Wendy Valentine interviews Angelo Keeley about amino acids for midlife wellness

Wendy Valentine: Welcome to the Midlife Makeover show. I’m your host, Wendy Valentine, and I am beyond excited for today’s interview. But before I introduce today’s guest, I’d like to share a little backstory. Now, if you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’m all about supporting a healthy body and feeling vibrant, especially during midlife. Earlier this year, I was introduced to this amazing supplement company called Kione. I started taking their, amino acids every day. And holy moly, did I notice a huge difference, not just in my energy levels, but in how my body felt overall. My workouts improved and I felt more focused and rejuvenated. As always, when I discover something that works for me, I can’t help but share it with you. I’m like your own little guinea pig. So I decided to bring the co founder of Kian onto the show to talk about why, amino acids are such a game changer, especially for women in midlife. We are going to dive into all the important stuff like the role of protein and amino acids for longevity, building muscle, healthy aging, and really just supporting overall wellbeing. Today’s guest is none other than Angelo Keeley, the co founder and CEO of Kion, a company dedicated to helping people live their most active and fun lives with pure energy enhancing solutions. As a matter of fact, amino acids and Angelo go way back because his mom gave him amino acids as a young child. So cool. What I love most is that he’s not only knowledgeable about the science behind amino acids, he’s also great at breaking it all down in a way that’s easy to understand. And for you, my awesome listeners, we’ve got a special treat. Kian was kind enough to give our listeners 20% off their products. Make sure you visit getkeon.com makeover. I’ll add that to the show notes for 20% off.

Wendy welcomes Angelo to the show with an exciting interview

Without further ado, let’s dive into this exciting conversation. Please welcome Angelo to the show.

Angelo Keeley: Thanks, Wendy. It’s great to be here.

Wendy Valentine: Isn’t that a nice intro?

Angelo Keeley: That was an awesome intro. It feels great.

Wendy Valentine: I know, it’s like, it’s always nice to, like, hear someone talk about you. It’s like, oh, is that me? Like, that sounds amazing.

Angelo Keeley: My gosh.

Wendy Valentine: So I told you my backstory about Kion and I love it. As a matter of fact, I finished the last tub of it right before I left the states. And now I’m in Portugal and I’m like, my amino acids, they really, I love them and I love actually that they stir so easily and I love them. So I want to make sure we tell the listeners everything about it.

How did you get interested in nutrition? Well, it’s interesting

so let’s hear your backstory. How did you get interested in nutrition?

Angelo Keeley: Well, it’s interesting, I guess, because I was just raised guy with a family that was interested in it. But I think like many people, just because your family’s into it doesn’t mean that you will be right. You could totally kind of go in the opposite direction. If your parents are super into something, you might, you honestly just be a contrarian and do the opposite. And you know, my story includes some of that, but ultimately kind of coming back to just what I was raised in. So my parents were actually in the supplement business, but more like in botanical importing like chamomile and echinacea and things like that in the seventies. And then they had a natural health food store and ultimately a natural health food restaurant. And they were pretty, crunchy, hippie like. I was raised in Austin, Texas. I was born, born at home in a little house and didn’t get a birth certificate till I was seven when I went to first grade. Or six, I guess it was six going to first grade. So very hippie. that said, they were, they were very knowledgeable. They really understood a lot about nutrition and they made the decision to be pescetarians at that time. And I think honestly a pescatarian diet is pretty, can be a pretty healthy diet. If you eat plenty of dairy, based protein and tofu and fish. Like you can, you can be, you can get what you need from the diet. that said, there are some limitations to it. For example, if you’re eating a meal that doesn’t have much dairy or doesn’t have, fish in it, like where are you getting the protein from? And my parents from a very young age would talk about this like I’m four years old and I would know, oh, I need to combine beans and rice to get a, a better combination of the amino acids that are in these different types of protein sources. So I can get a complete protein because just eating one of those is not a complete protein and my body won’t be able to actually utilize it to help rebuild the proteins in my body. So this was something I didn’t understand all the science of it, but I knew at a very young age this was important. And my mom did things like actually give me supplemental amino acids. It was more around like her working out. and maybe if I was having kind of like an energy dip or something like that. but yeah, so I got exposed to it pretty young, and then as I aged and got into adolescence, I started to rebel more. And I was like going to mcdonalds with friends and taco Bell and acting out in that kind of way. But also I started to act out more with drugs and social interaction and just get into trouble. And I mean, maybe predictably, my parents were entrepreneurs. Its in my genes to be a bit more alternative and press the boundaries and explore everything on my own, not just like follow the rules. but unfortunately, that got me into a situation when I was 16 and a half where I took too much lsd and it provoked a very bad trip and I was not in a good neighborhood and I was like, not a hard kid, like, I was a troublemaker, but I was a pretty soft kid. And, provoked. I provoked a situation that I never can even imagine being in, but just being in the wrong neighborhood and being kind of out of your mind. And people beat me up really badly and they, and they stabbed me twice in the back and in the knee. So I had to have emergency abdominal surgery. I had to have my patella tendon reattached. I was beaten so badly I woke up basically a week later in the hospital. And at 16 and a half, that is a very intense introduction to adulthood, I would say, in the context of, you really are responsible for your decisions. Like, you’re given opportunities as a child, and it’s not always like a fair playing field. And some people get more of this or more of that, but at some age it’s like, wow. Like, I’m choosing what I put into my body, I’m choosing who I hang out with, I’m choosing what kind of behaviors I do every day, all of this. And so it really jump started in me this passion for trying to live the most fulfilling life, which I think oftentimes, sometimes doesn’t happen to people until midlife. Right? Like you just kind of fall or.

Wendy Valentine: Not at all, unfortunately. Right?

