Transcript of Episode 140: From Sick To Fit: An Interview With My Son
With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Meredith Dykstra, and Danny Pompa
Meredith:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I’m your host, Meredith Dykstra, and we have Dr. Daniel Pompa here, of course. We have another Pompa here. We have Daniel Pompa, Jr, two Daniel Pompas on Cellular Healing TV today. This is a lot of Pompa today. I’m pretty excited about it. How you guys doing?
Dr. Pompa:
Great. I’m excited for the show.
Meredith:
Such a fun topic. What’s that, Daniel?
Daniel:
Yeah, great. Thank you.
Meredith:
Awesome, so excited to have you here. Dr. Pompa, you wanted to bring Daniel on the show for a while. I’m so glad we’re doing this because, Daniel, I remember meeting you a few years ago. You’ve really undergone quite a dramatic physical transformation. I remember meeting you, and you just looked like a normal teenager. Now, you’ve put on about, what, 20 pounds or so of muscle in just the past year or so. It’s been really dramatic. It’s been amazing to watch the transformation. I know you’re going to share with us today a lot of the secrets with how you’ve gotten to where you are now.
Dr. Pompa:
Actually, he put on 20 pounds this summer.
Daniel:
Since May, the end of May.
Dr. Pompa:
In a year, how much have you put on?
Daniel:
In a year, I put on about 35 pounds.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. You’ll be able to see a picture from when he was a year ago and then now today. The thing that I love about this show is, for both of us, it’s really about from sick to fit. I didn’t have the guts to show my picture. I’m close to him, but he has passed me. Trust me, he has passed me up, which makes me feel really good.
You know, Meredith, I want to start with the sick because that’s where it started in. When Daniel was a baby, we started noticing diapers – is it okay if I talk about you in diapers?
Daniel:
I guess it’s fine now.
Dr. Pompa:
It was just this – it was diarrhea. It started early on and then just not really thinking much of it. He was our first kid. We didn’t know it wasn’t normal, really. Then, I realized that this is becoming more and more abnormal. At a certain point, we had realized that he got the lead from his mom, and it was really literally causing irritable bowel. We, from a very young age, had to detox him and, as some of you know from my story, his brothers as well. Even today, Daniel is still detoxing, and I’ll get to that in a minute. I’ll show you some – these are heavy metal tests, now. That’s mom, okay, where he actually got the lead.
Meredith:
If you’re listening via iTunes, you can see that it’s the lead and the mercury are pretty much off the charts.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, the lead is just sailing off there. This is Daniel’s. For the sake of years, these are just some of the things that – there’s the lead. This was lead and mercury in 2013.
Meredith:
Wow, so definitely some major improvements.
Dr. Pompa:
The reason I show you this one is – actually there was even greater improvements along the way. I have a book of these things, how many tests we’ve done, right? The reason I actually show you this 2013 one, three years ago, was because Daniel – we had cleared him of the lead, okay? Diarrhea went away. Normal baby, thank God, well, I wouldn’t ever say you were normal, but –
Daniel:
Yeah, I know.
Dr. Pompa:
Anyways, when he ended up with a scholarship at a ski academy in California near Lake Tahoe there at Sugar Bowl Academy, and he ended up having this repetitive injury, we took him to the best chiropractors, best therapists, you name it. It was just simply not healing.
It struck me. As someone’s going through different time changes, like puberty, the lead starts to come out. Daniel, at that time, was starting puberty. What happens is the bone starts to remodel, the lead being stored in the bone – remember, the number one source of lead is from mom, and these tests show that, right? Mom’s lead was high. It went into all of my children, actually. Therefore, they ended up with the high lead levels. We got rid of it. Then, Daniel going through puberty, the lead came back out of the bone. That’s what this was about.
You notice that the mercury was up at that point. Probably, most likely just because the lead shut down those detox pathways, and now he starts finding accumulating mercury and lead. We dealt with that, and then his injuries cleared up.
Daniel:
Even before all the injuries, looking at my life in retrospect, I thought that all these symptoms and things that I had were completely normal, and I was living a normal life. Really, it wasn’t until I started getting better I was like oh, that’s not normal. I can do all these things and still have energy. Going to the gym isn’t hard. All these things that I thought were so hard, just normal activities became so much easier.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly. Daniel really didn’t have the energy even to get through a day, which was another tip off that the lead came back out. You know, it’s funny because in Merily, the same thing happened. She started going through perimenopause, which is another transition where bone can remodel. Out came her lead again, so she had to go back at it.
Anyway, that’s his journey. I mean, he’s still detoxing even now. He’s not doing it as a regimen. I don’t have to do anything. When he was a lot younger, we were doing it for him. I won’t even get into those stories.
Daniel:
Some skeptical issues going on there.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, we were doing – you brought it up. I’m going for it. We were doing different things during the day, different binding agents like DMSA. At night, we were doing a suppository EDTA so we didn’t have to get up. In other words, we would wait until he falls asleep, and then we would do the suppository.
Daniel:
– suspicious definitely went on there.
