Panos Papadiamantis: Cardio Metabolic Analysis and Effective Training
“In order to prescribe an effective workout plan. You need to understand that each type of training is going to have a different adaptation on your body.
We do strength training in order to ramp up our metabolism.
We do cardio training in order to enhance our cellular health and fat burning efficiency.
We do hit training in order to improve our cardiovascular and pulmonary fitness.
So three different systems, three different types of workouts as I like to say, in our programming, we don’t try to fix everything all at once.”
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Panos Papadiamantis, Co-Founder of PNOE, the world’s first portable cardio-metabolic analyzer. What that is, it’s a mask that you wear during a 10-minute test on a treadmill, and from that, you gain incredible insights into your health and fitness.
PNOĒ is on a quest to bring cardio-metabolic analysis to everyone. As the gold standard for nutrition & exercise prescription, the most non-invasive method for cardiovascular disease screening, the clinical standard for triaging between pulmonary and cardiac limitations as well as a valuable tool in detecting latent causes of myoskeletal problems, cardio-metabolic analysis is rapidly becoming the central assessment in holistic health.
Explore PNOE here!
Show Notes:
[00:04:20] What is PNOE?
How Does Oxygen Get to Muscles?
[00:10:10] One of the biggest misconceptions of metabolic testing
“What you're describing now is probably one of the biggest misconceptions about metabolic testing that metabolic testing is basically viewed as VO2 max testing. VO2 max is simply the highest number of one of the variables recorded during the test. There are so many other things that are scanned during a metabolic test.
You scan your cardiovascular fitness, your respiratory fitness, you are metabolic efficiency, which is how fast or slow your metabolism is. In other words, whether you're burning fewer or more calories than the average person of your size and gender. You can see to what extent your breathing is affecting your posture.
You can see to what extent your breathing is affecting your cognition. You can screen how effective you are in burning fat. It's actually the gold standard for assessing fat-burning efficiency, which is highly correlated with cellular health. There are so many, many things that are scattered throughout metabolic tests, but you know, because of how difficult devices were to operate until today, and because of a very small extent that they supported the user. When it comes to analyzing data, most of that information was largely unexploited until today.“
[00:12:31] Describing the technology
[00:15:47] Studies that validate PNOE?
Validity and Reliability of the New Portable Metabolic Analyzer PNOE
[00:16:51] Calorie Deviation
Whoop Podcast: Panos Papadiamantis, Co-Founder of PNOE
[00:18:02] What is Panos' Background?
“Then at some point, we were like, okay, maybe we should, you know, try and turn this thing into a company. There is an obviously great market potential if you're able to measure a person's metabolism. To be very honest with you when we first started, the only thing that we knew about metabolism was that it was a big buzzword in the fitness industry.
Nothing more than that. If you told me back then about the potential of metabolic testing to screen for hyperventilation and how hyperventilation affects your posture, I wouldn't know anything about that. Anyways, it was sort of a gut feeling. We were like, Hey, you know, metabolism is something so central in human physiology.
If you build a device that actually measures it, there's gotta be a way to grow a good business out of that. And this is how it started.
And, you know, by the way, this is advice to anyone who's starting a company to not start a company based on that mentality.
This is what Silicon Valley investors define as technology looking for a need. And we were lucky. We were lucky in the sense that we actually found the need for a product-market fit. But, you know, it might have very well been the case that we wouldn't have found anything. So, usually the right way to start things is, Hey, I see that people want to do VO2 max testing more easily. And this is why I want to build a field to a max testing device, et cetera. We did it the other way around. And as a result, you know, we have many near-death experiences, which are very constructive.
And in some ways, I think part of the reason why as a company, we are so scientific and, and we provide a lot of education to our users as well as because we needed to educate ourselves extensively in order to understand where our device will ultimately be used.
So this is kind of a this is kind of some, some background information on how everything started.”
[00:23:20] Accessibility of the technology and what understanding your metabolism can provide for average users
[00:27:01] Understanding metabolic efficiency
Obesity and metabolic efficiency
[00:29:26] Uses for different types of training
“In order to prescribe an effective workout plan. You need to understand that each type of training is going to have a different adaptation on your body.
We do strength training in order to ramp up our metabolism.
We do cardio training in order to enhance our cellular health and fat burning efficiency.
We do hit training in order to improve our cardiovascular and pulmonary fitness.
So three different systems, three different types of workouts as I like to say, in our programming, we don’t try to fix everything all at once.”
[00:32:27] Mitochondria and metabolism
Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD)
[00:37:19] Frequency of testing?
[00:38:18] Bad advice in training
[00:41:01] Entry level recommendation for movement
“Strength training. What I like to say is that it starts under the squat rack. This is, this is where you build muscle. This is where you build your body. And, you know, especially when it comes to longevity and keeping weight off and being able to live off a high-quality life, you need to have muscle on your body.
That's the most important thing. Obviously, you should be working on your audio, and you should make sure that you have a high VO2 peak. You know, if anything, we are the biggest proponents of the VO2 peak as a health metric. It is well established as the most, foundational health metric and the greatest indicator for overall health, etc. But make sure that, you know, you keep weight off and you are able to perform physical work without risk of getting injured, et cetera. The most important thing is me building a strong myoskeletal system, and this is done as I like to say, it starts under the squat rack. So, obviously it's more complicated in that this is what I like to say just to describe to give a very broad overview of how this program would look like in the beginning. Obviously, as I said, it's going to have cardio, training, hit training, et cetera, down the road, but it starts by building a strong myoskeletal foundation.”
