Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 294 - Age Ain't Nothin But A Number

Episode Date: December 12, 2019

We're celebrating Mark Bell's 43rd Birthday on todays podcast and talking about getting older, wiser and more jacked-er. Do we really have to deteriorate as we age, or can we just get better? Today we also talk about certain changes Mark has made in his life and we get a Shreddageddon update from Andrew. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Visit our sponsors: ➢➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/shop.aspx?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Power%20Project for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Perfect Keto: http://perfectketo.com/powerproject Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 15% off your order! ➢Quest Nutrition: https://www.questnutrition.com/ Use code "MARKSQUEST" at checkout for 20% of your order! ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/  Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

Got sick so you cook your balls. Speaking of cooking, what are you cooking up on Christmas? I am for sure without a doubt, no question about it, cooking up those certified Piedmontese tomahawk steaks. I am making those and I'm going to eat those. You've been waiting on those for a little bit, right? I was supposed to do it for Thanksgiving, but my girl, she kind of gave me the business as they say, I guess. Wait, what? I think that's what people say

talk about it off air i guess yeah oh yeah like she actually she no she just she was like well you can't just you know have you just i'm lashing no wait maybe that doesn't sound good just have that by yourself i'm like what do you mean it's my house i can do whatever i want it's like you can't like you have to you know share with everybody i'm like oh heck no like guess who got their steak taken away i'm just kidding she's not getting one now oh man maybe i'm not now but yeah so that's i'll be having that but of course mama martha she's making tamales. Delicious. Yeah. I've been back on those ribeyes again.

Back on the center cut ribeye. You got a favorite going now or still on some of the same things with the Piedmontese? It's the ribeye cap. It's the smaller ribeye. I think that's what it's called, ribeye cap. Yeah, ribeye cap. Yo, guys, letting that steak sit will change your life. Like, honestly, these past like week and a half, two weeks now that I've been really just letting the steak sit there.

Talk about good habits. Right. And I maybe eat some eggs while it's sitting there and then come back to it, pull it out. That's fat. And cut into it. Eat some eggs. I'll eat some hard-boiled eggs when I'm waiting or something because I have to eat something at that point but when i come back to that steak like it it plumps up okay so this is the thing usually when i used to cook the steak i'd cook it i'd cut into it and start eating it i'd be like this is all right right but when you let it sit it plumps back up are you uh letting it sit with you

with no no no i keep it in the air fryer. With the red light on it. Maybe that's why it's plumping up. No, no, dude. I just keep it in the air fryer. I put it on foil and let it sit there. But when you come back, the steak plumps up because it's juicy. And then you cut into it and it's just, it's perfect. So for everyone who's been getting that Piedmontese, yo, yo, let that steak sit.

Let it sit. Oh, God. You know what else works really good is what Matt Schweitzer shared with us from HopDotty. He said to put salt, put whatever you want on your steak really. But I usually just put salt on there. And I let that sit for a few minutes before I actually even cook it. And that helps a lot. That helps.

I mean you have to kind of – I think when you're putting your salt on your steak, you've got to put a good amount on there. Yeah. You don't want to over-salt it because that's kind of gross, but you can't be shy with the salt. Yeah, and what that's actually called is the meat sweats. You have to put salt all over it, and when it starts to soak in, that's when it's officially called the meat sweats. Oh, wow. Yeah, and you can tell because it looks different. Yeah.

Yeah, and then so for December, Piedmontese has just opened up the floodgates. They said anybody that comes on the website, which is piedmontese.com, that's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E.com, they're giving everybody 25% off your entire order. And if your order is $99 or more, you get free two-day shipping. So, again, anybody can get that. But if you want to support the show, use the link in the YouTube description and or the show notes right now. Also, we got some Piedmontese representatives that are going to be here. We got our carnivore meetup

seminar thingy going on. We're going to have some of the Piedmontese people out here. I'm excited for that. I believe we're also podcasting with one of them at some point, which that'll be great because they'll tell us, like, I don't know anything about meat, really. I just know that I like it. It'll be

great to get more informed on the cows and how they care for the cows and how it all goes down that'll be really cool and then also they'll probably give us some good ideas on how to cook better since we can all up our game over here with cooking up some better stuff I'm really looking forward to that it'll be a lot of fun doing a seminar with my bro I think he's got a lot of stuff to share and I'm excited to you know do the seminar with my bro i think he's got a lot of stuff to share and i'm excited to you know do the seminar with him because i don't think he understands how much great stuff he has to share oh yeah so i want to like show him like dude like this is you're awesome at this stuff and you're

going to provide a lot of value for people also we got some of our other show sponsors we got our boys and girls over at perfect keto um i'm still hitting up that mct oil powder i'm still using the electrolytes i'm still eating the bars here and there because i have uh you know the no carbs till christmas thing um i have been having like one of these bars just about every night just to try to sneak in something sweet get that sweet tooth pop in there somehow um but yeah man you want to want to check out some of the stuff from perfect keto they got some Try to sneak in something sweet. Get that sweet tooth pop in there somehow. But yeah, man, you want to check out some of the stuff from Perfect Keto. They got some great products. If you want collagen, you want MCT oil or MCT oil powder or whey protein, they got a huge variety of stuff.

And their keto bars are awesome. They got everything. Yeah. They really do. They have just everything. They're building up, man. They're building up a lot of great products yeah and same if you pick up the vanilla mct oil powder you'll realize like oh hey it's there's air inside there um i i damn near finished that whole thing because that's what i

that's what i use to help utilize my fasting during this shred again smells so good it is really really good it makes coffee taste way too good. It makes you think that there's no way this is healthy, but it is. Yeah, for those people that don't really enjoy just a regular cup of black coffee, throw this stuff in there. It changes it. It's a real game changer for you. Yeah, yeah. Again, I can't speak any higher about it. It is just that damn good.

like any higher about it like it is just that damn good head over to perfect keto.com slash power project at checkout enter promo code power project for 15 off your order why are some of these quest uh donut bars out sema um because i'm gonna be taking these two home since y'all ain't eating no carbs oh my god he's out of here i mean for the record i i can eat cars but oh you can eat carbs okay you can get one. But I'm not messing with anything outside of whole food right now. I think that one needs to stay at John Cena's feet. To support him so he doesn't fall? Yeah.

So this one, sorry, Andrew. That one has to stay here. And then, yeah. Quest sent me a holiday greetings box that had all their different staple cookies in there. I would have to say the chocolate peanut butter one is my favorite. Chocolate chip peanut butter,

those are my favorites. We know who they love. Well, I'm just thinking, if you and I needed any more motivation to be somewhat of importance on this planet, we want to reach that level quest sends us that personalized cookie box yeah oh man but cookies are delicious yeah quest

nutrition guys like a lot of you are trying to switch from having all these crazy cravings and stuff like we talked about on this episode uh but you know it's not you won't feel guilty and it tastes fucking great like the hero bars the donut bars literally all their bars are just at this point for me they literally are a treat and it allows me not to have to turn to all the other crap i used to turn to yeah yeah yeah i dare you to have a hero bar and complain. No. Yeah. Yeah. I've actually never seen anybody eat one of those and like be like, oh. Right. Like they always down it.

Like disappears right before your eyes. Yeah. You guys seriously need to try the hero bars. Try all the bars actually. And the chips. Oh my gosh. The chips. What?

The chips. Taco flavor is actually literally my favorite. Yeah. Back when I was having literally everything i had that with monster mash whoo it was it was i was having taco salad it was really really good yeah anyway head over to quest nutrition.com at checkout enter promo code mark's quest for 20 off your entire order you sounded like a uh like a rooster in my neighborhood that's like definitely on his

way out oh like that's me bro dude but yeah you'll wake up in the morning and like you know like a rooster sound like you know whatever insert rooster sound but like he'll go he's like like oh is that guy okay over there? He sounds like the Aflac duck. If the Aflac duck had my cold, that's what he would sound like. Is it still at the same time every morning that it goes off? Or is he inconsistent? No, he's consistent.

He still does his job every day. The younger roosters are coming in. They're going to take them out eventually, right? Yeah. That's just kind of how things go. I do that a lot in the morning. Like, I'm always, like, fixing my throat. Like, I think I just do it a lot in general.

And I think it's coinciding with my age. You know, just, like, weird shit starts happening when you get older. I'm a little bit conscious of it. I tell my wife, I'm like, I'm sorry. I can't clear my throat good this morning. I don't know what's going on. I'm over there hacking up a lung. I'm like, she must think I'm so disgusting.

I'm always going, just trying to figure it out, and I can't get it. I don't know what I'm looking for from it. I don't know what i'm i don't know what i'm looking for from it i don't know what it's supposed to do but i just keep doing it do you grumble when you like are getting out of seats and stuff do you know you know i'm not i'm so i am very conscious of that because i think that that kind of like bleeds into everything else but yes to answer your question yes i do that and i yeah i kind of will do the, like I'm a giant bear or something, you know, like as if I weigh 700 pounds or 1,500 pounds. I'm like.

And I've learned, though, over the years to really just to try to not do that, you know, and simple things. I learn stuff from different people. I pick up different things and I'm like, oh, that's kind of neat. I think I should do that. When I was hanging out with Dave Tate years ago, I remember every time that he like got somewhere, every time that he like went to go do something, he would move pretty quickly. And I'm like, this is like a 300 plus pound guy. Like he's moving around pretty good. And I was like, hey, I noticed like as soon as we parked the car, boom, you fire out of the car. And I was like, hey, I noticed like as soon as we parked the car, boom, you fire out of the car. You know, as soon as we get somewhere or as soon as I say, hey, let's let's get out of here.

I was like, you're heading right towards the door. And he goes, yeah, man. He goes, for many years, I just kind of like sit there and I would think about like, oh, I don't really want to get up. And he's like, I'd kind of be lazy. And he's like, it's just a mindset. I just had to get over it. and he's like it's just a mindset i just had to get over it and then also he just said if i make a weird wincing face and i go you know making all these noises kind of like jim carrey coming out of the ass of the rhinoceros uh then uh you know you're gonna feel you're gonna kind

of feel the way that you're thinking right yeah no you know what exactly that that clip andrew we got to see that that idea i uh because when i was reading on becoming a supple leopard when uh like i don't know four or five years ago or something i think you've done i think he's done it don't you think andrew i think he's become a supple look at him uh supple panther there it is panther but i took that idea from uh kelly stirret because he in his book he's like uh when you lift or when you're doing all these mobility things relax your damn face. Stop making those angry faces.

I was like, that makes so much sense. Like, I should do that. And that just kind of bled into everything else. Top level sprinters do it. You ever see them, you know, run 100 meters, their face going all over the place. Yeah. Because it doesn't really help you to be all frowny face when you're doing that kind of stuff. That's stuff that we talk a lot about in the gym here.

I know that you're a big proponent of it. And, you know, like sometimes when you're going for like a max max, it's like, I guess, just let whatever happens happen in whatever natural way it's supposed to be. But also I would really pay attention. I think this is important for everybody. Pay attention to are you making that face or making that noise just because there are other people there, which is still okay. I'm still fine with it. Like if that's, uh, encouraging or motivating to you in some way. Um, but it is kind of silly, you know, if you really think about it, like,

like, Oh, I'm going to go, I'm going to go. If like, if I said this out loud, it sounds so dumb, like, Oh, I'm going to smash the chalk bowl. So when SEMA pays attention to me, so I get more energy during my lift and I'm going to make a lot of noise and turn up the music and be real dramatic about it right it is really what i'm doing um but i understand that and i've been lifting for a long time so i i can uh i can do it and i can feel good about it and it's something that works for me but i think you just need to be cautious that you're just not doing it because that's what you see everybody else do and then i think you need to be cautious in doing it and making sure that it's like real like do you really feel that way the same thing we talk about with fasting like are

you actually hungry uh do you actually want a beer or like jordan science said he recognized he was just doing it because that's what his friends were doing yeah that makes a lot of sense and and for you and the chalk bowl thing you i feel like if you were hitting that weight, even if people weren't here, you'd still do that because that's part of your ritual, right? Like that's your ritual when you're going for a heavier weight. Like you get everything in line and that's what you do. Get fired up, get excited. That's kind of, yeah. I like to lift that way.

