[00:00:00] Elizabeth: Hi everyone. I'm Elizabeth Stein, founder and CEO of purely Elizabeth, and this is lived purely with Elizabeth, featuring candid conversations about how to thrive on your wellness journey. This week I sat down with Angelo Keely, the co-founder and CEO of Kion. An active lifestyle supplement and functional food company.

[00:00:25] I was so excited to pick his brain about all things amino acids, as I've been hearing so much about them as a supplement in my protein and strength training journey. So, in this episode, Angelo shares all about his background starting Kion. He explains everything you wanna know about amino acids, what they are, why they are beneficial in our diets, how amino acids affect people at different ages when we should be taking them.

[00:00:53] The relationship between strength training, protein and amino acids, and so much more. I've been taking the watermelon, amino acids daily, and if you wanna try their products. You can visit getkion.com/purely for 20% off. Let's go ahead and enjoy the show.

[00:01:20] Angelo, welcome to the podcast. It is such a pleasure to have you on. We were just saying that we're both in Boulder, so it's silly that we're not sitting next to each other, but so it goes. It's easier on Zoom. But welcome. So excited to have you on, and I think as a lot of our community will be excited to learn about your story and about Aminos as we're all, I think, on this protein search. So understanding all of it's gonna be wonderful.

[00:01:45] Angelo: Well, thanks for having me, Elizabeth.

[00:01:47] Elizabeth: Let's start with your story. And you certainly didn't just one day say, I'm gonna start a company and come out with amino acids. So there was a mission and a why behind it. What was your personal wellness journey that got you here?

[00:02:03] Angelo: So, I think like many of us, we come from our roots and whether we realize it or not, or it's like a reaction to our roots, or it's like an expression of those roots. I think in many ways, I came back to the way that I was raised. So my parents were in the natural health food business.

[00:02:19] They had a natural health food store, natural health food restaurant.

[00:02:21] In Wimberley, Texas, just outside of Austin.

[00:02:24] Elizabeth: Okay. Very cool.

[00:02:26] Angelo: Yeah, and so my dad had actually been like an importer of botanicals, too. Things like chamomile and echinacea and gin. He was a big ginseng importer in the seventies and eighties.

[00:02:33] So they were very interested in botanicals and whole food nutrition and things like that. I was born at home in this little house in Wimberley. I didn't get a birth certificate till I was seven. We only ate like Whole Foods. We, I, we, I was actually raised pescatarian, so largely ate vegetarian but ate some fish. yeah, so just was very hippie, whole food environment.

[00:02:55] Elizabeth: How did your parents get into that? Do you know?

[00:02:58] Angelo: I don't know what else to say other than they were hippies. I think my dad, he grew up on the East coast and then he hitchhiked to the West coast and was in California and somehow ended in Mexico and ended up in Austin 'cause like cool people were moving to Austin, and he cared about, actually I think my dad originally he'd worked in restaurants and he got into caring about food and stuff like that. I think it was just part of the culture, kind of hippie culture. One of the subcultures was around food and the quality of food and nutrition.

[00:03:24] So yeah, I'm sure there's some element to it that's like alternative, it's not doing what everyone else is doing and like sometimes that can lead you into really healthy decisions and sometimes can lead you into like just trying to be different for different sake. So, I think they got lucky probably in that, as well.

[00:03:40] I think I was really lucky I was raised really thinking about eating vegetables and fruits. And we didn't eat processed foods, but we also talked a lot about protein and we talked a lot about amino acids actually in complete proteins because my parents acknowledged that eating, if you only eat a plant-based diet, or you're in a situation where're, just combining say like beans and rice you really need to be combining these plant proteins to get a complete protein.

[00:04:03] Whereas if I'm eating tofu in a meal, or I'm eating fish in a meal, then I don't need to worry about it as much. And so they talked about that with me as a child, like, I knew what complete proteins were, and why I would be having lentils and quinoa. But I think it's probably unique for that age. I was like definitely unique.

[00:04:19] But then as I got older, I think like most people, you go out there and you experiment and you start doing different things and trying your own way of it. And there was definitely a culture in my family of being entrepreneurs and business people and not traditional.

[00:04:31] So I never was really into learning lessons through anyone else. I had to do it my own way and I experimented like I got to adolescence and hang out with friends and go to Taco Bell and McDonald's, but also doing drugs and partying and just, I think I got very influenced by like the social dynamics and I got into a lot of trouble.

[00:04:50] And unfortunately, or fortunately, it was a major turning point in my life. When I was 16, I took too much LSD. I got very scared. I had this kind of psychotic break. I was in a bad neighborhood, and I got attacked and I got stabbed...

[00:05:04] Elizabeth: oh my God.

[00:05:05] Angelo: ...twice in the back to where I had to have emergency abdominal surgery, and I got stabbed in the knee. My patella tendon was severed and I was beaten nearly to death.

[00:05:12] Elizabeth: Oh my God.

[00:05:13] So I woke up from that a week later in the hospital and that really, began, I think the beginning of that was the beginning of. I was 16 and a half when that happened. So it was a very intense introduction, I think, to the reality of adulthood being that we do become much more largely responsible for our decisions, not just what our parents did or said to us.

[00:05:37] Yeah. And so I'm creating my life and these decisions I make are gonna impact what happens to me today and what happens to me through the rest of my life. And so what do I want? What do I care about? And in that state, I think combined with significantly impacted health, I couldn't walk, the importance of thinking about nutrition and physical therapy and exercise, and I wanna be able to run again, and I wanna be able to do all these things and live a full life combined with having PTSD from this experience and wanting to engage in therapy, and it became like my personal health journey, I think, in a way that like very few other 16 year olds get that kind of wake up call. Many people, it's like when you're 45 or something or 50, it's like suddenly you realize, oh my gosh, like my body is really important and my mind is really important to nurture. And so, I dove into nutrition and exercise science and alternative healing modalities. And I'm now 40 and I think I'm still in this journey.

