Habits and Hustle - Episode 416: Ebenezer Samuel Shares No-Nonsense Advice on Building Muscle, Burning Fat, and Healthy Eating for Life

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

Want to build muscle and lose fat effectively?  In my Fitness Friday episode, Ebenezer Samuel, the Fitness Director of Men’s Health and Head of Training Innovation at FlexIt Fitness, discusses the myth of toning and getting shredded. We also discuss the concept of "calories in; calories out" and what it gets right and wrong. Tune in for actionable diet and muscle-building tips!  Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S., is the fitness director of Men's Health and a certified trainer with more than 10 years of training experience. He's logged training time with NFL athletes and track athletes and his current training regimen includes weight training, HIIT conditioning, and yoga. Before joining Men's Health in 2017, he served as a sports columnist and tech columnist for the New York Daily News. What we discuss:  Intermittent fasting  Calories in vs calories out  Society needs more fiber Brown rice vs white rice How to build muscle as we age Toning isn’t a real thing Thank you to our sponsor: AquaTru: Get 20% off any purifier at aquatru.com with code HUSTLE Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off  TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. BiOptimizers: Want to try Magnesium Breakthrough? Go to https://bioptimizers.com/jennifercohen and use promo code JC10 at checkout to save 10% off your purchase. Timeline Nutrition: Get 10% off your first order at timeline.com/cohen Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers.  To learn more about Ebenezer Samuel:  Instagram -  https://www.instagram.com/ebenezersamuel23/  Articles -https://www.menshealth.com/author/217286/ebenezer-samuel/  Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it! Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle podcast where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up. Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor Therisage. Their Tri-Lite panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go and I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammations and places in my body where honestly I have pain. You can use it on a sore back,

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BEBOLD for 15% off any of their products. It's not about what quote unquote diet you're following. It's about, again, what I said, and that's why I was sitting where you were and you were interviewing me. I would say that it does make a difference about the amount you eat. Not so much and what you eat is what I would say. Not necessarily the time you're eating it and all that other stuff that goes with it. Yeah.

Like all of the time you're eating it has like, I think bodybuilders do, bodybuilders do multiple meals. Right. What I'm saying the time, like if you don't eat until noon or whatever I'm saying, I think the more that those are also based on your body can't break down food, like we overeat and therefore we're stuck with all this food in us because we're not, we're not digesting it because we're eating so much of it. So like

having enough time to digest your food is really good for your system. Yeah, it's interesting because to bring the conversation full circle that's like intermittent fasting is part of where you get the whole calories and calories out idea because it's like, oh, I'm going to take my calorie, I'm going to take all my calories in like two, in like two meals based in whatever it is, four hours, right? Yeah, four. I think eight is the beginning. I think eight for beginners. Yeah. Or most people. Yeah. I believe it. I believe it's eight. And so that gets reduced to calories in. I think calories

in calories out was a very meat. It's like a well-meaning idea. And it was basically the way people are telling you to eat is so complicated. So it's like, let's just reduce it to this. But then we get so reductive with it that it kind of, it becomes counterproductive in its own way. How about like, what's the best, how about, not about this, what's the best way to eat if we want to build muscle and lose fat and just, you know, uh, feel better and look better. What would be in your opinion?

Um, how I would say, I would say you want to have like, like four meals a day, right? And each meal you want to aim for 20 grams of protein, okay, which is, try to get this from a natural source. Make sure you get something green on your plate, right? And then get, you know, three to four ounces of a carb. And if you do that, right, you, and then you want to have, you want to ideally have some kind of water on the side. And if you do that- Not some kind of water, I had this one. BLK water. BLK water, and BLK water is actually perfect, right?

So I think if you do that, it checks a lot of boxes. And again, there's a variety in there, right? Because your 20 grams of protein can be eggs or chicken or fish, right? And your green vegetable can be something different every time. You're checking a lot of boxes in terms of getting fiber in your system, which is really good. You're checking a lot of boxes with the protein, which your body needs. We're not eating enough fiber, though, as a society.