Yeah, it's not just because we're there. And then also, too, even when you're doing a squat or something, it really doesn't serve you well to have a 45-pound bar on your back and then make this face as if someone took a dump in your oatmeal in the morning. It doesn't help. It's actually just a block. I mean, the more that you make that face, probably the more likely you are to not be able to get down as low as you want, the more likely it is that your knee kind of hurts. Because I think you're probably telling yourself ahead of time like you said uh your knee hurts when you do like leg extensions so even before you touch the leg extension could be a brand new leg extension could have a different cam on and everything you're kind of like this is gonna hurt and i think that we have that that mental block a lot of us where we go to do a bench squat or

deadlift knowing that previously our knee hurt or elbow hurt. And then you have a tendency to make that face. And it's like, man, you're just trying to get warmed up. And it's only going to feel worse from here. So maybe you should try to be a little bit more stoic about it. Maybe you shouldn't be wearing it so much. Yeah. And I mean, to be perfectly honest, I think part of the reason why I guess I may do all of that or I may not do all of that is because I'm kind of lazy.

It really just makes things easier to just go up and do it. I'm lazy and kind of stupid. If I don't think about it, it gets easier. If I don't have to think about all these steps, I can just go out and do it. Then I have less to think about. I have less to do. It makes everything easier. We actually tricked and sema thank you andrew appreciate it anytime so we had in sema the quote-unquote natty professor we had him get some uh testosterone levels checked via

his uh saliva yes and um i would casually just came over i was like oh i think mike mutzel you know he'll be able to help us that he's super smart because it seems like it's in picograms i don't know what's going on here and so uh and sema's testosterone levels went up but when i asked mike who i consider an authority he just said wow that guy's on tons of shit that's what he wrote back you're lying that's what it says right here he says that guy's on tons of shit like that or my eyes going bad no i'm kidding he doesn't say that he actually gives some detailed information he's like hey check out this website yeah he's one of those guys that are too smart you know yeah you just want a straight answer and he'll give you an encyclopedia anyway we will get to the bottom of this andrew though

we will figure this out but a little bit of background information people on this on this saliva testosterone i've been shining some red light on my balls for the past 10 to 11 weeks and i was just curious to see if there would be a potential difference in my testosterone i kept everything the same and my test levels went up by a bit from 181 picograms and then uh was that from when mike came in when mike mutal came in is that where you sort of started hearing about that or to hear about the light therapy before that i can't remember where we started hearing about it first time i heard about it was from um for the guy from opec i always forget his name oh yeah from opex fitness um fitz fitzgibbons. Fitzgerald.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, Fitzgerald. His first name eludes me. Don't call him Jason. Some white guy name, whatever. I was having some problems with my clavicle and it just wouldn't heal. So he was like, hey, you should get a red light therapy machine. And then after that, Paul Saladino came in too.

And then he had you shine it on yourself and then he was telling us i shine this on my balls and i i was just like what you shine it on your balls and and then yeah so yeah and then we heard it more than once about shining on your balls and we're like people are really shining it on their balls yes does it feel good it feels great like it's kind of warm it's warm it's it's it's warm it's very you know i have a special technique of getting extra uh stuff on it but i'm not gonna go it's kind of like uh putting your uh putting your junk in like an incubator maybe yeah yeah yeah let's watch these bad boys grow yeah it's like the like the scene on jurassic park when they have like the red light over the uh

the dinosaur oh yeah and then it starts to hatch and stuff it's kind of like that yeah but um yeah man no i've been using it super consistently almost pretty much every single day there's not a day that i've really missed if there was then i got a little bit more do you do a lot of extra stuff for recovery i know that you stretch um you do a lot of other things i know i mean i know that you're meticulous with your nutrition and your sleep, but is there anything outside of the red light? I guess you sometimes are in what, the sauna, right? Sometimes? Yeah, I go to the sauna and the sauna helps me with sleep. And relaxation. And relaxation. I wouldn't say that it's going to be something big for everybody's

recovery, but it's just like a habit of mine that I like makes me feel good so if it makes me feel good then overall oh no cena um overall it's good i like it um but other than that i stay on top of my sleep this is something that i've been using i don't necessarily use any like recovery supplements even though there's a lot of people that talk about you know glutamine and stuff like that although i forgot what the hell glutamine does yeah um and yeah stretching i feel like that's that was one of the biggest things that has helped me overall in terms of just feeling better day by day like i don't feel as beat up as i used to i mentioned this i don't have to warm up as hard before i lift or do jujitsu so yeah i think about like so let's just say you you um let's just say uh you're gonna take me through like a workout and you want me to

work on some sort of squat right well if we put a certain amount of weight on my back and let's just hypothetically say you want me to do uh five sets of five that would be a good amount of volume right and you want me to do pauses because you're like ah you, you're not really moving great out of the bottom. And I want you to do like a three-second pause as low as you can go. I am going to be incredibly sore from that workout. Whereas if you did the same workout, you wouldn't be because you're not stressing like your end range of motion, right? I would be at the bottom of that squat and I would be stressing that end range of motion. So stretching might not necessarily clear up – it might not clear up soreness for me after I already went through what I went through. But it could give me the ability to work out better and to do, I guess,

say like have less negative impact on my training. And then also the act of like stretching and stuff from what I'm gathering from you, sounds like it just helps you relax. Helps you calm down. You know, a lot of people in, I guess, the strength community, as far as stretching is concerned, they're not big fans of static stretching. They're more like they want to do dynamic movements, movements that you're going to be in. And I definitely agree with that. I don't think you should do static stretching right before you go and go into a lift routine, but I still think it's beneficial for strength athletes to do maybe at night before they go to bed or way earlier in the day, way before they

lift. Um, because all the athletes that have messaged me that have been doing stress, like some static stretching outside of their workouts, they're feeling so much better. I haven't gotten anything negative from individuals that have been like doing that. So I just, the practice, it hurts the practice of just spending 10 minutes and just working on yourself too. So it's like,

I don't, I don't know how it could be negative. I think that people just want to, they just don't want extra shit to do. Yeah. And there's people that stretch that are successful and there's people that don't want extra shit to do yeah and uh there's people that stretch that are successful and there's people that don't stretch and then so people people think that's um right of passage to say that it doesn't work you know i'll just admit i don't stretch

um and i should and i need to um i wonder i wonder if stretching will ever like really catch fire as like a thing you I know that more people do it. More people are aware of it. Our guy Kelly Sturette has really helped a lot in that space to help people understand it more. And there's a lot of ways to go about doing it. But I wonder if it will ever like turn into something where – because we're hearing people use the red light. We're hearing people do all these things. And we are hearing some people stretch.

But it's like for some reason it's like people aren't hearing it. They're not like maybe not. Maybe that they're not hearing it. They're not applying it. I think most people are calling it yoga. You know. Yeah, I think so. The people that do yoga.

That's like it's I mean, yeah, there are all these positions. But you are static stretching in these deep positions yeah and then what's it like when you know we see a new person in the gym and the first thing they do they start stretching out like big time you just look at him you're like oh shit this guy's serious you know and it's funny because like why like nobody else wants to do it but i mean at least for me when we have a guest in or something and you know it's like you hear a couple things like oh they do crossfit you're like fuck i don't want to work out with them or they start stretching and they you know and it's just like oh no we're we're

in for some you know for some shit right now yeah but yeah i don't know i've been trying to get better at it you know i notice a huge difference with my back when i do and I don't stretch. So yeah, it's been like a, uh, like a must for me before workouts. Yeah. It's, it's like, but like with outside of the lens of like lifting in terms of jujitsu for when I, when I started to do to do now, like my body moves into all of these like positions that in the past would hurt or I literally just couldn't work in, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm able to be in a lot of positions that you don't see big people get into just because I'm mobilized and I stretch often. I think athletes, even if you don't static stretch, try to do mobility every day will just help you move and feel better.

Let's check out this butthole clip. Speaking of buttholes, Nathan was asking if you've been shining red light on the taint. Who's Nathan and how does he know? Just somebody checking out the live stream. That's disgusting. You have a pay site, right? I love this clip, by the way.

Oh, my God. Jim Carrey, you know? Oh, God. Why does he do the tongue? And look at the mom. It's so beautiful. It's giving birth. Ooh, man.

Oh, my God. It's been so long since I've seen this movie. If y'all are listening, we're watching the Ace Ventura rhino butthole scene. So you can go look that up on your own. It's the rhino giving birth. Rhino giving birth. It's entertaining. They're all, like, horrified and everything jim carrey he never gets old um but oh yeah to answer your question about the butthole so everybody i don't know i heard about this recently i think mark you told me about it

what's it called perennial yeah perennium something or whatever yeah perennium i don't know something shining i guess anyway it's something that a bunch of white people came up with where they yeah they lift their legs up and they get butthole they get they shine their butthole to the sun i was like huh interesting well you know what i'm in the privacy of my own home i'll just open up in front of the juve whatever not a big deal so uh yeah i've been doing that i don't notice a difference but let me just put it this way um since the sun doesn't usually get there i'm just like what could it hurt you know maybe these people

are onto something might as well try it i'm standing here so let's just spread them and see i would love to see the like like the the Jew, you know, like, paid Instagram ad. Yeah. And it's just Encima just smiling. The stuff we do, man. Hold on. People used to say that. I was going to say we.

Yeah, well, people used to say, like, oh, I'd eat shit to be stronger. You know? Yeah. It's like, well, people are going to pretty good lengths to try to improve, right eat shit to be stronger you know yeah it's like well people are going to pretty good lengths to try to improve right try to be better yeah hey man like apparently there's been a lot of like papers done on this red light thing and i like shoot if it i've been feeling good you know so might as well keep it at it if it's if it's working it's working like if you feel like it's helping you make progress and it's helping make progress.

Anyway, I got a year older. I don't know how that happened. It seems to happen all the time. Every year. Yeah. It happens every year. Keep kind of turning the page, so to speak. And I'm finally the age of the page that I'm supposed to be on, which is page 43.

How long did it take you to get there? Yeah, it took a long time. It took many, many years. So where page 43 came from, my wrestling coach, Rip Rogers, some people are laughing hysterically right now that know who Rip Rogers is, but he's a former wrestler, just kind of old school wrestler. You can almost picture him as like just an old school gym teacher, old school collegiate wrestling coach, even though he was in professional wrestling. Had an outstanding mullet, blonde hair, kind of almost like a flat top-ish kind of thing going on.

His hair was kind of going crazy, a little bit on top, and then just kind of these long uh flowing uh blonde locks and he was just crazy he's a crazy ass coach uh but he asked us every morning for at wrestling practice when i was in louisville kentucky doing some stuff trying to be a wwe wrestler he would uh ask us boys what goddamn patreon and we'd have to say page 43 rip and he'd say why and then all of us in synchronization at the same time would say uh because you fucking said so and we said that every morning and there was about 30 or 40 of us and i was just kind of like a routine and i always we just had like fun with it but like he would he talked about his book like that doesn't fly in my book you know um you know what page are we on he kind of always he

always said that and i'm like if somebody wasn't getting something he's like oh you're on the wrong chapter you know he would just he was always referring to this book and we were always like no one's ever seen the book like does he actually have a book like what's you know what's going on with it but anyway it's just something i carried on you know sometimes you get some weird funky stuff from a coach that you that inspires you that that you keep keep up with for a long time. And so I've always just kind of said, you know, making sure people are on the same page. And then I just kid around about it, say page 43. So if anybody's ever been wondering why the hell I say that, it's because of that.