[00:06:33] It was 24 years ago. I'm still digesting, if you will, and integrating that experience. But it really made me passionate about health. And so while over the next decade, I did a bunch of other stuff. I lived overseas in France and Europe and India for several years. And experimented with different careers, came back to the US, actually built and ran a behavioral healthcare company here in Boulder.

[00:06:53] And after a few years of that, I really wanted to do something new and different. And I didn't really know what it was. And I didn't have this vision of oh, I want to build this breakthrough supplement company that does things different. I just wanted to like, do something that I cared about, feel passionate about. And I had a young family and I wanna spend my days doing something I just care about and and love, and I think protein and amino acid nutrition has always been something that's been important to me and been key in my life. And so I joke about it, but it's like I guess I started like the company that, like 4-year-old Angie, is what they call me, like 4-year-old Angie's parents would've been proud of without really trying to, it is like a full circle loop. So, it's not like this strategic business plan story. It's more of a personal life journey.
[00:07:37] Wow. Well first of all, thank you for sharing that. What an incredible journey that you've had from that experience. I would love to hear a little bit for anyone who's had anything of that nature, that trauma that you obviously were at the lows of low, and what were some of those things from a health perspective, both physical and mental, that you really did to start to help peel yourself?
[00:08:05] Angelo: So I think from a pure, physical kind of biochemical perspective. After you get basic energy intake, once you've gotten like carbohydrates and fat, and like you, you can fuel your body. Then there really are like other core nutrients that you really need. Protein being really key. The essential amino acids and protein. You cannot survive without them. I think we'll get into it later in the conversation. Yeah. Why they're so important. But then other micronutrients, important vitamins and minerals and essential fatty acids. Like these are things that are fundamental just to being able to thrive.
[00:08:38] But if you're in an injured state or in an a state of illness, they become that much more crucial to ensure that you're getting those in. I mean there's ways people can research that more. Again, we'll cover amino acids I think in, in, in depth. But yeah, like there, there are essential nutrients and they're essential because your body must have them.
[00:08:56] After that, I think it's about adherence to positive behaviors. Those positive behaviors could be, exercise based. And rather than trying to figure out like what's the perfect exercise routine, what is an exercise routine that you will do?
[00:09:11] Yeah,
[00:09:12] If it's walking, great. I got really into running and like now I run some because I want to maintain good cardiovascular health as I age, but I got out of it for a while 'cause I was like, it's not that much fun for me.
[00:09:25] But now I'm like, no, I wanna maintain good cardiovascular health, but I loved it then. And so, no, I wasn't like lifting weights or really building and maintaining lots of lean muscle, but I was running and that was really positive for me. It elevated my heart rate.
[00:09:39] It got me out there, it got me moving, it got me motivated. It was good, positive exercise. So, I think any positive physical exercise that you can do and you can, stick to, but it could be as simple as walking. If you can just get yourself to go outside and start walking, it's better than being stuck inside on the bed or in your chair feeling sad, feeling stuck, not sure what to do next.
[00:10:00] And then I think, a third thing that's really crucial and often neglected is it's less of these like kind of positive behavioral habits that you just maintain. You're making sure I'm eating well, making sure I'm going out exercising, but having some kind of outlet that allows the mind to just explore.
[00:10:23] That could be like journaling, where you're just free writing and just writing whatever comes to mind. But rather than there being an agenda that like I'm trying to fix myself or improve myself or get better at this thing or that thing. Just explore what comes out. Or it could be sitting meditation where you just sit there and you just observe what comes up in your mind.
[00:10:39] Or it could be some form of therapy that is not behavioral in nature. I think things like cognitive behavioral therapy and CBT, and I don't know, like couples therapy, like these types of things are great, like they help people solve problems. But something that's more like psychoanalysis or psychodynamic therapy where you just talk.
[00:10:57] You just explore what is there when you give yourself that kind of space. I think there's a unique space for healing. And maybe if you can imagine if you just have a loving parent that would just hold you and love you and they're not trying to fix you or change you or make you different, but they're just providing space for you.
[00:11:15] Are there, is there some kind of thing like that you can create, whether that's through journaling or through meditation or through therapy? I think you need that space, not just trying to like, fix what's broken.
[00:11:26] Elizabeth: Great tips. So do you incorporate any or all of those?
[00:11:30] Angelo: Yeah, I'm all over, I'm all of that.
[00:11:33] I mean through like different phases of my life, right?
[00:11:35] Elizabeth: But how about right now?
[00:11:36] Angelo: Yeah, so right now, we meditate. I don't meditate as much as I used to, but we meditate as a family before-- I have two younger kids and a wife-- every day for 10 minutes. And it's awesome.
[00:11:47] And we meditate actually as my company, as a team, every day for three minutes When we're in person. We're in person three days a week. But I've gone through periods where I did like an hour a day every day for years and did tons of, long retreats. I journal regularly and I've done a lot of psychoanalysis, like just talk therapy.
[00:12:05] Sure. Now I do it like once a week, but I've gone through periods where I did it three times a week and I've done all kinds of, retreats in that kind of space. So, yeah, I think all of those are really valuable, and I'm sure there's other things like this that maybe listeners have in their life or they've found they've been exposed to.
[00:12:21] It doesn't have to be like the exact things I named.
[00:12:23] Elizabeth: For sure.
[00:12:24] Angelo: But something that provides that space.
[00:12:26] Elizabeth: Love that. Okay. So let's get in to the foundation, the basics. What are amino acids and why do we need them in our life?
