 This episode of the podcast is supported by Audible. You can download and listen to the world's best storytelling. I use it all the time to inform work. You can listen to audiobooks, original series and more on their free app to get your free 30 day subscription, which includes a free book. Click on the link in our show notes and enjoy. Hey folks, welcome to the podcast. Today I had an awesome guy called Dwayne Cooper come in to have a chat. He is a personal trainer and he is plant based. So his diet is essentially vegetables fruit and all that good stuff. And he also does a lot of fasting. So like water fasts, dry fasts. And for him, he's had like loads and loads of great health benefits from that. So we hear about his story, why he did it, how he's found it. Really, really interesting. Hope you enjoy it. Hey, it's Lewis. Welcome to the podcast. Enjoy our conversations anytime, anywhere. Cool, we're live. Dwayne, thanks for coming in. It's my pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. Pleasure. So did you find it all right? It was very easy to find. Oh, really? Yeah, it was smooth sailing. Thanks to Google. So you met my mum in the park. I did. A random story. I did. I did. Of course, I had my daughter and she loves swings. Who doesn't love swings? The life. I wish I was that anxious. Just take me to a swing, daddy. I literally love swings. And I think she was with your daughter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we started talking. And that's the one thing led to another. She told me about not taking on my phone. And then I checked out your Instagram and you seem to love swinging on bars in the park. Yeah, actually, I do. So you're a personal trainer? I'm a personal trainer, nutritionist, water fasting advocate. Water fasting advocate? Yeah. Cool. All right, we'll have to dive into all of that stuff. And you will say vegan? Plant-based. Plant-based. What's the difference? I feel like when it comes to vegan, or you're put under the umbrella of veganism, which means that you technically changed your diet through your lifestyle for the welfare and the well-being of animals over yourself. And plant-based is when you are more conscious about the type of foods that you put into your body in regards of benefiting your health first, which, of course, in turn, benefits the well-being of animals and the environment. Oh, I see. OK. So the veganism movement is more towards sustainability, saving the planet, cruelty to animals. Cruelty to animals first. That's a key thing. Fine, fine. Everything else works enough. So rather than health. Yeah. So you find, like, whatever on their plate, they just remove the chicken and just keep the same stuff and not replace it, if anything. I know some vegans who would still eat the food if it was being cooked with, like, a chicken gravy or something, have the chicken removed and just use the gravy or the sauce itself and be like, yeah, I'm vegan. Yeah, it's interesting because there is definitely a big movement. And they try and persuade others to also become vegan, right? Which is interesting, because for health reasons, and we can get into this as well, because different things work for different people. Whereas the veganism is more like, you're right, to save animals, the planet, cruelty, all those kind of things. But the thing is, right now, I wouldn't like to say it's a fad because a lot of people are noticing major differences, depending on how well they adapt or transition their. So to what, to vegan? To a vegan diet. Right. So there's a lot of people that are saying that they're vegans because it's well-recognised. It's a label that's well-recognised. If I went to a restaurant in Brazil and I said I'm plant-based, then they're going to ask me questions. If I say vegano, then they're going to say, oh, you're vegan. OK, and then we'll be able to put me in the right direction. Oh, OK, fine. Why not just vegetarian? Vegetarian is the original way, you know? But when you say vegetarian, are you talking about lactose vegetarian or lacto-over-vegetarian? No idea. See? Vegetarian is the original way of saying we eat vegetation. Right. OK, whereas now it's been kind of manipulated so it reaches more people. So people say that they're vegetarian, but now they're consuming dairy. And they say they're vegetarian, but they're consuming eggs. So the real version of vegetarian is plant-based. i.e. no eggs. No eggs, no dairy. Interesting. But then the name plant-based is really only recent, right? It is quite recent, but what has been around for a very long time in the Rastafarian, shall I say, religion is idle. What's that? I-tul. What is that? I-T-A-L. That means you're eating live living foods. And that's something that Jamaicans have been doing for very, very long time. Eating live living foods, which includes me. No. So we're just talking about live plant foods. So it means that you're not consuming anything. That's dead. And it still contains this electrical content. Interesting. So Bob Marley, all other Rastafarians, if they're religious, it will only be vegan or plant-based. They'll be on a plant-based diet, which is i.tul. i.tul. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. But is that how you kind of got into it? Do you not really? I slid into it through... There was a few people that were really close to me that had already started going through their transition. And I watched them going through the transition. And that wasn't what sparked me to try it because I felt like when they was doing it or going through their transition, they looked like they were struggling to me. And I was just like, if you don't like the food, how it tastes, why are you doing this? You know? And for myself, as a personal trainer, I would always advise people on how to eat to aid them on their goals which they're trying to achieve. But before I try and give them any advice on any dietary changes, I must try it myself so that I can give them proper advice. And I feel that there's a lot of trainers out there or there's a lot of professionals out there who don't practice what they preach. So I was putting my words into action and then advising afterwards. Okay. That's how I ended up going from eating five meals a day which are predominantly meat-based meals apart from my breakfast. Right. Training super hard thinking, protein, protein, protein. And then sliding slowly into a vegetarian diet or lacto-over-vegetarian diet into a complete... What do you mean lacto-over? Lacto just means dairy. Okay. And over means eggs. Oh, okay. So you moved from meat to lacto and eggs. Yeah. And vegetables and stuff like that. So let's go for the mic for a minute. So you were like all into meat. Yeah. And fish and like a true omnivore. Right. Yeah. And training hard and stuff. And then how long did it take you to transition from like leaving the steak at home? I would say it probably took me about seven months. Seven months to transition fully to no meat products. Exactly. And the last thing I transitioned away from was eggs. Okay. That was the last one. Okay. Because I used to use it as like a snack. Yeah. Unless