Dr. Pompa:
I just totally embarrassed him. Now, he uses CytoDetox regularly. He knows now when he even has to detox. It’s out of my hands. As a matter of fact, Izik is 16. Daniel right now is 18. They both detox. They know when to do it. They’re on their own.
Meredith:
Yeah, what’s really interesting is you were saying before the show and – with so many people who are detoxing regularly now, they’re on a pretty strict regime of seven days on, ten days off, or they have a specific time frame that they stick with. Daniel, you were saying that you’re just in tuned with your body now, and you know when you need to detox. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Daniel:
Yeah, honestly, in general, I self manage myself. Even with, of course, my detox, I know exactly what I have to do. Of course, me having Dr. Pompa as my dad, I can ask questions here and there. Overall, I manage my whole on health life.
Dr. Pompa:
He knows it well, trust me.
Daniel:
Very well. Even if it comes down to something I don’t know, I’ll look it up, and I’ll do my own research. A little bit of him and me, I guess. Down to the detox, I definitely know whenever I need to because I can just feel it inside of me, either I’ll get really angry, and I don’t know why –
Dr. Pompa:
Irritability, yeah.
Daniel:
I’m sure that’s the mercury. I’ll just start profusely sweating. I’m like okay, I need to drink more water, and I’ll drink more water, and drink more water. That’s just my body telling me hey, you’ve got to flush this out. There’s definitely different signs that I realize –
Dr. Pompa:
Not to embarrass you but odor. That’s one of them and acne.
Daniel:
Odor and acne. Yeah hormonal acne, definitely. Then Candida starts to build up.
Dr. Pompa:
Candida starts to build up, which he unfortunately like me – I could never get rid of my Candida until I got my heavy metals down to a certain amount, similar symptoms. After I got my levels down, then I went to periodically detoxing, same symptoms: I would get irritable, I wouldn’t sleep as well, I would get more tired, body odor, same things that I had, Candida building up. I knew it was time to do a cycle.
The goal is always to educate the person on the process. Through the years, he learned the process very well. I have to say this because Daniel, like most people, started with DMSA and different things, and he had moved to Cyto some years ago, CytoDetox. He was the first lab rat, I’m telling you. I can say this. Daniel has taken more CytoDetox than any human on the planet, I promise you.
Daniel:
I’d say that’s about accurate, yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, that’s accurate because he had literal – he picked up the first bottles. Remember that? Literally, the first bottles. I didn’t even see it. He went down to the factory and picked up the bottles where they were bottling them.
Daniel:
I remember, yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, he took pictures of them.
Meredith:
I remember they were really big bottles, right, in the beginning?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, it was just like – they called them the experimental bottles, but they’re actual bottles with the normal size. I’m telling you, he went high dose, low dose, frequent.
Daniel:
I remember in Atlanta last year where he had the big bottle. That was a test bottle. He gave it to me, and the dropper –
Dr. Pompa:
That was two years ago.
Daniel:
Was it really? Yeah, that was the first time I ever did Cyto. That was forever ago.
Dr. Pompa:
He has experimented with every dose, every amount, frequencies. We learned so much about CytoDetox from him.
Meredith:
A lot of people have you to thank, then, for CytoDetox for being a lab rat.
Dr. Pompa:
He would go up to – how much –
Daniel:
I went up to 35 drops, three times a day.
Dr. Pompa:
Thirty-five drops, three times a day, and it was treating what?
Daniel:
It worked. I felt really good for three days.
Dr. Pompa:
At first, yeah, he was like I feel amazing.
Daniel:
Then after that I crashed.
Meredith:
Yeah, it didn’t last.
Dr. Pompa:
Then he went back. The new one where you attach the vitamin C, we both feel you don’t have to use as much.
Daniel:
Yep, less much, for sure.
Meredith:
It’s more effective for me, as well. I really like the new formulation.
Daniel:
There’s definitely a few things in terms of my detox cycles and making them easier. For me, sitting in a sauna, an infrared sauna, is really helpful. It helps pull out all the lead and all the stuff my body’s trying to purge.
Dr. Pompa:
It opens up a number of detox pathways.
Daniel:
If I’m having a rough cycle and I go sit in the sauna twice a day for 20 minutes, it’ll really just clear my head and make me feel so much better. Especially drinking a lot of water – just in general, drinking a bunch of water and keeping the Athlytes flowing, it helps so much.
Dr. Pompa:
Daniel was one of the first ones where we realized – because some people can take it two times a day. Many people three works well, three works better.
Daniel:
Eight hours, yep.
Dr. Pompa:
Sometimes you take it more often it seems like.
Daniel:
I’ve found that eight hours is the best way for me to take it or I’ll start pulling out too much.
Dr. Pompa:
Every eight hours, so that’s about three times a day. Keeping the levels up more consistently definitely seemed to work. That was repeated not just through Daniel but through other people, too. Some people do just fine with two. Again, it’s just how fast people metabolize things, honestly. If you’re having trouble taking it, increase how many times you take it.
Any other points before we leave that topic?
Daniel:
No, I think our detox is good.