[00:12:37] Angelo: So amino acids are the building blocks of protein. If you just imagine or understand that protein, whether it's protein in our body our skin, is made up of little proteins. We'll get into this more later, but the food that we eat is made of proteins. If you look at just a plant growing, there's proteins in it. Inside of that, all these little millions of proteins, each one is made up of these amino acids. So it's just the little bricks, the little building blocks that come together to build a protein.
[00:13:05] Now, why are they so important? I think that this the easiest way to get into this is actually to explain why protein is so important.
[00:13:11] Elizabeth: Sure. That's go there.
[00:13:13] Angelo: And the reason for that, or one way to lay this out, is to explain why and how it's so different from carbohydrates and fat. So, when we talk about nutrition, we can talk about micronutrients, which are like little micro means little, right? So that'd be like vitamins, minerals, or we can talk about macronutrients, which is the three bigger ones, which are carbohydrates, fat, and protein.
[00:13:37] The primary role of carbohydrates and fat, like why we eat them, is for us to have energy. So, we actually eat the carbohydrates and fat, we convert them in our body into a native energy fuel source that then allows our heart to beat us, to move our legs to breathe, our brain to function, et cetera.
[00:13:58] So if you think about it your house, right? You buy energy from the electricity grid, or you have solar panels, or if your power goes out, you could run a generator and burn gasoline. Whatever, it's gonna send energy into your house, and that's gonna allow you to run the dishwasher and to run the fans and the lights and all these things.
[00:14:15] Protein is fundamentally different. Protein can be used in that way, but it's not the primary reason why we eat it. The reason why we eat protein is more like repairing your house. So if you think about owning a house or renting a house, even if you walk over the same place over and over again, the carpet will start to wear out or the tile or the hardwood floor, or you open and shut a door over and over again and eventually like the door handle gets loose, right?
[00:14:43] So all of those things, it's not about energy; it's about the materials themselves are starting to break down and they don't work as well. That is actually why we eat protein. Our bodies are made of protein. Many people are familiar with like kind of the cliche notion that over half of your body is made up of water.
[00:15:01] That's correct. Over 50% of that is made up of proteins. For example, all of your vital organs, your heart, your kidneys, your spleen, your liver, things like also like your skin, all of your lean muscle, the muscle throughout your whole body, but also things like your hair, your nails and things less obvious.
[00:15:19] Maybe they don't seem as like physical to you, but actually enzymes in your body and hormones and even the neurotransmitters, the chemical messengers in your brain that conduct through which you experience emotions, those are all proteins or the metabolites, the things that proteins get broken down into, that's what those things are.
[00:15:38] So all of these proteins in our body, similar to the way that maybe our house, like the carpet wears out or the hardwood floor wears out, or the doorknob wears out, all of these things in our body actually wear out, as well.
[00:15:49] So if I just take, for example, the proteins in my skin. My skin is made of millions of proteins, but each individual one, I'm just gonna pick on one. It starts to be older and not function as well as it used to. That protein breaks apart in my body. And when it breaks apart, what you see is oh, it's made up of these 20 little amino acids.
[00:16:09] So similarly, maybe if I were to think like in my house, the hardwood floor starts to wear out and I want to replace it. There might be some of the boards that are actually still good and can be reused and some we just need to throw away. So similar, some of these little amino acids are not good anymore, and they get converted into urea and you pee them out.
[00:16:30] Some of the amino acids that are still good. Great. My body can reuse those amino acids to rebuild this little protein that makes up my skin. But what you immediately notice is, well, I'm missing some of the amino... If I pee out half the amino acids, I only have half left. Like, how do I rebuild that protein?
[00:16:46] That's why we eat protein, whether it comes from quinoa or tofu or salmon or eggs or milk or a steak. All of those sources, when we consume it, we digest the protein, it breaks down into amino acids in our digestive system, it goes into our blood and it gets served to all these different parts of our body to help rebuild the proteins.
[00:17:08] So, if you don't consume amino acids via protein, you physically cannot go on surviving. Not 'cause you don't have the energy to go on survive, because you can't rebuild your body to keep living.
[00:17:20] Elizabeth: God, that was such a great example and I love how you just really broke that down for people to understand so simply. So, okay, these are the building blocks, they're building each part. So what are some signs, I guess that people, easy signs that people should look for, that if they are deficient in the amount of proteins that they are consuming their diet.
[00:17:45] Angelo: So I think one important point I just wanna highlight is it's not just the amount of protein that you eat, it's the quality of the protein as well.
[00:17:53] Elizabeth: Yeah.
[00:17:54] Angelo: So when we evaluate a protein and it's ability to support our body in doing this, we're really looking for complete proteins. And complete proteins means it has all of the essential amino acids. And I promise I'm gonna get to this question of what would we, what would be the potential signs that we wouldn't see?
[00:18:11] But I just think it's helpful to identify this. So when one of these proteins, I said you eat protein in food, it has these 20 amino acids. Nine of them are considered essential, and 11 are considered non-essential. There's two differences between them. The nine essential amino acids, your body cannot make; you have to eat them in food.
[00:18:34] The other 11, your body can actually convert the essential amino acids into the non-essential amino acids. That doesn't mean that you would only want to eat essential amino acids if you're eating whole foods, you're getting a mix of both.
[00:18:47] Elizabeth: But if it needs to...
[00:18:48] Angelo: but it has to get the essential. So when I'm evaluating a protein source, I really wanna make sure it has all of the essential amino acids.
[00:18:55] There are protein sources that don't have all of them. Typically, plant proteins do not have all of the essential amino acids in sufficient amounts to be considered a complete protein. That's why combining them is so helpful. You combine beans and rice, there are some things like, soy and quinoa and buckwheat.
[00:19:11] These are great sources of more complete proteins. So it's not just about what's a sign of not eating enough protein, it's of not getting enough essential amino acids in the protein sources that you are eating. That's what's so key. So the recommended daily allowance, which is a government explanation is really... I reframe it as not a recommended daily allowance, but like a bare minimum.