Has he ever said if he got it from somewhere? Because honestly, that's an amazing analogy to use. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. He would say that kind of stuff a lot. He would talk about books too. And I've made this analogy on this podcast before, but he just said if you only read one book, that's all you'd ever – like if you only read one book and you didn't communicate with anybody, all you would really know is what's in the book. And you might know a couple

things about like survival because it's like there's some instincts in there right um so i always found that to be fascinating too i'm like oh all you know is what you're exposed to like that's really wild you know and that that that can that can really make you think way outside the box because then you could think like maybe you shouldn't be so judgmental about certain religions or somebody – not even certain religions but somebody just having a different religion than you because that's all that they know. That's what they were exposed to. And how do you know that your religion is – and why would your religion be – like, right? Like you just – it brings up a lot of weird questions so even though it was in professional wrestling and even though uh we were always just kind of dicking around um you know i i always found some of his quotes and stuff like that you

know inspiring and and motivating and then when i'm talking to people i'm just trying to make sure people are digesting stuff making sure they're really um they do understand what's going on like are you on the same page as me hopefully you're understanding what i'm saying when i'm people are digesting stuff, making sure they're really, they do understand what's going on. Like, are you on the same page as me? Hopefully you're understanding what I'm saying when I'm talking about, you know, carbs and I'm talking about, you know, reasons on why I think some people might need to cut them out and things like that. Yeah. Is he still alive?

I think so. Yeah. I think unfortunately for a lot of people, he's still alive. Yeah. I'd be sick of hearing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I wonder, would you ever get him on he's still alive. Yeah. I'd be sick of you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I wonder, would you ever get him on here?

I think. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how that would work. He's pretty crazy. I mean, he was, I don't know. He was so strange. I mean, I don't know if he would be a good interviewer or not. I'm not sure.

But he used to say that he like uh trained every body part he trained every body part every day and i'm like that's impossible i'm like i'm like you didn't miss any any days he's like why would i miss a day i'm like well just i don't know like just stuff happens so like maybe you end up missing a workout and i'm like you had time to work out every body part every day and he's like yeah he's like i got it done i always got it done so that's what he looks like right now and this is 2019 dang he's he looks like built man like and he's probably kind of kind of old yeah he's probably getting up there in age so what'd you guys do for your birthday by the way yeah yeah so the wifey uh had a sneak attack plan and she wanted to um she wanted to go to vegas and so she uh set up this whole thing we went to uh maither field where they have um which is a, what the hell do we call it?

It's kind of like an Air Force base, I guess, right? Anyway, we flew on a private plane to Las Vegas, and then we went and ate at a place called Del Mar something or other. I can't remember the name of it, but the place was amazing. We had fish. It was the kind of place where you pick pick the fish like it's in like a tank. You like get to pick it out and like then they cook it up and stuff like that. Wow.

It was crazy. I mean the food was like – I don't know. Normally like fancy restaurant, I do enjoy them. But I'm always kind of like, really? Like do we got to pay this much money for like it's just we're just paying for like the ridiculousness of the entire situation right and this place wasn't like that though the food i thought the food matched up with the price really well and the food was really good um we did though however we did have a appetizer that was like $105. Okay.

And that was Wagyu steak carpaccio with truffles, like mushroom truffles on it. Wow. And I was like, we need to try that to see if there's any possible way that it matches up with the price. And we ate it and we were like, I think it kind of matches up with the price. My wife's like, I was like, I do too. Like it was,

it was, maybe it wasn't 105 bucks worth, but it was, it was damn close. It was really, really good. All the food was really good. We had a great time.

We ended up going shopping afterwards and I bought my wife her first Rolex and then i had to get another one so that's your second rolex that's my second one yeah you know i don't know sometimes it's just fun to um get some stuff for yourself here and there and just just have some fun but we had an amazing time we had we had a really good time and i've i have mentioned this before on the podcast as well i just you know it's not to be like too mushy and stuff, but like it's weird to find somebody that you love to spend time with. And as long as Andy and I have been together,

you know, I enjoy hanging out with her more now than I have when we first met, which doesn't really make sense. You figured you would start to run out of shit to talk about at some point. But, you know, there's always something for us to talk about. We're always sharing something together. And so, you know, it's not always easy, you know, being married for, you know, it's gonna

be 20 years and being together for so long. Her and I talked the other day about how people change a lot, you know, and like how do some marriages work or how do some people work? Because, you know, and like how do some marriages work or how do some people work? Because, you know, I'm definitely a way different person. Like I have different I have a different capacity now than I did when we met. I'm a stronger person in a lot of ways. Like there's there's a bunch of reasons why she would maybe no longer be attracted to the majority of the things about me. Like not, not necessarily that there's anything bad, but like maybe for one person,

maybe just even being like social media famous would be too much. When I talked to Jordan Syatt the other day, he said that was actually a huge issue with some of the girls that he was with previously. They just were like like they just couldn't handle it. They would say, who's this? What's this going on over here with this? And he was like, I got nothing to hide. I just, you know, there's people that hit me up on there. And he was like, and so anybody that was just like not vibing with him on that, he was just like, well, we got to I got to move on and find somebody that does.

But again, back to that whole thing about like changing. I mean, look, you change a lot, you know, the way you are when you're 20, is that going to be the way you are when you're 40? You know, I'm, I'm into change. I want to get better. I want to make progress. I don't want to be the same. And, uh, but my wife has been there through, you know, me being three 30, being obsessed with power lifting to you know me uh getting back down and weight and doing a bodybuilding show and kind of all the different uh all the different things that i've tried she's been supportive and been there the whole time for everything so it's been it's been awesome it's been really cool wow that's that's crazy man do you what do you think other than your weight and uh not maybe powerlifting, what aspect of like maybe your personality you think is super different now from, I don't know, when you were 30?

I think most things are intact pretty good. Like I think that I would say that my ability to like not care about stuff was stronger then, but I just had a lot less responsibility. It at least it at least appeared as if I didn't care about stuff. Obviously, I did. Obviously, I still cared about my my family and my brother and my parents and things like that. But I just maybe was a little stronger in that regard just because I didn't have as much shit going on nowadays with the amount of employees that we have. And I do have to care. I do have to be more caring. I do have to pay a little bit more attention.

I maybe can't do his things – do all the same things that maybe I used to do. But I can't really think of anything else i would just say that maybe i'm well this is a pretty drastic difference i'm definitely like stronger willed than i was then even though i had a decent work ethic then um and it's not like my work work ethic is crazy but it's probably not always easy to be around because i i mean i i can get a singular focus and just not really um think that much about the impact or what it's doing uh maybe to other people there's just little stuff like you know going to bed at like seven o'clock you know and like i just i just i just start doing stuff i don't really ever communicate i just start going

and i you know my wife and my kids are still up at like 8 or 9. So they're probably like, well, where did he go? And that's all like family time and then also waking up at like 3 and like just being weird I guess you'd say. But yeah, she's been pretty cool with all of it and even when I do get focused focused like that she's never never once ever said really anything about it except for during the bodybuilding show she was just mid about midway through she was like you're just doing this one competition right and i was like yeah she's like it's just it's a lot on me and you know it's she's like it's just crazy because i would just i had to freaking exercise a lot and then everything was wrapped around every single meal and having the

six meals a day and everything so that was a lot but yeah i would say uh personality wise probably most things are similar just maybe a little stronger willed towards certain things than i was when i was younger i'd like how like right now in terms of describing yourself getting older, because like, man, it's crazy. The people I talk to that are older, they're always telling me, warning me about getting older. And it's like they don't talk about anything getting better. But I honestly, from a lot of other instances I've seen of individuals,

like there are these 50, 60-year-old guys at jujitsu that are kicking ass. There's like LeBron James who's aging like fine wine and still killing people right now at 35 years old, 17 years in. There's you like you're continuing to get stronger, more fit, healthier at 43 than maybe you were at 30. I think that nowadays aging isn't the same. You know what I mean? It doesn't feel like it's the same. It's just like I feel like by the time I'm 40 or 50, I could still honestly, I still honestly believe I could still perform at the same, by the same way I would at 30. Think about this. I mean, you know, I could

start jujitsu tomorrow and maybe by the time I'm 50 or 55, I could be maybe a Brazilian jujitsu black belt or something like that that's what i wanted to dedicate my time to right um i feel strong i feel good i feel capable i'm not i'm not saying that that's an easy feat so i hope that nobody took that the wrong way i'm just saying that i have time to do stuff right um what if uh what if i just tomorrow got into running? It could be a year from now that I'm like running marathons. I mean you could change like any and everything about yourself. And the age, I think people make too much of age. I'm not necessarily stronger in terms of like the weights that I can lift.

But there's other things in the gym I can do that I'm a lot better at I can recover from my workouts faster because I'm in a lot better shape a lot I have a lot better conditioning I could do body weight exercises a lot easier I can recover from one set to the next a lot easier so it really just kind of depends on your definition of strength like if we're just a test a squat or a bench press or something like that. But I can toggle those things in whatever direction I want, just according to whatever it is I want to try. And the one thing that changed on that is I won't make the same sacrifice as I did before. So it's not a win-at-all-cost mentality anymore

because I don't want it to have a negative effect or negative cost because I don't want to gain the weight back or I don't want to do things the same way I did in the past. I want to try to do things in a new way and see how I respond to that. And maybe I can do it in a healthier way. And also I'm okay with trying a healthier way and also having it be like ineffective sometimes. I'm okay with it not working. I'm okay with going, oh, wait, maybe I should try it this way. Or, oh, wow, look what that person's doing. But just the ability to go in and do it every day, like nothing hurts. My elbow is the only thing that gives me any sort of negative feedback. And it's only when I go,

it's only when I go heavy on a bench press and then it goes away a couple of days later. I mean the entire time I've been training since I was a kid, there's always been something sitting there. There's always been a little shoulder thing or a little knee thing. So that's not new. It's not like there's more things compiled up. But there's a lot of people that are my age and some even younger and some even older that are really banged up you know they love the products they love the slingshot they love the elbow sleeves and they're like man that shit's holding me together and they put everything on and mummify themselves to uh

get through the workout and i love the fact that they love the products but i don't feel like i need to do that a lot of times i just choose to do that because I'm going heavy and I just want to make sure I'm protected. But I could come in at 4 in the morning and with no warm-up start squatting 315 if I felt like it, if I just had my mindset to it. Not like that's a lot of weight, but it's a good amount of weight to come in cold and just do, right? but it's a good amount of weight to come in cold and just do right and so i yeah i feel i feel good and i don't feel like there's any reason to blame anything on age i feel like i can handle a lot more i feel like with the um you know if you remember george foreman you know he lost to muhammad ali and he was devastated he like stayed out of boxing for like two decades which is crazy then he came back and he like he won heavyweight championship again and but because he was uh so much wiser he moved a lot

less he he didn't really waste any energy in the ring and he just knocked the shit out of people i mean he was in there with like a vander holyfield and stuff i mean he did he did amazing those were some unbelievable things. That was later in his career. So yes, he was older. And yes, he looked a lot different because he gained a lot of weight compared to the way he looked when he was young

and when he fought Ali. But he was like, I'm going to use what I have to my advantage. And so he would watch the other guys juking and jiving and bouncing around and shit. And he was just like, I don't need to do any of that. Like, I'm just going to chill right here and I'm going to be I'm going to be in front of them. And because he was so big and strong, he could absorb some of their punches and he would kind of cross his arms over to block their their shots. And he had massive forearms, like 20 inch forearms or something crazy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was able to block everything and kind of walk through those punches and then he just didn't waste any energy didn't waste any punches he didn't waste any extra movements and when it was time to knock someone out he was able to do it so it's like you could use your age your not even age but your experiences could be a huge advantage over everybody else. Most definitely. And yeah, it literally can't be an excuse. Like right now, you know, when did you did your first bodybuilding show? It can't be an excuse. You can't stop it. You can't.

