Why You Should Listen –
Crosby Tailor is a model, chef, and was Bulletproof’s first ever ambassador! With a Bulletproof mentality and a massive sweet tooth, Crosby started creating sugar, gluten and grain free paleo type desserts from ice creams, baked goods, chocolates, and frostings, and “Eat Dessert Burn Fat” was born. His fat-burning cookie are devised from good fats like grass-fed ghee and Brain Octane Oil, digestible proteins, and sugar-free bulletproof sweeteners like Lakanto. On this episode of Bulletproof Radio, Dave and Crosby talk about their favorite cookies, ketosis and carbs, looking healthy, sugar and brain function, and more. Enjoy the show!
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Automated: Bulletproof Radio, a state of high performance.
Dave: You are listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey. Today’s cool fact of the day is that people’s emotions around eating are pretty darn complex, especially in social situations, which amplifies the emotions there. That makes sense, because there’s only three things that your body really has to do to make sure the species survives. Eat everything, have sex with as many things as possible to make sure the species reproduces, and run away or kill things that are dangerous.
Pretty much, that’s the operating system for being a human. When you combine people who might be dangerous in social situations with food, you can imagine all the weird stuff that happens. In the Journal of Appetite in 2012, they took three groups of friends, and they wanted to see what your friends did to your eating habits.
Two out of these three friends were secretly coached to not eat the Kryptonite foods while they’re in the company of a third friend. The result is that the third person limited the unhealthy foods they ate, while they were with their friends, and they kept doing it on their own, even though they didn’t know that their friends had been coached to do that.
That statement about you are what you eat, well, you’re also what your friends eat, which is kind of creepy when you think about it. That means you want to surround yourself with some people who eat really well, and might I humbly suggest, surround yourself with some Bulletproof friends, because we’re kind of cool, you know?
Before we get in to today’s show, if you haven’t tried Bulletproof Brain Octane Oil, you’ve probably heard me talk about it being my go-to source to get better mental and physical performance, but you probably haven’t heard all of the reasons why. It has 10 times more activity from the specific, single, medium-chain triglyceride per tablespoon as you can get from coconut oil. It produces about four times the amount of ketones as coconut oil, and much more than plain MCT oil.
It’s not MCT oil, it’s a subfraction of MCT with more biological activity. Besides putting it in my coffee, I actually use it in cooking, I use it in baking, and every single meal, every day, I put a little bit of this in there, because I never have to think about food. We mentioned those three things that your body does; eat everything, well, you don’t want to eat everything if your body’s like “I have all the food I need.” Brain Octane sends that signal to my body. It’s pretty amazing what happens.
I had sushi for lunch, I poured it on my sushi. I’m not hungry, and I’m not going to be hungry for a while. I also posted a video on the blog about the steak bowl which has Brain Octane on top. My salad dressing, it’s everywhere. When I dribble some, I just put it on my skin and I swear, it’s my favorite oil ever.
You can find Brain Octane Oil on Bulletproof.com. If you have not tried it in your Bulletproof Coffee, if you’re doing coconut oil, it’s actually not, biologically the same thing, and there are tens of thousands of people who switch to Brain Octane Oil because, oh my god, it feels better, it works better, and it takes up to 18 pounds of coconut oil to make one pound of Brain Octane, and Brain Octane is the only thing like it because it’s made entirely from coconuts.
There is no palm oil, there is no orangutan juice, and none of the environmental devastation that’s caused regular MCT oil. Avoid MCT oil and use Brain Octane, and you’ll feel the difference, you’ll help the planet, and you’re much less likely to fill your pants. That’s why no MCT, Brain Octane.
Today’s guest is a long-time friend and Bulletproof ambassador. In fact, he’s the first Bulletproof ambassador. He is a model, a certified Bulletproof ambassador and health coach, and his name is Crosby Tailor. Crosby, welcome to the show.
Crosby: What’s up, Dave? How are you? It’s great to be here.
Dave: I am doing great, I’m happy you could come on and it’s good to connect with you again. You guys may have heard of Crosby, he’s been at all of the Bulletproof Conferences, and he’s a sugar-free dessert chef and he owns “Eat Dessert, Burn Fat,” and makes these cookies that have been eaten by amazing celebrities and musicians, and they’re all the rage in LA. I’ve certainly eaten some, and you’re like “am I really eating a cookie that’s good for me?” You are.
Crosby’s got a big Snapchat following where he snaps all of the crazy stuff he makes. What are you Crosby Tailor on Snapchat?
Crosby: Crosby Tailor, yeah. T-A-I-L-O-R. Like you would see it on my website and everything. Yeah, Crosby Tailor. It’s the same on Instagram, Crosby Tailor, yeah.
Dave: Cool. I just realized, I followed some other guy, Crosby T-A-Y. If you’re Crosby Taylor listening, I totally typed it wrong when I was doing that. I’m Dave Asprey on Snapchat. A lot of people don’t know that I also Snap. Now we’ve put both of our Snapchats on Bulletproof Radio, follow us both.
Crosby: Plug in
Dave: All of it. We were just talking. Crosby’s also a professional hand model too, because most of his Snapchats are him mixing crazy ingredients to make really good desserts. He’s cool.
All right, let’s talk about your cookies, man. I think that you have a cool story. How did you get in to making desserts?
Crosby: Oh, man, desserts. It was one of those things where I had been on a health journey for a long time. I started with Chinese background and Chinese medicine, and it was all from running myself into the ground in the modeling business. I was out in New York, I was in London, and I was totally underweight. It was one of those things where when I got back to LA, where people are actually a little bit more conscious about their health, not just their vanity, I started to seek out some things. That led me to Dragon Herbs and Ron Teeguarden and working with him.
Then over to Erehwon, where I was making certain things and working at the tonic bar. I was kind of on this journey and had some issues with my stomach along the ride. It was all from the background of eating crappy food that we all grew up on. Finally, when I got to a point where I started to shed some of that and detox in different ways, I became sensitive to where my stomach started to feel everything. It wasn’t just being bombarded by a bunch of toxins all the time. Now I had an actual sensitive stomach, that when I put something bad in it, I felt it.