[00:43:21] What to do when feeling overwhelmed or unfocused?
[00:44:21] Any routines that help Panos?
[00:46:09] Advice the young or driven?
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Full Transcript - Panos Papadiamantis: Metabolic Analysis and Effective Training
[00:03:45] Panos Papadiamantis: Cool. So, yeah, fire away. You want me to give you some background on what we do, et cetera, and then you can, continue with questions.
[00:03:52] Erich Wenzel: Yeah, that works. I basically, this is, I love to keep this more conversational than I do actually interview style.
[00:03:58] It's kind of to unpack what the person is doing, you know, what, how do they, their curiosity, take them down the road that they're in, and then just kind of unpacking some of the softer skills that. Dealing with, you know, the trials and tribulations of life where, you know, even if we are whoever we are, we're still going to struggle and things, and we're always working towards something.
[00:04:20] What is PNOE?
[00:04:20] Panos Papadiamantis: First of all, a few words about PNOE, PNOE is the world's first, metabolic analyzer for the mass market. metabolic analysis is by far the most foundational assessment a person can do. The reason is simple. It is the only method known to scientists that screens the three most foundational systems of human physiology.
[00:04:42] There are cardiovascular, your pulmonary and your metabolic systems all at once. because it is so, it is so comprehensive as an assessment. It provides the gold standard tool for prescribing nutrition, the gold standard tool for, prescribing, workout plans. And it is also the most effective tool for screening for cardiovascular, pulmonary, and metabolic diseases.
[00:05:06] So pretty much every chronic disease you can think of out there. can be picked up, in some ways through metabolic testing. So it is, by far the most comprehensive health assessment a person can do. And what most people think at this point is, okay, if this is something so great, why aren't we doing it?
[00:05:26] Then why? So very few people have heard about it. The answer has many layers. First of all is the cost. So until, until PNOE came along, if you wanted to get your hands on a clinical grade, fully validated metabolic analyzer. You would need to spend anywhere between 30 and $60,000, which is certainly outside of the budget of a, you know, a fitness center, a small scale clinical practitioner and so on.
[00:06:00] Then the other big problem was the use. So, cardiometabolic analyzers until today were very complicated than you really needed to invest a lot of time in order to become proficient and be able to operate them effectively. And then, the biggest obstacle I would say has been the fact that metabolic analyzers, until PNOE came along, didn't provide any sort of support to the practitioner, the nutritionist, the gym owner.
[00:06:34] The personal trainer, the clinician, you name it, didn't provide any support. When it comes to transitioning from raw cardio-metabolic data to an actionable workout plan or a diet plan or diagnosis. So, what would happen in most cases, especially in the cases of clinical grade systems, the system would just dump a bunch of graphs, which most people are completely unable to utilize because we're talking about a lot of different variables that are being measured concurrently.
[00:07:07] just to frame things. Our cardiometabolic test measures roughly. 13 variables in your breath concurrently on a breath by breath basis. So on every cycle. So there's a lot of data that is being gathered and in order to fully analyze that data, you need to start looking into different combinations of these variables.
[00:07:27] So it does require a lot of expertise in order to analyze all of that data effectively and in its entirety.
[00:07:36]And so just by providing a couple of graphs that didn't really help practitioners to actually utilize the data. And as a result, until PNOE came along, most practitioners were largely aware of the different elements of human physiology that can be scanned by a metabolic analyzer.
[00:07:55] And of course there are some cases of devices that would provide some sort of a canned report and automatic report that is generated right after the test. But in these cases, what you would get is five training zones, two thresholds, and then a value for your VO2 to max. And this still is miles away from providing a complete workout plan.
[00:08:19] That outlines your strength training, your cardio training, your hit training. Exactly like the rapport that you got after you got the test, after you got tested. By knowing the, you know, just just providing training zones and your view to max isn't really. Workout prescription in it, weirdly, not nutrition prescription.
[00:08:38] So, what really sets PNOE apart is that it's not only the most accurate portable metabolic analyzer in the industry. It is the only solution that allows a practitioner to go from metabolic data to an actionable workout and diet plan without having. without needing to have the expertise to analyze the data, and of course without needing to invest the time needed to analyze all of that data.
[00:09:09] Erich Wenzel: That's super interesting.
[00:09:10] Panos Papadiamantis: I know it's a lot of information. That's why I paused. You have any quotes? You said you wanted this to be more conversational and I don't want to go on a monologue about, PNOE,
[00:09:20] Erich Wenzel: That's okay. So for me, that's. I mean, it makes a lot of sense, like to hear that and to actually see the actual report.
[00:09:28] So, for full disclosure, for the listeners, I have taken a PNOE test and the, he's absolutely right in saying that it does put a lot of information in front of the user to allow them to understand what their body's trying to tell them, basically. And at least at the very best to highlight pain points within your physiology to, to work on.
[00:09:49] And I, I'd not realized that you can measure so many different things just from exhalation to the breath. My very surface level understanding of what the test was was for volume of oxygen at max, basically to try and look at your metabolic peak performance. I liked spending it on a treadmill. For those who are not familiar.
[00:10:10] One of the biggest misconceptions of metabolic testing
[00:10:10] Panos Papadiamantis: [00:10:10] So that is directly in what you're describing now is probably one of the biggest misconceptions about metabolic testing that metabolic testing is basically viewed to max testing. Well viewed to the max is simply the highest, number of one of the variables recorded during the test. There are so many other things that are scanned during a metabolic test.
