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Recommendation · Fuel

Add a daily protein shake; make it your first move at home

Jesse recommends finding a place in your daily diet for a high-quality protein shake as one of the easiest, most digestible, most convenient ways to meet daily protein goals. The first thing he does when he gets home is make a protein shake. Where you reach for your protein is up to you, and you should choose between vegan and regular whey formulas to find the one that's right for you. He adds that the underlying advice stands on its own merit despite the shameless plug behind him.

ATHLEAN-X™ · 17 Foods That Make it EASY To Get Lean (AND STAY THAT WAY!)

Recommendation from Jesse (Athlean-X host)

Recommendation · Fuel

Choose Ceylon cinnamon over cassia

Jesse chooses Ceylon cinnamon over cassia. Eating a lot of cassia cinnamon can cause coumarin toxicity, which can lead to liver damage. Ceylon may need a specialty store but is worth the effort if you eat a lot of cinnamon — and he eats a lot of it daily.

ATHLEAN-X™ · 17 Foods That Make it EASY To Get Lean (AND STAY THAT WAY!)

Recommendation from Jesse (Athlean-X host)

Recommendation · Fuel

Divide the plate: protein, starchy carbs, vegetables

Jesse divides his plate so one third is protein and one third of the remainder is complex or starchy carbohydrates, allocating a fixed portion of plate space to starchy carbs because these foods can easily be overeaten.

ATHLEAN-X™ · 17 Foods That Make it EASY To Get Lean (AND STAY THAT WAY!)

Recommendation from Jesse (Athlean-X host)

Report · Fuel

Pyruvate is a pivot point where cells decide to burn it in mitochondria or use it otherwise

Dr. Jared Rutter explains that at pyruvate, the cell must make a decision: take the pyruvate into the mitochondria and burn (oxidize) it — combining it with oxygen, a very effective way to extract all the energy that can be extracted from glucose — or do something else with it. Pyruvate is a pivot point in glucose metabolism because of the bifurcation that happens there.

Andrew Huberman · How Mitochondria Control Your Metabolism | Dr. Jared Rutter

Claim from Dr. Jared Rutter

Principle · Fuel

For natural training, improving recovery is the most important thing

If you train naturally, the most important thing you can do is figure out a way to improve your body's ability to recover from hard workouts. Jeff adds that if you're trying to add new muscle and can get less damage to those new muscle cells, you're in business. Jesse echoes this, and Jeff also argues that avoiding fruit because it 'makes you fat' is a mistake, since a single blueberry has only about 0.8 calories, so why not indulge?

ATHLEAN-X™ · 17 Foods That Make it EASY To Get Lean (AND STAY THAT WAY!)

Claim from Jeff (Athlean-X)

Principle · Fuel

Doneness cues: C-curl, mostly opaque, and carryover cooking

After three minutes, lift the shrimp out. They're done when curled into a C, not an O — a full O means they've squeezed out moisture and contracted to well done. You can cut one open: it should be mostly opaque all the way through, though a tiny bit of translucency in the middle is fine because shrimp carry over cook. If still super clear in the middle, throw them back in for another 30 seconds. For larger shrimp (16/20 or 12/15), add another 30-45 seconds to the total cook time.

Brian Lagerstrom · Skip the $40 Lobster Roll. Make This Instead.

Claim from Brian Lagerstrom

Principle · Fuel

Red Argentinian shrimp are the best choice for a lobster-roll substitute

The creator argues red Argentinian shrimp are the winner: wild-caught at deep depths in the South Atlantic, they have natural sweetness and tender texture, are very similar to lobster tail, and give a result much closer to a New England-style lobster roll than standard farm shrimp (white or black tiger). He considers them the better option for most home cooks over sourcing lobster.

Brian Lagerstrom · Skip the $40 Lobster Roll. Make This Instead.

Claim from Brian Lagerstrom

Recommendation · Fuel

Eat cruciferous vegetables every night

Jesse makes sure to have some form of cruciferous vegetables — bok choy, brussels sprouts, cauliflower — on his plate every single night. The key is that you don't forget to do it. Fibrous carbs like these are lumped into the cruciferous vegetable category.

ATHLEAN-X™ · 17 Foods That Make it EASY To Get Lean (AND STAY THAT WAY!)

Recommendation from Jesse (Athlean-X host)

Recommendation · Fuel

Drink 40-50 ounces of skim milk daily

Jesse drinks 40 to 50 ounces of skim milk every day, choosing skim over whole milk purely for its calorie impact at that volume. He fits it in via oatmeal, a glass alone, at night, or with shakes.

ATHLEAN-X™ · 17 Foods That Make it EASY To Get Lean (AND STAY THAT WAY!)

Recommendation from Jesse (Athlean-X host)

Recommendation · Fuel

Use Ceylon cinnamon instead of cassia to avoid coumarin toxicity

Jesse recommends Ceylon cinnamon over cassia cinnamon, especially for heavy consumption: eating large amounts of cassia can cause coumarin toxicity, which can lead to liver damage. He notes cinnamon helps stabilize blood sugar and improve insulin sensitivity, making it an easy add-on for staying lean or fat loss. You may need to go to a specialty store to buy Ceylon, but it is worth the effort if you eat a lot of it; he puts it in his oatmeal along with skim milk daily.

ATHLEAN-X™ · 17 Foods That Make it EASY To Get Lean (AND STAY THAT WAY!)