I just have boiled eggs. You could snack. Yeah. And I just used to take it and be like, okay, well, I'm going to run off with this. And then I'll leave the house and that's what I would have. And I'll just remember eating my last egg and I was like, this is like chicken fetus. No. And that was it. I put myself off immediately. Crazy. I love eggs. I used to. Did you feel any... So for that seven months, obviously you kept up the training? Yeah. Yeah. And did you see any difference in your energy levels over that time? Like, were there times where you were like, it took your body time to adjust or could you train as hard? How did that? Actually, I found it very easy. My body adapted to it very well. I think one of the main reasons why my body adapted to it so well is because whilst I was consuming my old diet, it was preventing me from sleeping well. Well, your old diet? Yeah. So I could never fall asleep before 12 AM. I was always sleeping after 12 or 1 AM. Just pre-babies or...? Yeah, definitely pre-babies. And I remembered one day, seven days in, when I was like completely off, I fell asleep at 9.17. It's because I didn't respond to my last WhatsApp message. And I jumped out of bed at one o'clock in the morning because I'm used to only getting three and a half, four hours sleep. Jumping out of bed being like, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. Getting ready. And then by the time I grabbed my phone to leave the house, I checked and it was only 1.45 or something along those lines. And I was like, now what do I do? And ever since then, I've always... My circadian rhythm has been back in sync. So what are you doing now? Seven hours, eight hours? I'll probably get by seven, eight hours. What was it that you were eating, do you think that was causing you that? Was it like what, or the combinations? I think it was a mixture of what I was eating and the time that I was eating. I would eat quite late, which would be roughly between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. And of course, my last meal would be quite heavy because I'd be thinking I need protein, right? So be rice and chicken and whatever else on the side. Whereas now I know that it actually blocks the action of tryptophan, which allows your body to go into a deep sleep. So we have like a suprachiasmatic nucleus, which also aids in your circadian rhythm and the conversion of your hormones. That wasn't happening anymore, which can be blocked by meat consumption, caffeine and alcohol. So if you have any of those too late, you struggle to sleep. So if you have them earlier, probably if anybody's having problems with their sleep, then I would advise that they should have finished having their dinner before 7 p.m. Okay, fine. Even if they're eating meat and stuff, still, yeah. Interesting. So then why did you change the time as well as what you were eating? Was that just coincidence? In what sense? So you dropped the meat and then you started sleeping better. Were you still eating late? Or had you... I don't... I started eating earlier because I started getting tired really early. Oh, right. So even to this day, 9 p.m. comes, my friends start laughing at me because my eyes start to shut. All my left eye starts to shut and these my right eye open. So I have this super lazy eye and everyone's like, yep, Coups, he's gone bad. You're done, but you're over. No one needs to check the time when they look at my face at 9 p.m. So still to this day, five years ago. That's five years. 9 p.m. is my hours where my brain starts to shut down. And how did you find your performance? Incredible. Gym and... Yeah, energy. And that's what I was about to say to go back to your answer. I didn't notice anything negative in my performance whilst training because I was sleeping so much better. Yeah, sleeping was like the cornerstone. Yeah. So you had more energy from the sleep. Way more energy. And to be honest, I remember going through my transition. I started doing green juices because I didn't like fruits or vegetables. Is that in the morning you do it? I would, yeah. And I would go to a shop called Fresco and I'd get a whole litre of green juice. And I remember the first time I actually had my green juice. I thought to myself, that's the most greens I've ever consumed in half an hour that I've done in a whole year. Crazy. What's in this? Like cucumber, kiwi, celery. Cucumber, kiwi, kale, a little bit of spinach. I was just like, give me that one. I really don't like. And that's how my body started adapting to it. And it's like, okay, I can do this. I can do this. And you had that in the mornings? I just have it every morning. So what's your diet now then? Like you're kind of doing five meals? No, probably. So today it's already quarter to four. I haven't eaten anything yet. Nothing today. I haven't had anything since last night at 6 p.m. And what did you have at six? Six p.m. I had prunes, a little bit of mulberries and some raisins. That was it. That's it? That's it. That's all I've had. Is that all you had yesterday? That's all I had yesterday. I had, if I count the pack, I think in a pack there's about 36 prunes and I had three quarters of them. Right. Why prunes? Because wanting to give myself a nice little cleanse, like a soft cleanse, nothing too deep. And I just thought, oh, I just have some prunes. Fine. And that was it. Is that a normal routine for you? So the day before that, I had, so I prepared myself a sea moss shake. A which shake? Sea moss, which is like a sea plant. Like a sea vegetable, like a seaweed. Right. I made a sea moss shake with coconut water, coconut flesh. Couple dates and that was roughly around 2 p.m. Prior to that, I had only water and herbal tea. And then I had a papaya smoothie. And that was it. Coffee? No coffee. Never drink coffee? Never caffeine. Oh man, why is it better with coffee? I don't feel like I need to pick me up, if I need to. No, that's fair enough. And I have had my results. I know what to use to give me that lift. Fair enough. So shake is done. And then, so then today is just like a fast day for you? It's not a fast. It's just a normal day. It's just a normal day. Okay, interesting. So you don't often have, you never have breakfast? Nope. Never have breakfast. Well, my breakfast would be the first meal of my day. Breakfast is just a break fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So whenever I eat my first meal, it's going to be breakfast, right? So is that normally at what time? Normally it would be roughly around two, between two and four. Normally, yeah. Okay. And so on average, are you doing one meal a day? Yeah, I would say. As long as when my wife's not around, yes. Typically I eat to comfort her and eat together as a unit. Like a communal thing. Whereas if I, right now she's in Florida and I'm home alone, I don't eat that much. Fair enough. And muscle mass loss? None. None? None at all. So you're kind of similar weight to you were five years ago, let's say, when you were crazy? Yeah. So I feel like once your body adapts, so just why diets don't really work for a lot of people, it's because- And you're doing like diets being eyes and to lose weight. Yeah, exactly. If you don't change one's lifestyle, then doing a diet, which is technically doing something temporary, it's always going to come back. It's because your body gets used to how much energy is being taken in and how much it has to expel. And it brings itself to match the new calorie intake. Therefore, once it matches the calorie intake and then you go back to your old eating habits, you gain weight. Yeah. And that's exactly how diets always turn out. 100%. 