[00:10:33] You scan your cardiovascular fitness, your respiratory fitness, you are metabolic efficiency, which is how fast or slow your metabolism is. In other words, whether you're burning fewer or more calories than the average person of your size and gender. You can see to what extent your breathing is affecting your posture.
[00:10:54] You can see to what extent your breathing is affecting your cognition. You can screen how effective you are in burning fat. It's actually the gold standard for assessing fat burning efficiency, which is highly correlated with cellular health. There are so many, many things that are scattered throughout metabolic tests, but you know, because of how difficult devices were to operate until today, and because of a very small extent that they supported the user. When it comes to analyzing data, most of that information was, largely unexploited until today.
[00:11:32] Erich Wenzel: Yeah, I mean, to me that kind of makes sense because you know, I come from an engineering background like yourself and in a lot of engineering isn't really what most people think it is.
[00:11:42] I like, you know, it's building fancy products, but a lot of times it's, it's looking at the data behind the scenes and then making a nice, easy, readable graph that's so anybody can look at it to understand what that data is trying to tell you. Not, do you know, just putting numbers in front of someone because most people aren't going to get that and be like, okay the cool, but why.
[00:12:03] Panos Papadiamantis: I am with you 100% yeah.
[00:12:04] Erich Wenzel: So for something like PNOE too, like just looking at the form factor of the device, I found it really interesting cause I've seen the older or really more. Standard versions of this where it's basically like a computer with like an analyzer that's, or a laptop that has that hooked up to it.
[00:12:19] So it makes it a little bit unwieldy to wear those. Whereas PNOE form factor is basically like a little mini backpack. It's probably about the size of like a, a credit card if you stacked like 20 of them together.
[00:12:29] Panos Papadiamantis: I think that's an accurate representation.
[00:12:31] Describing the technology
[00:12:31] Erich Wenzel: It just kinda does this by a really quick way of describing it.
[00:12:35] And it's using a little weighted backpack kind of strap system. it's, it's really fascinating because the, you know, the power supply self-contained there, the strap doesn't get in the way, or the mass doesn't really get in the way unless you're like smiling or something, obviously. and then the way it, it.
[00:12:52] As you're running, you really don't realize that you're really kind of taking the test. Obviously you're having a mask on. So it is a little bit different, but for the most part it doesn't really feel weird. Whereas I've heard other people when they run on the treadmill of doing these tests, like they feel the cord kind of pulling out their face and stuff like that.
[00:13:07] So like accuracy of data goes up by improving the, the new measurement system basically, you know, trying to reduce variables that would increase error.
[00:13:17] Panos Papadiamantis: For sure. And really the biggest problem with some of the older units was the fact that, you would use the hose, that would basically allow you to only breathe from the mouth and would use a nose clip in order to block.
[00:13:33] That creates an enormous problem with data consistency because. most people, and this is how it should be, our nasal breathers, at least up until they get into a relatively high exercise intensity. and, when you block your nasal, w when you block nasal breathing, when you restrict nasal breathing and you force yourself to breathe through the mouth, most likely you're going to start to hyperventilate.
[00:13:59] Hyperventilation is going to cause. I'm a perturbation in the concentration of CO2 in O2 in your breath. As a result, a lot of the variables that will be recorded by a metabolic analyzer will be significantly affected. In very simple words, you will be recording, you will be recording part artifacts, which aren't necessarily metabolic responses of the body.
[00:14:23] Erich Wenzel: Yeah actually happened during my test where I had like smiled or the seal had kinda gotten broken for like a short second. And so we saw a dip in the numbers,
[00:14:35] Panos Papadiamantis: Actually this is not a big issue, like you can cancel out that part of the test. The hyperventilation issue that I'm referring to is basically across the entire test, all of the CO2 readings or all of the OTR readings, Oh wow. Either upwards or shifted downwards is all like your eye, your anaerobic threshold or aerobic threshold.
[00:14:56] Will be pinpointed somewhere in a completely different exercise intensity. So, to all of the listeners that might have done a metabolic test, wearing a hose that has that nose clip. Most likely you need to redo the test using a mask if that doesn't obstruct your nasal breathing.
[00:15:15] Erich Wenzel: Wow, that's crazy.
[00:15:17] Cause I've, I've heard of the nasal club and being kind of like a, a standard for some of these high performance tests. So that's insane that it would cost either upshift or downshift depending on what kind of breather you are.
[00:15:29] Panos Papadiamantis: So, and again, there are people who are very experienced breathers who can avoid going into hyperventilation despite the fact that they're breathing from their mouth.
[00:15:41] However, there is no way that you can guarantee that this is going to be the case with everyone.
[00:15:47] Studies that validate PNOE?
[00:15:47] Erich Wenzel: Yeah. Making it accessible to everybody is making it easier to use for everybody. Not being like, Hey, you have to learn how to train, how to breathe a certain way to use this thing.
[00:15:58] You've been mentioning how the PNOE is a gold standard for many different tests. Has there been any studies done or papers released with being used.
[00:16:07] Panos Papadiamantis: Absolutely. Yeah. We recently did recently, it was, six, six, eight months ago, that the first independent validation study that was done by a Rutgers university, georgetown university and the VA healthcare system in Maryland.
