Hal Elrod: Hello, friends, welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. I’m your host, Hal Elrod, and today, we’re talking about how to biohack your way to optimal health on a budget with my friend Tim Gray, aka @timbiohacker. Now, Tim is recognized as Europe’s leading biohacker and a global authority in health optimization. In fact, he’s hosting the annual Health Optimisation Summit in London, September 13th through 14th. If you’re going to be in London, grab your ticket today.

And today on the podcast, he’s going to tell you why you don’t need to spend a fortune on gadgets and tech and how you can biohack on the cheap. He’s dispelling some of the myths of biohacking, including mouth taping, methylene blue, and more. And stay to the end of the episode because Tim is going to break down what you can do immediately to take the next step in your biohacking journey. Enjoy, my good friend, Mr. Tim Gray.

[INTERVIEW]

Hal Elrod: Tim Gray, it is so good to see you, brother.

Tim Gray: Good to see you, man. It’s been a while.

Hal Elrod: The last time I saw you, we were both speaking in Canada at Giovanni Marsico’s event, right?

Tim Gray: Oh, yes. Yes. What an event.

Hal Elrod: You and I just hit it off, and it was like a bromance. We’re sitting next to each other every day. You had me on your podcast. Man, it was a lot of fun. So, here’s what I want to start with. You are widely recognized as Europe’s leading biohacker. I don’t think that’s an understatement. Your Instagram profile, which is one of my favorites, I check it every day. It is @timbiohacker. And so, for those that don’t know or even those that do, I want to hear your take. What is biohacking and why should people care?

Tim Gray: Biohacking for me is very simple. It’s health optimization. It’s about living long and fruitful and not being sick or knackered all the time. It doesn’t have to be all the crazy technologies. It doesn’t have to be all the crazy supplements and injecting your eyeball with methylene blue or whatever, or I don’t advise that. It’s about understanding how our body works using nature, and when we have a deficiency of nature, what we can use to replace that. So, it really means to be the healthiest, happiest person that you can be. That’s it.

Hal Elrod: I love that. I love that. And you’re optimizing your health. That is what it is. And I mean, you run the Health Optimisation Summit and have your event next month or coming up here in September. And so, that it’s really an alignment and that’s the way that I thought. When I was thinking about biohacking, I thought, well, you got red light therapy or you can just step outside in the sun, right? You can buy a PEMF mat or you can ground on planet Earth every day. And I do think, I love how you define kind of, it’s a yes and it’s not an either/or. It’s not, you got to go buy all the tech. It’s, hey, get as much as you can from nature and supplement with technology or, as they call them, supplements, right, as needed.

So, share your story. When I go to your Instagram, the first thing I see pinned at the top, I’m looking at your Instagram in the back, it says about me and it’s got the old you looking sickly and skinny and no muscle definition. And then you, lifting weights, looking sharp. What’s your journey, man? What led you to biohacking? How did you get here?

Tim Gray: I thought I was healthy by eating salad and chicken sandwiches back in 2010, 2011. Like traditional thinking of how mainstream thinking of being healthy is having a Subway with salad in it. I mean, this is really where I was at, but my 20s through early 30s, I was a business guy running multiple businesses and waking up, having a coffee straight away, jumping in the car, getting to the office, working through till 10 o’clock at night, getting home, eating something 10:30, 11:00 PM, jumping into bed 11:30, wash, rinse, and repeat. On a Saturday, going out and getting wasted to– that’s how I used to deal with my stress.

And in your 20s, I think it’s slightly different because you’ve got all this energy and you just don’t know where to channel it and you kind of like just do all this stuff and build this stuff. But really, it got to the point where I started feeling ill all the time, and I was fatigued and still pushing through and I started getting anxiety and then I started getting kidney stones and then brain fog and then gut issues, and then antibiotics, which meant I wasn’t digesting my food. And then, all of these, it kind of like spiraled more and more and more and more. And the before and after picture on my Instagram, people say, oh, well, everyone needs a story to attach to, everyone, it’s not necessarily real. I didn’t care about health. I didn’t even consider it as a thing. I just knew that my body was doing this stuff and I was building stuff that I love doing until it fell apart.

And I was in and out of the doctors. I feel like I said this a million times, but it’s just so, when I look back at some of the pictures I took along the way, I was in and out of the doctors every single day, one week, and I had been in and out once a week for pretty much the whole year because I was so paranoid about having a kidney stone stuck in my ureter again, which hospitalized me. And it came to, I got to know the receptionist, the doctors. And if you’re in the UK, you know, the NHS is pretty horrendous when it comes to getting a doctor’s appointment. I got to know them first name basis and could text reception and say, it’s Tim, I’m coming in again. It really got to that.

And then one day, I said to the doctor, like, “What’s going on? What’s wrong with me?” And he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Can’t find anything wrong.” And in the car on the way back, I had this epiphany moment. My mom was driving me back, and I was just like, “He doesn’t know what’s wrong, but there’s clearly something wrong.” So, I got home, I got a pack of Post-it notes, I started listing down all the different things, strategic approach. I know you relate to that, and kind of like thinking in, what’s the hierarchy? And then looking on Reddit and the different forums like CureZone and because this is before Mark Hyman was big and popular on Instagram wasn’t really a thing for learning stuff.

I realized that, it traced back to various things including mercury toxicity, which then eventually became. Actually, I had a genetic component called the MTHFR gene, which Gary Brecka talks about a lot these days. And my body doesn’t detoxify or produce energy correctly. And so, when you then have things like metal fillings or salmon, which is full of mercury, for a period of time, your metabolism slows down. Your immune system starts getting hit, and then you start getting chronic fatigue and falling apart. So, really, the system’s not geared up for any of this. When I said to my dentist, I’ve got metal fillings, I want them out, and they went on, there’s no evidence that they’re bad for you. Well, guess what? Now, they’re banned across Europe. Funny that. So, it’s really from a place of just wanting to get back to where I was.