Angelo Keeley: Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Angelo Keeley: so I kind of had this not midlife, not quarter life, like, I don’t know, like a 15% life crisis, you know, where I suddenly was just like, wow, I really, I really want to try to figure this out. And, and part of that involved, I mean, there was therapy and there was, you know, I explored acupuncture. I explored, like, all these kinds of alternative health modalities, but I really thought a lot about nutrition. And thats actually when I first got exposed to like, really thinking about trying to take more whey protein powder because m I had lost a lot of muscle mass. I was feeling weak. And, I realized that when I consumed more protein, I was able to exercise more. I was putting back on weight, putting back on muscle. and on top of that, I was feeling a lot better. I wasnt feeling as fatigued and my mood was better. So I knew there was some connection I didnt understand at all. but that really began, you know, again, I guess that’s the transition from like, my parents kind of indoctrinating me and like their vision of healthy eating and supplementation, all this stuff. And me realizing, wow, like, health is up to me.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Angelo Keeley: and so that was 16 and a half and, you know, without kind of boring you with the rest of my journey, we briefly talked about it, but, you know, I ended up doing quite well in college. I started a career overseas. I lived in France and India. I ended up moving back to the states. I ran a behavioral healthcare company for a few years and started a couple other businesses. And then, I really just came back to my roots. It’s like, what are the things that I care the most about? And I really care about fundamental nutrition and, like, if I’m going to devote my life to trying to build a company and make products that I want to share with other people and I want me to take and my family to take, and that’s how I wound up with Keon, you know, really creating something where we just make very, it’s not like the most exciting, cutting edge products. It’s like, what are the actual supplements that science has shown over decades to actually be worth people’s time and money? And how do you make that as best as you can? And the things that stand out are, essential amino acids are a very overlooked, super fundamental supplement. And that’s, you know, that’s so, that’s why, that’s how I’ve gotten into this space.

Wendy Valentine: That’s you in a nutshell. M but you know what, like, you think about it, you walk into any supplement store, especially now, it’s so overwhelming. And then if you don’t know anything about nutrition and the science behind it, just like, what am I supposed to get?

Angelo Keeley: Oh my gosh.

Wendy Valentine: And I’ll admit I’ve, I’ve overlooked amino acids. I didn’t know. I mean, I started taking them maybe like within the last couple of years, but, I always, I didn’t know about which I’m I know you’re going to tell us about it. Like, the, the protein that you can get from amino acids. I did not know that I like, when I wanted more protein, I just went straight to protein powder. That’s, that’s all. That’s all that I, that I knew. Right.

What is protein and what do amino acids have to do with it

So let’s start with the basics. What are amino acids?

Angelo Keeley: So, I think, actually, a great place to start is actually with protein. Like, what is protein? And what do amino acids have to do with it? So, and we’ll, and we’ll try to cover this, like, in a very accessible way. If at any point you’re like, ah, ah. What? Just push back on me.

Wendy Valentine: Oh, good. I can go, huh?

Angelo Keeley: Yeah.

Angelo Keeley: So when we think about food that we eat, there’s kind of two main words that you’ll hear. You’ll hear micronutrients. So, sometimes. And macronutrients. Micronutrients are things like vitamins and minerals. Micro meaning tiny and little. Right? And the macronutrients, there’s three of them. They’re carbohydrates, fat and protein. I think most people all familiar with hearing those. What they probably don’t realize, though, is that though they’re not the same. They’re not. Obviously, they’re not the same. Right. Like, if I eat, if I know chickens got more protein in it, and a potato’s got more carbohydrates in it, and butter’s got more fat in it, but literally, what they do in the body is very different. So carbohydrates and fat, their primary role, why. Why we eat them is for energy. When you consume carbohydrates or fat, your body takes it in and it converts it into an energy source inside your body. It can use to beat your heart, to make your lungs breathe, to make your brain work, to pump blood throughout your whole body, and to get up and to move and to walk and to run and to jump, Everything you do requires energy. So if you think about your body kind of like a house, If you want to run your dishwasher and your lights and your tv and all these things, you need to get energy in the house. So you get it from an electrical grid or solar panels or, you know, if you. If you’re, like, out in the woods, you could, like, burn gasoline through a generator. But, like, all these are just alternative ways to get energy into your house. Similarly, fat and carbs, like, that’s, that’s why you eat them. Protein is fundamentally different. It can be used as energy, but that’s really not its primary role.

Wendy Valentine: Interesting.

Angelo Keeley: Yeah. So the primary role of protein is to rebuild the proteins in your body. so if you think about again, like your house, you got all these things that, you know, you’re running the dishwasher, the lights, et cetera. But your house is also like made of physical materials. It’s got, you got maybe hardwood floors and carpet and sheet rock, and, you know, looking behind you, there’s granite, there’s metal that goes into the oven, et cetera. So there’s all these different materials. Well, these materials in your house, as you know, anyone who’s lived in a house long enough or rented or anything, right. They wear out. The more that you walk over a piece of the carpet or the more that you use a drawer, it starts to, like, not function quite as well. So similarly, something like that is going on in our body. So in our body, many people are familiar, there’s water in our body, right. Like over 50% is water. Well, of the part that’s not water, the part that’s physical mass. Right. That’s solid physical mass. That stuff, over half of it is actually made up of proteins. So like your organs, your spleen, your heart, your kidneys, your liver, but also things like all of your muscle.

