231. TJ Dillashaw: On Biohacking, Longevity, Injury Recovery and Life After UFC

I sat down with two-time UFC Champion TJ Dillashaw to discuss the "delusional optimism" and biohacking protocols, like stem cell therapy and zone two training, that fueled his legendary career and his recovery from a dark identity crisis. Now, we’re diving into how he’s applying that same championship grit to disrupt the supplement industry with Wild Society Nutrition, proving that the pursuit of excellence in business and longevity is the ultimate human journey. Get the Longevity + Performance Stack here: https://bit.ly/3YPMNO4 Full Audience: Use code GARY15 for 15% off (one-time purchase) CLICK HERE TO BECOME GARYS VIP!: https://bit.ly/4ai0Xwg Connect with TJ Dillashaw Website: https://bit.ly/499sJLj YouTube: https://bit.ly/4q9vfIE Instagram: https://bit.ly/4avH5bk Facebook: https://bit.ly/3MURVhk TikTok: https://bit.ly/49jB8fp X: https://bit.ly/4jlszVY LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4jeEXH4 Thank you to our partners H2TABS: “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4hMNdgg BODYHEALTH: “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF: http://bit.ly/4e5IjsV BAJA GOLD: "ULTIMATE10" FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/3WSBqUa COLD LIFE: THE ULTIMATE HUMAN PLUNGE: https://bit.ly/4eULUKp WHOOP: JOIN AND GET 1 FREE MONTH!: https://bit.ly/3VQ0nzW AION: “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4h6KHAD A-GAME: “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: http://bit.ly/4kek1ij PEPTUAL: “TUH10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4mKxgcn CARAWAY: “ULTIMATE” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/3Q1VmkC HEALF: 10% OFF YOUR ORDER: https://bit.ly/41HJg6S RHO NUTRITION: “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: https://bit.ly/44fFza0 GOPUFF: GET YOUR FAVORITE SNACK!: https://bit.ly/4obIFDC GENETIC METHYLATION TEST (UK ONLY): https://bit.ly/48QJJrk GENETIC TEST (USA ONLY): ⁠https://bit.ly/3Yg1Uk9 Watch the “Ultimate Human Podcast” every Tuesday & Thursday at 9AM EST: YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RPQYX8 Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3RQftU0 Connect with Gary Brecka Instagram: https://bit.ly/3RPpnFs TikTok: https://bit.ly/4coJ8fo X: https://bit.ly/3Opc8tf Facebook: https://bit.ly/464VA1H LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4hH7Ri2 Website: https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU Merch: https://bit.ly/4aBpOM1 Newsletter: https://bit.ly/47ejrws Ask Gary: https://bit.ly/3PEAJuG Timestamps 00:00 ​Intro of Show 02:14 TJ Dillashaw identity & the transition from professional fighting 03:44 Early wrestling roots and "Hazardous Hal" 04:47 Dropping out of grad school for MMA 05:53 The rapid growth of the UFC and bantamweight class 09:43 Career evolution and the "overworking" trap 10:46 Meeting Coach Sam Calavita and measuring toxins 13:11 Mastering energy systems and Zone 2 training 13:29 Understanding VO2 Max and lactic thresholds 22:58 Facing the legendary Joe Soto on 24 hours' notice 24:32 The power of delusional optimism and positive affirmations 26:36 Re-injuring the shoulder during a tetherball challenge 27:21 Using stem cells to avoid career-ending surgery 35:15 Adversity, suspension, and taking extreme ownership 40:08 Rebuilding identity and the "walk back" to the octagon 44:03 Disrupting the supplement industry with Wild Society 45:29 The "Caveman Eats" 20oz ribeye innovation 49:36 Partnering with Sprouts and avoiding "kill list" ingredients 57:41 Dana White’s documentary on life after fighting 1:03:12 What does it mean to you to be an Ultimate Human? Gary Brecka is the owner of Ultimate Human, LLC which operates The Ultimate Human podcast and promotes certain third-party products used by Gary Brecka in his personal health and wellness protocols and daily life and for which Ultimate Human LLC and / or Gary Brecka directly or indirectly holds an economic interest or receives compensation. Accordingly, statements made by Gary Brecka and others (including on The Ultimate Human podcast) may be considered promotional in nature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  If you want to be a champion, you can't leave no stone unturned. You got to have all energy systems trained to the best ability. Chasing pre-performance and longevity go hand in hand. If you treat the body the way that it was intended to be treated and you recover the right way, you eat the right foods, you supplement the right way, your performance is so much better.

• 0:16Gary Brecka?

  Well, you suffered through a lot of injuries during your career. I mean, I know that you fought with two blown out shoulders.

• 0:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, that's just wear and tear from wrestling since I was eight year old through college and then more so as being a professional.

• 0:26Gary Brecka?

  You were doing stem cells early on in your career to try to preserve as much of that time as you had.

• 0:32Speaker 00

  I do all my research trying to figure out like, what are like the Kobe Bryants doing in the world to preserve themselves or whatever it may be to keep me in the game without having to get surgery.

• 0:41Gary Brecka?

  So you get the stem cells, you come back, you win another championship.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, win the world title back.

• 0:46Gary Brecka?

  Wow. Now that you're more woke to longevity and wellness, you've got this brand out there, which I'm sure you're pouring your soul into. What made you say, this is the next career path for me?

• 0:55Speaker 00

  Something I've noticed from just training and my experience is that.

• 1:12Gary Brecka?

  Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist, Gary Brecka, where we go down the road of everything, anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And today's guest is no stranger to biohacking. Now he's into longevity. It's the everything in between that we're going to talk about today. And, you know, I've got two-time UFC bantamweight world champion, TJ Dillashaw, dude, I am so pumped that you're on the Ultimate Human Podcast, brother.

• 1:39Speaker 00

  I am beyond pumped. This is exciting. I'm a fan of the podcast. I'm a fan of what you stand for and the whole Maha movement. So I'm ecstatic to be here.

• 1:46Gary Brecka?

  Thanks, man. I really appreciate that. You know, I think that your journey is like so many professional athletes' journeys and so many A-listers, celebrities, actors, people that have been, had careers where they were very much in the public eye, you know, worked themselves to greatness, and then.

• 2:09Gary Brecka?

  One day, it just ends.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:13Gary Brecka?

  And, you know, I've read a lot about you and, you know, how disappointed you were about the way that your career ended. It didn't end the way that you would, you know, plan for it to end. You know, you had some skirmishes along the way, which you've been very transparent about, you know, to your suspension for PEDs and like what you learned from that. But I wonder for my audience that maybe isn't into the UFC or into professional fighting or MMA, but understands that, you know, people that achieve world championship status, you know, must have given so much for so long of their life. And when it ends, like, how does that transition go?

• 2:57Gary Brecka?

  You know, because I think most people are building at the time when your career was decrescendoing. And I've heard you talk about it before, and I think my audience would get a lot out of it.

• 3:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, it becomes like a part of who you are. Like, my sense of purpose, the whole reason why I started wrestling. Like, wrestling's not a very enjoyable sport. And I always think my little son is wrestling now, too. And it always baffles me of why kids get into it and they stay with it. But it's like this sense of accomplishment and purpose you have. And I was good at it and he got rewarded for it.

• 3:27Gary Brecka?

  You started at eight, right?

• 3:28Speaker 00

  I started at eight years old, yeah. My son's seven, he's wrestling now and-

• 3:31Gary Brecka?

  Is he really?

• 3:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I became really good at it. And it was just something that like filled my cup. And now, ever since that ever happened, I've just been chasing greatness ever since and peak performance. The whole reason why I went to college. I wasn't like a great student, but had to be, had to turn into one because of athletics and, you know, student athlete.

• 3:53Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 3:54Speaker 00

  Had to do all that. So, pushed through college, studied kinesiology just because it was, I thought it was going to make me a better athlete. Was going to possibly be a physician's assistant or physical therapy because I was just into the body.

• 4:05Gary Brecka?

  Right on.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  Got talked into fighting. And so I dropped out of grad school.

• 4:10Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, how did that go? So, first of all, I want to just give a little credit to your dad. I think it was your father that was a wrestler, Hal.

• 4:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, my dad Hal was a wrestler.

• 4:17Gary Brecka?

  And he had a cool nickname, what was it?

• 4:18Speaker 00

  Hazardous Hal.

• 4:19Gary Brecka?

  Hazardous Hal, like, okay, if you're raised by Hazardous Hal at some point- You got it. Does your son have a nickname?

• 4:25Speaker 00

  Uh, not yet. Man, I hope he doesn't turn into anything like Hazard. I mean, Hazard is how he's now in his 60s and acts like he's still in his 30s. And you can, like, he's beat himself up. He's hazardous, you know, like, jumping off 100-foot cliffs into water, fracturing his arm, like, never slowing down.

• 4:41Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 4:42Speaker 00

  But yes, he got me into wrestling and pushed me to where I am today. But to drop out of grad school, I had an assistant wrestling coach, Mark Munoz. He was a UFC fighter at the time. And after I got done wrestling, I never reached my goals. I never, like, became a national champion, never was an All-American. I just feel like I fell short. And it'll come full circle that I overworked myself and didn't know how to compete yet to my full stability. And then I did later, but he's like, hey, I think you're a real aggressive wrestler. You'd be a great fighter. You should give it a shot. Dropped out of grad school, said, I gave myself a year. If I'm any good with fighting, then I'll stick with it. If not, I can always go back to school.