But fast forward through 2015, 2016, 2017, something like that, I’d heard about biohacking and Bulletproof Coffee from our friend Dave Asprey. And I realized that there was other people like me out there and something was coming together called biohacking and I was taking all these supplements and doing liver cleanses and all this stuff and I realized, actually, I was operating at 60% for many years. I didn’t realize that I was just powering through, trying to operate the best I could. And then when I got better, I was like, holy crap, like, I now can see the world in 3D. It’s like, you know the day when you’re hungover or you wake up and you’re not feeling well, you’re just operating to get through that day. You don’t have that extra 20% or 30% of energy to be the vibrant you, probably to be the best husband or partner or dad or whatever. It’s just, guys, I’m just trying to get through the day. Bear with me today. Or the other days where you’re like, you’re playing around, you’re laughing and joking and you are you. I realized that I’d been missing that element for years.

And so, I continued optimizing and figuring out stuff, like the chewing gum I was chewing was full of microplastics, which is carcinogenic, and then using microwaves, having gut issues from it and not understanding why and realizing what that causes. And then I was drinking tap water and I could taste the chlorine and I thought, what’s this chlorine about? And you start going down the rabbit hole as we do. And I realized actually, most people have this problem. And I was like, I’m going to start sharing my journey on Instagram. COVID hit. I’d already run a little meet up in London for 50 odd people or whatever. That’s now grown into a huge conference, strangely. And I was like, I’m just going to continue helping the world because I have this belief at the deepest level that every single person on this planet has a responsibility to leave it a little bit better than they found it.

Hal Elrod: I love that.

Tim Gray: It doesn’t matter, even if it’s a little bit, but it shouldn’t be a negative. A take, take, take, let’s rape this planet and everyone for it, everything we can. It should be how can I give back and help make it better. Now, I understand there’s a commercial aspect in everything these days because you need to pay the bills and you can’t help people if you’re not making money, but my belief is truly that. And so, I powered through with Instagram for many years, spending a good chunk of my own cash to do so, just so that I could educate other people, and people listened. And I think the overlap between you and I here, which I say this story so many times, dude, about your book. Year one, your target, you didn’t hit it. Year two, your target, you didn’t hit it. Year three, your target, you didn’t hit it. Year four, you didn’t, and then you hit it year five, or four or five.

Hal Elrod: Year six, yeah.

Tim Gray: Yeah, year six. And the thing is, it’s like that persistence of going, I know I am doing something that I have complete faith in it, that’s what led me to run the Instagram, which has then grown the Health Optimisation Summit and the podcast and this and that and that, and it’s kind of like people listen and feel good from it. That’s the journey.

Hal Elrod: I love that. I appreciate that you brought in my story because that actually helped me completely reframe what you just shared, which is you had a problem, right? As I had a problem and I figured out, oh, a morning routine, this particular morning routine is transformative as you found. Then I started sharing it with my coaching clients. You started sharing it with your meetup, right, a small group of people. You got feedback. Oh, my God, this stuff works, and then you, like me, it’s like, then you feel this sense of responsibility like, oh, this isn’t even about me anymore. I have a responsibility to share the little bit that I know that can make the world a better place, that can enrich someone’s life. And then you, like me, right, you just kept sharing it and sharing it and sharing it and sharing it. And now, you’ve got 600,000-plus Instagram followers and then because it is genuine and I mentioned that I go to your Instagram and there’s not a lot of people that I would say this about, like yours is one of, if not, my favorite Instagram accounts because the information, (a) I completely relate to it. I’m like, oh, I am totally on the same page. And (b) it’s like, it’s useful. And I’m like, oh, this is helpful. I did not realize that. Or this enhances something I already knew.

I want to ask you about, because you shared this and I really, I share in this belief, which is around our medical system. And whenever I talk about this, it’s always delicate because I know there are so many great doctors. Some of them are in my family and I’m friends with and they’re doing great work. But as a system, in fact, one of your recent Instagram posts, I wrote this down, it’s medical school is funded and shaped by industries that make money when you are sick. If you want real health freedom, you have to learn what the system doesn’t teach, and then you listed real nutrition, nature, sunlight, movement, fasting, et cetera.

A story that I share is when I– the day that I was diagnosed with cancer and I met with my oncologist for the first time, who is one of the best oncologists in the world because he writes papers on his– whatever. And I just wanted to test his, like, how much can I trust this guy because I know how important nutrition is. And so, I said, what part does my diet play in healing from this cancer? And he said, it doesn’t matter as long as you do the chemo. And I was like, oh, I can’t trust you. And not necessarily because you’re a bad guy, but going back to what you posted on Instagram, right, that the medical school is funded and shaped by industries that make money when you’re sick. They don’t make money if you go buy organic food at the doctor, right?

And the last thing I’ll share on this, and then I want it, before I can go on this soapbox all day. But when I read the back of my– two things I’ll share. Number one, I would go to the cafeteria in the hospital and all of these cancer patients are walking around with their IV tower with chemo going in their veins and they’re walking around and the only food available is pizza and chips with seed oils and hamburgers with hormone-infested beef and cake and pie and soft serve ice cream and soda. And I’m like, are you kidding me? And it made me angry because I go, these poor people, if they don’t know any better, if they don’t have a Tim Biohacker in their life, right, and all they know is, oh, the doctor said I can eat whatever I want as long as I do the chemo. And now, they’re feeding their cancer, making it worse, right? So, that was number one.

