some physics and a little bit of fitness because I was once fit. But I got a real expert here who is fit. All right? So bring it on.

• 33:10Chuck Nice?

  @JoseFBriggs who wants to know, "Dr. Tyson, would you say that earning your PhD was easier than any of the physical demands you went through during your amateur wrestling career?"

• 33:25Chuck Nice?

  It's a good question, man.

• 33:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I once wrestled in a match where I was so sapped of energy and I was laying out on the mat, I could not hold my pee. That has never happened to me while doing astrophysics.

• 33:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta say wrestling.

• 33:45Chuck Nice?

  I gotta say wrestling.

• 33:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the level...

• 33:47Chuck Nice?

  That's the level of intensity.

• 33:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and can I add one thing? Ask anybody what the hardest sport is they've ever done.

• 33:53Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you'll get a whole variety of answers.

• 33:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if they've ever wrestled, they'll tell you wrestling. That's all I'm gonna tell you.

• 34:00Chuck Nice?

  No, I can see that.

• 34:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all I'm saying.

• 34:02Chuck Nice?

  I mean, I never wrestled because I, you know, I was afraid I would get aroused.

• 34:09Chuck Nice?

  And then they were disqualified by me.

• 34:14Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 34:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that was my best evidence of heterosexuality.

• 34:18Chuck Nice?

  That fact that you wrestled.

• 34:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wrestled for eight years.

• 34:20Chuck Nice?

  And you never got turned on.

• 34:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I was gonna be turned on by men, it would have happened sometime in that eight years as I'm wrestling muscle sweaty sinewy men.

• 34:29Chuck Nice?

  You're grappling with muscular sweaty men.

• 34:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 34:31Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god, the whole thing is just getting worse.

• 34:37Chuck Nice?

  Alright, let's move on. With more and more world records being set and the gap between the one professional athlete and another becoming smaller and smaller, do you believe there will come a time where humans will be required to use performance enhancing drugs in order to reach the next level?

• 34:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, so where are you here? Because isn't...

• 34:59Speaker 03

  Aren't they doing that now?

• 35:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yes, yes.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  I mean, I'm in a low.

• 35:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. But let me recast the question. When I wake up, if anybody wakes up and says, "I'm kinda sleepy and I gotta race in an hour," and you have a cup of coffee, so now you've chemically excited yourself to be more awake for that race. There's all manner of things we already do to create the chemical circumstances to perform.

• 35:24Speaker 03

  You could argue having a glass of juice before would give you the extra energy too.

• 35:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For example, and all the carbo loading that the marathon runners do.

• 35:31Speaker 03

  Right, correct.

• 35:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you load your body with carbohydrates, as you had said earlier, the energy is available right away.

• 35:37Speaker 03

  Right, readily available.

• 35:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so where is the limit to what we could or should do chemically to the human body?

• 35:43Speaker 03

  We should just try to take out all the performance enhancement supplements that are out there, that are sort of things that are not naturally found in foods. That's where the playing field is not about what's doing, what the body can achieve by itself.

• 35:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you know what I also think? That, let's say we're not making leaps and bounds progress in the world records, but what we can do is carry yet another decimal place in the timings.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  Right.

• 36:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So maybe we're not improving by a tenth of a second, we're improving by a thousandth of a second, or ten thousandth of a second. Then you can actually distinguish whether someone is better, but you're doing it by ever smaller fractions of a second. So up next, we expose the soft geek underbelly of hard-bodied Terry Crews when StarTalk returns.

• 36:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. We're featuring my interview with actor and fitness fanatic Terry Crews. And here on StarTalk, we always bring it back to science. And so, in my interview with him, I had to ask him about his experiences taking math and science in school. So let's check it out.

• 36:56Speaker 02

  I was not good at math. Very, very... I couldn't understand the concepts. Because it wasn't very... it wasn't visual. I could understand concepts. This is stuff you don't know when you're in school. You just don't know why you're writing something on a board and it's just gibberish. I mean, it doesn't... the math never hit for me. But I loved physics. Physics was cool. Like, you could... when Einstein describes spacetime as a bowling ball on a trampoline... I said, "I see that! I see that, I get that!" And it bends in the trampoline and there is time going down with it.

• 37:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The fabric of spacetime warping.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  And the heavier and more mass it has, the more it affects it. I said, "I got that! That I understand!"

• 37:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we need a physics textbook called Physics for Terry Crews.