• 5:22Gary Brecka?

  And at the time, it wasn't, it wasn't the grand stage it is today. I mean, the sport grew while you were, your career was growing too. Because, you know, UFC was like very much kind of in the fringes, you know, especially when Dana first, and the Fertigas first bought it. And, and then it became the fastest growing sanctioned sport in the world.

• 5:39Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 5:40Gary Brecka?

  And, you know, and I think they did obviously an incredible job for it. I mean, anything you buy for two and a half million dollars, you sell for four billion.

• 5:48Speaker 00

  I mean, I owe it to the world to put, to build a stage that made me build a brand of myself.

• 5:52Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  The Ultimate Fighter came out my freshman year of college.

• 5:56Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 5:56Speaker 00

  Yeah. And that's what really took it off the map, right? So my weight class wasn't even owned by the UFC yet. When I first started fighting, WEC owned it. And then Zuffa bought WEC. And so I was on the first Ultimate Fighter. So crazy story. I graduated college, dropped out of grad school, started fighting within nine months, built up four fights. Got, I was only, I was only 4-0, got on the first Ultimate Fighter for my weight class because UFC just bought WEC. And so I had a chance to make it in the UFC when I was only four.

• 6:28Gary Brecka?

  And that's bantamweight, it just hadn't, it didn't exist. I didn't know that you could own certain weight classes. What do you mean?

• 6:32Speaker 00

  Well, promotions, right? So WC was the promotion. They had 155, 145, and 135. The UFC at the time only had 155 and up.

• 6:41Gary Brecka?

  Okay.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Um, and so once, uh, the lower weight classes started catching momentum, the UFC came in and acquired it. Um, acquired the WC and rolled it into the UFC promotion.

• 6:51Gary Brecka?

  Oh, right on.

• 6:52Speaker 00

  Um, so I jumped on the first Ultimate Fighter and I only had four fights, only been fighting for a year. Um, made it to the finale and got myself a contract. And then

• 7:00Gary Brecka?

  Dude.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  Three years later, I won a world title. So it was kind of like a skyrocket career.

• 7:05Gary Brecka?

  That is wild, man.

• 7:07Speaker 00

  But your question was like, that was my, that was like my identity to a point, right? I put so much work into it for it just to be over like that due to injury and not being able to perform anymore was, was eye opening experience. Cause like, and that's all I ever did. That's all what I was. I mean, I didn't really have much business outside of fighting. I mean, dabbled a little bit here and there, but how I fed my family, how I kept a roof over my head was by performing in that octagon. And so it was, it was.

• 7:37Gary Brecka?

  And it was really just getting paid for those fights.

• 7:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:40Gary Brecka?

  Right? I mean, you had to make that work for the rest of the year or the timeframe in between fights. And it's why, you know, you don't get paid to train.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  No.

• 7:48Gary Brecka?

  Right? I mean, maybe you get sponsorships.

• 7:50Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, the, thanks to social media, um, sponsorships became more prevalent, uh, prevalent for like organic lifestyle stuff.

• 7:58Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 7:59Speaker 00

  Um, and hopefully people are supporting brands that they actually use, which a lot of come around to why I started Wild Society. But, uh, yeah, sponsors help pay the bills in between fights. And luckily enough, I was able to build a brand by being a champion so that I can get bigger and better sponsorships to, uh, supply my lifestyle.

• 8:16Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. Um, you know, I, I, I think, I think everyone, you know, we, we get wiser as we get older. And I've, I've actually heard you talk about how you wish you knew Yeah. than what you know now. Right? I think we're all kind of that way to some extent. Um, but you know, what changed uh, after your career that you wish you had known during your career? I mean, I, obviously you must've had excellent training or you wouldn't have become, you know, a two-time world champion. So you can't really point a finger at how I wasn't training properly, but were you missing like the nutrition piece, the recovery piece, the supplement piece, like? What was missing then that you wish you could have plugged in? And do you think that would have changed the trajectory of your career when you made your comeback?

• 8:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm so glad you asked that. I mean, 100% it would have changed. I could have been even better in my mind because of the things that I changed in my 30s. I wish I would have known when I was in college. But if I would have, you know, known this in college and performed the way I should have in wrestling, I might have never dabbled into MMA.

• 9:16Gary Brecka?

  Right, because your wrestling career could have taken you a different direction.

• 9:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, it could have. I could have become a, you know, a national champion, All-American, and maybe I stick with wrestling, which I'm so glad. I was meant to become a fighter, just my mentality. So that could have happened. But even the way that I was training in my 20s and became a world champion training this way, but I was burning the candle on both ends. I was training six, seven days a week as hard as I possibly can, two or three days, and wasn't taking my nutrition or my supplementation the right way. I was a wrestler. And growing up as a wrestler, you're always taught just to outwork your opponent. So whatever it is, just outwork him. Just do it harder, do it more, do it better. Which leads to being overworked, and I had no idea what being overworked was.

• 9:56Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  To where when I would get to the end of my season in wrestling when I was in college, it's a nine-month season, it's really, really long, and I'd always peak in December. And then Nationals is in March. I'd always felt like I was either really injured or I felt like I was out of shape. And I was like, how is that possible? I've trained so hard. I'm not drinking out with my friends. I'm, you know, doing all the right things. I'm getting up in the morning and I'm running, and then my body would just crash.

• 10:22Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  And I held, I learned a little bit more when I first started fighting through Uriah and the way that he treated his body at Alpha Male. But nowhere to the extent that I learned, once I hit my 30s and was like, just needed to figure out why I was waking up tired, why I didn't want to train, like, just cortisol up, hormones low. I met a coach, Sam Calavita. A lot of us call him Coach Cal.

• 10:48Gary Brecka?

  I read about that.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  He owns a training lab. A very eye-opening experience.

• 10:53Gary Brecka?

  What timeframe is this?

• 10:54Speaker 00

  This was when I was coaching Ultimate Fighter in... End of 2016. Yeah. End of 2016, going to the beginning of 2017, I met him, I brought, met him through another fighter. He, he came out to the Ultimate Fighter just to kind of pick my brain and I wanted to teach some of the guys, some of the knowledge that I was learning. And it was just an eye-opening experience of the things that he knew that he can make me better. We did blood work, we did hair analysis, all these things to find out what my body was doing, what toxins I had, where my hormones were.

• 11:27Gary Brecka?

  Wow, he was actually measuring toxins back then. Good for him.

• 11:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, I found out that I had insanely high levels of arsenic.

• 11:33Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 11:33Speaker 00

  Which we've tested a lot of wrestlers and for whatever reason, a lot of wrestlers do, I don't know if it's like what the mats are cleaned with, or the mats in general, or just obviously lifestyles.

• 11:42Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 11:43Speaker 00

  But yeah, a lot of the wrestlers we've tested have a high arsenic. So it was an eye-opening experience that he was like, hey, you're, like you were a world champion, but we can make you this much better.

• 11:53Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 11:53Speaker 00

  So when I met him, I was living in Colorado at the time. I decided to go do two weeks with him in Southern California, where I went to school, Cal State Fullerton, but down in that area to go do two weeks with him. And I was blown away with all that he was informing on the way that we train.

• 12:11Speaker 00

  That I had to move my whole life back down there. So I moved from Colorado back to Southern California because of Coach Cal.

• 12:16Gary Brecka?

  Wow. Why didn't you move the coach out, dude? You didn't have the money at that time.

• 12:21Speaker 00

  Definitely, man. Yeah, I mean, also, it's hard to move, like, someone else I tell is building a gym. Don't pay for the fighters, pay for the coaches, right? But also, coaches, hard for them to move their entire lives. He has nine kids. He's, he's got a setup, like, spot in Yorba Linda. So I'm an athlete wanting to get better. I was the one willing to make, make the sacrifice and I would move my life.

• 12:42Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 12:43Speaker 00

  I was from California too, and I was living in Colorado at the time because of training with a coach. And so I decided that this was my next step of evolution. So I moved back to Southern California.

• 12:52Gary Brecka?

  Right on. And how much of an impact did that make, making that shift?

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Oh, it was game-changing when it came to, I think the biggest thing that he taught me too is how I periodized, like, my entire life. When it came to like, when I was training hard, what days I was recovering.

• 13:11Speaker 00

  MMA is the hardest sport in my opinion to train for because we use so many energy systems. So he teach me like when I need to do my zone two training, which we call our low base, how many times a week and what days I should do it. Turning TJ Dillashaw to the CEO of my own body. Like me really scared, rather than just like having all these coaches pull me in different directions, I set my schedule. So Mondays was low base in the morning and then I would do wrestling or Jiu Jitsu, right? And then Tuesday would be my really hard day where I'm sparring. I'm doing insane strength and conditioning to where that's where I'm gonna, but I learned what pushing lactic thresholds were. And learning what even what a lactic threshold was.

• 13:52Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, that is brutal.