And then number two is I was getting my chemotherapy and I had acute lymphoblastic leukemia. So, I had leukemia. And I flip over the back of the bag of chemo that’s hanging on the tower going into my veins and it says, warning, can cause leukemia. So, “medicine” that I was taking to kill my leukemia, heal my leukemia, whatever, causes leukemia as one of the side effects. And if those two things don’t wake people up to, like, hey, our medical industry, if they’re telling you that you can eat anything that you want, the worst food possible, they’re literally feeding it to you in the hospital and they’re giving you medicine that causes the disease that you have, if that’s not enough to like unplug somebody with the matrix and at least get them to get curious and go, hmm, maybe I should seek alternative sources outside of the mainstream medical system. That’s my soapbox. I’m going to cut it off there, man. I want to hear your thoughts on this and not just the complaining, right, like the problem, but what are the solutions?

Tim Gray: Well, I did a post probably about a year ago now, and it was a picture of, if you want to know how much hospitals and the medical system understands about health, look at the food that they serve. And it’s pretty defining as an image and it actually did very well because people can relate immediately. And I think that everyone, pretty much everyone, except for, I think, the drug makers themselves want people to be healthy. I think every doctor that trains is either in it for one of two reasons. One– well, three reasons, one of which would be money and another would be to help people. And the third one is maybe ego or family things because we have five generations of doctors or whatever.

So, there’s multiple reasons, but I think the main thing is, is that really people align on wanting people to be healthier. So, I think the thing to remember is that everyone has this pretty much has the same goal in mind. Okay? There is economics that plays into this, obviously, but I think everyone’s doing the best that they can do. For instance, people that listen to this that might believe that seed oils are fine and there’s not enough science behind how bad it is, actually, when you dig into it properly, it’s actually pretty evil stuff to be fair. And anyone that listening to this like, oh, this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about because he’s saying seed oils aren’t safe, when you look into it, for instance, I just want to touch on this as one example, and it’s in every food pretty much, including hospital food, it’s so pro-oxidant. It causes inflammation in the body, which we know inflammation causes majority of metabolic and health issues.

It also is like a vacuum cleaner for your antioxidants. So, not only does it add oxidation, causes inflammation, it actually sucks away your antioxidants as well. So, it’s almost like a multiple effect, compounding effect for causing inflammation and metabolic disease. I don’t think the people selling the food to the hospitals are going, oh, we want to make these people sicker. So, I think people have best intentions. They just don’t know better. But the thing is, when you know better, you can do better and you can start helping other people. And I think as a doctor, there’s another aspect to this as well. Doctors are often trained on things that they were trained on 20 years ago from a syllabus made 20 years before. The system hasn’t upgraded. It is upgraded bit by bit, but the thing is, is if there’s this new miracle, let’s say methylene blue and not to go into that, but there’s this amazing, amazing drug or whatever, it’s mainstream and it’s helping so many people with metabolic diseases or whatever, whatever, whatever, but if the doctors listen to every new thing that pops up all the time, they’re never going to have a baseline to work from. So, they have to go, I will lose my license if I don’t only recommend the stuff that I know works. And the way that I know something works are by studies and peers reviewing it.

However, if they were you when you were diagnosed and they’re like, holy crap, I have got six weeks to pull my finger out or I’m done, will they change their view? I would like to think pretty much any human with their brain, their head screwed on, all with kids, a father or husband, whatever, would go, I am going to do whatever I have to do to fix this person’s health and help them. I don’t care if peers have reviewed 50 studies. I’ve heard this has worked. Anecdotally, 10 people or on forums saying, this thing is amazing, I’m going to give it a shot every single time, right?

So, I think, these things play into each other, and I like the approach of a risk to reward, what’s going to work, what’s the risk? If it’s a peptide, comes from a good source and it could actually help your immune system when you’re recovering from long COVID or something, I’m going to try it. However, if it’s something pretty diabolical, whatever, I’d probably not. So, risk to reward and how urgent is it? If you’ve got 10 minutes left to live, you’re going to do anything, let’s be honest. And I think this is also how the system is changing. So, if we look at people like RFK, now, I’m not going down the political route by the way, literally, not my thing. However…

Hal Elrod: Yeah. You’re not even from America, so you can’t even speak on it really.

Tim Gray: Yeah, I’m from Britain, which is basically mini-America, but we’re like five years behind. So, watch this space. But RFK has had his challenges and history. He has an alternative viewpoint and he is bringing in with the right scientifically backing to integrate some of the things that work, that the medical system debunks. And now, there are lots of industries and people jumping because they’re going, holy moly, these seed oils are bad and RFK’s going on about it. So, we want to bring products out that don’t have seed oils in it. This is going to go mainstream, so all of the commercial aspect is kicking in, which is great because it’s going to be very hard for them to undo it once they start making money from this stuff. So, it only takes one person in the government or in a family or in an office or whatever to go, I’ve had these problems. I know better. I’m going to work with the people that are going to help roll this out. And that’s how it’s self-fulfilling over a period of time because people can’t unknow stuff.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, and I feel like more people have woken up to because of folks like you and there’s so much more. It’s not just the television that’s telling us what’s good and bad and to eat. And often, right, it was doctors or experts or studies that were funded by pharmaceutical companies that made the thing. I just saw today, oh, I think it might’ve been on your– it was on your wall. Yeah, it was on your Instagram. It was the Coca-Cola commercial from 1961, and the woman’s like, I drink Coke because it’s a low-calorie food and that’s how I stay thin, right? And so, in 1961, there was no internet. And so, people were being brainwashed by advertisers that were literally, it’s all about the financial incentives. And it’s like, so imagine if you’re in 1961 watching that commercial and you’re a woman who wants to stay thin, and you’re going, oh, wow, there’s this new beverage called Coca-Cola and it keeps you thin. This woman that was thin on television when the television’s an authority, ao there’s automatically trust back then. And so, I actually, now that– I’m glad I brought that up. I’m glad I watched that today because that’s like a microcosm for the collective consciousness around food before the internet.