100%. So my body is slowly adapted to how much energy that I put in and how much I'm expelling. And it's just kept- So you're expelling this similar amount, right? Training the same, building the same up, but you're taking less calories in now. Way less calories and very little protein. And very little protein. Very little protein. If I just had sit for the past two days, I've had a papaya smoothie and some prunes with some dried mulberries and some raisins. So that's mostly sugar and carbs, right? In fruit, I mean- No, fructose. It's not- Fructose, fructose, sorry, sugar's a bad word. Naturally occurring sugar. Oh, right there. There we go. And then carbohydrates is in that as well. Well, that is carbohydrates. The natural carbohydrates is fructose. Fine. And so is that like the staple of your diet then? Yeah. I mainly consume fruit. It's probably like 70%, 80% on times my diet. Fruit. Yeah. And then when you're pushing the beta, do you eat like- Do you eat like any kind of rice or- Every so often, if I eat out, I feel like my cheat, when people say, what should, what do you do in your cheat day? I don't have a cheat day, but if it were, if I were to say I have a cheat day, it would be when I eat out of my house because it goes against all of my, it goes against my morals and what I feel like is good for me. Yeah, yeah. So if I also go to a restaurant, I know they're gonna lace it with a load of oil. I don't cook with oil when I'm at home. No one. We don't use oil. It's very specific when we use oil in the house. Right. To be honest, if you have a question, why do we use oil to cook? Oil doesn't mix with anything. It literally sits on the top of everything. So if you're making a sauce or soup, whatever it is, it will never mix with it. So it slows down digestion. This always causes some people to have some gas. That's your cheat. Never chocolates. Nothing like that. Oh, there's Booja Booja chocolates. That's the best we've been chocolate. Which one? Booja Booja. Booja Booja. Yeah. I've not heard of that. I mean, but I've never been a sweet tooth person. Right. In the sense where when my brothers were, when we used to get pocket money, I had to get two pounds. I had to spend 20 pence on penny sweets for my brothers and I said, share that to them. And I said, save my money. So I think by the time I was six or seven, I'd save my first hundred pounds. Nice. So yeah. So you've never really been like, you've never really been into bad food. You've always been health conscious. No. Like I said, the only vegetables that I used to eat was broccoli. And I would have to smother it with a load of gravy on top of the lamb that I was eating, right? And that was it. When it came to fruits, I never used to eat fruits, but I was to have it in concentrated juice. So like five a life with my friends a lot of them. And like strawberry, ribena, that's me getting my fruit intake. And I did a complete 180. Crazy. And so what exercise do you do? I train calisthenics as all body weight training. Right. I tried working out in the gym and it doesn't work for me. Yeah. I like training outdoors. Yeah. And if you were to build my Instagram, you would see the place that I train. What's your Instagram? My Instagram account is actually at coop underscore DC. Okay, cool. C-O-U-P-E underscore DC. We'll whack it on the show notes if you can check it out and so on. So yeah, I actually, me and a friend of mine was able to build an outdoor gym in Westbourne Grove. Amazing. No, Westbourne Green Space, which is just by the Harrod. Okay, yeah. So West London. Yeah. Yeah. And I use that place as my office. Amazing. So yeah, all body weight training. Clients then, pull-ups, muscle-ups, leavers, all that kind of stuff. You know it. Yeah. I love that you know it. Yeah. Trying. I can do muscle-ups. Nice. What type of muscle-up? Is it like the CrossFit muscle-up? Or is it the calisthenics? So. Street form muscle-up. So I can do a strict ring muscle-up on the rings. Yeah. On the rings. Like one at a time. Okay. Right, one at a time. I can't Bosch like, laid out. Okay. That's still good. That's good, it's good. I can do CrossFit, but I learnt these strict muscle-up somewhere else. There was a guy running a course for like half a day. So I learnt to do it properly. And some handstands and stuff. Then I can do some kipping CrossFit style muscle-ups on the rings. And then on the bar, I can currently, because I haven't learnt it, I can only do like kipping bar muscle-ups. I think just for the fact that you could do ring muscle-ups without kipping, you can also do a full script muscle-up on the bar. So you fold your hand over the bar and you just, all strength. And just straight up. Straight up. No swing, no nothing. So you just have to kinda get to your chest and then you can, you're over. Three, that's it. Yeah, I just gotta try it. I love it. But I do CrossFit, a lot of CrossFit. Yeah. So which I really like. I really like it. I've got a good friend of mine, Benny, just does the calisthenics as well. Like a lot of rings, levers. I mean he's great at those. I mean I didn't do levers ever, really. I mean for core strength, calisthenics is the way for what I'm trying to do. 100%. Oh, 100%. I wish I did gymnastics when I was young. Same here. Did you do it? No, I wish I did. I wish I done it. I mean my dad said that he tried to, but then when the teacher asked him why we wanted to go to gymnastics, he gave his answer and said, I really like such and such to do gymnastics. And I think from there, it's because he told me this not too long ago. He said, the way that the coach looked at him, he thought we was going for his sake and not for our own sake. And you know there's always the largest waiting list to start up gymnastics. So I guess that's the reason why we didn't bother doing it. So what did you do when you were younger? Taekwondo, snakeboarding and skateboarding, a little bit of boxing. And I think that's as far as it went. After that, I started traveling. Are you doing any martial arts at the moment? No, I'm not. I actually did a few classes of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I really want to start that this year. And when I went away, since I've come back, I haven't gone forward. I think that's something I'm going to take on. Yeah, yeah. I really want to get on to that. It's just like organizing my time. Exactly. I'm doing like the CrossFit, I'm doing a little bit of yoga, day a week of football. Yeah. I'm not doing CrossFit and stuff. You can injure yourself. Do you know, I only ever get injured playing football. Yeah. That's it. I can injure everyone. Nothing