[00:16:22] Basically, that study showed that, you know, he has exactly the same accuracy as, the standard, the gold standard metabolic cards. we compared against the cosmic quark, which is a very well established, metabolic analyzer in the industry and watches that if you compare the validate the validation study, PNOE with other official validation studies of other portable devices, you're going to see that not only has the greatest accuracy in terms of standard deviation, et cetera.
[00:16:51] Calorie Deviation
[00:16:51] Erich Wenzel: Very cool. And then just kind of for other people, what does that mean for the gold standard within calorie deviation? Because I listened to the WHOOP podcast that you were on where, you know, standard calorie burn is about plus or minus 20%, I believe, if I'm quoting that correctly, and we're, PNOE is somewhere down in like the 5% error.
[00:17:13] Panos Papadiamantis: So, the gold standard for the thresholds for identifying what is gold standard and indirect calorimetry. Beta, indirect calorimetry is the term used in order to define the method used by devices like PNOE , we call it indirect calorimetry because we measure calories indirectly by measuring and seal in your breaths.
[00:17:37] so, really the thresholds are expressed and calories thresholds are expressed in, viewed two and VCO two. So volume of oxygen uptake and volume of carbon dioxide. So you should be in the plus or minus 3% in both VO2 and VCO2 across the range of values that you're measuring.
[00:17:59] Erich Wenzel: Okay. That makes sense.
[00:18:01] Panos Papadiamantis: Yup.
[00:18:02] What is Panos' Background?
[00:18:02] Erich Wenzel: From there I would like to just curious what your background is and then it's kind of a two part question. It's like understanding where you came from and then what is the vision for PNOE? Like longterm, like what is like, where is the, the, if you threw a target in the sand, what would you love to see PNOE turn into.
[00:18:22] Panos Papadiamantis: Sure. Yeah. So my personal background, I did my first degree in mechanical engineering and Athens national technical university of Athens. Then I did my graduate degree at Stanford. It was a gen in the engineering school. I did operations research. Then I worked in the tech industry, enterprise IT, you know, completely unrelated.
[00:18:45] what happened then at some point, because I always wanted to start something on my own. my good friend and co founder of bacillus, he was doing his PhD in Cambridge. UK, and during his PhD he was looking to the field of breath analysis. Breath analysis is probably one of the most interesting and emerging fields in medical diagnostics because of the fact that there are so many things that you can detect from a person's breath.
[00:19:12] And while she was looking into breath analysis, he was looking into the different applications and the different biomarkers that are being utilized in today's medical industry. And she saw that cardio-metabolic testing is, probably the application of breath analysis that is, the most well established in the sense that.
[00:19:33] We've been doing cardio-metabolic testing since the 1920s. There are actually pictures of people breathing masks, and then holders are collecting the sail gases into large bags. so, you know, the concept of measuring O2 and CO2 in a person's breath has existed in the world of science work for nearly a century now. But, what he saw was that, Hey, this is something, that is so well established. But so few people actually do it. And then he started working in, working on a prototype, putting together some sensors, etc. And then after a certain point, you know, because he had shared with me the fact that he was working on that.
[00:20:17] And then at some point we were like, okay, maybe we should, you know, try and turn this thing into a company. There is a, obviously, you know, great market potential if you're able to measure a person's metabolism. To be very honest with you, when we first started, the only thing that we knew about metabolism was that it was a big buzzword in the fitness industry.
[00:20:37] Nothing more than that. If you told me back then about the potential of metabolic testing to screen for hyperventilation and how hyperventilation affects your posture, I wouldn't know anything about that. Anyways, it was sort of a gut feeling. We were like, Hey, you know, metabolism is something so central in human physiology.
[00:21:00] If you build a device that actually measures it, there's gotta be a way to grow a good business out of that. And this is how it started. And, you know, by the way, this is advice to anyone who's starting a company to not start a company based on that mentality. This is what Silicon Valley investors define as technology looking for a need. And we were lucky. We were lucky in the sense that we actually found the need in a product market fit. But, you know, it might have very well been the case that we wouldn't have found anything. So, usually the right way to start things is, Hey, I see that people want to do a VO2 max testing more easily.
[00:21:42] And this is why I want to build a field to max testing device, et cetera. we did it the other way around. and as a result, you know, we have many near death experiences, which are very, you know, constructive. And in some ways, I think part of the reason why as a company we are so scientific and, and we provide a lot of education to our users as well as, because we needed to educate ourselves extensively in order to understand where our device will ultimately be used.
[00:22:14] So this is kind of a, this is kind of some, some background information on how everything started. and, yeah.
[00:22:23] Erich Wenzel: That's so interesting to me because you know, a lot of times these devices or products get made because you know, there's always something new to be made or something like that. And I think a lot of times we go down these roads that it seems like there's something there, but it's like you're almost uncovering it as you go along.
[00:22:41] And making it a company kind of turns it into a reason to try and figure it out. Otherwise it just kind of lingers as an interest, you know?
[00:22:51] Panos Papadiamantis: But you know, the whole idea of what I'm trying to say though, is that there are already too many unknowns in building a company. it's very good if the need is not an unknown factor. Yeah. So, so basically, if you're not sure that there is a clear need for what you're building out. There you have one additional very big unknown factor to tackle, which can be the most decisive one.
