EFR 818: What to Look for in Collagen Supplements and How Collagen Can Improve Hair & Skin Health, Improve Recovery, Reverse GERD & More with Sean Lake

00:00 - Chase (Host) The following is an Operation Podcast production. And then, once you hit 30, men and women production starts to dwindle in your mid to late 20s and then by your 30s, everyone you start losing 1% of your collagen each year after 30. And for all the women out there women lose 50% of their collagen by age 30.

00:20 - Sean (Guest) Oh, I mean, it's just make good choices and, you know like, try and prioritize your recovery. There's a lot of contributing factors to recovery. Collagen is one of them. It's not just, you know, hey, join health. There's so much more layers to it and I can tell you, hey, man, I was crossfitting, mountain biking, surfing, snowboarding, doing all the things as much as I could, as often as I could, but I knew I was slowing down. I could feel it. You know. You see these data points in your own body, like, yeah, you can read a clinical study, but to truly physically feel change is where the impact happens. That's where you go from. I'm trying something to. This is going to become a lifestyle. This is going to become a part of my daily routine.

00:59 Collagen changes your aging process over time. The quest became how do we have undisputably the best collagen on the planet? Like, that was my goal, and I mean Glenn was my brother. So when he died, there wasn't a choice of like. Okay, he's just another fallen soldier, he's just another fallen American and we're going to let his memory fade. His family, his friends, we all felt this need to keep Glenn's memory alive. We wanted him to have a seat at the table. This brand was a way to do that. The foundation, the Glenn Doherty Memorial Foundation, was a way to do that. Hi, this is Sean Lake, co-founder of Bubz Naturals, and you are listening to Ever Forward Radio.

01:50 - Chase (Host) Hey, welcome back everybody. This is Ever Forward Radio. I am your host, chase Yuning. If you're new to the show, welcome If you're coming back again. Man, thank you so, so much.

02:00 It means the world to me that you have chosen to follow, to subscribe to Ever Forward Radio, because there are quite literally millions and millions and millions of other podcasts out there, and especially in the world of health and wellness, you got a lot of options. So it means the world to me that you are here today and my esteemed guest, my repeat guest, actually the homie Sean Lake from the one and only Bubz Naturals, the biggest through line we're going to be talking about in this episode are the ways that we can, and dare I even say, should, take care of ourselves and integrate small, sustainable, consistent, healthy habits, regardless of our individual health and wellness goals, but things that we could stay adherent to. But sometimes it's more than that. Sometimes it takes those foundational items, but then we need to look to get a little help. We need to look to other things in our nutrition or maybe even key supplementation, because, especially as we age, our body's innate ability to keep up with our standards, our quality of life, our activity levels, our appearance, our feelings, look, we all age. We got biology working against us and sometimes we need to give it a little help. And for me and for Sean, now in his early fifties, one of the ways that we have gotten immense help in terms of hair, skin, nails, gut health, mobility, flexibility, recovery, you name it Collagen in our diet has been a game changer.

03:30 So if, after this episode, you feel more educated, more informed, more empowered to look at maybe supplementing your healthy lifestyle with collagen, I would love to give you my trusted resource. And in fact, sean is not only an amazing guest and a friend of the show, but Bubz Naturals has sponsored this episode entirely and they want to pass an incredible deal on to you. So if consuming exogenous collagen corn-free, gmo-free, nut-free, soy-free, gluten-free collagen supplement is of interest to you, well, you can actually save 20% when you head to bubsnaturalscom and use checkout code ever forward. Bub's unflavored collagen peptides is daily support for joints, hair, skin nails and so much more. It is hydrolyzed, grass-fed, pasture-raised peptides and you get 20 grams of collagen per serving. You can put it in water, you can add it to your coffee there's no wrong way to do it. I've got it linked for you down in the show notes, as always. Another thing that I love about Sean and what they do over the team at Bubz Naturals is they give back to the community in a big, big way. 10% of all sales, right off the top, go to the Glenn Doherty Foundation. This is a very incredible and impactful nonprofit that helps transitioning service members, particularly special forces members, from military service active duty back out into the civilian workforce again. So do it for yourself, do it for our brothers and sisters in arms and save some money at the same time.

04:54 So, without further ado, I'm going to welcome Sean back to the show. If you want to check out his first episode, again linked for you in the show notes, go back to episode 185 for the full backstory. And then also, I referenced another episode, kind of diving more into the clinical aspects of collagen with the one and only America's holistic plastic surgeon, dr Anthony Yoon, episode 768. That's linked for you in the show notes as well, for more of that medical explanation of the collagen benefits. So here's me and Sean chopping it up once again. Five years, I think. Almost exactly, almost five years, almost exactly. So, if you don't know, sean was on the show years ago, actually with his co-founder TJ, and that was back in 185. And for reference, yesterday we dropped episode 808.

05:41 - Sean (Guest) Whoa yeah, so that's five years. Yeah, almost six.

05:44 - Chase (Host) So if you want to go check out the backstory of Sean a lot of great information. We kind of went a little bit more in history and the business side you guys were a little bit more of a startup, you know, really kind of getting your feet wet in a big way back then. So go check out episode 185. I'll link it for you down in the show notes and we're going to be diving into a few different things, but primarily it's all. The through line here is collagen and I think since our last conversation we have so much more clinical evidence, so much more awareness, societal awareness and personal experience. I think in the last five years, if you're in the health and wellness space and you try to take care of yourself at all, you most likely have heard about and or tried collagen.

06:26 - Sean (Guest) Yeah, I mean at this point, if you haven't heard about it, it's not that you're living under a rock, because it's still on the newer side of understanding what collagen is a protein like, what does it do for the human body, and like there's still a lot of misunderstandings around it. But yeah, you know, over the course of these five plus years, you know I'm a human experiment in this. I was in my forties then I'm 53 now and if not, you look the same, I, you look the same.

06:51 I think I've seen you like twice since then.

06:54 - Chase (Host) Dude, you're killing it. You look great. I appreciate that. Well, I mean that's.

06:58 - Sean (Guest) I'd like to say it's all clean living. All clean living, no, I mean, it's just make good choices and you know like, try and prioritize your recovery, which is a big topic that folks have. Well, there's a lot of contributing factors to recovery. Collagen is one of them. It's not just, you know, hey, joint health. There's so much more layers to it, and I mean any good diet, exercise, just wellness regimen that again, your audience is listening to, they're paying attention to. There's a lot of good lifestyle choices to make out there.

07:29 - Chase (Host) A lot of good lifestyle choices to be made and a lot of new evidence to be found. You know I also had in episode 768, america's holistic plastic surgeon, dr Anthony Yunon, and we're talking about a lot of unique things for skin health both inside and out, and I've never heard an MD really talk at that level and at that excitement about collagen. So if you guys want to learn more about, you know, kind of the inside out literally of collagen from a really renowned doctor, go check out episode 768 with Dr Anthony Yoon. But in researching for this episode and kind of diving into what else is out there, what else has been happening in the world of collagen, I actually found this great article and all this stuff is going to be linked for you guys down in the show notes, so I'm not just pulling stuff out of thin air. This is from you. Ever heard of Harvard University?

08:19 - Sean (Guest) I used to skateboard outside of it, you did.

08:22 - Chase (Host) Yeah, from Boston Harvard Square man.

08:24 - Sean (Guest) That was the old stomping grounds.

08:26 - Chase (Host) All right. So I found this pretty cool stat from this article from the School of Public Health at Harvard University, and they state our bodies gradually make less collagen as we age, but collagen production drops most quickly due to and this was what really was so surprising to me excess sun exposure, smoking, excess alcohol and lack of sleep and exercise. With aging, collagen in the deep skin layers changes from a tightly organized network of fibers to an unorganized maze. Environmental exposures can damage collagen fibers, reducing their thickness and strength, leading to wrinkles on the skin surface. So that's coming from Harvard and this is stuff that you have been talking about for years.

09:11 - Sean (Guest) The level of science overall has increased so much. Like I love telling folks like, oh, if you're not familiar with collagen, just go to WebMD. Like go to one of the most tier one websites that you can go to for general medical information and then, from there, look at all the studies that are linked, and then you can just, you know, go down the rabbit hole as much as you want to and find all the supportive data. Because I can tell you that I discovered collagen when I was 45 years old. I can tell you, hey, man, I was crossfitting, mountain biking, surfing, snowboarding, doing all the things as much as I could, as often as I could, but I knew I was slowing down. I could feel it. I knew my recovery times were slower and my wife knew it. She was watching me seeing, like, hmm, he's getting out of bed a little slower, he's just a little bit more aches and pains. And it was her suggestion to try collagen. And this is in 2017. And I was like what and we talked about this before Like it was such a you know, such a funny note for me to be, like I'm going to take collagen, this thing that porn stars inject in their lips. And she's like no, you Neanderthal, it's a powder and you put it in your coffee and it's going to help you with your joints, because you sound like crinkled up newspaper when you walk up a flight of stairs and I'm like good point, you see these data points in your own body, like yeah, you can read a clinical study, but to truly physically feel change is where the impact happens. That's where you go from. I'm trying something to. This is going to become a lifestyle. This is going to become a part of my daily routine. And it took a while.