• 37:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'd be a bestseller, right?

• 37:57Speaker 02

  It'd be sitting there on the cover art.

• 38:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so some Physics for Terry Crews. He wants visualizations. If you have the dumbbells that you'd pick up in each hand, you'd know intuitively to pick it up from the middle, because the weight is equal on each side. But if the weight were not equal on each side, you'd want to pick it up at the center of mass of the system. And if you did, it wouldn't matter that they were unequal, because by picking it up at the center of the mass, you've made it equal. So that's just one little fact about that. And in the Earth-Moon system, which is... So there's not actually a stick connecting the Earth and the Moon in space.

• 38:43Chuck Nice?

  Well, now I don't know what to believe.

• 38:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it turns out, the center of mass between the Earth and the Moon is 1,000 miles beneath Earth's crust, on a line that connects the center of the Earth to the center of the Moon. And so if you could pick up the Earth-Moon system from a point a thousand miles away, it would balance, and that would be your Earth-Moon dumbbell. Hmm. Now, just to be clear, this looks like this is the right distance, but it's not. In fact, if this were, if the distance were to scale, because the sizes are approximately to scale, the distance was to scale, this would be 30 feet away. That's why it took the astronauts three days to get there.

• 39:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, in physics, you're only doing work, okay, if you're doing it against resistance, okay? So, if I'm just moving it like this, I'm not moving it against gravity, so I'm not really doing anything. I'm only really working hard when it's like this, because now I'm moving it against gravity. And this last bit is not doing much either, this little bit right here. So, most of the traditional exercises are only really doing their maximum thing over some tiny range where you're going directly against gravity, okay? That's awesome. So, the, the machines have solved that problem. The machines, because that pulley's connecting to a stack of weights.

• 40:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, if I now have a, a curling device with a handle that goes to a pulley and lifts weights, every time I move that dumbbell, I am lifting this stack of weights against gravity. That is awesome. Yeah, so just a little bit of Terry Crews physics for you. This has been Physics for Terry Crews. So, Terry Crews, he doesn't, he doesn't only like physics, okay? He's also got some sci-fi geek in him too. Oh, really? Yeah, the car-carrying. So, so, I got a clip of that, let's check it out.

• 40:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have Star Wars wallpaper. So where does that, what, what, that, that means you have some, you have a soft geek underbelly. Somewhere, somewhere in there, there's some geek, geek, geeky.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  Oh dude, I'm all geek.

• 40:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, where, so where's that, where'd that get cultivated?

• 41:01Speaker 02

  Hey man, science fiction really, you know, let me know what was possible. You know, it's kind of those things where I would get lost in science fiction. Um, in books, in movies, and I was a Battlestar Galactica fan. I would watch Star Trek, I would watch anything dealing with the future. I was in, you know, and I really believed because it opened up those possibilities. I mean, and I've been a Star Wars nut since, you know, I'm in 1977. You know, I, you gotta understand, my mother was very religious. We were not allowed to go to the movies. This is, I'm trying to tell you about my upbringing. No movies, no music, no dancing, no sports.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  Now, that's, and then dad was alcoholic. So it was just like, what are we gonna do?

• 41:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's left?

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, what, what, what, okay, just tell me, tell me what we can do. Can we just, let's just, let's stop talking about what we can't do. We already know it's everything. So, what can we do?

• 42:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 42:05Speaker 02

  So, she, my aunt said, I'm gonna, this movie, Star Wars, is the biggest thing out. I wanna take them. It was the second movie I ever saw, Star Wars.

• 42:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Star Wars, the second movie, so that must have blown your mind.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  Well, the thing is, I saw TV, they, they.

• 42:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but no, TV back then was this.

• 42:21Speaker 02

  But going to the movies.

• 42:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Must have blown your **** mind.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  Was, floor, when, when, when, when you, you talking about, to this day, I get emotional when I hear that. And, and then you see the words going back in the front. And the Star Wars goes back, I, I, and you're talking about something that, that's beyond belief. Like, I was sitting there, my mouth was open the whole time. I have Star Wars wallpaper.

• 42:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's in there, I saw it.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Because it made me who I am.

• 42:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Only on StarTalk can you extract that kind of confession. Yes. Well, coming up, in our final segment, Terry Crews shares with us just some life lessons on StarTalk.

