Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 395 - Get Back In Shape After Quarantine

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

Today the crew is back in the studio! We reunited and hit up a live podcast talking about how to get back in shape after quarantine. Use these helpful tips asap if you are lacking a little motivation and want to get back in the routine of things. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Support the show by visiting our sponsors! ➢Perfect Keto: http://perfectketo.com/powerproject Use Code "POWER25" for 25% off plus FREE shipping on orders of $50! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Icon Meals: http://iconmeals.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Mark Bell's Power Project, hosted by Mark Bell himself and co-hosted by Nseema Iyang and myself, Andrew Zaragoza. Today, we finally reunited the crew back in the Power Project studio. It felt awesome being here with a whole setup with microphones, a mixer, computers, everything, lights, cameras, and the live stream.

So thank you everybody that joined our conversation live on YouTube and on Facebook. Sincerely appreciate that. Today's conversation finally went in the direction that we had actually planned. And today we talked specifically just about fitness, more so about fitness coming out of the quarantine. And, you know, so Mark talked about what he did during quarantine and what he's doing after. quarantine. And, you know, so Mark talked about what he did during quarantine and what he's doing after. And SEMA and myself, we spoke about how we kept on track during the lockdown. I admitted some of my faults that I, you know, some of the hurdles that I had struggled with in the middle of the quarantine. So really just some awesome info and tips that you guys can use if you are trying to get back in the routine of your fitness goals to keep it real short and sweet.

Mark said, you know, train kind of like a weenie. You know, don't go all out your first couple of times. Really just slowly get back into things and eventually you will be crushing it. Before I get out of your guys' way, I just want to remind everybody again for the month of June, if you go to markbell.com right now, sign up, you'll gain access to the entire website for absolutely free. And if you haven't been poking around the website in a while, it has changed. It has updated. It has upgraded. In Mark's words, it has gotten more betterest. There's a whole nother premium side of the website where you gain access to even more content. You gain access to even more tools to help you get more stronger

to get more better. And there's even an actual scoreboard. So every time we do a workout, you can literally put points up on the scoreboard, keeps you accountable, keeps you motivated again. And right now it is 100% free. So just head over to markbell.com, enter your email address, and you gain access to the whole website for absolutely free again please take advantage of this the offer will end at the end of june so that's it for me ladies and gentlemen please enjoy this episode with just the power project crew oh you can't see back in the studio he's still learning no it's not that it's i i made sure that we didn't say anything crazy because it seems like that might have happened recently. So, now that we're live, you guys

know it now. Now that you can hear everybody. He seems nervous because he doesn't, you know, we're live live. We're not 19 years old anymore. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 19.

I get it. You get it. It's a subtle inside joke. It's good. Mm-hmm. 19. I get it. You get it. It's a subtle inside joke. It's good to be back, though. It is. Back in the studio. We got the band back together in person. Back in the house.

Back in action. I like it. Yeah, I feel good. I had a sip of Mark's drink, and I also gave Andrew a smooch. Mm-hmm. We'll see how I feel in seven days. Trying to pass that COVID around. Yeah.

Well, if you took a sip of my drink, you would notice that I have some perfect keto instant coffee in there. Yeah, it was good. I got the mocha one, but Smokey said he doesn't think they sell that one anymore. It's not on the website. I don't know what happened. It's a good thing you have it at home. You're stocked up. But yeah, it's good.

I threw in some of their whey protein as well. You guys know that we're sponsored by Perfect Keto. We appreciate their support. Support the people that support us. They have a lot of great products and it just makes being on a low carb diet a lot easier. I've been digging the peanut butter cookies lately. Probably have one about every other day or so. I try not to go too crazy on them, but they are delicious. Gives you a good

yummy snack. I like doing that kind of at the end of my day. So good. Those cookies are so good. Cookies are amazing. For more information on Perfect Keto, please head over to perfectketo.com slash powerproject at checkout. Enter promo code POWER25 for 25% and free shipping on any order of $50 or more. And like I said, it's awesome to be back in the studio with you guys. Missed you, like being in person and whatnot. What's up?

Flex your bicep. Where are we at? Oh. Mark, can I see a flex real quick too? And I mean, none of us are fat over this quarantine speak for yourself bro yeah i know we've uh we've been holding it down holding down the fort yeah and uh you know it's not it's not easy. I think something I recognized recently is that you can get a case of, you know, people talk about getting a case of the fuck it's right. Like, ah, fuck it. I'm going to just eat this cake or, you know, I'm just going to eat this ice cream or pizza or I'm just going to take this whole day and, you know, have it as it be a cheat day.