So, and how do we, I mean, we should up that for sure. Yeah, I think it's interesting because I think we've come, I think we've come a long way in the fiber conversation, just, and it's funny because I love white rice, which is, I can't remember. I know, so you've had, you've had it like five times since we've been here.

I mean, to be fair, I don't know if they have brown rice. They probably have brown rice. I probably could ask for it. I've kind of enjoyed just getting white and brown rice. But I think- By the way, white rice supposed know if they have brown rice. They probably have brown rice. I probably could ask for it. I've kind of enjoyed just getting away from brown rice. But I think- By the way, white rice is supposed to be better than brown rice. Did you know that? I haven't heard this. Oh, it's a new- you should Google it. You should do a story on it. I heard that there's a whole myth about brown rice versus white rice. I don't remember what the myth exactly is.

If I would, I can Google it right now and talk to you, but I had someone on here recently who talked, who told me about this and it's pretty amazing. Actually, I'm going to, I'm going to Google it white rice versus brown rice. I was a brown rice person too. I've heard, I've heard, I have heard the thing that brown rice is overrated compared to white rice, like it's not markedly better. It's not markedly better, it's not. Yeah, white rice tastes so much better too. I'm also Asian, so I'm kind of like... I know, well I was gonna say, I mean you're going to probably live to 177 because of just all the rice

you're eating, but hold on, brown rice versus white rice. Okay. If you look at the breakdown, it's actually the fiber content in brown rice is like minusculely higher, but yeah, it's basically a little bit higher, like between one gram and two grams more fiber. And then I'm not finding it properly right now. I'm going to look it up and then get back to you on that. But from what I heard, it's not that much different. White rice is, see, again, there's another, I think what happens is something gets traction and then everyone just follows that. And this can be happening right now with the, I heard something about white rice and now I'm following that whole thing. So don't take my word for it. I think I could have sworn I heard someone mention

that to me and they were like a leading nutritionist. So I'll try to find that information. But that's again why I'm big into like, it's like if you kind of loosely follow, if everybody loosely followed what I'm saying, right? They're covered. But choose your own carb. Don't let the internet choose it for you. Choose your own mixed vegetable. Like a sweet potato versus a white potato. Like a russet potato. Yeah. It's like at a high level if you're planning to try out for like, you know- Or like a competition or something. Exactly.

Yeah. Then that matters. Right. So for the average person who wants to like look a little bit more lean and healthy and fit, have white rice or brown rice. It's not going to make, it's so nominally different. It doesn't make a difference. Okay. Let's talk about aging and muscle, like keeping, how do we do this and do it well? Because we do break down more muscle as we age. So how do we... So that's interesting because the older we get, the more precise we have to get with all this stuff, like the healthier we have to eat. And yeah, I mean, so isn't building muscle or older, like I believe after 40, especially from then sarcopenia becomes like a major issue. I think the two things we want to do,

or there are three things we want to do. First off, and this is kind of one of those things we're told by kind of modern fitness, right? Is you've got to do the kind of big exercises, right? You have to lift heavy, okay? And older people should definitely try to lift heavy. I think every human on the planet should work up to being able to deadlift like their body weight plus at least 50 pounds. And that's not unattainable, right? And you have to take your time to work up there. So I think older people shouldn't be afraid to lift heavy. They should do that at least twice a week. You say heavy though, right? The fear is that especially as you get older, you're going to

put your back out or you're going to hurt, you're going to injure yourself or injury prevention. So you're saying that shouldn't be something that we focus on? Yeah, I think two things. One, I think for a lot of... Um, so you're saying that shouldn't be something that we focus on. Yeah. I, I think, um, I think two things. One, I think for a lot of challenging stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

It's mainly like challenge yourself, like getting working up to that heavy part, but we're working up to say your, your body weight plus 50 pounds on a deadlift. You might want to train you for that. Right. Um, you want somebody around who can kind of help you master your form, or you want to like watch like a clinic I'll give on the deadlift online with you in like three weeks, right? But I just think don't be afraid of heavier weights, right? And the key is like, is the rep scheme, right? It's like you learn learn with leg weights, how to kind of get your form down.