Dave: Right.
Crosby: You felt it. Like all of us that are kind of more on this Bulletproof path, or in these health-conscious-type diets. I ended up getting a really bad stomach infection from an H. Pylori overgrowth, and it put me on this road where I had to get rid of pretty much everything that would feed it, and that was sugar.
Sugar, sugar, sugar, any type of sugar, even fructose. I cut it all out of my diet, while I rehabbed my stomach. Because I had to go on some antibiotics for it, it was that bad. It got me to a place where I had to rehabilitate my gut in a lot of different ways and keep things away from it, but I still had such a sweet tooth. I was like “how am I going to crave this?” I used to eat all these things that my mom made from banana bread to chocolate chip cookies to going ham on ice cream at night. I had all of these same kind of cravings.
Background in college football where you could eat whatever you wanted, and you’d just train. Now, at this point, with this sensitive stomach and this issue, I had to come up with some alternatives, and it led me to when I was working at Erehwon, crafting my own desserts from ice creams out of the Vitamix to chocolates and puddings and just little stirs where I wanted to have something. I was using all of these different sugar alternatives, sugar/sweetener alternatives, super foods, and I think that’s right around the time that I really got interested in Bulletproof.
I remember e-mailing you, a long time ago. What is this, like four years ago, maybe?
Dave: In the very early days, yeah. You’re this crazy guy, you’re like “Dave, I work at this grocery store, and you’ve probably never heard of them, it’s ‘nowhere’ spelled backwards,” and they were the first grocery to carry to us, Erehwon. The first grocery to carry Bulletproof, and it was because you pulled some strings to get us introduced. They’re still a top partner today.
Crosby: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that was kind of a cool beginning. I was just really into the whole idea behind eating good fats. Because I was kind of doing it, but I was doing it with the monounsaturated fats. I was doing it with avocado, through olive oil.
Dave: Yeah.
Crosby: I was doing coconut oil here and there, and I wasn’t really in to the ghee or the butter yet, until you kind of introduced some of these things. When I got a bunch of product and started using it, I actually didn’t even drink coffee then.
Dave: Wow.
Crosby: Nothing, like none of those things were in my repertoire.
Dave: I noticed you look a lot stronger and more vibrant now, and the coffee explains it all, totally.
Crosby: It’s all the coffee. I drink a Bulletproof every morning, and people are like “what are you doing? You’re just glowing.” I’m like “I just drink coffee.” No, I’m just kidding, but part of it, for sure, yeah. I haven’t stopped, there may be a couple different times when I laid off certain things and let my body readjust.
Dave: Yeah.
Crosby: Ever since, I’ve really just been hooked on that whole idea of good fats, keeping my sugar and carbohydrates down, and moderate levels of protein. My body composition changed, my brain chemistry changed.
Dave: What happened to your brain? What did you experience in your brain? This is the whole point. I don’t care about having a six pack, I’m married, I already have two kids. What do I need a six pack for, right? It’s all about will power and energy for me.
Crosby: Yeah.
Dave: What happened in your brain when you switched to more of the saturated and less of the monounsaturated? Just walk me through the subjective feel of it.
Crosby: I think the biggest thing that I noticed was I just became quicker. I went from eating those, I feel like a lot of those fats are really slow. They digest slower. When I kicked myself into a place where I was using a lot of the MCT in the beginning, and you had the XCT, and then introduced the Brain Octane. Once I got up to the Brain Octane, it almost felt like when I had these things and didn’t have any carbohydrates, I felt like I had had sugar.
Dave: Right.
Crosby: It snapped me into this place, because I hadn’t had those nutrients before. They were brand new to my body and to my brain. When I got those things, I was like “wow, this is different.” I started to introduce a lot of my friends to it and they were in that same kind of place where they were trying to kick- … Everybody was into this. I remember training. You trained, and then you ate carbs and proteins. Whatever it was, rice, sweet potato, potato, breads, grains, and that was how I played college football. Once I got out of that, and I had to get my body composition to a certain place, I started to be like “okay, I’ve got to cut this, I’ve got to cut this, I’ve got to cut this.”
I cut all of these things out of my diet, and I was walking around New York City like a zombie. I had barely any body fat on me, and I looked great in a picture, but I felt like shit. It got to a place where when I came back to Los Angeles, and I started to discover these things about the saturated fats and the MCTs and CLAs and all of these things that I wasn’t getting before, it put me back into a place where like “oh, I have energy again. Oh, I can move and actually have a conversation with somebody instead of being like ‘huh?'” That’s how I felt before. I cut out all of the things that actually made my brain go. Because I wanted to look a certain way.
It’s just like the industry can just really screw you up. When I got back into this place where I was using a lot of your products, it saved me, it definitely saved me, in a lot of ways.
Dave: It’s funny because the look that’s popular right now for modeling, both for women and men, that super-lean shredded look. It looks bad-ass, but man, it is not the look that makes you live the longest or makes you have energy. It’s actually the starving animal look.
Crosby: Right.
Dave: I don’t know how to get, I’ve never been that lean, but when I get much below 18%, my brain function isn’t where it can be. The stuff I look at for longevity, I want to be around 18% or 20%, and right now, I’m 20.1% on my last dexoscan. I’m totally happy there.
Crosby: Yeah.
Dave: Do you have a target body fat for yourself? You work more as a model than I do, you probably need to be lower than that. How low can you go and still feel good?
Crosby: That’s so funny you said that, because there’s a new cryo place on Sunset called Next Health that invited me over to go through the rounds and get some testing done. Me and a friend went over there and we got some of our testing done. I was like “huh?” when I got my test back. Because I feel, because I’m getting so many of those fats throughout the day, my body fat is low, it’s very low. I don’t feel like I’m starving. I’m not at the point where I have to snack or [inaudible 00:14:12].
Dave: Cool.
