Nutrition arguments often become identity arguments. Plant-based against animal-based. Muscle against longevity. Discipline against pleasure. Simon Hill offers a calmer frame: look for the patterns that repeat across healthy diets, then test the result in your own body.
Three biomarkers everybody should track. You can be fit and healthy and go to the gym and do all the things and you can have high blood pressure. The number one risk factor responsible for most premature deaths globally is Simon Hill, nutrition researcher, author, and host of the proof. He's here to cut through diet myths and show what the evidence really says about eating for muscle health and longevity. My dad had a heart attack. Is that something I need to be careful of because it's genetic and it might run in the family? The reason that a lot of these diseases are running in families a lot of the time is explained by the fact that we adopt the same lifestyle. You have to consume more plant protein to get to the same level of absorption. How much truth is to that? Do you want to talk about protein absorption percentages or do you want to talk about your ability to build muscle and strength? I think most people would say. Today on the Hack Podcast, we have our guest, Simon Hill, who has built a global platform by making one simple idea impossible to ignore. Nutrition is one of the most powerful levers we have to control how we age. As the host of the Proof podcast and author of the Proof is in the plans, Simon dives deep into science behind metabolic health, inflammation, and biological aging. His work shows how what we put on our plates can literally shape how long and how well we live. If you ever thought food was just fuel, this conversation will change your mind. It was very eye opening how he approached things, how and why he introduced plants more and more into his diet. What the research shows and how he plans on living better in his 50s and 60s because of the changes he's making today. And what was very interesting and very nice was that he did not force it down our throats saying that we have to become plant-based. He was saying that just the introduction of consuming more plantbased products and maybe pulling away from over consumption of meat can have many advantages to your health and longevity. He debunked a lot of the myth that is around including what wearables you should use or what biomarkers are really important. When we talked about the three most important biomarkers, he mentioned some that we've never even
heard of and one that cost $ 40 and you should do every single day. I think this is one of the episodes that will really open your eyes that we enjoyed very much and we're we are sure you will do too. What's up guys and welcome back to Hack You. Simon Hill, thank you very much for joining us today. Looking forward to speaking to you. Likewise, Mike Fame, great to be here. I'm curious to know very quickly how you got into doing what you're doing today. 20 years ago, I walked into my first physiology lecture at Latroe University in Melbourne. That's where I grew up. and I started with an undergraduate degree in physiootherapy. And I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with professional sport in Australia, but there's a a football league over there which is different to European football um called Australian rules football. And I graduated and went and worked as a physiootherapist with AFL uh football team called Richmond. and uh did that for a number of years and then decided I wanted to go back to uni and went back to this time to Deacon University which is also in Melbourne and did a masters in nutrition science and uh from there uh came out into the world and was having a lot of conversations around how confused people are with you know what what we should we be eating for performance what should we be eating for long-term health and um I kind of have carved out this niche where you I hope hope to provide some clarity in this space where there's a lot of confusion and a lot of seemingly conflicting or contrasting headlines and and information on social media. So go spans 20 years and I've been now doing my podcast for about 8 years at this point from the things that that you learned over those 20 years. Does it feel like there's more myths out there than when we started or does it feel like we have more information so it's less? It's hard for me to to know if there's
more today than there was 15 20 years ago. I think the longer I've been in this space, the more I become aware of certainly. Um, but it may have been things that I just didn't recognize, you know, when I had less understanding of of this space. Um I think you know certainly today people have much more information at their fingertips and I think that can be a good thing but it can also be uh overwhelming and be a source of kind of anxiety when there is a lot of conflicting information. So, uh, yeah, I kind of empathize with the average person today who is exposed to a lot of information and at the same time, I think we're in a better place than ever to disseminate information, um, as individuals. So, um, pros and cons of kind of the space we find ourselves in today, but it is what it is and, um, I enjoy, you know, playing my part and trying to provide some clarity. So, you're you're speaking to two guys who are carnivores and would probably take quite a lot of convincing to follow a plant-based diet. So, we got a few questions for you. Um, I'm curious to know first of all, when did that journey start for you? And then secondly, oh, I get we'll do that one first because there's we got a load of questions after that. Sure. Yeah, I would have I mean, let's rewind 12 years ago and if you guys were visiting me in Melbourne, I would have been the first to book the steak restaurant. So, I'm with you there. And I always say like I love steak. The steak tastes delicious. And uh that hasn't changed, you know, for me today. My food choices have changed. And um it took me looking at the research objectively and with some humility and then also thinking about what are my goals, what am I optimizing for? Um and
my number one priority that I'm optimizing for is to be healthy into my 50s, 60s, and 70s. And when I look at the data across all of the different types of study designs we have, it's abundantly clear that while we can't sit here and say there's one perfect diet, I don't think we can do that. There is a theme a a set of characteristics which time and time again are associated with better blood pressure, better APOB, better inflammation levels, lower risk of having a heart attack, a stroke, developing diabetes, lower risk of developing fatty liver disease and having these metabolic complications including certain types of Alzheimer's. And these diets tend to be diets that are high in fiber. They are diets that have a bias towards unsaturated fats. They're they're not they could be, but they're not, you know, uh they're not low fat across the board. And we can get into that because I think that has been a big misunderstanding. There was a lot of demonization of fat without the context of not all fat is the same. Um, these are diets that have a bias towards plant protein but can have animal protein in them. [snorts] And they're diets that are very low in ultrarocessed foods. And what I just described to you, you could then go and take those sets of characteristics and you could cut that a number of ways. It could be a healthy Mediterranean diet. It could be a pescatarian diet. It could be a completely plant exclusive diet. And it could be low carb. It could be moderate carb. It could be high carb. And that is what we see across the literature. And now that what I just explained to you, that's not a very sexy, it's not a headline grabbing position. And you know, probably one of the reasons why it's it's not kind of spread so much across across the internet. We see more extreme positions get a lot more engagement and um kind of social