Dr. Pompa:
He does everything. With detox, he does – everything that we know about True Cellular Detox, he’s doing. He keeps his gut clear. He keeps his pathways open. He does many things to keep thiol levels open. He does a lot of different things, all the things that we talk about.
Diet, Meredith. Let’s talk about that. I’ve got to start here because people watching will say okay, how did you get your kids to eat so well?
Daniel:
I’ll tell this story.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly you would because it wasn’t so easy, right? Of course, we raised them on a certain diet, and then we let go. The let go place – well, you can talk about it.
Daniel:
I remember being a kid and being deathly afraid of sugar. Whenever kids would bring snacks, I’d be like oh gosh, all these kids are going to die tomorrow. I was just petrified. Then around sixth grade, I remember going out of my comfort zone and sneaking a few things here and there. I went to school with my siblings, so every once in a while they’d see me eating something bad. They’d go and they’d – I’m going to tell Dad on you, Dad and Mom. I was like no!
Dr. Pompa:
It was probably the other way around, too.
Daniel:
I’d be like please, please whatever. We both did it to each other. It just went on and on. Then eventually, our parents relaxed over time, and they were like screw it. They’re going to eat it anyway.
Dr. Pompa:
At a certain point we realized they just have to learn themselves.
Meredith:
You can learn, yep.
Dr. Pompa:
What happened with that?
Daniel:
That didn’t really get me very far. I started digressing, getting unhealthier. It might not actually be getting unhealthier, but my body just wasn’t functioning properly. It came to a point in my life where all I could do was just hang out at home. I’d sleep until noon or two o’clock, play video games, maybe get up and go do one or two things, maybe, didn’t even want to go hang out with people. Just no motivation at all.
Meredith:
Like you were saying, too, though, you thought that was normal. That’s so normal for so many teenagers out there. They just think that that’s how life is.
Daniel:
So many teenagers do think it’s normal. As soon as I got – as soon as years went by, I’d be fighting this, fighting this, fighting this. Eventually, I went to go see Dr. Stephen Phinney’s –
Dr. Pompa:
Movie. Dr. Phinney came into town, right? We interviewed his colleague, Dr. Volek, on one of the shows. I knew this was wise because I said you know what? He’s not going to hear it from me. Dr. Phinney came in to talk to the athletes. We live in this amazing athletic town who believes, most of these people, on a high-carb diet for athletes, especially endurance athletes. Dr. Phinney comes in, the scientist who wrote and did many of these studies on fat-adapted athletes like Ben Greenfield, who we interviewed. He came in, and I knew to bring him here because he was smashing with evidence, scientific evidence, that fat-adapted athletes actually perform as well or better and here’s why. I brought him and Izik, but he was a little older.
Daniel:
I’m sitting there through the movie, and I’m just watching it. I’m like yeah, this is interesting, never going to do it. Nope, I like my food, you know? Sitting there 100% confident that I’m not changing. It was interesting. It was a good movie.
By the end of it, I was a little bit inspired but not really. Then, I went to still pondering it at night and then just woke up the next day and was like you know what? I’m going to do this. I’m going to give it a try.
Dr. Pompa:
Just like that.
Daniel:
The thought –
Meredith:
The seed was planted.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, Phinney afterwards there was questions and answers, you know. Of course, he was hammered, I’m telling you. He was hammered by all these carb-addicted, I call them, athletes. It was interesting to see that.
Daniel:
Once I gave it a shot and even though I wasn’t completely fat adapted one week in, my life started changing. Everything became more clear, and all the crap and all the food I was eating before was just out of my system, I guess in a way. I started running off of cleaner energy. Without even being even being in ketosis, my life got better. Then, once I was in ketosis it was like –
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, he changed. Then it got him detoxing more again. You were probably in and out of it again. All of a sudden, he was just – that was it. What got you into the gym? I mean, something got you seriously into the gym at that point.
Daniel:
Honestly, before I tried to be in the gym because I just didn’t have the energy and I was insecure about my size because I didn’t go through puberty actually until I was 16.
Dr. Pompa:
Which is good, as we know on this show. It’s good. Kids say it’s 12. One thing that predicts – how often did I tell you this? I would always tell them look, the best predictor of how long you live is when you go through puberty. The earlier you go through puberty, it literally chops years off your genetic life. The later you go through puberty, you’re potential for living longer goes through the roof. I always tried to motivate them with that. It didn’t work because they just wanted to be like their friends. Let’s talk about this because Daniel had major, major insecurities about being small and so did his brother Izik.
Daniel:
Freshman year, after I got the scholarship to Sugar Bowl Academy, I was there and all these kids were all through puberty. I was so young.
Dr. Pompa:
They were fit. They were muscular. They had hair on their chest, for goodness sake.
Daniel:
I was alone and just young. I just didn’t fit in. I was kind of interested in girls, and girls weren’t interested in me. It wasn’t a great combination for being alone. All the kids just picked at me because I was smaller.
Dr. Pompa:
Then it happened. He starts going to the gym, and then he starts going through puberty.