And even now, for most people that aren’t maybe doing their own research and actually, which it’s funny, right? I mean, the powers that they would tell you don’t do your own research, that you’re a conspiracy theorist if you do your own research, you can only trust us. No, no, no. Don’t look over there. Look up here, look at us, right? And so, you mentioned seed oils a few times and I just– for anyone that’s not aware, so that’s vegetable oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, any others?

Tim Gray: Rapeseed oil is another one.

Hal Elrod: Rapeseed oil.

Tim Gray: There’s various others.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. And you find those, like potato chips is one of the big– like, that’s one of the biggest things that I stopped eating, and I’ve just been looking for where can I find organic potato chips made with avocado oil. And now, there are– I actually, I think I might’ve found one brand, but for the most part, it was either organic potato chips made with seed oils or non-organic pesticide chips made with avocado oil. It was like, but nobody was making both. So, it’s harder to find. What are some other common foods with seed oils that people should avoid or minimize in their diet?

Tim Gray: Well, unfortunately, pretty much everything in Whole Foods…

Hal Elrod: Everything.

Tim Gray: Everything in Whole Foods I go through has got rapeseed oil or canola oil or whatever in it. And they call it vegetable oil.

Hal Elrod: Oh, yeah, that’s tricky, right? Yeah, it sounds healthy.

Tim Gray: It sounds clever marketing tactic. But I mean, the thing is, it’s not the oil itself. Okay? So, first of all, you’ve got the omega oil balances, whether it’s high in 6 and low in 3, and we really need more 3 to the ratio of 6. Just one thing, it’s very pro-inflammatory, as I mentioned earlier.

Hal Elrod: Yeah.

Tim Gray: But what the biggest problem is, it’s actually heated, the process of doing it. They’re not just squeezing seeds to get oil out of them. They’re processing it with something called hexane, which is highly toxic, and heated to about, I think it’s 400 degrees to– so highly, highly oxidized oil, and then it’s kept in plastic bottles, which can warm up and cool down, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s a highly ultra processed food thing, and it’s so inflammatory, it’s ridiculous.

And in fact, there’s Dr. Cate Shanahan, who is probably the leading expert on here that wrote the book, Deep Nutrition, and also Dark Calories. Amazing book. For anyone that says, oh, there’s no science in how bad seed oils are, read the book Dark Calories. Okay? It has got every single resource you will ever need to prove it. And if you still don’t believe it after reading that book, I’m sorry, your mind is closed. You’re probably not one of Hal Elrod’s listeners anyway, so you’re probably not listening. But the point is, yeah, it’s bad and if you look at mayonnaise, it’s like 90%, pretty much 90% rapeseed oil. In fact, I saw some content yesterday where someone had a whole thing of oil, like this much, right? And they put one egg and then they blended it.

Hal Elrod: And it was mayonnaise.

Tim Gray: One egg and then it was mayonnaise, one egg. Mayonnaise, you’ve got any chips that you have, if you have the pre-made salads. Even if you buy olives, in the UK, there’s a brand called Marks & Spencer, classically, traditionally British, just like my accent. These olives, you would think the olives are in olive oil, but they don’t, they put them in rapeseed oil.

Hal Elrod: Crazy.

Tim Gray: Right? So, you’re buying olives in rapeseed oil, and there’s an olive oil and basically everything. And so, I actually eliminated them 100%. However, from time to dime, I do have sweet potato fries with steak, and I ask them to do the eggs in butter, not in rapeseed oil because when you eat out a restaurant and they cook your eggs. So, when you’re in a hotel, they’re using rapeseed oil, they squeeze it on there. So, you can ask them for butter, to cook your eggs in butter. So, it’s a minefield, specifically around fries and things like that. So, having baked potatoes or new potatoes…

Hal Elrod: French fries is a big one. I stopped eating French fries. And the thing is, the other night, we got some grass-fed burgers and their fries are cooked in seed oil. So, I probably had six French fries maybe, right? So, I’m like, Cheryl, between hamburgers, I’ll have one fries, like just for that taste, right? So, to me, very few things are all or nothing, but they are like 99%. Like, that, for me, it’s impeccable health. It’s like, how do I only put things in my body that I know don’t cause inflammation, don’t cause cancer, came from the earth, are not processed. And it’s a hard transition if somebody’s like so far into processed food, but it’s moving in that direction, right, having that whole foods as your North Star. What are some, what are your– go ahead.

Tim Gray: No, I was just going to say one thing that quite a few people say to me, and you just made me think, it’s like they say, well, how do I eat non-processed foods then? And they’re like, can I eat pasta? You do realize pasta is actually quite processed and it’s like, it’s pretty processed these days, especially the stuff you buy in supermarkets. So, it’s like, but that’s the level of education that there is typically around is like, is pasta a processed food, where they think that’s natural? Obviously, you can get better ones and worse ones, but yeah, I mean, it’s a minefield. Before we move on to your next question, I just want to say this one thing, right? If people are thinking, well, what can I eat if I can’t eat processed foods, I’m going to give you the best formula ever.

Hal Elrod: Woo! Let’s go.

Tim Gray: Meat, fish, eggs, maple syrup, honey, teas, coffees, vegetables, fruit, think of all that. What a big list. You just don’t pick up stuff in packets. It’s really good. And in fact, I did this once actually, and I never actually shared it strangely, but walked around the supermarket, in the most expensive supermarket, think Erewhon over here, we have Planet Organic.

Hal Elrod: Okay.

Tim Gray: And I’m walking around one, the potato chips that are six bucks or over here, seven pounds, or whatever, and this and that and the other. And you’ve got a basket of like 190 bucks. You put fruit and vegetables, you try carrying around 190 bucks’ worth of fruit and vegetables, it’s almost impossible, even if you have ribeyes in there at 20 bucks each or whatever. The point is, is people say, well, it’s expensive to eat healthy. It’s not. Meat, fish, veg, fruit, maple syrup, honey tea, coffee, like, it’s amazing. It’s amazing. And if you get yourself a healthy air fryer, you get a sweet potato…

Hal Elrod: We just got one. It’s amazing.