interaction. Uh, but I looking at all of that evidence, I realize like there are changes that I get to make to my own diet. Back when I was in my 20s, my diet did not reflect those characteristics. It was very high in saturated fat. I was eating a ton of meat. It was low in unsaturated fats. It was low in fiber relative to what we would say is optimal. And it was low in ultrarocessed foods. I never had a diet that was really rich in ultrarocessed foods. My diet was based on on whole foods. So for me, it was looking at all of that and that was and and still has kind of stood up over time as a a decision which I believe will hold me in goodstead in future decades. And at the same time, it's not that I have to make a compromise to my health today. So there are ways where you can optimize for long-term and at the same time still be optimizing for whatever your goals are today. And I think that takes a bit of learning particularly in a society where we you know like I mentioned before I love meat and we we have a strong bias as a society towards animal protein in particular and we don't like to necessarily hear things that are not reinforcing the things that we love. So I understand why why this message might be unpopular to some. Um, I believe it's rooted in in science. And if we're truly sitting here and saying, you know what, I just want to be objective and I don't want to make a decision based on societal norms or emotion, then that dietary characteristic or theme is is in my view the evidence-based decision to make for long-term health. I mean, without grabbing headlines, um, I mean, your book, The Proof is in the plants, is a headline. the proof is in the plans means that objectively this is the best diet as you said to live
healthy in' 50s' 60s and 70s. So the conversation we're having and I think something around the Mediterranean diet I'm very happy you mentioned that if it's pescatarian driven or it's just plant-based has been shown to be the most quote unquote healthy one for that regard. The one thing that I want to take away and this is probably if we're going for the 100 percentile then let's say plant is the best way to go but do we understand what's the difference is between 100% and pescatarian or 100% and animal protein and no I mean the the short answer is there there will be people that are out there that might say argue that a plant exclusive diet is best but I I don't think you can support that with data. Um, if you're looking at human health, like we don't have the studies to to compare a healthy plant exclusive diet to a healthy pescatarian diet. A lot of the the data that we have in short-term trials is is more looking at a Mediterranean diet versus a standard control or a pescatarian diet versus standard control or a vegan versus standard control. And once you start comparing very healthy diets with very healthy diets, you can imagine you don't really see much difference. But here comes a question and this is something that I think again Mike and I former athletes, you mean you've been around sports all the time. There's a certain thing where when you sacrifice something that you love very deeply means your your body responds to it in a positive way. Is there something where is more psychologically based? I'm going to say no to to the steak that you loved 18 years ago or 10 years ago even. Um, and then your body responds even stronger. Is that something that's the sacrifice that I'm bringing to live healthier that you think that gives you that additional push? So the the data does is not strong enough to say I don't need the animal protein, but psychologically because
you're sacrificing it, you believe it will pay you back more fold in the future. Is that something that that's that's there? Like I when I was an athlete, I didn't drink alcohol until I was 28. And I was like, "This is my sacrifice. I could probably still perform the same with drinking, but because I don't do that, I'm going to push myself more." Yeah, I see what you're saying. And and I think that maybe that is a part of it. for me personally and the way that I approach this just to get a little clearer here is so I I think there's that kind of theme that I outlined but then I think at the individual level and this is where everyone gets to play around with it. You're looking at important biomarkers and you're feeling how you respond. This is why you can't just have a blanket recommendation for everyone. So I went through that and was looking at those key biomarkers like APOB or back then LDL cholesterol I was mostly interested in and uh blood pressure and markers of inflammation and blood glucose control and all of these things and I'm looking and this is how I recommend anyone kind of does this implements this or makes changes is looking at how those are responding for me to get my APO and LDL cholesterol down to a a favorable what I'd say an optimal level. I have to get towards that plant exclusive end of the spectrum. I have different genes to you and to Mike so I respond differently to fats and we can go into that but um that's kind of the what I would recommend to at an individual level. Um, but maybe to double click on performance a little bit more cuz I don't want to kind of be misconstrued here or just be unclear. And this has become clearer over the years. I think if you had asked me 5 to 10 years ago, uh, are you sacrificing performance a little bit by making go like making this change and and consuming all plant protein
instead of animal protein? I would have said, look, I could it maybe a little bit. I don't we don't know yet because it's not clear. But since then, we've had an abundance of clinical trials that have been published that have made it very clear, at least for healthy adults, when you're consuming enough total protein. We don't see significant differences in the outcomes that that most people care about, which is the building of muscle mass and strength. So, um, that's what I mean when I say I don't think this is a decision about, you know, optimizing for long-term health at the expense of today's health if you formulate it in in a kind of thoughtful way. Yeah. The the genetics things is quite interesting because I think similar to you, a year or two ago, my dad had a heart attack. Now, this it wasn't like a major full-on heart attack, but it was like enough where he needed surgery. He needed to get some stances put in his heart. And that got me thinking, is that something I need to be careful of because it's genetic and it might run in the family or is it just because he was eating a particular type of way and just not exercising? Because realistically, he definitely doesn't eat and train like I do. But then there is that concern where I think, oh, maybe because he's suffered from it and it can potentially run in the family, do I then need to change up my diet a little bit to ensure that that doesn't happen to me? And I'm sure you probably felt the same way after experiencing your dad go through that. All of a sudden, you're thinking, well, okay, first of all, how can I ensure that doesn't happen to me? And what else can I do to optimize my health and wellbeing? Yeah. And I mean, that's exactly how I felt. And I I kind of uh I ran through the same thought process as you, Mike. I was asking the same questions cuz, you know, my dad was representative of of a
typical Australian kind of father. He had a heart attack at 41, but he was by no means, you know, doing the level of exercise that we would say is optimal or uh, you know, do eating the diet that we would say is optimal for for heart health. But I think that the reality here is that most of us would have some type of genetic component. But the reason that a lot of these diseases are running in families, yes, could could be explained by some genes, but a lot of the time is explained by the fact that we adopt the same lifestyle. And so we have to be able to separate that out. And then this but this ultimately comes back to knowing what are the risk factors. So for you, it's it's doing a full audit. We know what the most established risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Okay, your dad had a heart attack. You know, you might have some genes that are working against you. So, let's look under the hood. Where are these risk factors like apo B and LP little A and where's your your average blood pressure at on the daily? And then you can start there objectively, right? measure make these measurements and there's a suite of things that you could measure that very strongly pre cardiovascular disease and based on where they're at you can then make very informed decisions with evidence-based interventions. Okay, I want to actually shift that down and optimize that. Let's go and let's change a lifestyle choice and then we'll rememeasure it in 8 to 12 weeks. like that that's that's the approach I would recommend for you and for anyone really instead of just like blindly making changes or blindly assuming that that you're genetically at risk and making changes like let's let's measure things first and go from there. When you said um prior that it's it's been proven that as long as the amount of protein is enough the source is not as [snorts] is probably secondary. Now, we had Lane Norton here uh last week who's like after a lot of trial and error, he came to the 1. 6 grams of protein per