Crosby: I’ll have my Bulletproof. Seriously, Dave, I’m up at 4:30, 5:00 in the morning most days.
Dave: Wow.
Crosby: I’m having my Bulletproof around 5:30, 6:00 at the latest. I’m not hitting the gym until 9:00 and I still haven’t eaten, I’ll do the Bulletproof, I do a pretty good amount of butter in there. Only a tablespoon of the Brain Octane, I do a couple tablespoons of collagen to give me some protein.
Dave: Right.
Crosby: Then, if I’m working with Chinese Herbs at the time, I’ll throw a couple of those in there. Then, before I got to the gym around 9:00, I create this cocktail that’s like pre-workout cocktail that’s got like chlorophyll and BCAAs. Just stuff to kind of stabilize and get me through a workout. Carnatine, nothing that’s calorie-dense though. There’s barely, still, no calories. I’ll last until even after that workout. I’ll have a post-workout drink that’s just got some protein in it before I go eat some food. Maybe some BCAs, protein and some glutamine, and then I’ll go eat a meal and it’s 12:30, 1:00.
Then, I won’t eat dinner until 6:00, 7:00.
Dave: You feel good all the time?
Crosby: I feel good all the time and I’ve got this testing back and I was like- … I’m listening to you going “18,” and I’m like “oh, jeez, I feel.” It’s crazy.
Dave: Where are you?
Crosby: On here, I’ll show you the sheet in a second. On here it says what to gain in body fat mass, or in lean body mass, muscle, and it tells me that I have zero and zero. It’s a zero and zero, but my body fat mass is 10 pounds of my 190 pound frame.
Dave: No way.
Crosby: 5.3% body fat, and it’s only- … I don’t know-
Dave: Is that a dexoscan or something else like calipers?
Crosby: No, I stood on this things and I had all of these-
Dave: Oh, it’s an impedance. There’s a high variance there. I did a very high-end, clinical-grade impedance that said I was 15% body fat and my dexoscan said I was 20.1%, and the dexo’s ]-
Crosby: You feel a little bit better.
Dave: I suspected, probably-
Crosby: You’re probably more like eight to ten.
Dave: Seven or eight it’s more like. Because if you’re at five, I don’t think you would probably be feeling good. Most people can’t hang out at that range and feel good, unless there’s some genetic types where you’re just always super-super-lean. That’s unusual.
Crosby: I’ve never been this lean. I’ve never been this lean before, and carried this much muscle mass. It’s not something that’s genetic, because it doesn’t run in the family. I know that my diet’s been really dialed in lately, and it’s not that I do it on purpose, it’s just that I am very intuitive and in-tune with what makes me feel good.
Dave: Sorry, are you juicing?
Crosby: I’ll have the green juice here and there.
Dave: I said that to be inflammatory. Not because green juice deserved that. Yeah, I’m assuming you do some green juices, but not that many, because juicing wouldn’t give you the body composition you have now, it’s not possible.
Crosby: No, I’m definitely… a lot of lamb, a lot of red meats.
Dave: Nice.
Crosby: Lamb, a lot of butter.
Dave: How old are you?
Crosby: Cruciferous vegetables. A lot of cruciferous vegetables. I’m 31.
Dave: 31, okay, cool, you’re in your 30s. The other definition of juicing, obviously, is using steroids.
Crosby: Oh.
Dave: That’s why it was funny.
Crosby: That’s so funny because isn’t that good that I didn’t go there?
Dave: It was awesome because you didn’t think of it, because it’s like totally cool that you’re all about the green juice. I was hoping you would do that. The other way you can get more of the body mass is with steroids, and you’re too young. Unless you had a problem. I was on testosterone when I was 27 because I had huge amounts of estrogen and almost no testosterone. I was medically appropriate, bio-identical. I’ve been really open about that.
I’m on a small dose of bio-identical testosterone now, but I’m 43, and my production. Sometimes I can get it up naturally around 700, but it doesn’t tend to stay there no matter what I do. Then it drops to like 500. I’m like “no, I’m fine to supplement it.” You don’t need to, because look at you, you’re chiseled right now, that’s amazing.
Crosby: Well, it’s definitely diet, it’s the way that I work out. I definitely have to say my desserts are a big part of it.
Dave: Of course.
Crosby: Because I’m not eating things that would throw body fat on me late at night. It’s actually, a lot of my stuff has a lot of Brain Octane oil, and in general. I make a chocolate sauce with Brain Octane. I’ll throw that on top.
Dave: I love that. That’s one of my favorite things is like chocolate powder and Brain Octane. What do you use for carbs in yours?
Crosby: Well, I’m putting- … There’s not onion, there’s not basically, and besides, the chocolate cacao butter, just grab some, but.
Dave: Okay, cool.
Crosby: Yeah, I have it on some of my websites, it’s not like a secret recipe. I’ll throw the cacao powder with good cacao butter, some Lakanto, which is the sweetener I use, a blend of monkfruit and erythritol. Good cacao butter, Brain Octane, a pinch of pink salt, and I’ll stir that all up in a coffee cup and I’ll throw it in the freezer if I want it to just be chocolate, or I’ll keep it stirred and throw that on top of an ice cream, and it hardens. You have this hard-shell chocolate sauce.
Dave: I don’t think we’ve ever talked about that, that’s one of my favorite things to do. I love that, I put that on- … I get some ice cream, and you’re like, it’s really good.
Crosby: Yeah, it’s amazing. Then, on top of all of that, just to kind of segue into what you were talking about with the testosterone. I do it, I kind of have a way of doing it naturally. It’s where I supplement with my calcium-d-glucarate, and DIM, to keep my estrogen levels balanced. Then, I’m using Dragon Herbs, Tribulous. I really, really love.
Dave: Tribulous is good, yeah.
Crosby: Yeah, cycling that along with here and there, I’ll use the passionflower extract. Then I have all of my jing herbs from He Shou Wu and Rehmannia Six and these kind of things. Along with good liver supplements and the glutifion and I kind of keep a great balance of detoxifying the bad estrogens and creating a discrepancy between my estrogen and testosterone all the time to where I feel great, my immune system is great, my stamina and strength, and my lifts go up every week.