• 13:53Speaker 00

  And I, I'm so glad now, that's the only thing I'm glad of retirement that I don't have to do lactic threshold training anymore.

• 14:00Gary Brecka?

  Because for people that don't know what that is, I mean, what, you're not talking about restriction bans, or you're talking about just getting into that zone.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, so I guess I'm skipping so much, there's so much information to talk about, but the first thing you do when you meet Sam Calavita is you test your body when it comes to

• 14:19Speaker 00

  your VO2 max, what you're doing RMR. So what I'm breathing at rest, you know, how much if I'm burning fat or carbs at rest and learning when my body is, you know, hopefully I'm burning 100% fats at rest, but due to lifestyles and the way that we were training, most athletes and just people in general are burning carbs at rest. Wow. You know, which you're producing lactic acid. So the longer you can burn fats for energy, the farther off you can start producing lactic acid. So first you test your RMR and then you test your VO2 max and he finds that exact crossover point of when you start per heart for your heartbeat, when you start burning carbs for energy rather than fats. Wow. Dominantly. And then that's your zone two. So it's like his algorithm. Knows to the beat when I'm in zone two.

• 15:03Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  So I knew when I first met him, my heart rate at 141 and below, I was burning mainly fat for my energy system. Once I got over 141, I started burning carbs. And when I start burning carbs, I start producing lactic acid, and then you have a threshold and knowing what that threshold is by doing a VO2 max.

• 15:20Gary Brecka?

  Wow. So this helps you keep pace during a fight. So you're like, even though you're not looking at a heart monitor during a fight, you kind of trained enough that you know.

• 15:27Speaker 00

  You can feel it.

• 15:27Gary Brecka?

  This is, I'm getting out of that zone and I need to like ease back and, and get back into that zone where I'm actually burning fat.

• 15:35Speaker 00

  Yes. And by, by changing your lifestyle, when it comes to the way you eat, the way you train, the way you recover, the supplements you're taking, you can change your zones. So when I first met him, I was living in Vegas, coaching Ultimate Fighter, eating bad. He met me the day after my birthday, went out drinking for my birthday and like he did all my tests, right?

• 15:52Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 15:53Speaker 00

  I was at 141, but after working with Sam for my first camp, I moved my, my heart rate up to like high 50s, like 158. Anything under that, I'm burning mainly fats for my energy.

• 16:04Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 16:04Speaker 00

  And so now I can go to my heart rate of 158 before I start burning carbs and start producing lactic acid. So by creating a lower base, that's why we do zone two training, this low base to build this base.

• 16:16Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 16:17Speaker 00

  And by doing that, now I'm not burning, I'm producing lactic acid to 158. So now if I move that threshold, then I can move my, my lactic threshold further and then learning how to stay in it longer.

• 16:28Gary Brecka?

  Well, cause you won two championship fights in the fifth round, right?

• 16:31Speaker 00

  Yes. Uh, yeah.

• 16:33Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. Because, I mean, so it.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  Three. Oh, no, two. You're right. Two.

• 16:37Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. Yeah. It was, uh, see, I did my research.

• 16:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:41Gary Brecka?

  I did my research. Actually, my team did the research. Malia, thank you. Um, no, I mean, I was fascinated by that because, um, you know, I, I'm a fan of the UFC. I, I don't pretend to, you know, understand jiu jitsu at this, at that level or, or the competitive fight sport at any, at any high level. But, you know, I always respected athletes that still had a gas tank in the fifth round. Because, you know, just for a layman, if you put on a, a set of boxing gloves and you just stand in front of a heavy bag and you just go off on that heavy bag as hard as you can for 60 seconds, you're taking a knee.

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:19Gary Brecka?

  And, and, and to be watching. You know, this, these guys go at that level for 25 minutes. I'm exhausted watching. I used to be fascinated Nate Diaz would do that a lot and like get into these late rounds and just kind of start slapping people around. He looked like he was having fun.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:35Gary Brecka?

  And, and like, he wasn't worn out at all.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  Nate Diaz is, and also you gotta go like, everyone's genetically made up a little bit different too. But he's a slow twitch athlete. He's not someone that I'm gonna say is like real explosive, real powerful, not really muscle bound. So his thresholds are different, right? Like he's, he's probably doing a lot of aerobic training to where I feel like there's that perfect balance. You look at a guy like Marab, I think genetically he's made up differently as well too. And probably produce, deals with lactic acid a little bit differently than a lot of us do. But he's explosive as well, like strong. So I want to be anaerobic strong, I want to be aerobic strong, and I want a great lactic threshold. Like I want to be a well-balanced athlete. So if I looked at Nate Diaz, yes, he has cardio for days.

• 18:16Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 18:17Speaker 00

  But where he's lacking to where if you want to be a champion.

• 18:19Gary Brecka?

  Knockout strength and.

• 18:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, if you want to be a champion, you can't leave no stone unturned. You got to have all energy systems trained to the best ability. And I think he lacks that power, like that explosiveness, that squeeze strength, like, you know, like Habib had really good like grappling strength and cardio to where he can grab your wrist. He's gonna hold you down forever, right?

• 18:37Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 18:38Speaker 00

  So missing that a little bit.

• 18:39Gary Brecka?

  Right. If you know me, you know, I'm a huge believer in the benefits of hydrogen water. H2 Tab delivers cost-effective portable tablets that generate ultra-clean molecular hydrogen at 12 parts per million. One of the highest concentrations on the market with over 1,300 published studies showing benefits of oxidative stress, energy, recovery, brain function, and so much more. Taking charge of your health has never been easier or more cost-effective. Just drop a tablet in water, let it dissolve and drink it back. It's less than a dollar a day, science-backed and part of my daily routine. I never travel without this and it is my favorite biohack. Visit drinkh2tab.com.

• 19:24Gary Brecka?

  That's drinkh2tab.com and upgrade your hydration today. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. But, but do you think that understanding this lactic threshold and actually knowing that you're not in the carb burning zone and accelerating towards lactic acid, I mean, this is, this is what allowed you to win two championships in, in, in the late rounds? I mean, in the fifth round?

• 19:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I won.

• 19:48Gary Brecka?

  That's deep into a fight.

• 19:49Speaker 00

  I won my first championship before I met Sam Calavita. It was more so when I got to my 30s and like how much better I felt like before I was burning the candles at two ends and I just like felt tired all the time.

• 20:02Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 20:03Speaker 00

  I was a stimulant junkie. I would drink a, which is, I live my life not the way I do anymore.

• 20:08Gary Brecka?

  Right, right.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  So I've been on a diet for nine years.

• 20:09Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, we're gonna get into that too.

• 20:10Speaker 00

  I've been on this longevity path for like a decade now, but before that I was drinking five hour energy drinks, those little shots at like 6, 7pm.

• 20:18Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 20:19Speaker 00

  I know, and, and I might, obviously my adrenal glands were toast. I learned this from Sam. Then my adrenal glands were toast because of the way that I was living my life, but I was, I was exhausted all the time. So I'd drink a five hour energy drink because I was gonna go hit mitts at 7 or 8pm and then I'm expected to go to sleep.

• 20:34Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 20:34Speaker 00

  You know, but I processed, I feel like caffeine different back then because I was just, wasn't treating my body right.

• 20:42Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, I mean, your metabolism was probably just screaming at that point. I mean, I mean, you're burning so many calories, but it's fascinating to know how much structure and architecture goes into this. Obviously not just the, the training game for jujitsu and stand up and for wrestling and, and, you know, but studying, you know, your opponent, I've watched podcasts of yours and how much tape that you would watch and how, you know, you would, you would, you would look at how a fighter stands and they would hold a right hand up and try to keep you off with their left hand and then open it up for your, for your left cross and like you would have game plans. In fact, I watched you talk about how you had your game plans ruined, um, uh, you know, and, and fights where they substituted another fighter like 24 hours out.

• 21:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:25Gary Brecka?

  I spent my, I spent my whole training camp, you know, training to fight one guy and I, I forget his name, but you had actually trained with him.

• 21:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:33Gary Brecka?

  In your camp to get ready for the fight and then you ended up fighting him.

• 21:35Speaker 00

  So I had the biggest like upset in UFC history at the time. I beat Hinnembarra. I was undefeated his entire career, like number one pound for pound champ. I was at eight to one underdog going into this fight. Um, but I think. I know the way that my mind works is just delusional optimism that I knew that I was gonna win.

• 21:53Gary Brecka?

  You did.

• 21:54Speaker 00

  This is the utmost belief in myself, no matter what. I feel like that's what has gotten me to the top, but also gotten me in a lot of trouble as well that we can get into. But I was a massive underdog, won that fight and I was on an Ultimate Fighter contract, wasn't getting, you know, paid to be a champion yet. So it was awesome to get to rip that contract up, get paid different, go into Dana's office and the Fertitas and be like, congratulate me, give me a bonus. Like, yeah, I made it. I'm getting married three weeks later. They paid for my honeymoon.

• 22:25Gary Brecka?

  They did?