kilogram. I saw a content with you where you said between 1. 2 to 1. 6 g of protein per kilogram plus minus. One of the myths that that I mentioned in the beginning that you probably been exposed to um was that plant protein is being absorbed worse than animal protein. So you have to consume more plant protein to get to quote unquote the same level absor absorption. Can you maybe share on that how much truth is to that? This is where context really matters for him. So I mentioned earlier I think we also need to think about like the different levels of study study designs that we have available to us and what matters to the individual. So, I would bet that if we had an individual sitting in front of us and we were talking about this and we said, "What what do you care most about? Do you want to to talk about protein absorption percentages or do you want to talk about your ability to build muscle and strength?" I think most people would say the ladder muscle. It's about muscle and strength. So, that's where I like just to start there, canvas the conversation there and then we can drill down. when we now have multiple clinical trials looking at protein intakes at that level that Lane stated there uh where they compare completely vegan diets to omnivorous diets. So you have a vegan diet that all proteins coming from plants and then the omnivorous diet is is really representative of a typical western omnivorous diet where 60% of the protein is from animal and 40% is from plant. And in these studies that spend 10 to 12 weeks, they put them through resistance training, they measure uh muscle mass, they measure strength, that there's no significant significant differences. So even if there was any differences in the absorption of protein in those two diets, you don't see it in those outcomes that that people care about. So
that would be the first thing that I would just say. And when you drill down and you look at actually human studies, so not animal studies, looking at the absorption of animal and plant proteins, and this has kind of been borne out more in probably like the last 5 years, the differences in absorption and utilization is probably only a few percent. it was overstated and has been overstated and that's generally accepted by protein researchers in animal models who have a different set of absorption uh absorb protein in a different way to humans. Um where where I would agree that animal protein has an edge on plant protein is when you're not consuming an optimal amount. Mhm. when you're not up at that what we would say is optimal at a moderate to high level. And so you have an insufficient kind of concentration of total amino acids, animal protein has a better amino acid profile than plant protein. That that difference seems to go away when you get to a higher protein intake. But if we're sitting here and we're talking to to someone who's not tracking protein or in a country where they don't have a lot of protein access, that needs to be considered totally. Um I think that would be an unfair position for someone to to hold. So the whole conversation around superiority superiority of animal protein over plant, it seems to wash away and disappear as you get up to higher protein intakes. And that's kind of the main point that I I want to underscore. And I will say that those studies have been done in healthy adults. And you guys have probably heard yourselves that as we get older, we develop like an anabolic resistance. So we become a little less sensitive or that's the this is the hypothesis. We become less sensitive to resistance training and to protein. And so there is a general school of thought out there that as we age, we maybe even need more
protein, right, to be able to turn muscle protein synthesis on. And we h we hadn't seen a a study comparing a vegan diet to an omnivorous diet in elderly population until this year. So that Luke Luke Vanlon who is based in in the Netherlands, he's one of the prominent protein researchers in the world. He conducted a study looking at muscle protein synthesis, which is a it's kind of a surrogate short-term marker when you when you're not going to run a trial that goes 10 to 12 weeks like the ones I just mentioned and measure actual muscle mass and strength, which would be gold standard. If you have less time and less funds, then you'll see studies measure muscle protein synthesis, which is more looking at just like the synthesis of of protein on a daily basis, you know, and we use that to say, okay, that probably associates and tracks with muscle mass and strength. And he he took an elderly group of people, they were 72 years old on average, and had them do a vegan diet and then an omnivorous diet. So in a in like a crossover way, everyone every subject did both diets and he set the protein intake at 1. 1 to 1. 2 g per kilogram. So this is why I found this study interesting because he didn't jack the protein right up. And I would my hypothesis of that if you had said what do you think the outcome of this study will be based on previous trials that he' done and others had done? I would have thought the omnivorous diet was more anabolic. Mhm. But there was no difference. So daily muscle protein synthesis was no different between the vegan diet and the omnivorous diet uh in that group of elderly at 1. 2 g per kilogram of protein intake. And he formulated that diet not based on protein powders. It was based
on on whole foods. um and they used some like plant-based alternatives for certain meat uh products and that was a big part of their discussion was that this challenge their hypothesis and way of thinking. So this is an evolving space and I think particularly in that cohort in elderly I want to see that longer study now like let's confirm that over two or 3 months and do strength training and measure actual muscle mass and and strength in an elderly population and if we don't see significant differences in that study I'll have even higher confidence. Um but kind of until then I'll hold hold this position loosely but from just from from an audience perspective takeaways right so if you're at the 1. 2 gram or below animal protein might be more beneficial for from an amolic perspective especially the older you get. I think that's a statement that plus minus. I'd say I' I'd say we could more confidently say that if you're at the RDA, which is like8 g per kilogram, which even below that. Got it. I don't think that that's optimal. And I and that, you know, we could double click on that if you want, but in short, I would say the RDA is not based on optimizing health. It's more based on getting sufficient amino acids to prevent deficiency. I actually uh had a go at trying this a couple years ago, the 2018, but it was more so an experiment cuz I was curious and at the same time I was going to document it for a YouTube video. So, I went vegan for a full week and I documented everything. Now, it was an interesting experience, but firstly, now that I look back, I had no idea what I was doing. I would just go to the supermarket and I would buy anything that had remotely high protein and just didn't have anything related to animals in it. So, at the time I was trying to