[00:23:20] Accessibility of the technology and what understanding your metabolism can provide for average users
[00:23:20] Erich Wenzel: Yeah, that makes sense. And then for PNOE, what I find interesting about it is that it fits into this new category that for me, feels like it, it's, it pulls on the thread for someone like myself who is not an elite athlete. But is looking to perform better in all aspects of their life. You know, like the weekend warrior, maybe recreational enthusiast is maybe the category you fit that into. but for, for me, like a product like this is about giving accessibility to something that I myself would never have access to because I'm not competing or even looking to compete in any way.
[00:24:02] Is that accidental or by design?
[00:24:06] Panos Papadiamantis: Well, the reality is that metabolic testing is something so foundational that undeniably provides a lot of value to any person out there. you don't need to be a professional athlete. You don't even need to be a recreational athlete. You can even be a person that is looking to lose weight.
[00:24:25]just, you know, an interesting piece of information the most. Important and potent physiological factor. Why most people cannot lose weight is a slow down in their metabolic activity. This is what happened to the participants with the biggest loser, this famous TV show. It was a big article in the New York Times back in 2014.
[00:24:48]basically, metabolic experts examine how the metabolism of these individuals evolved because of the type of training and the type of diets.
[00:24:58]They were doing it during that show. And they clearly demonstrated that, you know, though the slow down in metabolism was the reason why these people ultimately regained the weight. So, understand if you're a person, for example, that is, working out, doing a spinning or whatever, five, six times per week, and you're eating two-and-a-half salads per day and you can't lose weight.
[00:25:21] Well, this is almost explicit, almost entirely explained based on your metabolism. So understanding, for example, whether the type of training and the type of nutrition that you're doing is hurting your metabolism or not, is the number one thing you should be concerned about if you're trying to lose weight.
[00:25:40]Now in the case of the weekend warrior or in the case of a professional athlete. A metabolic testing, as you said in the beginning, is going to pinpoint the limiting factor in your ability to perform physical work. As humans, we are species in the sense that we use oxygen in order to generate energy from nutrients.
[00:26:02] That's how we move. We burn fats and carbohydrates. We burned them by using oxygen, and that combustion leads to movements. And if you look at the flow of oxygen, what you have is the lungs absorbing oxygen and then the heart is pumping oxygen, rich blood to the muscles, and then the muscles are absorbing that oxygen in order to use it in the processes.
[00:26:25] Now that chain can break at any point. In other words, any one of these systems. Can ultimately become the limiting factor. Metabolic testing is the only method known to science that can reliably identify where the limitation is. And after you determine the limitation, you can determine what type of training you need to do or what type of nutrition you need to do in order to over comment.
[00:26:51] So doesn't really matter if you're a professional or recreational athlete. Understanding what your limitation is. Is going to be what drives your training.
[00:27:01] Understanding metabolic efficiency
[00:27:01]Erich Wenzel: Yeah. I find it really fascinating is, is, you know, trying to figure out your own pain points because I think from a user standpoint, or at least a self motivated. If you can show the person, rather than prescribing a person what to do, you can show them, here's this, you know, this area that is a pain point for you.
[00:27:19] Here's how you can start correcting it. And then being able to show improvement over time on what you're doing, rather than just like, take this pill and then you'll feel better. I think that means a lot less, or that means a lot less to people rather than like working towards correcting something that they feel in control of.
[00:27:36]and then not to mention like what you were saying before, what the metabolic efficiency for like biggest loser, that has always been something. I didn't think about it in that way until, as you were explaining it, because. You see these people who get into the gym? You know, it's really pertinent that we're talking about this in January.
[00:27:54]because of all the new year's resolutions where everybody's going to be in the gym now, but those people who just sit on the treadmill all day and maybe they have a little bit extra weight or they're slightly overweight, they are inadvertently increasing their metabolic efficiency. As I understand it.
[00:28:10] And that's why they're more likely to hold onto those extra fat stores rather than burning it off. Is that correct?
[00:28:17] Panos Papadiamantis: Yeah, it's, it's a very simple concept. Your body is programmed to preserve itself, and so when you are restricting energy intake, in other words, calories going into the system. And you are also doing things that are energetically costly.
[00:28:34] In other words, running on a treadmill, your body will simply try to conserve energy and how will it try to conserve energy by slowing down. It's more like processes and it's a quite complicated endocrine response. In other words, it's a hormonal response that takes place in these people.
[00:28:57]But the end result is that you will end up burning fewer calories than the average person. And this is going to be a big problem for you because you need to eat less to maintain your weight. You need to be eating almost nothing to be losing weight. And then when you go back to eating normal, all of a sudden for you, that means weight gain.
[00:29:19] And this is what is happening over and over again for millions of people out there.
[00:29:26] Uses for different types of training
[00:29:26] Erich Wenzel: Yeah, it makes me, it, I get so. Not annoyed or frustrated or something. I don't know. Just all this stuff about dieting or like this is the best way to lose weight or burn fat or build muscle kind of thing. It always kind of drives me nuts because I look at it and I'm like, no, they're just all different kinds of tools for different occasions.
[00:29:45] You know, you do weight lifting for one thing and cardio for another and yoga for a different, you know how I tend to look at it.
[00:29:53]Panos Papadiamantis: In order to prescribe an effective workout plan. You need to understand that each type of training is going to have a different adaptation on your body. So, we do strength training in order to ramp up our metabolism.
[00:30:07] We do cardio training in order to enhance our cellular health and fat burning efficiency. We do hit training in order to improve our cardiovascular and pulmonary fitness. So three different systems, three different types of workouts as I like to say, in our programming, and . We don't try to fix everything all at once.