else, nothing else. It's really weird. I mean, you know, you get injured exercising. So, yeah, but it's so minor in comparison. Oh, literally, I've never, I did a half marathon trail run on Sunday, which is cool. Doing a lot of stuff, never get injured at any football. Five or so football. I tell my ankle or like, you know, go for a challenge. Yeah. It's always the same. It's the same story all the time. But it's still good to move because most people are still on the couch. You know, like, I'm married. I haven't got time. I'm working hard. I haven't got time. I've got kids. I haven't got time. The concert always hit the same thing. It's easy just to whack it in the diary like it's the most important meeting of your day. Yeah. And then you just, do you run it? You don't miss it. Yeah, do it. Also for mental clarity as well. 100%. Yeah. It's good to decompress and like just download. If you go for a run or gym or whatever it might be. Yeah. I'm quite liking the group exercises again. Yeah. Because then you're like with others and it motivates you to like... I think that's been a big thing. In regards of even calisthenics when people are outdoors training, this ego's left behind once they walk through those gates and it's your training like a family. That if there's something that you can't do, someone be there to give you pointers and there's no mirrors. That's a great thing. Also CrossFit, no mirrors. Do I sometimes go to the, you know there's an outdoor gym in Primrose Hill? Yes. And there's a lot of calisthenics guys that come. Yeah. Just unbelievable. Like just... It's amazing though, right? It's amazing, yeah. I could just sit there watching the guys. Yeah. Just like easy flagpole things. Which probably I'm sure you could do all of that stuff. You know, like swinging around. Can you do all the tricks? Yeah. Not all the tricks. I could do a few of the tricks. It's really turned into a sport now. It's called freestyle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is not too dissimilar to parkour, right? Or is there still a little... I feel like there's still a big separation between parkour and freestyle. Because freestyle is still on the bar. Okay. So just pull all of your jumpy from the head. Yeah, you're doing everything. Nice. But yeah, I leave that for the youngest. I stick to my statics. I made it so that it's good. I need to get on that. Because it's funny, because you feel like you should be able to pull yourself up on a bar, right? Until you just try. And a lot of people can't even do a pull-up. I feel like that's an eye-opener, especially for gym goers. I train a lot of people that started off in the gym. They're like, yeah, but Koop, I just need to go to the gym and get ready so that I can come train. He's like, it doesn't work like that. You can only get ready by training with me. You know? And then I feel like lifting weights. I feel like master your body weight, then take on weights. I feel like that's the way for you to do it. Absolutely. You know? Can you pick yourself up? Terrible tragedy happened in West London with Grenfell Tower. And I hate to use it as an example, but there was people trying to abseil down a building and they were falling with their children. And that's a bad scene. And a lot of people had gone, I could see it from my balcony. You could see Grenfell from your balcony. And a lot of people had gone there to be right by it and heard the screams and exactly would try to do something. I don't know. And for myself, it wasn't something I wanted to see. It looked like it was a serious matter. And there was a lot of helicopters surrounding. No one was dropping any water in the building. There was just a lot of filming and I just didn't understand why you would need to get such footage from so close of people falling to their death and not help. No, it can't be. And I was thinking about it and I was just like, the people that was falling, I was just like, if only you was able to hold your own body weight, never mind to tumble with your children. There was that tiny bedsheets together, the curtains together, and then trying to abseil down from the building. I might say sad. Right. Yeah. But it's, yeah, I mean, on the exercise, it's just being able to do normal stuff, right, like picking stuff up, or God forbid you have to hang off a cliff or whatever. Window, watching Jackie Chan movies or watching any action movie where you see them jump from one bird into another. And you're like, yeah, I'll do that. No, you wouldn't. You would not be able to pick yourself up. You just gotta hold. I mean, it's actually, I don't know if anyone tries just holding on, even just holding on to a bar, see how many minutes you can hold onto a bar for. Minutes, you mentioned minutes. Have you done that? So Max, I could probably do a minute and a half. Probably, that means you haven't done it. No, we did it a while ago. Yeah. If you pushed me, I could do more than a minute. I think it's Muscle Beach and LA where they have this competition. If you can hold a bar for two minutes, you get either $100 or $200, but the bar spins. Spins? Yeah, so you can't adjust your grip. If you're trying to adjust your grip, the whole bar moves with it. Reconce your forearms. When your forearms fatigue, your hand grip goes. But two minutes is the challenge. And I was there and I forgot all about it. Because I can hold a bar. You could've done that? Yeah, exactly. Well, I think I can do it, but I've only ever gripped on a static bar. I haven't ever grabbed onto a spinning bar. Right, right, right. So I know that's the reason why most people can't do it. But when I'm next there, I'm going for that challenge. Do you know what, I'm gonna, next time I'm in the gym, I'm gonna, I'm gonna see how long I can hold on. Go for it. Go for it. I'm gonna hold it. I'm going back to like the fasting. Yeah. So, obviously everyone's different, right? Right. I mean, I've been doing, I mean, I love meat. My thing is like, I quite like... I could tell by the smile on your face when you say I love meat. Yeah. Well, to be honest, I don't eat that much meat. Yeah. And then most I'm eating like vegetables, fish, meat, like a mixture of things. Try and eat stuff that's like grown in the ground or that's been living. And then I've been doing a bit of intermittent fasting. I maybe finish eating at seven and then I'll start eating again, like 12, one, something like that. Nice. Sorry, like 16 hours or so. So that's been quite cool. How do you feel? I feel great. It's also nice to know that I don't, I mean, I don't feel like I need to eat three meals a day. Yeah. I don't have breakfast so much. My stomach probably shrunk a little bit and it's just nice to know, hey, if I'm traveling, I don't really need to go and eat something. Yeah. Or, you know, if there's only a little enough food for one meal a day, that's cool. You know, it's quite nice to be able to just know, because humans have not been eating three meals a day until recently, right? Very recently. So it's nice to know if something goes down, I'll be all right. Yeah. But I feel good because I feel like burning