Tim Gray: It’s a game changer. All you have to do is slice up the potato into chips, put them in there, put a bit of olive oil, put them in the air fryer. Eleven minutes later, you’ve got the best fries of your life. No seed oils and tasty at home with a bit of fish or something. So, anyone saying, oh, I can’t eat anything anymore, you have got so much more freedom if you do your own stuff like that. Or pick a restaurant and say, actually, I have the ribeye and I have the green beans. Thank you. Perfect. No one ever knows that you’re on a diet. You’re not.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. No, that’s just, that’s it. You’re eating whole foods. Whole foods that came from the earth, that’s what we were designed to eat, right? Whether you believe in God, your maker, or you just look at, hey, what did nature intend for us? Two things I want to do right now, number one, real quick, give the healthy alternative oils first. Like, just rapid fire. Like, if someone is at home, and so, if you’re at home and you look in your pantry and you go, oh, we have canola oil, dude, throw it out. Just throw it. Just throw it away. Go spend $5, get some avocado. So, what are the oils that you recommend people buy and/or look for on labels or at restaurants?

Tim Gray: Organic coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, which means it’s not being toyed with at all and it’s the highest in its antioxidants. And if it’s extra virgin olive oil, contrary to popular belief, you can do eggs and things like that. And they used to say…

Hal Elrod: Oh, you can cook at it, yeah, because I’ve always been told not to. Yeah.

Tim Gray: Yeah, exactly. If it’s extra virgin, it has the antioxidants to be able to cope with the oxidation when it’s being used. Okay? However, you don’t want to do deep frying in it or anything like that. So, there are exceptions. There was actually a really great study I shed out on my Instagram about six months ago about it. Anyway, coconut oil, organic, extra virgin olive oil, butter, ghee, and…

Hal Elrod: You left that avocado oil.

Tim Gray: Avocado oil.

Hal Elrod: There you go.

Tim Gray: Yes. I mean, I avoid…

Hal Elrod: And that’s what we do. We cook in an organic avocado oil. That’s what we do our deep frying or just high temperature. And then it’s organic extra virgin olive oil for my salads and stuff each day. And then we do, I like eggs and butter too. I like it for the flavor. Organic grass-fed, pasture-raised butter. All right, second thing, and I just thought of this, so I think this would be fun. Let’s go meal by meal. And I want to know, like what’s a typical breakfast for you? And then I’ll share mine. Then a typical lunch for you? I’ll share mine. And then typical dinner for you? I’ll share mine. And then a dessert if you do that. So, start with breakfast.

Tim Gray: Typical breakfast for me would be homemade omelet or folded eggs, really, with olive oil and some organic cheese and some bacon. I love bacon. Good bacon, not the crappy stuff.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, the nitrate free.

Tim Gray: Yep. I used to have a Bulletproof Coffee, but too much fat for me just didn’t work. So, these days I have, and I did Bulletproof Coffee like five years.

Hal Elrod: Me too.

Tim Gray: I have black coffee with 25 grams of collagen stirred into it and a little bit of heavy cream because it’s just like one of the things that I love. Organic, obviously.

Hal Elrod: Just of your vices.

Tim Gray: Like, who doesn’t love a bit of cream in their coffee? So, I’m sure certain people probably wouldn’t approve of that, but the thing is, is that doctor, doctor, I want to live forever. Do you drink? No. Do you go skydiving? No. Do you eat any processed food? No. Why do you want to live forever? There is an element of you got to live a little as long as you’re great for the most of the time. So, anyway, that’s my breakfast.

Hal Elrod: All right. So, I typically do, I go through phases, either steak and eggs. And for most of my adult life, it’s been smoothies. So, smoothies with small amount of fruit, handful of organic walnuts, handful of– or really, four Brazil nuts for selenium, some leafy greens, and then some protein powder with no Stevia. I used to do Stevia, but learning about the potential hormonal effects of Stevia, so no Stevia, and then some organic matcha green tea. And then I put in, just for my liver detox after chemo, I do whole milk thistle seeds and I just put those right into the smoothie. Yeah, that’s my primary smoothie. And then I take some organic berberine, a supplement to help balance blood sugar when I do drink the smoothie. And then on certain days I’ll do steak and eggs in the morning. Yeah, so that’s typically my breakfast. And then what about your lunch?

Tim Gray: Yeah. So, typically, it’ll be steak and eggs or chicken breast sliced up with a bit of maple syrup in there and some herbs. I actually use– oh, the name’s gone from me now. It’s going to come to me in a minute, but I use some organ powder with garlic in it. It’s going to come to me in a minute. Yeah, it’s a really great brand that we had at our Austin event. So, yeah, so I season it with that. So, I really like my seasonings and sauces on the steaks and chicken breasts and things like that because it kind of like makes one thing multiple variations so you don’t get bored of the same.

Hal Elrod: Oh, totally.

Tim Gray: And then I bake. So, for instance, I forgot with my breakfast, I typically have 250 grams of blueberries, lowish glycemic fruit to help support my metabolism for the day because I am predominantly, I’m an ectomorph, like you are, the hard gainer in gym types. So, having amino acids, actually, Ben Greenfield’s Kion aminos in the morning as well before my breakfast, and then the blueberries and then the folded eggs.

