161: Engine on Fire: The Hidden Inflammation Killing Your Performance

We break down how omega-3 to omega-6 imbalance drives chronic inflammation that steals speed, recovery, and focus in motorsports. We share how to test, how to fix the ratio, and how to build resilient habits that hold up to travel, fumes, and pressure.

• acute vs chronic inflammation and why it matters
• target omega-6 to omega-3 ratio for performance
• common diet sources that skew the ratio
• symptoms that signal imbalance in racers
• why standard labs miss fatty acid status
• dried blood spot omega testing and metrics
• lifestyle levers that reduce inflammatory load
• supplement standards: dose, EPA:DHA, TG form
• dosing timelines, retesting, and safety notes
• benefits for recovery, sleep, focus, and longevity

If you’re ready to test your omega balance and dial in clinical-grade omega-3s, visit jeffreymort.com/shop or VictoryLaneWellness.com and use discount code VICTORY

Chapters

• 0:00 The Silent Performance Killer
• 1:52 Meet The Coach And Mission
• 2:26 Acute vs Chronic Inflammation
• 4:09 Omega Ratios Explained
• 6:06 Symptoms And Racing Stressors
• 7:37 How To Test Accurately
• 8:48 Fixing The Fire: Lifestyle And Supplements
• 11:16 Dosing, Safety, And Retesting
• 12:55 Benefits, Longevity, And Next Steps
• 15:11 Shop, Discount, And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Have you ever driven a car that felt strong but ran just a little too hot? The gauges look fine, nothing's broken, but lap after lap, performance drops, wear increases, and reliability disappears. Well, that's exactly what chronic inflammation does inside your body. Today on Breaking Boundaries for Champions, we're talking about the silent performance killer most drivers don't see coming. Omega imbalance and inflammation, and what it does to your joints, your brain, your recovery, and your longevity, and how to cool the fire before it costs you seasons, not just races. If you want your engine running cooler, cleaner, and stronger for the long haul, this episode is for you. Hello, I'm Jeffrey Morta. If you're like most in NASCAR's top tiers, drivers, crews, owners, or executives, while you're busy chasing podiums, have you fully considered who's taking care of you? Right here, you're about to start transforming your mind and body for peak race day performance with high performance health, designed exclusively for the demands of NASCAR. As a certified high performance health coach and consulting hypnotist, I've coached elite entrepreneurs and athletes to higher energy, sharper focus, and greater resilience, naturally, safely, and backed by science. And right now, I'm bringing that same engineered approach to the best in motorsport. Here you'll find no wasted time, just a unique blend of integrative health, mental conditioning, and proven recovery strategies delivered in plain language that you can use right away. Imagine a season without burnout, brain fog, or the costly crash of your health. Because the truth is the real race starts within. I'm grateful you're here. Yes, welcome back to Breaking Boundaries for Champions, the podcast built for drivers, teams, owners, and industry leaders who know that the real edge in motorsports isn't just mechanical, it's biological. Today's episode will call it Engine on Fire. And we're breaking down one of the most overlooked issues in high performers, chronic inflammation, driven specifically by omega-3 to omega-6 imbalance. And we're going to talk more about what that is. You see, inflammation, it's not the enemy. In fact, acute inflammation is absolutely necessary. It's how your body heals after training, after racing, or after an injury or an impact. But chronic inflammation, this is low-grade systemic inflammation. Well, that's a different story. That's like leaving the engine running hot lap after lap with no cool down. The car still moves, but wear increases, power drops, and eventually something fails. It's almost akin to running an engine at high RPMs with low oil. So inside the body, chronic inflammation accelerates. Aging slows recovery, slow, clouds get uh focused, is where I was going. Um, it interferes with hormones, um, and it drains long-term performance. And one of the biggest drivers of that internal fire is fatty acid imbalance. Talking about omega-3 versus omega-6, you can equate this to the fuel mixture being wrong. Think of omega-6 fats as fuel that burns hot, and omega-3 fats are your cooling system. So in modern diets, especially on the road, the ratio is completely off. We see this with so many case studies. Most people are running omega-6 to omega-3 ratios of 15 to 1, 20 to 1, 30 to 1, even I've seen as high as 50 to 1. And optimal performance, to give you a little