[00:19:35] This is the bare minimum so you don't have problems. The types of problems that you would have are problems of all these different systems that I already described. Skin. If you don't consume enough of the essential amino acids, you could have significant issues with your skin. 'cause you literally can't nourish your skin to help rebuild the proteins.
[00:19:53] All of your vital organs, your hair, your nails, you could lose significantly lean muscle. You're gonna have metabolism issues if you don't maintain enough lean muscle. 'cause your muscle absorbs 80% of the sugar that you cons when you eat sugar or carbohydrates. Your muscle is what helps actually regulate that blood sugar.
[00:20:12] You could have potential mood and significant mood irregularity and fatigue issues because again, your neurotransmitters are coming from these amino acids that you're consuming in your food. So throughout the body, I mean like endless amounts of potential issues you could have so any function that depends on an enzyme, a hormone neurotransmitter, vital organ, muscle metabolism, immune system, like it just goes on and on.
[00:20:38] So I think that's why it's so foundational, and why something like an amino acid would be considered essential is if you don't have enough of it, you could have problems in almost every area of your health. So it's a foundational thing to be aware of and be thinking about, am I getting enough essential amino acids in the protein that I'm eating every day?
[00:20:58] Elizabeth: And I think it's important too because, as you say, it could be all these different things, which are like the extreme that you might have. Issues with your organs or this or that, but it's also just that you're not thriving. So it's might not be that the extreme worst case scenario, but it could also just be that you're not having the best skin or you're not having your hair grow as long as you want it to, or you're not thinking at your clearest best.
[00:21:23] So it's really that optimal amount versus thinking about it just from the negative side, I think, too.
[00:21:29] Angelo: Yeah, so I think if you go to the optimal amount, so the recommended daily allowance is 0.4 grams approximately of protein per pound of body weight. So if you're 150 pound person. That would be about 60 grams of protein per day.
[00:21:45] If you go below that 60 grams of protein, it's more of the dark, scary stuff we just talked about. Right? Yeah. So on the other hand, if you want to really thrive, like you want to have, you really want to build and maintain lean muscle for, a more kind of like lean tone physique. If you want to have fuller hair and better skin, if you want to age really well, you wanna have a more robust immune system, you wanna ensure that your mood is as regulated as possible.
[00:22:10] You're gonna be wanting to aim for a much higher level of daily protein intake. I think on that high end, there's a range here. I'd say it somewhere between 0.7 grams of protein per one gram of protein per pound of body weight. The one gram is I think it's just easy for people to get the math.
[00:22:25] Elizabeth: Yeah,
[00:22:25] Angelo: for sure. So and honestly if I tell you that like you weigh 150 pounds and you need to eat 150 grams of protein per day and you start tracking, you'd be like, whoa, that's a lot of protein. So even just giving per someone that higher goal at least gets some like in the mode of okay, I'm gonna I get it, I'm gonna have Greek yogurt with my granola for example, because that's really gonna help me hit... Wow, that's 20 grams more protein.
[00:22:45] Like, you start making choices that help you get there. So anyways, I would say aim more for that gram of protein per pound of body weight and that is a way to, again, this is less like what kind of issues you could have, but how you could have so many more benefits. You could recover better from exercise, you could have better performance on your exercise. You could have improved hair, skin, nails, immune function, metabolism, et cetera.
[00:23:09] Elizabeth: So I think when people hear that, and I've certainly been on my own protein journey the last year and a half, and trying to get one gram of protein per pound of body weight, which is not easy. And then when I, share this with friends and family, they're like, oh my God, how could I possibly be getting 150 grams of protein in my day?
[00:23:29] It sounds very daunting. So talk about getting that protein, what are the best sources of protein? We talked about complete proteins, but what are some of those best, what makes them the best? And then we'll get into some supplementing with amino acids.
[00:23:45] Angelo: Okay. Yeah. So when you evaluate a protein, number one is going to be how I'm making a little bit more complex, but I think this is worth your audience's time to understand.
[00:23:57] Yeah. Trying to get a good quality protein. Number one is how digestible is it? And then number two is going to be. And when I say digestible, it doesn't just mean how does like my unique digestion deal with this? I think that's just something everyone has to work on. If you eat eggs and your tummy feels good, great.
[00:24:13] If you eat eggs and your tummy doesn't feel good, then don't eat eggs, right? Sure. That said, eggs as an actual protein source are highly digestible. You can get a maximum amount of the amino acids from that protein versus compared to say, rice or pea protein. It's harder for your body to actually digest those proteins and get the amino acids out of it.
[00:24:33] So you get less of the amino acids actually bioavailable from like that rice or that pea. So typically, and it can be vegetarian, but animal proteins typically tend to be more digestible for the actual raw amino acid source. Again, that doesn't mean you and your unique digestion like, like the way it feels, but that you get more of the amino acids.
[00:24:53] Then the question is, okay, well how dense is it this protein source in the essential amino acids? We talked about being a complete protein or not. Well, some also have like more of those essential amino acids. So things like eggs honestly are a great source. But also things like Greek yogurt, that's another really, I think, awesome tip.
[00:25:12] And then lean meats and fishes are really good for getting those essential amino acids in a concentrated form. And then I think the last thing...
[00:25:19] Elizabeth: what about organ meats?
[00:25:21] Angelo: Organ meats, in terms of the actual, like composition of the essential amino acids? I think it's more that they're really rich in these other types of like minerals.
[00:25:29] Elizabeth: Okay.
[00:25:29] Angelo: Right. Other minerals and vitamins, they're super rich in micronutrients. So it's not to say that they're not good for the other thing, but they, that's that's where they're, that their, yeah. Whereas something more honestly like a whey protein isolate is like the most kind of.