fat, producing ketones, maybe giving me some more energy. I don't have the down, you know, like the fugates in most offices. At 3pm, most people's eyes are rolling to the back of their heads and they've got this like little dip and they're searching for the chocolate and stuff like that. Which is only going to cause them to crash again. Would you crash again? I'm not saying that I don't eat chocolate in the office because I do like a little bit of chocolate. But anyway, that's my kind of, mostly my thing. Yeah. But everyone's different. Yeah. And the thing with these diets, not diets to lose weight, but just like, just say a normal diet, is most people don't even know where to start. Yeah. Do they need to go as, let's say, as extreme as you've done with one meal a day, or are there certain things that they could, like start to just... I think it boils down to a person's goals, what they're trying to achieve. For me, I just started, for myself, I feel like I found a path. This path was just feeding me mentally with all this new information, which goes totally against everything that was taught to me in my nutrition course. Everything that's taught to me in my personal training courses and everything that's taught to us on just publicly, in media, three meals a day, et cetera. And the type of foods that I was choosing to eat. And that's what I was seeing in the correlation of what we've been taught to what we're then teaching others and keeping a cycle of people becoming sick. And I wanted to break away from that. And the more I learned the deeper, the more I realised I didn't know. Interesting. So why did you get to the fruit, because most of your diets fruit, you said? Yeah. How did you get to, like how did you arrive at that being the thing that you preferred to eat, or you chose to say? I think it was realised in that of all food sources, it was the one source of food, which gave itself to you. It grew, it caught your vision. You caught your attention from his bright colours. Then the smell was more inviting. And then once you placed your hand on it, it would just fall off into your hand or it would hit the deck. And also I realised, okay, and this food is still alive. So it still carried that electrical current. It still was providing energy from our body. And also fructose is just a natural occurring sugars, is what our body thrives on for energy. You don't get energy from proteins, you get energy from carbohydrates. And I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about starches, because starch was the original name for carbohydrates and then it changed. So knowing that majority of my energy comes from fruits. And if I want energy, then why don't I can see more fruit? And you eat all fruits? Yeah. People have grapes, strawberries, whatever. Yeah. Fine. And you just arrived at that? Yeah, exactly. But it was all part of the transition. So if anybody say, well, because I'll never get to where you are now. And I'm like, well, I started from where you were, probably way behind you, because of the foods that I wasn't even eating back then. And then once I changed my diet, I started realising how much other foods there were out there to explore. And even now I love exploring tropical foods. It's because at the beginning I was sticking to the fruits that has predominantly grown hair in the UK. And then it was the rest of Europe. And then it was, what's growing in Africa? What's growing in Ghana where I'm from? What's growing in Ghana? We have to have a debate with Adi Eila. Adi Eila is from Nigeria. And she says the best jell-o for ice is from... I think it's something, Ghana day today or something. I mean, Ghana is from Jalofa as well. I see a jell-o. I think there's like some... There's a little beef going on right now. Who makes the best and who made it first? And to be honest, I mean, it doesn't even make sense having that debate. It's because the ingredients of what makes Jalofa isn't even African in the first place. Really? I mean, you start with tomatoes. It's even grown in Africa. That was from Mexico. And all these other different fruits or vegetables that has been imported, even rice has been imported. It's not something that was utilised in Africa in the first place for anybody to say what... To claim it. I claim this. So interesting. And with your kids... One daughter. One daughter. What diet do you have her? She's on a fully whole-food, plant-based diet. Whole-food, plant-based. Yeah. So not just fruit. Fruit, cheese. Everything that's whole-foods. So nothing for assist. Fine. So vegetables, no eggs. No eggs. So no eggs, no fish, no meat. No dairy. No dairy. Fine. And then it's just vegetables. It was breast milk for a whole year. Right. No water, just breast milk only. No fruit. Why no water? Didn't need any. Fair enough, that age, yeah. But now, obviously... Now she has her water and she loves her coconut water. She's very sport. She doesn't even realise it. She loves expensive things. She's like a coconut daddy. That's coconut water. You've got to be careful which coconut water as well. Some coconut water's a little bit of other stuff going on inside. We buy coconut water and coconuts. Are you only drinking the ones that we chop open ourselves? Okay, so you get the coconut from the local stores on there? Yeah. And buy the Thai coconuts all the way by the big jelly coconuts. She likes to eat the jelly in the inside. Oh, nice. So yeah, we don't buy bottled or stored... Anything. Coconut water. Nice. Yeah. Interesting. And so milk for a year and then she started to eat solids or whatever. Yeah, started exploring more. She started the meat and I'm sorry, meat and vegetables. And when she got to two, that's when we allowed her to eat all fruits and vegetables. So for instance, she wasn't eating nightshade foods, which are potatoes, tomatoes, gorgi berries. Okay. Or bejeans, peppers, that type of stuff. That's because they can aid in inflammation in the body. Because the glyco alkaloids is the chemical which we were trying to avoid until we knew that her digestive tract was fully developed and was able to handle those things. Wow, she's a lucky girl. Yeah. So I mean, we just kept everything because natural is possible and this introduced her into food slowly and just watched her just explore. Like slowly, why this bombardment with so much food? I feel like when it comes to children, we're so conscious about what it is that we do for ourselves. We're going to do it for them too. So we build this plate with so many different foods on it, with so much different flavours to suit our taste buds. We're doing it for them so that no, they can have everything plain for now. Let them enjoy the food for what it is. They don't need five different things in their plate. You can have two, maybe three max. And then we can figure out things that she likes and dislikes. If there's any case of bloating, we will know what food source it was to pinpoint where the problem is coming from. So we slowed everything down. So we knew what we was doing with her and her feelings. And because we know that food can aids in emotions and we was just being