But what I didn't recognize and maybe what other people don't recognize is that you can have the fuck it's in the other direction you can be like fuck it man during this quarantine i'm gonna get leaner than ever i'm gonna get in better shape i'm gonna run uh and then like for me when i've been running sometimes i'm like i'm just gonna run from here to that stop sign and then by the time i get closer to the stop sign i'm'm like, oh, I could go for a, fuck it. I'm going to go further, you know? And so you can kind of get that mentality in either direction. And I think in the times that we're in now, you know, the people we've pointed this out before on this podcast, people talk about how readily available all this amazing food is, you know, fast food, pizza.

I think one of the pizza places you can send them a pizza emoji and the pizza shows up at your front door somehow. So there is access, right, to a lot of foods like that. But then how many meal prep companies do we know and how much healthier has Starbucks gotten? we know and how how much but how much healthier has starbucks gotten i mean there's starbucks has a lot of like muffins and a lot of stuff that's uh in kind of a gray area or stuff that has a lot of sugar or a lot of fat or combination thereof but then they also have like a protein box you know and there's when you go to airports and just there's there's not a lot of excuses anymore i guess is my main point there's a lot of supplement companies there's a lot of excuses anymore, I guess is my main point. There's a lot of supplement companies. There's a lot of protein bar companies. There's a lot of protein powders that taste good.

They used to be garbage. They used to taste like shit. You have a lot of healthy options at your disposal. And so for quarantine, I decided to kind of lean into a lot of that and just work on getting in better shape rather than just watching everything fall apart. What did you notice? And even you too, Andrew, like,

because you guys both came back in really good shape. What did you guys notice having quarantine? But then like, you know, your, your typical day is out of shape. A lot of people went into quarantine. Maybe they didn't work the same hours.

So their whole routine went out and they gained the quarantine 15 because they just started moving and said, fuck it. I can go to my bad habits. Did you guys develop any positive habits to counteract gaining weight during quarantine? Um, I wouldn't say maybe a habit. It was more, uh, recognizing that the volume went down because I wasn't lifting heavy anymore. Like I just didn't have access to like a lot of weight.

So, for a while though, I was still eating like I was. And, you know, it's hard for me to gain weight. So, it was cool seeing the scale go up. But then all of a sudden, I'm like, man, I'm having a hard time finishing like my regular like meals. You know, like normally I crush that and I'm looking for what else is available. And then I would get full of whatever, and then I'd start looking around for snacks that were easy to eat. So, once I recognize like, okay, the volume's down, so the calories are probably going to come down also, but that doesn't mean I'm going to shrivel away. So, it was really important for me to understand that because my output was nowhere near what it was, my input could no longer be the same.

Once I came to that realization, I stopped being such a little piggy and I started, you know, trying to get back to eating proper portions. Gotcha. I think protein is huge. You know, utilizing protein as a leverage, you know, protein leveraging, we've talked about on the podcast before. Protein is massive. And then also fasting.

You know, these are two things that can help you to eat less overall. You do have to be cautious when it comes to fasting because you can fast, you know, too frequently. You can fast too long and then you can end up binging and you can end up overeating. You also never want to utilize fasting as a form of like punishment. Like, oh, I ate like crap yesterday. So I'm going to go on a 48 hour fast. Like that's, that's not going to be anything that's going to be very healthy for long-term progress, but fasting and just eating protein, um, were huge for me. So what I would do is I would try to fast until, um, I really didn't care too much about the clock, but I was like, you know, Hey, anytime past like 12 is reasonable. And a lot of times it

went to two, four, sometimes it was five, you know, um, just to kind of depend. Um, I'm, I'm a pretty big proponent of two or three meals a day. That's been something that's been effective for me, uh, more recently. And I'd noticed that when I eat a lot of protein, it just drives down. It doesn't, it doesn't like just drive down the overall amount of food that I eat. It drives down the overall amount of food that I, that I want to eat. It also gets rid of cravings for me. And it's not like the cravings aren't there at all because they're still there. But again, you know, utilizing some stuff from like perfect keto or we you know we got these amazing piedmontese steaks yeah uh that we have access

to and those are phenomenal but um and i also switch to just eating like a little bit leaner stuff because i was like well i'm really kind of like you know i am running and i'm doing some stuff but like i don't think my output is the same i'm not on my feet as much i'm not you know in here you know doing busy work as much. So I was like, let me just switch to like some leaner meat. So I started eating a little bit more chicken, a little bit more fish. It wasn't like, it wasn't like I couldn't have steak. I still ate tremendous amounts of meat, but that has been really helpful to me.