hit like some ridiculous protein intake of like 220 grams uh in in total, which is already pretty high. And then at the same time, I was trying to like keep the like the fats low, like go have like low fat days and then low carb days. And I found that was very difficult to do because to actually reach that protein target naturally the carbs and the fats are going to be high anyway. And then secondly I wasn't paying enough attention to two things like what was the total amino acid chain profile that I was getting throughout the day. I was just randomly buying uh different vegetables and plant-based foods to just try and hit my targets. And also I wasn't really that concerned about the quality. So because I was trying to hit that protein target, there was like this artificial garbage fake uh meat which I was consuming which definitely didn't make me feel very good at all. And it made me realize that it it can be done, but it just takes some time and effort to make sure you're buying good ingredients and then getting that well-rounded amino acid chain profile out of everything that you're eating. Because when I eat out at a restaurant and somebody else who knows what they're doing prepares a plant-based meal for me, it's delicious. you get me to try and figure out, oh, what should I put together so that I hit my macros? It was like an absolute disaster, and I just didn't enjoy it at all. So, it was an interesting experience. Now, if I was to do it again, I would get a top vegan chef to do all the shopping, the best quality foods, and then prepare it in a way that tastes absolutely delicious. And I think I would survive. I think I would enjoy it. I think you would. uh and I I would say the the amino acid kind of calculations I was doing that as well but to the point that I was making earlier I don't
think we actually need to calculate those if you're consuming enough total protein because we're seeing in those studies like we're not seeing differences in these outcomes. So these these subjects are getting enough amino acids when they're consuming 1. 6 g per kilogram even all from plants. And if you go into like an app like uh uh do you know Chronometer or Chronometer? That food tracking app or you probably use other ones, but I use that one just because it breaks down the amino acid profile of the foods that you're logging into it. And I'll I'll log my food here and there some days just to see where I'm landing. And typically I'm getting, you know, 250 350% plus of my daily individual essential amino acid requirements. So I think that takes care of itself providing you're not really calorie restricted or or protein restricted. You the amino acids should take care of themselves. Um, but I definitely agree with you going hard on the plant-based meat alternatives can be a little bit of a red herring. Some of them have a lot of sodium. Some of them are not actually low in saturated fat. Remember, one of like the big benefits of switching up to more plant protein is you're going to increase your fiber content, your consumption of these phytochemicals as well, these plant compounds that aren't in animal foods. You're going to increase your consumption of unsaturated fats and lower saturated fat. And if you go hard on plant-based meat alternatives, you might be increasing plant protein but not getting all of those other benefits. So, I think, you know, they're not all the same as well. Like, some of the plant-based meat alternatives are better than than others. So, you really need to to read the labels um on that stuff. The other thing, Mike, is what I heard from you is a desire to kind of go completely vegan overnight. And that's very common, [laughter] and it doesn't work for everyone. Uh it
might be that what works better for you is taking your existing meals that you already consume and having a a chef work out a way to instead of having 100% animal protein, it's 50 / And like if you're having a bolognese sauce and it's currently minced meat, well, it might be minced beef with tempeh kind of crumbled through it or to tofu crumbled through it or lentils or something else that's kind of mixed into it. And so this doesn't have to be an all or nothing. Back to what we were saying earlier about about a dietary pattern and the science showing what is an optimal way to eat. Right now the average person is getting 60 to 70% of their protein from animal protein and 30% from plant. And even if people could get that to 50 / that would make a massive difference in their health and all of those biomarkers that are important indicators of long-term disease risk. So, you know, I would just throw that out there so people don't feel feel overwhelmed that they have to make this crazy extreme change overnight because often that is a little intimidating and and hard to stick to. When you do that diversity, um is there evidence in terms of from a microbiome perspective that diversity is is helpful? Do we know that? We see this already. We see generally that a more diverse microbiome is associated with better health. And in fact, Rob Knight uh his work with the human gut microbiome project. I'm not sure if you guys have ever heard of this, but his group uh took uh 10, 000 samples uh stool samples. So, they had people send in their poo to this this lab. It's a lot of poo. and they they analyzed the bacteria that was in the stool because that's essentially a window into what's in your large intestine, your microbiome. And they asked these people a series of questions. So they got very
familiar with like how these people were living, how they were eating, the things they were and weren't doing. And they were interested in does the specific type of diet like if someone's eating a vegan diet or a pescatarian or omnivorous or carnivore does that reflect the diversity of the microbiome and the health of that that ecosystem. And they actually found that it wasn't a specific diet that best predict the healthiest microbiome. What predicted it was the number of plants in someone's diet. irrespective of whether it was an omni omnivorous diet or pescatarian or plant-based it was the number of unique plants and so from that and there's other research yeah the variety speaks to all of these plants contain different prebiotic compounds prebiotic essentially meaning fuel for our microbes and you could break prebiotics down it's really an umbrella term it includes prebiotic fiber resistant starch and polyphenols these escape digestion in the small intestine and then they go into the large intestine and they play a role in our health and they fuel those microbes and those microbes in turn they're they're a little bit like our own pharmacy as they are consuming that those prebiotic compounds. They're dispensing drug-like compounds like short - chain fatty acids and other molecules that lower inflammation um improve blood glucose improve cholesterol. Um so again this comes back again to what we were saying at the the beginning. The best predictor here was not you know one diet. It was people having enough of these plants which you can do with or without animal protein in your diet. You just mentioned the blood glucose and one of the trends from the wearables perspectives are obviously CGMs. Um what's your personal opinion on CGMs and when people interpret them? Are people interpreting them too too highly as in something very natural? You
eat a banana, it spikes, it's okay. You're not going to die. You can still have bananas. Or is that something that oh my god, you're responding way stronger to it. Skip that out. Like, how should people look at those data points from your perspective? I have reservations about these. Um, but I'm open-minded if they are studied further and show some validity and if you were to say, "Hey, here's a study. We put these CGMs on people and we can see that by them monitoring their postmeal glucose, it improved their diet quality and improved APOB and improved HBA1C and improved blood pressure, like things we know actually predict disease. I would be much more interested in them." And I get worried for a few reasons. One is we have studies showing that your response to the exact same meal in the same individual can be wildly different, right? On different days depending on your sleep, your stress, the amount of exercise you're doing. So if you take a if you looked on one day, your response to a banana could look completely different to to another day. And so I think if if someone with without the right kind of understanding of this was to remove bananas based on single data point readings um that might not be such a a wise move. The other thing is like you pointed out it's a normal physiology for your blood glucose to go up after a meal. It's a normal physiology for your heart rate to go up when you run and your blood pressure to go up when you run too. Mind you, if we were just to have a blood pressure cuff on and I didn't tell you I was exercising, but you were watching that reading and you saw my blood pressure spike, you might tell me you shouldn't be doing whatever you're doing, but we know exercise is great for long-term health. Right? So, we have to be very careful of looking at an acute change and saying this means this leads to a long-term problem.