[00:30:30] It will never work. We always focus on the limiting factor that is the most important for the goal that you're trying to achieve. And after we have fixed that limiting factor, we move onto the next one with the adequate exercise that comes along with it.
[00:30:49] Erich Wenzel: Yeah. That's kind of how I look at working out for myself in general, like the idea of basically longevity is trying to have my body function at a high level as it can for as long as they can, and the.
[00:31:01] The idea here is that you don't just do, you know, like a 30 day workout routine and then you're done. Like there is no finish line. It's okay, I'm going to do like a 30 day workout routine, but understand that Hey, that's going to impact your cardio, efficiency basically. And so then you're going to have to spend the next two weeks after you do that program.
[00:31:23] Kind of rebuilding your cardio cause you're probably going to add on extra weight too, which is not going to be helpful for that either. So that you know, you remember that there's balancing on both ends of the spectrum here too, to remember that you can't just fix or improve one thing without suffering and other areas.
[00:31:39] Panos Papadiamantis: In a way. Yeah and, and this is true. For example, too much cardio, as I said, is going to, you know, is going to make you more efficient. As a result, you're going to be burning fewer calories. On the other hand, if you decided to go all out on weights and you started doing weights nonstop, obviously that's going to have a toll on your cardio.
[00:32:00]and that's not good for your heart and lungs and your overall longevity of course. So, there needs to be a balance. And obviously at each particular point in time, and you need to be focusing on something. but as you very well said, you know, ensuring that you have a healthy lifestyle by default means that you're exercising regularly.
[00:32:22] So this is kind of the basis of everything.
[00:32:27] Mitochondria and metabolism
[00:32:27] Erich Wenzel: Yeah. So another thing that I'm, I'm really interested in, I'm curious if PNOE is kind of. Trying to see if they can measure it, but like within the metabolic efficiency, is the mitochondria, is PNOE only trying to understand what the mitochondria is doing with the exhalations or is there any way to, like, gold standard is about, you know, in speeding up or slowing down your metabolism, as related to
[00:32:52] Panos Papadiamantis: So, I mean, mitochondrial density and basically Micheal chondral efficiency, which is to what extent your mitochondria are capable of utilizing energy. It is something that is measured. it's, we call it fat burning efficiency. burn is something that is, more, more, more palatable for people.
[00:33:11]but, in many ways, this metric is very closely related to mitochondrial efficiency. and so, yeah. this is, this is something that is being measured.
[00:33:22] If you think about it, like, you know, the reason why, oxygen utilization, efficiency on a muscle level is highly correlated with fat burning efficiencies.
[00:33:31] Because fat as a fuel source, can only be oxidized by utilizing oxygen. So if you are able to utilize oxygen, then you are likely able to utilize fat as a fuel source.
[00:33:43] Erich Wenzel: Yeah. I think the idea of mitochondria is one of these new areas of research that I find extremely fascinating, at least for, you know, how do you maximize the potential of the mitochondria you have?
[00:33:56]Do you know a good way of explaining cause I think most of us like biochem or even just a little bit of biology? It's described as the powerhouse of the cell, but there's so much more going on. So I don't know how much of an in-depth knowledge you have of mitochondria, but anything you can explain or add more nuance to this unique cell.
[00:34:17] Panos Papadiamantis: I mean mitochondria are basically the energy generation, factories of the body. it's the part of the body, part of the cell actually, that is there in order to, you know, transform energy from nutrients into propulsion. That's what it does. And obviously, the more efficient they are and utilizing oxygen, the more you're able to engage what's called the aerobic metabolism.
[00:34:48] Aerobic metabolism is the type of metabolism that utilizes oxygen in order to produce a physical movement, without generating fatigue metabolites, which will basically wear out to your body and prohibit you from working out and performing physical work. So yeah, so that's kind of the most simplistic explanation I can give.
[00:35:17] Erich Wenzel: No, that's totally great. I just was thinking if you could pull out any more threads with that, because I know there's a lot of researchers in this space that are, you know, pushing the forefront of, of this stuff with like resveratrol and, and NAD plus and things like that to try and see if that's improving mitochondria health or longevity.
[00:35:33] Slash efficiency. and.
[00:35:35] Panos Papadiamantis: Hmm. NAD plus. Basically a substance that is used in the Kreb cycle. Kreb cycle is the aerobic cycle in the sense that it's the process by which we utilize oxygen in order to burn nutrients. and so, Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm aware of the companies like Elysium health and, those supplement companies that, claim to improve mitochondrial health by, providing you with a supplementation of, NAD plus, to be honest with you, I haven't really looked into the body research put out. in any case though, just so that listeners are not confused, with metabolic testing, you view things from a global perspective. So, you can, you can't really tell. If you know a specific, you know, muscle, not a specific muscle, you can really tell if something is strong specifically with a part of your mitochondria or is something else that is very specific to mitochondria.
[00:36:38] What you can understand is whether you are mitochondria overall, are capable of utilizing oxygen. And the same applies to the heart. Same applies to the lungs. You can think of it as the first line tool that will determine where the problem is. If you want to be more specific about something, then you probably need to do some additional tests.
[00:36:59] Erich Wenzel: That was just, I just, as you were saying, explaining that it really clicked. I'm like, Oh, there it is. The paranoia test has given you the system level overview of like, here's how everything is functioning, and then it allows you to pinpoint the area and then what specialists within that area to go see for further diagnosis on specific, you know, that's a really cool way of thinking about it.
