Yasi Salek Drinks a Very Advanced Raw Milk Smoothie Every Day

Going deep about weirdo health stuff with the very funny host of Bandsplain. Topics covered include: creatine, the carnivore diet, and why she's always telling people to stop drinking oat milk.

Welcome to the HEAVIES Feelgood Routine, a series that talks to cool, interesting, and creative people about how they design their busy schedules to accommodate good habits.

I was admittedly late to the Bandsplain wagon. I first learned of the music podcast last year while editing an early draft of HEAVIES homie Alex Pappademas’ wonderful profile of Dave Matthews, when, like a beacon on some far-off shore, appeared Yasi Salek, extemporizing on the fuckability of Dave Matthews. (TL;DR: very.) 

Which is all to say: Yasi is one of the funniest, smartest people alive, and what I especially adore about Bandsplain is that the show openly defies conventional wisdom and will put out two separate three-hour-plus episodes about, like, The Smiths that’s so captivating that you’ll reflexively order Morrissey’s stream-of-consciousness autobiography and forget exactly why you did that. 

She’s also a true health weirdo in all the best ways who follows a lot of the same protocols I do, and the fact that she grew up down the 405 from me in Torrance made her spiritually very HEAVIES.

And if you enjoyed this interview, please consider becoming a paid subscriber for the cost of a single almond croissant for your local fifth-wave coffee shop. Onto the chat. This one’s fun.

Chris: Thanks for doing this! I think there are a lot of people like us who love the weirdo quadrant of health stuff who aren’t red-pilled. 

Yasi: I was really thinking about it the other day and I was like, listen, in my twenties and thirties, I hated myself so much that I treated myself like the pile of garbage that I thought I was. You know what I mean? Drugs, drinking, Taco Bell all the time. All this shit because I didn't like myself. But now? I love myself! I would wayyyyyyy rather be this way.

Have long have you been on a health kick? 

I feel like when I stopped partying. I’m 42 now, so maybe like 34, and then it was very gradual. Then I was like, “I'll be kind of vegan for a while…” which I wasn't good at.

Yeah, that’s why I really wanted to talk to you. I saw a fellow raw milk appreciator who listened to a lot of Huberman before he got super famous. Where do you get your diet and eating habits from these days?

Oh my God, so humiliating. To be honest, literally the worst 24-year-old dude on TikTok with zero credentials who is like, “You should do this and this!”—and I'm right on top of that. On my way to Amazon to get whatever you're recommending. I'm really easily swayed. I “do my research.” And Hubes still, for sure. We are still listening over here in this house.

Yeah, same, at least on occasion. He’s hard to replace.

The internet just mirrors back to you what you want, with the algorithms and stuff. The guy who owns my gym sends me Reels about nutrition, and it all kind of just fits into a logical place for me.

Sometimes it's a little much. I saw a TikTok today that was like, “You're supposed to have 50 grams of protein in the morning, but eggs don't have that much protein. Also, they have really high saturated fat, so they might be bad for you. Also cottage cheese is processed, so maybe don't eat that. You should just have a coffee, but that spikes your cortisol...” 

And I'm like, bro! You guys say a lot of shit. I don't know if you do this, but basically if something resonates, I try it out and then I just, as Hubes would say, “do a little self experiment.” How do I feel after five days? Do I feel good or bad? Oh, I feel good. Cool, I'll keep doing this. I feel bad? We won't do this anymore.

It's funny. I follow that Carnivore Aurelius account and have been trying some of the stuff he's been recommending. It’s hilarious that all the trad bros are circling back to, like, orange juice being good for you again.

My TikTok is so carnivore diet now. I must be blatantly interested in it, because I’m getting things that I’m never going to do. I love watching these people just eat a fucking wooden cutting board of 10 steaks and 70 eggs with a stick of butter and be like, “My life is amazing!” And I'm like, I don't think so? But okay…

You're 56 and built like a linebacker, but you don't look very thrilled with your life.

When did you poop last, babe?

So walk me through a regular day of eating for you.

I'm not an intermittent faster, per se, but I've never really been a breakfast person. I wake up, I hydrate with hot water and lemon, and then my LMNT packs that honestly cost so much money. My immigrant father would pass away if he knew I'm spending $2 a day on a packet of salt. Love and respect to LMNT if they want to sponsor me.

Then I’ll take my supplements. It's a little Tru Niagen, a little magnesium L-threonate, theanine, L-carnitine, and then I have coffee with collagen in it. I also take creatine monohydrate powder. All older women should take creatine!

I've also been taking Athletic Greens for a while, but I think I might stop.

I feel you. I switched to a cheaper Amazon version that had more probiotics.

The amount of sauerkraut and kimchi I eat, babe, I don't need any more. I'm just paying a hundred dollars a month to feel cool with a green bottle or whatever. 

Do you go work out after that?

Yeah, the same time every morning around 7:30 or 8:00 a.m. 

What kind of gym are you going to most mornings?