Angelo Keeley: And your skin and your hair and your nails and things that maybe don’t seem as like, physical, you know, like they maybe sound squishier. But enzymes and hormones are all made up of proteins. All of these things are made up of proteins. And the proteins in our body, similar to the materials that make up our house, don’t last forever. They last much shorter, actually. They have a much shorter timeframe than the materials that make up your house. So if I just look down at my arm and I notice there’s skin on my arm, obviously, right. There are actually millions of little proteins that make up that skin. There’s m millions of proteins throughout my whole body. And the way that it works is that each one of those little proteins only lasts for so long. It can only be healthy and be a functional part of my skin, or protein can only be healthy and be a functional part of my heart tissue for so long. And then what it does is it actually breaks down. That little microscopic protein breaks apart, and whats inside of it are amino acids. So this is the first time were kind of introducing this idea of amino acids. So theres actually amino acids that make up the protein. Theyre the little individual building blocks that make up the protein. The protein are little building blocks that make up the heart, the skin. But inside the protein, there’s these even smaller little building blocks. And so when that protein breaks apart, some of the amino acids are old. You can’t use them again. It’d be like if you were remodeling your house and you were like, maybe ripping up the floor. Yeah, it’s like, oh, some of this hardwood floor could be reused, but some of it, it’s. It’s just like, it’s too damaged. We got to throw it away. So some of the amino acids, you literally just pee them out. You get rid of them, but you’ve got some amino acids left over. So now what you realize is, okay, so some of the, I got this protein in my skin or protein in my heart, it broke apart. Some of the amino acids are gone, and I’ve got some leftover, but I have to rebuild my skin tissue, I have to rebuild my heart tissue. I have to rebuild the. The m hormones in my body. These proteins that make up the hormones. How can I rebuild them? That is why you eat protein. When you eat a piece of chicken or you eat a cup of cooked quinoa, you digest those food materials, the protein inside of it, in your belly gets broken apart into little amino acids.

If you don’t eat enough protein, your body is aging faster

It goes into your blood and it goes throughout your whole body, and it helps rebuild all the proteins in your body. So you have to eat protein in your diet to literally rebuild your body.

Wendy Valentine: So, basically, silly thing to say, I guess. But it’s like, if you’re not getting enough protein, then your body is breaking down faster. You’re aging faster, I would think.

Wendy Valentine: Cause you need that protein faster.

Angelo Keeley: Yeah, aging faster might be like a slight,

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Angelo Keeley: Pushing it a little bit too far. But what I would say, though, is, like, if you don’t eat sufficient protein, and I think we’ll get into aging later and how aging impacts this. But, like, if you don’t eat sufficient protein, All of these different functions in your body can, and the degree to which you don’t eat enough protein ultimately will suffer, and you could ultimately die just m directly from not consuming enough protein. Wow. Because, and so, and so here’s what happens, and here’s another basic idea that just get everyone kind of exposed to. If I don’t consume enough protein in a given day to support rebuilding all of the proteins in my body, theres only one place that my body can get the amino acids from that it needs to help rebuild those proteins, and that is my muscle so if I go several hours without eating protein, if I go a day without eating any protein or amino acids, my body is going to be like, I have to rebuild this liver tissue. I have to rebuild the heart. I have to rebuild hormones.

Wendy Valentine: It’s going to take it from the.

Angelo Keeley: Muscles, it will break down the muscle to supply amino acids to the blood to then redistribute it throughout the body to serve vital organs, to serve hormone production, to serve all these other things. So that’s what happens if you don’t. So, and if you just continue to not eat enough then that, like. So they actually did a study. They’ve done studies, but that very specific one actually on people who were fasting, like in the, irish resistance. And they were able to maintain enough amino acids in their blood as long as they had muscle tissue because they basically were in this long term fasting, right. And only once they literally had no muscle tissue left. That’s when they couldn’t maintain the amino acids to supply the rest of their organs with function and that’s when they would die.

Wendy Valentine: Wow.

Angelo Keeley: They didn’t die.

Wendy Valentine: Fascinating. I don’t know if like the listener finds it fascinating, but I do.

Angelo Keeley: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s kind of amazing too how many of us get this far in life and like we don’t know this fundamental thing about like what, why we’re even eating this protein. Like what’s, what’s the point of it?

Wendy Valentine: Well, and as we know, just like in our diets, we’re not always getting enough. I think that I eat pretty well, but even still I sometimes like I’m probably not getting enough. And even after listening to all that I’m like I probably need more, you know, and, and I cannot. And now that it’s like I feel like I’m more aware of my body, that I can tell. Like, okay, I’m feeling a little rundown. I might need a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But that’s all I’ve, I’ve always been very pro supplement. Like, I feel like we don’t always get everything that we need in our daily diet. So it’s like, supplements are amazing for that, right?

Angelo Keeley: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, and even you giving the point of like, hi. I never really was exposed to something like taking essential amino acids before we can, we can get more into like well, how much is the right amount of protein? What type of protein? When do essential amino acids make sense as a supplement? Because they do make a lot more sense the older you get.

Angelo Keeley: They like, they make sense for younger performance athletes. Like if you’re in your twenties, but if you’re not a performance athlete in your twenties, they make less sense. But once you start to get in your thirties and your forties and your fifties, it makes a lot more like you actually can’t get what you were getting from the protein before your body changes. And thus the reason for supplementing becomes more important, which is, another thing I think kind of gets overlooked. We think, oh, do supplements really matter? Do I need to take a multivitamin? Do I take official or like. Well, why? Well, maybe it’s different at different stages of life. Yes, because our bodies change over time. We’re not like.

Wendy Valentine: Well, yeah, exactly. I mean, I always thought amino acids was just for athletes. Or if you’re. So even if, you know, if you’re not super active, you’re not doing marathons, you still need the amino acids, obviously, with what, everything that you said.

