The Genius Life 4: Fat Loss and Inflammation Hacks

Crosby Tailor is a model, certified personal trainer, and chef known for his phenomenal ketogenic cookies and superfood desserts. I consider him one of my go-to experts when it comes to fat loss and exercise physiology; by the end of this episode, I'm confident you'll understand why.

What I discuss with Crosby in this episode:

What Crosby learned from his own nutritional odyssey and how yours may differ.
The myths of the If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM) fitness trend.
While some might be blessed with the genetics for a trouble-free physique, Crosby isn't one of them. What hard work goes into his model-body regimen?
Could your diet benefit from bartering with the Amish?
How Crosby developed sensitivity to the signs of inflammation and what he does to keep it in check.
And much more!

Fitness is complicated. What works for the goals of one person may not work for another, and sometimes what seems like a common sense health regimen actually works counter to our reasonable expectations. Add misguided Instagram models with lucky genetics to the mix telling us we can get beach-perfect bodies on a diet of Big Macs and Skittles and it's no wonder there's more confusion than clarity on the subject.

Tailord Life's Crosby Tailor is a model (he doesn't just play one on Instagram), a certified personal trainer, and a butter-loving chef known for his ketogenic dessert baking skills who joins us to talk about his own fitness odyssey—what's worked for him and what hasn't—and how we might integrate what he knows about fat loss and exercise physiology into our own routine.

Nutritional Trial and Error

As a college football player who trained four to six hours a day, Crosby Tailor could eat whatever he wanted.

"Hormones are raging and I could drink chocolate milk at night with a Snickers bar and still look a certain way and perform a certain way the next day," Crosby says. "After that, it was really understanding, well, I'm not going to be working out like this. I need to get the reins on my nutrition and understand what I should be putting in my body on a regular basis because everything's going to start changing."

Also changing was his career: going from football player to model, he wanted his body to look less like a bulky wall designed to repel enemy invaders and more like a lean and picturesque leopard. This is when his study of nutrition began in earnest.

"That's when I started to dive into understanding even what gluten was," says Crosby. "Then I moved into grain-free and I finally started to figure out the sugar-free thing. But even then, I was still eating sandwiches—they were just gluten-free bread and I was still eating lots of pasta—but it was gluten-free pasta. It's been kind of a trial and error thing with me when it comes to nutrition and understanding what happens to the body eating certain foods, how you're training, what happens to the body and what can be toxic and what can't be for each individual."

From experimenting with Chinese herbs to using his time at Erewhon Natural Foods to concoct the desserts for which he's famous, Crosby has left no stone unturned in his quest to find the right balance for himself.

"Tailord Life is [about] having all of these experiences and getting to a place where I am today where I really feel great about my health; I feel great about what I'm putting in my body [and] getting people to understand that that can be their path, too, as opposed to latching on to another diet fad."

If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM) Myths

Crosby and I both agree that, while it's possible to lose weight purely by eating whatever you like as long as you maintain a calorie deficit as espoused by the IIFYM (If It Fits Your Macros) crowd, it's important not to confuse the aesthetics of weight loss with health.

"I think that people need to get away from this whole calorie idea in general," says Crosby, "and start to just really laser focus in on nutrient-dense foods, organic, whole foods and not [say], 'Just because it's a certain calorie and it fits the carb-to-fat-to-protein ratio that I'm looking for in this meal, that it's okay to eat this processed food that really isn't even food.'"

Sure, the occasional dalliance in a "forbidden" food feels good from time to time when it's an exception to the rule. But there's no way you're going to convince either of us that making room in your daily diet for a Big Mac just because it fits your macros is going to serve your health goals in the long term!

Crosby also points out that a lot of Instagram models who incessantly post pictures of their perfectly shredded beach bodies and brag about eating nothing but fast food and Skittles may have genetics on their side for how they look on the surface, but their blood work probably tells a less appealing story.

Fat as Fuel and Amish Butter Bartering

Crosby admits his own genetics don't bless him with a trouble-free physique, but thanks to his own fitness odyssey, he knows what works for him.

"I wouldn't call it a super crazy regimen," says Crosby, "but I have just dialed myself into things that I really enjoy. It's not a job for me. Eating isn't a job—I actually enjoy it. The things that might be very toxic, I actually don't want to eat. I don't enjoy going to certain fast food places just to get off on one of those meals every once in a while. It's just not my thing. I'd rather cheat with my own dessert.

"On a regular basis, I really love eating in a way to where I'm getting good amounts of fat, moderate amounts of protein pretty much every meal, some fiber—cooked green vegetables—and just highly mineralizing my body on a regular basis. Staying hydrated. I don't really get any sugars in my diet, but I don't get a lot of carbs. A couple times a week, I like to eat certain things like sweet potatoes and white rice, but on a regular basis, my carbs are coming from cruciferous vegetables.

"In doing this, the one thing I know my body releases a lot of is sodium and salt; my mineral content gets drained a lot of the time in this higher fat diet. The one thing I had to understand in this trial and error was that I had to start salting everything—good pink Himalayan salt and taking mineral dropper supplements. I started to really pay attention to cellular hydration and I feel like that was maybe my missing pillar for a long time, because I had the fats dialed in.

"I really love my grass-fed raw butter and ghee. Olive oil—which is one of your genius foods—I've definitely been getting a lot more. Avocado is something I can't really have a ton of all the time because my body for some reason doesn't digest it the best, but I do implement it on a regular basis. MCT oil, coconut oil—those are my main fats other than what I'm getting from foods. Omega-3s from wild fish—salmon and sardines. Grass-fed beef...don't fear this macro! This macro is probably the most essential one in your diet!"

And while my own nutritional regimen doesn't call for much butter, Crosby gives us a whole litany of reasons he's found it effective in his—which further reminds us that there's no one-size-fits-all diet for everyone. But honestly, couldn't your diet use more interaction with the Amish?

Listen to this complete episode to learn more about how fat works as fuel in Crosby's diet, how Crosby knows when the trial of a nutritional path leads to error, the case against senna tea, how overconsumption—even of "healthy" foods like nuts and seeds—can lead to inflammation, why the blueberry is a genius food, Crosby's favorite antioxidant, the countless benefits of molecular hydrogen, how Crosby developed sensitivity to the signs of inflammation and what he does to keep it in check, why eating the "right" foods and running every day made Crosby miserable in his early days of modeling, the herbs and supplements Crosby recommends, how stress affects fat retention, where music and meditation fit into Crosby's routine, and lots more.