Okay? Acute change. I go to exercise, heart rate, blood pressure goes up, but longterm I get long-term health adaptations from that behavior. So, we have to be very careful of that. And what I see is a lot of confusion around optimal blood glucose levels. If you look at the the kind of diagnosis of diabetes, we're very interested and concerned in like 2hour postmeal blood glucose, which is how quickly does your glucose get back down to baseline. That's a key metric. But people are taking that 2hour threshold and applying it to 5 minutes after a meal, which is totally wrong. The research doesn't say that your blood glucose should never go over that level. It just says it should be back down to this level by 2 hours. So, uh I I guess I have reservations around technology being used when it hasn't been fully clinically validated and people don't have are not equipped with the the kind of user manual instructions to actually put it to work and get some value out of it. That said, [snorts] uh you know, maybe further studies could could validate the use of it, but um until then, I think it's it's kind of best in people that have pre-diabetes and type two diabetes. Is there any disadvantage to consuming too much fiber in your diet? Because I know I mean from my experience and from some other people as well when they suddenly introduce a lot of vegetables fiber into all these meals it's like they either not their body is not used to that and so they experience some bloating or excessive flatulence. Is this because they've chosen the wrong types of vegetables and plants or was it something else?
There could be a few things going on here, but at a very high high level, I would say that the experience of adding a lot of fiber quickly into someone's diet, the experience of getting bloating and flatulus flatulence is, you know, more common than not. And if we were to just really simplify this down to an analogy, like imagine you took someone who never trains at the gym and then you brought them in to do a workout with you, Mike, and they just they did your complete, you know, leg session, they probably wouldn't be able to sit on the toilet for a week and [laughter] be all sorts of pain, right? Um, so slow going going low and slowly building up over time allows the microbiome time to adapt. We definitely know that. And it's it's not just working with people and anecdotes that shows us that. There's clinical studies. So um Stanford two years ago now Justin Sonnenberg who's one of the the main kind of microbiome researchers he conducted a really eloquent study comparing fermented foods to fiber in healthy adults and he was looking at how do these different foods or compounds of food affect inflammatory proteins. We know that the immune system is very tightly um kind of controlled by or or in a very tight relationship with the microbiome. 70% of the immune system lies in the gut. And in this study, they actually hypothesized that fiber would lower inflammation across across the board. And they added the fermented food um arm because probiotic foods are generally thought to be gut friendly and they they weren't sure how people would respond. And interestingly, subjects had significantly less inflammatory proteins, markers of inflammation after consuming the
fermented food diet, which added a considerable number of servings of fermented foods to their diet per day of like kimchi and yogurt and kombucha and kraut. So, a big tick for fermented foods there. But in the fiber arm where they took people from 20 to 40 grams of fiber with a very small ramp up period, they saw very mixed results. Quite a lot of the participants had significantly increased inflammation and they they were interested in this and and went back and looked at uh what was the baseline diversity of the microbiome in these subjects. And they what they found was subjects who had very low low microbiome diversity. So these these could have been subjects who came into the study having a history of lots of antibiotic use or they were coming into the study with very low fiber intakes and eating an ultrarocessed diet or a carnivore diet. Um these subjects did not tolerate an increase in a doubling in fiber that quickly. It increased inflammation. subjects who had lots of diversity did much better. And so that that study doesn't doesn't completely tell us what's the best protocol for someone. But the hypothesis off the back of that study was that those participants needed to go much slower and introduce that fiber over a much longer kind of on-ramp. And that's something that they're going to to test in in future studies. You just mentioned the word protocol and I think protocols and stacks are the two things that most of us are building and continuing to build our whole life. I think one of my biggest somebody ask me what my hobby is. I'm like improving my my daily protocol is probably my biggest hobby when I just you know I just add every single minute I want to be am I optimizing and I'm getting a huge kick out of it because the things I used to do like intermittent fasting or 72-hour fast that I do weekly five six years ago
so I'm completely gone. there's nothing here anymore. So I it's come constantly updating. But when you say protocol and you're like, okay, fiber here or fermented food there, most people will just ask, "Hey, Simon, what is actually what you do? What is your ideal day?" Like when you don't travel, when you don't have a podcast in with somebody in Dubai, like what's the ideal day, Simon's ideal day in terms of food intake? Knowing everything that you know today, it might shock people how simple it is. You know, I tend to like to keep it simple but stay consistent with it. I find when I introduce too much and get too specific and complicated, things kind of fall off. So, I would say uh high level, you know, nutrition, I'm eating the diet that I've explained so far in this podcast and protein intake would be around 1. 6 g per kilogram every day. Um, I tend to wait a couple hours when I wake up until I eat and I tend not to eat a couple hours before bed. And so you work out fasted. I train in the morning and I usually train fasted. Yes. And that [clears throat] works for me. It might not work for everyone and they might feel low energy and you have to play around with that because um if that's costing you intensity in your workout, then that might be something that you want to look at. Um, so that's that's kind of my nutrition philosophy and I, as you say, when I'm not traveling, I stick to that pretty well. Uh, and then sleep is really really important. So the the timing of the food at nighttime for me is is really important. If I eat close to bed, my sleep is certainly um, you know, the quality is is reduced a lot. Um, but we're doing all the things at home where lights get dimmer and we put red light on at night time and um have a good sleep routine with consistency there.