Angelo Keeley: Yeah. So maybe, maybe we make it even more, broken down for people than in terms of like, well, like, how would you typically get it? And like, what kind of protein, et cetera. So, I like what the government has historically said through the recommended daily allowance is 0.4 grams of protein per pound of body weight. So, if you weighed, and make it simple math for everyone, if you weighed 100 pounds, that would be 40 grams of protein per day. If you weighed 150 pounds, that’d be 60 grams of protein per day. That said that recommended daily allowance was based on an idea of bare minimum, actually, like, what’s the bare minimum you can consume? To not have m.org issues with your organs, to not have hair loss, to not, you know, to not like, provoke these more serious conditions. And since then, since those were established, protein and amino acid science has shown that it’s actually higher. It’s something closer to 0.6 or 0.7 as a bare minimum. To not have like a whole series of more. We’re not talking living vibrantly, we’re talking like, not having significant health issues.

Angelo Keeley: But if you really want to live much healthier, like you actually, you know, you want to have a leaner body and be toner. If you want to have more sustained energy levels throughout the day, If you are perimenopausal and there’s a whole additional set of issues around hormone fluctuations, how it impacts your sleep, et cetera, like there’s. It gets more and more complex, you want to be aiming to much higher than that. Something closer to a gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. So not 40 grams. It’d be like 100 grams of protein. If you weigh 100 pounds. If you weigh 150 pounds, it’s 150 grams of protein, which I think most people, if you haven’t really paid attention or tracked your food before, that will actually seem like a lot. Like, you know, if you weigh 120 pounds and you eat three meals a day, that means 40 grams of protein at each meal.

Having a supplement to supplement that is great because traveling requires a lot of protein

Wendy Valentine: Yes. And that’s hard to do. Like it. I, mean, again, like, I usually, I try to pay attention to what I’m eating and I’ll count out everything, but even still, I’m like, it’s a lot of protein. I try to do it. I’m like, dang it. All right, give me another piece of salmon. You know, it’s like, holy moly. And I think for a lot of people, too, that they’re vegan. It’s, it’s hard. You’ve got to get tofu or beans, and it’s, it’s a lot. Which is another point, too. I think having a supplement to supplement that, that is great because, and you, know, for traveling, like, when I’m traveling, I can’t always get all my protein in, and I can tell when I don’t. So. Yes, so, I’m sorry, continue.

Angelo Keeley: No, that’s a great example of, like, well, that’s how this something like a supplement can start to make sense.

You need to get enough of the essential amino acids from the protein sources

So I’ll clarify one more point about protein and about essential amino acids that will, I think, really put the picture together for folks. So, in protein, there are some essential amino, acids and some non essential. The essential. The reason why they’re called essential is cause you have to eat them. The only way you can get them in your body is through eating them. You can actually make the non essential amino acids inside your body. Your body can convert essential amino acids into non essential ones. So when you’re looking for protein, and this goes back to the story of me when I was a kid, right, you need to get enough of the essential amino acids from the protein sources you’re eating. And not all protein is created equal. So again, if you choose to be vegan, then it means you need to be more thoughtful about combining different types of plant proteins that have different amounts of different essential amino acids. Whereas if you just eat a piece of chicken, then, or a piece of fish or dairy, even vegetarian diets, you get all the essential amino acids in that, in that protein source. The other thing though, that is really important about these essential amino acids is not just that like, your body can’t make them, they’re actually what I like to call the active component of the protein. When you eat the essential amino acids, the more that you can get. The essential amino acids have these kind of high levels in your blood. So like I eat a piece of chicken, I break it down and I get a lot of the essential amino acids get into my blood all at once. What happens is thats what communicates to the body to stimulate new protein synthesis, to say, hey, lets go rebuild new muscle, which then ends up being connected to whole body protein synthesis, which is going to support your skin being rebuilt, your m hair, your organs, all these things. So its increasing overall, the rejuvenation of all of your proteins throughout your body. So you really want to be, you really want to be getting not just protein, but you want to be getting higher doses of essential amino acids daily, multiple times throughout a day. If you do that, that is what’s going to lead to more protein synthesis, more rejuvenation of all the proteins. And here, and here’s kind of the, the interesting part of that, if I eat steak, Which regardless of kind of how you feel about whether you eat meat or not like steak, the actual protein source itself is a very high quality protein. The amino acids in it are very high quality. It’s got a lot of essential amino acids. It’s high quality. If I consume that, as part of a meal, like I have steak and potatoes and broccoli, versus, if I only eat the steak on its own, m I can eat half as much steak. So less than half, actually, 30 grams of protein from steak versus 70 grams of protein from steak as part of a full meal, and it will stimulate, actually more protein synthesis, eating the steak on its own. And I’m not, this is not me trying to encourage people to do that. Like, I eat meals where I, where I eat it all together. But the reason for that is because when you eat the steak on its own, it doesn’t get mixed with all the other carbohydrates and fat as much as the other materials, and it’s able, your body is more, it’s easier for the body to break down those proteins and get the essential amino acids in your blood. And the higher of the concentration, like you get a bunch of, just imagine your blood is there and you get a bunch more of essential amino acids all at once from your digestion, you get more muscle protein synthesis. So when you’re when you’re starting to think like, hey, I really want to try to rejuvenate my proteins more throughout the day, and I’m trying to get a better bang for the buck for, like, how much protein I eat and when I eat it and what I’m going to do, I wouldn’t say, like, hey, just eat one more piece of salmon at night, maybe instead, like, could you, like, fit in, like, a little bit of salmon in the middle of the day, right. Or in between your meals, right. Because when you eat on its own, you’re actually going to get this other larger, amount of new protein synthesis that gets stimulated. That said, here’s something that’s kind of even more mind blowing for people is a protein powder, especially something like away protein. This is not necessarily true for plant protein powders because it has to have certain amounts of the essential amino acids in them, et cetera. The whey protein powder will stimulate, will actually increase the amount of eaas that are in the blood. The amino, acids that I’m talking about three times more than steakwill gram for gram on the protein source. So just think about the way protein is, like, three times as potent as the beef. And so this is not to tell people, like, stop eating whole food meals. Like, I would say, like, eat. If you can get 20 grams of protein in for breakfast, that’s awesome. Wendy.