And I think a lot of people listening, I think should give, you know, give it a shot. afternoon. Um, and even on days where maybe I wasn't nearly as active just because I just didn't eat for a lot of my day, I wasn't gaining body fat and I wasn't having near like, uh, you know, this is coming from doing jujitsu typically every day and some lifting to doing some kettlebell workouts and some jumping rope and maybe a walk or some runs. Right. And I didn't gain any weight. I was just like, I'm not tracking. I'm not having to be super stringent with it. It's just, it, it makes the lifestyle super easy. But I think one thing that you're doing a lot now that I think a lot of people can start implementing. And you also mentioned his name's Corwin. Yeah. Corwin walking and running cardio, just some simple cardio. I think that when we

know that, you know, when lifters are able to do some cardio, it helps them not just in fat loss, but it helps them recover from their lifting sessions better. And if they can get better and better at cardio, you can, it's a typical, like, you know, if you go for a 20 minute run or something, if you first starting out, maybe you only burn a hundred calories or something, but you get better at it. You burn more calories. You can burn 200 calories in that period of time. But then it also goes, it helps with fat loss, helps with your lifting recovery, it helps everything. I think cardio should just be a staple in terms of all lifters, whether you're a powerlifter, bodybuilder, etc. Just do a little bit of cardio. That can really help with fat loss.

Well, and it just gives you more access to be able to burn calories because if you can't get yourself to like, let's say that you're in a workout and you go to do like three sets of 10, especially now because it's been a while since you squatted, right? So you do three sets of 10 with some free weight and you really aren't recovering very well from one set to the next. You got to take a longer rest period. Your heart rate is going like through the roof. Your breathing is crazy. We already know from all this stuff that we talk about here on this podcast that, yes, it's good to go there here and there, but we shouldn't be training like too crazy.

You know, the training should be, you know, we can get really good results at about 70%. We can get really good results at about 70%. We can get really good results with 80%. We can get, you know, amazing results, sometimes, you know, starting to push towards around 90%. But we really don't like to go to that 100. I mean, we enjoy it. It's kind of fun to be like, whoa, I don't know if I could have taken another step or I don't know if I could have done one more rep. That's kind of nice to try here and there. But the majority of your training should be pulled way, way back from there.

And it can be kind of almost kind of boring. But the satisfactory part of it is the fact that you're like, wow, I got through those three sets of 10 on the squat with 315. Like, and it wasn't that hard. And then the next day you wake up and you're like, did I squat yesterday? You know what I mean? Like you don't even remember like, or maybe it's two days later and you're like, when's the last time I squatted?

Cause you just don't even, there's that story with Dennis Rodman when he like went to Vegas and he, he left for a while and then they made everyone, you know, run and they had to do those runs where the guy's in the back of the line. He got to run, you know, past, past the guy that's in, in the lead. I think it's called an indian run i didn't make that up

yeah i think that's what they call it it's an indian and uh you know after practice people were all mad at rodman and they're like man that sucked like and they mainly had to do that because of him because it kept screwing up during practice and they're telling him like how pissed he is and they're like what he's like what are you guys mad about because it kept screwing up during practice. And they're telling him like how pissed he is. And they're like, what? And he's like, what are you guys mad about? Because it was this easy for him because his conditioning was super high. And I think he's just a natural athlete and he had a lot of that capacity anyway. But the way that he ran up and down the damn court all the time,

he didn't need that extra conditioning, you know, in the way that maybe some of the other people did. But it's nice to have stuff when you go to do it, it feels pretty damn easy. And it's going to be encouraging for you to do it more other people did, but it's nice to have stuff. When you go to do it, it feels pretty damn easy. And it's going to be encouraging for you to do it more often. You know, it's funny when, when,

whenever like lifters are like, Oh, what kind of supplement can I take to improve my recovery from session to session? Like, what can I do? And they don't do any cardio at all. Cardio is one of those things that if you,

if you just add in some daily walking, you don't have to, you don't have to run miles and miles. And then I'm not saying become a distance runner and run five miles a day, but just multiple walks each day, make sure you're on your feet instead of sitting most of the day. Just to do a little bit more work, jump rope, you know, complexes with kettlebells, that kind of stuff will help you. So you're not feeling like crap from session to session of heavy lifting. It makes a big difference in terms of recovery. And if you can make it a habit, fat loss also becomes and maintaining fat loss. It's a super easy thing to do.

Yeah. And just simple movements like, you know, like you said, walking. I have not been in pain this whole quarantine, but lately we've been because we're in the process of selling our house. So I've been doing like all my workouts have just been like hard yard work hard like maintenance work like i pressure washed our backyard like the whole backyard but like our fence it looks brand new now that was a pain in the ass but what i noticed like i didn't know it was that color no absolutely no it went it went from like looking like it needed to be replaced to looking brand new like that's awesome it was a really awesome selling point. Like, fibbed a little bit.