• 22:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, they paid for my honeymoon out at one and only Palmyra, amazing place. Like, I hadn't lived the life that I got to live at my honeymoon forever. And then they hit me up, they're like, hey, but we need you to fight eight weeks later. It was kinda like, here, little cherry on top, we need you to fight eight weeks later. And I need you to defend the belt against Ina Braw, this monster that I just beat that no one thought I was gonna beat. So I'm training on my honeymoon. I'm waking up in the morning, I'm hitting the treadmill, I'm sprinting, just because that's the way my mind works. I just, and I just knew that I had to train harder than the next guy, that's what I would do. So I'm training on my honeymoon. I got back, get into camp, an hour before weigh-ins. I get a call from Lorenzo Fertitta saying like, hey champ,

• 23:08Speaker 00

  Braw's not gonna make weight. He fell, hit his head, gotta be rushed off to the hospital. We need you to fight Joe Soto. So I knew Joe Soto.

• 23:16Gary Brecka?

  So you were preparing for this champ. So at least you were taking it about as serious as you've ever taken a fight, obviously.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, but completely different fighting styles, right? Like, Braw was a dominant striker. Yeah, he's got good jiu-jitsu, but very high knockout power dominant striker to where Joe Soto was a wrestler that I've knew in wrestling since we were kids. And we were in training camp because he was gonna fight in Sacramento. So he trained in Sacramento with us a little bit. And I got to train with him. He was the Bellator champion. His first fight at the UFC, no one knew who he was yet. And I knew how tough he was. And I had to lay-

• 23:48Gary Brecka?

  Because you trained with him.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  I had to lay everything on the line to fight someone that no one knew. I had everything to lose. The most nervous I've ever been for a fight. But Lorenzo called me, he's like, hey, we need you to take this fight.

• 23:59Gary Brecka?

  Lorenzo Fertitta called you.

• 24:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, you, I mean, you gotta take it. Lorenzo's calling you, man. The boss man.

• 24:04Gary Brecka?

  And he's so calm. He's actually a very nice guy.

• 24:06Speaker 00

  He is. I love him.

• 24:07Gary Brecka?

  But yeah, yeah, he's a, he's a great human.

• 24:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. So the whole game plan had to go thrown out the window and like within 24 hours, just kind of had to switch it up. You know?

• 24:16Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 24:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:17Gary Brecka?

  But you don't have 24 hours to like retrain everything that you, you had done because you, you were preparing for this. This guy using a lot of, you know, I, I remember you talking about it, you know, it's. Put his left hand out and he would hold his right hand up and you were going to be using your left cross and. You had, you had a whole different game plans. I mean, how much did that throw you off going into that fight?

• 24:36Speaker 00

  It just turned into you have to shut the brain off, which you hope to do in most fights anyways, and just get into that.

• 24:42Gary Brecka?

  Starting to try to say, I'm not ready for this. What if this happens? What if that happens?

• 24:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:46Gary Brecka?

  Going down pathways, the worst case scenario.

• 24:48Speaker 00

  My delusional optimism, right? Like. Everything in your mind wants to tell you that you're not going to win, that you're not going to be successful, that this fight's not the fight you should take, whatever it may be. And it's so generic that I just smash it with, with positive affirmations. Like.

• 25:05Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 25:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. I have a negative thought. I slam three positive ones on top of it and eventually just trick my subconscious to believe in that. I'm the baddest man on the planet and nothing can get in my way. Um, and it's helped me a lot throughout my career.

• 25:18Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 25:18Speaker 00

  And like I said, it's also got me in some trouble. It's why I can't lift my arm to the sky and I need a, a reverse shoulder replacement.

• 25:24Gary Brecka?

  Hmm.

• 25:25Speaker 00

  Um, things like that, but without it, I don't think I would have became world champion either.

• 25:29Gary Brecka?

  Well, you, you, you suffered through a lot of injuries, you know, during your career. I mean, I know that you, you fought with, um, two blown out shoulders.

• 25:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:36Gary Brecka?

  Um, you know, you were, you were doing stem cells, you know, early, early on in your career, you know, to try to. Preserve as much of that, you know, time as you had and. And I, I wonder if you'd talk a little bit about that, like what were some of the things that you were doing before you really had your arms around biohacking and, and. You know, you had your own supplement line and you really dialed in.

• 25:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:57Gary Brecka?

  Um, what were you just doing as a competitive athlete and with that kind of shoulder pain? Um, you know, first fighting through it and training through it, but how were you able to compete at that level? Do you think it was the stem cells? Were you doing regular rehabilitation therapy? Like, what were you, what were you doing?

• 26:13Speaker 00

  Both, all the above. Um, it's a good story for you. So, again, I'm coaching Ultimate Fighter. It's 2016. And at the end of the season, there's a coaches' challenge. For me and Cody Garbrandt, Cody Garbrandt were the coaches and we have to do a challenge against each other. And whoever wins this challenge, like, we win like 15,000 and then we win 2,000 for every one of our fighters. So it's fun, right? It's like a little bit of gambling out there. So we're playing tetherball, but it's in the winter and it's above a pool on a gymnastics balance beam. I'm on a balance beam, he's on a balance beam, and we gotta play tetherball. And the first one to get to 20 or 10, whatever it was, wins. And if you fall off the balance beam, you have to get up and get back on the balance beam as fast as you possibly can before he hits it to the end.

• 26:57Gary Brecka?

  Oh, because he can just keep racking up points.

• 26:59Speaker 00

  You're not there, right? It's like, it's like when you're a kid on the, on the playground, you're hitting and it's over their head and you just keep going.

• 27:05Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, yeah. I actually remember that. I'm kind of dating myself because we used to play tetherball.

• 27:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, me too.

• 27:11Gary Brecka?

  I don't think anybody plays tetherball anymore.

• 27:13Speaker 00

  I don't know if they do.

• 27:14Gary Brecka?

  There's a whole generation going, what the fuck is that?

• 27:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I first dis- well, I had my first shoulder surgery in 2004 during wrestling, but, and that was 2004, and then I re-injured it playing this tetherball game. I fell off and I tried to catch myself on the balance beam so I can get back up as fast as I can before I let him score.

• 27:33Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 27:34Speaker 00

  I'm very competitive.

• 27:35Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  Like, I don't want to lose at anything. I don't care for playing Monopoly. Like, there's nothing, there's nothing I want to lose at, right? So I'm like, and I dislocate my shoulder out the back.

• 27:44Gary Brecka?

  No.

• 27:45Speaker 00

  It's subluxes, though, so it goes out and goes right back in. Um, I didn't think anything of it. It was like, whatever, just finishes the game. And then afterwards, my shoulder was hurting. Um, I tried doing stem cells here in the state. Well, to get, so me and Cody were coaching Ultimate Fighter. At the end of Ultimate Fighter, we're supposed to fight each other for the world title. I had lost my belt, which was just burning me because I shouldn't have lost the fight. It was a split decision, lost against Dominique Cruz, that still to this day, I feel like I won. So I wanted my belt back so bad. I'm fighting Cody Garbrandt at the end of this show. And-

• 28:17Speaker 00

  I blow my shoulder out. Like, I can't afford to get surgery because if I get surgery, I'm out for a year and a half, two years, like a year just to get back to what I need to, and then obviously get back into fight shape again.

• 28:28Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 28:28Speaker 00

  So I do all my research trying to figure out like, what are like the Kobe Bryants of doing in the world to to preserve themselves or whatever it may be to these other alternative medicines to keep me in the game without having to get surgery? And I find stem cells. And so I go down to Panama for the stem cell, Neil Reardon's,

• 28:50Gary Brecka?

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  Stem cell institute. He's like the godfather of stem cells.

• 28:53Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 28:54Speaker 00

  That was my first first treatment. Amazing. Held me together. I had intra-articular and also intramuscular stem cells that then I was able to do as much of bands as I possibly could, kind of encase my shoulder in concrete, right? Like, I knew.

• 29:09Gary Brecka?

  Since the capsule was probably stretched or torn, you need the muscles to kind of.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  I had a full tear, right? I had a full tear, so I knew it's not going to just like grow back. Like, stem cells are going to grow something that's not there. But all my other, like, my delts and also my other, they have four rotator cuffs, like, in their muscles as well. I knew my other ones really need to be as strong as possible, just to kind of like encase that thing in concrete, so it wouldn't sublux again. It would sublux here and there, but it did a lot better job of being able to like strengthen those. It sped up my recovery a lot. And even more so, I met a very influential person at the Panama place, and he got into like testing cells all over the world, and we found out the bioaccelerator placed on a

• 29:53Speaker 00

  meta Ian had by far the most powerful cells. The biggest competition out there, actually, the viability of their stem cells were zero compared to what bioaccelerator was.

• 30:03Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 30:04Speaker 00

  So I knew that's where I needed to go. So from 2017 to the end of my career, bioaccelerator held me together in multiple facets. My shoulders.

• 30:11Gary Brecka?

  Down there, yeah.

• 30:11Speaker 00

  My L4, my L5 discs were bulging, and I had to get those like to reabsorb, which helped with that. I had arthritis in my hand.

• 30:19Gary Brecka?

  They put you under and do the thing? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's the way to go, because those inter-articulars are not fun.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:25Gary Brecka?