Yeah. It's coming. It's happening now. Yeah. Like you did your first bodybuilding show was last year, right? What's that, this year? About a year and a half ago. A year and a half ago.

That was your first bodybuilding show, but you did that at what, 41, 42 old right yeah i'm 43 so it was 41 i guess when i was on stage something like that exactly so like honestly it's just it's really just a decision like andrew on the podcast what eight weeks ago or something like that saying i want to get abs and right now the dude i'm not going to spoil anything but let's just say that his christmas gift is going to be pretty damn pretty pretty don't look too much lower than those abs i mean or do i'm getting some sick veins yeah doing it for the dick root pube veins um but no it's like like seriously i know i know a lot of people who are coming into jujitsu right now that are like 43 or 44 at the academy and they're just starting now. But that's the thing.

I feel like with the habits that are built from going to the gym, we hear a lot of people talking about how like muscle is one of the things that's going to keep you from aging, right? If you can do these things, to be perfectly honest, by the time you're 50, 60, whatever, it's not going to be the same as the last generation, 60 years old or 70 years old. You just got to make that decision just to start now and not let the age get in the way. It should be an absolute non-factor in my opinion. And then what about like, I don't know what to do in the gym. It's like, well, just, you know, first, first of all, go to a gym because most often the people that are, that, that have the physique that you're trying to obtain, they usually go to a gym. Or they're going somewhere to practice some form of exercise for multiple times a week for several hours per week. And so you'll have to figure out what that thing is for you, whether it's like cycling or running or climbing rocks or whatever the hell it is you're doing.

You got to be doing something that you're active with. But if you really honestly are like, I don't know what to do, that's okay because we all, you know, you only know what you are exposed to. You only know what's in front of you. And so if you don't really know much, you can, A, you can get a personal trainer. B, you can look for an online coach. C, you can look on youtube and check exercises you can also just go to the gym and just try like one thing i'm sure almost everybody at this point has been exposed to a gym at least a little bit

they're like pe teacher or something showed them a couple things um go in there and just be like i'm just gonna try to do a bunch of stuff for my shoulders and even if you don't have any understanding of any of it you could literally go to the machines and the machines have red marks on like the muscles that are being worked and you can go oh my god okay that looks like it works the front of my leg okay this other one works the back of my leg okay this one works my biceps i want to have i have skinny arms i want bigger arms and you can go and do that like why put so much pressure on yourself though to think that there

has to be this crazy thing that you're going to be like you know all of a sudden out of nowhere devoted to and you're going to do 10 different exercise every workout go in there and pick a thing i guarantee you once that thing is done a couple sets of curls that you promised yourself, you're probably going to dick around and do something else. You're going to do something. You're going to end up probably moving around a little bit more. So try to just get yourself attached to even just going in there and doing one thing. And it's the same thing with the diet. Like you told me about the keto diet for my sister recently. I've had her start doing that. But as I've had her start doing that, yeah, yeah. As I've had her start doing that, my mom's like,

oh, I want to try this keto thing. She's 62 years old. So this is awesome. Yes. She's going from a totally different eating pattern. Right. And she's been doing the fasting since I've been doing it and she's been feeling better, but now she's just like, I want to try that keto thing. So she's not eating carbs. I picture like your family, like they just go to try something and then all of a sudden everyone gets all shredded up you said your mom's pretty like she's yeah she's in shape right she's in shape yeah so like and she's 62 but she's just like i might as well just do it too so she got rid of like almost all the carbs that she has in the house and she just made that switch but that's

at 60 something so you can make that switch anytime it just depends on making the decision just being serious about it. I don't think you should let – nothing should get in the way. Nothing at all. Yeah, you don't have to be all old about it. Yeah. Andrew, you notice anything with getting a little older? The saying is, like, I'm not getting older.

I'm getting wiser. And, dude, I don't know what it is. Lately, like, gary v's been like it's almost like his voice changed huh for whatever reason like when i've like i think i've discovered him because of mark but just maybe hit you better like you before you're like come on like i i've been that way with certain people where you sometimes they're too much yeah at certain times of your life and then other times when they when you start listening to them when you're heading in a good direction exactly then you can absorb them a lot easier yeah and that's what it's been for me and gary

v lately and i think it a lot of it had to do with because you know jordan syatt was coming in so i'm like oh let me you know check back in here but even before that i was just like just hearing him's a little bit different these days. Again, like audio books are sticking a little bit better. The training stuff that I'm getting from you and Nsema is like, why would I do that? And then now it's like, oh, of course I would do that. Of course I would mix back with, you know, the shoulder press, whatever the movements are. And like people ask you, Mark, all the time, like, oh, what would you tell your younger self that you know now, blah, blah, blah.

And it's like the answer is kind of always the same. Like, I wouldn't change anything. But, like, I'm wondering, because I know for myself, I used to think that, like, just this is a bad example because I can't think of anything. But, like, our podcasts are never going anywhere. You know, like, is there anything that you thought when you were younger where you were like just way off and now you're like dude i was kind of stupid for thinking that um i think uh one thing that i'm fortunate with is that i'm probably more like i'm i'm more of a thinker now but i didn't used to be um i'm I'm more of a thinker now, but I didn't used to be. I'm more of a doer, I think, by nature.

So I just didn't think that much. You know what I mean? Like I didn't have stuff to think wrong. I don't think I had wrong thoughts because I just didn't have a lot of them. I just wasn't really like a thinker in that way until I got older. Until I built up the confidence through the gym and until I built stuff up, I didn't really know that my voice would be anything anyone would really care about. Not that I thought the reverse of that either.

I didn't think the opposite. I didn't think that I was worthless. I didn't have that I was worthless. I didn't have that mindset either. But I think the main thing for me is I really didn't think a lot in terms of what's something that can make me money or what's something that can help me with this or that. It's all been – and then I've always been studying and researching stuff that I've been interested in. I've been doing that since I was a kid. So when it came to lifting and stuff, the cool thing about fitness is that everyone's trying to sell you on the fact that things are so different now. They're not. They're the exact same.

Time under tension, that's been around forever. Getting a certain amount of volume in your training the one thing that has changed in powerlifting is you just see people have adapted a little bit more of an Olympic lifting principle which is just more frequency in the training and you didn't used to see that in powerlifting that often but really there hasn't been

any sort of huge change a lot of work equals great results my parents taught me that when i was young i always knew that i always felt that in the gym i always saw that in the gym from everybody else so yeah i didn't really think i was ever really on the wrong wavelength there's shit that i just didn't understand and because i didn't understand it i just didn't even think about it and there could have been some mistakes in that sense like uh student loans or you know buying a car i couldn't afford or you know doing some of those some of

those things um but like i've run into great people at a young age at a young age to help so uh i got really lucky with that, like with Andy, you know, Andy's like, wait, you, you, you know, you, you have credit debt. Like what's going on with this? You know? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't care. It'll take care of itself.

Yeah. Oh yeah. It'll be fine. Like, I don't know. I'll one day, you know, I'll one day be rich and everything will be cool. Wait, like what? Like you don't have, you know, two pennies to scrape together.

Yeah. Well, that's cool. Cause I think I would be the complete opposite. Like, you know, have you know two pennies to scrape together yeah well that's cool because i think i would be the complete opposite like you know when you're talking when you ask me i'm not aware i'm not a person that really worries about anything so that's probably why yeah and so again opposite so like now that i'm older i'm realizing like oh people actually don't really care like people don't care about you like it what I mean is like, I would be hesitant, hesitant to go to the gym, not knowing anything because I'd be worried that people would be judging me. Okay. That or any weird idea I had, I would worry about what people thought of it.

And so now that I'm older and wiser, I'm like, yeah, I mean, if they do care, like that's actually a good thing. And if they don't care, then like, okay, I'll try something else. But yeah, like I would overthink everything. And now I'm just like, all right, we don't have to overthink it. Just, just, let's just go do it. You know, the way you, you know, kind of started out. Has your daughter ever like, I don't know, had something happen where she got like, uh, crazy, crazy sad about something that happened between like her and her friend.

And did you ever just like spell it out for her? You ever say, you ever say, OK, Jasmine, I understand why you're hurt. You're hurt because your friend didn't invite you to that party. Like, am I right? You know, and then once that's said, like once that's thought about, then it's like, oh, it just kind of releases everything. Yeah, that is what I'm upset about. Well, that's probably not right because you invited her to your party. But she could have also just forgot.

You're trying to be like more rational. I think what happens with people when they have worry is they don't actually try to think about it in a rational way. And I think it would be a really good practice for people to to uh undergo um i've talked about you know interviewing yourself which sounds like crazy talk but you should think about that you should say like why am i so scared to do that because a lot of times the things you can't do are the things that you should do those are things that you should lean into if you never uh heard Ben Pekulski talk about that, you should check his information out. He has a podcast as well. But those are things that you should maybe lean into. Not always, because it could be something that could be potentially harmful to you. But a lot of times when you're like, oh man,

like that, you know, that's, I'm so worried. I don't want to go do that because it sounds horrible. But a lot of times if you work on that and you figure out a way to work through that, you'll be a lot further down the road than if you just always have swept it under the rug. Yeah. Recently, my nephew spent the night at my house and he was saying he couldn't get any sleep because he was worried that he was going to wake up and nobody was going to be home because we would have left and i'm like well that's that's really interesting to be worried about but i'm like well let's let's let's go ahead and dig into this yeah it's a great thing to like yeah communicate with him about so he doesn't think he's a crazy person because you could just

laugh at him be like oh my god you're 10 years old and whatever go back to bed yeah yeah so i'm like okay well let's think about it i'm like what's the worst that that could have happened if you woke up and nobody was here and just like well i'd be alone i'm like and then what he's like well i don't know i'm like well you would just kind of hang out play switch maybe i don't know lift some weights or something like do you know there's ice cream in the freezer that's exactly what i said and i was like like you could have hung out here and did whatever you wanted until we got home and then he kind of was like hmm that would be weird like but you'd be okay right he's like yeah could have watched a rated r movie while we're out could have done whatever you wanted kid yeah and he's just like oh so yeah laying it all out for him to be like you don't have

anything to worry about dude yeah so kind of doing that for myself actually yeah yeah man no like this this whole year i think uh at least you guys been podcasting for a while right you guys been doing this for years but being like back to your point about exposure and what your coach mentioned like if you only had access that one book and what around you, right? Like being around all the guests and talking to all the people that we've had on, you know, like just like I've listened to podcasts before that, you know. I've tried to listen as often, but then I'd fall off of listening to that type of stuff and taking information. But like just being around all these guests, taking in certain pieces of information, like, I've changed a lot this year just because of that. It's just that exposure is crazy. I think it's the same thing with you, Andrew. Like, you've been working out here for three years, but, like, you're exposed to everyone around you here. And just all that has changed not just your mindset, but also your body. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's crazy if you can just get yourself in front or get your ears listening to the right things. It's just, it's ridiculous. Yeah. And it definitely like helps if you want the help, obviously it sounds

