Dr. Paul Saladino’s New Strategy to Lose Fat Without Dieting or Tracking (it works)

Saladino describes this smoothie as the core of his morning routine. He throws in ‘glyphosate free honey, creatine monohydrate probably 10 grams, beet pollen, maybe a little bit of royal jelly, raw milk, maybe some raw meats, some hardened soil, desiccated organs, especially desiccated testicle … maybe some acerola for the vitamin C and then maybe some frozen organic blueberries.’ He notes he sometimes adds heart & soil organ blends. This is not a measured recipe; it’s a habit that evolves. He finds it simplifies his morning while packing in many of the supplements and whole foods he would otherwise take separately.

Saladino keeps his diet extremely simple: ‘I kind of repeat the same meal for lunch and dinner … grass-fed beef, usually skirt steak or ribeye or fillet with some fruit and some squash.’ He has recently added squash (kabocha) as a favored carbohydrate source. He doesn’t intentionally track macros daily but occasionally checks Cronometer; it typically hits 160 g protein, ~300 g carbs, and upwards of 100 g fat, totaling 3,200-3,500 kcal. Despite this high intake, he remains lean at 166 lb and doesn’t gain weight, which he uses as evidence that food quality governs energy expenditure more than calorie math.

Saladino notes that most men have heard of creatine from bodybuilding, but women virtually never have, yet it is hugely valuable for them, especially postmenopausal women at risk of osteopenia. He wants his 74-year-old mother to take at least 5-10 g. For himself, he uses 10 g daily and 20 g on days after poor sleep, claiming he notices mental performance benefits with very high doses. He acknowledges that monohydrate is the most studied form, but HCL may be tolerated by those who get GI issues or water retention. He and Thomas both agree that 10-15 g is where the ‘magic’ really kicks in for cognitive effects.

Saladino calls this the ‘great-grandmother rule’: walk into a grocery store and stick to the perimeter where single-ingredient foods live. If a package has ingredients your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize, don't eat it. He stresses that processed food companies have spent decades using the calorie model to sell nutrient-depleted products that are marketed as ‘low calorie’ or ‘high protein’ but are actually harmful. By simplifying to whole foods, you sidestep all of that manipulation. He insists that ‘if you eat single ingredient foods exclusively or for the majority of your diet, you will become healthier. Full stop.’ This is his central weight-loss strategy, replacing all tracking with food quality.

Saladino has become fascinated by bee products. He describes the queen-making process: selected larvae are fed only royal jelly, while others get honey. The first queen to emerge kills the others — a dramatic biological differentiation driven entirely by this substance. He sources raw, cold-processed royal jelly from a bee farm. DeLauer chimes in that bee pollen gave him intense, calorie-independent energy during fasting phases. Both are concerned about glyphosate in commercial honey, hence Saladino’s own honey brand (Lineage) tested and sourced from glyphosate-free Yucatán apiaries. He foresees bee products becoming a core part of a nutrient-focused lifestyle.

Saladino mentions he specifically uses desiccated testicle and a heart & soil organ blend daily. He also takes a blend called ‘histamine and immune’ on occasion, which contains thymus, lung, and kidney, to help with any histamine sensitivity or allergies. He sees these as a way to get the benefits of nose-to-tail eating conveniently. He emphasizes that he’s not dogmatic — he simply finds they work for him.

Saladino walks through the history: Wilbur Atwater’s bomb calorimeter in the 1890s measured heat, but humans run on electron transfer, not combustion. The US government used calories for rationing in WWI/II, and diet books cemented it in the 1950s-60s. Then in 2015, the New York Times exposed Coca-Cola’s secretly funded ‘Global Energy Balance Network’ which pushed calories-in/calories-out to give a pass to sugar-laden products. He emphasizes that even meta-analyses of 80+ RCTs show calorie counting fails for sustained weight loss—people may lose short-term but inevitably binge when nutrient-depleted. He calls the model a ‘calorie prison’ that the body breaks out of via survival instinct. He notes that many well-intentioned doctors still preach energy balance, but the quality of calories determines hunger and metabolic rate, making the equation useless in practice.

Saladino describes EPG as a modified fat derived from canola oil that passes through the GI tract unabsorbed, providing mouthfeel with fewer calories. He cites studies where EPG significantly reduced absorption of fat-soluble vitamins (beta-carotene, vitamin K1) and caused ‘spotting, gas with discharge’ at higher doses, mirroring Olestra’s infamous side effects. The marketing claims ‘most calories per gram of protein,’ which he calls nonsense. He notes the David bar manufacturer purchased Epigo, the sole producer, and blocked other brands, leading to a monopoly lawsuit. He fears that once the legal case resolves, EPG will appear in 20-30 products (nut butters, chocolates) and consumers will consume 10-30 g daily, thinking they’re dieting while depleting essential nutrients and suffering GI distress. He frames this as exactly the wrong approach to weight loss — prioritizing calorie math over nutrient density.

Saladino cites a study where sucralose vs sugar caused increased blood flow to the hypothalamus, interpreted as a disruption of satiety signaling. The participants reported greater hunger with sucralose. He ties this to the larger problem of going for ‘lower quality food that is potentially making you hungrier, sabotaging your satiety and you're just going to end up failing in the long term.’ He references physicians who routinely find that removing artificial sweeteners from patients’ diets breaks weight-loss plateaus — especially that ‘stubborn 5 to 10 pounds.’ His conclusion: these chemicals may help short-term but ultimately sabotage the brain’s appetite control, reinforcing the need for whole, unsweetened foods.

He explains that when you feed pure sugar, it promotes overgrowth of gram-negative bacteria in the gut, releasing endotoxin (LPS) into the bloodstream. In contrast, apple juice or honey contain polyphenols that modulate the microbiome, preventing that LPS spike. He references animal studies where honey versus processed sugar mitigated the LPS rise. This, he argues, is why calories from honey behave differently in the body — they don't create the same inflammatory metabolic environment. He ties it back to the overarching theme: food quality matters more than calorie numbers, and natural carbohydrate sources with their co-evolved compounds are not equivalent to refined sugar.

Saladino recounts meeting a woman with lupus who achieved near-complete symptom remission within 45 days on a meat, fruit, raw milk diet after previously eating a Whole 30/paleo template. He notes that for her, removing vegetables and nuts made the difference, even though no RCT will confirm it. DeLauer adds the common story of people (including his wife) who can eat bread in Europe without reaction but suffer in the US. They discuss the intimidation effect of ‘watchdog’ critics who dismiss lived experience, and how this silences valuable conversation. Saladino emphasizes that while he’s not anti-RCT, the summed wisdom from consistent anecdote — people cutting processed foods, losing weight, reversing autoimmune conditions — should be shared as directional evidence, not buried.