Oh, it's so funny. When I wanted to start weight training, I was going to LA Fitness. Love and respect, but I realized I was not going to pay some community college bro a hundred dollars an hour to personal train me. It's too much money. And so I just was like… maybe there's classes. 

So I literally just googled weightlifting classes near me, and this most amazing local independently owned weight training and conditioning gym came up. It’s called the Wellrock and it's like a mile from my house. It's like 10 people max per class. So it's the best of both worlds, and now it’s my whole social life. These are my friends. We go to brunch. 

I go there three or four days a week: Three days is lifting and one day is just full-on conditioning, almost like a HIIT class. And then I do a five-mile hike once a week. 

I want to put a pin in the hike thing, but how do you refuel after the gym usually?

After the gym, I’ll have my protein smoothie.

What’s your go-to recipe?

I used this protein called Mt. Capra goat milk. It's like a very clean protein. I’ll mix that with berries, raw milk, raw kefir, microgreens, a little spinach, some colostrum, spirulina that I get from a very feisty Italian woman at the farmer's market, like real fresh spirulina. Oh, and raw honey.

Wow, so colostrum on top of the raw milk. Is this like a powder form? 

It's a powder form. Again, I don't even know. When people are like, “Does that make a difference?” I'm like, “Bitch, I don't know! There's 6,000 inputs going in here every day. I don't know which one is making a difference.” Oh, and mint! I use a big handful of mint in my smoothies.

Is that just for taste or because you heard it does something?

I think it helps with digestion. But I just love the taste, so I toss it in. And, because Chris, you, like me, might be mentally ill, and now we need to get 30 to 50 grams of protein in that first meal, I’ll add a couple of scrambled eggs on the side. And that’s on top of the 30 grams of protein with the smoothie and the collagen all combined. So that's around 10:30 or 11 a.m.

What about lunch?

I'm not a lunch girl, but we got to hit those protein goals, babe. So I’ll do a can of tuna or grass-fed something, with yogurt and pickles and some sauerkraut or whatever because it’s light. And then I don't usually eat again until dinner. If I'm snacky or hungry, it’s Bugs Bunny hours over here. I like to have a full-sized carrot with the skin on. I feel like a cartoon.

What’s for dinner?

We're going to have a steak and some broccoli and a little rice, or we're going to have salmon and shrimp and some rice and some asparagus, or it's just some combination of protein, a small amount of carbs and some vegetables. 

I probably cook five or six nights a week, but lately, once a week I eat Chipotle. It's called balance, babe. Look it up. It's called having a holistic and thorough lifestyle. For whatever reason, I've become extremely into Chipotle in the last couple of months and I get that double steak bowl. It really hits the spot.

I've been doing a little Chipotle too, but only because I've been craving hardshell tacos and there's no Tito's Tacos equivalent out here in Brooklyn, which feels slightly better than giving in to Taco Bell.

Perhaps I'm totally delulu, but I'm like, “This is healthy! Chipotle is healthy!” I don't know about you, but I'm just like, I can't be that psycho because I am, in my heart of hearts, a disgusting monster. So sometimes I need to have fucking Taco Bell or whatever. I also really love boxed mac and cheese.

Are we talking like Annie’s or are we talking Kraft?

I get the Goodles one. Again, we're being slightly healthy. It’s like “optimized” mac and cheese, but I'm sure it’s still garbage. 

What time are you usually eating dinner?

Oh my God, so embarrassing. Like 5:30. 

So you’re also on toddler-dinner hours.

Yeah, I go to bed at nine usually. 

The dream. 

I get in bed for sure by nine. And also I try to go on a walk after every meal, just like a 10 or 15 minute walk. Sometimes I’ll go out and have dinner. It's not very often. It's very hard for me to go out and have dinner. People are like, “Okay, see you at 8:00 p.m.!” And I'm like, “What is this, Italy?” I'm starving at five. 

Where do you usually go hiking?

I live in the mountains basically. I've been trying to get to 10,000 daily steps in just the last month. That’s been a game changer. I’m a late adopter, but they were so right about this.

David Sedaris was in his bag. Are you using an Apple Watch or something to track your steps?

I have an Oura Ring.

How do you like it?

I love it. Why? I don't know why. There's no reason. It’s that mental illness thing where I need someone else telling me I did a good job. It’s mostly helpful for telling me if I should go on another walk. Sometimes I’ll look at my stats and it’s like, damn, I've only walked 4,000 steps today. Maybe I should go do something. Do you have an Oura Ring?

Nah, I got a Whoop.

You got a what?

The Whoop. It's like this little strap that doesn’t have a screen.

Oh, I think my dad has that! But I'm obsessed with sleep. I'm psycho about sleep—and noticing all of that makes me sleep worse. The best part of the Oura Ring is where it’s like, “Oh, interesting. You had one glass of wine and your sleep score dropped 30 points.”

Does the ring get in the way if you're lifting? Or do you have to take it off?

I have to take it off when I'm doing kettlebell stuff. But today, I had really long nails and everyone in class was like, “How are you chest pressing right now?” I was like, “Kim Kardashian lifts weights with those crazy long nails!”