Daniel:
It actually wasn’t until I got my diet on track that I was able to go through puberty because my hormones weren’t able to respond.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, it made a difference. I think he was going through it rough, honestly. Then it just smoothed everything out. Acne changed. Everything that was going forward went straight. There is no doubt about it. Go ahead, Meredith.
Meredith:
If we could just back up a little bit, too. Daniel, after you saw the movie and you woke up the next day and went okay, I want to implement these changes, I want to change my life – what did that look like? Where did you start? What did that first day look like, and how has it progressed and changed?
Daniel:
A lot of Google because I was like what’s a carb, you know?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, because I’m telling him these things, but he had to learn for himself.
Daniel:
A lot of people just – maybe I was left out, but I didn’t know what a carbohydrate was. I literally had to – my dad told me, and I was like bread’s a carb, and sugar’s a carb. Okay. You know, just confused. As soon as it started clicking, I started making some minor progressions. Once one thing fell into place, it motivated me to get a little bit more invested into my health slowly. I came around to being more concerned about everything I was putting into my body and the things I was exposing myself to.
Dr. Pompa:
When he saw the results, I mean – it’s funny because he said well Dad, how do I do this? I said son well just keep your carbs under 50. What I didn’t know is he didn’t know what carbs actually were, so we had to get into it because he wouldn’t ask me. It started to where he was just asking me questions every day, so I knew it was working.
Daniel inspired his younger brother Izik, who was two years younger at the time. Izik saw the results. Izik saw you putting on 10, 15, 20 pounds of muscle. Then Izik basically duplicated exactly what he did, went into ketosis, and game over for Izik, too.
Daniel now weighs 165 pounds ripped and lean, whereas I weigh 150. He passed me. It was so funny. He told a story –
Meredith:
You need to step it up, Dr. Pompa.
Dr. Pompa:
I know, right? Hey, I’m still ripped and lean. He’ll tell you.
Daniel:
Yes, he definitely is ripped for his age, for anyone for that matter.
Dr. Pompa:
For anyone, I like that. That’s exactly right, for anyone. I guarantee I’m more ripped than his friends, right?
Daniel:
No doubt.
Meredith:
You both look fantastic, so you’re doing something right, clearly.
Dr. Pompa:
You know, he went through the process. He did. He started gaining muscle. He started getting stronger. Anyways, our conversation the other day was – he said Dad, I never ever thought I could ever be stronger than you or bigger than you. I was like that’s hilarious that your son can say that.
Daniel:
Being little and looking up to this god in the gym, and I’ll never be that. Then all the sudden, here I am.
Meredith:
There you go. That’s pretty cool. That’s the power of the multitherapeutic approach, as you teach.
Dr. Pompa:
I hope this inspires people because we were both sick, you know? I see the pictures on the wall. All seven of those people in that picture are sick, actually. It’s from sick to fit, to where I am in, he is, in the best shape of our lives. At 51 and 18, there’s no doubt that a 50-year-old can be as fit – well, not as fit as this guy. I’m more fit than any darn teenagers out there, honestly, today especially.
Daniel:
Yeah. You definitely got healthier before I did because I remember being in the gym, and being younger, and not healthy. I couldn’t lift weights. I literally was like how can you push yourself to do that. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get my muscles to fire the way I wanted them to.
Dr. Pompa:
Then something else happened with the diet, Meredith. I talked to him always about intermittent fasting, right? Of course, he was looking at the body builders that were eating five, six meals a day, and all the things, forcing in the proteins, and the meals. I wasn’t making an impact.
I showed him the video. I sent him the video of the Hodge twins, right? They drop some F-bombs, so don’t send it to your kid unless you think they can handle the language. However, it worked because he saw these natural body builder twin brothers just talking about how they were eating five meals a day, and how they went to intermittent fasting where they were eating two, and eating in about a six-hour window, and how it transformed them, how they stay ripped, and they both put on muscle size because how it raises up growth hormone, makes you more hormone sensitive.
Daniel started intermittent fasting. It was just dramatic. He immediately got shredded, I mean vascular – can you pull up the picture? I don’t even know if you can pull up the before and after. Let’s show that right now. We’ll talk more about what he’s doing.
Meredith:
I will pull this up right now, do a little screen share. If you’re listening on iTunes, check us out on YouTube so you can see the actual before photos. Let me pull this up right now. Hopefully that’s coming through. Can you guys see that?
Dr. Pompa:
That was exactly a year ago.
Meredith:
One year ago.
Dr. Pompa:
Remember, he had already started working out.
Daniel:
I was well into working out.
Dr. Pompa:
Oh yeah, how many years? Maybe two years.
Daniel:
Two years, yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
Okay, so that’s a year ago. That’s not the skin – his brother right on his left, that’s little Izy. Izik’s gained – this is a year ago, so he’s gained 20 pounds since then. Then there’s Dylan and Olivia on the other side. There’s little Simon, and that’s [Pap-Pap]. There’s [Pap-Pap]. This was obviously a birthday hat.
Meredith:
A family photo.
Dr. Pompa:
Daniel, right there, was 20 – more than that, like 35 pounds because he weighs 165 now. You weighed about 130?
Daniel:
A little bit more, probably 135.