[00:25:44] Perfect superior amino acid profile, you could get in something. And it does. It's lacking honestly, a lot of those other, like micronutrients, it had some micronutrients and minerals and vitamins, but not like organ meats would organ meats is gonna be super rich in those.
[00:25:59] And the last thing to think about is the caloric impact. So when, like that question that you're, like, you're saying, how could I eat that much protein? I am I gonna be only eating protein or what's that going to look like? So are, we're gonna
[00:26:09] Elizabeth: be eating like 5,000 calories of food all day?
[00:26:11] Angelo: Yeah. So here's the deal. If you choose protein sources that have a lot of carbohydrates wrapped around them or have a lot of fat wrapped around them, it's going to be really hard.
[00:26:22] So if you want to be strictly plant-based, the unfortunate thing is that the plants themselves have tons of carbohydrates. Wrapped around the protein. So you're eating so many more calories to get that gram of protein than you are if you're just eating an egg white. On the other hand, if you're eating animal sources that are super high in saturated fats, you're getting tons of calories from the fat, right?
[00:26:48] Like bacon. Yeah. it's a complete protein, but it's covered in fat, so you're getting tons of calories from the fat. So it's more if you think about like a a non-fat, Greek yogurt, you could be getting, it's almost like pure protein. You could getting 20 grams of protein for like a hundred calories versus if you try to get that from rice and beans, it's gonna be hundreds and hundreds of calories.
[00:27:11] Elizabeth: There's more bang for your buck.
[00:27:13] Angelo: It's way more bang for your buck. It's way more concentrated. So I think it's a similar, maybe this is a way of thinking about it too, overall with what we put into our bodies, we really need. These essential micronutrients. So think about like vitamins and minerals and these essential amino acids.
[00:27:30] So choosing foods that are dense in them as the primary things that you really need every day instead of these things that have a bunch of other stuff in it, right? So if something has a bunch more, whatever it is, a bunch more fat, or a bunch more carbohydrates, or a bunch more sugar things like, alcohol, like these other things, like they don't meet your core nutritive needs outside of energy.
[00:27:54] But if you ate a ton of fruits and vegetables and lean meats and fishes and and non-fat dairy, you're not gonna be like stuffed eating. One gram of, protein per pound of body weight. But if you're also trying to fit in like some pasta and some pizza or some bacon or like these other things yeah, you're gonna start to feel more full.
[00:28:14] And that doesn't mean don't eat all those other things that you love, but how to eat them in moderation, right? And understand that like they're not concentrated with these things that you really need, not just for energy, but you need them to actually just function, to rebuild your body and to have good enzymatic function and hormone function and all these other things in your body.
[00:28:36] So, did that answer the question?
[00:28:38] Elizabeth: Yeah, totally. So as we think about then supplementing with amino acids, and that to help to build up and restore those proteins in our body, how should we be thinking about why are we supplementing with amino acids?
[00:28:55] Angelo: Great question. So I think just to start again, that bare minimum of the recommended daily allowance, I would not be looking for supplementation to hit that. Like you want to be eating enough real whole foods to where if you weigh 150 pounds, you're getting 60 grams of protein per day from just eating foods.
[00:29:15] Don't be trying to supplement your way out of that. Like that needs to be through and whatev whatever, however you get there. If we're starting to go to more towards Hey, I want to get a gram of protein per pound of body weight, then suddenly supplementing can make more sense because I think anyone who's trying to get there, they might notice, oh, maybe I'm eating like three meals per day and two small protein snacks.
[00:29:36] At other times of the day, right? So you're you're finding ways to maybe break apart that 150 grams of protein into five servings of 30 grams of protein, right? Or four servings of, approximately 40 grams of protein. So you're trying to find these little ways to fit it in.
[00:29:50] And then suddenly it's okay, well what's the best way to supplement my diet? Either through snacking or through some type of a daily ritual in the morning, like some way that I'm able to hit these higher targets. And here's where some of the more recent research of the last 10 years is really interesting and very provocative.
[00:30:09] So, 30 grams of protein from beef produces the same amount of, stimulates the same amount of protein synthesis. Meaning when I eat this 30 grams of protein from beef, it communicates to my body to build new proteins. At the same amount as if I ate over twice that amount of beef, but as part of a mixed meal.
[00:30:39] Elizabeth: Wow.
[00:30:41] Angelo: So 30 grams actually stimulates as much protein synthesis as 70 grams of beef protein if I eat it with potatoes and broccoli, et cetera. So the question is, well, why is that?
[00:30:53] Elizabeth: Yeah.
[00:30:54] Angelo: So this is what's really interesting inside these protein sources. The other thing that is so important about the essential amino acids is they're not only this thing that your body can't make right, and that's why you need to eat 'em.
[00:31:06] They also play this active component role. So not only are they the raw materials to help you rebuild that wood floor, they're like the guy or the woman that you hire to actually do the work When you consume essential amino acids. If they reach higher peak concentrations in your blood, if you're able to digest those essential amino acids and they get to your blood and they're in a high enough concentration without any kind of exercise, without any kind of other stimulus, they actually tell your body, go rebuild other proteins.
[00:31:38] I think normally people think I go and exercise and that kind of like communicates to my body. It'll break down the muscle. Build new muscle. Yeah. If I just consume enough essential amino acids, it will tell my body to actually build new proteins. And then it uses the essential amino acids and the non-essential amino acids to rebuild the proteins, to rebuild the skin, to rebuild the muscle, to rebuild heart tissue, et cetera.
[00:32:01] And so the difference is when I eat the lean beef on its own, what happens is there's nothing else in the digestive system and the essential amino acids get digested more quickly and they hit the blood more quickly and then they actually have this kind of stimulus impact. So if I'm trying to choose what I'm gonna eat, I'd be like, wow, if I'm just trying to have this like one little snack and try to get more bang from the buck from the protein, if I can't quite get to that extra gram of protein per pound of body weight, maybe eating just whatever it is.