But whatever the case, like, I wasn't exercising, right? Like, you know, we have people that ask, like, oh, but I walk whatever, you know, 10 hours a day on my job. Like, does that count? And although I was extremely active, my back started getting tight. I wasn't, like, I would look at my, like, to-do list for the day and I'd be like, you know what, like moving all of this is going to be my lifting for the day. Doing X, Y, and Z will be my cardio.

Like I'm not going to work out this morning. And then I would do that the next day and the next day. And then all of a sudden by the fourth day, I'm like, dude, my back is killing me. So, I started getting back up on the treadmill every day and trying to get like just moving, get blood flow back there. And, you know still hurting but i feel better and what it again another realization was like dude if i stop moving like it's just my body's like cool we're not doing that anymore so we'll just we're just going to shut down like you don't need to be pain-free now because you're not going to use it anyways so keeping those like simple walks and simple movements goes so far further

than you can imagine and sometimes it takes it being pulled away from you to realize oh i do need that i got something that can help zap a lot of back pain for people and i'm not talking about permanently um because sometimes people's backs are really screwed up but if you want your back just to feel like better just do a crazy amount of, I mean, you can utilize machines and stuff too, but just do a crazy amount of squats. And you don't even have to go down very far. Like, go down, like, just do some quarter squats and just go until your legs are just fried, until they're burning, and maybe take a little rest and do that two or three times.

And, you know, five, six minutes later, your lower back pain is gone. I don't know what it has to do with. I just imagine it's the circulation. But I've had a bunch of people in here do a lot of leg extensions to kind of serve that same purpose. Another good one, too, is even just a lot of push-ups, which, again, sounds weird. But like, well, push-up, you're kind of planking, you know, not kind of planking, you are planking and you've got to stabilize with your core. And now all the blood just shot up, you know, from, or not shot up, but all the blood started

to go into your upper body. And now it's, it's sitting in some like extremities and stuff. And it just, it makes you feel that much better. I mean, you can do a simple test too. You can just, for those of you who have back pain and your back is real stiff and you go to reach down for your toes and you can only get to like, you know, just below your knees or something like that. Try that, you know, try that test and then bust out as many pushups as you possibly can. Give yourself maybe 30 seconds rest and then reach for your toes again. You'll be shocked

at the difference it's going to make. Just getting that blood circulation going. Yeah, and another thing also, it was just an excuse of mine. I like doing lunges here at the gym. I like doing it on the turf. And Seema told me to add weight to the lunges to help progress a little bit, I guess, better, faster. So I wasn't doing them at home because I don't have the space for it. And then it's like, oh, I can easily go outside, but no, I won't, faster. So I wasn't doing them at home because I don't have space for it. And then it's like, oh, I can easily go outside, but no, I won't do that.

I noticed that also really helped my back when I was doing them consistently every single day and doing them longer, doing them, you know, for more laps up and down the turf. And I realized that that helped me a lot as well. They suck. They will hurt your quads. They will hurt your hammies. They will hurt your hammies. They hurt everything, but they will help. You know, again, it's just more of that movement. And it's breaking the sit to stand only range of motion. It's getting that really good stretch and just doing something that your body is not doing every single day.

So that has been another huge thing. So I'm glad that, you know, we're here today. I'm going to try to hit, uh, here's as many lunges as I can before I head out of here. And obviously, you know, going outside and doing cardio is free, but a lot of people, like some of the, one of their hurdles is like, you know, I just like to be inside watching TV. A lot of people just like to watch TV or play games or do these just like being inside, you know, with the situations, gyms are going to be opening back up. But if you do want to make cardio a little bit easier, right, you could like say, if I'm going to watch an hour of this show on Netflix, get yourself an exercise bike, you know, get yourself something that you could potentially put by the TV so that if you're going to watch that hour of Netflix, just sit there pedaling. watch that hour of Netflix, just sit there pedaling, right? And you can make that a habit. So you can couple those two things. So you can still watch your show, but at the same time, you can still do this and it's not any extra work. It's not taking time away from your Netflix that

you're trying to watch or whatever it is you're trying to do. And it can go along with that habit to help you build just doing some cardio each day. Yeah. Our boy Remington James, we had him on the podcast not that long ago. You know, same thing, stuck in quarantine in Texas, but he's like the best cardio investment I've ever made. He got like one of those like cheap little steppers that just go up and down. He's like, I just park right in front of the couch. And like, so he leans over, he's like, and I do that for 40 minutes. I can watch Netflix.