I’m lifting for power, I don’t do a lot of heavy rep stuff, because I’m on such a clean diet, I don’t need to go to the gym and run like crazy, or overexert myself and create inflammation. I’m just in there to create more muscle mass.
Dave: That’s cool, so you recover really quickly. There’s some science that hasn’t been done, as far as I understand. We’ve looked at whether people can preserve muscle mass and grow muscle mass in ketosis, and that has absolutely shown to be possible and doable. I think that study was very reliable recently when it came out.
What we know is that when you lift heavy, you create short-term inflammation, like the mitochondria make a lot of reactive oxo species and then you get some muscle tearing. Then you get healing and recovery. The problem is that ketosis is anti-inflammatory. Maybe you might want to be out of ketosis when you lift. Except, the studies show that you can grow muscle mass. There’s something happening, I think, because you have more energy because you’re in ketosis, more electrons in the cells.
That’s probably what’s happening there, because what you’re doing, a lot of traditional exercise people say “well, that’s not possible.” You’re like “well, no, I’m not eating carbs and I’m gaining muscle.” Have you tried adding carbs back in, because some of those people get like 10 pounds of muscle when they put carbs back in. Do you ever do that?
Crosby: Oh, man. If I do a couple of carb loads, if I do more than one day of carb-loading a week, I can increase five pounds like that. Like if I throw more sweet potatoes in my diet. I’ve never been a really white rice guy, but the sweet potato is kind of my go-to. If I do that, or if I’m eating more, carrots is another, some of the root vegetables are really what I’ll do.
If I’m doing more of that, I can pack on pretty quick. I feel better here. I feel like sometimes when people are in complete ketosis all the time, they can get that no-glycogen look.
Dave: Yeah.
Crosby: It’s like there’s not a pump happening ever. I’m still managing to keep a pump throughout my workouts, and I think it’s also because I’m not going crazy and doing heavy lifts every day, obviously.
Dave: That will break you.
Crosby: That will break you.
Dave: Are you in ketosis all the time? You said once a week you’re going out.
Crosby: No, no, not all the time.
Dave: Okay.
Crosby: Not all the time. I would say it’s like three, four days a week.
Dave: Yeah. You’re doing something else that’s really cool that I haven’t talked about so much. I don’t know if you’re doing it on purpose, but glutamine, which is an amino acid that can give you a lot of brain energy. I used to use it. I feel when people are really tired, or when I was really tired, like in business school, I would use glutamine when I was trying to study. This is when I first started taking modafinil.
Crosby: Yeah.
Dave: I didn’t have my diet all the way dialed in. I would do this and it would help, and it helps with gut healing, but glutamine takes you out of ketosis, very reliably. It’s anti-ketogenic. Essentially, you’re in ketosis, you take glutamine, and you’re doing exercise, but you’re not eating sugar. You go out of ketosis. I think it just probably makes you better at going back into ketosis, because what else does your body get into? I don’t even know.
Crosby: Why does it take you out? I never knew that it took you out of ketosis, why is that?
Dave: It’s one of those studies out there. I know I read all of the weird studies. I don’t know the mechanism, actually. I’m just searching my little mental database there. Couldn’t tell you why, but I can tell you that in studies, you give someone a few grams of glutamine, their ketone levels drop very dramatically.
Crosby: Really?
Dave: It’s probably because there’s two things going on there. This is assuming nutritional ketosis. When you’re using Brain Octane, it’s not nutritional ketosis, it’s exogenous ketones from outside the body. This is oil that naturally goes to ketones. I don’t think it’s going to stop fat. Your mitochondria, they’re energy-hungry, and they decide whether the cell is going to be in ketosis or not based on available fuels.
Crosby: Got it.
Dave: They can take amino acids, including glutamine and convert them into energy. I think glutamine is a better substrate for making ATP than forcing the body to go into nutritional ketosis.
Crosby: Okay.
Dave: If you have a glutamine present, and you’re using Brain Octane, your getting exogenous ketones, like you would get from a ketone salt or something, but without all the acetone and all of the other things that come in the keto-salts. That’s my guess. You’re getting cool results because you’re extremely lean and you’re muscular, and then you can put on muscle mass without even thinking about it.
It’s kind of cool. You’ve got something going on.
Crosby: Something’s happening. I’ll use about five to eight grams post-workout and the same before bed. I wonder how that’s changing the chemistry throughout the day, or if I slip back into it before dinner, or I don’t know.
Dave: Yeah, and if you’re using Brain Octane throughout the day like I do, there’s always a background level of ketones present, more than would naturally be there, and that changes everything biologically. It’s cool.
There are some concerns that glutamine is over time, higher doses of glutamine are associated with increased risk of cancer. I don’t know that you want to do it every day. I would probably cycle it. Do your glutamine sometimes.
Crosby: It increases the glutamate levels?
Dave: I don’t think it’s because of glutamate. I don’t know the mechanism of action there. I don’t believe glutamine usually increases glutamate. There’s one researcher who swears up and down. I see autistic kids take L-glutamine and I tended that way. I used to have the Asperger’s feature set. Glutamine was a healing thing for me, not a damaging thing. I just don’t see the MSG reaction ever in human beings from glutamine that they get from taking glutamic acid or glutamic acid with sodium or monosodium glutamate.
Crosby: Well, maybe it’s the whole idea behind it, the fact that glutamine makes you extremely anabolic.
Dave: I think it’s helping, yeah.
Crosby: It’s the anabolism, right?
Dave: Yeah, I think you should keep doing it, but if you took a couple of days a week off and just measured what changed, maybe you’ll find something more. You’re bio-acting and you’re kicking some ass, and you get to eat dessert all the time. Which is something people don’t understand. The creamy goodness of butter and the whole paleo crowd is like “oh, cavemen didn’t have sugar alcohols.” I’m like “yeah, I know, but cavemen didn’t know about cheesecake, or they would have like, killed each other over it.”