So, I'll get solid 8 hours every night. Um, that that seems to then really affect the new the food choices I'm making and the exercise I'm doing or not doing. Um, and exercise, I'll I'll do resistance training, you know, four days a week. I do dedicated cardio sessions two days a week and then I I play uh paddle. You guys know paddle the sport or pedel depending on where you live. Uh I I love that sport and um not just for the cardio, mostly just for the banter and the fun and the laughter that that comes with it. So I'll I'll be playing that, you know, two or maybe more times a week if I can squeeze it in. And that's a huge cardio um workout. So that's kind of what exercise looks like. I'll throw depending on where I am in the world, throw surfing into the mix there, which is also a really good workout. And you know, those are like the most important staples. And then obviously there's supplements that I consume every day in the mix there. There's uh making sure that I'm I really am socializing and not just hibernating. And I'm I'm workaholic naturally. So, it's very easy for me to just put my head down and and read and get work done and produce content. So, um something else that I kind of am very conscious of, if you had to eat the same meals all over again, how would like your breakfast, lunch, dinner look like? Well, that's a great great question. I I have a a variation of a bowl a lot of the times Vim where we'll roast a lot of vegetables like last night we did butternut uh squash kind of okanowan sweet potatoes we had couple different varieties of zucchini so I love like roast vegetables that are seasoned nicely um I
love I'm a big fan of rice particularly dur when doing a lot of exercise. And I know controversial, but I don't think white rice is is an unhealthy food. Um I think it's been demonized over the years. So I will have, you know, white or brown rice or quinoa in there. And my my go-to protein is like tempeh or tofu. Um so they'd be in there and then for fats like avocado and olive oil and those sorts of kind of fat, but it would be a variation of that bowl. And then just really mixing up the vegetables that I'm putting in there so that day to day or week to week they're they're changing quite a bit. What do you tend to do when you're on the move and you don't have access to good quality food? Cuz I know this is a big question I get. Everyone's like, "Oh, Mike, how do you stay in shape when you travel?" And it's got to the point now where I do tend to travel in places where I know there's good gym facilities and there's good food cuz it just makes my life easier and I just enjoy it a lot more and I can maintain my physique. But I would imagine for you or anyone else who's plant-based, it becomes more of a difficulty because you could go to some of these restaurants that are technically good, but then they might not necessarily cater to vegans. So if you're in a scenario where planning Sorry, you go. Yes. So if you're in that situation, I'll shut up. Sorry, you go. Um Yeah. So, if you're in that situation, do would you eat a meal even though it's not necessarily that healthy, or would you skip the meal and wait for later on to have a a better quality meal? I tend to eat something when I'm out, and maybe that's just me trying to fit in and not not be the guy at the table that's not eating anything. But I'll I'll often find myself if I'm at a restaurant and I'm like looking through
and and I know that this is going to be a lower protein meal, I will have kind of known probably earlier in the day that I'm going out for dinner and I'll kind of front end my protein in that day and then dinner might not be the perfect kind of, you know, whole whole rounded meal that I would normally have, but I'd be at the restaurant and I'd really just try and, you know, get some nutrient-dense foods and vegetables and and things like that and um do my best in that scenario. And then if I'm choosing like where to eat just I mean these days most cities you can find pretty good options. Um maybe it's not the same as cooking at home or in your where where you're used to kind of going to the grocery store ordering in but it's getting better and it's getting a lot easier. But I'm like you. Like when I a lot of the times where I'm going, if I'm going away on a holiday, I know that there's a great gym or I'm going somewhere in Bali where I know that there's great food options and um you know, it doesn't feel like a a stressful kind of move for me in that way. You mentioned that you sleep worse if you eat closer to going to bed. Obviously, there's this 2hour glucose window that we expect glucose to drop. There are some glucose hacks out there, apple cider vinegar or uh metformin, other things that people's trying to use. What do you think about those hacks? Or did did you find a hack that works for you best? I mean, certainly like vinegar will lower your postprandial blood glucose response. Um, I think that whether or not you need to focus on these is is very dependent on what your current blood glucose levels look like. If you're a very healthy person and you're exercising and you're not having any issues with blood glucose regulation, I don't think you need to be thinking about all of these hacks every single meal. um if someone has pre-diabetes and
or type two diabetes, I think these things become more important. So, you know, certainly fiber, um adding fat to meals, um things like apple cider vinegar over salads like and and doing that prior to having a big meal, like these things can make a difference. But um I'm really big on not over complicating things for the person that doesn't need to. And so what I see online a lot of the time is, you know, as well as like what are the big rocks here? If you're not doing exercise five times a week, don't think about apple cider vinegar on your salad. Like that is shifting the needle in such a small way. Like let let's get our priorities straight. So don't miss the the forest for the trees essentially. And I think a lot of the time we're seeing all this fight online on the periphery, but most people aren't doing all of those basics. Get the basics in and then let's fight on the peripheries. Speaking of over complication, let's talk supplements. I mean because I mean you mentioned prior that to to balance it out, you would add supplementation. There are certain supplements there, but sometimes it feels like people are taking 40, 50, 60 different supplements, not knowing if they actually work, if they actually need them. Let's say we don't have access to blood test, which would be obviously ideal. Mhm. Based on research and data, but also maybe just a end of one, just your personal experience, what would you introduce into your daily stack for the audience perspective that is active, that is working out three, four times a week, that is looking after themselves, sure, but wants to make sure that they have a balanced life lifestyle. I think most people can benefit from creatine monohydrate and I would I think the the dose of that my current kind of recommendation what I do is to base it off your body weight
rather than just a strict 5 g per day. I do like 0. 1 g per kilogram which I think better standardizes that dose to how much muscle someone has and is reflective of the study. So for me that's like 9 9ish grams a day and so I end up just kind of doing two scoops which is 10 g a day but um if someone's 50 kg that would be 5 g a day so I'd say creatine um particularly for the muscle and strength outcomes potentially bones potentially some cognitive outcomes but we we may need a higher dose for the cognitive outcomes but I there probably needs to be a little bit more research done on that um DHA and EPA omega-3s So most people regardless of what diet they're consuming are not consuming enough fatty fish to get an optimal kind of omega-3 index which associates with lower risk of cardiovascular disease among other things. And if if you want your omega-3 index to be at around 8% which would be kind of bottom end of of an optimal range based on the epidemiology we have anyway. Uh, for most people that's going to take at least a gram of DHA and EPA a day, maybe more. Some of that's going to come down to genetics and and if they're eating any fish alongside that. So, getting a good DHA and EPA that's providing at least a gram of active DHA and EPA. So, not not a gram of omega-3 cuz often you'll see underneath that, what is the actual active input of DHA and EPA? active input of those two should equal at least a gram. You can go out and test your omega-3 index if you want to kind of titrate that um dose accordingly. So that's two creatine DHA EPA. I think if you're targeting at least 1. 6 g of protein per day for most people, a protein powder, high quality protein will make that easier and more convenient, particularly if you're