I can watch YouTube. He's like, before I know it, I'm dripping in sweat and I'm done. He's like, you were going to do that anyways. Yeah. Just throw in a couple of steps. And I thought it was really good. Yeah. It's modern cardio picture. Um, you know, picture the greatest machine ever devised for cardio, right? Just whatever that is, you know, we could, we could go back and forth here for a while on like what we think is the most productive, you know, but like, let's, let's just for argument's sake, let's just say it's an elliptical because an elliptical is something that everyone could use. Maybe there's people that aren't fit enough to even use like a Stairmaster or something like that. An elliptical

low impact and you can do it. Somebody who is even like 400 pounds could go on there for an hour, potentially get some good exercise. Whereas just them going for a walk could be problematic, hurts their feet. It's a lot of stress, right? Anyway, let's just for argument's sake, say the elliptical is the greatest piece of cardio equipment of all time. Well, you know, let's take that piece of equipment and let's put it like up on top of a mountain and let's have it be, you know, the weather's freezing cold. Well, now the obstacle to try to get to that piece of equipment is now way too high. And what Nseema is referring to, having your environment, you know, really be a good introduction to you building these habits is huge. a good introduction to you building these habits is huge.

You know, you see a lot of times, I mean, some people just have books kind of for decoration, but a lot of times people that read, the books are kind of out, you know, the books are around and it's to build that habit of, oh yeah, I'm still reading that book. And the book is, where do they put the book? The book's next to the bed. Why is the book next to the bed? You know, why is the book, why is the book even out? Like, could you put the book next to the bed? Why is the book even out? Could you put the book away? Yeah, it's one extra tiny step to put the book away and to kind of, quote unquote, clean up after yourself, put stuff back where it belongs or whatever you might want to say. But it's a reminder of it, or it could be the Bible, if you're very religious and you're attached to that religion and you want to practice that. to that religion and you want to practice that. And so as you lie down for bed, you even have like a light set up and you got, you have everything set up a specific way so that you

don't even have to get up. A lot of times people have a button next to them that they can hit the light. So don't have to, you know, you want to try to take your whole environment all the way from top, all the way, all the way to the bottom of every single thing that you do and try to figure out how to integrate those kinds of things because we talk about this very often. The willpower alone, I think all three of us probably think we're studs. We probably really do. We probably think we're studs when it comes to our willpower.

But if you start putting a lot of obstacles in front of us, we're lazy. We're going to be, I mean, I know, you got, I think people that listen to this would be shocked. Like, I can't believe Mark Bell did that. I can't believe Encima did that. Man, I thought those guys were tougher than that. And I'm like, nope, we're big babies, man. So you have to really make your, you got to secure your environment the best way you can and make sure the people in your home and make sure the people around you, make sure they understand that this is something that you really like. You're very serious about it.

You want to do the best you can. Tell them flat out. I struggled before. You know, I need help. I want to I want to make myself better. I want to feel better about myself. I want to love myself better so I can pay attention to you guys better and so on. And when you lay it out like that, because I've heard people say,

you know, yeah, good luck with me doing that at home. It's like, really though? Like if you really talk to your spouse, you really talk to your loved one and said, hey, this is something I really need to do this. Like if they're not supportive of that, then I think you might have to have more conversation about your relationship in general.

No, set up less barriers. I mean, it's exactly what we do with food. At least this is what I do with food. I get all the snacks and junk food out of the house because I know myself. I know that if it's there, if it's in my environment, if it's easy to access, I'm going to go buck wild with it. But if I don't have it in the house, then I really got to think when I go to the gym, when I go to the store to go and get it, you know what I mean? up barriers for that so it's the same thing with this you want to make things easy like the new habit i've been picking up is playing the guitar my guitar is like like i got a nice guitar because i wanted to like have i wanted to look at and be like oh that looks

i actually want it's exciting it looks exciting which is why some people really like any of the peloton machine because it's it's high tech it has a screen it's dope right so and then it's right there in front of me like in front of everything i do so like i have no choice but to pick it up play a few chords peloton is a great example you know because yeah there's going to be people exercising on there and and shouting at you to move your move your ass and a lot of these people are they're good looking people too so that's encouraging as well because you, yeah, I would love to look like this. I'd love to actually be running with this chick right now. What kind of guitar did you get?

Acoustic. It's a Yamaha. Yamaha, okay. Yeah, it's a nice one. I like it. I got a Fender at the crib. So, again, moving stuff around for the house to make it look pretty i was like oh there it is and i used it to stage for some of the photos but man it was really dusty so i was

kind of upset at myself when uh when did you stop playing the skin flute because i don't think you're allowed to do that anymore right you had to ban yourself luckily during man this quarantine i may have come it may have come close a few times but uh yes it's been a bit it's been a bit you know i think i almost forgot which which hand it's lefty it's a look it's left yeah but it's been it's been a bit i just derailed the whole podcast great oh man i got no instrument i can't play anything man i mean i have one yeah i didn't say i could i mean i could play a couple of chords but nothing i can't string together like a song or nothing yeah it's it's a super fun thing to learn

but like that that's the thing it's like it's it's it's the same thing with like jujitsu though like when i started that i had all my geese out. And one thing I did with all my geese, I got geese that they do smell like that. But like, I noticed that this is something I do with like every new thing I try to do. I get like really, I get pretty nice stuff for it. So for my jujitsu geese,