[00:37:19] Frequency of testing?
[00:37:19] Would you recommend people retest on PNOE like every quarter or twice a year or something like that? Or depending on how much they're training or,
[00:37:27] Panos Papadiamantis: yeah, so, your metabolic testing, the frequency of your metabolic testing really depends on how acute your intervention is.
[00:37:37] So if you're on a crash diet. Probably makes sense to be testing every six weeks. if you are an elite athlete, pretty much the same. If you are in a stage, then, you know, testing every six months from the, okay.
[00:37:54]Erich Wenzel: That makes sense. I would, I would not have a, I thought, I thought that was kind of the case. What do you want to do? Like a checkup every, every so often? Kind of seeing where you're, where you're falling in line, or if he's kind of lessening slip in different ways. So for me, we're going to kind of get into some more general questions here now, rather than just talk about PNOE, even though I could talk about all this metabolic stuff forever, because I think it's absolutely fascinating.
[00:38:18] Bad advice in training
[00:38:18]What are some areas within your profession, like say, like entering the engineering world or outside of it, that you've heard people give bad recommendations for you? I mean, cause you're kind of really far removed from where you started at this point.
[00:38:33] Panos Papadiamantis: Can you be more specific? Can you give me an example or a bad recommendation?
[00:38:37]Erich Wenzel: yeah. Like bad advice for someone who's young who's like maybe not sure what they want to do with their, if they went to college and they were trying to think of something, but it's like, well, this thing is totally out of my area of expertise. Like you were saying, if you know, you know so much about the metabolism of the body. Now that is totally not mechanical engineering. I think this is a. I just love to pull on that thread.
[00:38:59] Panos Papadiamantis: Yeah. So again, just to clarify, are you asking for examples of bad advice that I received or bad advice that I normally hear people giving to others?
[00:39:10] Erich Wenzel: Either one. It doesn't matter. Whichever one's one's more interesting for you.
[00:39:14] Panos Papadiamantis: Yeah. So, bad advice that I received. Oh God, you caught me off guard. Yes. I mean, when it comes to, when it comes to bad advice, to be honest with you nothing from my personal experience comes to mind, but. When it comes to did, given the fact that cannoli is selling in the fitness industry and the fitness industry is replete, bad advice and basically myths, like I have a lot of experiences to share from that.
[00:39:41] For example, you know, the typical advice that a lot of personal trainers give to people when it comes to weight loss. You need to, you know, cut calories and then, you know, do as much training as you can or go out, run three, four times a week, and then compliment that with a lot of spinning.
[00:40:00]this is primarily what has, destroyed a lot of people's metabolisms out there. And this is what is preventing them from getting to their, to their goals. this is just an example of like, you know, bad advice that, we need to encounter and, debate against, when it comes to clients that have been, the purchase PNOE, and then they look at the programming that we provide . And then it becomes a challenge to combat all of that. all of these myths and all of that misunderstanding around how you're. Bodies working in how your metabolism is going to react to nutrition and workout.
[00:40:39]But, yeah, so I guess that wouldn't be the most glaring example that I can think of. looking backwards in the journey that, it's, it's, it's been a three year journey now, so it's, it's building up.
[00:40:53] Erich Wenzel: Yeah, that's, I, that's a really good example that I should have known that as an ask the question, but it makes a lot of sense.
[00:41:01] Entry level recommendation for movement
[00:41:01] If for you, what would you be like your like entry level prescription, if you wanted to get someone started, you know, say say they maybe we're on a sedentary like workout or they weren't working out at all, and what would you recommend rather than this you just got to do all the cardio in the world.
[00:41:18] Panos Papadiamantis: Yeah. strength training. What I like to say is that it starts under the squat rack. This is, this is where you build muscle. This is where you build your body. And, you know, especially when it comes to longevity and keeping weight off and being able to live off a high quality life, you need to have muscle on your body.
[00:41:36] That's the most important thing. Obviously you should be working on your audio and you should make sure that you have a high VO2 peak. You know, if anything, we are, the biggest proponents of VO2 peak as a health metric. it is well established as the most, Foundational health metric and the greatest indicator for overall health, etc. But make sure that, you know, you keep weight off and you are able to perform physical work without risk of getting injured, et cetera. The most important thing is me building a strong myoskeletal system, and this is done as I like to say, it starts under the squat rack. So, obviously it's more complicated in that this is what I like to say just to describe to give a very broad overview of how this program would look like in the beginning. Obviously, as I said, it's going to have cardio, training, hit training, et cetera, down the road, but it starts by building a strong myoskeletal foundation.
[00:42:40] Erich Wenzel: I think that's really important to say that because I think a lot of people, especially when they start working out, if their goal is not to get bulky or add a whole ton of muscle, they get worried about doing something like squats or deadlifts because of the. The associated connotation around it.
[00:42:57] And for me, it's like if you really want the biggest bang for your buck for like, can your body function well, squat and deadlifts are kind of like your big two from an overall like functionality perspective and we couldn't, we just need to DPD on more of it. Not to mention, because we sit so much that our hips just totally don't do what they're supposed to be able to do.
[00:43:17] We've, you know, chronically unlearned it at this point.
[00:43:21] What to do when feeling overwhelmed or unfocused?