And then for lunch, so it’s meat and some carbs, but typically, in a pretty higher ratio towards the meat, sweet potato, baked sweet potato, or sweet potato fries or something like that. And then if it’s not meat and I want something lighter for whatever reason, I would have some sea bream or sea bass and I’d put it in the air fryer with some olive oil and some of the organ powder on it as well, and some seizing and some maple syrup. I mean, this is very, very simple, but you know…

Hal Elrod: I mean, it sounds pretty gourmet, simple but gourmet. I love that. So, for me, actually, the salad I made by accident one day, when we didn’t have very many things at home in the fridge, and I was like, what can I put together? And I was like, okay, we have an apple, we have an avocado, we have some hummus, we have some olive oil, we have some lemons. So, I made a dressing with organic hummus, olive oil, lemon juice, and some salt and pepper. And that made a really nice creamy dressing. And then I chopped up the apples and I cut up the avocado and I threw them together. And we had some organic sprouted and seasoned spicy pumpkin and sunflower seed blend in the cupboard. And so, I sprinkled that on top. So, that’s my daily salad. It’s an apple and avocado with hummus dressing and seeds on top. So, that’s typically my lunch.

Tim Gray: Lovely. I remember the name of the powder and it’s called Pluck, P-L-U-C-K. And yeah, they’re like grass-fed organs powdered, and then they have like garlic or different spices and things like that. So, it’s like seasoning, but you’re having your organ powder on the top.

Hal Elrod: Interesting. So, you’re getting the benefits of– and what are the benefits of organ powder or organ meat in general?

Tim Gray: I mean, they’re super high nutrients. I mean, if you look at how dense kidney and livers are in nutrients, it’s actually quite ridiculous that the nutrient profile compared to even normal meat. And the belief in, let’s say the holistic world is like heals like because of the nutrient profile of the organs, it helps support those organs. For instance, typically, for people that have chronic fatigue, you can get adrenal cortex extract, which is adrenals powdered, and it has the nutrients to support your own adrenals, same with kidneys and things like that. And then they do various different gland supplements these days as well, like prostate from cows or whatever, to support your own. So, like heals like is the saying, but the nutrient density of these organs is quite fantastic. And I mean, obviously the funny thing is, is like, typically, the organs would be chucked away for many years.

But now, there’s people with so much awareness of how nutrient density are there, coming back to be really popular, just like bone broth, boiling old bones, super nutrient dense. And it’s these things that our ancestors used and our grandparents used, but we’ve kind of lost touch because we’re used to buying things out of packet and they’re just the discarded bits, which are now really nutrient dense. So, yeah, so that’s why things like Pluck are great for seasoning.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. I just brought Pluck up, so I can go look into that after we talk. A resource I wanted to bring up for people, and I don’t know if this is in the UK, but there’s an app called Seed Oil Scout. Are you familiar with that?

Tim Gray: Yeah.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. So, for anybody listening, going back to the whole seed oil conversation and how do you avoid seed oils, there’s an app called Seed Oil Scout that allows you to search restaurants, based on which restaurants have options, either have no seed oils or at least have the option where you can request no seed oils. So, that’s a great resource that my wife and I use as well. And if you’re here in Austin, Texas, my favorite restaurant in the world is The Well., And The Well, there’s three locations. Are you familiar, right? Yeah. Seed oil free, gluten-free, refined sugar free, I mean, it’s the cleanest and everything’s grass-fed steaks and pasture-raised chicken, and it’s the cleanest restaurant and their menu is phenomenal. So, highly recommended.

Tim Gray: I love those guys. Yeah, I love those guys, The Well, yeah. In fact, it was our most eaten at restaurant. When I ran the Health Optimisation Summit back there in Austin, back in April, pretty much me and the team were in and out of there every day. And it is just so good. In fact, I got to meet and hang out with the founder a couple of times, which is great. Yeah, it’s good. Great guy. So, it’s like, yeah, definitely a hotspot and it’s actually the amount of people, some of our speakers in and out of that place that week was just quite nuts. It’s like the hotspot for Austin.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, I know. Did Gary speak at that event, Gary Brecka?

Tim Gray: Yeah, Gary.

Hal Elrod: Okay, that’s when I saw Gary requested on Instagram, hey, what’s a clean restaurant in Austin? And everyone’s like, The Well, The Well, The Well. And so, I know he was there. And I’ve sat next or across from Woody Harrelson, Anna Kendrick who’s one of my daughter’s favorite actresses. We saw her there, like, and not that I’m dropping celebrity names, I mean I am, but the point being like, these are folks that publicly really value clean eating and health, right, Gary Brecka, Woody Harrelson, et cetera. And so, that is the spot that they go to. And probably, 90% of our listeners are not from Austin, so they’re like, great, Hal, if I ever get to Austin, we’ll actually take advantage of that.

Let’s do this. We’ve got about five or so minutes left and I want to do kind of some biohacking, myth busting, but both sides of it. Meaning, like, what’s legit? What works? What do you recommend, and what’s not? And I saw a post on your Instagram this morning about mouth taping. I’m a big fan of mouth taping, but the title of the post was The Risky Truth About Mouth Taping. So, biohacking myth buster, is that legit? What are the benefits or is it risky? What are your thoughts on that?

Tim Gray: I love mouth taping, to be quite honest, for health. It’s a controversial topic to biohackers because mouth taping is such a big thing. And in fact, that was an episode I recorded with a friend and one of our speakers, Dr. Karan Rajan. He’s a very big surgeon named from the NHS in the UK. And I think, well, okay, so first of all, mouth taping, we should breathe through our nose, which is a measured amount of air using our sinuses. And when we breathe through our mouth, we take in more air quicker, right? Why is that important that we breathe through our nose? When we are able to hold our breath for a period of time, we can deal with carbon dioxide better. Okay? Carbon dioxide, being able to deal with it, helps us squeeze oxygen into the cell.

Okay, so it almost sounds like a tug of war. The better we can deal with carbon dioxide, the more oxygen we get into the cell. So, if we are breathing slower and like more measured, carbon dioxide levels are building up and oxygen is being squeezed in, whereas when we are breathing very quickly through the mouth in massive amounts, we’re breathing more oxygen. Not dealing with carbon dioxide is good. Not oxygenating properly, so we’re over-breathing but under-oxygenated. Okay? When we mouth tape, for instance, when we’re exercising and it takes practice, you can’t just suddenly stick some tape on your mouth and expect to be okay, because you see everyone at the corner of the street going, ooh, ooh.