[00:32:29] Like some to, if you're plant-based, some tofu, if you're like a beef jerky stick, like something on its own, you're gonna get more impact than if you ate like a whole nother little mixed meal that said, now listen to this. Whey protein powder has three times the impact as that beef.
[00:32:48] Elizabeth: Wow.
[00:32:48] Angelo: So if I consume the same amount of whey protein powder, it will stimulate three times the amount of protein synthesis as that beef eaten on its own.
[00:32:57] Again, the question why?
[00:32:59] Elizabeth: Yeah.
[00:32:59] Angelo: Well, a whey protein isolate is a very common protein powder. It's kinda like the most, it's been studied the most. It's produced the most consistent results across like all demographics. The reason why is because the carbohydrates have been stripped out, the fat's been stripped out.
[00:33:13] It's a super, it's called isolate 'cause it's an isolated protein source. It's highly digestible. Your body eats it, it breaks it down. And by the way, for people that think, maybe they're like lactose intolerant, whey protein isolate is like over 99% lactose free because they strip out all these sugars. So most people can tolerate it very well.
[00:33:32] When you digest that, it hits the essential amino acids. Or they're also in a slightly higher profile, like about half of whey protein is essential amino acids, which is actually a lot. For protein source, it hits the blood really quickly and it stimulates a lot of protein synthesis. So much more than the beef.
[00:33:49] Now listen to this essential amino acids as a supplement, which is basically, if you can imagine whey protein, this is protein powder, right? And it's a protein that's been through cold filtration, nothing's cooked, there's no chemicals. You basically separate out milk proteins to get just the whey protein.
[00:34:07] Half of it is essential amino acids. Well, there's another way of getting essential amino acids. Through plant-based fermentation, you actually ferment plant sugars and you can create, and you can create these essential amino acids from it. They're derivative of the fermentation process. And then all you have with these essential amino acids is just pure essential amino acids.
[00:34:26] There's none of the non-essential amino acids. Gram for gram. The essential amino acids stimulate three times the amount of protein synthesis as the whey protein powder.
[00:34:37] Elizabeth: Wow.
[00:34:37] Angelo: So you do the three times three, it's nine times more than the beef protein on its own. And you compare that to, beef as part of a whole mixed meal, it is so much more impactful.
[00:34:47] So I think this is where supplements start to come in to make sense if I'm trying to not hit like the bare minimum protein requirements, but I'm really trying to hit these higher levels to build a maintaining muscle, to have better body composition, to improve my metabolism, to have better hair and skin to live longer.
[00:35:04] Like these. Because more optimized living type things. The choice to say add an essential amino acid supplement first thing in the morning or in place of when maybe I would have a mid-morning snack, it is going to be so many more times impactful than trying to just eat that much more protein as part of a whole food at that same time.
[00:35:29] Now it's not going to have all the other vitamins and minerals and things like that, but that's not even why you're really trying to eat that extra piece of, beef jerky, right? Because hopefully you're eating like a good salad with, other good high quality proteins for lunch and you're having some kind of well-rounded dinner like you're getting your micronutrients in these other places.
[00:35:47] If you're really just trying to hit these higher levels of daily essential amino acid intake, which you're typically getting through protein, an essential amino acid supplement is so much more efficient and effective, and the case becomes even stronger if you're over 30 years old. All of the figures I just gave you were for people in their twenties when at the age of 30, our ability to digest protein.
[00:36:10] And our sensitivity for the amino acids in the protein to stimulate protein synthesis. So my ability to when I chew up this beef and for the amino acids in the protein to actually get digested and absorb into my blood, and then my sensitivity to those amino acids in the blood to say Hey, let's build new proteins.
[00:36:29] All that starts reducing at age 30, and it gets worse year after year, but significantly worse, decade by decade. So for a group of 60-year-old women who have multiple studies on this, the essential amino acids are six times more impactful than the whey protein.
[00:36:45] Elizabeth: Wow.
[00:36:46] Angelo: So it jumps from being three times to six times.
[00:36:48] So the older you are. Oftentimes people have reduced appetite. They have even more slowing metabolism. They're just trying, it's every, all of health stuff becomes harder. Yeah. Everything becomes harder. Essential amino acid supplements start to make even more sense, and really it starts at age 30, but it just becomes, the impact becomes greater and greater every single decade that goes on.
[00:37:09] Elizabeth: Wow. But we can't just take amino acids all day long and not have our protein.
[00:37:14] Angelo: No, I leave it open. I think there's lots of different ways to be Yeah. Healthy. I think, I won't, I'm not gonna debate anyone on this, but it's like I would just start with good high quality whole food meals that include fruits and vegetables and really high quality protein sources, whether they're plant-based or animal-based. If you do that and you make sure you get sufficient energy intake through whatever other, fats and carbohydrates you like, you're gonna do, you're gonna do great.
[00:37:40] But you gotta eat a few of those meals per day. And if you wanna, I'm more of someone who thinks eat three meals a day, but if you wanna compress it and only eat two, or you want to eat four or five, I think, whatever that is, that's great. It's around the edges of that, right? Sure. Where if you're having trouble hitting these higher daily protein intakes, or you're an aging adult and the importance of protein and essential amino acids becomes even that much greater, that's the role of a quote supplement.
[00:38:06] Okay. It's not to replace your food, right. It's to supplement your diet.
[00:38:10] Elizabeth: Well, I think that's important 'cause there's definitely some people who are gonna hear this, who are gonna be like, oh, maybe I could just take this out in, in place of, so
[00:38:17] Angelo: Yeah, because like I'm saying, it's no, you want to get. All the other good things you wanna get, all the other good things that food have, and I think we all ideally to thrive as human beings on this like amazing, magical planet that we get so lucky to live on, participate with the food.
[00:38:34] It's crazy. These things like grow, these plants grow. Like we can participate in the whole food system and enjoy it and have awesome meals and enjoy time with our family and you're not gonna get that through. Totally. Taking a supplement. Totally. Yeah.