Recommendation from Jesse (Athlean-X)

Method · Fuel

Toast top-split brioche buns in oil, cut side down, ~90 seconds to golden brown

Grab brioche-style hot dog buns (the creator's are from Aldi — very squishy, very sweet, and top-split, cut tip to tip through the middle rather than through the side; top-split buns hold large shrimp morsels better than side-cut buns, and he thinks the Aldi ones taste best). Add a little oil to the pan, place the bun cut side down, swirl it in the fat to coat evenly, and toast very gently for about 90 seconds — however long it takes to get nice golden browning tip to tip. (Remember to turn the pan on first — the host forgot.)

Brian Lagerstrom · Skip the $40 Lobster Roll. Make This Instead.

Method described by Brian Lagerstrom

Method preserved for inspection; not a verified protocol.

Method · Fuel

Chill the cooked shrimp in the fridge for about 20 minutes

To cool the shrimp off quickly, move them to the fridge for about 20 minutes. This stops the cooking process in its tracks so they don't overcook, and chilling makes them cold and more enjoyable to eat — warm shrimp in mayonnaise would be disgusting.

Brian Lagerstrom · Skip the $40 Lobster Roll. Make This Instead.

Method described by Brian Lagerstrom

Method preserved for inspection; not a verified protocol.

Report · Fuel

MPC knockout mice: lethal without the carrier, heart failure with cardiac deletion

Knockout mice — mice with genes eliminated to test the role of a protein — were essentially developed by Mario Capecchi, who won a Nobel Prize for it; he developed technology allowing organ- and cell-type-specific deletions or additions of genes, refined by many contributors over decades. Mice lacking the MPC proteins die before birth, around 12-13 days of development, about two-thirds of the way from fertilization to birth. Because different cells have unique metabolic demands, eliminating MPC in different organs produces different effects: mice with MPC eliminated only in the heart live for weeks but eventually die of heart failure with a massively enlarged heart — not from an inability to make ATP, since they can burn other fuels.

Andrew Huberman · How Mitochondria Control Your Metabolism | Dr. Jared Rutter

Claim from Dr. Jared Rutter

Principle · Fuel

Every cell constantly makes resource allocation decisions

Dr. Jared Rutter states that every one of our cells, every second of every day, is making resource allocation decisions about what to do with the stuff it has.

Andrew Huberman · How Mitochondria Control Your Metabolism | Dr. Jared Rutter

Claim from Dr. Jared Rutter

Creator perspective · Fuel

Cancer metabolism executes the mutational program: mutations are instructions, metabolism supplies the building blocks

Rutter explains that a cell's genome is the instructions for making a new cell and its constituents, but a cell with the right genetic instructions still cannot build a new cell without the metabolic building blocks — the 'lumber, bricks, and mortar.' Layered on top of a cancer's mutations is its unique metabolism, which enables those mutational instructions to be executed.

Andrew Huberman · How Mitochondria Control Your Metabolism | Dr. Jared Rutter

Claim from Jared Rutter

described

Report · Fuel

MPC: the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier

MPC stands for mitochondrial pyruvate carrier. It sits in the mitochondrial membrane and provides a specific channel that lets pyruvate enter the mitochondria, where it can be burned to extract energy and make ATP. It has been known for 60-70 years that mitochondria must have such a carrier, but the protein was only identified recently.

Andrew Huberman · How Mitochondria Control Your Metabolism | Dr. Jared Rutter

Claim from Dr. Jared Rutter

Report · Fuel

Discovery of MPC1 and MPC2

MPC1 and MPC2 were identified as the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier through a collaboration between Rutter's lab (using yeast and human cells) and Carl Fummel's fly genetics lab, triangulating data from multiple model systems. The proteins were strongly hypothesized to be important because they are present in every cell that has mitochondria — yeast, plants, and animals. The identification has since been validated many times over, and Jean-Claude Martinou's lab in Geneva published the same discovery at the same time.

Andrew Huberman · How Mitochondria Control Your Metabolism | Dr. Jared Rutter

Claim from Dr. Jared Rutter

Creator perspective · Fuel

Cancer is resource allocation gone awry: transformed cells allocate toward building more cells

Dr. Jared Rutter argues that a cancer cell is a cell making a resource allocation decision all the time, but when it transforms into a cancer cell, that resource allocation becomes very much about building more cells. A tumor is a tumor because the one cell that was the first bad actor decided to allocate resources toward building more cells — duplicating itself again and again into a cluster of cells.

Andrew Huberman · How Mitochondria Control Your Metabolism | Dr. Jared Rutter

Claim from Dr. Jared Rutter

Creator perspective · Fuel

Excess energy overpowers mitochondria, generating genome-damaging reactive species

When mitochondria are overpowered by excess extracted food energy (before conversion to ATP), the cell enters a state highly susceptible to generating reactive species that damage the genome, create mutations, and damage proteins. Excess energy must be considered as a problem from the level of the whole organism down to individual cells and even the mitochondria within those cells.

Andrew Huberman · How Mitochondria Control Your Metabolism | Dr. Jared Rutter

Claim from Dr. Jared Rutter

Principle · Fuel

Make the shrimp salad to order — dressing ahead cooks the shrimp and makes it weepy

Don't make the shrimp salad ahead of time; the whole dish revolves around being fresh, vibrant, and in the moment. If dressed ahead, the salt and lemon will slightly cook the shrimp, draw out moisture, make it weepy, and lose the beautiful à la minute texture. Make it to order.

Brian Lagerstrom · Skip the $40 Lobster Roll. Make This Instead.

Claim from Brian Lagerstrom