I didn't get some just crappy geese. I got some geese. I'm like, Oh, this is nice. It's comfortable. It's an attractive thing to get it and go do, you know, people get really dope running shoes if they want to go run. You know what I mean? So I'm not telling you to go spend thousands of dollars on running shoes,

but if there's something you really want to start doing, like you want to start going outside, taking more walks, you want to start, um, like I started doing some longboarding, so I got a nice longboard, you know what I mean? And it's since I like it, I do it more, you know? So that's a really good tip if you're really trying to pick something new up get some nice running shoes if you want to go biking for cardio because biking's really good cardio like outside yeah get yourself kind of a nice road bike you know you're gonna look at it you'll be like that's dope i'm gonna go do it it'll be easier to do but also don't use it as the excuse why you can't start yeah you're right

that that is a barrier for some people. I'm waiting for the road bike. My dad has been doing a lot of biking lately, and I don't think that he would do it if he didn't have the ability to listen to podcasts and stuff. So just having a headset, just having, you know, and for me, I try to have multiple ones, so that way I always have access to it. Like I have one that's just in my car all the time that I can utilize. And that way, cause I, I, I like listen to podcasts. I like, uh, I like going for walks. And so I might drive somewhere and then be like, oh shit, I forgot my, my headphones. I'm still going to go for the walk just cause I developed a habit. But, um, maybe in the past, maybe I wouldn't have,. Maybe I would have been like, ah, I really don't want to do it unless I'm able to listen to something.

So, just whatever way you can figure out to make it more enjoyable. Now, the other thing is too, is like, this is just, you know, trying to fix some of the environment is only like one piece of the puzzle. You have to, what gets to be really difficult here and confusing is that you have to get yourself to a point where you're not desiring, desiring, which is really difficult because if, if you're trying to resist, if there's a lot of resistance, if it's really hard for you, you'll probably break. You know, if I said, hey, how was it today when you went into the office and you saw those cookies in the break room?

You'd be like, dude, it was a nine, you know? And then I ask you again the next day, and you're like, it was a nine. And then I ask you, and you're going to be like, I had, you know, I had a couple. But when somebody's like, hey, you know, they brought in all those cookies at work, and you're like, I didn't even notice. Or you could be like, yeah, you know, they brought in all those cookies at work. And you're like, I didn't even notice. Or you could be like, yeah, you know what? I did smell them and I got the heck out of there. And I actually just went for a walk.

I mean, you know, you can kind of like walk into a situation and self-sabotage yourself. Or you can try to figure out a way, how do I walk out of the situation? Maybe there's somebody else in the office that you know enjoys exercise too, and they bring donuts to work or brownies or something. And you say, yo, man, you want to go for a walk? And boom, you're out the door, and you can both talk about it. Yeah, man, I was really sweating that, man. That was a tough predicament we were in. But I'm glad we're out doing something a little different.

But I'm glad, you know, I'm glad we're out doing something, doing something a little different. So the only way that you'll ever work yourself into a position, though, where you're not desiring stuff as much is to understand how powerful and how beneficial the stuff is that you're doing. And you've got to remember what the original mission was, you know, the original mission, like, what do you, what did you just say you wanted to do? You just said you wanted to lose weight and now here you are eating cookies. And I understand that, uh, you know, maybe you end up, you kind of have a bad habit with that, but we need to figure out how do we, you know, how do we replace stuff for that current habit? Um, how do we see ourselves, how do we see ourselves not falling for that anymore? What are things that we can really do? And if you were to think about, well, I know that eating my steak and rice or my chicken and broccoli or whatever is not, for me, it's not as pleasurable as eating the cookies. However, eating the chicken breast and the broccoli might be considered more fun, which doesn't sound very fun, but it might be considered more fun because you're going to be in the, in the shape that you want. Like you got

to kind of remember, like, what is it that you wanted? And then also maybe some, some reason come in, have some reason come in and say hey look there's no rush you can eat a couple cookies as long as it's just a couple cookies and we move back in so that way you're not so restricted that you burst set up some safeguards like we were talking about have some like have some and then have somebody else put them somewhere else i mean i know it's like you're treating yourself like a child at that point, but in some situations you should probably treat yourself like a kid. You know, it's hard to change really bad habits. Like for example, this is the first coffee I've had since quarantine. Um, and I had it cause I didn't get

any sleep last night, but the whole, through a majority of quarantine, I didn't drink any coffee at all. I used to have to drink coffee every single day. I kind of figured out what is it that I'm craving in the morning. I'm not necessarily craving coffee, but I really do like having a hot drink. So I started drinking tea instead and implementing that as the routine, right? Kind of just like got rid of my urge to drink coffee every single morning. And I was able to kick it, which is something I've never been able to do. So I think it's really important, like maybe have a journal or take some notes.