Crosby: Of course.
Dave: You can use the appropriate sweeteners that are not artificial sweeteners, because they’ll screw you up. The low-carb, high-fat, I eat Nutri-sweet all the time because it has no sugar, therefore it’s good for me, that doesn’t work and you’ll lose half of your 200 pounds of fat. In my case, I lost 50 pounds that way, and the other half will never leave you and you’ll be tired all the time.
That doesn’t work, and you could go the zero sugar, zero sweet kind of paleo template, and that just sucks. Because, let’s face it, cookies are good, right?
Crosby: So good. Eat cookies and ice cream, and chocolate.
Dave: Yeah.
Crosby: It’s part of us, you know?
Dave: It’s a social thing and it’s just delicious, right? Then you could go down the Bulletproof path where like “you know what, cavemen didn’t have mass spectrometers and fermentation labs and all of this stuff, but we do, so let’s use it, and let’s use sugar alcohols intelligently, and let’s use stevia and things like that.” Then, all of the sudden, the palette for creating a dessert or a recipe, it’s a different perspective, a different philosophy and you get it.
You do these crazy things. Tell me what you put in your favorite cookie? What are the set of ingredients you work with there?
Crosby: I just put a cookie out on my website. The website is TailordLife.com, by the way. I just put a cookie out, a ginger snap cookie that’s amazing. It’s really cool because I’m using tiger nut flour. I’m using a resistant starch, along with the Lakanto, which, I think that I’ve said before, the monkfruit and erythritol blend, that’s in every dessert. I’m using that as my main sweetener. I really like that.
I think I like that a lot more than xylitol, because I have sensitive stomach and I feel like that one just has been better for me than that. Then, I’m using, a lot of the time in the desserts, especially my staple, original cookie that I’ve been making, I used the Bulletproof collagen, so it’s got protein in it. Already, what is it, seven times pre-digested?
Dave: Yeah.
Crosby: It’s great for heat-sensitive protein, then I’m just throwing all of the great fats. Everything from pastured eggs to the MCTs and the new grass-fed ghee that you got, Dave, I’ve been using a lot of that, it’s delicious.
Dave: It’s kind of a caramel-y flavor, right?
Crosby: It’s got that nice, caramel touch, it’s perfect for baking. You guys just sent me a bunch of it, and I had been using a different ghee that was really good, and I tasted and I was like “oh, this is it.”
Dave: We’re doing it over an open flame, like traditional Ayurvedic techniques, because that stuff matters.
Crosby: Yeah.
Dave: I’m really excited about that product. Getting 100% grass-fed butter to make it, instead of 90% grass-fed butter, it was another achievement. Because there’s a shortage. Bulletproof Coffee made a shortage, globally, of grass-fed butter.
Crosby: Yeah. I’m grabbing a thing of Kerrygold, I don’t even know how many times a week. Yeah, there’s a lot of those people out there, too.
Dave: Yeah, I live in the country, I’m in Canada. When I’m up here, there’s a 300% tariff on butter. All you can get is Canadian butter, which is pretty much, always grain and corn fed, and it doesn’t taste good. People import their personal stash of Kerrygold. There’s a national outcry over the shortage of grass-fed butter here, it’s kind of funny.
Crosby: It just tastes so much better. Yeah, in terms of getting back to the cookies. There is a ginger snap recipe on there, and then I’ll throw anywhere from a probiotic type cream cheese frosting, which is a dairy source to the people that have dairy sensitivity, I’m making a pure, full-fat coconut milk, kind of icing. That one actually has the vanilla bean in it, too.
I’m incorporating a lot of the Bulletproof products.
Dave: Thanks, man.
Crosby: Yeah, of course, and it makes a difference. I’ve used a lot of other different sources of cacaoss and vanilla beans, and I notice a difference. You can just notice the difference in flavor and the way that I feel, and it makes a huge difference when you’re sourcing stuff that we’re talking about with toxic load and all of that.
Dave: People don’t often know, because I probably don’t talk about it enough, but the other products like the Bulletproof vanilla beans, that’s a 20-day process that breaks down mold toxins in the vanilla. It’s a dried bean in a tropical environment.
Crosby: Yeah.
Dave: You can see mold growing on vanilla pods, if you look at them. Then the same thing with the chocolate. It’s lab-tested to be really low and it’s processed in a facility away from other chocolate. You know what, you can’t see that, but for me, I feel it, and the mechanism of action there is that the toxin that forms in coffee and chocolate and vanilla, one of them anyway, it inhibits mitochondrial function.
You’re used to feeling good, you’re given all of these extra electrons from the Brain Octane and the high fat into your brain where you have the most mitochondrial density. You’re like “all right, I’m cruising.” Then you take something that slows the engine down. Then you feel it first in your brain, you’re like “ah.” Then you want sugar. It affects me so profoundly. I made this stuff because I got tired of feeling crappy all the time.
Crosby: Yeah, it’s a bad snowball effect, you want that good snowball, not that bad one.
Dave: Totally.
Crosby: Yeah.
Dave: I’ve got another question for you. Most of your clients are women, right?
Crosby: Yeah.
Dave: Number one, every guy listening is like “how do you do that?”
Crosby: What?
Dave: I’m just kidding. What do you find that’s different with women and men when they’re on high-fat diets like this? Is it that they want cookies even more than men? Just kidding. There are very meaningful high-fat difference between men and women, and because you’re a fitness trainer, what do you see? What changes do you make for women?
Crosby: It’s funny, but that’s kind of the first thing. Especially if they heard about me from a friends. The first thing everybody checks is their Instagram. They go to the Instagram, and they’re like “what the hell, this guy makes all these desserts, I thought he was a nutritionist?” It’s funny because that hooks them in. They’re like “whoa, I think I can have all of these things that I already have that I feel like crap on, in a good way.” They kind of come in to it going “oh, well, I’ll be able to get cookies and make my own recipes and be able to still eat sweets.” A lot of them are like “can I just live on a cookie diet?” I’m like “no, that’s not going to work, but you can have them, you can have your desserts, I’m going to show you how to do this.”
