Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 317: Bucking Fitness Trends and Driving Results with Mike Doehla

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

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Hey, everybody, welcome into another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga. And in this episode, I'm sitting down with Mike Dola. Mike was the founder of Stronger You, a very big fitness and nutrition coaching company. He made an exit from that company to spend more time with his family and kids, but he is still absolutely loaded with fitness wisdom. He's a little cut and dry, and some people might think direct, but the wisdom he shares is built on the back of years helping thousands of people get into real shape. And despite making an exit to spend more time with

the people he loves, he's still very much in the fitness space. And he's somebody who has a ton of wisdom to share. So I think you'll love this episode. Sit back and enjoy the chat with Mike Dola. This podcast wouldn't be possible if it wasn't thanks to support from our awesome partners, one of whom is Vivo Barefoot. Vivo makes the best barefoot training shoe on the market. For years, I stayed away from barefoot training shoes, despite knowing the benefit of low cushion, wide toe box shoes for the health of our feet, the intrinsic musculature that helps support everything that we do. I stayed away from these shoes because I thought they were ugly. But that was until, of course, Vivo started producing some absolutely gorgeous barefoot training shoes. These are low cushion, lightweight, breathable trainers that have a ton of bend, a ton of flex,

low cushioning to provide for optimal stimulation of the proprioceptors at the bottom of your foot. Fun fact, 70% of the proprioceptive cells in your body, the cells that tell your body where it is in space to help you be coordinated, to help you create movement, balance, stability, all of these things, they're located on the bottom of your foot fighting to make contact with some kind of surface so they can get the tactile feedback they need to help you optimize and coordinate movement. That's why when you're barefoot, you probably feel more stable and more connected to the ground. And I have never found a shoe that feels better to train in, not just train my clients and stand around in for eight hours a day, but literally train in. Tons of fantastic mobility out of my toe box, the ability to spread

my toes, all in one beautiful climate-friendly package. I'm a huge fan of the Primus Knit Lights. I have them in obsidian. I have them in bright white. And I absolutely love this shoe. I have been raving about it for three or four weeks straight. I've never had a better training shoe in my life. You simply can't beat these. They feel great. They look great. My fiance even said, wow, those shoes, and I quote, make it look like you know what you are doing, which that's all I need to hear. Not sure exactly what that means, but I'm guessing it means good things. All the trainers and coaches at my studio said they make my calves look great. And I think this is because when you're wearing a barefoot shoe, you're using more of the intrinsic

muscle of your foot and ankle complex that is so imperative for movement. Trust me when I say you've never had a better pair of training shoes than you will when you try Vivo Barefoot. You can't beat these. And Vivo is offering listeners of this podcast a special 10% off order by using the code DANNY10 on VivoBarefoot.com. You can just scroll down to the show notes and grab a pair. But these shoes are fantastic. They're beautiful. They train incredibly well. They're durable. And I promise they'll be the best pair of shoes you've ever had in the gym. Again, that's vivobarefoot.com and check out using the promo code DANNY10 to save 10% on the best pair of shoes you've ever owned. Mike, how are you doing, man? Good. How are you doing, Danny?

I'm doing really well. I'm happy to have you on. A little note for the guests who didn't get enough from the intro. Mike, somebody who's been very successful in the fitness and nutrition space as a coach and as a businessman. And he's somebody who I'd heard of many times, but I'd never put a face to a name until he more recently started getting some content picked up and shared by people who I really like. And I kept finding your posts and being like, wow, this guy has a really good way of looking at fitness and nutrition and it's practical and it's influenced by having done it professionally, by having done it with a family now. And there's just so much wisdom in all of these posts.

And then one day I saw your face and I was like, oh, this is Mike Dola, who I think I'd heard about from Andrew Coates and at least five other people and never knew what you looked like. So I'm pumped to have you in front of me and be talking today and hopefully extracting some of this wisdom that you've got, because I think you have some of the best takes to use a more kind of in vogue term of any fitness person on the internet right now. You've got some fire, bro. I appreciate that, man. It means a lot coming from you because I feel the same way about your stuff. Really, it's just because I'm a little older. I'm experienced. I've seen a lot of stuff and I got a, you know, in my seven years in the industry,

I pretty much put in like five lifetimes of work and a crap ton of clients. So I've seen a ton of stuff. So it's really just a result of having my eyes open and paying attention during that time. Well, I think that's something I'd love to start with is just seven years and you worked really hard during that seven years. And I think when I talk to other coaches or fitness personalities or personal trainers, whatever you want to label yourself, a lot of them are trying to disconnect from the work very early on.