When you're going through your day, try to be mindful of the actions you take. If you do have a really tough craving, try to figure out why. For example, if you're at work with the situation you talked about, and there are cookies in the break room, sometimes you're not actually really craving the cookies, but when you go in the break room, you see your colleagues and they're having really dope conversation and you're like, oh, okay, I will sit here and talk and the cookies are there too. So you have the cookies also, right? But if you guys, like you said, if you guys were all going

to go outside and walk and talk, you'll feed the same social interaction, but instead you're not around cookies and you're taking a walk and you're doing something more productive. So that might be a good way to get what you actually want, that routine of socializing without having to eat 10 cookies. I used to always sneak some snacks into the movie theater kind of for that reason. Whenever my kids, you know, would eat their popcorn or their pretzel or whatever, I'd kind of have FOMO and I'd want to eat something too. Like while I'm watching the movie, I don't really care as much anymore. I can just, you know, not eat anything while I'm watching a movie, which I think most people think you're an alien for being able to do that. But just over time,

I just learned to not really care that much about it. I disassociated myself with it, I guess, but it was helpful. You know, sometimes I would bring in like a little thing of like fruit. Sometimes I would bring in, um, maybe it was a perfect keto bar or something. I would just have something just so I, you know, felt like I was, uh, you know, doing something similar to what my kids were doing. And I didn't have to like think about, oh man, I wonder how that popcorn is. You know, my mind didn't have to really, uh, wander. So you, you kind of fill it in with, uh, with something else. But again, the ultimate place to get to is where that's just not even, you just don't even care because you care more, you're more interested in the results,

you're more interested in the real goal that you have, you know, and that's the goal setting and, you know, trying to achieve the goal and stuff like that is it can be very, very difficult. And the goal has to be, it has to be something that's within reach. You know, I was mentioning earlier, you know, saying F it, I'm just going to run, you know, rather than to that stop sign, I'm going to run to that yellow house over there. It's helpful that I'm already at the stop or close to the stop sign. I'm judging how my body feels. I'm like, oh, I feel good enough to keep going. So you got to make sure the goal, like whatever goal that you have, you know, you currently weigh 400 and you want to be 300. It's like, well, it's not really, that's great that you want to get down in that, you know,

lose a hundred pounds, but let's just worry about this next pound. You know, let's just, let's, let's hone in on that and let's make sure that as many decisions as we can are just focused in on like right now rather than way down the road. Because that's all we got anyways is the moment that we're in. And so try to pay more attention to that. How does this help? How does this hurt? How is this helpful to me at the moment? It can be.

And we've talked about this before on this podcast too. Is it beneficial to just, you know, let it go? Maybe your kid just finished a baseball game and you all want to go for ice cream or something. The team won. That sounds fun. It sounds fun to enjoy an ice, you know, if you think that enhances the experience, if you think it's going to be something kind of cool for you and your kid to share, then, you know, maybe that's not a bad route to go. But you have to, you know, be very reasonable with it. And you can kind of also just account for it. You know, we talk about, you know, counting calories.

And just because I'm not a huge fan of actually physically counting calories, it doesn't mean that they don't count. They count. So when they bypass and they come your way and you devour them, you have to, and you said this on the podcast in the past, treat yourself the way that you would treat a loved one. So if you treat yourself the way you would treat a loved one, what would you tell your child if you saw them drink a 32-ounce Coke? Hopefully you don't allow your child to do that, but what would you say to them? You would say, hey, you know what? I think we got our sugar for today.

If you want to have ice cream tomorrow, that would be fine, but I would prefer that you don't. So you've got to have ice cream tomorrow, that would be fine. But, you know, I would prefer that you just, that you don't, you know. So, you got to have that conversation with yourself. Yeah, that's what I told my daughter. You know, she wants to have soda or something. I'm like, if you have that, you don't get dessert later. And then it's like, wait, why would I want to drink this when dessert's so much better? And so, you know, it was cool.