But then you've got like, at some point, you want to challenge yourself, right? And you're gonna keep the reps low. You're gonna do like one or two reps and that's fine. I think a lot of people get caught up in, again, more work, right? So it's like, oh, I'm gonna do sets of like 12 and 15 reps. I'm gonna tone, you know?

Except toning really doesn't, it's kind of toning doesn't really exist, right? And it's like, again, no talks about that. I think you don't really, you and I may think that but most people don't realize that. So why don't you talk about that? I don't toning myth. Is that that's a myth? Yeah, I honestly don't even I barely even know what the word means. Right? It's not it's not it's it's funny because when you read women's magazines, do women's magazines say it, I don't read it's all they say is like, you know, tone your, you know, upper body toning your arms, the word tone, or toning is like, synonymous with, you know, abs, you know what I mean? Like it's a very common word. It's interesting because we literally, I'm actually trying to think back to the last

time I used it in men's health. I've been in men's health for four and a half years now. And the answer is never. Because women use the word toning. I don't think men ever use the word toning. Yeah, I think it's almost like I feel like it got caught up in in societal kind of it because of because of that whole oh well well we can't say we can't say build muscle to women right and we can't and bulking fix them out right so here we're going to get them lifting weights because it's going to tone them whatever I don't I I honestly don't know what the word means. It means like, yeah, not like kind of like, it's like, again, the opposite of flabby would be

toned, I guess. I don't know. These are all like, this is exactly my point. And that's why I wanted to talk to you and have you on is because I think so much of everything is all marketing and branding. And it's not necessarily accurate or true. It's just what we've like been conditioned to think because we see it and hear about it all the time. And especially with social media and every ding dong now on social media is a fitness expert, which is a problem.

Because most people are getting paid for everything that they're doing or, um, or they have no clue what they're doing. So either option's terrible. So having someone who's a trusted resource like you, who actually takes it super seriously and like learns about this constantly is I think a really important thing to talk about.

Because you get like analysis paralysis and overwhelmed at all the different information that's out there. Yeah, and I think that is what it is. Yeah, you're right. It is so much kind of like marketing and spin. And it gets confusing for people. That's why I'm confused. This is what you do for a living practically. You know what I mean? I don't even know anymore. I'm like, I don't know. Maybe that, maybe I'm like the brown rice, white rice thing. I'm even confused because I'm like, okay, well, I mean, this trusted resource told me and then I look and now I can't find it. But then I'm sure if I don't have the time,

right, this second, but if you dig around long enough for anything, you can back up that resource, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because the internet is a treasure trove of confirmation bias. Exactly. Yeah. But I think toning is like the woman way, and don't take that the wrong way. But it's kind of- How rude. Get off my podcast. I'm just joking. It's not. I mean, it sounds like it's in all the women's magazines. So it's basically like, Tony is like the woman way and don't take that the wrong way. But it's kind of off my podcast. I'm just joking. It's that, it's that, I mean, it sounds like it's another women's magazine. So it's basically like, cause I feel like we, I feel like guys try to

like cut, rip, shred, it's basically the equivalent to that. It is hot, rich case. So for guys, it's cut, rip, shred, filth. Yeah. Women, it's tone. What else? Um, chisel maybe. It's mostly just tone, isn't it? Tone.

Tone or burn. Burn. Burn's a big one. Yeah. Yeah. Like burn fat. Tone your midsection. Yeah. So they're like, it's like, yeah, the guy terms, if you will, are just edgier versions. Yes. Yeah. But the men's magazines do have way better workouts. it's like, yeah, the guy terms, if you will, are just edgier versions. Yes.

Yeah, but it's in, yeah. But the men's magazines do have way better workouts that are more effective. I will say that. That's why, you know, I have you here today because in a truth of the matter is I do know enough to know that lift women are kind of like, kind of shown and taught to be lifting lightweight, very lightweight and they actually or no weight and they believe that's actually going to get them to their goal when the truth of the matter is you do need to lift heavy and heavier and challenge yourself get results.