And then my trainer was like, “Babe, have you watched those training sessions? They're absolutely doing every single thing wrong. That trainer is not correcting her.” 

Do you have famous people at your gym?

Not really. I mean, I’m not going to dox anyone. There’s a semi-famous LA comedian who goes to the gym. And me babe. We're the two most famous people at the gym.

What are your goals? Do you have specific strength goals that you’re trying to hit?

I honestly don’t know anything about that stuff, which is why I'm so glad I go to this gym. We track week over week, and then I just sort of follow the instructions. They're so good about it. They'll be like, “Okay, start at your heaviest weight from last week and go up this much.” Otherwise I would be completely lost. This stuff is really confusing to me. 

And let's be honest, Chris. My main goal from the beginning has been vanity. The rest of the stuff is amazing, but the main goal was anti-aging. So I am like, “What do I need to do?” I'm the annoying person in the class. Everyone's like, “We're getting stronger!” And I'm like, “Does this chest press make my boobs higher? Does this exercise make your abs pop, because then I will try harder.”

And they're like, “Yes… it's abs.”

Tell me about your nine o’clock sleep routine. How are we unwinding?

Oh my god, I hope the subscribership of your Substack is sympathetic to our way of life? I feel like sometimes I talk about this to my friends and they're like, “You need to shut up.” 

But early in the pandemic, I stopped taking my phone in my bedroom. That's just a hard and fast rule that I started, and that alone is a game changer. There's no phone in the bedroom, so I'm never scrolling before bed. I have red light bulbs in my bedroom and my living room, so if it's nighttime, the red light bulbs… they're on, babe. 

Huberman told me about that when I talked to him.

I feel like they've really changed a lot. I'm prone to anxiety, so if I remember, I put on these blue-light blocking glasses that I try to put on while I'm watching TV. 

But the red light is great. It has just a beautiful warm tone. It's the phone, though. I literally pay money for an app to block myself from going on fucking social media during the day, something that I could just do myself. But no, I pay this app to block it.

Are you reading before bed?

I read a long time ago that if you read for just seven minutes before bed, it changes your brain chemistry in a way that really boosts your sleep. And that's always stuck with me. So I always try to read at least seven minutes. Usually about 20, 30 minutes I usually have to read because of my job. So it's more work at night.

When do you get most of your work done?

No, it's all day right when I sit down at the computer. From 10:30 a.m. right on through until three or 4:00 p.m. I have a cutoff point where my brain doesn't work anymore.

What do your breaks look like? 

I go for the walk after I eat my little tuna at lunch. I usually try to go on a walk and then come home and go in the sauna.

Ooh, you got a sauna. Very LA.

That's right. Chris. Did you know that you can simply put a sauna on a credit card? I did learn that one day when I had a manic episode and put a sauna on a credit card. You can just do that, and then they bring it to your house and then you have a sauna!

Do you have a cold plunge too? Or is that for next time? 

I'd like to. I don't like cold plunge. I mean, I don't think anyone does, but I really hate it! There is that cold plunge that I'm kind of interested in that does both hot and cold. Hubes has talked about it. I think it's called Plunge. But the idea of just being able to at night go and lay in a hot bathtub outside under the stars, that really sells it for me. 

But I believe it's about $10,000… so until I become a more famous podcaster, we're not putting that one on the credit card. 

Between that and the Eight Sleep, he's done a really good job of making me feel poor lately. He's on a different strata of rich.

My favorite thing is him being best friends with Tim Armstrong [from Rancid], which just really tickles me. On one of the episodes, Hubes was like, “I was with Rick Rubin swimming in Italy or whatever, and then Rick told me about this amazing music podcast…” 

I was holding my breath… And then it turned out to be A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs. And I was like, “God damn it! You guys all say you're fucking feminists. I don't hear anybody talking about Bandsplain hosted by Yasi Salek, a woman.” 

You're the number one music pod right now though, right?

That was just for a week. We're back down to three or four, which is very respectable.

Aside from Ben Gibbard being an ultramarathon guy, is there anyone else who has a surprisingly hardcore fitness routine that you've talked to?

Gavin Rossdale does the full sauna, cold plunge thing. He’s pilled for sure. I could tell. I'm trying to think of anyone else I've interviewed that was really into fitness. I'm sure Gwen Stefani could put me to shame.

I loved the No Doubt episode of Bandsplain. Gwen is ultimate HEAVIES goals. I love her. She seems like such a psycho. 

Doing pushups on stage at Coachella at that age like it’s no big deal? But yeah. I don't think anyone else has really matched my freak, if you will.

Like, literally every episode of the pod is me yelling at people to stop drinking oat milk to the point that someone did a whole thread about it on my Reddit: “She always says the same things. She keeps shaming people about drinking oat milk!” And I'm like, I'm doing a fucking public service! First of all, it’s disgusting. People should not drink it. I'm trying to help them. Have some cow milk. It's fiiiine.

Thanks as always for reading HEAVIES. Appreciate you.