They don't want to apply. I don't want to do training sessions. I don't want to work with clients. I just want to look good and get paid for looking good and get affiliations and affiliate marketing, etc. And so whenever I know someone who's been successful as a coach or in building a fitness brand, I love to hear what that work looked like, what it felt like. I'm sure for you, it's fun to look back. They say, you don't know you're in the good days when you're in the good days. And maybe looking back, you really love that grind. But what was that seven years

and five lifetimes worth of work like? Dude, it's crazy because I say this a lot. A lot of our colleagues in the industry, they're basically just the clients they complain about in terms of, I don't want to work hard and I want the result. And for me, it was like my journey in the fitness industry was, was never supposed to end like this in terms of like selling a business and retiring and being like dad and just doing whatever. I just wanted to help a lot of people figure this food stuff out or this fitness stuff out. So like this was play to me. And this is what a lot of like startup founders will talk about. They'll say like, if you find

something that's play to you, but work for others, like you'll excel at it. And that's the thing I want like our colleagues to think about is what about this business feels like play to you? What value does that provide for others? Can you exchange that value for money and make a decent living? Like you probably can. So for me, it was just, dude, I had this damn cell phone and I have my original cell phone, the iPhone 6 Plus in my drawer over here. I had a callus on my finger because I had it in my hand at all times. I worked full time when I first started.

So like I'm literally hiding in bathrooms and in the attic of the office to reply to clients. I was just constantly thinking about the world and what analogy I can make like something into for people like calories and speed limit signs. Like I'm driving to work and I'm like, oh, like you don't have to be perfect with calories. You just kind of have to be close. And I would just put stuff out there and I would interact with the clients and all the right places and all the coaches. And I would build networks of people that, uh, a wanted to

be clients and B wanted to work here. So it was really like, I wasn't working like 15 hours a day, but I was present probably about 15 hours a day, sun up to the moment my eyes shut and I fell asleep. And then I would probably dream about work. So it was kind of crazy. It's kind of what's needed, I believe, to succeed. You kind of have to be a little bit crazy about it. Otherwise, you're not going to be in the right place at the right time. And you're not going to see those clients asking questions in the right places or just getting all that real world feedback. And I'm not like a typical business guy where I project out and plan and strategize and all that. I was just really good at seeing feedback from everybody and reacting

to it and just getting a crap ton of clients because our program was giving them awesome results and it was a really cool community so i was just on man it was my life it was my identity and then one day i'm just like there's more to this and i felt like i felt like i got the ring and like i could step back and let the young guns come and play um and i still you know I still go to the playground and shoot sometimes on Instagram, but I'm not formally in the field right now. No, I think that's wonderful, man. I'm passionate about fitness and I'm passionate about my health. And right now I'm in that tunnel of working very hard. And I think the prospect of stepping away from that is every bit as exciting as it is intimidating, because obviously working in fitness becomes a piece of

one's identity, but you're always attached to fitness through your own health and wellbeing. But it can be a lot to be a coach and to run a coaching company and a coaching business. And I think you hit on it, like sun up to sun down. And I think people in our space, they just don't want to do that grind. They've never had to do that grind. The self-selecting nature of this industry is the better looking you are and the better your physique is, the easier it tends to be to make money. So some people just enter with good looks, good physiques, and things tend to come easy and they just kind of never really want to work a whole lot harder than that. When you were doing

those sunup to sundown days, what was training like? What was eating like? What were some of the things you had to do to get that business from being a baby to being at a place where you can exit? I like to explore those moments because they're so seldomly talked about because they're not very glorious. But I pull a lot, extract a lot from them. And I think other people do too. lot from them. And I think other people do too. Yeah. For me, it was like, I could have definitely made the fitness stuff work just as good as I did before it. But when I was leading into the nutrition space, like, cause I was trying to train people in my garage. Like I had a small CrossFit affiliate with like seven to 10 members. Like it was nothing. So I was working out at work after my full-time job. When I transitioned to the online thing, and then I ended up quitting my job and I was just like glued to this thing, the cell phone, I didn't feel like training as much. So like the strongest I've

ever been, the best shape I've ever been was probably, probably 2015 when I, when I started stronger to the company. and then over time I was like I don't really care as much about being strong um I'd rather honestly be just in the weeds like with all my clients and I was doing enough like I didn't you know I didn't fall off too much um but my strength suffered because like I didn't do that stuff sure and that was my personal choice like I could have made it work. You know, I could easily pick up my cell phone between sets, stuff like that. But I just didn't care as much about it. I think when I was like in the grind, like that was what I wanted to do. And people used to ask

me like, what do you do for fun? I'm like, I just, I work, I talk about food stuff. And it was so rewarding because, you know, not only was it, did it allow me to quit my full-time job in HR? That was just like, just not fun. It was changing the lives of people. So like, unless you're a sociopath, like that makes you like, you get high off that. Like that was my dopamine. I'm like, man, every day, all day, people are like, you changed my life. You changed my life. You changed my life. You changed my life. Then staff are like, I quit my job. I'm living the dream. And I'm like, holy shit. Like, how can I slow down? So that was like, dude, it was the most fun I've ever had. You know what I