silly to say, but like, you know, I was talking on Instagram today about like, you know, the mindset, like I thought I was giving everything i could give you know like i was like yeah my diet's definitely on point you know my training's super consistent and i'm like but if you really ask yourself is it a 10 out of 10 now it's not against the law if it's not okay you're not a bad person you're not someone who doesn't take it totally serious but if it's not a 10 out of 10 you kind of don't have a lot of leeway to complain about the results and that's where i was you know i'm like no i'm definitely giving my all but it wasn't a 10 out of 10 all the time you know i mean like yeah i was making progress

but i wasn't making the progress that i wanted to make because i wasn't you know hitting that extra gear the way i am right now yeah And it was because of the damn mindset and actually believing in myself. Even though when I first started this, I didn't really believe that I'd be where I am right now. Something clicked. I just said, fuck it, I'm going all in. You know what, I'm curious about that because you have been working out for a while,

but this year you've made the, I feel like you've made the most general fitness strides that you have in all of your years of lifting because you got big this year and you're getting shredded this year usually for people that's like in different years but you did it all in one so what was it that clicked for you that just like transformed this year for you yeah well i mean not gonna run away from it uh peds definitely oh great that's the end of the podcast yeah but it wasn't guys later everyone just unsubscribed and left like what this guy what a bunch of bs is bull yeah uh no i and i again taking stuff just seriously probably helped

me more mentally than anything i'm not gonna act like SARMs didn't help in multiple ways. They absolutely did. But I just felt like, oh, I'm enhanced now. So no matter what weight Mark puts on the bar, I'm going to lift that shit. I was just 100% confident in everything that I lifted. So that definitely helped. And then, uh, also, and I will probably for as long as I can do stupid series, series, series, challenges, series, put myself out there for the internet to see, because that has been the, one of the biggest motivating factors

for sure. It's the worst it's the best worst thing you can do god last night there was so much good food i'm like no carbs so christmas no carbs so christmas no carbs so christmas yeah and then so also with that with that with that definitely helped by putting myself out there it got you know the whole family on board you know not that stephanie never she always has supported me no matter what i've done um it's very cool hearing mark say that about andy because that's how i feel about stephanie but i think seeing how serious i had to be about sarma again and how serious i am about shred again she's like shit okay you do need your meals

you know you do need to get to sleep it's we're still struggling on that department but like having somebody there understand like yo like yeah i'm putting myself out there i don't want to look like an asshole on camera so like i have to do x y and z you know like i know we have access to super training gym but i have to go sign up at another gym like that sounds silly but okay yeah let's let's do it so that definitely helped but man yeah the uh the mindset for sure and putting myself out there and like we did it's it's such a crazy feeling knowing like oh wow i i could eat that donut right now but what's that gonna look like on camera later you know and you i think that it can be an unhealthy thing too obviously because like if i you know i told in sema today i actually woke up a pound heavier than i did over the weekend and it's like what if i'm like oh my

gosh like i'm not gonna eat at all today now you know like that could be bad but because of this series i've been learning a lot of about my body and a lot about what happens when I under eat versus eat what I'm supposed to eat. And like the difference my body makes, you know, for the better when I actually eat more than what I like was assuming I should be eating. Yeah. Which is huge. And like what would happen like if Tom Brady panicked when he's in the pocket? He's going to throw an interception or he's going to – any sport or anything that you're trying to go after. I'm trying to think of like a great instance of like panicking.

Like I can't think of one. Like someone comes in here and shoots up the place. Like panic. It could save your life potentially because you could panic and fucking dive out the window or something like that you – under normal circumstances without that adrenaline rush wouldn't do. But the cooler heads will prevail, being – figuring out a way to kind of like, OK, somebody is in here fucking shooting at people. I don't know what's going on. Where is everybody at you know like where's who's in the other rooms who else is here today you know what which where do i think

the gun noise is coming from do i have my phone can i make a phone call can i you know is my wife in here is my kids in here like you know they can shoot andrew but they can't shoot my kids you know i mean we use andrew as a shield you know i mean whatever it takes but like we all know the black dude is the first one to get shot and killed in the movies in real life i would have already been down that block true you know that shit i always love in the movies the guy who who like checks on something that's the security guy he's like checks on something, the security guy. He like checks on something suspicious, got the flashlight out. Yeah.

And he goes, what the? And then that's his famous, that's like famous last words. You always die. As soon as you say what the, you're done. You get nailed with like a brick in the back of the head

or a bat or something or you get shot. You know what's hilarious? Okay, got to sidetrack here. You know that kid from Stranger Things that like he... I know. Yeah, one of the main characters. Yeah. Yeah. So he does like a prank show right where he'll like he'll

go up to people and he'll like i think one of them they were in a medical office and like the dentist was doing something real weird stuff so he did it to like i think it was two white people and they like they fell through the prank but the black guy walks in. He looks. He looks. He sits down. The dentist comes out with whatever. And he's like, fuck that. And then he leaves. And he jets out.

He jets out. He doesn't even take a second. He smells it. And he just dips. That's great. That instinct, bro. That's awesome. That was so good.

So funny. I can tell where you were going with that as soon as you said the black. Hey, man. You don't mess around like in those movies where you see like the wiker like let's go into the forest and see what's going on nah not us yeah there's like a there's let me check what's going on like in this sewer down here like in the middle of the night it sounds terrible yeah there's like an insurance commercial that makes fun of like scary movies because of that but yeah they're always like oh what was that noise let's go figure it out like nah uh get the fuck out of here so sad get back on track on some of this you know some of the stuff that you were saying there you know where you've uh you know you benched uh 250 um i think you've deadlifted like 335 or something or three no actually i've i never went above 315

but i did rep the shit out of that like like oh yeah several times yeah so with with those those two numbers kind of floating around i mean um what's possible for you like i don't i don't know you know like uh would it be is it possible for you to bench another hundred pounds? Yeah, it actually is. Other people do it. Other people are similar body weight. Is it, is it possible for you to deadlift four plates? Yeah, it certainly is.

Is it possible for you to deadlift five plates? Yeah, it is. Like it sounds wild. It sounds like some crazy weights. You've had some back issues and things like that, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. Now, here's what can be out of the realm of possibility is when you start to kind of weigh in other factors of life, you know, does it make sense for you to really reach for that because you could potentially lose out on some other things? lose out on some other things. Can you manage the two things simultaneously with the life that you want to live? Because goals are cool and doing stuff in the gym is fun. But if it's like at the sacrifice of your relationship, it's like, wow, that sounds pretty steep. Like that doesn't sound like a great decision, right? If it's at the sacrifice of some other things and maybe it's

not going to fit in and piece together and when i think about a lot of power lifters that i know a lot of them can look awesome if they lost like 15 20 pounds even some of the bigger guys um some of these guys are even like 275 280 300 15 pounds are not going to look ripped but but 15, 20 pounds, they'll just get some of that bloat off and they'll look better. And they might have like a bicep vein going and stuff. But the amount of dedication and the time it would take for them to pull that weight off and also potentially lose some of the leverages in their training just isn't worth it.

They love, first of all, they like to eat, which is understandable. They love to eat and they love to go in there and train. And when they train, they love the feeling of feeling really strong, almost maybe the same way someone who goes to a jiu-jitsu practice loves the feeling of being explosive. I'm sure there's probably been a couple times where you went to jiu-jitsu for whatever reason. You didn't feel as explosive or maybe you ate too much that day and you're like, ooh, that was a bad choice. Going to that all you can eat buffet before practice, that wasn't good. And so that's what you start to get used to and then if you're trying to match up your goals, your lifestyle, the things you really

like, the things you really love, it doesn't have to always look like an excuse. So Andrew was saying like a 10 out of 10 in terms of your diet. There's different ways to have a 10 out of 10 in your diet because you could have a diet that's really matching up well with your strength. And if you're getting stronger and if your diet doesn't have a bunch of crap in it and you feel really good every day, there's potential your diet's 10 out of 10. There could be a little ice cream in there.

There certainly could be because are you inching closer to your goal or are you not? You kind of keep it that simple. And then on the other side of things, when you get neurotic and you get crazy about like being worried about whether you should have whether you should have another meal and you know whether you ate too much or you forgot to weigh this thing or well what's more important to put up eights every single day right to put up eights every single day or to have a few tens in a row at the sacrifice of like breaking and having a six and a seven and a five and a four and then you're back up to ten right like that's so that's uh some inconsistency so back to jay cutler all roads lead lead back to jay cutler um be uh be consistent don't be fancy yeah exactly you know oh we would say no i was

gonna say so like uh it just reminded me when you were saying like, you know, at the sacrifice of this, you can obtain that. You know, Gary Vee was talking about like, okay, do you want to be a millionaire? Cool. It's going to take a lot of work. You know, of course, he always talks about how much hard work. It's like, do you want to make $100,000 a year and spend, you know, long nights, long weekends and then see your family occasionally? Like that's freaking great too. Do you want to make $47,000 a year and hang out with your family occasionally like that that's freaking great too do you want

to make 47 000 a year and hang out with your family all the time that's totally fine too but no like you know the balance there like you you want more money you want you know more time what like which is it like you can't really have it all right now like eventually you can but like right now you do have to kind of sacrifice one for the other. And it was a little bit explained a little bit better than that, but that's kind of what, like, the gist of the whole thing was. It just, that's what it reminded me of when you were talking about, like, losing. Yeah. A family member of mine right now is doing a business on his own, and I haven't really talked to him about that much. He's told me some things

about it, but he has a hobby. Like he loves, he loves riding his dirt bike and because he loves riding his dirt bike, he's got a nice trailer for it. He's got a nice setup for it. And, and my advice to somebody like that, who is looking to dive into their own business. Um, now keep in mind, he, he did well, um, at the other job that he had, working for somebody else, and he had recreational time. He just had vacation days and sick days and so on to go and basically take off whenever he could, whenever he had the opportunity to, and go ride his motorcycle.

My advice to someone in that situation is sell all that shit because you want to know why? You're not going to be able to use it anymore. Like that's the sacrifice that you're making. That's what you're kind of up against. Now, could you do both at the same time? Yes, you certainly can. You certainly could. But would it make more sense to have money and to not have

your time even wasted on those on these other things while you're really driven towards this goal you could also just think like how driven are you towards the goal how immediate do you want it to happen do you are you know are you all in on it because if you sell that shit that you love and you're like you have the mindset of this. You're like, you know what? Three years from now, I'm going to have a way better setup than that anyway. So I don't even care. I'm going to sell it now, get the cash, dump the cash into myself. I'm going to bet on myself. I'm going to take this money and I'm betting on me and I'm going all in. I think moves like that sound wild. They sound crazy. But I think that that's the mindset that you have to have if you're

trying to figure out a way to get ahead and i think a lot of times when people work for other people they don't really realize like shit's not going to be so chill when you're working for yourself and uh everything's on you all the time like that pressure is there all the time um it that it is a blessing to have your own job and to be able to do your own things your own way. But that kind of old adage of be careful what you wish for, it can be – there's going to be some times that are pretty brutal. That kind of has me thinking of how can – like when we think about the way we feel lifting every day and exercising every day, can you imagine going – I mean I know like sometimes you're away from the gym so you take your walks. But can you imagine not being able to work out at all?