10:45 Collagen doesn't change your life overnight. Collagen changes your aging process over time. So I took it every day and after a couple of weeks fingernails are growing like crazy. A couple more weeks I needed a haircut. A couple more weeks. Now I'm like almost at the two-month mark. My knees don't hurt as much. So here I am going back squatting. Things don't hurt. I go for a run. My recovery feels better. Three months in Now I'm like really curious. I feel better. I just feel like I've got, overall, more energy. Well, that's probably linked to the recovery. Well, what's in this recovery thing? Like? That's such a vague term. Oh well, there's four grams of glycine in a good quality collagen and that's linked to good sleep patterns.

11:34 - Chase (Host) That's an amino acid correct.

11:35 - Sean (Guest) That's an amino acid. Glycine's an amino acid.

11:37 - Chase (Host) Which is the end product of all protein, which we all need.

11:44 - Sean (Guest) It's all essential. We need it in our diet and or we produce some of them. You got it. So I just started rabbit holding and I was just really curious about it, like man, what's like? What are these other amino acids? Why do my nails feel so much stronger? And what you find is like you know again. I'll go back to glycine. Glycine produces synovial fluid, so synovial fluid lubricates your knees, your joints, your elbows, so, like everything that I had these aches and pains with just started to feel a little bit better. Well, here we are eight years later. I'm now 53 years old and I'm doing the same exercise times that I was in my mid forties. I'm doing the same weights, the same like everything's kind of held.

12:20 - Chase (Host) Didn't you just did you set a record for your age group in a Sean's also a former pro snowboarder? Right yeah, didn't you just did you set a record for your age group in a Sean's also a former pro snowboarder.

12:25 - Sean (Guest) right yeah, Didn't you just set some kind?

12:27 - Chase (Host) of new master's record or something.

12:29 - Sean (Guest) I won a snowboard contest for my age division, the old guy's division, which was like 50 plus. I'm a master. Now what can I say?

12:38 - Chase (Host) So he's still out there shredding the gnar in his 50s and like I watched the videos, man.

12:46 - Sean (Guest) You are flying and you're fluid, I'm having fun with it and like that's the thing I want to keep active. I don't want to slow down, like I want to hop on a mountain bike and go rally up and then rally down. I want to hop on a snowboard and if it snows two feet and I'm at Brighton and I'm at snowboard, I'm at like some epic resort. I don't want to be the guy who's got to take a break after two runs Cause like I'm not in shape or my body hurts, like I want to take care of myself so I can maximize those experiences. I mean same thing with my wife Like she's a great runner, I want to hang out with her. I want to go run with her. Same thing with my kids. I've got a six and an eight year old and they are nonstop energy. So on one level, I have a very selfish interest in preserving myself so that I can go out and throw myself around a resort and go snowboard at a high level. On another level, I have a commitment to my family to be the best that I can be and bring that energy into their lives and just be there for them.

13:42 And this one product I mean keep in mind, I never changed my diet. I've been on this kind of Mediterranean style diet, just protein, vegetable. So like if you say, like, discover electrolytes. And you've never taken an electrolyte in your life and you've always been like, oh, sodium is the devil. And then you suddenly go in and realize that I've been bonking in all these workouts because I started taking a quality electrolyte and I'm just powering through these different exercises it could be running a five-mile run, it could be big CrossFit exercise, it could be hiking a mountain, whatever your thing is like oh, I don't cramp anymore.

14:19 I wonder why this is science, why this is science. Like there's no disputing the link between chloride, sodium you know a good sugar to rapidly absorb it in liquids and like getting your cells to like activate and keep moving and not seize up on you. So those discoveries are like, oh, I can make an incremental change. Collagen is an incremental change to my diet. Like I knew I wasn't getting enough collagen in my diet. And like I will never forget a conversation I had with Thomas DeLauer, who's just the best person to take great, great science that is way above my pay grade and dumb it down for a Neanderthal like myself. Well, if you could just eat two to three pounds of ground beef every day, you'd get all the collagen you ever need. And I'm like that is awesome. How many people are going to, seven days a week, ingest a couple of pounds of ground beef to get all that cartilage and sinew and tissue into the body to absorb those amino acids?

15:20 - Chase (Host) Or drink God knows how many ounces of bone broth or something. You got it.

15:25 - Sean (Guest) So then the idea is well, if I can supplement with it, then on those days I'm not getting that, I'm still getting the collagen. So link it back to that Harvard study. You stop producing collagen in your 20s, right? You just kind of fall off a cliff. Your body in your teenage years is cranking collagen. It's just producing all the collagen you need, and then in your 20s is when things start to slow down. So the idea is that by exogenously taking it, by supplementing with it, you're endogenously teaching your body to keep kicking in its own collagen production. You're like kind of like tricking, it's like giving a little cheat code, like, hey, you're not making enough of this on your own, but if I dump a bunch into your coffee or I dump a bunch into a smoothie or rice or bake a cookie, because it's heat tolerant, it's unflavored, you're going to add all of those essential amino acids in the right sequence back into your body and it is going to go to work on all of your connective tissue.

16:25 - Chase (Host) One of the many unique things about collagen is that by taking it exogenously excuse me, by upping the amount in your whole food diet or taking a supplement it's one of the unique things that when we do that, the body does not stop producing or doesn't shut down or slow endogenously A lot of things. When we take supplements, you know, like hormone therapy, testosterone or even other key vitamins, minerals, nutrients, unless they're essential. When you take them from an external source, the body's like, okay, cool, we can downregulate. A lot of people do this with melatonin. You know they're trying to fix their sleep and when you do that, the body can even get to a point to where it won't even produce it at all, or really in measurable levels, and then you're dependent and then your sleep's even more screwed. Not with collagen.

17:06 - Sean (Guest) No, it's actually neat because you take it and it's like telling your body no, no, you got to make more. So it's when you take it away, then your body goes right back to where it was in nature. Oh, I'm going to slow back down. I'm in my forties, I'm in my thirties, I'm in my fifties. Like, pick your age range. If you're North and you've got a college degree, chances are you're on that downward slope and that's a cautionary tale for anyone alive aging. Like you know, I made a joke with you when I first walked in the door. I'm like yeah, man, you just need a pulse and you probably should be considering this.

17:36 - Chase (Host) But the ages are really important and I was looking up just refreshing myself on the stats and age groups and you know, you're saying you know, in your twenties with collagen it definitely it begins to decline a little bit, especially if you're not training, if you're not recovering, if you're not sleeping, like that Harvard study was saying it will get less and less by not having healthy lifestyle behaviors. And then, once you hit 30, men and women production starts to dwindle in your mid to late twenties and then by your thirties, in your mid to late 20s and then by your 30s. Everyone you start losing 1% of your collagen each year after 30. And for all the women out there, this super, even more amazing fun fact women lose 50% of their collagen by age 30.

18:17 - Sean (Guest) That's an absolute eye opener. And to me, the health journey doesn't know a gender Right, right, but that statistic you just gave just reinforces the importance of collagen in the female diet especially. I mean really both sides. Like men, you feel it through activity, like we're guys, like we want to run around, chop wood, I want to ride a bike, I want to do things that starts to slow down, man, that can kill your mojo. No, we want to keep that thing going.

18:43 And then for women, yeah, there's some cosmetic benefits that they're looking at, like we want to keep that thing going. And then for women, yeah, there's some cosmetic benefits that they're looking at Like oh, my hair, skin, nails, I want to feel youthful, and I watched that with my wife. She's on television, she's a newscaster, so appearances are super important. She's also a runner, she also wants to kick ass in the gym, so it's the whole package. And knowing that women are you know, honestly it's not even fair disproportionately affected by the cycles of collagen production, it's all the more reason to take that very, very seriously. And if you live, let's say, just an overall 80-20 rule of 80% of your health choices are really solid and 20% of your pizza nights and cheat rules. That's a goal that most people can get with, like, okay, I can eat good.

19:27 - Chase (Host) You know three out of four meals or four out of five, the quality of life you can have by just going by that 80-20. It's unbelievable, so good.

19:36 - Sean (Guest) Yeah, like, hey, I'm going to try and sleep at least seven hours, like, at least seven hours. Like what do I need to do to establish that? Then I'm going to go to the gym, or I'm going to go for a walk, or I'm going to put on a backpack with some weight and just go ruck. Whatever your thing is, you can do those things a couple of days a week and make these incremental changes. Same thing with diet. If you can just look and focus on the quality of the foods you're eating, like just really dial in on a whole food based diet and look at those processed foods as, like I don't really need that. So, yeah, you're going to bake cookies once in a while. Well, maybe I'll throw a little collagen in those cookies so I can just plus it up a little bit.

20:17 Yeah, we're going to make some rice. Well, rice I consider to be a whole food. Like I'm good with some grains, you know, to get your body satiated, along with a good protein source, along with, you know, whatever your vegetable intake is. And hey, look at you. Just, you just rounded the bases there. Man, like that, that's a good, solid choice.