mean? Like fatherhood is the greatest thing, but that was like, that was just fun, man. Every day, you and your crew just dominating the industry and helping a shit ton of people and not even doing traditional marketing. So knowing all your clients are coming because they're happy, that is the unicorn type business that those things can happen and you can just enjoy it with your, with your buddies at work. Like it's so cool. Yeah, no, I, I, I'm smiling because I think back to having worked at like 24 hour fitness and having had a corporate quota on like, yo, you're going to sell a hundred grand worth of personal training this month. Yep. And I remember being like 22 and working with like five of my boys. And we're all probably

between the ages of 22 and 26. And just being so excited to try to sell what are at 24-hour fitness, what are basically 45-minute long adult encouragement sessions. Yeah. But at the same time, the high that I got from knowing like, okay, the harder we work, the more people work out, the more people get fit. It really can turn you into an animal around your work. And I think that

a lot of people preach like, oh, you must have balance. And I do think there's an important balance to be struck between work and personal life. But you probably would agree if you're working in a field like fitness or like nutrition, where you see for every unit of work I put out, I generate a unit of societal positivity. People genuinely benefit from the work I do. It's hard not to want to put in 12, 14, 16, and 18-hour days. Right. And I was super present. I was in a new relationship. We ended up getting married, so I didn't blow that because of my job. I was always around because it was like on a cell phone like i could answer stuff and then i could do stuff like we traveled all over the place i had i remember

putting out a survey one time and someone was like you shouldn't travel so much because not everybody can travel and it makes us feel bad and i'm like damn like i'm answering you and i'm in costa rica like and that's not it's interesting. Right. So like, I didn't, I didn't give up life. I just had it as all one big part of life. And yes, I'm not, I'm not stupid. Like I had my head in my cell phone, probably at parties and birthdays and all kinds of stuff. Like so many people would make a comment. Oh, you're on your phone again. I'm like, yeah, but I'm not on my phone, like doing something stupid. i'm on my phone helping someone with food and i'm making a living or i'm talking to staff members so like what people see is like this cell phone in this guy's

hand he's ignoring us it's like i'm i'm building the foundation for my family to be comfortable while helping a crap ton of people so So I don't feel bad about it, but I think back and I'm like, man, the perception of what I would do in public spaces was probably pretty interesting. Yeah. Speaking of perception of public spaces, when you look out as a hyper informed observer on this current landscape of fitness and nutrition on the internet, all content driving to various fitness and nutrition businesses. So maybe just when you look online and you see this space now as an informed observer,

what are some of the things that have peaked your, not necessarily interest maybe even your frustration but like when you look at it now from the outside you have to have a stance that very few people do like what what what are you looking at now and thinking oh shit here we are yeah it's like it's it's interesting because like i'm not in the circles where like people are like pushing all this bullshit right most of my circles are like people are like pushing all this bullshit. Right. Like most of my circles are like,

like people like us, people that people that get it, that know what matters. But I find a lot of people, like a lot of the customers in this industry, they still want fat loss and they want health and all those other things. And it seems like our, our colleagues are very,

very heavily leaning towards like not talking about fat loss stuff anymore. And it's almost like any feelings. Yeah. And that's, that's tough. Like a post I put up the other day with like 24, like statements of like, just things I believe someone commented, like, thank you. Thank you. Uh, someone said, I shouldn't say good days. And I was like, because it implies like there's bad days or good foods, bad foods. And I'm like, well, it's incredibly hard to communicate effectively when I have to worry about every single word affecting every single person's like perception. fat loss. I say fat in general, like I say these things because it's so much easier to communicate. And I understand there will be collateral damage. And I am careful with my words, even more so now than I've ever been. You know, I have two little daughters, like four month old and a 23 month old. So like these kids are going to grow up in a world that

still is kind of mean to people who are of a certain size. And I don't, I don't like that. So I do carefully try to, you know, the words I say, I do choose carefully, but to me, like the industry, it looks, it all looks very similar. Like a lot of people are saying the same things, saying like using the same content, using the same like editing software. So like, if I'm scrolling and I see people, I'm like, what's different about this person than another person? The one thing I see is I don't see any clients. I want to see the client stories.

I want to hear the good news because everyone's saying the stuff that works, but I'm not really seeing the results and the people. And that doesn't necessarily mean pictures and things like that. But I don't know the comments, the shares of stuff like that. I think it's a great point. You know, I've kicked this around myself because I'm one of the few people in our space that still trains. Like I spend 40 hours a week training clients one-on-one, which a lot of people are like, fuck, I can't wait to get away from that. And I'm like, all right, that's fine. That's a great indicator of where your alignment really is.