Dr. Pompa:
Okay, so now show the after.
Meredith:
Alright, you’ve got your gym pecks.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s my son, there.
Meredith:
Let me pull up the…
Dr. Pompa:
I took that of him yesterday. I wish I had arms like that.
Meredith:
Yeah, very impressive. Wow.
Dr. Pompa:
People argue whose abs are better because genetically I just think mine are better still, honestly. I just think mine are better. I do not have those arms, I promise you. I think my shoulders are still better. I’m just looking at this picture. I really do, yeah. Anyways, that’s what my son looks like now. There it is, before and after.
Meredith:
Yeah, dramatic. Wow.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, dramatic.
Daniel:
Little things to make it happen.
Dr. Pompa:
Talk about the little things.
Daniel:
It’s definitely in the process, and there’s not one thing you can do that’s going to change your life. If I just did a ketogenic diet, it’s not going to get the results that I’m looking for. It’s all in the process and the little things that I do.
Dr. Pompa:
Multi-therapeutic. I even tell him to say that. That’s exactly right. He’s right. It was the detox. It was the intermittent fasting. It was the ketosis. Talk more.
Daniel:
The intermittent fasting was huge for me because whenever I’m not eating, I have so much energy. I am laser focused. Everything comes together for me. I literally intermittent fast all day whenever I’m getting done everything I need to do. In terms of working and meetings, I’m in a fasting state. When I go to the gym, I’m also fasting. I’ll tend to go to the gym first thing in the morning. That’s the first thing I do. It really just sets my day up to feel the best and be able to focus. If I don’t work out, I literally do not feel right throughout the whole day. People that workout I’d say can definitely testify to that. There’s something that happens with your endorphins and things that really just makes you feel amazing.
Meredith:
Now, is it right that you’re just drinking water in the morning, or are you having coffee?
Dr. Pompa:
He has a little coffee now and then.
Daniel:
I’ll do coffee. I wouldn’t necessarily call it bulletproof coffee, but I definitely do coffee.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s butter and raw cream.
Daniel:
Butter and cream or one or the other. If I do that, I don’t get hungry all day. It doesn’t matter what time I eat.
Dr. Pompa:
He takes his creatine. You always take your creatine, right?
Daniel:
I don’t know if I want to give away everything that I do.
Dr. Pompa:
You won’t.
Meredith:
I was going to ask about supplements because you’ve got to give us some gems.
Daniel:
I’m sorry. What have we talked about on Health CTV ? We’ve talked about the Energybits.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, he does take Energybits.
Daniel:
Energybits, Recoverybits, and those are crazy helpful because I was always just pounding electrolytes all day. Not Gatorade, or PowerAde, and other things that people drink, and nothing like zero carb with all the crap that kids –
Dr. Pompa:
Daniel had trouble keeping his electrolytes up in ketosis and different things. In all the exercise and sauna-ing, he was constantly doing sea salt, potassium.Energybits helped him.
Daniel:
An immense amount. The Energybits, if I took the – I mean the Recoverybits, actually – only for the electrolytes, it would be a win because I feel like I get the full spectrum of electrolytes that I need.
Meredith:
I love the Recoverybits, too. They’re amazing.
Dr. Pompa:
Makes a pre workout, which basically nitric oxide stimulators, right? Nitric oxide gives you the full pump when you work out. There’s natural amino acids – citrulline, arginine, and other things in there, niacins, that actually cause that nitric oxide boost. Why that’s important when you’re working out is it brings the blood into the muscle. It really helps.
Daniel:
The only two or three main things are the Energybits, caffeine, and the nitric oxide. If you take those things, your workouts are so much more effective, pre workout.
Dr. Pompa:
Then sometime after workout. I mean, he’ll let it go for an hour because, like you said, he likes to get the growth hormone spike by exercising on an empty stomach, and then he’ll just do some whey protein, which absorbs quickly, and then an hour or whatever time after that, you eat a meal.
Daniel:
Yeah, usually if I’m working out first thing in the morning ideally, then I’ll go do work that I need to do like meetings and things like that. I’ll literally wait until two, three, four – just depending on the day until I actually do that initial protein. Then I’ll break my fast at that point. Then I’ll wait 45 minutes, and then I’ll start actually eating and making sure that I’m getting the full calorie.
Dr. Pompa:
He eats me out of house and home. Here’s the – I want to point out a difference for people watching because some people are just trying to regain their health back. Some people want to go to that level of performance, right? If you’re just trying to gain your health back, you’re not forcing calories in in that eating window, whether it’s six hours, eight hours, four hours, whatever it is. I don’t force the calories in, right? I’m not hungry all the time. I’ll just eat typically a smaller meal during the day and then a big dinner. He eats in that window of eating. If it’s six hours or four hours, he eats. I’m telling you, he eats the whole time, but that’s what it takes to put on that type of muscle. I wish –
Daniel:
I literally incorporated into my schedule, all my eating, because it takes that much time to literally sit down and just eat. It’s actually a time commitment. Then again, I’m not eating all day. All that time where you’d be trying to get snacks and make meals, I don’t have to. I’m way more productive throughout the day and focused. Later at night, I’m just eating, and eating, and eating, and eating.