[00:38:46] Elizabeth: So you touched on as we age , and how protein becomes that much more important in relation really to our muscles and how we ha start to have that muscle loss and sarcopenia. So would love to really touch on, I think, just muscle in general and how the relationship maybe between strength training and protein and amino acids. And also to think about, sorry, I have one other question, but...
[00:39:12] Angelo: yeah.
[00:39:12] Elizabeth: Should we be taking amino acids before we're doing strength training after? Does that, what's that relationship?
[00:39:21] Angelo: Okay. I'll try to cover all that and if I forget anything, just remind me. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So I'll start with like muscle and why it's important, and as we age, and then some of the challenges as we age.
[00:39:32] Sure.
[00:39:33] So, muscle obviously, I think for most people, plays this role of like actually helping us move through space. So it helps us to stand up, to sit down, to jump to play sports, et cetera. As we age, all of those things become harder. And the ability to maintain our lean muscle to do that becomes crucial for things that seem really basic to us.
[00:39:53] If you're 40 years old, it doesn't seem like a big deal to stand up, well, it's a lot harder when you're 85 or when, if you get so lucky to get to live that long. And the more lean muscle you have, the easier that will be. You also be able to maintain, better activity levels, et cetera.
[00:40:06] Obviously, too, muscle, I think for most people, there's some amount of it that supports in your sense of vanity and, being beautiful or handsome, like a sense of Hey, I want this certain type of body composition. Some people, it's like, it's a yoga body or Pilates body or jacked bro body.
[00:40:22] Like whatever it is, like it, it is muscle, right? It's some main maintenance of that muscle. I think the things that often get overlooked though, and I mentioned 'em earlier, is muscle regulates is a, such a big role in regulating your blood sugar. And thus it has a really big impact on all these other systems in your body, including your cardiovascular health.
[00:40:41] Something that's maybe mind blowing for people is, if you don't eat protein and don't consume essential amino acids, but you want to keep on living, your body wants to keep on living, what does it do? Like, where does it get the amino acids for to help rebuild your heart? 'cause your heart can't just like.
[00:41:00] Not keep on going and not be rebuilt. It feeds off your muscle. Your muscle is the reservoir of amino acids for the rest of your body. It's the one organ that can sacrifice itself. So if you go through any type of extended period where you don't consume protein, and this actually happens, I. In a day, right?
[00:41:17] If you don't eat protein or amino acids for a few hours, you go into a net protein loss, you start breaking down muscle tissue, it supplies amino acids for the rest of your body to help rebuild skin organs, et cetera. So, just be aware of that. It's not like a big deal, but if you like fasting,
[00:41:32] Elizabeth: yeah,
[00:41:33] Angelo: you are necessarily going into net protein, negative balance during those periods.
[00:41:38] If other periods, you're building more muscle, then you can be positive. But just so you know, like that is what's happening if you go a week though, or a month if you get injured, if you get sick, if you get hurt, if you go through some other type of stress, and I think one very common, and well, extremely common for half the population is women going through menopause. There's significant hormonal changes that introduce all this additional stress change, sleeping patterns, et cetera, and there's anabolic resistance that comes from that. And suddenly you're not able to build and maintain muscle the way it used to, and you actually start eating away at some of that muscle.
[00:42:11] So the idea of being able to build and maintain muscle is really important as we age to help overcome the challenges that we will all inherently go through. okay, and I would just say if there's anything that's clearly correlated to extending lifespan and quality of life more than anything.
[00:42:27] Quality of life. So being able to maintain higher activity levels, being able to recover from serious illnesses like cancer, being able to, avoid injury and falls to recover from having some type of injury or fall, it's more lean muscle. So maintaining lean muscle we age is just super key to overall health span.
[00:42:45] How does that relate to resistance training? Resistance training, lifting weights. And it could also be the other forms. It could be, things like yoga and Pilates. I think technically you're creating resistance as well. Those activities stimulate this protein synthesis. They actually tell the body to, to break down older proteins and build new ones.
[00:43:04] So it's why I said Hey, consuming these essential amino acids will do it. They will, and they're good and they're good, like technique to support that. But nothing's gonna work as well as resistance training. Resistance training is gonna be the best stimulus for doing that. So trying to introduce some amount of resistance training into your weekly habits.
[00:43:22] It could be once a week, two times, three times, I think more than that. You're gonna get there's some great data that shows you're gonna get that much more benefit. it could really change the whole future of your life. And it doesn't have to be super complex. It's just any kind of resistance training again that you think you can get yourself to do.
[00:43:37] That said, when you have a stimulus of lifting weights or a stimulus of going to a Pilates class, you still need the raw materials. You broke down the old proteins and you want to build new proteins, but it needs the raw materials. So you have to eat protein in your diet and you have to consume these essential amino acids in your diet to be those raw building blocks to help rebuild the proteins, to help rebuild the lean muscle that you just created this stimulus around, they go hand in hand.
[00:44:09] Now, when and how to consume protein or essential amino acids? I think number one I would just say is adherence is the most important thing. So before people get all like wigged out on, I need to take it this much before. Perfect. This much after. Yeah. It's was advising someone, I would say eat multiple whole quality high food.
[00:44:28] High quality whole food meals with good protein per day, eat it every day. Right? Two, add an essential amino acid supplement, and whenever it works for you daily, it doesn't have to be a round exercise, like just do it first thing in the morning. Honestly, they work. You can take it on an empty stomach, you can take it with meals.
[00:44:45] It'll improve the protein, stimulus the utilization of the protein in the meal. You can take it in and around, exercise whenever you want, just do it every day. So that's like the number one thing I would say, like versus trying to time things like perfectly. That said, if you want to, in addition to whatever your daily habits are around eating good high quality protein and adding an essential amino acid supplement, taking essential amino acids before you exercise will create the maximum.