And then I do the social media shit on top of that, which really is just mostly like short form written, trite snippets from the interactions I'm having. But I'm in there and I'm working. And I thought to myself the other day, if I just had a cameraman in here and, and was just like, Hey, here's, here's how I'm going to clean up this thing for my client, or here's this thing I'm working on with my client. It would probably be 10 times easier than what I do, uh, like writing stuff. And it would probably be one of the few, if, if not the only account that's actually like, Hey, here's me training a real person. And here's how this, here's how this might benefit you. But there's just, the risk is you don't know if the algorithm wants that,

right? Like that's what I have trouble with. Cause like truth be told, I would love to have a hundred thousand followers because I know that means that a lot more people are seeing my stuff. have a hundred thousand followers because I know that means that a lot more people are seeing my stuff and there's probably some ego in there right like no matter what we do we we want that right so I'm too lazy to play that algorithm game you know like I want to do it but I'm like like there there will be weeks where I don't feel like saying a thing and then there will be you know I'll go weeks where I want to say three things a day but I'm like oh is that too much so like i'm glad i don't have to do it as a job and i could just kind of do it for fun now but it's hard man and what works now for the algorithms didn't work six months ago and then that didn't work six months before that so it's like who's going to be the one to figure

it out next and then everybody's going to do it right it's so it's very it's very, who's going to be the one to figure it out next? And then everybody's going to do it, right? It's very cyclical. I, of course, play all of these games. And you have to. I win sometimes, I lose sometimes. What allows me to do it, because I do entirely agree with you, the days where I have four or five posts come out of me are like i'm wanting to chamber some of them for the days where i'm like this whole fucking thing is so

stupid hilariously stupid and then and then you know there are moments where somebody will leave a comment and i'm like i'm not going to. I'm not going to engage. And then sure enough, I'm like, all right, you're the one, you're going to get the smoke. You type out the comment and you press reply. And it's like, you can't at this person because they're such a pussy that they have their settings turned off. So they like to basically take shots and then run. They throw their grenade and run. You can't even at them. There are all these moments with the content thing where I'm either hyper-motivated or entirely disillusioned. I'm like, this is just a stupid game. But the thing that allows me to do it is the same thing that allows me to stay in shape. It's just like, I'm probably going to

fucking force myself to do it at least once, even when don't want to on a day i don't want to i would be i would not be in very good shape if i did not have that that singular feature um and i know you have that so i feel like you will get to a hundred thousand followers by virtue of just posting good shit and occasionally having one rocket fuel off um but every time i try to get more followers i don't it's only when i just post better shit yeah it's goodman is on a um like a quest to get like 50k more and i'm like you're gonna you're gonna do it because you have the momentum and you know how to type for what people like share and it's like i call like i call a lot of the stuff like share bait it's like it's all things that people are going to put out there.

And I'm over here like, hey, starvation mode is bullshit. And you're not tracking calories correctly. And so I suffer because if other coaches don't have the same tone as me, they're not going to share that because they're going to think of their people and they're going to say, wow, that's going to hurt their feelings. Yep. That's going to hurt my client's feelings. So I'm not going to share Mike's stuff.

And I'll tell them like, listen, I helped probably 500 times more people than almost anyone in the field will. And most people are fine with this stuff. Most adults actually laugh when you call their bullshit. Like they're actually really cool with it. Yeah. I think we just moved away from that more generally. I mean, this is something just to talk about relationships.

I mean, when you get into fitness, you have a lot of conversations that you're not either capable of having at the time or qualified to have because most people's weight problem is an emotional regulation problem existing in an obesogenic environment, right? So you get to know what people really struggle with, especially when you do it in person, because you can just be having someone in the middle of a set of squats and they'll just be like, yeah, you know, I think my husband's cheating on me. You're like, uh, so you learn a lot about people. And I'm, I'm wondering, you know, you're in a relationship that's, you know, you're successful in your relationship, you have a good marriage, you have two lovely children. What have you, in your approach to nutrition, it's less soft than many people are.