20:35 - Chase (Host) Hey, what's up guys? Quick break from my conversation with Sean is he just not the best, not only continuing a friend's legacy and helping right a wrong, but I love it when he took action. I love it when he created Bubz Naturals, these grass-fed collagen peptide protein packs you can get on the go, you can get in tubs for at home. I have been using this product for four, if not five, years now because it's working, it's safe, it's effective. It's the most tasteless, easy to mix protein powder I have ever tried. When it comes to collagen, hydrolyzed, grass-fed and pasture-raised collagen peptides Great for gut health, skin health, hair and nails, not to mention. It's just a really easy way to get that little bit of extra protein in throughout the day. I can add it to water, add it to my coffee. I keep these packets with me in my backpack when I'm on the go. We've got a great deal for you 20% off. Just got to check the show notes, the video description box below bubsnaturalscom. That's B-U-B-S-N-A-T-U-R-A-L-Scom. Throw down code EVERFORWARD at checkout. You're going to get 20% off.

21:39 All right, let's jump back into the episode. There are some pretty even more alarming kind of things going on around how we can use collagen to support chronic illness, disease and even most recently, some really interesting stats around COVID-19. There are people dealing with osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis. So this isn't just the weekend warrior or the active mom or dad that's trying to just get out of bed, make it a few days to the gym, play with the kids. You know your kind of story people actually suffering, people actually in pain, severe inflammation, talking about loss and quality of life, and so this is actually coming from. I'm going to. I'm going to. This is from NIH. This was a review of the effects of collagen treatment in clinical studies.

22:21 - Sean (Guest) National Institute of Health Like this is a major national organization, dr the.

22:25 - Chase (Host) National Institute of Health. This is a major national organization, so we're talking Harvard, nih. Okay, a lot's changed since 2018, my man. So they talk about how quote collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body that has many multifunctions. The loss or defect of collagen can cause skin aging and other diseases. The college's treatments have demonstrated effective improvements in skin hydration, skin elasticity, medical scaffold treatment. So my understanding real high level here is they actually use different forms of collagen in mesh, especially when going in for significant skin tissue repair burn victims.

22:59 - Sean (Guest) Burn victims like major surgery, stuff like that, Like collagen is known. It's kind of in this like almost a wet gel form on these little pads that it can be placed on sites of injury.

23:10 - Chase (Host) So in addition, the collagen excuse me, skin elasticity, medical scaffold treatment, gerd, gastroesophageal reflux disease which is just really, really, really bad chronic heartburn, oa, osteoarthritis and RA rheumatoid arthritis and many clinical studies. In addition, the collagen treatment for GERD in COVID-19 patients is also discussed in this study. Collagen therapy can reach good improvement and does not cause any serious adverse reactions. So they went through this treatment of supplementing with collagen in COVID-19 patients also suffering from GERD and you know we also hear another tagline with a lot of collagen benefits is gut health.

23:51 A retrospective study of 95 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 showed that the patients with laryngeal laryngeal pharyngeal reflux disease, lprd that's, a tongue twister were correlated with poor clinical outcomes.

24:07 They also concluded that COVID-19 could impair the upper esophageal sphincter and aggravate reflux. According to these studies, it concluded that GERD could cause poor outcomes of COVID-19 and commonly used GERD drug PPI. So, although there are some other drugs for GERD, collagen has been shown to have a good effect in treating GERD drug PPI. So, although there are some other drugs for GERD, collagen has been shown to have a good effect in treating GERD. In addition, collagen supplements appear to be safe and have fewer side effects than other GERD drugs. As a result, collagen supplements could be a very good choice to be used in COVID-19 patients with GERD, and this is just another testament to the power of collagen not suppressing endogenous production of normal bodily functions A common problem and I've been there years of a sufferer with GERD. Once you get on PPIs, you start taking a lot of these acid reflux type products, your body will begin to lower its natural production of certain bile and acids which Defense mechanisms Exactly?

25:05 - Sean (Guest) yeah, Push through all that.

25:06 - Chase (Host) So you're which you would think is a good thing, if you're suffering from too much, which is what's going on with GERD and you know kind of burning and aggravating you know the esophagus. But too little of that means you're not properly metabolizing, digesting food, you're not getting as much bioavailability out of all the nutrients. So you're solving one problem but creating another. Not with collagen.

25:27 - Sean (Guest) Yeah, and that's again. This is the neatest part, like I've, I always joke with folks about like well, like what were the different stages of benefits you felt, because, like I'm the biggest evangelist of collagen, right, I'm like, hey, I've got a brand, we launched this, we had a purpose. Like we, we've got this energy behind what we do. But I always tell people like, hey, man, if you're just going to Costco and you see a brand, like that's better than not doing anything. So I always take, you know, the same journey I've already told you about.

25:53 Like oh my nails, my hair, like, oh my God, my joints feel great the kicker for me.

26:08 - Chase (Host) I mean I joke about it, but it's like I started taking the best shits of my life and I was like huh, that's funny, cause like I didn't have a good history of meaning, like the ease was was better, or like you were going more frequently, or super graphic, Like I was always pretty regular but they'd be messy, Like it would just be messy and like I was like.

26:19 - Sean (Guest) I was like, oh, like, like, why aren't my poos?

26:22 - Chase (Host) It was poor digestion.

26:24 - Sean (Guest) And I knew that I had this kind of gurgly belly digesting foods and I'd done some allergen tests and I eat largely this kind of Mediterranean paleo-based diet. I don't put a lot of inflammatory foods into my diet. I've done elimination diets. Something just wasn't clicking. And then every once in a while, I'd have these moments where, like I would take just a phenomenal poop and I'm like, oh man, I feel pretty good about that. And this goes back to Glenn. Like when Glenn, who was Bub, was alive, he would always have a jar of Metamucil on the counter and he'd be like dude, can't get enough fiber.

26:59 - Chase (Host) Like every once in a while.

27:00 - Sean (Guest) You need that. And I'll remember, like trying Metamucil, like in my 30s, and being like what's this? Shake it up, drink a glass and taking like the perfect poop. And I remember being like man, I don't even need toilet paper, that thing was just whoop, I'm good. That's the best telltale sign. Yeah, yeah, After taking collagen, you know, and Glenn had a joke for it. He used to call taking the best poop, he called it the ghost wipe.

27:26 He'd be like oh yeah, man, you get on the toilet. He's like are you willing to just walk away? And for me, the ultimate sign that collagen was doing so much more for my body and this is knowing about the gut-brain connection and like what a healthy gut can do for you was when that pattern of just having messy, ugly, gurgly stomach poos for years and years and years we're talking like from my thirties all the way through, you know, maybe four or five months in on my collagen journey, that just changed. It was a shift.

27:59 - Chase (Host) And did that take the same amount of time you know, kind of several weeks to notice like the aches and joints and pains and stuff you're talking about? No, it took longer for me.

28:07 - Sean (Guest) I've had people tell me that their knees stopped hurting after three weeks and I'm like lucky, you took me two months. And I think everyone absorbs differently. Everyone's collagen levels are different in everyone's life circumstances diet there's so many variables that can affect it.

28:22 - Chase (Host) Not everybody's. You know shredding the mountains, you know days on end, years on end. So I mean you probably had a little bit more wear and tear, which makes sense to have a little bit. You know, higher saturation point need.

28:32 - Sean (Guest) Yeah, I mean the wear and tear of. Like you know, I snowboarded through my entire twenties, knocked out my college degree, picked up surfing and mountain biking to move to the coast of California to supplement, where I wasn't throwing myself off the mountains I was like, well, I'll just do it this way. So I've always had impact sports. And then discovering CrossFit in 2008,. And here we are, 17, 18 years later, and I still go to my box religiously and still go after those. Those are high-impact workouts.

28:59 So for me I wouldn't do it any other way, I just don't want to slow down doing it. But back to the benefit side. It really went, you know, nails first, then hair, yeah sure skin along the way, and then joints. And then it was really like a couple months later when I was like, huh, man, I'm taking some pretty good poops, and like, hey, man, that's life, like you notice, because you go to the bathroom every day. I've always been regular, but the poops got better, and then it got better, and then I'm just like man, like I'm barely wiping, like just a little courtesy gesture there.

29:33 - Chase (Host) And we're talking about. It supports gut health and collagen we talked about earlier, you know, kind of supporting repair tissue, especially in burn victims and just you know any kind of issues with skin. It. I'm thinking about what it's doing on the inside, that that smooth mucosa lining, that stomach lining. You're probably helping any kind of leaky gut situation or any kind of just gastrointestinal issues where you're not getting that maximum absorption If your stomach lining is not as strong and resilient as it should be. I mean, collagen works in all skin types. It does its thing wherever it's needed, so it definitely helps from the inside out.

30:09 - Sean (Guest) I had a conversation with Dr Gabrielle Lyon, who's just a phenomenal human and knows more about protein than I will ever, ever know, and I remember her talking to me about the gut health elements of collagen and she kind of equated it to like, hey, you've got all this healthy gut bacteria right, but you're beating them up every day with your food choices and they're getting pounded on.