Dr. Pompa:
I keep telling him don’t eat so late at night. Start your window a little earlier.
Daniel:
I have been. It’s made a difference in my sleep.
Meredith:
Also, what are you eating during this window? Just give us some ideas.
Daniel:
Oh, gosh. Lots of meat. I’ll have lots of fat, lots and lots and lots. More fat than I would eat, obviously, because I’m burning fat all day. I’ll do a plate of plain yogurt. There is carbohydrate in there. A lot of it – it’s good carbohydrate, but it does actually transfer to glucose uptake, right?
Dr. Pompa:
He could probably tolerate up to 80 grams of carbs, maybe 100 on his big workout days and still stay in ketosis, right? It’s different, but you probably still don’t even get that much. I see what he eats.
Daniel:
Then I eat a lot of cheeses, nuts – nuts are great – vegetables.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, Daniel never ate vegetables. He hated vegetables. Now he eats big salads.
Daniel:
Oh yeah. Avocadoes are probably the best in terms of getting the full spectrum of fats and all that. What else? I don’t prepare food ever. I’m not one of those. I just eat out of the refrigerator. Sometimes I’ll pull up my chair, and just sit there, and just eat straight –
Dr. Pompa:
I literally caught him doing that the other day. He literally had a chair at my refrigerator with the refrigerator open. He didn’t care. In front of the – imagine this? The other maddening thing about this child is he leaves everything out and just walks away.
Daniel:
That’s why I eat in front of the refrigerator, so I don’t leave everything out.
Meredith:
He’s the comedian. He’s thinking of you, Dr. Pompa, when he does that.
Dr. Pompa:
Eggs are all out. Eggs in this house, man, they’re gone. He eats a lot of variety of meats, chicken. Last night, we had an amazing salmon. You had a meal before that. What was your meal last night before the salmon?
Daniel:
Oh, I ate all day before that. I went to a little café with salads, and then I got a big soup with a bunch of different vegetables, no grain or anything like that. I don’t really count the carbs as much in the vegetables and things like that as maybe somebody that’s more serious would.
Dr. Pompa:
Someone that’s not putting out the energy output that you are.
Daniel:
Yes. I guess my body utilizes it much more. I can stay in ketosis with eating as many vegetables, as many nuts, and things like as I want. Now, I never go out and just eat sugar like oh, I’m going to get my 50 grams of carbs today. I’m going to have a licorice stick. I don’t do that. I definitely just stay away from grain and sugar almost completely. I’ll focus on more just the nuts, and vegetables, and things like that.
Dr. Pompa:
He wants some of your recipes, Meredith. He keeps saying why doesn’t someone around here make these healthy things like Meredith does?
Meredith:
-Inaudible- a little bit so you don’t have to sit in front of the refrigerator, Daniel, because that’s really – I mean, that’s very funny, but I’ll come help you out a little bit.
Daniel:
That’d be great.
Meredith:
Do you eat any fruit? Do you eat berries? What do you do for carbs? Do you do carb days and protein load days? I wanted to talk a little bit about diet variation.
Daniel:
I do a little bit of berries. You can overdo it in a diet. You don’t want to do that. I little bit of berries here and there, maybe in my yogurt, or just a small container. That’s about it in terms of berries. I definitely no fruit. No banana. You’re like oh, potassium. No.
Dr. Pompa:
Every once in a while I’ve seen him cut an apple, and take a thing of almond butter, and put it on the apple. I do that, too. I do that, too.
Meredith:
What about carb days or protein load days?
Dr. Pompa:
– is he does it one or two days a week?
Daniel:
I work on a six-day cycle, so I’ll do it once every six days. I will eat all day, as much as I can. I don’t eat whatever I want. You don’t do that. I learned my lesson doing that.
Dr. Pompa:
He tried that. You tried that.
Daniel:
I did. I was like ice cream, cannolies, just bad food. That didn’t work out. I had a lot of cravings for the next three days. For me to go back into ketosis, it was a lot harder than if I ate cleaner. I do notice if, on my carb days, I eat more healthy carbs like ancient grains – a lot more ancient grains – and just non-GMO, all of that, it definitely pays off in the way I feel the next day. If I abuse it, then I end up puffy, Candida builds up, and the carb day was a complete waste because now I’m inflamed.
Dr. Pompa:
He tolerates it less than me, honestly. I’m down the road in detox much further than him. It’s like I can eat a pizza and next day feel normal.
Daniel:
On the carb days, I really just focus on eating as much as I can all day. I’ll wake up, and that’s the first thing I do is just start eating. It’s really important.
Dr. Pompa:
Honestly, he’s kind of miserable those days.
Daniel:
I am because I’m trying to get about, if I can, ideally, 5,000 to 6,000 on that day. Nobody can eat that unless you are really –
Meredith:
Wow. A lot of food, yeah.
Daniel:
It’s unrealistic for a lot of people.