more conscious. Yeah, let's get this tree right what you're eating. Yeah. And so potatoes and stuff now. Sweet potatoes. We're still not big fans of potatoes in the first place. Why not? Same reason. I mean, we don't really eat potatoes. So we just was in the last policy. Is that like an advisory reason for that or just? For myself or for us, it's something that we just bypass. It's after a while, it's like, we don't need potatoes. Sweet potatoes, yeah, it's fine. Every so often. Are they better than normal potatoes? I would, I believe so. But it's not a big deal. How often we have sweet potatoes in the house? Very little. Again, that's something that we eat when we're outdoors. OK, fine. So when your wife's home, you're eating a little bit more adventurous. When she's out and water or liquids. I'm more on a liquid diet, if anything. And when you're fasting, because I know people trying to do fast, I don't know if they get it right. So do you drink water with your fast or no water? I do both. It's called a wet fast. A wet fast or dry fast. So wet fast is when you strickel in water, no salt, no addition to your fluid intake at all. There's strictly water, no sparkling water, no caffeine. No sparkling water. No chewing gum, no cucumber. Nothing goes in your water, just the water itself. And then when I'm going dry, I don't drink it or eat anything. And how long would you do that for? It varies between two and four days. Two to four days? Yeah. So you're fast for two straight days? Or four days. Or four. Yeah. And both wet and dry? No, that would be so I typically start off in a water fast, then go into a dry fast. So water fast for one day. Dry fast for two to three or four days, depending. Sometimes what happens when you're fasting, your body's just like, ah, just keep going. And you just keep going. And I just carry on. And then I'll break my dry fast and go back into a water fast. Oh, OK, fine. And then I'll do water for a while, and then I start with my coconut water, and then I would slowly break my fast. So often I would do seven days as a standard. As a standard fast for me, seven days is what I do. So only water? Yeah. Seven days. How often do you do that? I would probably do it quarterly. OK. But it can range between seven and 14 days. Or what, what, the fast? Of water fasting, yeah. Oh, so you'd even do longer than seven? Yeah, yeah. That's considered as a short fast for me. Seven days is a short fast? Short fast, yeah. Wow. And then you start going into a medium fast, which would be 14 to 21 days. And then a long or extended fast would be 28 days to 40 days. With no food? With no food, just water only. Wow, have you done that? I haven't done it. I've only done 17 days. I was touching on to my 18th day. And I broke fast because I had to travel. Because I have a, I'm supporting orphanage in Ghana. And before I took the flight there, my wife was a little bit concerned, she was like, Coups, I know you have a structure on how you break fast. And just in case you're not able to do it, break fast now because what I need you to do is come back healthy and strong because we need, we're about to have this baby. Fair enough. And that was the situation. So I broke fast, flew to Ghana, did what I needed to do there, came back home. How do you feel? Like, first of all, why are you fasting? I first started water fasting for my mental state. I wanted to know I was mentally as strong as I was physically. And I thought, what can I do to test that strength? And I thought, OK, well, what are we addicted to? What do we love the most? Is it television? Is it social media? Is it food? OK, so there's a book that I read or read many times from Marcus Aurelius, the emperor, called Meditations. And one of the things that he says in it is that one can conquer a town or village or country, but could you conquer your mind? And most people can't. They're constantly battling themselves. And because they've embattled themselves, they practice escapism, whether that be speaking to other people, meeting up with friends, drinking, any other type of substance to take themselves away from their self. And I thought, yeah, this one I'm going to go for. So from my very first fast, I did 11 days. A water one, eh? Just water. With water, yeah. And I had no advice, I had no... There wasn't any information out there about water fasting at the time. So I did 11 days and I thought... And this is really, this is for your mind, not your body. This is for my mind. It's all for your mind. But what I noticed on my fifth day was incredible amount of strength. Really? And were you training throughout this fast? Yeah, I was working. I was doing my shift, I was doing my shift. So normal work? Normal work. Do you train as well? I do training with all my clients. OK, so your training is with your clients, and you were doing the same... Same things I would normally do for them. But for them, that type of training, for a lot of them, it's like less than maintenance trainings, because of course I'm way more advanced than a lot of the people that I train, but then there's others who can keep up. And there, I would train really hard. Can you keep up? Yeah. Well, they're still keeping up with me. Thank you, are you nice? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You didn't notice a drop in energy? Energy? Endurance. You notice a drop in endurance? Endurance. And there must have been something. Of course, I can't keep up, do you? If I'm used to doing 60 minutes in one go... If you don't know anything, nothing in your... Then I'm not going to do 60 reps in one go. Do you do 60 pull-ups in one go? No, dips. Dips, yeah. So I would listen to my bodies, because what would happen is that you would... You'll burn out, and you're doing a water fast, it will put you in your ass. Simply because what it needs to do is re-energize yourself. So what would typically happen if you overdo it, you'll become lightheaded and faint. Okay, if you're training while fasting? If you overdo it. Yeah. That's what I would say to people when they're fasting. If when it comes to exercise and whilst fasting, I would say always leave your routine at home. Go to the gym, go to the park, however you're going to train, without a strict gym routine. Because if you go there with a routine in your head, then you're not going to listen to what your body's telling you, which probably rest, slow down. Don't do that last set, because your mind is so focused on completing your routine. Yeah, I see, I see. Amazing, and did you see any physical benefits? So apart from the mind, and I agree, like I love doing hard stuff. Yeah. It's good for the mind. Is there any physical benefits from doing like, even like what I'm doing, 16 hours fast, or is there nothing creeping in? I think, alright, so that's all for my benefits first. What I found, I used to have an issue with my left foot. I used to have a corner, I used to grow at the bottom of my left foot, I had to get removed every five weeks, I would say. Ever since my very first fast, it's never returned. Keyloids, I have quite a few scars on my body. All of them, I think I have