30:29 Collagen is like putting a roof over their heads so they can weather the storm, so they can still do their job, because you're just giving them that extra layer of protection. And that always stood out to me because again, not as someone who has that PhD background I live through my personal experience. I live through how I feel and the different adjustments in my lifestyle that I make to optimize change. Like, hey, if something hurts, don't do it, stove hot, avoid. And if you can make something better good, lean into that. And collagen is just one of those things in a multitude of ways that can just make your life a little bit better. And when you mentioned that GERD study like that was new to me makes perfect sense when you talk about osteoarthritis, and I think I go right back to glycine, producing synovial fluid, creating a little bit of relief in the joints, in the tendons, like in these parts of the body that are desperately in need of that relief. It makes perfect sense.

31:30 - Chase (Host) Let's talk a little bit about why maybe some potential reasons why we are not getting adequate levels of collagen naturally from our lifestyle, from our diet. We mentioned how it comes from. Well, did we? It comes from animals.

31:45 - Sean (Guest) Yeah.

31:45 - Chase (Host) So the American diet has changed dramatically year after year after year and I feel like the argument can be made. It's gotten way worse. Maybe for the vast majority of people we just have so much more access and ease um socioeconomic status. You know, due to a lot of reasons we need quick food and it's not whole food and it's not. We're not getting all the amazing benefits like we used to from whole foods, particularly should you choose to eat animal proteins, especially if they're not. You know, wild caught, regeneratively farmed pasture raised, you know, free range grass fed, all this stuff. We need the most quality start in order for us to get the most quality end product and I think people everyone here listening and watching would agree. It's becoming more and more difficult and definitely more costly to make that happen.

32:37 - Sean (Guest) A hundred percent. Well, if you think, go back, we can't because we're alive now. But if you go back a hundred years, 150 years, which isn't that long ago.

32:46 - Chase (Host) It's not that long ago. 100 years ago is not that long ago.

32:48 - Sean (Guest) So the Industrial Revolution is happening and people are not eating what they used to eat, right Like, the idea of preserving foods just changed the landscape of how we feed and population explosions. And when you look at the more agrarian, you know hunter-gatherer lifestyles. If you kill an animal, you are eating that animal tip to tail. You are not letting any part of that animal go to waste.

33:16 - Chase (Host) Now, things in the animal— You're eating it, you're wearing it, you're using it, you're using it for tool. I mean everything, yeah.

33:19 - Sean (Guest) You got it. So like literally, when I look at a cow and I think, okay, cow goes to slaughter, you know, you've got sweetbreads, like these glands around the brain, like that's a delicious food, but like how many people are pursuing that as an option? I didn't even know it was a thing. Oh yeah, sweetbreads, Sweetbreads. Check them out, man. Yeah, when you look at the hoofs, hoofs are used like that's the glue, Like hoofs get chopped up, that's glue. Like when you're thinking you're Elmer's glue, there's a little bit of cow in there, depending on the brand or whatever.

33:49 And when you think of a hide, you think of the leather and like the shoes and like the things that we wear. And the neat thing is the inside of that hide, right that inner fascia tissue on those inner layers of skin they're not used, they get scraped out and chucked. Cart on those inner layers of skin they're not used, they get scraped out and chucked. Cartilage largely not used. So this stuff is, up until like the last, say, 15 years, it was dumped in the corner and it's just not used. Right, gelatin was used and that became Jell-O.

34:20 No one should think that's a vegan product. You would be mistaken to think of the origins of the Jell-O brand. That was very much attached to the cattle industry. So there were these attempts over generations to manipulate what was coming from nature and change how we viewed it. So, oh, add a bunch of sugar and food coloring and you've got gelatin. Well, gelatin in itself is really good for the body and it has those same amino acids that you're going to find, like in our collagen, but just, you know, from a different source and with a bunch of stuff added to it.

34:51 The idea is that over time, we weren't scraping that tissue and using it, we were throwing it away. We weren't like cooking the bone marrow and like extracting that bones. We just, you know, we chucked them or they became dog food. Or, you know, like we went to the middle of the animal and just the meats, like, oh, it's so soft and chewy. And like we're not using our teeth the way we were originally intended to. You look at the tail of a cow. There's so much nutrient rich meats If you can just eat around those cartilage areas on the tail count oxtail is amazing, but we got away from that.

35:25 And if you go to a nice restaurant, you can experience it. But going to the store, making that a part of your food preparation cycle, as a society, we've gotten away from it. Like, oh, boneless chicken, why do I want to deal with that bone? Well, there's a ton of nutrients in that bone and eating off the bone does a lot for your teeth. It's healthy for your teeth, Like it's healthy for your teeth, and we're not doing that anymore. So we've made this monumental shift away from eating parts of the animal that are incredibly rich in collagen and because we're not ingesting them, naturally we're depleting. We're aging differently, like we're living longer because of medicine and like advancements in science, but at what quality of life?

36:06 At what quality? Because you're losing your ability to function at a high level that we naturally had in our diets, and like that's when the human body really needed to survive. Like if you were a hunter a couple hundred years ago. Like, hey man, you don't hunt, you don't live, you don't. You know, you don't get that kill, you're done. Now it's like I got to drive to whole foods.

36:30 - Chase (Host) I think I can make it. It's a different world that we live in and that is like uh Instacart's 15 minutes away. I'm going to starve.

36:35 - Sean (Guest) I mean.

36:36 - Chase (Host) I've been there. I've been there, but we're just we're to your point. We're so far detached from how we used to get by, beyond just access and ease we're talking about. We're missing a lot of key things that got us here and a lot of key things that are, if we don't incorporate them now, are not going to get us there.

36:56 - Sean (Guest) No, and so I'm not going to propose that everyone starts a chicken coop and starts homesteading. That's a personal journey. I don't do that. I've got a garden. I grow my own kale, my lettuces. I love tomatoes, despite the fact there's a lot of controversy around eating the tomatoes, they are delicious. What's?

37:12 - Chase (Host) going on with tomatoes.

37:14 - Sean (Guest) They can be inflammatory, so it can be considered one of those-.

37:16 - Chase (Host) Oh, come on. One of those ones going to work against you Considered a nightshade. Actually, a lot of people do have allergy inflammation issues with nightshades, but don't take away my tomatoes.

37:26 - Sean (Guest) Come on, that's it 80-20 rule, right, yeah, so the idea is that, like, control what you can control. And then, hey, man, if you know that, like I have a job where I travel 50 days a year, a hundred days a year, like that's a big chunk of your diet Make sensible choices while you eat Supplement with collagen, you know, like I've got brain fog. I don't. You know, there's different things I'm not getting into my diet. Cool, have you ever explored healthy fats? You know, like, check out MCTs and what they can do for the body. Look at the combo.

37:55 Do you drink a lot of coffee? Do you want to maybe drink less coffee Because you're sucking on energy? Like, what are the different things you can do? Like there's so many little hacks from nature that we can leverage, and I always joke about it. I'm like, hey, man, we make products from cows and coconuts. That's our world, like that's what Bubz does, because the simplicity of what the coconut offers and what the cow offers just reap so many benefits when it comes to mental focus, when it comes to your energy, when it comes to your recovery, the body's repair and longevity. I mean, dude, I'm 53. I want to sit here with you in 10 years and feel the same, bring hopefully some good energy and still go snowboarding and, you know, maybe knock out a podium or two, I don't know.

38:39 - Chase (Host) And one of the easiest ways I found and I've heard you talk about this quite a bit and it's so simple. I think a lot of us are in love with our rotisserie chicken. You do any kind of like chicken at home and you know this kind of opens up a lot of other doors around. Food waste, um, economic waste, and, you know, trash I mean so many other things we, we, we can not waste that we can actually use it. We can do the rotisserie chicken, peel it all off, boil it in some water, easy, a few hours, and then you've got your homemade collagen, homemade bone broth and you're set for collagen.

39:10 - Sean (Guest) Some easy ways to do this, literally a splash of apple cider, vinegar, white wine, like whatever you have available, that will help pull that tissue and those nutrients out of the bone. Boil it overnight in a crock pot. You know, like just low, simmer, easy. You are going to wake up to the most amazing bone broth. Yeah, and it's like cool, drain out those bones. You've extracted everything that you can get out of them and, cool, you had a great dinner.

39:36 You ate all these different meats off the bone and you took everything that was left over that you would normally just throw in the trash and you just boil it overnight and you're like it's so good and then you've got a base. You could drink it on its own, you could use it as a soup, you can freeze it Like these are super easy solutions that don't. From a time standpoint they just don't take much, because peeling all the meat off that bone can be a little bit of a pain in the ass. But if you just are like, oh, I don't want to make a chicken soup, I just want to make bone broth, cool, throw it in there, go run it through a little. You know, a little sieve on the back end.

40:12 It's going to strain out a lot of that extra debris and you've got just clean, rocking collagen right there, ready to go.

40:20 - Chase (Host) I've done that quite a few times. It's incredible. I'll do the same thing with you. Know, fish I don't always, I don't every day take an omega-3 or a fatty acid. You know, lately I have been just dialing some things in more with my sleep health and so I take a C-15 supplement in the evening, but I will maybe not take it if I've had a lot of salmon or a lot of fish. You know if I'm getting that naturally. So the keyword here is supplement people. Be aware of what you're doing, what you're not doing, what you're eating, what you're not eating, and then just be mindful of okay, what am I lacking and where can I get it?