How do you show up as dad and as a husband and as a coach for two kids? How do you walk that line and what do you borrow and what do you not borrow? Taking a break from this episode to tell you a little bit about my coaching company, Core Coaching Method. More specifically, our app-based training. We partnered with Train Heroic to bring app-based training to you using the best technology and best user interface possible. You can join either my Home Heroes team, or you can train from home with bands and dumbbells,

or Elite Physique, which is a female bodybuilding-focused program where you can train at the gym with equipment designed specifically to help you develop strength, as well as the glutes, hamstrings, quads, and back. I have more teams coming planned for a variety of different fitness levels. But what's cool about this is when you join these programs, you get programming that's updated every single week, the sets to do, the reps to do, exercise tutorials filmed by me with me and my team. So you'll get my exact coaching expertise as to how to perform the movement, whether you're training at home or you're training in the gym. And again, these teams are somewhat specific. So you'll find other members of those communities looking to

pursue similar goals at similar fitness levels. You can chat, ask questions, upload form for form review, ask for substitutions. It's a really cool training community and you can try it completely free for seven days. Just click the link in the podcast description below. Can't wait to see you in the core coaching collective, my app-based training community. Back to the show. Yeah. I'm a very like, it's weird because there's like a lot of areas of life. Like someone would call me a pessimist, but I'm like, I'm not pessimistic. I'm real. Like I'm a realist because I've seen how this shit goes. Like the dumbest stuff, like we get a furniture delivery. I'm like, it's going to be damaged.

I know it. I saw how they took it out of the truck. I open it up and it's damaged. So someone would say, oh, he's pessimistic. I'm like, no, I've just seen this happen. So I don't know. I try to not give that vibe of pessimism or negativity. I'm just a very logical, like critical thinker with most things.

And I like probably to a fault will like overthink a lot of stuff and over explain when people specifically, my wife is like, just shut up and listen. Like, I don't need, I don't need you to solve that problem. Um, and then with the kids stuff, like, do you think like there's a lot of fitness accounts? Like there's 9,000 different parenting accounts. Oh my gosh. Dude, it's crazy, man. It's like, no joke. Like I's 9,000 different parenting accounts. Oh my gosh. It's crazy, man. It's like, no joke. Like I'm like, I'm on Reddit and there's a science, like science-based parenting section. Sure. And I said to them one time and it got some traction. I was like, sometimes I wonder that the people in here are much like the nutrition industry,

where I come from, where there will be one study that suggests this and you forget that everything else exists in the same world. So like these, these parents that are like, don't ever say no, don't praise your kid too much because then they'll, they'll only do things for praise. I'm like, how do you get this right? Like, how do you get it right? You just try to create an environment just like food where most of the good stuff happens just by default and you don't think that like me saying no or good job to my kid that just did something cool is going to mess them up you know because they can i could do everything right they could have one friend at school that influences them to do something stupid and everything's out the window yeah so like, I just think like we're kind of in control, but we're not really in control of

everything. And the same goes for food. Like you mentioned the emotional regulation, like something could have happened in someone's life when they were seven. And now we're dealing with it as their nutrition coach. Like that's just, it's heavy stuff, you know? It is. And I think, you know, you talk about, I tend to lean generally more realistic, more analytical. And I think that does bring with it an aura of pessimism. But I think you can be a pessimist without exuding pessimism. It's just harder. It's just harder.

It's just harder. It's just harder. But it's like to say, if you're naturally really bold and daring and brash, and you throw yourself into a fight, are you more brave than the person who's very reserved and non-confrontational who steps up and embraces the conflict? Probably not. So anybody who I know that's naturally a little bit more analytical, realistic, pessimistic, who goes out into the world and says, I'm still going to fucking do everything I can to drive a hyper positive outcome. I think those are the people who are really working the hardest. They're not giving it because it'd be easy to just sit around and be a nihilist and be like, you know, everybody's going to be fat.

This ain't getting any better. You know, everybody just give up, just fucking pray to the Ozempic Overlord and have ChatGPT write you a workout program that maybe, you know, you may or may not do. Yeah, but that's like, that's a thought in my head sometimes. I'm like, as a whole,

we're probably going to get worse, but there's still going to be thousands of people that we can all affect. So why not try? Same thing goes for entrepreneurism. You're trying to build a business yourself, but most people are going to fail and be out of the industry in six months, eight months, whatever. There's still going to fail and be out of the industry in six months, eight months, whatever. You're still like, there's still going to be people that succeed. So like, if someone asks me, hey, Mike, I want to be a nutrition coach and do what you did. I'm like, hey, like, slow down. Like, if I had to do it all over again, I probably couldn't do this. So let's just get you enough clients to quit your job and live happily ever after.

Like, you don't want to build what I built because you probably will go insane. So, yeah. And people don't want to hear that because they don't want to be told that the work that they need to do is very challenging and very long and very lonely. But it's, it's fun for a time until it's not, or until you realize that there's more fun to be had in other areas, which isn't a bad thing. No, it's crazy, man. Business is nuts. It's just one of those crazy things. And you see a lot of people succeed. So you just think like, oh, I can do it. And that's a problem with a lot of the clients that they see the Arnold Schwarzenegger and they're like, I'm going to do that. It's like, well, dude, this guy not only put in the work, he is the only one of him.