  And then and then the soreness afterwards is no joke either. You know, like, for a few hours afterwards, you're like, oh, this isn't, this isn't so bad. And then the next day, you feel like a truck ran over your shoulder. But then they then they absorb and they they really get to work.

• 30:39Speaker 00

  From what I've been told, maybe you can help me with this is that like usually if it hurts more after your injection, it's because you have more inflammation there and it was like going and working. It was doing its job.

• 30:48Gary Brecka?

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  Right. Like if you inject your knee, which I've had a massive knee surgery too, was like very painful. And my understanding was it's because it was working, it was doing what it needed to do.

• 30:56Gary Brecka?

  Oh, yeah. The more damage, the more inflammation, the more inflammation, the more pain. So, you know, that's it. It's a great sign that it's working. It's just not fun to go through it. I had the same thing, not quite to that extent at all, but I had a torn bicep tendon, not completely torn, but a torn bicep tendon and I had it injected. And we've done a lot of injections in the fellow alumni association with professional athletes. And they are game changers, man. I mean, I don't know a professional athlete alive today that if they weren't facing a similar injury, wouldn't be thinking about stem cells, exosomes, those kinds of things.

• 31:31Speaker 00

  And even things I didn't realize that were going to come from it that happened too. Like, again, I wasn't treating my body the right way before I met Sam and wasn't eating the right kinds of foods. And so I'd have psoriasis outbreaks.

• 31:42Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  And when I went down to Bioaccelerator and I got the IV stem cells, like my psoriasis would go away.

• 31:50Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 31:50Speaker 00

  You know, like.

• 31:51Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. Because, you know, these are, you know, not to steal the podcast, but they're, our skin is not just a barrier, it's a gateway. And we use the skin as a secondary route of waste elimination very often. I mean, this is why you get the cold sweats, right? I mean, when you're, when you have a fever and you're, and you're actually, you know, sweating, sometimes you're actually freezing cold and you're still sweating. That's your, that's your liver using the skin as a secondary route of waste elimination. And if you look at eczema and psoriasis, there's certain classes of bacteria that are very often tied to being absent in people that have those. And stem cells are excellent for those topical inflammatory

• 32:29Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 32:29Gary Brecka?

  conditions. So.

• 32:30Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 32:30Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. So that's good. It has a systemic effect. Even if you inject it into the shoulder, they're going everywhere. They're going into the bloodstream, they're going everywhere. You're breathing them out of your lungs. They're actually really good for your lungs. Now, if you do an IV of stem cells, about 80% of those, or if you do exosomes, will actually come out through the lungs.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 32:45Gary Brecka?

  You'll breathe them out. And, and so it's really good for your lungs, you know.

• 32:49Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 32:50Gary Brecka?

  Which is, you know, part of that competitive sport too.

• 32:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:53Gary Brecka?

  But, um, so you get, you, you, you get the stem cells, you come back. You win another championship.

• 32:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, I win the world title back.

• 33:00Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, wow. With two blown shoulders.

• 33:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, yeah, that was the first one. And then throughout my second camp, I tear my super. So I tore my super spinatus in both shoulders and a little bit of a partial labrum tear and bicep tendon tear, a little bit of everything in my left and my right was a super spinatus. Just where it's always.

• 33:19Gary Brecka?

  Somebody crank it in Jiu Jitsu or?

• 33:21Speaker 00

  Wrestling, grappling and Jiu Jitsu. Wrestling is always, I feel like the sport that hurts me. It's a very intense sport. You get yourself in these leveraged positions to where like striking doesn't do that to you. But Jiu Jitsu and wrestling do, you know, and they're accidental. Like I'll shoot a double leg and my arm's over my head and a guy's sprawling on it and puts a lot of pressure on a joint that's not supposed to move that way.

• 33:42Gary Brecka?

  Right, right.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  So, yeah, I mean, that's just wear and tear from wrestling since I was eight year old through college and then, you know, more so as being a professional.

• 33:50Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, listen, there's what I share on this podcast and then there's what I share with my inner circle. If you've been following me for a while, you know how I hold nothing back here. But my VIP community, that's where the real magic happens. Picture this, you're struggling with energy crashes, brain fog, or just feeling like you're not operating at your peak and you don't know where to get real answers. But here's what really sets this apart. You're not just getting my insights. When I have incredible guests on the podcast, VIP members get to submit questions for a private podcast segment. So that world renowned expert we just interviewed, you get exclusive access to their knowledge tailored to your specific situation. This section is under the private podcast section in the ultimate human community.

• 34:32Gary Brecka?

  And speaking of exclusive, you're getting my personal protocols, the exact tools I use for water fasting, gut optimization and morning routines that have taken me decades to perfect. This isn't theory, this is what works in the real world. The community launches challenges throughout the year where you get direct access to me and my network of experts. It's like having a personal health advisory board for less than a hundred dollars a month. Your health is your wealth and this investment pays dividends for life. Join the VIP community at theultimatehuman.com/vip and step into your ultimate potential. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. So I want to get to two highlights of your career. You know, one, because I, the first one, because I think that this will really benefit my

• 35:14Gary Brecka?

  audience, you know, when, when, when you're facing adversity and you basically at the height of your career, um, you know, you use a PED to cut weight and, um, uh, and then they pop you and you get a two-year suspension.

• 35:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:29Gary Brecka?

  And then I know that you talked about what a low point you hit immediately after that. And I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit, like, was that the, because your identity had been stripped from you, were you worried about the public persona? Because you immediately took responsibility, owned up to it, um, and, and stood tall and said, I'm not mad that I did it. Here's why I did it. And, you know, these are the rules of the game, and I violated the rules of the game, and I'm going to take this suspension, and I'm going to come back stronger. But, but after that, I think you went, you went maybe to a dark place.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it was hard not to, you know, being a champion of the world, was going to drop a weight class, so I was fighting 135s, uh, was going to drop to 120, I did drop to 125s to try to get a second belt, um, submit my legacy, you know, make more money, all the dreams you're chasing. And I went full-blown anemic.

• 36:27Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 36:29Speaker 00

  Like, I was, my hematocrit was in the low 30s, like, I'd wake up, I'd be cold, I wouldn't want to train, I was like a fraction of myself.

• 36:35Gary Brecka?

  No.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  And so I started taking anemia medication, which, an anemia medication has erythropoietin in it to help you produce more red blood cells, and, um, was told that it would be out of my system in time. And no matter what, it was the wrong choice to do. What I should have done was backed out of the fight, but again, my delusional optimism brain was like, no, I got this, I'm going to get it done, like, got myself in trouble. And, um,

• 36:57Speaker 00

  I just knew coming out and hitting it and admitting to everything I did was going to be the best for my overall health and my stress and my well being to where if I feel like I was hiding from things, it was just gonna pile on. So I feel like just admitting to it was the best way to get get out and get it out.

• 37:14Gary Brecka?

  Taking ownership and saying.

• 37:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I did go to that very, very bad, dark place. Like you said, my identity was like stripped from me and like everything that I had accomplished in the past, like that's the worst part of failing a drug test isn't the two year suspension is that what everyone thinks the years beforehand got you there. Like everything I did was just in my mind destroyed. Like it was like, oh, he's been doing this his whole career.

• 37:40Gary Brecka?

  The question, yeah.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, you know, you saw it at a very good job and you saw it as very, very strict. They show up to your house at six in the morning all the time and drug test you. I got drug tested like, I don't know, almost 100 times in a year because I was a champion.

• 37:53Gary Brecka?

  No kidding.

• 37:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, all the time.

• 37:54Gary Brecka?

  100 times in a year?

• 37:56Speaker 00

  I got drug tested and all these are like, you can go and look them up and what they, what they, when you get tested, I would get drug tested days back to back. They did drug test me on Tuesday, then they drug test me on Wednesday.

• 38:06Gary Brecka?

  And you don't know?

• 38:08Speaker 00

  No, it's completely random. There's an app on my phone that to tell them where I'm at 365 days a year. It could be Christmas and they can show up and drug test you. It hasn't happened, but they could. But they always collect an A and B sample. The A sample they test right then and there, the B sample they keep for any instances like mine that came back. And so I've been drug tested since 2016 on. They went back and retested all my samples and to make sure that this wasn't happening beforehand. So even though they did that and it's public, it's still like the public guy is gonna beat you down for it, right? And that's the, but that's why it works, right? No athlete should want to go through that. And it was a very, very dark place. I'd say for the first like six months, I just wanted to like bury myself and like drink and like not have to think about it.

• 38:53Gary Brecka?

  Did you stop training?

• 38:54Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Well, I got double shoulder surgery when I got suspended.

• 38:59Speaker 00

  So not only was like.

• 39:00Gary Brecka?

  Well, I got some time off. I might as well just get.

• 39:02Speaker 00

  Well, my identity was stripped from me. I got surgery on my left, on my right shoulder and then eight weeks later, got one on my left shoulder. As soon as I was able to get out of a sling, I got one on my left shoulder. So, you know, eating pain pills and being suspended wasn't the best choice, but I wanted to get back to being myself.

• 39:18Gary Brecka?

  Wow. And, and so talk about the, the walk back because, you know, walking out of that, that hole.