40:51 - Sean (Guest) Yeah, I mean, that's the name of the game is being aware, like if you're paying attention to this, or you're curious like, hey, I'm not going to get any younger, that's a fact. I want to live well longer, great life goal. What can I do? What questions can I ask? What kind of curiosity can I bring to the table? And then, what are the solutions available? Because there's a lot of noise out there and I'm all about simplicity, like I want the simple things. So when I say, hey, man, coconuts yield great energy, mental clarity, mcts, medium chain triglycerides Like that sounds fancy, but it's really just coconut oil.

41:28 - Chase (Host) It's coconut oil and it's broken into a really simple medium chain triglyceride.

41:32 - Sean (Guest) It's a smaller chain fatty acid and your brain's going to eat it for fuel, awesome. And then collagen is a set select of essential amino acids and they're all linked together and they help, you know, help basically hold your body together. It's the glue holding your body together. Anyone can get with that and be like, yeah, you know what, I could use a little glue that kind of makes sense, like I want to hold my body together and feel good, that's good, cool, there's your solution. Oh, then start asking yourself what are you doing with your diet? Could you walk more? Could you walk more? Could you get? You know everyone talks about 10,000 steps.

42:06 - Chase (Host) That's very attainable. It's got to want it. Walk me through. Let's shift a little bit into why Bubz and you know, besides the backstory again, I'll have that link for everybody. Go check out episode 185. There's an incredible backstory here. Long story short. We mentioned Glenn Doherty, bubz call sign, former Navy SEAL operator that unfortunately gave his life during the attacks in Benghazi, libya, 2012?.

42:28 - Sean (Guest) Yeah, 9-11, 2012.

42:30 - Chase (Host) Yeah, oh, 11 and a half years ago, that's right. So I mean, there's a really great cause here and you guys put it on the top of every product and you know, 10% of profits to charity, to the Glendorti Foundation to assist transitioning special operations guys and men and women into civilian life again, and for me that sends out a lot. I think anybody doing something, but also doing good, first and foremost, is huge. And then, being an Army veteran myself, I love that you guys support my veteran community. But I'm thinking you know I'm listening to this and I'm going on I'm probably going to get targeted ads on Instagram, or I'm going to Amazon, or I'm going to a grocery store or whatever, and there's just a bajillion different choices. Why bubs? What makes this different?

43:11 - Sean (Guest) Yeah. So you should always ask yourself what's in a name, right, and you, we see it. There's so many generic health brands out there that are just kicked out of a lab and look at no harm, no foul Brands. I've always been drawn to have a little bit of a sword that they've drawn. I always loved the brand Thorne. Literally, the guys wanted to be a thorn in the side of the nutraceutical industry by promoting quality and just integrity, and I was like man, that's a great DNA I can get with that. Bub was Glenn's call sign in the Navy. Glenn was a Navy SEAL. Glenn laid down his life in Benghazi, libya, saving dozens of lives. And Glenn had this giant, larger-than-life personality. He was just best friends to everyone who knew him. So, hey, start a brand in Glenn's memory around the DNA, the North Star that Glenn stood for.

44:09 Glenn stood for self-improvement. Literally, he was the guy who was going to motivate you at the gym. He was going to offer you a book to read that give you a different way of thinking. He just elevated everyone around him. Glenn was always helping others right to the very end. So we kind of took that and made that our DNA. Well, if I'm going to make a line of products that are all geared around self-improvement, making people better. I have to do that at the absolute highest level. Glenn was always helping others. That was the easy part. We'll give 10% of all profits to military charity, to charitable causes in Glenn's name. But back to that first part. If I'm going to put collagen in a jar and put Glenn's name on the jar and say hey, here we are, we're bubs. There were certain standards that I had to hit. Now, at this point I had tried a bunch of different collagens on Amazon. I'd bought in the Vital, I'd bought in the Bulletproof, I'd bought in you know, pick your poison, I'd bought them all.

45:07 - Chase (Host) I just want to say something real quick. This isn't just attaching yourself to a great guy that did amazing things for other people. You have a long standing history with Glenn Doherty. You guys are childhood friends, right? Yeah, so to be clear.

45:19 - Sean (Guest) We grew up like we met in middle school and then in high school. Glenn lived at my house. Like he you know Rebel. Glenn moved out of his house, lived at our house for a year In our 20s. We both or I'm sorry, in our late teens we both dropped out of college, moved to Snowbird, utah and become pro athletes. Like that was our dream. Yeah, so like we're like chasing this lifestyle out to Snowbird. He wanted to be a pro skier, I wanted to be a pro snowboarder. I made it as a professional snowboarder. Glenn never made it as a skier.

45:47 - Chase (Host) So he's like I'll join the SEALs.

45:48 - Sean (Guest) He's like yeah, he's literally like I want to become a Navy SEAL and I'm like what?

45:51 - Chase (Host) What a badass. Just total badass.

45:54 - Sean (Guest) And of course he's the guy who does it, and I mean a job working with Burton Snowboards. But they moved me to San Diego because I have to work with this young kid named Sean White and I'm like, oh, I'm going to be Sean White's team manager and then my best buddy is down at Coronado at SEAL Team 3. Fast forward a couple of years. We both get divorced. We're roommates again Now we're laughing.

46:29 - Chase (Host) We were roommates as teenagers in our 20s.

46:32 - Sean (Guest) Now we're both turning 40. Man, here we go again. I guess we're just meant to be, it's just meant to be, and we laughed about it. But during that time we also looked at our lives and said, ok, well, here we are in this period of transition, and I said, well, we should make our wills out to each other. And we had these wills and Glenn's like well, you get all my junk, you can manage all my debt, you're the executor of my estate and I said well, you literally did that.

46:56 - Chase (Host) We did.

46:56 - Sean (Guest) Wow, and we did it. Heather, my wife, was the witness signature and another good friend of ours, naval Officer Beth Teach, was the other witness. So Beth and Heather are the witnesses on the last will and testament and power of attorney and executive of the estate.

47:16 - Chase (Host) I was Glenn's the meaning behind everything you do is so deep. I didn't even know that part. That's incredible.

47:21 - Sean (Guest) Yeah, it's just what we did and it's how we lived. And I mean Glenn was my brother I have my brothers that I'm so fortunate to have in my life and then I had Glenn. I got this extra brother and we held each other accountable. He sharpened me up. He taught me so much about just standards to live by and like, go to him with a problem, man, he's there for you. And like how many of us have those people in our lives that are just like we'll drop everything and be like Chase, how can I help you, what's going on with you? And then they'll remember check back with you hey, man, how's that thing going that?

47:57 - Chase (Host) you were working on.

47:58 - Sean (Guest) The follow-up is everything. Oh it key. So when he died, there wasn't a choice of like okay, he's just another fallen soldier, he's just another fallen American and we're going to let his memory fade. Like his family, his friends, we all felt this need to keep Glenn's memory alive. We wanted him to have a seat at the table, so this brand was a way to do that. The foundation, the Glenn Doherty Memorial Foundation, was a way to do that. Like help others. Glenn would want that. So when I knew that, hey, we're putting Bub's name on the jar, the quest became how do we have undisputably the best collagen on the planet? Like that was my goal. Like I want healthcom to rank Bubz as the best overall collagen. I want Fortune Magazine to give us those accolades, which I can list those too, because we just received those. Thank you, sir.

48:52 - Chase (Host) Congratulations, man.

48:53 - Sean (Guest) And I love organic non-paid, like holy crap. This just happened because some editor found us bought it loved it.

49:02 It's that good. So now let's get into what's so good. Collagen has some obstacles. There's a flavor in collagen. It's ground up cowhide. I don't care how you slice it. An unflavored collagen is going to have a little bit of this, just a little scent to it. That can be a little bit off-putting. So the goal for us was eliminate that as much as humanly possible. I want the cleanest ingredient. Okay, well, it's just cowhide. So let's go to the sourcing. I want to go and find the best grass-fed pasture-raised animals. Where's the most agrarian landscape that we can go to that would have that supply source? Northern Uruguay, southern Brazil, perfect, thousands of miles away from the Amazon rainforest. That's just a baseline to know that you've got happy cows. Happy cows are going to equal happy collagen. You know, I don't care, man, if you're miserable and you die and get cut up. You're probably not the healthiest specimen out there compared to someone who had just a great good quality of life, eating good nutrition, out in the sun being a cow and we know epigenetics to be true for humans.

50:06 - Chase (Host) I'd be willing to bet it has to be the same in Mother Nature 100%. I wonder if there's a study out there about that.

50:10 - Sean (Guest) And the idea of a grass-fed, pasture-raised animal. Like not eating like you own. I would love to source American cows, but they're pretty much all grain-fed. So it's a change in diet and quality that we knew we were going to. A good sourcing Flavor I want it to be truly unflavored. I don't want to change your daily routine. I want you to be able to put it into your rice, your smoothie, your coffee, your tea and just get on with your daily routine and I'm complimenting it. I don't want to be a hindrance to it.