someone on the go and traveling. Um, and particularly if you're restricting calories, so high quality uh protein and then I would say a multivitamin for most people. If you're not testing your bloods, you know, we we do know that the average person out there is falling short in a number of important nutrients. Um, it would be ideal to know exactly what you're falling short in and then kind of doing this in a bit more of a targeted way, but a good high quality broadspectctrum multivitamin I'm not against. And and there is data now, some longerterm trials that show us multivitamin use can can be particularly beneficial for lowering risk of cognitive neurodeenerative um diseases. So there's some kind of emerging data there and I think generally people's opinions of multivitamins are starting to change a bit. Um there was some stigma there for a few years. So I would add a good good quality multivitamin into the mix. And then depending on someone's diet and how much plant foods they're getting in a a prebiotic could be helpful as well. Prebiotic before every meal or once a day? Again, depends on someone's diet. I think uh you could do it before every standard American diet before every meal. Your standard American diet's getting like 12 to 14 grams of fiber a day and in reality should be getting 30 grams a day as a minimum. So, uh would I like them to eat more plant foods as a priority? Yes. Um would they also benefit from a prebiotic supplement? Yes, probably. Have you noticed people that are following a plant-based diet, are they potentially at risk of developing deficiencies in comparison to somebody who is not following plant-based or have
you not really noticed anything? Yeah, there's going to be different nutrients of focus and nutrients that you could fall short on if when you're adopting a plant predominant or a plant exclusive diet. No doubt. So whereas we see like in general population omnivores are having you more of an issue getting optimal amounts of folate and magnesium. Those nutrients aren't a concern in a plant-rich dietary pattern. You're getting them in spades. But nutrients like vitamin B12, like iodine, sometimes zinc, um calcium, these these need to be focused on. And they back to our planning kind of uh point that we made earlier. You can plan for these and you can ensure that you're getting enough through your diet and supplementation, but I certainly wouldn't be recommending someone adopts a plant predominant or plant exclusive diet and gives no consideration to these nutrients. You need to be aware of them. And at the beginning, you're learning something new. And so, I think like some education and some tracking is important so you're not flying flying blind here. Um but yeah, the risk of nutrient deficiencies is there. They're going to be different deficiencies to what we see in a general population who who are consuming an omnibous diet. Um but you can plan for them and and we've done this as a society like we introduced iodine into salt and into certain fortified foods in the 1900s because a number of people in our society were falling short in iodine. and that that kind of public policy was able to to arrest that situation such that very few people today are iodine deficient. Um so planning whether it's as a government or at an individual level to avoid nutrient deficiencies is not something new. But the the easiest way Mike to cover that is just to take a good quality multivitamin.
If you do that and you're eating a a healthy, you know, whole food or mostly whole food based diet, very unlikely you're going to fall short in something. Yeah, I've heard Bionic is quite good. Good plug. Simon might have a different opinion. [laughter] I stayed away from No, I would love to learn more. I'd love to learn more. [laughter] Simon, listen. I would like to round out with some quick questions. Um, it's been incredible. Again, to be completely transparent and also for the audience, we were sitting there and they're like, we're going to talk about plant-based diets for an hour. I'm like like we were walking into this. We were walking to this and but I think your approach is this is one of the healthiest approaches. I'm not it's not clear how much better it is than others, but why would you risk it if this is already proven to be very good? And I think we both take away from that that I think my personal takeaway right now is I need to increase variety. I need to increase variety of vegetables. I don't have to take out animal source for the sake of it. As long as the variety is there and I get to my protein levels, I'm probably good. I'm not not perfect, but I'm good. And I think that's that approach is so much more for me digestible literally digestible than if somebody come in so do plant-based you can live longer and better. So I I personally really appreciate the way you you position the data that the research that you have found and also the impact on the life. just just before before we do the quick questions. Um, now on the quick questions, what's an underrated food? Dark leafy greens. Yeah. Per calorie, one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet. And you would add that also on a in a
daily. You were to add that in every meal. Oh, yeah. I've got I have rocket or arugula and spinach and other dark leafy greens at every single meal. I throw them in smoothies. They're in every bowl. Um they are an underrated food. They should be a superfood. They probably they're probably not expensive enough. I always used to buy like bags of spinach and rocket and all these mixed leafy greens and they would always sit at the bottom shelf of my fridge like are you going to eat me? Like after three or four days they just turn rotten and I just have to put them in the bin. It's like I need a reminder every day to be like have at least a handful of it. But you're right. I mean, I've spoke to a lot of nutritionists and even based off some of the blood work I've done, they will say you need to eat more leafy greens. So, I would agree. Next one. Overrated supplement. sense. Creatine gummies. [laughter] That was a smart way out, by the way. You could have just said gummies. I I saw I see what you did there. I I thought you were going to say something like ashwagandha or something like that, you know, like where like oh my god, the testosterone booster or something like that. But okay. Yeah. I mean we could there there were many that were coming to my mind but creatine gummies just for the obvious reason of that you know they may not actually contain creatine certain brands that we don't want to discuss or protein bars that don't they don't contain protein [laughter] right um three biomarkers everybody should track I'd say number one this guy blood pressure
it's surprising how how infrequent people are checking their blood pressure and we tend to focus a lot on on cholesterol and blood glucose. The number one risk factor responsible for most premature deaths globally is is hypertension. It's high blood pressure and you can be fit and healthy and go to the gym and do all the things and you can have high blood pressure. Absolutely. People say it all the time. very strong genetic component to to your blood pressure regulation. So, uh, buying like that that cuff I just held up for those that maybe are listening and not watching is an Omron cough. I have no affiliation with them. They do very high quality cuffs for at home and they're about $ 40. One of the best investments that you can make for your health. And uh there's a it comes with a pamphlet. There's a set protocol for how you measure blood pressure at home. Follow that. Do it. uh I think at the beginning you should do it once a day for 7 days and take you take an average and that gives you your your kind of baseline very strong predictor of of cardiovascular disease. So uh measuring your blood pressure is the first biomarker second biomarker I'd say apo B. Mhm. So this is a bit you you guys have probably spoken about this before uh a slightly more specific better predictor of atherosclerosis. So that type of heart disease where you get narrowing of the artery and then have a heart attack or a stroke. So you can measure apo now. Um a lot of the online blood test companies are offering it or you can speak to your doctor about adding it on and um hopefully they will. Most doctors now are starting to become aware of it. So say those two. Um third biomarker. There's so many here. So this forcing me to put it into three.