So it's got to be the right person doing the right job. So true. If you want to eat better, stop going inside grocery stores, order online so you get exactly what you need and nothing else. Why did when I read that, I thought immediately like, yeah, this could pretty much solve obesity right here. You just get the food delivered. You can't be tempted. Is that something you do? Because I have to say it would solve about 90% of my problems to just have all my clients' Instacarts and credit cards. Right. So I don't have a big problem with food. I could walk by any number of cookies and just

be like, all right, cool, whatever. I don't necessarily know why that is. Maybe I was just raised with cookies or cookies, whatever. No big deal. But most people I know, nowadays, there's what 40,000 items in a grocery store. Our grandparents probably had 150 in these little markets when they were growing up. So there's just so many temptations and so many options. You're just going to go down these aisles and impulse pie, even if you have a list. So like, don't even go to the grocery store, like just order online. Like before we got out, before we started recording, I was looking at my phone because my wife was asking me if I wanted to add anything to our order. I didn't even bother thinking about

it because I know I probably would have just added something we didn't need. So this is what I tell people, like just order online. So you don't have to worry about all the temptations, but then they, they debate me, right? They're like, but Mike, I'm supposed to get steps in. I'm like, geez, like it's the grocery store, the only place you could do it. So you just have to make it easier to do well. That's, that's it. So like, if you're going to the grocery store and you're like, oh, I got to try this. I got to try that. It's like, well, you're going to the grocery store and you're like oh i gotta try this i gotta try that it's like well you just you want to do that and you also want to be more fit so you can't jump in the pool and stay wet or stay dry like you have to pick like what do you want to do yeah and you have to put yourself in positions where you're less likely to make

mistakes as often as you reasonably can yeah um right Like don't live in a bubble, but. Yeah, but you must insulate yourself. If like you said, if you and I are similar in this way that are some confluence of genetic and personal factors make us a little bit more resilient when we walk by foods that people might graze on. But I'll use a client as an example. She texted me in the middle of the day because she felt as though she had to tell me. And this is something that you see a lot. It was just like a total confession post. I'm like, okay, you're a raised Catholic. She texted me at 1130. I just left Costco and I had a fucking hot dog and an ice cream. And I was like, hey, it's all right. Thanks for telling me what we're going to bounce back.

And she's like, I was so good. I didn't buy any junk though. And I was like, no, but what you did was you went into Costco and you said no to as many things as you had the bandwidth to say no to. And then were overcome by the hot dog and ice cream on the way out. Had you simply gone in reverse order, you might've been overcome by one of the items on the shelf, but you said no to a lot of things and you saw what happens when your metaphorical willpower meter goes to zero.

You fought as many bad guys as you could fight, and then you went to zero and you lost. And it was just such a good indicator that like, wow, if you just don't expose yourself to all of the shit by reorganizing your home environment, not going into the break room so often, you give yourself such a better chance of succeeding. And I think that grocery delivery, while some people would see it as impractical, the time you save and the exposure that you reduce to these foods that you have a tendency to buy and over consume over long enough times it would solve a lot of people's problems there should be like an insta instacart plug-in like the i'm a i'm fat plug-in like yo i'm fat insta oh you got the instacart fatty plug-in cool like you can't add that to your cart it was blocked and then you save you save money too yeah so like what why say they yeah People say it would cost more, but that is only the marginal increase per item from using the service. But you are certainly not going to be inclined to buy all the shit that you didn't need to buy that you were.

And whatever time you are going to spend, if your time is worth whatever your hourly rate is, you're going to save at least one hour, maybe two. Oh dude. It's that, that's why that was my big reason for suggesting that to my wife. Cause like, I'm always the one going and I'm like, Oh my God, I don't want to do this. And like, no one has bags anymore. So if I forget the bags in the car and I'm inside, I'm like, Oh my God, I got to buy new bags. It's just, it's not a fun experience for me. It stresses me out. So let's not do that. I'm sure you can't help but think in your mind, and this is something I know is true for my clients and for a lot of people who are fortunate enough to have a relatively high earning capacity. You're standing here and I was like, oh man,

I've been at Officeot for three fucking hours of my life this week waiting to get something laminated and i'm like i have burned scorched lit on fire three hours of what i could have just done if i yeah you know had this done by somebody else um our clients pay for for services like coaching but they're reluctant to pay a 3% marginal tax on every item they get at the grocery store because it's a different frame than they're used to. Yeah. Well, it's funny. We think a lot of clients will be like, oh, I'm not going to sign up because of cost. And then they end up signing up and then they buy five different appliances to make chicken. And I'm like, come on. It was never the money. It was just, you didn't know

the value of the program, which is completely understandable. But you don't need five items to cook chicken. People are irrational all over the place. Yes. And we are collectors and consumers and we will always value goods more than services until we need services. Here's one I love. And I think that this really speaks to just, I do think our industry has softened in so many good ways, but I do think they've maintained softness in areas that are clearly picking and choosing. And one of them is alcohol. And you said one of the weirdest things regarding health is how often people ridicule certain ingredients, but never say anything about alcohol. And I would raise you and say one of the weirdest things about the fitness industry is how brave and bold people are about innocuous things