Hal Elrod: Oh, yeah. So, real quick, so I mouth tape when I sleep. You’re talking about, do you do it when you sleep or you just mention exercise, which I hadn’t even really thought about?

Tim Gray: So, the first time I did it was when I was on the trampoline. I was on my trampoline in the back garden and I was bouncing up and down. I was like, oh, I’m going to try mouth taping. So, I actually put some tape on and I was like, I couldn’t even go a minute without taping it.

Hal Elrod: Oh, I’d imagine, yeah.

Tim Gray: So, I’m going to practice. So, actually, I read Patrick McKeown’s book about, and it’s called The Oxygen Advantage, and he said, “Hold your breath as you step three or four steps.” And when you’re walking, you learn to hold your breath and then add a step, add a step. And I started doing that and then I started mouth taping in the night. And for the first three nights, you had to wake up and rip it off because you’re just not quite sure with your new surroundings type thing. But then after a period of time, several weeks of doing it, I was like, I realized actually, I don’t need the tape because I don’t mouth breathe anymore. And I didn’t wake up with a dry mouth and I felt much better and I didn’t have a headache so much and I wasn’t dehydrated as much because you obviously lose moisture when you’re breathing through your mouth.

And then I got back on the trampoline and I was like, I’m going to try it with my mouth shut. So, I did it and I was like, actually, I can trampoline ongoing without using my mouth now. So, yeah, I took it a few steps further. I tried, for instance, exercising with mouth taping on, and the biggest challenge I did was actually a VO2 max test, which is where you run full pelt for 15 minutes as fast as your body can take you on a treadmill and they’re measuring what you are breathing out in terms of whether or not you’re burning carbs or fat. And I was running 15 minutes, right? And this is one of my proudest moments of my entire health/career life. I had the mask on and I was breathing through my nose at my full pelt for 15 minutes and I was like, you know in The Matrix, when he’s dodging the fists?

Hal Elrod: Yeah, yeah.

Tim Gray: I was just like, my goodness, this mouth taping, nose breathing thing really works for me because now, I can exercise as fast as I want and not need to breathe through my mouth. Now, just fast forward a couple of years on top of that, I like swimming underwater and I’d swim in the sea every summer and whatnot, and I can swim a lot further underwater than I could do before. It doesn’t bother me like it used to, but it was before, it’d be like 10 seconds of exercise underwater and I’d be up.

And then, recently, I swam underwater one day and I could swim twice as long as I normally would. And I was like, what’s going on here? And then I finished swimming and I took a pee and it came out green and I was like, oh, I took methylene blue earlier on. Methylene blue actually helps with oxygenation or utilizing oxygen in the cell. So, in fact, my swimming underwater was significantly further just from taking methylene blue. Now, I don’t recommend everyone just takes methylene blue because they want to swim further or whatnot. But the point is, is optimizing by mouth taping and breathing through your nose while you sleep will help with your mental clarity. It also helps with nitric oxide production, meaning blood flow. And for guys, you’re going to wake up pointing north much better if you mouth tape because your nitric oxide levels, and we know certain pharmaceuticals that help with nitric oxide and that morning with problem.

So, it ties in so much into our metabolism and our overall health, just from sticking some tape across your mouth, and once you’ve done it for a few weeks, you can generally let go of it because it becomes habit. That’s just one simple biohack. But the thing is, is if you have got blocked sinuses, if you’ve got a cold or you’ve got deviated septum or something wrong like that, do not do it. And that was the point from that post is because like everyone jumps on the trend and say, yeah, like the ice bath, you’ve got to do. It doesn’t mean, there’s devil in the details.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, I love it. So, all right, so that’s definitely a yes. And I’m a big fan of mouth taping, I do it every night. And to your point, I cannot do it, and then I’m trained to breathe through my nose, but I find that after like a few weeks or if I get a little cold or something, right, then I got to retape again. But my mom mouth tape, she loves it. And I find that when I don’t mouth tape, I wake up feeling much more fatigued than when I do mouth tape.

So, you mentioned methylene blue. Actually, I’d love to spend a minute on that. Myth or real? And if real, (a) my thought with methylene blue and I’ve used it, in the beginning it was like rocket fuel and then I feel like kind of the effects tapered off a bit. So, I’ve seen, obviously, like, you see the blue brain and the blue organs and that sort of thing. My curiosity or my skepticism or my worry or concern is, okay, have there been any long-term studies on 10 years of methylene blue and how are you doing? Or is it like, it’s such a new fad and it was a factory dye? So, with all of that said, what are your thoughts on methylene blue?

Tim Gray: I love that you’ve said this. In fact, I remember like two months ago, you shared out a piece of my content around methylene blue and one of your followers said, oh, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. You’re like, “He’s my friend and I trust Tim’s word. Tim, do you want to chime in?” The funny thing is, methylene blue is one of the oldest pharmaceuticals in history, and this was before the pharmaceutical industry was a moneymaking machine. It was like, let’s actually create stuff that does stuff. Yet, sure, it uses a dye, but that wasn’t its original purpose.

Hal Elrod: It wasn’t, yeah.

Tim Gray: It is antimalarial, antifungal, antibacterial. It donates an electron for electron transport chain for– so basically, to help your mitochondria. It helps with oxygen utilization, and most of us are over-breathing and under-oxygenated. It has so many benefits. If you have carbon monoxide poisoning, they give you it in mega doses in the hospital. It’s in every accident emergency or urgent care across the world, pretty much. Okay? It’s a fantastic drug. Does it mean you should use it all day, every day? Probably not.