Dave: You switch them from a deprivation mindset to “you can have things that will satisfy you, but you have to do it right?
Crosby: Exactly.
Dave: Okay.
Crosby: That is huge for women because it’s such a mental game, too. I work with a lot of girls in the industry that are either models or actresses, and they’re constantly- … Their vessel is their work, so they’re constantly looking in the mirror and going “oh, my face is fat,” or like, “oh, I’m gaining weight here,” or “my agent said I should cut back on this.” You know, they get these little things throughout the day that are really affecting their mental state and their cortisol levels.
The big thing, I think, for a lot of them, is when they are told they’re allowed to have some of these foods that are decadent that still taste really good, and they don’t have to feel guilty or go into this place of feeling stressed out, it’s a double-win. Because now they’re chilling, they’re just feeling good, they’re eating something delicious, and they’re getting the nutritional benefits from it, as opposed to “I know I shouldn’t eat this chocolate bar, but I’m going to because I’m craving it.” Then they feel like crap afterwards, then they eat more of it. It’s just a never-ending spiral.
The next day, they wake up with inflamed hands, and they’re about to go to a job and their face is all puffy, as opposed to what I’m saying I could do for them. Then all of the sudden, once they have that trust, and really in themselves, but they trust the whole idea, they trust the plan and they trust the idea that they can eat high-fat, or eat more fat. A lot of them aren’t going to go right into really high fats because they’re still super scared. They integrate, and they kind of cut back on a lot of their high-sugar things.
A lot of girls come to me and they’re like “I’m vegan or fruit-itarian.”
Dave: Wow, how can you not be puffy if you’re a fruit-itarian?
Crosby: Some of them it’s just like they’ve not been doing it for very long and they just have genetics.
Dave: Wow.
Crosby: Their body just oxidizes, it just uses the sugars right away. For a lot of them, they eventually get into a place where they don’t really see it on the outside, they don’t see that they’ve gained too much weight or that they look too bad, they might be 20 years old, you know? They definitely notice it in their hormones.
A lot of them are like “I just saw a Chinese Medical Doctor and she said I have the hormones of a 45 year-old woman.”
Dave: Yeah.
Crosby: That’s where they freak out. They’re like “I don’t get my period, and I don’t this and I don’t that.” I just recently worked with a girl that was barely getting her period, could barely see at times.
Dave: Whoa.
Crosby: 20 years, like 19, 20 years old, and hormones were screwed up, just came from all of these different testing. It was between some of these high-electrolyte and mineral foods and the fats and cutting some of the sugars back. The twitch that was in her eye was gone in a week. She could see within two weeks, and she was referring a friend within the third.
Dave: Wow.
Crosby: Two and a half weeks. It’s amazing how important a lot of these are, we forget. Especially living in this world where it’s a different industry and we forget how important it is to get some of these nutrients, and you finally get them and you’re like “oh, wait, I’m just human, here surviving.”
Dave: It’s funny you mention vision there. The three parts of the brain, or sorry, three parts of the body that have the highest density of mitochondria per cell is the eyes, that’s the brain and the heart. Those are the things that suck the most energy, which is why if you’re eating one of those diets, or you’re eating a lot of toxins. Like the raw vegan diet actually has a lot of plant-based toxins that inhibit your mitochondrial functions. It’s there to keep animals from eating the vegetables so the vegetables can reproduce.
It’s mother nature’s way of fighting back. You put thorns, or spikes, or compounds that are bad for animals so that way, all of you doesn’t get eaten. Cooking deactivates some of those, right? When I was a raw vegan, I was running into that. Where you’ll manifest these things, even if you’re young, you have so much resilience. You can be a raw vegan when you’re under 25. You’ll pay for it when you’re 35, but you can do it and you probably won’t feel it at first.
Light sensitivity, eye twitches, headaches. Okay, brain, eyes and just low energy, that’s cardiovascular, right?
Crosby: Yeah.
Dave: In the new book I’ve got coming out, roughly 48% of people under 40 have mitochondrial dysfunction.
Crosby: Wow.
Dave: Diet is what does it, and the stuff you’re on, Crosby, the stuff that you’re eating and the stuff that I’m eating, it actively encourages mitochondrial growth. It encourages more energy. 147 electrons versus 36 electrons per molecule for Brain Octane versus sugar. You’re like “yeah, no wonder you feel different, no wonder she recovered in three weeks.” It’s biology and it’s so cool.
Crosby: It was quick. She felt so good and she was getting strong and stuff. She was almost mad that some of these things were happening because she wanted to be frail. You know what I’m saying?
Dave: Yeah.
Crosby: I’m like “you’re going to have to pick one, you’re going to pick the dying look or the healthy look. Because this is what this industry is doing.” A lot of them come out of it and they’re feeling amazing and they create a balance, and they get to a point where they become more intuitive themselves and they know what things to eat, but also how to still look that certain way they need to look. They navigate better.
I think that that’s the biggest thing that I try to get a lot of these kind of clients in to a place of being able to navigate for themselves and tailor their own situation. That’s kind of all about my website and what I try to do for clients is to empower them. Get them into a place where they get the right information. They can have their days where they’re going to go crazy on their carbs and stuff, because they’re human. They also know that there is going to be consequences and that they have to get back into places where they feel better with certain foods.
They do it. They start to do it, and they’ve seen me months later and they’re like “so thankful, thank you for helping me, blah, blah, blah.” I’m so grateful with that. That’s the big part of the job that I love.
Dave: It’s kind of shocking when someone walks up and you haven’t talked to them in a while and they’re like “my life is different now.” You’re doing people a service, if you work with someone who is 19 or 20, the change in trajectory is so rapid, and it lasts for life, right?
Crosby: Yeah.