Wendy Valentine: Right.

Angelo Keeley: If you can get another 2030 in at lunch, that’s awesome. If you can get another 30, 40 in at dinner, that’s awesome. Then in the, in between periods, would you be open to having, like, some whey protein powder? And then, and that whey protein powder is going to be way more effective than just trying to eat more meat at each one of your meals. But m even better. Essential amino acids as a free form supplement are basically like, when even when you look at a whey protein powder, only half of it is the essential amino acids. When you get a free form supplement, it’s all essential amino acids, right? Something like keonaminos. It’s all essential amino acids, and it’s more ideal proportions, and it’s immediately digestible. There’s basically no digestion. So it, in a young adult, has three times the impact as the whey protein. Wow. So again, if you can eat a healthy amount of protein in each one of your meals, and then you could supplement with essential amino acids one or two times a day, during the other times of day, you’re going to get a lot more impact than just trying to stuff yourself with, like, another, you know, another few ounces of salmon, right, when you’re not even really hungry. And like, I don’t want to eat that much more. If you could kind of supplement your diet in these ways, you get the, you get the greatest bang for your buck and the most amount of kind of rejuvenation of these proteins, gram for gram, by taking something like an essential amino acid supplement. That’s why it can make so much sense. And, I’ll let you ask some more questions about this, but when you get into aging, you’ll really be like, oh, now I get why it’s so important.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. I mean, for me, I always think about my 90 year old self, right? I’m like, whatever I’m doing now is really going to support her, you know, for being able to be still healthy at 90 years old and taking care of grandkids or taking a walk in the park. Like, I think about those things and I know what I’m doing now really does matter. And. Yeah, so that’s, that’s so fascinating. I. And plus, too, I don’t mean not, like even protein powder, having a protein shake sometimes I’m like, I don’t really want to have another one. Even. That can be kind of filling.

Angelo Keeley: They can be filling? Yeah. I mean, that’s. I honestly use protein shakes more, like, when I want something more filling.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Angelo Keeley: But like, yeah, I don’t, I’m like, kind of short on time, but I’m like, okay, I can take some whey protein powder and blueberries and like throw it in a blender and like, it, you know, it’s, it’s filling. Whereas when I’m like, I don’t want to feel really full, but I don’t want to try to eat a bunch more stuff. That’s when essential amino acids can really make sense.

Wendy Valentine: So the, with the, the key on amino acids, I remember, I had the little scoop there with the powder. So how, how do, how do you know how much you would need in a day? And does it depend on your diet in a day?

Angelo Keeley: Well, yeah, it depends. So, I’ll add one more context, one more piece of context maybe specifically for your audience thinking about midlife women, right?

As we age, our body loses some of its ability to digest protein

Wendy Valentine: M yep.

Angelo Keeley: Okay, so the, the thing that I just said, like, well, these, you know, the essential amino acids are three times more kind of potent. Than a protein powder. That’s for a young adult. That’s for, like, that’s basically studies on like 20 something year olds. When you do studies on, women beyond midlife, 60 year old women, three grams, which is less than a scoop of keyan aminos, stimulates as much protein synthesis, rejuvenation of all these proteins in the body, then 20 grams of whey protein. It’s over a six time impact, so it’s way more impactful as you might be. Like, well why, why is it less for a younger person and ah, over six times for a 60 year old person? And then, and the only piece I’d add to that too is it’s about, if you can, we don’t have studies for every single decade, but it’s about four times if you’re 45, times if you’re 56, times if you’re 60. And the reason for that is, as we age, we progressively lose some of our ability to digest protein, To actually break down the proteins and to get the essential amino acids into our blood. But also our body doesn’t prioritize building new proteins as much. If you think about it, we’re getting older. It’s not thinking like, oh, I want to keep this machine super young and vibrant. It’s like, you know, I’ve already had kids, raised a family, you know, worked like, done all this stuff, and we used to like, not even live past like 50. Right. Historically. So it’s like, the body’s like, I’m trying to stay in super good shape. Right. So it’s, it’s not prioritizing this protein development as much. It’s not pro, it’s not prioritizing build lean muscle. It’s, it might actually be more like, hey, let’s just like retain some fat because, yeah, we’re not.

Wendy Valentine: Right. We’re not making sense that your muscles are, you know, getting smaller as you’re getting older.

Angelo Keeley: They’re supposed to, yeah, but it’s not good if you want to be 90 and be really vibrant and ride bikes with your family in your eighties and pick up your grandkids and go to the pool and like do all that kind of stuff. And so basically our sensitivity, our innate sensitivity to protein and to the amino acids in them, to rebuild proteins in our body, to rebuild our muscle, to maintain this more kind of tone physique, it decreases as we age. And so as you age, it makes that much more sense to try to overcome that somehow and free form essential amino acids if they’re in the right formula, if they have, which is like what the key on a formula is. But we can go into more detail about like, what that is. If you’re trying to just understand it more generally. it overcomes that. So you give essential amino acids, you know, two servings a day of about a scoop and a half to women in their sixties and they put on a few pounds of muscle in three months versus women who don’t do it. Yeah. so like you could, you can have a pretty dramatic impact, whereas like you couldn’t just give them more steak and get that.

Wendy Valentine: Right. Exactly.