Dr. Pompa:
For those people that are new are watching, the reason we do it I call diet variation because when the body in ketosis or just in even intermittent – can think it’s starving. We want to feed it so it knows the abundance is there. Therefore, your body continues to burn fat for energy very efficiently. Otherwise, it will start to blunt the insulin receptors and store fat even eating perfect. It’s a way of staying really lean and hormone sensitive, diet variation.
Let’s talk about exercise variation because they’re going to want to know what’s this guy doing? We’re going to get all these emails. Let’s talk about your week of exercise. You won’t want to give it all away, right?
Daniel:
Definitely not.
Dr. Pompa:
He’s worried about his friends watching. That’s what he’s worried about. He’s worried about his friends watching that follow him around and going what are you doing?
Daniel:
I have about three to five texts a day from kids that I know. Those texts will be like what happened to you? What are you doing? Send me your workouts, and I’m like why should I do that?
Dr. Pompa:
He’s like -inaudible- horrible, Dad. I used to tell them everything. They didn’t listen anyway. Now I’m not telling them. Anyway, tell my people your workouts. Your friends –
Meredith:
Send them this show.
Daniel:
Alright, my workouts. Like I was saying, I run on a six-day cycle generally. Every six days after that cycle’s completed, I go through every muscle group.
Dr. Pompa:
Explain that. In other words, give an example. Let’s say, Monday. What body part?
Daniel:
Alright, Monday, generic, how everyone does chest day on Monday, right? Chest and tris on Monday.
Dr. Pompa:
This is called a split routine. Instead of doing all the body parts in one day, he splits them up so he can really, really fatigue them and wipe them out. Go ahead.
Daniel:
Right, I’ll do chest and tris on Monday, Tuesday back and bi, Thursday every leg muscle.
Dr. Pompa:
Wait, Wednesday you took a day off?
Daniel:
Yeah, sure.
Dr. Pompa:
You said Monday, Tuesday.
Daniel:
Dyslexia’s getting the best of me.
Dr. Pompa:
Monday, Tuesday. Monday chest and tris, Tuesday back and bis.
Daniel:
You can separate it out however you want.
Dr. Pompa:
Tell them what you’re doing
Daniel:
The best way is to go opposing muscles. You know, either bi, tri.
Dr. Pompa:
What did you say? I’m not screwing you up. I thought you skipped Wednesday.
Daniel:
I did. I definitely did, but – I mean, do we really have to go into this?
Dr. Pompa:
He doesn’t want to say. This is crazy. Wednesday take a day off or do smaller muscles.
Daniel:
Right, okay.
Dr. Pompa:
Thursday what do you do?
Daniel:
Shoulders. Traps.
Dr. Pompa:
Okay, shoulders you know and traps, which is part shoulders or back. Okay. Then Friday what do you do? Legs? Oh, we said legs.
Daniel:
I don’t really plan it out like this.
Dr. Pompa:
He rotates it. He rotates the muscle groups.
Meredith:
Now, are you talking about lifting weights for these specific areas?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, lifting weights for those specific areas.
Daniel:
I have it written down in terms of a general idea of what I do in terms of what muscle groups, but I separate it out so I don’t lift the same muscle until six days later. I give my muscles time to rebuild. On those days that I’m actually working out, I work the muscles to complete and absolute failure, ultimately high intensity until there is not a chance that you can hold it for one more second. Not only like I can’t get one more rep, I can’t hold it anymore. It’s really important to do – and I do nine and twelve sets for big muscle groups. Then, if I’m doing something like chests and tri, I’ll do probably about four to six sets on triceps after I’ve already worked my chest. Then I will do every set, not including warm-up sets, to absolute failure.
Dr. Pompa:
The other thing is that he varies his reps. Chris Zaino, who we interviewed – I think he just won Mr. Universe. He taught Daniel to vary his reps, so it’s even more workout variation. One week on all of the body parts, he’ll do 60 to 80 reps. Maybe the next week, in that cycle, he’ll do 15 to 20, and then maybe six to ten on the third time –
Daniel:
Yeah, and I’ve started doing that. It’s been actually working pretty effectively in terms of getting more sore, which is definitely my goal every day. If I’m not super sore, I’m pretty upset.
Dr. Pompa:
It shocks the muscle is what it does, just like diet variation, right? It forces adaptation which makes us stronger as long as you’re doing all this nutrition to help it back, right? He knows that. Everything is about rest. Everything is about recovery. You’re doing these little variations just like we do with the diet to get the body to adapt. The body has to recover for that adaptation. That’s where you become stronger. You become stronger resting at home, not in the gym. I taught him that –
Daniel:
If I’m not fully recovered, I would never lift a muscle again because then the workout becomes compromised, most definitely.
Meredith:
What about cardio? Do you work that in at all?
Daniel:
Last year, I did a lot of cardio. This year, I’m trying to do more especially because I’m going to be skiing again.
Dr. Pompa:
You just started more of that again?
Daniel:
Yeah. My cardio is decent for not really doing it a lot. It’s definitely super important. I notice whenever I do a lot of cardio, I definitely get leaner and more vascular.