roughly, around 15 or 17 small scars here and there on my body. So all of them, apart from two, gone completely flat. Really? Since fasting. Since fasting, yeah. Wow. I think those are the most... I wonder why? Because whilst you're going through a water fast, your body is actually utilizing and eating away any waste that's in the body. So scar tissues, it would eat that away and it would quickly smoothen out what would, which black people in general, do have or suffer from keyloids whenever they have a type of cut on their body. It won't heal smoothly, whereas mine won't either. But then when I started fasting, they all went smooth. Interesting. So yeah. They never come back? No, they haven't come back at all. How long did it take for them to go? Do you know what? At first I wasn't paying attention to them. Just that my foot, I didn't realise until I tried to speak about it and I said, hold on, I haven't gone yet. I haven't gone back to having removed for the past six months. So yeah, that's what a fast does. So when you're water fasting, your body is now dumping waste from a system and it's just going through a cleansing process. And then I guess if you've got excess fat, exactly, but when it strips down the excess fat, it's also dumping the toxins that is bound within the excess fat stores. And that's why a lot of people on day three start to struggle. And I never advised anybody that will fast with me to do a fast for three days. So do you always just one or two? You either do one or two days or you do five days. So why are they struggling when the toxins and everything's coming out? It's because it takes about three days for the body to really kick into ketosis. And then what happens during that time is your body starts to break down all of the fat stores and pull toxins out from the tissues and dump them into your system for it to be eliminated. So then your brain almost feels similar to having a cold and a fluid at the same time. Okay, yeah, they often say if you're going trying to get into ketosis, they get this like keto fluid thing. Yeah. So what's actually happening is normally you're, when you have a virus, your body temperature heats up. And that's because most viruses can't stand a certain temperature within the body. So your body knows how to heal itself. So your temperature will rise and then of course your pores and your skin to open up and allow fluids to now or allowing you to sweat to keep the outside of your body cool. Whilst the dancing gets rid of this virus and all the viruses that may be in your body. So that's one aspect of it. Then you have the removal of mucus from your respiratory system, mainly from your nasal, from your lungs, from your throat and bile acids, which you may need to vomit. And then you have no sweat pores, which it starts to dump the toxic matter from your pores, from your skin. So yeah, that's where your body's going for you. And it typically happens for a lot of people between a 60th hour and a 90th hour. But for a lot of women, it can happen between a 48 hour onwards. Right. And how long does that last for? It can last anywhere between some people 12 hours, depending on how healthy they are before they enter into a fast. But then it can also last 36 hours. And so you've got to just grind through that. You ride it out. And I say to everybody, embrace the symptoms that you're going through. It's because it means that your body is dumping the waste and eliminating from the system. And once it's gone, it's gone. So embrace everything. So never look at it as a negative. If you look at it as negative, like your headache or your sweating, your higher temperature, then the whole experience is going to be bad. Is there any benefit for doing it for shorter? Yes. Is it like a 60th like I've been doing? Or organ rest. Or just to let your stomach give you a stomach break? Not only your stomach. The moment you consume food, every part of your organs has to be active. From your brain, secretion of digestive enzymes, your liver, your kidneys, your colon. Everything has to be active just because you started chewing. And it starts from the smell of food, then to chew your food. And then as soon as you swallow, cascade of mechanics working. And everybody talks about sleeping or sleep being so important for you and how much is necessary. But no one's talking about how necessary is to rest your organs. So definitely doing 16 hours to 24 hours to 36 hours is key. Okay, and then how often? So I used to do 36 to 42 hour water fast every single week. I did that for a solid year, including seven day water fast and 10 day water fast and 14 day water fast and quarterly. And within the past three years, I have gone 347 days without eating. No joke. For people that don't want to quite go so many days without food. So is it quite useful just, cause you know like most people don't have a great diet. Yeah. You know, so even if they stop eating processed food and processed carbohydrates and all that stuff, they're going to get a bit more healthy, right? But it's useful for them even just to do like a day a week. Definitely. Two days a week of just. 100% I would advise that. Like finish eating, have dinner, don't eat breakfast, eat again at lunch time. Is there some good benefit for them? Oh, even just have an early dinner, go to sleep on an empty stomach, notice the difference in how well you sleep. Then the next day have dinner. Oh, miss, miss breakfast and lunch. Just miss breakfast and lunch, just do 24 hours. With water. With water. No coffee. No coffee. No coffee. It's because coffee's still interfering with your hormones. So just ride out with water, hot water if you want to, but just give your body a rest, give your organs a rest and you'll notice a huge difference. Yeah, I need to do that, man. Have you never done 24 hour fast? Well, actually to be honest I do 24, I'm Jewish and once a year we do a 25 hour fast. So, and this is no water, no feed. Cool. So I do that once a year. Drive fast once a year, which is great. I feel really good. And then during the year, I'm just doing like, as I said, the 16 hour fast. So water, if I'm really honest, I've been having black coffee, but after speaking to you, I don't have to cut that out. But yeah, so I do that maybe five days a week. Yeah, my thing is what I say to people is if you feel like coffee, it should be something that you choose to do. A lot of, when it comes to the point where you feel like you need it. We drink a lot of coffee. If you feel like you need it, it's probably because you have adrenal burnout. That means that, so that your body's not able to provide you the same amount of hormones which is gonna keep your body stimulated. But the other thing is like, when you're in an office environment, it's not even the drug that you're craving or they're most predicted to it. It's just the thing of like, getting up from a desk, going to the coffee. It's the whole nice thing of like, going to make a cup of coffee. Because it's nice to get up, you're only sitting down all day. So I mean, we have standing desk, so you can be up and down, but it's still good to