• 39:27Speaker 00

  Um, it takes, it takes a strong mental fortitude to be able to do it. I feel like a lot of people maybe would have got broken and just did something else, but I think that mental toughness that has turned me into a champion has also got me back into the line. And I also, I also felt like I had to do it, right? Cause I was being questioned so much. It was like, I have to come back.

• 39:48Gary Brecka?

  I have to come back and.

• 39:50Speaker 00

  Improve myself, yeah. So there's a little bit of that that fired me up as well too, like wanting my identity back, wanting my self-purpose back.

• 39:58Gary Brecka?

  Cause two years is not that long of a time when you start thinking about dual surgery, if you stop training and let yourself get out of shape a little bit, maybe you were drinking, you were taking pain medication, you know, you're in kind of a dark place, but then you have to, from that ground zero, back into the octagon is not that long of a timeframe, maybe a year. Right? And so where was your family in all this? Like, were they like, hey TJ, it's okay if you don't want to go back? Or was your wife like, you're a world champion, I want to support you all the way? Like where, what other support systems did you have going on? Or was this just all inside of TJ's head?

• 40:35Speaker 00

  Mostly it was inside of my head, but I do have a rock of a wife that is supportive. We've been together for 20 years now, all through my wrestling career. She's seen like all of it. She knew my mindset. She knew I was, I was never a question if I was going back. That was just like, she knew that, right? She knows my personality, she knows my mentality. Like, I don't, I don't shut off. I don't, I don't stop. So that was nothing, but she's always been a rock there to support me. And that's what I felt the worst about my situation too, was like, not only that it affected me and how bad it hurt me, but it hurt my coaches, it hurt my family, it hurt my training partners, like it gave them a bad.

• 41:11Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, yeah. They're, they're all on this journey with you too.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. So the ripple effect of that was made me feel really, really bad as well too. And I took a lot of like.

• 41:22Speaker 00

  Extra just punishment on myself for that too, you know? But luckily I've had a great support system, great coaches, um, my family, my family is the most supportive family in the entire world. I mean,

• 41:33Gary Brecka?

  That's awesome.

• 41:34Speaker 00

  They live in Northern California, seven hour drive to Fullerton where I wrestled that. My dad would finish work a little bit early as a contractor, drive all the way down to Fullerton, watch me wrestle, drive home that night because he didn't want to miss work the next day.

• 41:48Gary Brecka?

  Seven hours?

• 41:49Speaker 00

  So 14 total trip, just to watch me wrestle a do match.

• 41:52Gary Brecka?

  Oh my God.

• 41:54Speaker 00

  My dad's, that's where I get it from. Like, my dad's a very hazardous how.

• 41:58Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, hazard. I see where the hazard comes from now, dude.

• 42:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:03Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, that's a, that's a hazard on the road, even if you're sober.

• 42:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:07Gary Brecka?

  So, um, so we'll brighten the mood now a little bit because I, I want to talk about, you know, the, the transition to where you are now, you know, I know, first of all, I know Dana thinks the world of you and I think the world of Dana. And, um, you know, he's, he's actually doing a documentary, um, you know, with you. Can we talk about that?

• 42:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:27Gary Brecka?

  Okay. Yeah. He's doing a documentary with you about, um, you know, life after fighting.

• 42:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:32Gary Brecka?

  And, and I think this is awesome because I've always been, I've always watched those shows growing up, like the one hit wonder. And you're like, like, oh yeah, I remember that song. You never heard from him again. And, uh, you know, professional athletes and, you know, actors, A-listers, those people that have been very, very in the public eye. You always do wonder what, what, you know, happened to him after, after achieving that level of fame, stardom, whatever you want to call it, notoriety. Um, so what made you choose longevity, wellness, you know, supplements? Because I know you have, your undergrad was in kinesiology, but you've talked about how you didn't learn anything there. You actually learned it in the real world, probably learned most of it from Sam. Um, you know, what, what

• 43:15Gary Brecka?

  was that direction about? I mean, what, what made you say, this is, this is the next career path for me. It's like I'm disrupt, I want to disrupt the supplement industry, or I'm just not happy with what's out there. I'm starting to, you know, pull back the layers of, of what's really on the market. And I realize how many charlatans and how much garbage is out there. And I want to change that game. Like, what was that about?

• 43:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, I told you this when I first got here and started checking out your, I mean, I'm very jealous of your longevity center that you have here and all the tools you have because I've been made fun of for what I have. I got a hyperbaric chamber, the red light, the sauna, the cold plunge, the EWA. Like, I have it all as well too, but you're blowing me out of the water. I was very jealous of it, but.

• 43:55Gary Brecka?

  And you, and you won a hydrogen nano bath today.

• 43:58Speaker 00

  I do, yeah.

• 43:58Gary Brecka?

  I'm giving him a hydrogen nano bath. It's gonna be awesome.

• 44:03Speaker 00

  But something I've noticed anecdotally from just training and my experience is that chasing pre-performance and longevity go hand in hand. And if you treat the body the way that it was intended to be treated, and you recover the right way, you eat the right foods, you supplement the right way, your performance is so much better. And the way you feel is so much better. And I noticed that by meeting Sam Calavita and training in his garage. And when I retired from fighting, it's a great story too. When I first met Sam, he came to Vegas and I had all these supplements on the counter. And they were, and they were all garbage, like, someone I was sponsored by. And I'm promoting it. I'm saying like, what do you mean these are bad? He's like, stop taking these instantly. I was like, what do you mean? He's like, they're horrible for you. Like packed with sucralose and artificial sweeteners and things I didn't

• 44:48Speaker 00

  know about, right? And he made me throw all these away and turn me on to the good supplements that were made naturally and organic and things that I needed. My whole style, my whole life changed me eating salmon. That was a big part of it. So when I retired and I had felt so much better from the training I did and supplementation I was doing, I knew that that's what I wanted to chase.

• 45:10Gary Brecka?

  That's awesome.

• 45:11Speaker 00

  When I retired, it was kind of like, what am I gonna do now? Right? Like, same way as when I got suspended, it was kind of like my identity was taken away. Like, what am I gonna do now? I needed to put my energy towards something. And the lifestyle that I was living in longevity and health and wellness is what I wanted to continue in. And so that's where Wild Society Nutrition started.

• 45:28Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. I love your stuff, by the way, man. My son and I eat your ribeyes constantly, the dried ribeyes.

• 45:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, the caveman eats.

• 45:35Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, I take them on planes. I take them, I take them with me everywhere. Yeah.

• 45:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, so.

• 45:40Gary Brecka?

  And I tried them first at that SproutsCon.

• 45:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:42Gary Brecka?

  When, when, when I, when I met you at SproutsCon and my, my son had been taking them for a while. And he's like, Dad, you gotta come over and meet TJ Jelashaw. And I knew who you were and. And he's like, I've been eating this stuff. I love this stuff. And now I'm like, I, I love it too, man.

• 45:55Speaker 00

  Amazing. I, I'd love to hear that because that's why I built it. Not only, I mean, I built it for everyone, but also selfishly myself.

• 46:02Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 46:03Speaker 00

  Right? Like products I wish I would have when I was competing to strive for peak performance. Our K man is that we're talking about is a 20 ounce grass fed ribeye and sea salt. That's all it is.

• 46:12Gary Brecka?

  That is so awesome. In a bag.

• 46:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, we slice it really thin. We air dry it. We put it in a five ounce bag and we said, it's crazy how well it's doing.

• 46:21Gary Brecka?

  Dude, it's, it is, it really is. And I'm not, I, I've got no affiliate link with you guys or anything, but I will tell you, man, they're, they're, they're amazing.

• 46:28Speaker 00

  Thank you. I mean, you're talking about traveling. I mean, that's the selfish reason why I created them. Like I had to do a lot of traveling for business or when I was fighting. And I can't eat it in an airport.

• 46:37Gary Brecka?

  No, no, no.

• 46:37Speaker 00

  There's no way.

• 46:38Gary Brecka?

  Dangerous place in the world to eat.

• 46:39Speaker 00

  It's insane that like, I can't buy a water that's not in the glass and it's not in plastic.

• 46:44Gary Brecka?

  Transportation Secretary, uh, Sean Duffy's trying to change that right now. He's just got a lot of flack for it too. They just announced that they were gonna, um, add extra breastfeeding stations for women. They were gonna put playgrounds in for, for kids to get the zoomies out in airports. And, and turn some of the bars into gyms and shower and changing facilities. And people went nuts. And I was like, dude, I would much rather fly next to somebody who had just had a workout and a fresh shower than some dude that had four beers and a basket of fries.

• 47:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:12Gary Brecka?

  And you know, and, and if you're a breastfeeding mother, I mean, uh, you gotta go into a public restroom, kind of hide in the stall right now. What, why wouldn't we give extra places for that? And, and you know, playground for kids to get the zoomies out. You know, I walk by these vape booths and smoking booths. And there's like six bars between when you get out of security and get to your, get to your, you know, get to your gate.

• 47:33Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 47:34Gary Brecka?