Dave: If you talk to someone who is 50, you can still make the change and they’ll feel different in two days, right? Because they’re probably in a weaker state. To dig out of the hole that you’re in later in life is a lot more work than just avoiding the whole. Really, it starts before birth and it continues from there on out.
Crosby: Yeah, yeah, it’s really intense. It’s so cool, like you said. It’s so cool to see the change.
Dave: It’s cool stuff, man. I’m happy you’re doing it, and I think there is a shift happening, too. It’s driven, in part, by social media, where the really gaunt, starved look, I like to think it’s becoming less popular, versus like the vibrant look.
Crosby: Yeah.
Dave: You can do so much with makeup or whatever, but the super-skinny arms and legs look. Maybe fashion designers are still into that stuff, but it also could be bias. I look at certain magazines, but I’m just seeing healthier looking people in magazines now, instead of thinner looking people. Do you feel the same change happening?
Crosby: The big thing is in the commercial world. When it comes to the editorial world and the commercial world and modeling, the commercial world wants healthy look, they want that healthy look, they want that vibrant, healthy look. That’s going to sell, that’s going to make money. It’s still in the fashion world because you’re basically a coat hanger when you walk down the runway. The designers just want thinner girls and guys that the clothes hang on differently.
If you’ve got these robust, thick muscle men walking down the runway and these tiny little fit cuts, it’s going to look funny. That’s really, the only thing that fashion-wise, it’s going to be hard to shake that. When you get in to some of these big- … All of the fragrance campaigns, now, all of the big commercials, all of the big clothing lines from Banana Republic to GAP, to Guess, all of these companies are using, like you said, these vibrant, healthy, beautiful humans.
It’s really, really cool to see, because like you said the gaunt look is so out. To me, it’s super-out, and I don’t think it makes money anymore either. People want to see somebody that’s vibrant, they all want to look like that when they buy the clothes. It’s different.
Dave: One of the hopes I have is a friend of mine, Michelle Promaulayko, who was a chief editor of Yahoo Health.
Crosby: I did an interview with her at the last conference.
Dave: Exactly, she’s such a cool person, but she gets all this and she just went back. She’s now chief editor at Cosmo and Seventeen.
Crosby: Okay.
Dave: She’s in a position to totally help. It doesn’t require big change, it’s just a little tweak, so that we can make that the more normal thing. I hate to say it, but as guys, we kind of like our women to look healthy. Women, sometimes, want to look thinner than guys wanted to look.
Crosby: Yeah, it’s a big problem.
Dave: I’m hoping Michelle will do good there, because that’s just how she is. I had a chance to hang out with her and she’s got a good spirit there and wants to help. I think she’s in a great position to help drive that change.
Crosby: Yeah. That’s so cool, that’s great. Seventeen, people reading that are going to start young and start to figure out some of these healthier ideas rather than flipping open a magazine and seeing somebody that looks like they’re starving themselves, so that’s awesome.
Dave: Yeah.
Crosby: That’s kind of what I’m- … It’s weird because I’ve been attracting a lot of that, since my website’s been up. Everyone from all of the female publications are hitting me up from Birdy.com to My Domain to Galore Magazine and Well and Good. These are all bigger magazines that are heavily populated with the consumer being women, and I’ll throw a recipe for a beauty smoothie, but this beauty smoothie has got nutrient-dense food in it. It’s got collagen, protein and bone broth protein and good fats from Brain Octane oil and tiger nuts and stuff like that.
It’s still getting them the effect that they want.
Dave: Got it.
Crosby: More calories, more nutrients, more food for the brain. Then they’re getting the body composition they want. It’s just a win/win, for sure.
Dave: Beautiful. Well, Crosby, we’re running up on running out of time, I want to ask a Bulletproof question of you.
Crosby: Okay.
Dave: That I always ask. If someone comes to you tomorrow and they say “look, Crosby, I’m going to kick ass everything I do, not just modeling or not just looking good, but everything in life, what are the three most important recommendations you have?” What would you tell them?
Crosby: Wow, the three most important recommendations?
Dave: Just to kick more ass at everything.
Crosby: Number one, make sure you get some deep, restful sleep. I think sleep is so important. For me, I actually don’t need a lot of sleep, but I need that really, really good REM sleep. I try to get to bed early, at least five nights out of the week. You can have a couple nights where you have your fun and socialize, but I’m in bed, usually, by 9:30, 10:00 and up at 5:00. I’m getting like seven hours of sleep.
I think the deep REM sleep hours are 10:00 to 2:00 AM, something like that? Is there studies like that?
Dave: There are, in fact there is a new quiz, you should take this. My buddy, Michael Bruce, he wrote “The Power of When” go to “ThePowerofWhenQuiz.com.” It’s like a five-minute quiz or something, but it’s one of the coolest things I’ve read all year, because 15% of people, they’re like you, and they’re early risers, and he calls them lions. Your circadian rhythm, your job in the tribe was to wake up early and take the morning shift to fight off lions and dinosaurs and crap.
Crosby: Okay.
Dave: [inaudible 00:46:25]
Crosby: I feel like that.
Dave: Yeah, right, and so, you’re like the morning person and you’re going to have a different REM sleep pattern and a different cortisol surge during the day and everything. Then, 55% of people, he calls them bears, they’re normal, they’re circadian. Not up at dawn, up a little bit after dawn, and then they’d go to bed at the average bedtime. Then 15% of people are like me, he calls us wolves and we take the night shift. I’m perfectly functional until 2:00 AM, my bedtime is, on average, 2:01 AM for the past five years I’ve tracked it.
Crosby: Yeah.
Dave: It varies, plus or minus, but that’s the average, and I always- … That’s my natural sleepy time. If you let me, I’ll sleep from 2:00 til probably 9:00, and for me, I get the most REM sleep that way.
Crosby: Oh, cool.
Dave: Neither one is better than the other, and then the other 15% of people are like dolphins, because their brain never actually goes to sleep, because all of those are my patients. He’s been on Dr. Oz a bunch, but you would enjoy this.
Crosby: I’m going to check that out.
