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Summary
On episode 517 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Thomas DeLauer, a fitness and business coach and YouTuber with nearly 2.9 million subscribers, known for breaking down topics like keto, fasting, and mineral deficiencies in short, research-backed videos.
Thomas explains why minerals are the fastest lever you can pull for how you feel day to day, since correcting a deficiency can start working within minutes rather than the days it takes for a vitamin deficiency to resolve.
The conversation walks through magnesium, zinc, potassium and sodium, chromium, and calcium, what deficiency actually feels like, and why food alone often is not enough anymore.
Links
- https://thomasdelauer.com
Key Takeaways
- Minerals act far faster than vitamins. A vitamin deficiency can take days to resolve once corrected, but fixing a mineral deficiency, like magnesium or potassium, can start working within seconds to minutes.
- Magnesium is involved in far more processes than once thought. The old figure of 350 enzymatic functions has grown closer to 650 to 700, and magnesium remains one of the most commonly deficient minerals across the general population.
- Magnesium deficiency has recognizable signs. General fatigue, feeling unusually reactive or stressed, poor sleep (through its role in GABA production), and cramping specifically at night, as opposed to during activity, all point to magnesium.
- Zinc is underrated and does more than most people realize. It regulates the immune system’s inflammatory response, concentrates heavily in the brain’s cerebral cortex for higher cognitive function, and increases receptor affinity for testosterone, which matters more after 40 for preserving muscle and preventing sarcopenia.
- Sodium and potassium work together, not against each other. Sodium conducts the nerve signal into a cell and potassium releases it back out. A deficiency in either disrupts nerve signaling in muscles and the brain, causing cramping and brain fog, and in Allan’s own case, a near-coma medical emergency.
- Chromium supports blood sugar control at the cellular level. It helps GLUT4 transporters move glucose out of the bloodstream and into cells, improving insulin sensitivity in both the body and the brain, which becomes more important as mitochondrial function declines with age.
- Calcium supplements are not the fix for osteoporosis. Research cited by Thomas links calcium supplementation to worse cardiovascular outcomes. Bone density is more about vitamin D3 and K2 shuttling calcium to the right place, along with resistance training to signal bone building.
- Depleted soil and food processing mean labels can mislead you. Over-farmed soil often lacks the minerals a plant would normally draw up, so a food that looks like a good mineral source on paper may not deliver what you expect.
- Thomas’s three strategies to get and stay well: stop eating by 6:30 to 7 p.m. and taper intake through the day, use heat therapy like a sauna or hot bath as a hormetic stressor, and prioritize mental health above all else, since mindset drives whether you make good food and training choices in the first place.
“Without zinc, the body might just create a bunch of reactive oxygen species to just attack it. It’s like putting a nuclear bomb on something that you might have just needed a 22 caliber rifle for.”
Thomas DeLauer
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