perspective, lives closer to 2.5 to 1 to about 4 to 1. So ideally, we want to see clients get down to about a 3 to 1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3. And you might be wondering, where do these come from? Well, omega-6s come from things like fried foods, seed oils, processed snacks, restaurant meals, convenience foods, even uh red meat can provide too many omega-6s. And omega-3s, those come more from fatty fish. So think of wild-caught salmon or trout or anchovies or sardines. Uh, those are fatty fishes. You can even get some omega-3s and things like haddock or cod. Uh, you can also get omega-3s from things like uh chia seed or walnuts, not as much as the fatty fish. That's really the primary source. Um, and that brings in why we need quality supplementation, because the problem isn't that omega-6 exists, it's that omega-3 is missing. And that imbalance keeps the inflammatory fire burning non-stop. So let's talk about some obvious and not so obvious symptoms. You might have an omega imbalance if your joints feel stiff, even without heavy training, if recovery takes longer than it used to, if you experience brain fog or irritability, or how if sleep feels light and unrestful, another one is your skin feels dry and inflamed, or mood feels reactive under pressure, uh, heart rate variability isn't improving, your sleeping heart rate is um is too high. And here's a sneaky one you can have chronic inflammation even if your standard blood work looks normal, because traditional labs they don't measure fatty acid balance. And there's a reason why motorsports makes this problem even worse. The issue is amplified in racing because of oxidative stress. This is like your body rusting from the inside out. And this comes from things like exhaust and chemical exposure. So if you can smell it, those molecules are getting into your nose and getting into your body. So if you can smell exhaust fumes, gasoline, chemicals in the shop, uh in the garage area, those chemicals are getting into your body and also amplified because of poor sleep cycles, travel fatigue, uh, time zone changes, and especially adrenaline output. All of that increases inflammation and depletes omega-3s faster. So it's more than just about the balance of omega-6 to omega-3, but it's about all of those stressors that are depleting the beneficial omegas in your body. What this equates to is basically your engine was running hotter, but performance is dropping. So we also might be wondering, how do you know for sure if your uh omega omega-3, omega-6 to omega-3 balance is uh in the right ratio? Well, this is where the guessing stops. The gold standard for testing, it's not blood serum testing, like your doctor might run C-reactive protein to look for inflammatory markers. What we do is a dried blood spot, omega-3, and inflammation test. And what this does is it measures multiple factors. Omega-3 index, it measures EPA levels, it measures D DHA levels, uh, it also measures omega-6 levels in your actual omega-3 to omega-6 ratio. It's done, uh, I said dried blood spot, so it's a simple uh finger prick, so a lancet, and then a couple of drops of blood on a card that gets mailed into the lab. They rehydrate it and they analyze it with uh very specific equipment. This can be done, this test can be done right at home or even on the road. And the results give us clear, actionable data. And for our clients at Victory Lane Wellness, omega-3 testing and advanced inflammation testing are included in all of the coaching packages. So, what do we do? What do we do with that information? Well, we need to fix the fire correctly. Once you know your numbers, the solution is proven and precise. And this includes lifestyle adjustments. We want to reduce those seed oils, we want to reduce those fried foods, we want to prioritize whole foods, we want to improve uh sleep consistency, we want to make sure we're exercising enough, but not over-exercising. It's the entire basically the de-stress protocol. We're talking about diet, exercise, stress reduction, toxin removal, uh, optimized sleep, uh, emotional balance, the science-backed supplementation. We'll talk about that in just a second. Uh, and of course, success mindset. And the targeted supplementation, this really matters, the omega-3 supplementation, because a high-performance omega-3 should meet these standards. It has to pass this litmus test. Otherwise, you're either doing more damage or just simply throwing your money away. It has to be a clinical dosage, enough to actually change lab values. There's so many products out there that are maybe a half or a third of a clinical dosage, but they don't tell you that. They don't tell you that you need to take more than one or two of these to be able to really move