50:40 Then solubility Collagen is a glue. Collagen holds your body together. It literally glues your body together, which means if you put it in cold liquid, it wants to congeal. So we wanted to solve for solubility. I wanted people to be able to put it into whatever situation they wanted to and have it be usable. So flavor, solubility and the most important element, amino acid profile. I'll take the Pepsi challenge against any brand out there that we stack up against their amino acid profile, which means do you get enough glycine per serving? You've got some brands that only have like three grams of glycine per serving. Well, I've got four and I'd rather have four because I know how important that is, and the alanine, the arginine, like the other amino acids that are so important to have in there we're stacked and I will take that challenge against anyone else. So, hey, flavor solubility, the quality of those amino acids. And then hey, man cool, I own the company, right Like I'm going to sell it. No, take it to a third party and validate it.

51:42 So we carry two marks on every jar. One of them, the most important mark from a science standpoint, is the NSF for sport. So the National Sanitation Foundation tests for integrity of ingredients, purity of those ingredients and label claims. So the NSF tests like they test plastic, they test cookware, they test all sorts of different things. But in the supplement world, this is the gateway to working with professional athletes, to working with the US Olympic team. This is the highest level of independent accreditation that you can get that says what I say is in the jar is in the jar and it will perform as prescribed, even if you're at your regular athletic level. It's all the assurances that you need to know that there's no BS involved. The next thing is Whole30 approved. So we talk a lot earlier about, hey, whole30, I'm sorry. We talk a lot about whole foods and eating whole foods.

52:37 So the Whole30 of food is this really neat diet. The Whole30 approved as a diet is all consistently based on eating around the perimeter of your grocery store. It's whole food based and it's a really neat challenge. You eat it for 30 days and it's effectively like a really flavorful elimination diet. Well, they only approve very, very few supplements as being allowed in their protocol, and I beat down their door for like a year and a half to be like you got to try our collagen.

53:08 And they only had two brands that were ever Whole30 approved for collagen that's wild.

53:13 Dude, there's 50 different brands out there and we pounded down their door and they finally were like, all right, god, just send us a jar, we'll try it. And they run it through their test and they come back and they're like, oh yeah, this is really good, wow, wow. And so we've had a five-year partnership with Whole30 approved, and they don't mince words, man. If it doesn't meet their criteria, it's out. So we have an MCT oil powder, our Halo Creamer powder, which is vegan. It's only two ingredients.

53:42 - Chase (Host) That's this guy here, our.

53:43 - Sean (Guest) Halo Creamer Powder, which is vegan. It's only two ingredients. This guy here, yeah. So we have two versions of that. We've got one with grass-fed butter and dairy added to it, which is just creamy and delicious. That's my personal favorite.

53:51 - Chase (Host) Yeah, keto-friendly, gluten-free. Yeah, this guy's great. Keep it here in the studio.

53:54 - Sean (Guest) And then we have a vegan version of that which is just stripped down. It is tapioca and coconut oil, just two ingredients, mct oil, and they're both Whole30 approved. So when it comes to the integrity of what we put in our jars, those third-party validations are the most important thing. Everything, yeah, we roast a coffee line. We micro-roast in San Diego. It's really a passion project for us. We test for mold aflatoxin on every single roast. We take it out and we make sure everything is USDA organic, fair trade certified and we're the world's only Whole30 approved coffee.

54:31 - Chase (Host) Coffee is such a gnarly industry. It's a gnarly industry. You're looking at mold, herbicides, pesticides, and it's because, depending on unless you're the one really doing the roasting and even the harvesting to some degree depending on where you source it in the world. Every continent, every country has their own standard. There's no governing global say-so about the criteria it needs to meet, unless we're talking organic. Yeah, so I'm so glad to hear that, because unless you're drinking organic coffee, you are potentially exposing yourself to a wild world of mold, herbicides, pesticides, unwanted chemicals.

55:06 - Sean (Guest) Yeah, and I'm not a fear mongerer, but when I learned about commodity coffees and like how much mold would be present, it's bad, it's bad, it's bad, it's really bad.

55:15 - Chase (Host) And it's not just like crazy minuscule, tiny little trace amounts. It's bad, yeah.

55:20 - Sean (Guest) So what does Bubz do right? Let's take the guesswork out of it. I will put my reputation on the line and go through the NSF for sport certification. Nsf for sport is pay to play. They don't care if you fail. You're either going to make it or not, based on what the integrity is of your product. Cool, I wish everyone would do that, but they won't. That's their problem. Ours is to say, hey, bob's name is going on the jar. I want the absolute best in quality that people can get. I want them to come back for more, knowing the quality is there. I want them to know that it's going to dissolve right into their coffee. It is going to work for their fingernails, their hair, their skin, their joint health and it's going to be easy and seamless for them.

56:09 - Chase (Host) And I want them to rest assured that it's third-party validated for all the right reasons. I got an idea. You guys got to check out the video for this. We're going to do a live demonstration and then just another testament of like what you're talking about, I have used to. I don't need to anymore. I used to sneak this into my wife's water because I was loving the way I was feeling, was loving the benefits, and just further studying it, I'm like, oh, it does this, it does that, it does that. I want my wife to have all these benefits as well. And so I would take the collagen and I would pour it in her water, mix it. She never knew the difference. All right, that's fun, no taste. And then slowly, years later, she comes around to oh, I think I'd like to try collagen, and she drinks it every day now. And I was like you already have, you already have.

56:49 - Sean (Guest) Surprise. And then she tells you she's been on a vegan diet. You're like, Ooh, I'm so sorry.

56:56 - Chase (Host) But, um, yeah, I'll, I'm going to mix them up here. You guys got to check out the video but but I've just I've had personally so many amazing benefits. Thank you so much. Yes, and the most noticeable one for me was years ago Shout out, actually. It recently went live. By the time this is going live, I had Ben Smith back on the show. He was a local friend of mine, former Army captain and a great trainer here in LA, and I went on his workout program. You guys got to check out the video, so I just poured it in. You can already see it's already kind of like doing its thing. Yep, and that's cold water.

57:27 - Sean (Guest) I mean, that's the beauty of it. It's like cold water is a pain in the ass, it takes a little while, it wants to congeal and yet if you have a quality collagen, it's going to disperse in and you're going to be. And I mean. The beauty of collagen also is that it's heat tolerant. You can bake with it up to 450 plus degrees. So here's a full cup of water. Yeah, Let it rip.

57:50 - Chase (Host) Yeah, it's incredible. And so I would do this. I would sneak her water, I would pour it in, I would give it to her and she never knew the difference and she would just sip it and she has the most noticeable palate. If I could hint at something, she would guess she would drink her water. No problem, that's funny, just completely empty.

58:09 - Sean (Guest) But that idea of solving for those problems right, like what are the obstacles to adopting a new healthy routine? Like I could tell you that slugging a teaspoon or tablespoon of castor oil was the healthiest thing in the world for you. And you're going to look at me and be like, oh God, apple cider vinegar Like apple cider vinegar is really aggressive tasting. And you tell people like, oh, you should just drink a capful every day. It's like, oh man, that's tough. Like that's just, it's not an adoptable routine. That's why apple cider vinegar gummies took off in popularity. So much was the idea of hacking into those metabolism. You know, health kicks being able to do it with a satiating, pleasant tasting gummy instead of oh, I'm drinking this gnarly shot and you know, for us at Bubz solving those problems was key and like.

58:57 I'll go back and talk about the creamer again, because if you put any kind of creamer in your coffee, right, it could be like pick, your poison could be half, and half could be whole milk, could be soy milk, could be almond milk. If you look at that, it's doing absolutely zero for your health and wellness. No, Nothing, no. But we know millions and millions and millions and millions of people are guzzling cups of coffee every single day. Why not use that as an opportunity to level up your healthy fats? Habit stack like a shout out James Clear, right, yeah, that is literally it. So it's like I'm going to drink coffee.

59:33 I like cream in my coffee. I think half and half or heavy cream is delicious. I like the fatty texture in my mouth. It's satiating and I like how it cuts down on the acidity of the coffee. Pleasant experience. Try it with coconut oil, Not just any coconut oil. Try an MCT oil in the right powder. We use tapioca starch. It's creamy, it's delicious, it's visually pleasant. It looks like a great creamy cup of coffee and you get five to six grams of C8, C10, caprylic and capric acid that are going to work. And there are these little small fatty acids that break through the blood-brain barrier. They go right to work and all of a sudden you're cognitively aware. You're just a little bit more focused on the day.

01:00:18 - Chase (Host) You're alert, you're focused, you're not stimulated.

01:00:21 - Sean (Guest) It's not a stimulant, no but you're energized for hours and all of a sudden you're not stimulated. It's not a stimulant, no, but you're energized for hours and all of a sudden you realize, oh yeah, that afternoon cup of coffee, I don't need it anymore. So that combination of collagen and creamer for us, you know, the MCT oil powder and the collagen together, that's the ultimate morning hack to me. It's. I'm going to drink this in the morning and I'm good for the day.