like seed oils and artificial sweeteners, but how courageous or how silent and puny they are about obvious shit like alcohol. Why do you think that is? I mean, I know why you probably think that is. Yeah. I mean, well, it it's like they don't want to give it up they want to they want to make fun of the things that they don't have a problem avoiding so like the ingredient the random ingredients the seed oils the sugar the artificial sweetener whatever like they will ridicule these things but they will be drunk and i can't i'm it's almost embarrassing to say how many times I've done this and how excited I get about it. But this happens on Facebook mainly when you

can scroll people's old profile pictures. Every time someone says the shit to me, I look at their pictures and I'm like, scroll, scroll, scroll four pictures back, getting shit faced on a boat. Like you're, you're ridiculing this person for eating a cookie, but you're drunk every other day or every weekend. Like that's worse. Like what, so are you healthy or are you just like conveniently healthy? Yeah. Do you just want to give up the things that you want to give up? Are you healthy or are you a thin alcoholic? that you want to give up. Are you healthy or are you a thin alcoholic? Yeah. Yeah. There's obviously gray area there, but I might be a little more cynical than you in that. Yes, I do think a lot of coaches enjoy alcohol and are able to maintain a better physique than the

average person while enjoying alcohol. But I also think a lot of them are bankrolled by Chardonnay Cheryl and they do not want to bite the hand that feeds them. They want to be the coach that lets you have a glass of wine because, yes, calorically, you can have a glass of wine a night and lose weight. who are borderline alcoholics or plenty of normal weight adults, but you can't drink alcohol regularly and be healthy. And that's not really a hot take. You know, if we go back to what you mentioned earlier about how people will do this with parenting literature or nutrition literature, they'll be like, Oh, Hey, I found one study that like has clearly made me decide to avoid seed oils altogether. It's like, oh, hey, I found one study that has clearly made me decide to avoid seed oils altogether. It's like, yeah, but you're ignoring a huge body of literature that says large amounts of saturated fats are bad for your heart.

And that's been there. So I see that with alcohol. A lot of people don't want to poke that bear. And I don't know. I kind of like it. I kind of like poking that bear. And maybe it's because I don't drink. Yeah. And I don't know i kind of like it i kind of like poking that bear and maybe it's because i don't drink yeah and i don't mind like i'm i drink every now and then very very seldomly like

i'm personally invested in a local brewery like i don't i'm not completely against alcohol but it's one of those things that we know is not healthy so like if you do it that's cool but don't live a life that you know exudes health and do that and never say anything about it you know like i know like jordan syatt the other day i think was posted about wine he's like i know this isn't like a health thing but i want to enjoy it and i'm like yeah that's that's what people should do at times but it's just a very hypocritical, I don't know, like aura that people put out there. Yeah.

And I'll be, I'll be honest. Like I have my vices. I, I, I use certain substances. I live in California. We have great weed. What can I say? Yeah. And I'm so painfully aware of the way that my use of that substance could or couldn't get away from me.

And I do think with alcohol, we've normalized it to the point where a lot of people function with a really dangerous amount of alcohol in their system. And I don't think it's a bad move to have a more honest discussion about it as an industry, even if it does hurt our bottom line, because I'd rather make less and have healthier, thinner clients than have a bankroll of people who are like, well, my coach doesn't care that I drink or, or he's the coach who lets me drink. I've, I've seen so many people. Yeah. If we said you couldn't. Yeah. Like, like I would like, if I had it my way, I would literally just lock you in a cage and feed you every meal for 30 days. And, and, you know, it'd be the best weight loss program ever.

I legit want to do stuff like that. Like obviously not lock in a cage, but it's so like, there's just too many people out there that are like, no matter what I do, I can't lose weight. I'm like, okay, well, this should be a TV show where I get six to eight of you in a house. Put it somewhere nice. I don't care. We do the workouts. We do the food. Go to bed on time.