• 43:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. Featuring my interview with former NFL linebacker, turned fitness expert, turned actor, Terry Crews. Now, he says that being a tough guy is all an act. Check it out. You can be such a lovable, mean guy.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  Well, you know what? It's wild because in the beginning, no one knew that. And I use it to my advantage.

• 43:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 43:55Speaker 02

  All the time, where...

• 43:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, there's a surprise element of you.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  This is how I got roles. Because I would walk in and look at the cast and they'd go...

• 44:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You get in this face?

• 44:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're scaring me.

• 44:10Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying? And they would go, "Okay." And of course, I would get the role on CSI as the murderer and the villain and the whole thing. And then all of a sudden, I'd be on set, "Ah, you got it, dude. It's so good. This is a fun shot. What a great shoot." They were like, "Wait a minute." And you know what it is? I master nervous laughter. See, there's a nervous... You ever been somewhere and you think you... Some guy's gonna hurt you, like...

• 44:38Speaker 02

  See, you laugh because there's tension.

• 44:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  And what I always bring, and I know what I bring, is tension. Just to give them a little, like, is it going to... He's no... Like, you say, "No, he's nice." You gotta tell yourself that.

• 44:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A second there.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  You gotta tell yourself that, you know?

• 44:57Speaker 02

  Is he... Wait a minute, is he serious? Did I... Oh, no, you're kidding. Look at you. And you know what? The truth is that every person is like that. It's all an act. Whatever you see, the badass is an act. I just let you in. And I let the world in. But the biggest, toughest guy you've ever seen, he might suck his thumb before he goes to sleep. You know what I mean? What you don't know, he's at home like...

• 45:29Chuck Nice?

  That's nice, that's great.

• 45:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that mean face he made.

• 45:34Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 45:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Scared the hell out of me.

• 45:36Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 45:38Chuck Nice?

  So let me ask you something, though.

• 45:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 45:40Chuck Nice?

  Because he was talking about being, you know, the big lovable guy. And there's another big lovable guy in this room, who is also a big guy, and that happens to be you. So the difference, though, is I have never seen you be angry or mean. So the way he was able to like, yeah, like, you know, he had that look. Do you, can you do that? Do you have that?

• 46:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I, I don't, uh, no. No, no. So maybe I wrestled for eight years as my outlet for what might have otherwise been pent up within me and expressed in getting into school fights or whatever else. I might have been dead by now. I don't know. I'm just saying, I enjoyed wrestling. It's a really good, uh, physical sort of testosterone release.

• 46:33Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then I go back to my studying astrophysics.

• 46:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, got that out.

• 46:39Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now I'm calm, and now I go, go figure out how the universe works. Uh, in this last clip of Terry, I'm sad this is the last clip. Uh, in this last clip, he shared just some important life lessons that he's accumulated and realized in his career path. So let's check it out.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  I, I really decided when I was young, I'm gonna do whatever I love and let that make my way for me. If I'm, if I'm broke, then that's the way it's gonna be. Or if I'm rich, then thank goodness.

• 47:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not enough people have that attitude.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  Well, you know what? I, I just realized, but see, this is the thing. Growing up in Flint, Michigan, I saw people who traded their dreams in for security. And they weren't secure. They weren't. They thought they were. I mean, when you're talking about working for general.

• 47:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And now they don't have security, nor do they have their dream.

• 47:31Speaker 02

  Oh dude, it's.

• 47:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now you're 0 for 2, right there.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  I've seen people give up. They were excellent artists. Excellent, they had excellent business ideas. Excellent, everything, and then they traded it in for, "Okay, I'm gonna work at the factory for 10 hours a day. They're gonna give me my pension. And, but I have the skill that I wanna do, but ah, that's okay." And all of a sudden, it was over. It was over, overnight. And everyone was like, "I could've did this, I should've done that. I should've followed my dream." That wasn't gonna happen to me.

• 48:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It, it reminds me of what you see happening so often in college. You get kids asking, "What's the best major so that I can get a job when I get out? Or what major will pay the most?" And all of these parameters are being invoked in their career choice. And never is the question, "What will make me happiest?" About what, on what topic am I most passionate? Once you are passionate about something, you will work on that without somebody telling you. Because you enjoy it. You may even become the best in the world at that. Then, whether or not people thought in advance that that was something you should've done,

• 48:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  people will realize that that's what they wanted to do, and they will beat a path to your door because you'll have the expertise that they want and need. That is a cosmic perspective. Thanks for tuning in to Startalk.

• 49:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And as always, as always, I bid you to keep looking up.