Dave: Because when you work with your clients it’s super helpful, because it’s not that going to bed early is good, or going to bed late is good. It’s like it has to match your chrono type. I think Michael has broken through on a biohacking thing that I didn’t know. I don’t feel guilty about being a late owl, a night owl.
Crosby: Yeah, wow, okay, cool, that’s actually awesome. I’m going to have to. I have some clients that are like “I don’t get to bed until 4:00 in the morning.”
Dave: Yeah, 4:00 is pretty late. I think his book is either out now or about to come out. It’s called “the Power of When,” but the quiz is already up. It’s to the point everyone at Bulletproof, all of my employees, I’ve asked them to take it and put it on their employee baseball card. Why would you schedule an 8:00 AM meeting with your boss to ask for a raise when your boss is a wolf who wants to stay up late. He’s going to be a zombie at 8:00, don’t do that, right?
Crosby: Yeah. Number two, eat less sugar.
Dave: There you go.
Crosby: Kind of segues into my desserts.
Dave: Totally.
Crosby: Check out everything that I have going on in terms of Tailordlife.com and Eat Dessert, and Burn Fat.
Dave: T-A-I-L-O-R-E-D life.com?
Crosby: No E, T-A-I-L-O-R-D.
Dave: Okay.
Crosby: It’s my last name Tailor with a D, life.
Dave: Okay.
Crosby: It’s tailoring your lifestyle.
Dave: Cool.
Crosby: That’s kind of my idea behind [inaudible 00:48:40] your [inaudible 00:48:41]. Check out, there are some recipes on there. I’m going to be coming out with some products here soon. I’m working hand-in-hand with Lakanto, they’re kind of grooming me into the spokesperson of to company, so I’ll be working with them a lot.
Dave: Cool.
Crosby: That’s a sugar substitute that’s the monkfruit and erythritol that I think can be really, really amazing for people that won’t kick that sweet tooth. Then, on top of that, besides being able to curb by using different sweeteners, you’re also going to be able to curb your sweet tooth and be able to have less sugar through eating more fat. Eat that good fat, get your ghee in, get your MCTs and your XCTs and your Brain Octanes and obviously, some of these monounsaturated fats. I still like to keep some olive oil and things like that in my diet.
Dave: Oh, yeah, I do too.
Crosby: Then, last, but not least, something I’ve been trying to live by more so lately than I have, in the last year it’s really transformed me. That’s just the idea behind letting go more. Being less resistant to change. Been listening to a lot of Alan Watts, and he says, one of his quotes is “if you want life, don’t cling to it.”
Dave: You know, I was going to ask you about that. You are way more chill now than I’ve ever seen you. It’s an energy shift in you. I was kind of wondering, because normally you were a little bit anxious. Not in a negative, nasty, like I’m being critical.
Crosby: Yeah, sure.
Dave: You carried a little bit of an anxiety vibe and you’re super mellow, now.
Crosby: Yeah.
Dave: Whatever you’re doing, you should keep it up, it’s working.
Crosby: Thank you, yeah. I’m just doing a lot of internal searching and working on myself and then just also, in that, of working on myself, not being in my head a lot, the ideas of perfection and having to strive for something and creating myself to be this certain thing all the time, more so just letting go to life.
The things that I’ve been manifesting lately, and the people that I’ve been bringing into my life and the people I’ve been letting go in my life, it’s just been such a transformation for me and things just happen. Synchronicity is happening.
Dave: You look like you’re carrying less weight than you did before. Not physical weight, just like mental weight, so it’s cool.
Crosby: Yeah, definitely let go of some weight, so it’s good.
Dave: Well, we’ll have to get you into 40 Years of Zen, maybe, one of these days.
Crosby: Let’s do it.
Dave: [inaudible 00:51:11] a feedback thing, cool man.
Crosby: Let’s do it.
Dave: Well, thanks so much for being on Bulletproof Radio today, and your website is T-A-I-L-O-R-D?
Crosby: L-I-F-E.com. Tailordlife.com. Instagram is Crosby Tailor, Snapchat is Crosby Tailor. Those are kind of my main channels, so find me on there.
Dave: Instagram, Snapchat and your website, Tailor fed or Tailord-
Crosby: Tailordlife.
Dave: Tailordlife, sorry, I was like “it’s not Tailorfed, it’s Tailordlife.com.”
Crosby: They’ll learn how to get Tailord fed, yeah.
Dave: There we go, cool. Now I get it, all right.
Crosby: Yeah.
Dave: For everyone listening, if you enjoyed today’s podcast, you learned something about cookies, you know where to go to get some cool recipes. I’d love it if you took 30 seconds to go on iTunes and rate the show. Just give us five stars if you think that we’ve earned it. That really helps other people find the show, and it’s just a way of saying thanks.
You wouldn’t know this, but to create this episode, there is actually one, two, three, four, there’s five cameras involved, there’s two microphones, we Fed-Ex-ed a camera to Crosby, and we’re backing up audio, we’re doing audio remastering. We’re editing the thing, we’re transcribing the thing, and it’s actually a big production. We’re doing it so you have really good audio quality if you’re driving or listening in your cubicle.
You have good audio if you’re listening on YouTube. You go to Bulletproof.com or Bulletproofexec.com/youtube to get a link to the thing, and follow us on YouTube to get all of these. The point here is a lot of love goes into this, I did prep for the show, Crosby and I talked, and so we care, and we put a lot of love and energy into this. It doesn’t take long for you to say thanks and just show some gratitude with a rating on iTunes. It helps other people find the content, that’s why I’m asking you to do it.
I don’t need it for my ego, Crosby doesn’t need it for his ego. Help people know this is good, that’s the way social works. I appreciate that you took your time to listen to this episode today. Crosby, thank you for being here today as well, it’s a lot of fun.
Crosby: Thanks, Dave, I look forward to being back. I think the next time I come back it will be the launch of my cookie mix, my baking mix. We’ll have to talk about that next.
Dave: Exciting times.
Crosby: I’m excited, yeah.