  What are the top three reasons why I prefer a vertical cold plunge versus a lay down tub? Well, I've used both. When you're in a vertical position, your body naturally regulates your breathing better. So if you're holding on to the sides and you're in a vertical position, you can just focus on your breath work and you can stay calm. A lot of people feel more calm when they're in a vertical position than when they're laying down in the water and think they might slip under the water. So when you're vertical plunging, you're fully immersed faster, you can focus. Recovery, inflammation reduction, and you're not struggling to just stay in a lie down position. Your body floats in an awkward way sometimes. So it's just a more efficient, comfortable experience, in my opinion. It takes up way less space, too. It has a smaller footprint, so you can put these on your patio, your garage, your bathroom, your locker room. You can really put it anywhere. I've got one on my balcony. I've got two in my bathroom.

• 48:19Gary Brecka?

  So this is why Cold Life is my favorite cold plunge on the market. So click the link below and you can order yours today. Make sure you get the ultimate human version. Now, let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. So I love that the genesis of this, because, you know, if I was to sort of summarize a lot of the guests that come on my podcast, and they they're the most impactful, very influential, passionate, purpose driven people, it's always the people that solve the problem in their life. They don't necessarily have to be the most qualified. You know, there's some of some of the soccer moms that I've have on my podcast have solved problems like Lyme disease and, you know, you know, on the journey with Jelly Roll, and he conquered drug addiction and alcohol addiction and being

• 49:01Gary Brecka?

  510 pounds and, and this overwhelming sense of self hatred. So what would you say is the, the problem that you solve that started this?

• 49:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, um, learning that the products I was being paid to talk about on my social media and felt ended up feeling really bad about it, that I'm promoting something now that and even even after I found out about it, I was getting paid to talk about it. And I kept doing it because I was getting paid. It's like I felt so guilty about that. So then once I retired and I didn't have these sponsorships, it was like, I'm going to create something that I know is good for you. The reason why I rolled out into Sprouts first as well, too, like, a lot of professional athletes will build the product. Again, I built these selfishly for myself, and we'll get into why I built them. But like, I wanted to roll out into Sprouts first because a lot of professional athletes will slap their face on their brand. And then you could and then release it on the website on their website. I mean, I could be building this in my garage.

• 49:55Gary Brecka?

  Same thing happens in my.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:57Gary Brecka?

  MySpace, a lot of people that I, some of them that I look up to, they get to the top of the mountain, they just become a prostitute for every product or service.

• 50:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then there's like, especially in the supplement industry, you could be building this product in your garage and selling it. Like the, the way that it's not regulated is insane.

• 50:11Gary Brecka?

  You were talking to me about protein powders at the SproutsCon. And I forget what you said to me, but I remember it blew my mind. I, I actually wrote it down. I meant to talk to you about it on the podcast and I forgot what it was, but it was about like the scam and how they can artificially inflate the protein content.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:29Gary Brecka?

  You know, on, on the label. And I didn't know about that. Tell me a little bit about that. Cause I found it fascinating then.

• 50:34Speaker 00

  Well, how much is actually like usable and bioavailable and like only like, you know, sometimes some of these products are only 20% what actually is in the product. And until you're doing third party testing, what they say does not, like you have no idea what it is.

• 50:48Gary Brecka?

  Somebody's like, wow, it's 30 grams of protein.

• 50:50Speaker 00

  But really it's 10.

• 50:51Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, it's got 10.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  And, and there's a lot of that out there. So multiple reasons I built this is so chasing peak performance and simplifying some products. Sprouts was a great partner to partner with. I didn't sell one product online first. I went straight to retail.

• 51:07Gary Brecka?

  Well, that's, that's a different strategy. Wow.

• 51:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, I went straight to Sprouts first, which obviously your product.

• 51:12Gary Brecka?

  How, how did you get them to carry your stuff? Just because of your name?

• 51:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:15Gary Brecka?

  Okay.

• 51:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. The, the name and the marketing I was going to put behind it. And Sprouts is a great partner. They have this innovation center to where they give like new brands a chance because they are in tune with like what's popular right now, what's healthy for you.

• 51:30Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. My son sells his hydrogen tablets there. We, we met at SproutsCon and it was, I, I, that was the first time I'd met a whole team.

• 51:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:38Gary Brecka?

  You know, from behind Sprouts and they really do have an awesome team and they're very intentional about what they're putting on their shelves for the, for the public, which I like too. Yeah, they're, they're, they're a great brand. I hope they continue to explode.

• 51:50Speaker 00

  Oh, they will. They're, they're growing really, really well. Um, and the reason why I wanted to go into sprouts is because they have a kill list of ingredients. You can't have within your product and live within their four walls.

• 52:00Gary Brecka?

  Wow.

• 52:00Speaker 00

  Like you can't have artificial sweeteners. You can't have preservatives, things like that that you want to avoid anyways. So you know, when you're shopping at sprouts, you're shopping.

• 52:09Gary Brecka?

  Somebody is, we wish our FDA would do that for us.

• 52:11Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 52:12Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, but that's cool.

• 52:13Speaker 00

  And so that was a, bring, bring a lot of validity to what I was building. Rather than me just slap my face on something, something online, I could be building my garage and who knows what's in it. Another point was that we went straight, uh, third party testing from the get go. Every product we've made has been by informed choice, informed sport. So you know that what's on that nutritional effects panel or supplement effects panel really is in there. And we test all heavy metals, all that stuff, right?

• 52:37Gary Brecka?

  So good, man.

• 52:37Speaker 00

  And being as very transparent as possible.

• 52:40Gary Brecka?

  That means a lot, man.

• 52:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:41Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, no, and it means a lot to the consumer. And I think, I think the, the general populace is becoming more woke to these things. I think the pandemic did us all a favor.

• 52:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 52:51Gary Brecka?

  You know, we realized, hey, maybe our governmental elites don't have our best interests at heart. And I think they do now, um, in, in this current administration, but you know, in the past, maybe not so much. And, and also we just can't trust everything that we read and, and hear out there. So I think people follow people and not brands too. So just knowing that your heart's behind this and you developed this as much for you as you did for them.

• 53:16Speaker 00

  And my seven year old son, like, you know, if I'm giving it to my seven year old.

• 53:19Gary Brecka?

  The rib eyes?

• 53:19Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Like when I get, so it's been hard for us to keep our caveman eats in the house because it's selling so much. Like I have to stay in front of production and everything I'm building is going straight to sprouts, like to our website. So when I bring it home, he's, he smashes it. And it's always been a battle to like, I'm really into my diet. I'm really into performance. And so it's always like, I'm trying to feed my son the same way. And I always want to increase his protein content. He's growing really good for his brain. And it's like, that's the easiest hack for me is to give him caveman eats because he loves it and he'll Mao it. And there's 95 grams of protein in one bag.

• 53:51Gary Brecka?

  That's so good.

• 53:51Speaker 00

  And he'll eat half a bag.

• 53:53Gary Brecka?

  This is so good. Dude, maybe that's going to be his nickname. You know.

• 53:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:58Gary Brecka?

  Cave Man Dillashaw.

• 53:59Speaker 00

  There we go. I like it. I like it. He'll be the new guy. He'll be able to turn to the

• 54:03Gary Brecka?

  The new hazardous hell.

• 54:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:05Gary Brecka?

  That's awesome.

• 54:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:06Gary Brecka?

  And so what's, what's like a typical, now that you're more woke to longevity and wellness, you've got this brand out there, which I'm sure you're pouring your soul into.

• 54:18Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:18Gary Brecka?

  What is it? What does a typical day look like for you now? I mean, you're clearly you're keeping yourself in good shape.

• 54:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I ran this morning. I can't.

• 54:26Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, you and I ran the same route now here in Coral Gables. Yeah, we should have run into each other.

• 54:29Speaker 00

  I know. I can't not work out. Like, it's my happy place. It's what I do. It's like, and now knowing about longevity and taking care of, taking care of yourself, it being active is very, very important.

• 54:43Speaker 00

  So trying to squeeze that in wherever I can, you know, it might only be 30 minutes. I think I've heard you say this, like, snacking on exercise, right?

• 54:50Gary Brecka?

  I use that term all the time.

• 54:51Speaker 00

  To where like, I might only have 30 minutes at lunch because I'm in between calls and like, I'll get a little workout in.

• 54:56Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 54:56Speaker 00

  Or, and I'll do multiple of them throughout the day, but they're little. Or maybe I'll just go for a walk after I eat dinner with my family. Like finding little windows to be able to work out.

• 55:05Speaker 00

  To where I used to, that's all I did.

• 55:06Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 55:06Speaker 00

  Right? So my life is very busy now. I remember towards the end of my career telling my wife, man, it'd be nice to retire one day and live a normal life. Now I, I would go.

• 55:19Gary Brecka?

  Says a UFC fighter, right?

• 55:21Speaker 00

  I would, I would love to go back and kick people in the head again. It was way easier than it, than it is of running your own business and being an entrepreneur. It'd be very mentally tough being a CEO and founder of your own brand and running it. Because there's fires every day you're putting out. Like, you always feel like the company's on the verge of like, being destroyed. You're like nervous about it because there's like logistics problems, like showing up to Sprouts in time or manufacturing problems. And until you become completely vertically integrated and control all pieces, you're relying on so many other people.

• 55:51Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 55:52Speaker 00

  And the ball gets dropped.

• 55:53Gary Brecka?