01:00:44 - Chase (Host) Yeah, yeah, it's clean. I mean, you guys, if you're seeing the video now, like look, that's just a cup of water.

01:00:49 - Sean (Guest) Yeah.

01:00:49 - Chase (Host) Like it's crazy. Um, I was kind of finishing up that thought about Ben. The first workout program I ever ran was with him and the sadistic guy that he is. Certain parts of the program a couple a week I would be doing up to 15 minutes ish of walking lunges to finish out. After the first couple days I was dying. It was very difficult to do, but I wanted to do it really. After about week two, uh, and on collagen it became a breeze. I actually I texted him. I was like, hey, I kind of want to do some more. And the good coach that he is said don't, um, it's that time block that periodization for a reason. But I just I felt like I could keep going and my recovery was significantly less. I wasn't dying.

01:01:36 - Sean (Guest) You would think you would have useless jello legs for days after that, I'm sure the first couple of days of like treating your body to total hell by like activating the glutes, hamstrings and ways, beyond failure, your entire body Right.

01:01:49 - Chase (Host) Yeah, it sucked for a little bit, but after that, literally like week two, I was fine.

01:01:55 - Sean (Guest) Yeah.

01:01:55 - Chase (Host) I was fine and I just, you know, being a guy now in my late thirties, using keeping collagen in my rotation has been instrumental in keeping that, you know. And I don't feel as bad giving some of this other stuff up because I know I'm still keeping a lot of that integrity in my nutrition and my gut lining and my skin and all this stuff, so that when I do get back at it I'm not playing catch up again.

01:02:16 - Sean (Guest) No, I mean life happens, you're going to get busy, like, look at, take it from me, I got you know 14 years on here. So, and in those 14 years you're only going to get busier. So that allocation of time to be in the gym to train yourself, body and mind doesn't go away. The things you can control if time becomes an element you can't a hundred percent control is the nutrition, it is the diet, it is what you put into your life that help you be a specialist in life Like hey man, I want to be more alert, I want to have better recovery, I want to just be able to jump out of that airplane, hit that meeting, hit the ground running and just crush it Cool.

01:02:59 - Chase (Host) If I can't do all the things that I want to do today, this week, this month, this year, if I can't do all the things that I want to do today, this week, this month, this year, I want all the things that I can do to be at that peak level. And this is the stuff that helps keep me training and living and recovering at that peak level, even though it might not look like it used to, even though you know I would love to get another workout in or love to do this. But you know what, I'm just grateful for what I can do and just focusing on the things to keep those things as sustained and efficient and optimized as possible. Yeah, this is one of the many things.

01:03:30 - Sean (Guest) Absolutely, man.

01:03:31 - Chase (Host) I'm glad to be a part of that routine and like, seriously, since like five years now, you guys have been in my pantry. I keep these six in my travel pack, in my backpack. Where I go, bubz goes basically my backpack. Where I go, bubz goes basically, and so kind of continuing on with that story. So Bubz passed away 2012. You guys have made this brand. You've been running it now for five, six years.

01:03:53 - Sean (Guest) Yeah, we're six years in. We launched it January 1st 2018. 2017 was like the concept year, like I discovered college and fell in love with it. The brain child around launching Bubz, and like everyone telling us like you got to do this, like this is the right thing to do Both TJ and myself Like it. Just it was one of those moments that just felt right. And yeah, man, six years later, we're. We're often, you know, doing it.

01:04:18 - Chase (Host) Now you've been fighting another battle. I know it's kind of come to an end recently, but you know, just a testament to your commitment to what's right and a testament to this memory of a fallen hero and your personal longtime friend. Walk us through what's been going on with the memory of Bubz and Glenn Doherty and this ongoing battle with you know, I don't even know what exactly to say here, but just a fallen soldier, a fallen hero.

01:04:49 - Sean (Guest) Yeah, I mean when you're the executor of someone's estate and again, I was Glenn's listed next of kin. So the black SUVs pulled up to my house like it was right out of a movie to explain to me that Glenn had died in Benghazi. And as the listed next of kin, you're kind of the gatekeeper to how that information goes public, gets disseminated out. You know, like this became an incredibly public event. We're talking the president of the United States, the vice president, the secretary of state, like they're all flying to Dover to receive the bodies with Glenn's immediate family. I'm, you know, organizing and flying to Boston for this very public funeral. And there's these very immediate things that, as the executor, as the one in control of the power of attorney, and all of those things that you're just thrust into. Well, after the funerals, after the celebrations of life, and all of these like some epic memorials in Glenn's honor, and all these like some epic memorials in Glenn's honor. Then came the paperwork, then came the like okay, so Glenn worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and I've got Glenn's laptop here and Glenn had this life insurance policy with this company that he had to have a life insurance policy with. I have to call them.

01:06:05 Hey, this is Sean Lake. I'm the executive of the estate. I've scanned all my documents. Here they all are. I'm here to ask about Glenn's death benefit Because originally it was like funeral benefits and it was like the Veterans Association would give you $500 for a funeral and there was little tic-tac-y things. But Veterans Association would, like you know, give you $500 for a funeral and like there was little tic-tac-y things. But then it was like, no, no, glenn died. He had a life insurance policy. The policy should pay out, you know, half a million dollars or whatever the standard policy was. There wasn't anything special about it.

01:06:38 - Chase (Host) I think it was when I was in it was $400,000. There might have been a little bit more.

01:06:41 - Sean (Guest) Yeah, I think it was a little bit more. It was a contractor at that point yeah.

01:06:44 So you'll call it a half million for for nice round numbers. And the insurance company was called Rutherford insurance and they, glenn, had to have life insurance. You're not allowed to deploy overseas without life insurance. So he would sign a contract with the CIA. You're going to go deploy for three months. You get a life insurance policy specifically for the period of time that you are deployed overseas. Glenn goes overseas, this policy is active. Glenn comes home, policy turns inactive. Glenn is then reimbursed for this policy from his employer. So he had to pay for it out of pocket. Okay, so Glenn goes overseas, he's killed in Benghazi. That should trigger said life insurance policy. I'm the person to drive that initiative. I call them and they say well, we're sorry to inform you that we're not going to pay that why See? This policy rolls up under a piece of legislation called the Defense Base Act and in the Defense Base Act, if the insured is not married with dependents, keep in mind this thing was written in like 1942.

01:07:49 - Chase (Host) Literally 1942.

01:07:51 - Sean (Guest) Yeah, they're ineligible for any kind of death benefit. And I'm like, yeah, that's funny, cool, cool story. No, seriously, this goes on for six months and I'm getting stonewalled and I'm just getting madder and madder and madder. Now, keep in mind, I just lost my brother. I just lost my best friend. I'm like up to my eyeballs in grief. I've got his entire family around looking for answers of, like, what's going to happen.

01:08:19 I'm trying to, you know, take Glenn's estate and give them all, like you know, his cash reserves from that. We're trying to start this foundation, which was, you know, that kicked off and got started. But I'm in this battle over here that I never really talked about, because I don't know how to fight an insurance company. Well, I end up getting legal representation from K&L Gates, this giant law firm. They'd been watching and monitoring the Benghazi attacks and what had happened. And they raised their hand and said, hey, pro bono, we're going to help you out. Where do you need help with? And I said, well, I've got this insurance issue. And they're like, oh, yeah, we're going to help you with that. Oh, my God, like it was kind of like this eye opener, I think, for a lot of folks. How are we not honoring the memory of those who have served their country and paid the ultimate sacrifice, active duty or not?

01:09:11 - Chase (Host) And there's some bullshit. Loophole. Outdated piece of legislation.

01:09:14 - Sean (Guest) Bingo, yeah. And I sued Rutherford Insurance in the Department of Labor in federal court with a K&L Gates attorney, a guy named Michael Mortensen, who to this day is like a dear friend, who, like, saw the passion that I think I was bringing to the table and was like, let's go. And I don't think he was very optimistic that we were going to win. And we didn't win, we lost. But that was just step one. After that, I was just like gloves are coming off, I'm pissed and I'm like I didn't want to be in front of the media. My wife's a newscaster. She tells the stories for our family. I didn't intend to be in front of the New York Times and rioting about this injustice that was being done. I was like, but I'm getting mad. So, with these attorneys, they navigated getting a meeting with John Brennan, who was the then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and I flew to Washington DC in 2015 to sit down with John Brennan.

01:10:14 Now, at this time, the congressional hearings are happening right, so understand like Congress is holding hearings on the terror attacks of Benghazi. It's all over the news and I am flying to DC. This was my second or third trip to sit down with Trey Gowdy and Elijah Cummings, who were two US congressmen at the time who were leading this investigation, like one Republican, one Democrat. And I'm doing face-to-face interviews with them and Glenn's little sister, kate's there and we're talking about Glenn and his importance and like his legacy and why his existence is so worth celebrating, and I'm talking about this injustice, but I'm talking to the wrong people. They can be outraged, they're congressmen, but they're not going to change that policy.