move. And you get into this thing of going to make a little coffee. So you've got nice fresh coffee and like French press. Building a roll up, get your riser down. Yeah. Roll your tobacco out. Absolutely. Roll it outside, make it feel good, come back in. It's just that habit, isn't it of like something. So yeah, for a lot of people, it's me included probably. I mean, it's hard not to have a coffee. And often I'll even have a coffee and don't really need a coffee. It's just- It's habit now. I just wanna get up and have a little walk and make a little coffee. I'd probably wait half the time and even finish the coffee. It's like sitting there, got cold and like, but it's interesting. Last thing before we wrap up, carnival diets. So there's quite a few people, I've been listening to a bunch of podcasts on people doing carnival diets, which seem to also work well for people. Have you looked into, I don't know if you haven't done it yourself, but have you looked into anything like that? I haven't looked into anything like that, but I do know what the end results mean you lead to afterwards. Right. So basically you're saying that they just eat shit. So maybe- Yeah, I listened to a couple of, I listened to the Joe Rogan podcast quite a bit, which is interesting. And he had a heart surgeon on a while ago and actually this guy, Joe, he's also doing it a bit. And so I think the guy had some problems before this doctor and he cut out, started cutting out foods and then ended up just getting to meet and was super healthy. And we had tested himself and stuff. And then this guy, Joe Rogan, really interesting. He's tried it for the last month. He said he's got a lot more aggressive for meeting me. But again, feeling good. So it's just interesting. There's like different things where it seemed to work for different people. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I noticed when I changed my diet is that my aggression turned down a lot. I used to go from zero to one million real quick. I wouldn't even notice it happened. Whereas now I'm with so much control of myself and I do believe that comes from eating animal flesh. I do believe that comes from the spirit in which you take, you embody when you consume animal products. You're not only does it have that physical effect also has a spiritual effect on you. Whereas I know, for instance, when a person has an organ transplant, 16% of those people that have an organ transplant commit suicide. The reason why they commit suicide is because the person that they got those organs from commit suicide, they didn't do their problems. That has now transcended to that person who's now taking on those organs. 32% of those people that have organ transplant or blood transfusions take up new habits that they never had before, which would be smoking and drinking. All of a sudden it's a brand new thing that has never been to before. Then you look at it from an animal's perspective and how we consume animal flesh and the lifestyle that they've lived and what they went through before they died. Anger, depression, fear, anxiety. These are very common in a lot of people on a day to day, living their life a day to day. Now when you're consuming a lot of it, it does affect the way that you feel. And you'll notice when you come across a lot of people on a plant-based diet or even vegans, they carry a type of energy that is quite uplifting. And that energy is felt quite strong. And a lot of people that's trained with us when we run our classes, have come to our classes and been like, well, I've never even considered that. All of your guys, plant-based. Yeah. And we don't stand on top of tables. You're not preaching me. No, but the energy, the vibe that we carry is just so magnetic. It just draws people in. And you know, if you look in the world, you have, people, everyone wants to eat like a beast. So if you want to eat like a beast, you will become a beast and behave like one, right? So everyone wants to eat like a lion, everyone wants to be a lone wolf, stuff like this, okay? And they move in packs or they move alone. And then you have herbivores, which move as a unit. They move as a community, you know? And it's that family vibe that we all carried. Now, yeah, you can eat like a beast, but these beasts still consume these herbivores and they still eat the stomach of these herbivores because they predigested the grasses in which they've been consuming, which allows these beasts to now consume those to help flush their system or flush their digestive tract. And this is the reason why when lions, when avocornivores are in a zoo, they end up with colon cancer because they've fed a lot of meat and they're not fed predigested grasses. Interesting. We need to balance this stuff. Yeah. I mean, even the lions, I mean, it's nice to have a bit of a balance, but for you specifically, you feel just like more energetic, karma, less aggressive. Stress, I handle my stress really easy. I don't deal with anxiety like I used to. And that was just something that, and then my wife has the same issues the same. And then of course, we're gonna raise our daughter the same way, but for her it's about guidance. It's about being open and truthful about everything. And we do a lot of research into everything. We do, we use ourselves as case studies. I work with a lot of people and using their case study to just, to reassure what it is that I'm feeling and what, and what it is that I've learned is actually the truth in which I've found. Yeah. And yeah, so we're just breaking the mold. And of course, who knows what may happen when she's older, she's like, oh, I wanna try this, that's all up to you. But for me, I feel like once we removed the animal products from our house, it made a huge difference in the fact that we didn't need to use all of these bleaches and detergents on our kitchen surfaces anymore because we didn't have any more flesh on them. Yeah, that's interesting. We didn't need to use deodorant like we use this because our body wasn't expelling all of this toxic waste of putrid rotten flesh inside of our bodies. And the more that you treat your body like the garden of Eden rather than a pet cemetery, the better you smell. And then you realise all of these, all of these cosmetic products are all designed to basically aid you in the lifestyle that you're already doing. Whereas if you eat bad, and of course you're gonna need these deodorants, these type of sprays, you need these type of body washes. Yeah, love it, I love it. Mate, what a great place to end. How can people find you? You can find me on Instagram, I think that's the only Instagram in YouTube. You've got a YouTube channel as well. YouTube channel is called Breakfresh. Breakfresh? Yeah, okay, cool. And on Instagram, it is atcoopdc. Atcoop underscore DC. Atcoop underscore DC. So that's C-O-U-P-E. Finderscore. And if all else fails, they can find you on the bars. Always find you in the bars. Yeah. Rain or shine. That's exactly it. Amazing. Thank you very much for coming in. You're welcome. Hey, folks, thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe in all the usual places.