That being something that happens to you, like could you do that? That would be hard. But yeah, I could if there was a particular reason for it. But I think saying I could doesn't sound that bad. But after how many days would I start being like, oh,, if I don't have either jujitsu or workout on a certain day, um, like maybe it's one day or whatever, but if I can't do that multiple times a week, I will start to decline mentally. I seriously will. Like it's, it's like clockwork. So that's why I'm so like, I guess, addicted to these things because it keeps me level. And for, cause a lot of people that are listening right now, they know the feeling like, you know, when you go into the gym, you have a great powerlifting workout or your, your bodybuilding workout, you come out, you feel good. You feel like you're going to attack the rest of your day, but it's like trying to help

someone that doesn't exercise, maybe they're older or whatever, learn to build that habit, how it can like change your life. Because like lot of people they find that solace through eating food eating certain types of food like that's how they feel better or drinking that's how they feel better but i feel like personally for me like and us i'm pretty sure these things are congruent to that you know what i mean if i didn't have these i don't know that you know what i mean if i didn't have these i don't know like what other type of thing that i'd be reaching for yeah you know i think um because i know for sure because based on the people that i've spoken to like family and stuff when i try to explain what you just said they think i'm nuts and i i feel like i'm the closest to like, you know, previously not feeling this way. And I just know for me personally, like it wasn't until I got really consistent with like training with Mark, you know,

for his bodybuilding show and stuff like that, when I got really consistent and it just became like a thing, like, okay, this is what we do now. I'm going to be there for Mark and be there for Mark. And then all of a sudden it was like, okay'm going for myself going for myself and then i noticed that when i wouldn't train just like i was just like i didn't feel like i was myself anymore i've like little things would agitate me or like you know like you said like i couldn't really think clearly and i was like man what's going on here and it's like oh it's because i missed a couple days like damn is it really like that bad like no way and then i would train couple days like damn is it really like that bad like no way and then i would train like hey what do you know i'm way more productive today i'm happier i

feel better so it's just one of those things where like you know very much like the food you don't realize how how crappy you feel until you feel a little bit better yeah so with the training and exercise and stuff like that you don't you know like oh you're supposed to hurt all the time because that's what happens when you get older it's like well shit what if you train a little bit and you felt a little bit better like damn that did feel pretty good okay i'm gonna keep doing that and then it's like okay and then when you stop what happens you kind of feel crappy again yeah so i think your training could be looked at as like a drink or it could be looked at as a um as like doing a hit because like i'm gonna go get me some of that like that's what i'm

gonna go get like some of that shit that i get from the gym yeah i need to go get a little piece of that and that doesn't mean that you need to be there forever you know and i think if you're just thinking i need to dose that to myself for today, I think that's a really healthy thing. And I think that some people get so attracted to it and they get so into it, like a David Goggins, he gets so into it that you can't come out of it and that it doesn't make sense for him to ever, like he loves the power of that so much that maybe it's sometimes to his detriment. Maybe sometimes he runs too much maybe sometimes i lift too much right like and maybe i should be kind of you know mixing it up and trying other things but you're like kind of scared you're like i don't know if i should try anything else because

this feels so good to me to do this all the time um even food you know food gives you that feedback you know food uh hits a lot of um there's a lot of reward system built into food. But your lifting, your lifting is that way too. Like you feel really accomplished. For maybe some people that haven't really experienced some – like a really good lifting workout, maybe they did some sport. Maybe they felt something like – it's like sometimes even like two or three hours later where you're like you kind of just feel it in your chest you're like i like i think i like breathed a lot today like it took a lot i took a lot of breaths today you know like you feel that

like in your chest you're like man like something something got worked and that gives you like a sense of accomplishment you're like yeah well that's from the swimming that's from the running or that's from the lifting like i did a lot of stuff today that feels really good it just makes you feel good about yourself it's huge yeah trying to like that's somehow i just trying to help somebody like trying to convince somebody that's never done it before to build that habit because i feel like it's it i don't want to say this but if you've never done it before to build that habit because i feel like it's a it i don't want to say this but if you've never done it before it's going to be a little bit difficult of a habit to build and learn to enjoy because i've seen a lot of people that like work out and they're like ah this hurts

this doesn't feel great but it's just i feel like that's a time thing i guess yeah and there's so many different ways you can work out too. It doesn't have to hurt. And I don't know who's giving you that message that it needs to be like this crazy thing. If you want to take it to an extreme, then there's certain things that are going to hurt a little bit because you might have to really learn how hard you need to push. And that can be a painful process if you're trying to be really strong or trying to be really big or you're trying to be, you know, a great bodybuilder or something. But even the best guys that I know, a lot of them avoid injury. A lot of them will – they always kind of lift under their means. You know, they don't pay out more than they have in their means. You know, they don't, they don't, um, they don't pay out more than they have

in their account. You know, like, and you hear like Grant Cardone talking about this and Gary V, you know, don't go buying shit that you can't afford. And same thing in the gym, like make sure that you're picking exercises that you're familiar with. If you're not familiar with it, maybe you do it at the end of a workout and maybe you try it really, really light. Like, oh, I saw Ansema do these the other day. I'm going to try it with like a 25 on each side. Okay, that feels pretty good. I'm going to incorporate that next week, right? Like that's the way I've always done it.

You always kind of like play around with it when you see something new or something different from somebody. So that way you're not setting yourself up – you're not setting yourself backwards. setting yourself up, you're not setting yourself backwards. One thing I'd also say too, is that that I've learned over the years is that with habits that they're really hard to, it's really, really rare for someone just to like start a habit out of nowhere. It's really rare for someone to really break a habit out of nowhere. Normally there's conversation about, okay, you lost 50 pounds. What'd you do to lose 50 pounds? And they'll say, okay, you lost 50 pounds. What did you do to lose 50 pounds? And they'll say, well, every night I was sabotaging myself.

I really love potato chips and I was eating potato chips and dipping it in French onion dip or whatever the hell it is they're doing and drinking a soda. And then how did they break that habit? Maybe they had like – and this sounds gross in comparison to eating chips like that, but maybe they had a protein shake. Maybe they had yogurt. Maybe they ended their day with a bowl of fruit. They just took an option that was better, or maybe they figured out a way of once dinner was over,

they just didn't eat again. Like that would be wonderful for everybody to be able to follow, but that can be very difficult, going on a walk or whatever. But if I think I've seen the most success when people have a habit and they replace the old habit with something different, something that's just a slight tweak or slight twist. You can think about it like if you're thinking about it workout-wise, you're thinking about finding a variation or finding – they call it scaling in CrossFit. So they're like, all right, Smelly, well, you suck at handstand push-ups. So we're just going to have you do regular push-ups until you can figure out a way to get in this position or whatever, right?

So you can think about that with your diet. Like why not scale your diet? Like, all right, man, you tried a no-carb diet seven times over the last year and you messed it up every time. How about we don't try a no-carb diet? How about we try just less carbs? Or we try moving the fat around. Oh, I've heard that you can do it that way too. I heard that you could track your calories. Whatever way you got to figure it out. That makes sense. That, that is something that you can incorporate and actually put into action. That's maybe just a replacement for being a little bit better than you were in the past. Yeah. You know, I think I said this, uh, I don't know, two or three months ago, but, or it was maybe when Andrew said he's going to do his challenge. But like now,

since we've been talking about like just doing all this stuff if you're listening which you are right now you can probably think of a habit that you have that you want to stop or something that you want to improve and you know what you need to do to do it so do it now and then just dm one of us and let us know you're doing it because a lot of people have just. Because a lot of people have just like, yeah, a lot of people have just like, like we got the carnivore chef is going to do a meet. You know, you just made that decision, I think, last week or. That's so awesome. We're so proud of him.

Right. He's he made a decision to do a meet and now he's going to do a meet in February. I think it's February or March. So, like, if you know that that thing you need to do, just do it and message one of us. Just like Andrew said he wants to get shredded and he started started he put it out there so he can't turn back do that post it message us yeah speaking of uh people doing meets our boy dylan checked in how did he do like he yeah he killed it man he uh he had his meet this past weekend um he went eight out of nine hit prs across the board um got was aiming for a 1200 but he ended up getting a 1206 total so uh yeah he he killed his first meet he did he

put in a great performance yeah that's so cool dude because like so for people that aren't sure how who we're talking about or why we're talking about it but our boy dylan he's a listener to the podcast he had just come on the uh the live chat and was talking about doing a meet someday. He's like, oh, I think I'm going to do it next year. And this was this year, by the way. And I was like, no, man, there's all kinds. Just get in there and do it right now. So we convinced him to hop in there and get on the platform.

Started working with NSEMA and he absolutely crushed it. And we're extremely proud of you, buddy. Yeah, he's killed it. And that that dude one thing mark was talking about consistency that man is consistent like he like you he's so easy to work with he's just so consistent so that that's that's the thing man congrats again dylan you killed it and yeah like just you're listening right now send us something put it out there make that change just now stop stop waiting i think maybe just you know as we said earlier with coaching yourself through stuff talking to yourself about stuff and you're talking himself

through things that maybe he's worried about and you try to make it a little bit more rational. Maybe there's like just just question stuff, like question your own decisions. Like why? Why do you keep making these decisions? Are you working at a job that you really don't like? Are you potentially with somebody that you really don't like? Do you really not want to go to your house, you know, for a particular like these are all things you should walk yourself through. Like why don't you like this or why don't you like that? Do you not like your car? Do you not like the food that you have in your fridge?

Like you're the one that got it. Do you not like some of your friends? I mean you get to pick your friends. You pick and choose who these people are that are in your life and then what do we do? We turn around and we kind of blame them. Like, I'm not going on, I'm not on a diet because, you know, he always likes to go out and drink all, you know, every Friday and Saturday and we're always hanging out. And so, you know, we have those bad habits together and it's like, well, that doesn't really make any sense. You can,

you can make some adjustments, uh, when it comes to that, you can make some changes when it comes to that. Um, you shouldn't, it comes to that. You shouldn't, you shouldn't be unhappy with a lot of the things. There could be some things that are a little frustrating. Some things that are a little difficult. There should be some things probably that you don't necessarily want to do. But in general, you should be figuring out how do I,

what are the things I like to do? I've heard people even say, just like write down the shit that you like, want your day to look like every day. I mean, even if you wrote down, i would love to do nothing well then you would have to figure out how how do you how do you work towards that like i mean that sounds ridiculous right how do you work towards not doing much you know how do you work towards that how do you work towards that maybe you're just like i don't want to have a conventional job and then you can can kind of think about, all right, what are some of the things that I can do that can help me get on track? And these are all just things that being on this earth for as long

as I've been on this earth and just communicating with all the different people that we have on the podcast, these are all things that I feel that are simple to put into your life, but the execution of them is not always easy. But it all starts with kind of a small action and it will snowball, have a snowball effect as you continue. Like it could start with a 10 minute walk. It could start with a small change in your eating. When I have people come in here to super training and they tell me, yeah, I went from a 315 deadlift to a 555 deadlift i'm like whoa like i want to know how that happened it's rare it's rare that they're like i called chad wesley smith you know it's rare that they're like they're it's rare that they say oh i did the

west side barbell method you want to know why that's rare because it has nothing to do with those methods has nothing to do with actually like how they trained. It had to do with them developing new habits. It had to do with them developing a new belief system for themselves. They went from valuing themselves and thinking of themselves as a 315-pound deadlifter. Now they value themselves and understand that they have the capability to lift anything over 500 pounds, maybe even 545 or 550 or whatever the number is that they hit. And then they also train like that. You ever hear someone say train like a champion today? Well, it's because you are leveling up. You're trying to train like you are a somebody. But you should always be training that way.

You should always be training like you're worth it. You should always be training like you're worth the goal that you're setting out to get. Because if you don't believe that, then that means you probably don't believe in yourself. It would be very hard to get momentum. about the podcast and how it's helped them. And they're like, I did this. I even made a post the other day and I had a bunch of other fans come in. And this guy is like, man, I really struggle with cravings. And I said, oh, you should talk to at, at, at, at. I added like 15 people.