Angelo Keeley: Yeah. It’s like because essentially amino acids actually over they overcome it because they, they, they just get into the blood so much more quickly and you can formulate them in this more ideal way. So what I would say is if you are in your, you know, forties, fifties.

Angelo Keeley: The idea of trying to get about a gram of protein per pound of body weight per day through whole foods is a great goal. Hm. If you can’t get that, go try to get at least 0.6 through real food. Right. And I’m not even saying like protein powders, I’m saying like, like through eating foods that you love through healthy, you know, happy meals with your family or loved ones or friends or whatever, you know. And so that would be like if you weighed a hundred. And I, I’m not assuming people weigh 100 pounds, it’s just easier math. Right.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Angelo Keeley: Weigh 100 pounds it would be 60 grams of protein, you know, so again, it’d be like, you know, three meals with 20 grams of protein per m day. Then if it’s hard for you to get all the way up to that, that extra 40 grams of protein.

Angelo Keeley: That is a great idea to think, oh, well, maybe I could take a protein powder or I could take essential amino acids. They’ll be even more effective. And in that case, it’s like, as we just said, you know, it kind of depends on your age, but like taking a scoop or two is going to be the equivalent of somewhere between, you know, 20 to 40 grams of whey protein powder. Mmm. M. You know, because so much.

Wendy Valentine: Yes. And it’s much, lighter. Ah, that’s what I loved about it. And so much easier to digest. And I did feel like it was very, What am I trying to say? Fast acting like I felt like my body absorbed it very quickly after I took it. It’s immediate and I took it. I would take mine in the morning. I don’t know if that’s like what you’re supposed to do, but that was like coffee.

Angelo Keeley: Any time of day is good. Yeah. there’s really benefits to any time of day. And that’s what I take, essential amino acids and I recommend them to my wife and everyone I train with and my parents and everyone. Like first thing in the morning is a great, it’s a great anchor behavior. Right. It’s like starting the day off right with these core nutrients that I need.

Angelo Keeley: But if that doesn’t work for you, it’s also fine if you take them mid morning or mid afternoon or take them with lunch or you take them at night. They also pair really well with exercise. If you take essential amino acids before exercise, they actually make you get more out of the exercise.

Angelo Keeley: They have a multiple, the multiplying effect of, of how much you rejuvenate and rebuild the muscles and focus more on building and maintaining muscles and burning fat through that exercise. So there’s really, there’s not like a bad time to take them. It’s like when, what I always like to say is like, the thing I actually do is way better than the perfect plan I try to make. So it’s like, when will I actually take them every day? If I don’t remember to take them mid morning, because then I’m at work and I’m confused, then, like, it doesn’t, it’s not worth it. If I can remember to actually take them every morning, well, then that’s a way more sustainable, healthy behavior that I’m actually going to keep doing.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. Yeah. In the rv, I literally had mine sitting out like on my kitchen counter. They would not forget to take it.

You really need all nine of the essential amino acids, according to science

So, yeah, I, so you were going to talk a little bit more about what’s in the supplement itself and the key on supplement.

Angelo Keeley: Yeah. So, I guess it’s like, so if all of this is like interesting to someone, everything we talked about. Okay. Wow, this is awesome. I didn’t know this about protein. I didn’t realize it’s about protein powders and essential amino acids. I’m interested in this. Here’s what to know if you’re going to try to go out and find the right essential amino acid supplement. So the first thing you want to know is that you really need all nine of the essential amino acids.

Angelo Keeley: So, because, there, there’s actually a lot of science around this and very clear, kind of, nothing’s conclusive in science, but the, the community that studies this stuff in detail over the last 20 years is very clear that like, you need all nine and there’s more ideal proportions you could get. That said, there’s marketers that pick up a, study here or a study there, and they invest money in making a product and then they spend money on selling it. So you could find amino, acid supplements that only have eight m amino acids, or, even worse, only three. Like, you may see branch chain amino acids, which. The branch chain bcaas. Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: Okay.

Angelo Keeley: Those are. Those are three of the nine essential. But you.

Wendy Valentine: That’s interesting. I never knew that.

Angelo Keeley: But you must have all nine. Well, and it’s. What’s interesting is it’s old science from, you know, 2030 years ago where we. When originally the community thought that, like, oh, maybe we could just supplement with these three and it would create these benefits. It doesn’t. It’s been, it’s been very clear, you know, at least.

Wendy Valentine: So bcaas are three of the nine.

Angelo Keeley: Yeah. and taking them on their own is a waste of time and money.

Wendy Valentine: Interesting.

Angelo Keeley: I’m going to tell my son that they will not. They will not create the benefits. Yeah. Really? Tell your son that. Like, he should bcaas and he should switch to, essential amino acids. You need all nine. I can send you it for him if he really needs persuasion.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, they’re, all three of them are.

Angelo Keeley: All into working out a great article that, basically, you know, it’s a summary article from the research community that, from the International Society of Sports Nutrition that clarifies this point. so you definitely don’t want only eight. You’d only want three. You want all nine. And if you have a son who’s into getting fit and lifting weights or a daughter. Same thing. Essential amino m acids. It’s the same product that we’re talking about for, you know, midlife women who are just trying to maintain a healthy, vibrant health. It’s actually the same supplement that your son, who’s in his twenties, would want to take. Fascinating.

Wendy Valentine: Okay.

Angelo Keeley: Yeah, so you need all nine. The next thing I’d say is don’t get a proprietary blend. So, proprietary blend means on the back of the label, they might not tell you actually how much of each one is in there. They won’t say, like, there’s these nine amino acids. They won’t say, like, oh, there’s 2000 milligrams of leucine and this amount of this. They’ll just say, it’s in this order. Don’t worry about it. Basically, it’s proprietary. Yeah, don’t buy that with amino acids because the proportions actually, they really matter in amino acid science. And without boring your audience, like, it really matters.