[00:45:14] Amount of protein synthesis. So the combination of them before the exercise. With the exercise together, you'll get the most amount of new protein synthesis. So basically you'll get the most amount of benefits. You'll replace the most amount of old proteins with new protein fibers , muscle fibers, you will, potentially produce the most amount of strength gains.
[00:45:33] You'll also reduce muscle fatigue that, that comes during that process. You'll overall just have a, greater benefits. You can also take 'em though during the exercise. It's great for that. You can take 'em after the exercise and it will still improve the protein synthesis and it'll also improve recovery.
[00:45:49] Honestly, you can take them before, during, or after, but if you take 'em before it's the greatest benefit. But if you like drinking it after or drinking it during, you're doing great. Like it doesn't, we're getting into like nerd differentials here.
[00:46:01] Elizabeth: I think there's some people who will definitely wanna know that. And some people are, yeah. Oh, it's fine to have it anytime of day.
[00:46:05] Angelo: Yeah.
[00:46:06] Elizabeth: Well I've been doing the watermelon anytime of day, but I also wanna optimize. I'm gonna start to do it before my workout.
[00:46:12] Angelo: Awesome. Great.
[00:46:13] Elizabeth: What's your favorite flavor?
[00:46:16] Angelo: I personally like the lime and the mango and I also like the capsules. Like the capsules are just, it's not even a flavored be beverage, you just take a few capsules. I think they're all great, but flavor has been one of the most surprising things to me in building a business.
[00:46:30] Yeah.
[00:46:31] How passionate people are about the flavor that they like and how the other flavors are like not as good.
[00:46:37] It's funny, it's like funny, it's like favorite like sports teams or bands or something. People are just passionate. But yeah, I think. You it's worth just trying them, to see which one you like.
[00:46:47] Elizabeth: Well, what's your number one seller now? Flavorwise?
[00:46:49] Angelo: Berry has been the number one seller, but it's also the first flavor we did.
[00:46:53] And I think it's in terms of just the way market works, I think it's like the most familiar
[00:46:58] Elizabeth: Sure.
[00:46:59] Angelo: Sounding type products. So I think it's like people, even if I think I'm gonna buy a new product, be like, what's the one I wanna experiment with? I'd probably go with Berry or Lime.
[00:47:07] 'cause I just, or like a fruit punch. Like those are things that I think you've
[00:47:10] Elizabeth: had it before. Yeah, I've had it
[00:47:11] Angelo: before. Right. Where it's huh? Have I had a mango? I don't think I've had a mango flavored, supplement before.
[00:47:19] Elizabeth: All right, well we're gonna wrap it up with some rapid fire q and a.
[00:47:29] Three things that you're currently loving.
[00:47:32] Angelo: Three things that I'm currently loving. I love my family. I just love watching my kids grow up. I'm just gonna choose different things in my family. I love my wife. She's so awesome, such a person to keep. Like just experiencing each phase with I love my kids and watching them grow up and I love summer in Boulder.
[00:47:49] Elizabeth: Yeah, feel that. Favorite words to live by?
[00:47:54] Angelo: Have fun.
[00:47:56] Elizabeth: Productivity hack.
[00:47:58] Angelo: Focus on less things like just no matter what you try to convince yourself, you should be doing lots of things. Don't do less things, and do them well.
[00:48:06] Elizabeth: Do you have any system for doing that?
[00:48:10] Angelo: Saying it to myself over and over again and telling everyone I work with to remind me that every time I strip away and get rid of things and do less things, that like more goodness comes to me and all the people around me in life gets more plentiful and peaceful and beautiful.
[00:48:25] Elizabeth: A favorite book for growth.
[00:48:29] Angelo: The most recent book I just finished is Thinking In Bets by Andy Dukes. It's a great book about how she was a professional poker player and it's all about how life is a lot more well, just using probability and how much luck impacts us, versus thinking about life as like a chess where it's like, it's just not that strategic or perfect or organized.
[00:48:49] So it was really good and influential. Yeah, I highly recommend it. And she reads it. I do a lot of audible. She reads it and I like her. Her personality just seems great.
[00:48:58] Elizabeth: Favorite business moment to date?
[00:49:03] Angelo: I love it. Right now. I think just like right now, like the business is thriving in terms of I think growth and profitability, but like team seems so happy. We've always been like, super focused on culture and just like everyone really wanting to be here and like what we're doing. but yeah, it just seems like we're grateful for what we have and not being, we're patient and we're happy and yeah, things are good.
[00:49:31] Elizabeth: That's awesome. I love that. And lastly, what's your number one non-negotiable to thrive on your wellness journey?
[00:49:40] Angelo: Sleep. Getting enough sleep. Nothing else works if I don't sleep enough.
[00:49:45] Elizabeth: Any tips that you have around getting that sleep?
[00:49:49] Angelo: Don't let technology in your room there's no reason to have iPhones or iPads or computers or TVs or that kind of stuff in your room. I think it's just stim, it's just stimulant, right? Right before bed. I really it's classic, but I like reading before bed. I think it, it helps calm me down if I choose the right kind of books.
[00:50:07] It, like it soothes me and and reading is I do get just tired reading and, yeah. And then all the other things you do during the day, exercising, eating good food. It's not detached from those other things. I think probably the big thing that stands out is like minimizing stimulants.
[00:50:23] Whether that's coffee too late in the day or anytime of the day, or technology too close before bed or, yeah, just anything that's revs me up.
[00:50:35] Elizabeth: Well, Angelo, thank you so much for being here. In closing, where can everybody find you and where they can find the products?
[00:50:43] Angelo: Well, honestly, I've I've poured everything into Kion, so it's really just, it's at our website at getkion.com.
[00:50:49] we're on social we have videos, on YouTube, so it's just through Kion.
[00:50:54] Elizabeth: Amazing. Thanks so much for being here. So nice to meet you.
[00:50:57] Angelo: Thank you, Elizabeth. Same.
[00:51:00] Elizabeth: Thanks so much for joining me on Live Purely with Elizabeth. I hope you feel inspired to thrive on your wellness journey. If you enjoy today's episode, don't forget to rate, subscribe, and review.
[00:51:12] You can follow us on Instagram at purely underscore Elizabeth to catch up on all the latest. See you next Wednesday on the podcast.