Dr. Pompa:
Here’s what we did the other day. We went on a 15-mile bike ride, mountain bike ride. He didn’t eat all day. Imagine, 15 miles. He was literally – he’s fat adapted. During that 15 miles, he didn’t eat, so what was his body burning? It was literally burning pure fat. Imagine, we went 15 miles up in the big mountains, too.
Daniel:
This was at four o’clock p.m., so I didn’t eat since the last day.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, four o’clock. You talk about his body – you couldn’t do that unless you’re fat adapted, meaning that his body was able to efficiently burn that fat. He never balked. It’s funny because we came up to a place and there was a bunch of other bikers there. Every one of them were drinking sugar drinks and bars. Did you see that? I’m thinking to myself they probably just biked six miles, and they’re sugaring up because they’re trying to bike another six. Here he is. Now, I had eaten one meal that day before that. Typically, I do the same thing. Fat adapted, I’m able to do those types of – therefore, you get the more fat burning out of endurance, which typically is not the case.
Meredith:
Such a win-win. Such freedom, too, when you’re not reliant on constantly having to feed yourself to have energy and to live your life.
Daniel:
Yeah, it’s true. It makes it easy if you do forget. It’s like oh, just diet variation. I forgot to eat today. That’s alright. I’ll do a 24-hour fast, no big deal. It honestly is. People think it’s inconvenient, but I find it very, very convenient.
Meredith:
Yeah, totally the opposite.
Dr. Pompa:
–days are the days that I don’t eat. I don’t want to eat. I’m just laser focused all day.
Daniel:
After you do fast for those long periods, you have to eat or else it’s just not going to work for you.
Dr. Pompa:
Don’t eat less, eat less often.
Meredith:
That’s the bottom line, yeah. That’s such a good phrase. That’s so easy to remember, too. I think that that’s such a good mantra as a take-home point for listeners. Don’t eat less, eat less often. Eat the right things, obviously, too, but then the multitherapeutic approach if you want to really go for it.
Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely. There you go, so proud of him. He’s skiing again this year, and just amazing student. He’s going to be a world changer. God’s brought him a long way.
Daniel:
That’s right. He really has.
Meredith:
With that being said, too, I’m curious, Daniel, what are your future aspirations? You’ve come so far in your journey of health and your life. What do you want to do with all of this?
Daniel:
I’m not too confident on one thing yet, but I am working with somebody in private equity that’s training me on all of his modules in terms of what it takes to build a successful business, which has been really cool considering he’s actually teaching me everything on how to do this. It’ll transfer over into everything in my life. It’s definitely not going to be a waste of time. It seems like a really good opportunity in terms of definitely figuring out what I want to do.
Dr. Pompa:
He actually literally put his college on hold for a year to do this, which I was quite proud of that decision, actually. Today, I’m not a believer that college is necessarily the best thing. He can go whenever he wants, but he’s literally learning – the gentleman takes these students through actually how to evaluate a business, how to purchase a business or at least equity in a business, how to manage it to increase the profits. My gosh, the stuff that he’s learning. If I would’ve done that at his age, oh my gosh. I knew nothing. This diet stuff that we’re talking about, again, I knew nothing. Dang it, I could’ve looked like him. When I was his age, what the heck was I doing? I don’t know. I sure didn’t know this.
Daniel:
It’s definitely super cool because I’m actually working with real businesses. It’s real life.
Meredith:
Awesome. It sounds really exciting, and I can see your dad is so proud of you. It was just such an honor to have you on the show and to share some of your gems. I know you didn’t want to give it all away, but thanks for giving us a lot of great information, a lot of amazing take-home points for people watching, all of what you’ve been through from pain to purpose. It’s an awesome message to share that the multitherapeutic approach works. Once again, Dr. Pompa case in point.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, from pain to purpose, from sick to fit. I really could do a show and interview each one of my children, honestly, because they all have an amazing story. Can you imagine Simon on the show?
Daniel:
Oh gosh, he’s not there yet. If somebody took the information that we’ve given during this session away, and they did everything that we’ve talked about, in six months, they would realize massive changes. Even in a month, they’d realize how much they’ve actually changed. It’s honestly remarkable how much you can just really benefit from these things, and how much muscle you can actually put on or how great you can look.
Meredith:
You just have to do it.
Daniel:
The information is there.
Dr. Pompa:
Well said. That’s the perfect way to end the show right there.
Meredith:
Awesome. Thank you both. This has been an awesome, information-packed show. I know I learned a lot, as usual. I know all of you who are watching and listening I’m sure gained a lot of value as well. Have a wonderful weekend. Thanks for tuning in, and thanks again, Dr. Pompa and Daniel.
Dr. Pompa:
-inaudible-…look at these arms. Look at that. Just look at that, dude. Make you show those abs. Let’s see those abs. Look at that.
Meredith:
There we go. The pictures do not lie. It’s the real deal.
Dr. Pompa:
I still have them. I’m just more modest. I’m a little embarrassed. You know how it is.
Meredith:
We’ll get you there sometime, Dr. Pompa. Hey, thanks guys. Thanks for watching. We’ll see you next week. Bye bye.
Dr. Pompa:
Good, see you, bye.