Wendy Valentine: Okay.

Angelo Keeley: And, the proportions are like Leucine’s going to be at the top and then there’s going to be, the simplest thing to say would be, If you go to the link that you’re sharing and you look at what the profile is on key on aminos. I have no offense taken if people don’t. I mean, I’m here to like educate. If someone doesn’t buy key on, it’s like, yeah, hopefully you take the education and you make decisions in your life about protein and amino acid nutrition, but you want those proportions. So look at what’s on the Keon label. Like those are the amounts that you want about that much. and then after that you don’t need anything else.

You don’t need caffeine in the product. And you don’t also need a bunch of other additives

You don’t need caffeine in the product. you don’t need other amino acids like chlorine or arginine or these other types of supplements that, they’re not bad, but they, it’s a whole other subject about what they do and how they function and whether you would need them. And like, they’re not, they’re not, they’re not relevant directly to the conversation that we had today. They’re not necessary. And you don’t also need a bunch of other additives. You don’t need like other weird chemicals, et cetera.

Wendy Valentine: I mean, it’s almost like your analogy of the steak meal with the baked potato and like you’re just having just the nine essential amino acids by itself. That’s all that you need. And that way your body can just soak that up in itself rather than interference with anything else.

Angelo Keeley: I guess just for the benefits that we’ve described today, you don’t need, you don’t need any other amino acids.

Angelo Keeley: Okay, so like they’re trying to tell you, oh, you need this, I don’t know, whatever other marketing mumbo jumbo people throw in there, like, you don’t need it. Yeah, they’re going to try to add, you know, again, like, I mean, just in business, they’ll try to, or marketing, they’ll try to add something and be like, oh, but this is what makes ours different. Well, it’s like, does it need to be different? I just need it to work.

Wendy Valentine: Exactly.

Angelo Keeley: I just want to take what actually works, you know? yeah, and then you don’t need like any other weird stuff in it. If you’re buying a flavored drink, then it’s going to have, you know, ideally natural flavors and some type of sweetener that you feel comfortable with. But that’s basically it. And so, obviously, at keon, if I’m sharing this, like, we have followed that. We followed the science. We followed what’s actually helpful, we don’t add a bunch of extra stuff. but that’s what I would look for in a supplement to get the benefits that we have described here on the show.

Wendy Valentine: can you ship it to Portugal for me, please? I can’t wait. Going back to the States. I need it now. I should have, I think I told you I did have one other tube. and I could not. There was no room in my suitcase. I was like, so I left it back, but I’ll have to get more. I need it. Now that I’ve heard all of this, I’m like, this is so critical to be taking that.

Angelo Keeley: Yeah. Again, the, you know, once we hit 40, it really becomes, it becomes way more beneficial and one way more critical. Whereas, like, again, you talk about, like, your sons, like, in your twenties, like, it’s a cool thing to take. That will make you stronger. It, like, right? It will, it will help you exercise longer, it will help you recover faster, it will help you do these other things because your muscles are made of proteins and you’re basically giving your muscles these key nutrients. But as we get older, we’re not trying to, like, you know, be super jacked or, you know, we’re just trying to, like, live vibrantly. And we actually. Maybe it plays a different role for us. It plays more of a role of, like, maintaining m our youth as much as we can as we age, maintaining the muscle, performance that we have, maintaining our body composition, maintaining our energy levels, maintaining our immune system function. And we didn’t even get into it. But proteins and amino acids play a big role in immune system, hormone system, how? Well, whether you feel fatigued or not, even the neurotransmitters in our brains, the, the chemicals in our brains through which we feel and experience emotions, they’re actually amino acids as well, or the metabolites of amino acids. So really, the whole thing’s running on amino acids, like, the whole body.

Wendy Valentine: It’s surprising. And there hasn’t been more focus on that in the healthcare industry. I mean, I owned a few integrative medicine practices, and it’s like, nobody’s talking about amino acids, right? Like, it’s. But now you are. That’s, that’s why you’re here.

Angelo Keeley: Yeah, I mean, I think. I think a big part of it, too, is, like, it’s more in clinical situations, it is talked about.

Angelo Keeley: So clinical. I’ll just be like very specific. So included. I’ll include sports performance. In clinical, if someone’s trying to be the best athlete, they talk about amino acids, right?

Wendy Valentine: Exactly. Yes.

Angelo Keeley: And in elderly populations if you’re talking about people like in their seventies, amino acids have been very highly studied and utilized. They’re utilized in hospital settings. Like they’re pretty extensively utilized. Burn victims utilized. Recovery from certain types of surgery utilized. Well, just like when you’re a burn, if you’re a burn victim, You have tons of new tissue that has to be rebuilt. So you need. You need an immense surplus of essential amino acids to improve that recovery time because you have so much protein breakdown.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Angelo Keeley: And there’s so much trauma. So. Yeah. And it’s been used with different types of chronic illness and disease treatment. But like people in their forties and fifties just trying to be like healthier, you know? It’s like, I think there’s so much more interest now. The whole, population is more aware of, you know, not only trying to like not get overly fat or obese as we age, but trying to maintain our activity levels. We want to maintain our muscle. We want to like there’s all, there’s a. There’s more focus on like longevity in terms of health span. And when that suddenly is an interest then people, you know. Well, amino acids make a lot of sense, right?

Wendy Valentine: Totally. Yeah.