[sighs] I think your waist circumference to height ratio. That might seem a little strange. That's strange. Nowhere. Yes. Very strange. Yeah. I it combines a lot of blood glucose, triglycerides, it combines a lot of these other biomarkers and is a very very strong predictor of metabolic disease. So all of the metabolic diseases, type 2 diabetes, metabolic associated fatty liver disease and uh so I would keep an eye on waist circumference to height ratio. I can provide you guys with like where where people should land for for these things as well. maybe for the show notes. Um, but that's a pretty simple one for people to to measure and is going to be very indicative of their risk of metabolic disease. So, in those three tests, you're you're really getting a very affordable way to understand your risk of cardioabolic disease, which is is what is robbing most people of of healthy um years of life. I'm curious to know what the other two would be if if people have access and could afford it. V2 max testing for for general cardiorespiratory fitness and some some type of strength test. I think like a like even though a basic grip strength seems silly a grip strength is very correlative and indic indicative of overall body strength. So adding those two in you you're you're really assessing cardiorespiratory fitness and then sort of musculoscalidal fitness. Um and now we're getting a very allrounded kind of five markers that are going to be looking into different systems of the body. Cardiovascular system, metabolic system, muscular sceal. Um you're kind of forcing me to
put it into five. That would probably probably be the top five. And last, at least on the spot. Yeah. Last one. What did you change your mind on recently? Oh, I think over the last 10 years it's it's become clearer uh how dairy associates with health. And a lot of the times confusion when related to a food and how it affects health is because we're not considering context, the dose, the specific type of food. Like what is dairy? in such a broad category. Um, you know, for who and for what. And it's become clearer that like certain dairy foods appear to be favorable for cardiovascular disease. So, we're starting to see that fermented sources of of dairy. um foods like keir and yogurts and certain cheeses seem to have a neutral or probably a beneficial effect on cardiovascular health. And that's been a real changing I I think of the nutrition science academic kind of world's view over the past decade where dairy tended to be lumped into the group of you know harmful for cardiovascular disease. Uh but when you actually look at individual foods, while foods like butter can significantly raise like Apo B and we know that's not something that that you'd want to do, these other foods are having a very different effect on cardioabolic risk factors. Um so that that would be one. And then you know back to our the protein kind of uh conversation that we had earlier in in elderly I thought at 1. 2 g per
kilogram plant uh animal protein would be more anabolic and the early signs are that that's not the case. So um another position where I've kind of shifted slightly. I'm a little bit more uh a little bit more optimistic that animal protein and plant protein are are not different in terms of anabolic properties at the at those protein levels. Do you ever consume animal meat at all or is it strictly No. Haven't consumed animal meat since 2015. Fair enough. Simon, I could thank you as much for your time and uh I just haven't you know and you might be wondering like why does he not consume a little bit and that's a question I I've I've asked myself as well like would plant predominant be better or easier for me to follow like particularly out in social circumstances my my like I have a few reasons why I don't do plant predominant why I stick to plants exclusive But right near the top of this list, and I wrote about this in my book, is that I I have a very addictive personality and I need a line in the sand. If if I start to introduce these foods, I know I'm going back to where I was in my 20s when meat dominated my diet. And so sitting here as someone who knows that they love the taste of meat, to me, it's just not worth introducing a small amount because, you know, it's going to take me away from this diet that is is keeping me really healthy and I believe will keep me really healthy for a long time. Awesome, man. Again, Sam, thank you. Thanks so much for your time. Appreciate it. I mean, we learned a lot for ourselves in terms of impact and I think some of the myths that we were around. Um, some of the statements I listened to
with a smile um were one of the realest statements was around the CGM where you would hesitate to to recommend them was probably one of the strongest statements we ever heard on the block because everybody's so politically correct these days because nobody wants to step on anybody's toes. So, everybody's trying to avoid answering questions, but that was the most [laughter] concrete. Not right now, guys. Let's wait for some evidence before we can continue to using them. So, I really appreciate transparency, appreciate the personal touch and approach and and sharing with us. Um, you might have not converted us to to plant-based diet just yet, but we're definitely going to put some extra uh dark leaves and some zucchini in that and remove some part of that um minced beef out of the bolognese. Um, appreciate your time. Thank you so much. For the audience going forward, where can they find you? Where can they find more about you? So, my podcast is uh the proof. You can find that on YouTube or Spotify or Apple. And my thing is is really sitting down with academics who don't have a platform and tend to speak at conferences and are not doing a podcast tour. So you'll find a lot of interesting people that uh you may have never heard of before. Um but I think they're interesting and so we sit down and nerd out on these things. And then on Instagram just searching Simon Hill and you'll find me on there and my website's theproof. com. Thank you very much, Simon. Much appreciated. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Vame. This was really enjoyable. Great to hang out.
Transcript auto-generated by YouTube. Verbatim — duplicates intentionally preserved.
In this conversation, Hill makes the case for a plant-forward approach that still respects protein quality, strength training, and measurable health markers. The message is not dietary purity. It is metabolic clarity.
Mediterranean, pescatarian, and well-planned plant-based diets can look different on the plate, but the strongest versions tend to rhyme. They emphasize minimally processed foods, fiber-rich plants, unsaturated fats, adequate protein, and enough energy to support training.
The label is less important than the pattern. A diet that improves blood pressure, lipids, glucose control, digestion, and training recovery is doing something useful.
The strongest nutrition practice is not built around a label. It is built around markers, meals, and a body that can perform.
Plant proteins can be less dense in certain essential amino acids than some animal proteins, which means planning matters. Hill separates absorption debates from the practical question most people care about: can this way of eating support strength and muscle?
With enough total protein, smart food combinations, and progressive resistance training, plant-forward eating can support muscle. The body responds to the full signal: amino acids, training tension, sleep, and consistency.
Hill points toward accessible markers such as blood pressure, waist measurement, and blood lipids as practical feedback. They are not glamorous, but they reveal risk more clearly than many expensive wellness panels.
This is precision without obsession. A few grounded measurements can show whether a nutrition pattern is moving the body toward resilience or quietly adding strain.
A rigid protocol often fails in real life. Travel, social meals, training phases, and appetite all change. Hill’s approach leaves room for adaptation while keeping the core principles intact.
That flexibility matters for longevity. The best nutrition system is not the one that wins an argument online. It is the one you can live with, recover from, and refine over years.
Anchor meals around whole foods, fiber-rich plants, and enough protein to support training. — Practice note
Track simple markers such as blood pressure, waist circumference, and lipids before chasing more complex data. — Practice note
Anchor meals around whole foods, fiber-rich plants, and enough protein to support training.
Track simple markers such as blood pressure, waist circumference, and lipids before chasing more complex data.
Keep the pattern flexible enough to survive travel, social life, and changing training demands.