  Still your brand though, man.

• 55:54Speaker 00

  And like if, if my product doesn't show up and say my K-Man East doesn't taste the way that it's supposed to taste, that's on me, even though my manufacturer's the one that messed it up. And like, that just like stresses you out so much, you know?

• 56:06Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, I told my kids early on, you know, because my, my son owns H2 Tab, my daughter's launching a chemical-free skincare line.

• 56:13Speaker 00

  Awesome.

• 56:13Gary Brecka?

  My youngest wants to launch a chemical-free activewear line, which I'm super supportive of. I mean, having my kids close proximity to me is the greatest blessing of my entire lifetime. I mean, there's nothing better than being. Best friends and kind of on the journey with your kids.

• 56:28Speaker 00

  So cool.

• 56:28Gary Brecka?

  And, and your son is learning more by observation than he is by what you teach and tell him. You know, he's, her eyes are a lot more open to what you, you think and like seeing dad in the grind is that's, and you know, that, that itch is going to get planted into him too. So, but you know, I, I, I told him, you know, when they wanted to start their own business, I said, it's great. I mean, just don't start it for the wrong reason. Just remember you're never going to own this business. It's always going to own you.

• 56:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:54Gary Brecka?

  Because, you know, if you're a good entrepreneur, your, your reputation in that business means everything.

• 57:02Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 57:03Gary Brecka?

  And so talk to me a little bit about, and it should be great for your business, you know, this documentary that's going on with, with, is it Paramount?

• 57:11Speaker 00

  It was, it was going to be released this year, but now with the whole Paramount deal, they're, we're going to wait till next year.

• 57:17Gary Brecka?

  Okay.

• 57:18Speaker 00

  Just because.

• 57:18Gary Brecka?

  So it's on the shelf?

• 57:20Speaker 00

  It's on the shelf right now. It's already been recorded. They followed me around for like seven different days. All the way out to like meeting with venture capitalists in New York, to Sprouts Con, to going into Sprouts and going to my manufacturing and show them how the process is made, the formulations and my office at home, my office in Orange County, you know, filmed like all that. And this all started because Dana is a very, very passionate entrepreneur. Like I think that's his first love. I know he's got the UFC and everything, but like he loves entrepreneurship and building something and making it, turning it into something successful. And we just got in touch. I probably stayed in touch with him more now since I've retired than even when I was fighting and just kind of filling him in on what's going on with my brand.

• 58:01Speaker 00

  And it was a joke because I heard he was like teaming up with First Form and excuse my language, but I said, yo, fuck First Form, you know? I was like, just joking. I know Wild Society is not big enough yet, but we did, we did, I sent some numbers of the sales we did in April. We're just getting started and like that same savage I was in the cage is the same savage I'm outside the cage and I'm going to get this done. I'm going to make it successful and I'm going to turn the supplement industry upside down. Well, he loved it. It resonated with him. He's like, This is awesome. Gave me a great idea. And I was like, awesome. What's the idea? Goes to me for like two days.

• 58:34Gary Brecka?

  He'll go, she'll be like, hold tight or something like that. And you're like, no, dude, I don't want to hold tight.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  And so like my brain's going, he's like, I got a great idea. He's like, oh, maybe I want to partner with you. See this and that. And like, he goes to me for like two days and like 10:30 at night. He calls me like two days later. It's like, hey, man, I want to create a documentary of what you're doing, what success looks like after retirement. Um, and still being on that same grind that you were as a fighter and now as an entrepreneur. And so that they followed me around filming it, you know?

• 59:00Gary Brecka?

  And if Dana says it, it, it happens. He's not just like, uh, yeah, I think we'll do this documentary. It sounds like a great idea kind of guy. He's like, oh no, we're going to do a documentary where it's, I mean, it's happening.

• 59:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:13Gary Brecka?

  He doesn't, uh, the, the thing I love most about him, he's very black and white. Like, you know exactly where he stands. But talk about a guy whose word you could take to the bank.

• 59:22Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 59:23Gary Brecka?

  If he tells you that he's going to do something, there's a hundred percent chance it's going to get done. We were sitting here at our, at my kitchen table a few months ago and, uh, with his daughter and, and my son was here and he started talking to my son Cole about, um, the great world race. He ran seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. And he was like, wait, what the fuck? He ran a marathon in Antarctica and then Africa and then Australia. And he's like, we need to do documentary on this. He goes, do you want to do it? Do you want me to do it? And Cole goes, I want you to do it.

• 59:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course. Yeah.

• 59:52Gary Brecka?

  He literally picked up the phone right then and called his team and, and now it's, now it's underway and

• 59:58Speaker 00

  Oh, it's so cool.

• 59:58Gary Brecka?

  He's, uh, they were meeting with the documentary film crew and, uh, yeah, he's, he's, he, he's either all gas or all break. I mean, there's no sort of in between. So that's awesome. And I think that's going to have a huge impact on your, on your career.

• 1:00:12Speaker 00

  It is just going to sheds light on what I'm building and why I'm building it. You know, I've always talked about like, I'm building products that I wish I would have had when I was competing, you know, like my concentrates that are grass fed. And we added organic mushroom complex to it to deal with, um, not only athletic ability, but reducing stress and cortisol and, um, my longevity protein that's, you know, got creatine, whey protein isolates, collagen, lactoferrin, urethra, and A like, Listen to you, man. I love this. Yeah. And just the reason why I created what I did and the benefits behind it. And Kate Maney's been able to take it on the road and like most of the like, I'm on a very high protein diet. You know, high protein, good fats, lower carbs, like good carbs.

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  I've been wanting to put on size, but I'll put on lean size and it's been fantastic for that. But most of my protein I get is from the food I eat. Why we created Kate Maney's.

• 1:01:04Gary Brecka?

  Hundred percent. I think you get it from Whole Foods.

• 1:01:06Speaker 00

  Exactly. But it's nearly impossible sometimes when you're working hard or you're working out hard to, you know, get the nutrients you need right away.

• 1:01:14Gary Brecka?

  Right.

• 1:01:15Speaker 00

  Right. So the like the longevities of isolates we created, like I can drink them while I'm working out. And I get, you know, the rapid absorption of amino acids and proteins and things that I need for protein synthesis. And just thought about chasing world championships and that's what wild side nutrition is.

• 1:01:30Gary Brecka?

  That's so awesome. So where do you see this brand going? You're going to continue the, you have an online presence now.

• 1:01:36Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:01:37Gary Brecka?

  You can continue to go after the retail channel.

• 1:01:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I love retail, specific channels too, like especially around the natural sector. We're looking to roll out into Whole Foods here in the beginning of 2026. We're in Sprouts. GNC has actually been a massive help for us as well too. GNC has trying to turn around what they've been known as in the past and only like putting out like weight gainers and products that have artificial, they still have that.

• 1:02:03Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:03Speaker 00

  It's your cheaper product. But yeah, so our like our longevity product is solely at GNC right now.

• 1:02:09Gary Brecka?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:09Speaker 00

  Cause they want a whole longevity section.

• 1:02:11Gary Brecka?

  That's sick.

• 1:02:12Speaker 00

  They want people like, the times are changing.

• 1:02:14Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, I totally agree.

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  People like you.

• 1:02:16Gary Brecka?

  People, yeah.

• 1:02:17Speaker 00

  And they're educating like me, educating me and educating the world on like what we should be eating and how we should be treating ourselves. And GNC is like seeing that trend.

• 1:02:26Gary Brecka?

  Yeah, totally agree, man. I'm really excited for you, Will. So I have a group of followers that are called my VIP group and they're the only guys that I, and women that I let know what guest is coming on the podcast before they come on. So I want to take you into a room with them. I do a private podcast with them. I want to, they have a whole list of questions for you. But if you're interested in becoming a VIP, just go over to theultimatehuman.com/vip and you can sign up to be a VIP today. You get private podcasts, you get Q and As with me, you get all of my protocols, including becoming the ultimate human version of yourself. And maybe I'll even negotiate a discount for TJ's, for some of those yummy ribeyes.

• 1:03:09Speaker 00

  Love it, yeah.

• 1:03:11Gary Brecka?

  But before, before we go into that room, I always wind down all of my podcasts by asking my guests the same question. What does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

• 1:03:22Speaker 00

  I've heard your podcast, so I had a little bit of time to think about this.

• 1:03:25Gary Brecka?

  Ah, you knew it was coming!

• 1:03:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, I did. I knew it was coming. But for me, it's the pursuit of excellence mentally, spiritually, and physically. I just, I just need to be chasing something. I need a sense of purpose. I know that sense of purpose, purpose keeps me going, keeps me motivated. When I'm motivated for something, like greatness can happen. And I want that excellence all the time. And I want that excellence to rub off on my son, or my family, and maybe people that follow along on my journey.

• 1:03:52Gary Brecka?

  Yeah. TJ DeShaw, I wish you all the success, man.

• 1:03:56Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:03:56Gary Brecka?

  You're moving the needle in this world. I really appreciate you coming on The Ultimate Human.

• 1:03:59Speaker 00

  This is amazing. Thank you.

• 1:04:00Gary Brecka?

  And until next time, guys, that's just science.