And then boom, they came flying in. They're like, dude, we got your back. Like, here's how you get rid of cravings. Here's what I did. One guy's like, dude, we got your back. Like here's how you get rid of cravings. Here's what I did. One guy is like, oh, I did walks every night. One guy was like, I love fruit. So I ate the crap out of fruit every night. Each guy had like a different thing.

And the guy was like, oh, my God, this is like blowing my mind that all these people are coming to the rescue. And those are all people that probably don't think or didn't used to think that they had any value or didn't think they had any value in terms of providing nutritional information for somebody but look man if you did it then you did it you know how to execute it you know how to help someone else uh break some old habits that they may have had yeah most definitely when you the people you added were they professionals or were they like other people that like just like people that it worked for and you remembered their ads yeah they're pretty much just fans they're pretty much just people yeah that have um it was combination you know it was like my brother and some other people like

that too but um it was mainly just uh people that i follow because of like the hashtag the war on carbs or different things like that and people have have told me, you know, how they've gotten over it. One guy that we have in here, I think we scheduled him for the podcast. I can't remember. We'll make sure that happens. But he lost about, his name's Justin. He lost about 70 pounds. I posted about him on my Instagram a while back.

And the thing for him, and this is great because he had somebody else to get behind him and to support him. His wife told him like you need to get up off the couch and you need to get to training. And so he just started. Like I realize that that's the hardest part for people. But she was – she kind of like kicked him in the butt and said, hey, get going. I think in his case he may have had a little previous experience with some lifting. But that guy's in here on the weekend lifting like a savage. I don't know if you guys have seen him.

He's in here pulling five plates and six plates. And, I mean, he's been going. He's squatting five plates. I mean, he's been going nuts. Yeah, he's a maniac. But it can all start with just one small thing that you do for yourself where you just make a decision like i'm gonna you know i'm gonna start doing this and the food thing man it is it's real like people are really addicted to food and it's really really

hard um to overcome and on this podcast and when you ask us questions we're never going to tell you that we think it's easy that part's hard to to do a couple of walks here and there i think it's easy i think that that shouldn't be any problem for anybody especially if you don't have pain like you don't have like some weird pain in your feet or knees or something then you should be okay on that but we do understand the struggle we know how bad the food stuff is um We've all had our different battles with food and not even in regards to like being super heavy or anything like that. It's just we just know it's addicting because we love it too. Yeah. I was addicted to sugar and all that type of stuff. And for me, that change came when I decided to start fasting.

And it wasn't because of food, but it ended up helping me with literally everything else from that point. That's important. And that's something that kind of people sort of brush past. It's helping people with everything in their life. That's crazy. Yeah. That's really nutty. Like that food does that.

And some people are like, I don't know, man. Not that much science behind it or there's not that much. It's like the science will catch up and the science is going to tell us. But I would just think about it this way. I mean we already know that having a better diet and having some exercise can really be crazy beneficial towards helping people that have type 2 diabetes. We know that a ketogenic diet is massive for young kids that have epileptic seizures. And it's like, well, if it does some of that, like what could it do in a healthy person? Like maybe it can make you more healthier.

Maybe it can advance you a little bit. Maybe it can help you maybe not live longer because we're not really seeing a lot of people live a lot longer. But maybe it can just help you live a lot better. Maybe have a higher quality of life. And some changes, what if some changes in your food and some changes to your exercise could help make you wealthy? Like what if it could increase the amount of dough that you make? Like would that be motivating to you? What if five years from now with some of that dedication, you were making double what you're making right now? I mean these are all things that are possible. You're making double what you're making right now. I mean, these are all things that are possible.

And if you don't adhere to making those changes nutritionally and from an exercise standpoint, and you still make double the amount, well, now you're going to be sick. It's not going to be, it's going to be hard to enjoy it. You know, you may have had, unfortunately, you may have had a heart attack or something. You know, you could be in a bad spot and you could be forced to do it, you know, or you could start doing it now. And I'm seeing that from a lot of people that are my age and it is, it is a way that we learn, you know, we learn through pain. You know, we don't learn until something hurts real bad or until we're pushed into a corner. There are some self-starters in this world that just are like, I'm going to college. And they kick ass in college and they learn a bunch of stuff and they're super smart.

And for some reason, they're always ahead and they didn't have to go through anything horrible to like learn what they need to learn. But so many, you know, so many great researchers and so many people that are so highly informed about like things like cancer and other types of diseases are people that had other family members suffer from these things. And they're like, I don't want to ever see that happen to anybody again. I want to try to put everything I can into it. And you're kind of forced to learn because of pain. And maybe we've also seen some people reverse their situation, their own situation, like Dr. Ken

Berry, who we've had on the podcast. He wasn't very healthy. He wasn't doing very well. He had to educate himself more. He was like, I'm a doctor and I don't know anything about nutrition. So he learned a lot more about it. He got himself more educated. He got himself in better shape.

But like, why, you know, why have it be such a painful thing? Why not just realize how positive and what a cool impact it can have on everything that you're doing now? It can kind of set you on fire and set you in the right direction. So that's something I think people need to get on board with. Like I just had 43rd birthday and I'm not the only person and I'm not that old. But like Stan Efferding, my brother, These are all people that are older than I am. Ron Penna. These are people that are in amazing shape.

They're a little older than I am and they're still kicking ass. We got Dr. Baker who's 52 or something like that. We got a lot of examples. The examples go on and on and on of these people that are really thriving and kicking ass and they're not 27. Hey, I'm curious about this from you because, okay, so like, yeah, you've been podcasting for a while, but it was a few years ago that you started losing the weight. Now for me, I guess I wasn't really out of shape, but a shift did happen for me nutritionally and physically when I started picking up some fasting. A lot of things cascaded from that.

What was the initial thing for you that caused that cascade downwards? Like what was that first thing? Do you remember? I think – so I think there's two maybe two things i think a the paleo diet is what gave me momentum you know and it gave me you know i talk a lot about things to look forward to when i looked at the paleo diet i looked at the paleo solution from rob rob wolf before i ever knew who he was i'm 330 pounds and i'm thumbing through this book i don't like to read a whole lot but i'm looking at some of the stuff and I'm like,

okay, it seems like it's pretty much a meat-based diet. All right. Well, there's some vegetables that can come into play here and there. And I was like, oh, shit. I'm like, potatoes? Like, I love potatoes. You know, there was a couple things in there. I don't remember exactly, you know, what all it made up, but I know that it was like basically don't eat sugar and don't eat bread. Those are kind of like the main things of the paleo diet.

I didn't read the whole thing to recover, but there's no information in there from what I recall about calories and about like how much you eat. Although I'm sure he glanced over it at some point, but like all I really saw and all I got from the book was eat these nutrients and eat them in abundance and eat a lot of them. There was, there was nothing about like being hungry. There was nothing about, there was at the time, I don't think there was any information about fasting in that book from what I remember. And I just started, I'm like, I like eggs. I like bacon. I like different forms of meat. And I think there was some room for some fruit. I was like, this is great. You know, and I would eat around the training and eat a little bit of carbohydrates around my training. And then I did that for a while and went from like about 330 to 300, which I think was the most pivotal thing because after that, it just got to

be, even though it got to be like harder in some ways, it just got to be a lot easier because most of the habits were gone, you know? And that just took, that was like a three month thing. Like that didn't take that long. Also keep in mind though, at that stage, I was still like, I would still consider myself a pretty high level dieter because I, after every meet that I ever did, I'd always drop like 10, 15 pounds. I'd always get in a little bit better shape. I was already used to like not eating sugar and eliminating carbohydrates and stuff like that. But that was huge. And then from there,

really rededicating myself to a ketogenic style diet, having Jesse Burdick help me and walk me through that. And a lot of the stuff that Jesse and I landed on back then in terms of like how we were doing that diet is so much of the same information that we saw come out from Mark Sisson years later in some of his books, The Primal Blueprint. And he's had a, shit, I'm losing the name of the other book, but basically he says flexible, what's it, not flexible dieting, but I'm losing it. You can go back and forth between burning fat and burning carbohydrates, whatever the hell he refers to that. Metabolic flexibility? Metabolic flexibility.

There we go. There we go. There we go. And Jesse and I were like, oh, my God, like I can't believe this guy is talking about the same shit that we ended up having really positive effects from. Just from like – it was like, okay, let's have you do keto. And I pushed into keto and I did keto hard and I would actually test to see if I was like in ketosis and all that. And then we did it for like days on end and then it kind of would seem like the results would be a little flat or my training would get a little flat. And so Jesse would be like, all right, let's bring in some carbs.

And I said, hey, man, we brought those carbs in, but I'm still cranking on the ketones. I still am producing a good amount of ketones. He's like, well, how many carbs are you eating? And I was like, I don't know, I'm having maybe like 100 on some days, maybe 150, and on the other days maybe like 75. He's like, that's crazy. You're still cranking 75 he's like that's crazy they're still you know

cranking out ketones like that and so yeah that that worked really well we kind of got to a point where um i was able to eat a little bit of carbohydrates but mainly be on a keto diet um and really i wasn't really trying to eat like i wasn't trying to consume crazy amounts of fat because starting to mix the two together you start to mix the carbohydrates and the fat together and you end up back where you were in the beginning because you're going to end up probably consuming too much food overall. And that's not great. But I just had a little bit of carbs in there, you know, and then it got to a point where

I just started doing like a, like one potato a day type of thing. And there was real small amount of carbohydrates in there. But those were the, those were the two biggest things those were the two biggest changes and it shut down that part of like it shut down like that department in my head whatever that was that was going on in my head whatever was looking for um the pleasure or whatever it was of some of these foods and eating in the middle of the night and doing all this shit that I was doing to myself, that, that like chunk of me, like I killed it. Like I fucking stabbed it to death. Like hunger hormone and whatever else is going on with cravings. Like I literally think that I killed it off and I think other people can too. And I think I, I kind of wish I knew about fasting

then cause I think it would have helped even quicker I still have cravings today I still you know I'm thinking about certain foods sometimes but the way I get rid of it is just to you know I will ask myself kind of two questions every single day and the first question is am I actually hungry and then the second question is if I'm going to act on if I actually am hungry how does it help question is, if I'm going to act on, if I actually am hungry, how does it help or how does it hurt for me to eat something that doesn't flow with my normal diet? Because it could be helpful for me to go off the diet.

It could be helpful for me to be like, you know what, man? You've been doing this for a frigging 100 days straight. You should go chill. Because I think that's a healthy practice too to set up cheat days and have cheat meals and things like that as well. Yeah. What you got over there, Andrew?

No, well, so the, you know, the, the Stretigan thing's been 73 days. Oh my God. And so like, I've been thinking like, okay, am I going to like, when am I going to like, I don't know, have a cheat day or whatever, but I think you just answered it. I think I'm going to go a hundred days before i even touch anything okay yeah because i mean that's like it'd be a little bit after christmas yeah february-ish somewhere there okay maybe for valentine's day i'll go out so you're gonna get shredded for shred again and then you're gonna get even more shredded by the end of jan. Yeah. See how shredded you can get.

I'll be a little bit more fuller. I mean, I'll probably have. Well, with that amount of time, you're going to want to probably bring them back up a little bit. I was going to say, we'll see what the natty one has for me. Get them bodybuilding ready. That's right. Nah, nah. Don't freak Stephanie out like that.

She's been digging the new look though hey i don't think she's gonna admit it but i think she likes shredding getting better than sarmageddon oh man yeah i think that makes sense that makes sense my girl was saying like uh because she met me at 265 so like i got smaller through our relationship and she was like you could put on 10 or 12 more pounds because like apparently i'm a little bit too yeah a little bit too hard to the touch oh wow she wants someone to snuggle yeah she can't sleep on your shoulders they're too jacked i can't sleep on all these striations. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. We probably will give him a little bit of a cheat or something. You probably carve him up a little bit even before.