[00:43:21] Next question here we got, when you feel overwhelmed, or unfocused, or do you have any routines or things that kinda help you lock back in.
[00:43:30] Panos Papadiamantis: Yeah, I w I work out. That's good. I do you know, any, any type of work out at that point, you know, we'll do it.
[00:43:38] Like, you know, just go out for a jog or hit the gym, lift heavy weights off the ground. Don't do that. If you're tired, I've got an injury. so yeah, that, you know, you know, a safety. The first thing obviously, but yeah, whenever I tried to ground myself back to, you know, and find my focus again, I guess the most potent thing that I can do is work out.
[00:44:06] Erich Wenzel: That's awesome. Yeah, I agree with that so much. It's like I've had to tell my coworkers before, like if you're going to make me try and work late, and I'm like I might have to leave for like an hour and go to the gym because I'm just going to need to recharge.
[00:44:21] Any routines that help Panos?
[00:44:21] You know? It's an interesting thing. Do you have any specific routines, like for morning or ending of the day, just out of curiosity.
[00:44:29]Panos Papadiamantis: what do you mean specifically? Like,
[00:44:32] Erich Wenzel: think of routine for like winding up into your day or winding down to go but go to sleep.
[00:44:36]Panos Papadiamantis: Oh no I don't. And the reason, the reason why is because I travel a lot at the moment.
[00:44:42] I'm currently in Greece, so I've been here for about a month from going to San Francisco after that. I'm staying there for a couple of months and traveling around the U S after that. So there's a lot of traveling. So the bad thing with getting so much travel in is the fact that you can be, you know, Lock yourself into a specific routine? some, no, to answer your question, I don't have any specific routines when I wake up.
[00:45:08] Erich Wenzel: Gotcha. That makes sense. So I guess if you're traveling, the better question is, how do you deal with jet lag?
[00:45:14] Panos Papadiamantis: The most important thing that you can do is find flights that will allow you to sleep on board, and sleep during the flights.
[00:45:22] And then, if you do that and you get that right. Then a jet lag can be substantially less impactful. So, yeah. try to find flights that work with your sleep schedule.
[00:45:38]Erich Wenzel: Do you use anything like melatonin or any other sleep aids to kind of warn to go.
[00:45:44] Panos Papadiamantis: No. Not, not really.
[00:45:45] Erich Wenzel: Yeah because I've heard people who do kind of like this interesting thing to fight jet lag when they try to look at the time zone.
[00:45:52] They're either going to be heading to or, and then like to start adjusting their sleep patterns so that they're like that time difference between the time zone is less and less. So I'm just curious if you had anything like that. Okay. Yeah. It's, I mean that's a little, that's a little extreme.
[00:46:09] Advice the young or driven?
[00:46:09]So the final question would be if you could give advice to someone who's smart, driven, either like freshly out of college or just looking to kickstart. Themselves and do a new path. What would you, advice would you give them about following some sort of deep seated yearning?
[00:46:24] Kind of like you said, where you're like always wanting to create something on your own. What would you give that young person or that person who's looking to do that for themselves?
[00:46:31]Panos Papadiamantis: I mean, I think the most important thing that you need to do when you're young, right out of college, is to take risks.
[00:46:38] And if you, if you want to build something of your own, because most people want to build something of their own, it doesn't necessarily have to be like a company or something, but you know, it may, might as well be a side project. you just need to, you know, just take the first step and be bold enough to be, you know, to accept the fact that.
[00:46:58] In the beginning, there's going to be ambiguity. There's going to be, there will be challenges, but, it's the best time of your life to do it. as you will grow older, you will see that obligations and you know, financial, family, you name it, we'll just keep piling up. And after some point, it becomes almost impossible to take risks.
[00:47:21] And, there is and even if your thing is not gonna work, I personally haven't met anyone who took real risks, was determined, to be successful and ended up not getting something out of that endeavor of his, so that is the most important advice that I would give to someone who is, you know, basically starting his or her professional career.
[00:47:49] Erich Wenzel: I love it. I, it's, it's a really important topic for me to kind of push people to expand outside of whatever it is they chose to do. Because a lot of times we feel like we have to do school and that puts us on this pathway that we're supposed to, you know, in quotes, jump through these hoops. And there's a lot more to life than jumping through said hoops.
[00:48:12] Alright, Panos, I really appreciate the time you've given me here today. How can people connect with you? And there's always more for a round two at a later day.
[00:48:21] Panos Papadiamantis: Thank you so much. I much, much appreciate the opportunity and, you know, if you have any questions about, you know, your anything, you know, where to find us.
[00:48:30] Erich Wenzel: Cool, and I'll have links in the show notes for all that stuff.
[00:48:35] Panos Papadiamantis: Yeah, absolutely. Happy New year and take care. Thanks so much.
[00:48:40] Erich Wenzel: Thank you.
Panos Papadiamantis, Co-Founder of PNOE, the world’s first portable cardio-metabolic analyzer. PNOE is a mask that you wear during a 10-minute test on a treadmill, and from that, you gain incredible insights into your health and fitness
PNOĒ is on a quest to bring cardio-metabolic analysis to everyone. As the gold standard for nutrition & exercise prescription, the most non-invasive method for cardiovascular disease screening, the clinical standard for triaging between pulmonary and cardiac limitations as well as a valuable tool in detecting latent causes of myoskeletal problems, cardio-metabolic analysis is rapidly becoming the central assessment in holistic health.