My belief is if you’re not grounding properly electrons for your electron transport chain and mitochondria health, if you’re not grounding, you can take some methylene blue. If you’re grounding properly, you’re probably not going to be too deficient. However, if you look at how hydrogen water works and how methylene blue works, there’s quite a good overlap. All you have to do is take– actually, Gary Brecka, our mutual friend, has got H2Tab brand he’s brought out recently for molecular hydrogen. You can drop one of those in your glass that does quite a lot of the stuff that you need. Or you can get an Echo Water bottle flask, which are really, really funky. I love that thing.

And you can have hydrogen water all day every day. And medical hydrogen water helps get water, or should I say, hydration into the cell so that you’re better hydrated. If you get a headache often, having a bottle of hydrogen water will help with a headache. It supports you from a more natural perspective. And instead as having to take methylene blue, you don’t know the source of it, you don’t know if it’s pure, you don’t know the strength of it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Saying that, I do like the brand Troscriptions. They were the first guys, Troscriptions, T-R-O-S-C-R-I-P-T-I-O-N-S, with Dr. Scott Sherr and Dr. Ted Achacoso who is a 212 IQ smart man. He is the guy that brought out the Troscriptions brand, and they are tested, like pure clean and you put it in your mouth and let it dissolve. That’s the brand that I actually trust the most. So, if you’re going to try methylene blue, it’s that. However, I would say most of the time, hydrogen water all day, every day. I drink it wherever I go. And for me, it helps me feel the best I can.

The reason why you would need hydrogen water, and I round off on this point is because when we used to drink from streams that would come through rocks and be oxygenated and structured and lovely, not going through water filtration systems and dealt with chemicals. It would be higher in hydrogen naturally. It would be higher in minerals naturally. And minerals are electrolytes. Electrolytes fuel electrical wiring of blood so that our nervous system can utilize electricity. So, if you are using electrolytes and hydrogen water, the majority of the work is done. And if you’ve got your shoes off, standing in the grass for 20 minutes a day in the garden, you’ve got everything you need.

Hal Elrod: All right. So, 20 minutes a day, see, I need to go longer because I get antsy. I’ll go out there for five minutes or I get literally ants crawling on my legs, biting me. That happened yesterday. I wanted to go out there for 20 minutes. I got to like two minutes and I’m like, “I’m getting bit everywhere.” So, that’s a challenge, but grounding is crucial. All right, so, hey, I can talk to you all day and I want to have you back on, but let’s wrap up with the last question and it’s all encompassing. What are the most important things or the thing you can do for your health? And where should someone start? Like, if we’re looking at, so biohacking is such a big knowledge base in terms of there’s so many strategies, so much technology. But what’s most important is what I’m getting at.

Tim Gray: This is where you’re start in biohacking. Eat well, sleep well, hydrate well, sun well, ground well, move well, relate well, love well.

Hal Elrod: Make love well.

Tim Gray: Yeah, exactly. I mean, that’s really 90% of what you need and actually, that was a term coined by Dr. Ted Achacoso, again. I really appreciate his work. It really is like, it’s not so marketable as some life-changing supplement or some coffee or whatever it may be. It’s just the stuff that we need by default as humans. Eat well, sleep well, hydrate well, sun well, ground well, move well, relate well, make love well, and that’s basically it.

However, if I was to pick one thing other than community and having amazing people around you, because it’s not what’s in your fridge, it’s who you’re with when you shop or eat that counts because we shape each other. And those that are unhealthy hang out together. If there’s a smoker and they hang around with non-smokers, they won’t be a smoker for much longer. This, I would say though, understanding what sleep is for us. Sleep, you don’t build muscles in the gym. You damage them in the gym. You build muscles when you sleep. Your body is repairing when you sleep. So, if you’re not sleeping early enough and waking up too early with an alarm clock, your body is not repairing every day. It’s your daily check-in to say, dude, you’re repairing your body.

So, if you are not sleeping at least 7 hours, 30 or 40 minutes every day, you’re not reversing that damage, which means by definition, you are damaging yourself, compounding ongoing. So, if there’s one thing you prioritize other than your social circle, it is your sleep. Prioritize it over everything like your life depends on it because it does.

Hal Elrod: I did see one of your posts on your Instagram. You said the one thing you can’t biohack your way around is sleep, right? That’s the one thing. All right, last but not least, where can people find you and specifically, I know you’ve got your Health Optimisation Summit in the United Kingdom, September 13th through 14th. So, if somebody wants to follow you, keep learning more from you, like I do on your Instagram every day, Tim, or attend your Health Optimisation Summit, what’s the best way to do those things?

Tim Gray: First of all, thank you, mate. I appreciate coming on today. It’s really good. And I love how you interact with the comment and stuff, content. So, I appreciate you very much. You can find me on Instagram @timbiohacker. The Health Optimisation Summit is 4,000 people, 4,250 were targeted actually, September 13th and 14th in London. Many of our mutual friends and colleagues are there, Gary Brecka, Barbara O’Neill, Ben Greenfield, oh, goodness, the list, it’s just…

Hal Elrod: Dr. Josh Axe, Peter Crone. I’m cheating. I’m looking at a list I wrote down. Dr. Vonda Wright, yeah, there’s some incredible, incredible lineup.

Tim Gray: I mean, it really is. You don’t remember the technologies or the supplements you remember the friends you’ve made and the people you’ve met and the amazing life-changing authors such as yourself that you get to hang out with and that really is an excuse to hang out with. So, Health Optimisation Summit, HOSummit.com/UK, timbiohacker on Instagram, that’s where I’m at.

Hal Elrod: Awesome, Tim. Well, I love you, brother. I’m so grateful that Giovanni Marsico brought us together and I can’t wait till we get to be in person again.

Tim Gray: Yeah. Thanks, bro.

Hal Elrod: All right, brother, take care.