Angelo Keeley: But I think it’s the emergence of like even just people in their thirties to fifties trying to live more vibrantly. And they’re not in, you’re not in a clinical situation yet. You’re not like, your life’s not like, you know.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

If you invest in your health now, it’s easier to sustain as we get older

I mean, even for me, just in the last probably five years, like I’m no longer interested in, like I need rock hard abs and, you know, like, I just want to be healthy. Like, that’s it. Like I look at my body as a vehicle that carries my soul through this lifetime. And you wouldn’t put sub par fuel in your car. Why would you do it to your body? Right? So I try to think of it like what am I actually putting into my body every single day so that it will carry me all the way until hopefully 100. Let’s go with 111. Like, I, like, I hope they make it to 111.

Angelo Keeley: I like one, one, one.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. But you know what I think, like my aunt Annie, she’s 90 to the healthiest person I have ever met. But she’s always been someone that’s been, that eats well she counts her proteins, she exercises, she does her supplements. Now I’ll have to tell her about amino acids, so hopefully I’ll take that as well. But, but it’s true though, right? Like, I want to be that when I’m in my nineties and what we do now in our forties and fifties and sixties really does make a huge difference.

Angelo Keeley: Yeah, it makes a huge difference. And it’s, You can try to catch up in your sixties. Yeah, try to catch up in your seventies, but it’s a lot harder. Like if you start investing in your health now, if you start m the healthy behaviors and protein and lean muscle and cardiovascular, health, like, it’s a lot easier to sustain as we get older.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, I mean it’s, it’s better to be proactive than reactive. Prevent rather than repair. Right. Yeah, exactly.

With amino acids, you’ll definitely notice a difference right away

So, anything else you want to add about amino acids? Because I also want to know what other supplements that key on has as well.

Angelo Keeley: yeah, I mean, I think I’ll just conclude with, I know we covered tons in terms of like protein and essential amino acids and all that, and so fascinating. Yeah. I would just say like, you don’t have to had like absorbed all of it if you were listening to this and you don’t have to implement everything. I think if I tried to just give a big simplification again, it’s like, try to get to those upper ranges of your daily protein intake, try to eat in a few meals throughout the day, and then maybe start with like one serving of essential amino acids per day.

Angelo Keeley: That you can actually commit to and then start to see how the changes take over time. And then if you want to add in more, add in more. But I think it’s a like, that’s the simple advice I’d give with amino acids.

Wendy Valentine: And you’ll definitely notice the difference right away. I mean, I did. I mean, there are some supplements where you’re like, Is it doing anything?

Angelo Keeley: Yeah. Is it doing anything? Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: Like with, I know with the key on amino acids, I noticed the difference immediately. I was like, I actually feel good. Like more energetic. I just felt, felt good. Mm.

Angelo Keeley: Yeah, that’s been my experience as well.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: so yeah, you do have, other supplements as well.

Angelo Keeley: Yeah. Which, which ones are you interested in?

Wendy Valentine: do you have creatine? You do have protein powder too, though, right?

Angelo Keeley: Yeah, we do that. Last time we have a whey protein isolate. Yep.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. There’s also.

Angelo Keeley: It’s awesome. It’s, it’s the, I don’t mean to like.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, no, you can brag.

Angelo Keeley: Like, I. But like, really, it’s the best whey protein. I say it’s the best protein powder. It’s, it’s the highest quality raw ingredients. It’s so clean. It’s got the best organic flavor systems. It’s got, it’s like a little bit of himalayan pink salt in it that is like, make. It just tastes so good. It’s so clean. And I’ve tried, I mean, I tried every raw whey protein isolate you could try. And for maybe people who have like, thought, like, can I do whey? It’s got dairy. Like, if you haven’t tried an isolate or high quality grass fed isolate, it’s worth trying because it removes virtually all of the fat and the carbohydrates, including virtually all of the lactose. So it’s virtually lactose free. So even I, who am fairly, I’m not like crazy lactose intolerant, but I’m lactose intolerant. I can consume it totally, like, as much as I want with zero issues.

Wendy Valentine: You can digest it easily. Yeah. That’s one thing I’ve noticed, even for me. I’ve been a little bit, you know, having trouble with lactose.

Wendy: Way concentrate has way less calories and more protein

I’m like trying to. So that’s good to know, though.

Angelo Keeley: Yeah. So there’s if you look for protein powders, way there’ll be way concentrate or way isolate. Way concentrate is, it’s not filtered as much. They leave in more of, they leave in all the lactose and the fat and the carbs and the isolate, all the fat and carbs are stripped out and the lactose. And so it’s honestly a much more efficient, like calorically. It has way less calories and a lot more protein, but, also it doesn’t irritate the gut.

Wendy Valentine: You’re a great teacher.

Angelo Keeley: Oh, thanks. I love learning. So I think, I love being a student. So I’m intrigued by trying to teach too.

Wendy Valentine: And it’s so cool to hear people’s stories and how the stars have aligned for them along the way. I mean, even going back to you as a child and with your mom and your dad and the supplements and their health store, and then unfortunately, your tragic accident. But that actually is, I think of it like a, like a life quake, right? It’s something that kind of shakes you up and like, whoo. And then. But it can start something so amazing, which it obviously did.

Angelo Keeley: I like lifequake. I haven’t heard that.

Wendy Valentine: I know that. Nice. There’s. I care. There’s an author that, that coined that phrase, but lifequake can be positive or negative, but it basically, like, shakes you to your core to, you know, shakes up your life. So. Yeah, it’s good. Yeah. Thank you so much.

Angelo Keeley: Thank you, Wendy.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, I appreciate it. And, let’s see. See if I can remember the code here again. Get keyon.com makeover. Right. 20% off. Yeah. Thank you.

Angelo Keeley: Thank you, Wendy.

Wendy Valentine: All right, everyone, have a great day.