You meditate. You do whatever the hell you want to do. But I'm going to, I'm going to prove to you that you can lose weight because I'm going to see your every move. And that's people's issue is they have no idea what they're doing. They just make mistakes and they don't realize it, or they just kind of willfully ignorant about it. So I want to, I want to lock people in a house and prove them wrong yeah i want to lock them in a cage not really but i you know that's why i work with all these all my friends who are still coaches and trainers and we have these hilarious discussions about like yeah i i guarantee you uh

if i locked you in a shed and you know yeah just gave you a barbell and three meals a day of rice chicken and whatever fucking vegetable you wanted yep uh you would have incredible results but you would hate it but you'd be done with it and i know but at least they would know at least they would know oh crap okay it does work maybe it is something I'm doing wrong. That's the biggest thing for me. And this is probably like, I don't know, some issue I have is like, I want to be right about this. And I want to show you that I'm right about it because it's going to make your life better. It will be a painful, but very revealing experience. Yeah. It's like you don't get to 250 pounds by making the right food decisions. You don't get

there and stay there by eating 1,200 calories. You do by eating 1,200 calories some days during some hours of the day, but you're probably eating 3,000 most of the time and you just don't know it. So true. If your goal is fat loss, you should see results in a manner of weeks. If you don't address potential oversights instead of staying the course, why? Because staying the course means heading in the wrong direction for longer. Finding a new course is where the results are. I agree. I think that weight loss can take time, but I think it leaves, even slow weight loss leaves clues and you should know very quickly if you are in a deficit or if you're not. And I think a lot of people, you know, they don't, they don't want to count calories,

but they want to, they know they need to be in a deficit. And you post, you posted something the other day. I don't have it here. Like you got to pick two. Like these are the, these are the other day. I don't have it here. You got to pick two. These are the six things. And I'd like to kind of close with that. For people that are listening, what are the highest leverage, longest leverage? Do these things if you refuse to track and you refuse to follow a training program and you, but you want things that are really long levers that really work. Yeah. So I posted this maybe last week or something. I called it the pick two plan for easy fat loss. Like, because right. There's, there's people that don't want to track things, which I understand. Like I still, like, if someone's like, I don't

want to track, I'm like, well, let me show you the value of it. And then you can decide, because I think people are too quick to say they don't want to track because they think it's harder and more pain in the ass than it is. But the value of data like cannot be ignored. It is so valuable with this stuff. But again, I understand people don't want to do it. So I thought of things like, like the alcohol, like try, like try this for 45 days, pick, pick any two, no alcohol, uh, eat out 50% of the time that you do now eliminate stacking completely because a lot of people just snack and they don't even realize it happens. Um, walk 10,000 steps again, an arbitrary number. There's nothing magic about 10,000, but it's probably more than the average person is doing now. Um 30 to 45 grams of fiber every day. 45 is probably a lot, but see what happens. No eating with TV, computer, or phone. Again, distracted eating. For some reason, they did a study on this. They paid to actually prove that people eat a lot more when

they're distracted um i'm not surprised i love those ones those studies that you're just like oh wow i'm so fucking glad we wasted money proving what i what clearly we already do right like a study when people drink they're more violent like oh yeah yeah we we know um and then or eat like 30 to 45 grams of protein in every meal that you have. So there's just a bunch of little things that kind of are related to like excess calories being consumed or hunger not being addressed. And if you do these things and you improve activity in some way, like it becomes easy. And I just think the average person is just forgetting some of the basics and they're going right towards these restrictive,

silly diets that we argue against all the time. I agree. I loved that post. That's a, that's one that I, when I saw it, I was like, Oh man, I've, I've tried, I have tried to articulate that same sentiment many times and just haven't been able to do it that well. Just pick a couple of things. Maybe you don't want to do all the things that you think you need to do. So just pick a few and maybe you do a few for 45 days and then you're like, oh, I'm going to have a couple of drinks now. And then you go to a different thing. Yeah. You can just recycle through flipping two two on

and two off but you're right it's hard to be operating at a place where you're doing two of those even just two and simultaneously like gaining fat and i look at those habits and i'm like i don't do anything fucking special at all but i do all of those have those are the habits that i do i don't do anything fucking special at all but i do all of those have those are the habits that i do i don't do a damn thing on top of that yeah but i do those which which again i've kind of backed my way into this by virtue of a lot of fortune and i feel empathetic for people who struggle with their weight you know we make these jokes about locking you in a shed or putting you on a reality show. But the truth is, I think a lot of what people... People know what they need to do. They just need to be gently guided to finding a routine that's palatable enough to help them do it.

And I think that being a more real and being a little bit more potentially pessimistic, but cut and dry for sure, I think the industry needs a little bit more potentially pessimistic, but cut and dry for sure. I think the industry needs a little bit more of that. And I think we got a little too soft. So I'm glad we got to talk today, Mike. I appreciate your time and your wisdom and all of your contributions. And I'm going to get you 100,000 followers with how much I share your shit because I think I share two to three years years a week you're probably my favorite my favorite uh short form content creator in the space so i'm happy to have the chance to chat brother yeah dude this is great and i think you're going to be at the conference uh aram's conference in march is it yeah i think i'm going

to go i'm going to go there yeah i'd love to meet you in person and not take you out for a drink yeah yeah just chill and sip on some water or protein shake or something yeah that's it all right brother thanks a bunch all right dan talk soon