Well, Christmas is not far away, but you might throw something his way. Before he takes those pictures, we're going to eat a bit more carbs to three days beforehand. Pretty moderate for the first two days. And then if he's kind of flat extra the third day. But if he's looking good, then the same the third day. Boom, looking nice and full for photos. And then why did you advise for him to eat a little bit more food this past week? Because he's been in a tough deficit for a while. Plus, when he was sick, it's not good to be in a harsh deficit when you're sick.

You had a pretty bad cold andrew yeah um i it's just a normal common cold right it's you get them all i get them every year i almost made it this year though i was like damn we're in you know towards the end of december and i finally got sick but uh man over the weekend especially sunday it just it hit me like a truck i'm just like what's happening and then and sema's like dude you're you're depleting yourself so you're more susceptible to being sick so i think it just it just compiled on itself and man i i was yeah i don't want to really even get into the details just because i feel like i don't like putting that out there for the people people to listen to and you know next I know this, someone's listening to me right now and there's like,

dude, you triggered it in me. You know, you just, yeah, they like partially feel a little sick right now. I wake up tomorrow, the throat's scratchy. Yep. Yep. Sorry. But yeah. So when he told me to, uh, to up my carbs and up my fat a little bit, I, it was so high

that I couldn't even match what he had asked me to do. So I'm like, oh my gosh, this is tough. It was really hard. Yeah. So just give him a little bit more energy. And then also, did you stop lifting during when you were sick? So it was...

Or exercising altogether because you're doing cardio too. It was... When was Jordan Syatt here? He was here last Wednesday. So a week ago, about a week ago. I couldn't help it. Yeah, so a week ago that night, that's when I'm like, oh, when you feel your throat kind of like twist a little bit,

you're like, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. It's just, you know, it's been a long day. I didn't get much sleep and, you know, I, I worked out really hard today. Both, you know,

both workouts. And then the next morning I'm like, ah, shit, I'm definitely, definitely sick. So that day was another full busy day. And,

uh, I, I was shooting as soon as I got here at 7am and then we podcasted. And then I had to go do another photo shoot for the brand new hip circle colorways and new slingshot colorways that just came out yesterday there it is yeah so I was shooting for those so I didn't have any time to work out during the day like literally it was non-stop um and I didn't wake up early because i was so tired from the day before and i felt like shit so i didn't work out that day and then i got really sick that night so i'm like

ah like nope not not getting up you know this this week uh this friday and then over the weekend mark was like hold on like you're sick now like yeah like i couldn't even speak you know i was sick sick he's like all right just try your best to be a lazy piece of shit i'm like ah all right and then you know so i just kind of relaxed did my thing over the weekend and watched a couple of movies gemini gemini man gemini man was pretty good it was it was cool okay it was cool for for a will smith movie yeah he doesn't really i mean it's kind of like the rock like you watch it because it's him like anyway uh and then sunday night mark's like hey man how you doing and i'm like uh you know i'm still feeling shitty but like i'm getting antsy like i want to like i gotta get moving again and he's like nope he's like you're taking tomorrow off too and i'm like

okay i'm gonna be so fat yeah yeah you know like you know people are like oh wow it's hard to take a day off like well hey put your ass out there on shred again and try to take a day off see how you feel um so yeah i took took monday off again and then started back up on Tuesday with our 4.30 a.m. workout. Birthday workout. Yeah, yeah. That was a great workout. And then, again, got back after it today on the step mill and then did like a bunch of circuits this morning. Circus.

Awesome. Yeah. So I took essentially like five days off totally, totally completely so should you go to the gym when you're sick the answer is no no not yeah not if you like but if you do make it super light because like there have been times that i was sick yeah yeah there are times that i was sick i was like okay i need to go do something so i just like go and get a light sweat in or do a little bit of cardio, but I wouldn't do anything that would like be considered a real workout.

As is right now, you don't, but like did you sacrifice sleep at all to get there? When I'm sick? Yeah, to the gym, you know. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Sleep's the ultimate medicine. That'll fix you up. I did sleep and the Juve light.

I've been cooking on that as much as possible. Got sick, so you cook your balls. Speaking of cooking, what you cooking up on Christmas? I am for sure, without a doubt, no question about it, cooking up those certified Piedmontese tomahawk steaks. I am making those and I'm going to eat those. You've been waiting on those for a little bit right i was supposed to do for thanksgiving but my girl she kind of gave me

the business as they say i guess wait well i think that's what people say talk about it off air i guess yeah oh yeah like she actually she no she just she was like well you can't just you know have that just clashing no wait maybe that doesn't sound good you can't just have that. She gave you a tongue lashing? No, wait, maybe that doesn't sound good. You can't just have that by yourself. I'm like, what do you mean? It's my house. I can do whatever I want. She's like, you can't.

You have to share with everybody. I'm like, oh, heck no. Guess who got their steak taken away? I'm just kidding. She's not getting one now. Maybe I'm not now. i'll be having that but of course mama martha she's making tamales delicious yeah i've been back on those uh ribeyes again back on the center cut ribeye you got a favorite going now or still on some of the same things with the piedmontese it's the ribeye cap it's um the smaller ribeye i think that's what it's called ribeye cap yo guys um letting that steak sit will

change your life like honestly these past like week and a half or two weeks now that i've been really just letting the steak sit there talk about good habits right and i maybe eat some eggs while it's sitting there and then come back to it, pull it out and cut into it. Eat some eggs. I'll eat some hard-boiled eggs when I'm waiting or something because I have to eat something at that point. But when I come back to that steak, like it plumps up. Okay. So this is the thing.

Usually when I used to cook the steak, I'd cook it, I'd cut into it and start eating it. I'd be like, this is all right. Right. But when you let it sit sit it plumps back up are you uh letting it sit with you with no no no i keep it in the air fryer with the red light on it maybe that's why it's plumping up no no i just keep it in the air fryer i put it on the foil and let it sit there but when you come back the steak plumps up because it's juicy and then you cut into it and it's just – it's perfect. So for everyone who's been getting that piedmontese, yo, yo, let that steak sit.

Let it sit. Oh, God. You know what else works really good is what Matt Schweitzer shared with us from HopDotty. He said to put salt – put whatever you want on your steak really. But like I usually just put salt on there and I let that sit for a few minutes before I actually even cook it. And that helps a lot. That helps. I mean you have to kind of – I think when you're putting your salt on your steak, you got to put a good amount on there. You don't want to over salt it because that's kind of gross.

But you got to – you can't be shy with the salt. Yeah, and what that's actually called is the meat sweats. You have to put salt all over it and when it starts to like soak in that's when it's like it's officially called the meat sweats oh wow yeah and it you can tell because it looks different yeah yeah and then so for december piedmontese has just opened that's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E.com. They're giving everybody 25% off your entire order. And if your order is $99 or more, you get free two-day shipping.

So again, anybody can get that. But if you want to support the show, use the link in the YouTube description and or the show notes right now. Also, we got some Piedmontese representatives that are going to be here. We got our carnivore meetup seminar thingy going on. And we're going to have some of the Piedmontese people out here. I'm excited for that. I believe we're also podcasting with one of them at some point which that'll be great because they'll tell us like i don't know anything about meat really i just know that i

like it and uh it'd be great to get more informed on the cows and how they care for the cows and how it all goes down that'll be really cool and then also they'll probably give us some good ideas on how to cook better since we can all up our game over here with cooking up some better stuff. I'm really looking forward to that. It'll be a lot of fun doing a seminar with my bro. I think he's got a lot of stuff to share and I'm excited to do the seminar with him because I don't think he understands how much great stuff he has to share. Oh, hell yeah.

So I want to show him, dude, you're awesome at this stuff and you're going to provide a lot of value for people. Also, we got some of our other show sponsors. We got our boys and girls over at Perfect Keto. I'm still hitting up that MCT oil powder. I'm still using the electrolytes. I'm still eating the bars here and there because I have, you know, the no carbs till Christmas thing. Because I have the no carbs until Christmas thing, I have been having one of these bars just about every night just to try to sneak in something sweet, get that sweet tooth pop in there somehow.

But yeah, man, you want to check out some of the stuff from Perfect Keto. They got some great products. If you want collagen, you want MCT oil or MCT oil powder or whey protein, They got a huge variety of stuff and their keto bars are awesome. They got everything. Yeah. They really do. They have just everything. They're building up, man. They're building up a lot of great products.

Yeah. And same if you pick up the vanilla MCT oil powder, you'll realize like, oh, hey, there's air inside there. I damn near finished that whole thing because that's what I use to help utilize my fasting during this Shred of Greddon. It smells so good. It is really, really good. It makes coffee taste way too good. It makes you think that there's no way this is healthy,

but it is. Yeah, for those people that don't really enjoy just a regular cup of black coffee, throw this stuff in there. It changes it. It's a real game changer for you. Yeah. of black coffee, throw this stuff in there.

It changes it. It's a real game changer for you. Yeah. It's, again, I can't speak any higher about it. It is just that damn good. Head over to perfectketo.com slash powerproject at checkout. Enter promo code powerproject for 15% off your order. Why are some of these Quest donut bars out, Seema?

Because I'm going to be taking these two home since y'all ain't eating no carbs. Oh my God. He's out of here. I mean, for the record, I can eat carbs. Oh, you can eat carbs. Okay, you can get one. I'm not messing with anything outside of whole food right now. I think that one needs to stay at John Cena's feet. To support him so he doesn't fall?

Yeah, so this one, sorry, Andrew. That one has to stay here. Quest sent me a To support him so he doesn't fall? Yeah. So this one, sorry, Andrew. That one has to stay here. And then, yeah. Quest sent me a holiday greetings box that had all their different staple cookies in there. I would have to say the chocolate peanut butter one is my favorite. Chocolate chip peanut butter. Those are my favorites. We know who they love well i'm just thinking like if we if we you and i needed any more motivation to be somewhat of importance on this planet that's you know that's we want to reach that level you gotta get that box

quest sends us that that personalized cookie box yeah oh man but cookies are delicious yo quest nutrition guys like a lot of you are trying to switch from having all these crazy cravings and stuff like we talked about on this episode uh but you know it's not you won't feel guilty and it tastes fucking great like the hero bars the donut bars literally all their bars are just at this point for me they literally are a treat and it allows me not to have to turn to all the other crap I used to turn to. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I dare you to have a hero bar and complain. No. Yeah. Yeah. I've actually never seen anybody eat one of those and like be like, oh, right. Like they always down it like disappears right before your eyes. Yeah.

You guys seriously need to try the hero bars. Try all the bars actually. And the chips. Oh, my gosh, the chips. What? Taco Flavors actually literally is my favorite. Yeah. Back when I was having literally everything,

I had that with Monster Mash. Woo! It was... I was having taco salad. It was really, really good. Yeah. Anyway, head over to questnutrition.com at checkout.

Enter promo code MARKSQUEST for 20% off your entire order. Where can people find you you andrew and how do they follow along with shred again oh you guys can hit me up at instagram uh at i am andrew z that's where the whole shred again series is it's on my igtv instagram needs to up their game a little bit with making it a little bit easier for people to find it but uh just go to my profile and click the uh the igtv link and you'll you'll see it there but if you wanted to you can actually click the series button and you'll see the shred again series right there uh turn on post notifications you don't have to turn on all the notifications you can just turn on the igtv notifications so every time i post a

video to shred again you guys will get notified and sema where you at and see my yang on instagram and youtube at mark smelly bell on twitter instagram and i got a new youtube channel so go check that out too strength is never a weakness weakness never strength catch y'all later