the needle for your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio. The other, since we're talking about ratios, uh, it has to pass this test as well: a 2.5 to 1 EPA to DHA ratio. This is ideal for inflammation, brain, and cardiovascular health. Now, why more EPA than DHA? Because your body can convert EPA to DHA. So we want to give it more of the one it can actually utilize as a raw material to do the conversion over to DHA and not the other way around. Uh, the next point here is it needs to be highly absorbable. So, what does that look like? What do you look for on a bottle? You want it to say uh TG formulated. What that stands for is triglyceride bound. Very, very important. And then minimally processed and non-oxidized. Oxidized oils increase inflammation potentially, and that can actually have just the opposite effect of what you're taking the product for. And then, of course, sustainably sourced. Typically, it's uh based on anchovies. There's a lot of other sources for omega-3s that are advertised out there, uh, like muscles or plant-based. Um, and none of them in clinical practice really move the needle. I mean, we see this every single day looking at uh omega-3 inflammation lab tests before and a few months after somebody has taken the test. We retest again after they are on this protocol. You know, it's not just take the supplement and fix the problem. The supplements are one of eight parts of uh of balancing the inflammation. And then the last point, we want to look for something that is GMP manufactured. GMP stands for good manufacturing processes, and that kind of ties back into minimally processed and non-oxidized as well. So, how much should you be taking? About two to three grams per day. It's not that difficult. And that's usually guided by lab results. So, for an example, uh, if inflammation was not too elevated or just for maintenance, about two soft gels with dinner. That's about two grams, one gram per soft gel, or one at lunch and two at dinner would be your three grams. How long do you take that? About 12 to 16 weeks and then retest. Uh, but you're gonna know the difference between how you feel after about 12 weeks than how you felt uh before when you decided to run this lab test. And this is clinical dosing, not casual supplementation. Now, I do have to say that the content of this podcast, it's for educational purposes, only and not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, prevent disease, and not providing any medical advice. Of course, you should always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your health regimen. Now, the benefits of omega-3 done right. When omega-3 levels normalize, you'll often feel reduced joint and muscle inflammation, you'll see faster recovery, you'll see improved focus and mood. Who doesn't want that? Better cardiovascular health. So you might see some of your uh cardiovascular metrics improve, like uh VO2 max if you're tracking that. Improved hormone signaling. So if you're not testing uh salvole um saliva hormones, then you can just go by how you feel. So that improved hormone signaling is one of the benefits. Better sleep quality, yes, balancing out your omega-3 to omega-6 and your inflammation produces better sleep. And then greater stress resilience, longer-term brain and heart protection, which I know is very important. You know, when we're in our 20s, we are usually not thinking about long-term brain health. But when we get into our, you know, our 30s and 40s and even older, um, you know, brain-related disease starts about 20 to 30 years before a diagnosis. Things like Alzheimer's, dementia, um, Parkinson's, that happens way before a diagnosis happens. And it's usually because of low-grade systemic inflammation. So this is not a trend, my friends. This is cellular performance support. And imagine your engine running cooler, recovery improving week by week, joints feeling younger, focus staying steady under pressure. And instead of wondering why you feel worn down, you know exactly what's happening and exactly how to correct it. And that's the difference between guessing and engineering your biology. If you're the kind of person who's ready to test your omega balance, reduce inflammation, and support long-term performance and longevity, our at-home lab testing and our trusted omega-3 brands are available over at jeffreymort.com forward slash shop, or you can go to Victory Lane Wellness and just click on the shop tab at the top. And remember, for single tests and supplements, use the community discount code VICTY to get your discount. Run the test, fix the ratio, cool the engine because champions don't just drive fast, they drive smart from the inside out. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.