01:11:01 So I get this meeting with John Brennan and I get in the room with him and it was like six lawyers, small table, john Brennan, me and Kate's there, glenn's little sister, and we're all sitting around the table and I start telling Glenn's story and I'm impassioned about it and like how can you let this happen? And at one point in the conversation it wasn't that long, you know I'm in there room with him for 15 minutes I had to say, hey, man, don't tell me you don't have the money to reach into your pocket and make this right. And just think of what it's going to look like in all the newspapers and all the national news around this country when I walk out there and tell them that you guys wouldn't do the right thing. I said how's that going to feel Like I was pissed? I get a kick under the table from Cater one of the lawyers like lock it up.

01:11:47 And I'm sweating bullets. We leave the room and I'm just, I am so mad and one of the things before I left the room John Brennan said is we'll look into it. It was one of the only words he said We'll look into it, yeah, and I was just like, oh, we'll look into it.

01:12:01 Like fuck you they're not going to look into it Like I was so mad. Well, actually it turns out I was wrong and one of the attorneys we worked with, amy Carnival, was like almost immediately, like grabs me. She's like, hey, this is good he never says stuff like that. That means he's actually going to pay attention.

01:12:17 - Chase (Host) That was a good thing. Yeah, like he doesn't say anything, apparently he's Sounds like just a line.

01:12:20 - Sean (Guest) He's famous for not saying a word, so the fact that he said something meant a lot to her. Like she took that as an encouragement. I took it as a blow off and nine months later I get a phone call from Amy and the team at Candle Gates and they say hey, so they're going to make. Right Now I was on a mission to get Glenn's life insurance policy paid. I was also on a mission to future proof his employment conditions for his future brothers that were going to serve their country, make sure the same thing doesn't happen to other people.

01:12:51 Dude. I know tons of contractors who go over and provide security and I wanted to make sure that didn't happen again, so I had this like dual agenda going. Amy threw a third agenda on top of me. She's like hey, they're going to do the right thing, they're going to pay back all of the people that have been affected by this, not just Glenn, but over 28 families dating back to Beirut no way 1984, like way, way back in the 80s. They found dozens of families that were killed Only 28?

01:13:21 - Chase (Host) Honestly, I'm surprised there was more than that.

01:13:23 - Sean (Guest) That was like the confirmed number I was given.

01:13:26 So we're talking dozens and dozens of families and they paid out. The Central Intelligence Agency paid out. Keep in mind, this wasn't for like other departments, this wasn't like State Department, this was just CIA operatives. Other departments, this wasn't like state department, this was just CIA operatives. So 28 plus families get a half million bucks. John Brennan did that and like, yeah, he did it under pressure, but at some point internally they looked at the optics, they looked at what was happening and they said we better do the right thing. And I mean, I don't know, I was there to be able to like just get pissed off enough. And then I got word. It took another couple of years Now we've launched Bubz and I get word that they had rewritten the INDOC for future contractors. They changed the legislature. They didn't change the Defense Base Act, they changed their internal workings at the CIA so that if a future contractor gets killed, in action, they are automatically paid a death benefit, regardless of the status of the Defense Base Act.

01:14:32 Wow, wow, and I got word of that, maybe, I don't know, four years ago or something.

01:14:37 - Chase (Host) And I just remember being like yes, that's what I cared about.

01:14:41 - Sean (Guest) Amy and the attorneys were like, hey, there's a bigger way to commemorate Glenn. And this was like in 2015,. They brought this up have you considered taking a swing at getting Glenn and the other Americans killed in Benghazi? You know there's another Navy SEAL, ty Woods, who was killed there. There was an intelligence officer, like an IT guy, named Sean Smith, who was killed, and Ambassador Stevens, like a US ambassador, was killed in Benghazi All four. And she said would you consider like going after the Congressional Gold Medal?

01:15:13 This is the highest civilian honor that Congress issues and it's usually It's's usually an equivalent of Medal of Honor, yeah exactly and we all felt like God, that's an amazing swing from the fences kind of gesture, Like I only cared about. Let's get Glenn's family.

01:15:28 - Chase (Host) But look what already happened. Swinging for all these gestures.

01:15:31 - Sean (Guest) Well, in 2015, we hadn't achieved any of them yet. But then, like, we got, the first domino fell and it was like, hey, we got all these families back paid. Like what an amazing gesture. Hey, glenn's future brothers are now covered. Like you can go and work in that very dangerous arena and you're going to be covered. And then it was well, let's do this celebratory gesture. And it took damn near a decade of going to Congress, writing letters and the team at K&L Gates like I can't say enough great things about them Like Dennis Potter and Amy just led the charge. And we went through like three different congressional cycles, which means you got to effectively start over. And finally, in the fall of 2022, we all agreed this is the last push. And it went right up to Christmas and I pulled in a favor like a gnarly favor.

01:16:22 When I worked at Burton Snowboards Burton Snowboards was based in Vermont One of my coworkers was a guy named Dave Driscoll, and Dave never talked about it. He always just said his family was in politics. Well, dave's mom was married to Bernie Sanders. So, yeah, we all knew it, but no one really talked about it and Dave didn't make a big deal out of it, but we knew that Bernie was his old man. So I called him up two days before Thanksgiving and it looked like it wasn't going to happen, like this whole thing had stalled out. They needed like seven more US senators to sign on to get the majority to make this thing go through. I think the congressional side had happened, but they didn't have enough senators.

01:17:04 I hit up Dave. I'm like Dave, I need to talk to you. I haven't talked to Dave in years. Like we talk about fitness, like he was curious about bubs, because he's like us man. He's like I got a family, I want to stay fit. I still want to, you know, be in good shape. So I'm like Dave, I'm not telling you about collagen. Are you having Thanksgiving with the old man? And he's like yeah, I'm like, all right, I got to ask.

01:17:25 - Chase (Host) I'm inviting myself over.

01:17:26 - Sean (Guest) Yeah, I'm like I got a favor to ask. I'm like, dave, I never ask you for favors. I need you to put this legislation in front of Bernie. And I said you know me and you know I wouldn't do this unless I was deadly serious about it. But this is our last shot Now. The attorneys at K&L Gates were like it ain't going to happen. Bernie Sanders doesn't sign his name on to pieces of sentimental legislation like this. He's not known for that. And he signed. So they get back to Congress on Monday after the Thanksgiving break. And because he signed, everyone else jumped on board the other like seven guys and women. The other senators were like oh well, shit, yeah, let's go Look at the power of doing the right thing.

01:18:08 - Chase (Host) That's fucking incredible man.

01:18:11 - Sean (Guest) It was wild. It's been a wild ride. So that gold medal, that honor, got signed into law by President Biden right at Christmas and it was just a little blip in the newspaper. But the actual public ceremony is supposed to happen this fall sometime or around Christmas again. I think it takes a while. I just saw the imagery of the different models of the coin that they're going to do, and I mean Glenn's sister, kate, was there for that fight. The Cadenil Gates folks were there for that fight and there was just these long gaps where you'd be like, is anything going to happen here? What are the chances?

01:18:49 - Chase (Host) Write another letter and then, yeah man, it all came together, dude hats off to you for keep fighting the good fight that matters most. That's so commendable, man, and I couldn't think of a better way to bring us to a close here. Kind of talk about what it means to live a life ever forward. If it's not apparent through what you just talked about, I don't know what is, but to ask you directly ever forward, sean. What does that mean to you?

01:19:23 - Sean (Guest) I mean, you always have to put your best foot forward and in charge in life and I believe that thoroughly, like adversity is all around us, but you know, get anchored down in what you know is right in your DNA and act on it. And I mean I had a very unique set of circumstances that we just unpacked a lot, um, but I'm going to apply that now, like, hey, that fight's gone. And it doesn't have to be a fight, it can just be an opportunity to be a good leader, can it be kind to be the best human you can be? And that, to me, is walking out the door here. And the next steps, whatever, wherever my day takes me, wherever the year takes me, is keep those thoughts and DNA in mind, just like be rooted in your values of what is right and act on them.

01:20:02 - Chase (Host) Where can everybody go to learn more about what you got going on in the world of doing good Bubz Naturals? We're going to have all this link for you guys on the show notes. Where can they connect with you to learn more?

01:20:13 - Sean (Guest) Yeah. So I mean, social media is kind of where everyone lives. So just at Bubz Naturals my personal one is at Slakeo, so S-L-A-K-E-O some nickname I got back in middle school that I just held on to and you know, at Bubz Naturals, you know our website gives a lot more information on the products, the different things that we do, our why, like why we do it, If you're curious, like go there. And the different things that we do, our why, like why we do it, If you're curious, like go there.

01:20:40 And that's really like that in our social media, because we love storytelling, Like I love you know, digging in and just seeing what the world has to offer and just lay that all out there for everyone.

01:20:48 - Chase (Host) And as a reminder seriously, guys, I've been taking this stuff damn near daily for years. Bubz is a great friend of the show, partner of the show. You guys want to check it out? You can save. I believe it's 20%. I'll verify and put it down in the show notes and description box. But code EVERFORWARD, you're going to get a great deal. They got travel packs, the college and the MCT. You can't go wrong, I mean look, you can't beat that man Game on Dude.

01:21:15 it's so good. Wow. For more information on everything you just heard. Make sure to check this episode's show notes or head to EverForwardRadio.com.