But, and then, again, like, if I told that to an adult, they'd be like, wait, really? Like if they were, of course, if they're unaware. Um, and then another thing I was just thinking about is, you know, like you were talking about throwing on a podcast and going for a walk. Uh, our boy Brian right now, he said that he's actually on his walk. He, he, he does about 10 K steps before work. So that's a really cool habit to have right there. Um, but with people in quarantine, you know, they're not getting out, period, but maybe not as much. Being at home, you're just around food and you kind of get bored. So, normally here, it's like, I shouldn't really be hungry yet. I'm going to go for a walk. At home, it's like, maybe I'll get on the treadmill.

Maybe I'll, you know, I'll get outside in the backyard. I'll do something. But you don't really quite escape it the way you could when you're, you know, here or at your workplace, right? So, that's another something that if people are kind of like, man, I'm such a, I'm in a rut, you know, I'm in a slump. It's like, well, hold on. Like, it's a little bit trickier right now. But if you recognize that, then you can, you know, like you said, like like recognize why am I having these cravings? Why am I feeling hungry right now? That's going to be one of the things that a lot of people are probably overlooking. for yourself now. If you are being stuck at home, you have to be the one that takes the action and, and starts creating a routine because it's not set up for you. You got to do it. And if you don't

quarantine 15 is going to say hello. I kind of mentioned, um, when we went on a hike that one day, like randomly in the middle of the day. And I said, you know, this is sort of what it's like to have financial freedom, you know, financial freedom teaches you that you better have a schedule of some kind. Because if you don't have a schedule, you know, there is a possibility that you don't, you know, continue to increase your income or that your income goes down, right? Which, like, nobody really wants that, right? But that's not a huge concern for somebody that has good financial stability. It really doesn't, it might not matter that much to you, right? I'm talking more from like just a mental standpoint.

Like you will fall apart if you don't have a schedule, if you don't have things that you're accountable for, if you're not supposed to, you know, be doing something at a certain time and then you, there's something, you know, as kind of laid back as this podcast is, it's great when might feel better than, you know, sometimes just talking about the X's and O's of bodybuilding or powerlifting, just because, you know, it's something that's of more interest to us at the moment or at that time. But if you don't have stuff to do, and you don't knock out the stuff that's on that to do list, how are you going to continually feel like good about yourself? How are you going to continue to like build your self-esteem? Now, it doesn't have to always be such a, I'm not saying that you need a spreadsheet and that it needs to be like really written out and stuff like that, but it's a good idea to say, yeah, I think I'm going to like lift in the

morning and yeah, like at lunch, I'm going to, I'm going to work on that book that I, that I wanted to start, you know, writing just some general concepts, ideas. You look back at the day and you go, that was pretty sick. Like I got the three, four things done that I wanted to get done. You know, I want to ask you something because the cardio you've been doing over quarantine is more intense than the cardio you're doing before quarantine, right? When you started that cardio, did you have, I i've never i've never run before pretty much in my entire life so yeah did you like this anyway like was there like a goal that you like i want

to like i want to lose this amount of weight or whatever or did you just want to like what what was your intention when you were doing that when it comes to the cardio the main goal was just to get better at it you know and i think that that's a reasonable thing for, I think that's a reasonable goal for anyone. I'm going to, I used to play the guitar. I remember I enjoyed it. I'm going to get a guitar again. I got a little extra time on my hands.

I don't have jujitsu at the moment. I'm going to get a kind of a cool guitar and I'm going to play it more. And you play it and you're like, I would love to just sound a little bit better. Like I remember I was a little bit better than that. Like I kind of feel like I'm, you know, off target a little bit. And so for me, when it came to the cardio stuff, it was kind of a similar story of like, let's let's let's try to find. And then I've shared this with a bunch of people in here before, our boy Russell.

I've shared this with him and many other people. I think that you should train like a total puss in the beginning. When you're just starting out, honestly, just embrace it. Just be terrible at it. Just be awful at it. Just let it go. Be cringy. Be shitty. It's fine. Because it's just, just let it all go. Let it go. Like be, be cringy, be like, be shitty. Like just,

it's fine, you know, because it's just a starting place. And what's, uh, what's a great, a great result that comes from that is that when you go to like beat what you did before, it'll be really easy because the first couple of times, you know, that you were super passive. You didn't really push the pace. You weren't really trying to, you know get after it um i think there's a there's a run that i've been doing in bodega that the first time i did it took me eight minutes right um the second time i did it i chopped it down by like a full minute the second the next time you know and it just kept going way down and it's not because i all of a sudden turned into a great runner uh it's because my starting point wasn't very good and it was going to be fairly easy to improve because i'm just not that good at running um just the other day i beat that again by 20 seconds which is

pretty good but considering that i've been running for a little bit now so um and a lot of this stuff it doesn't it's not associated with anything and that way i can't compare myself to anybody else so it's not like a mile you know it's it's nothing it's you know if i if i was looking at like a mile time um nick bear who we had in here, he did a sub five minute, I think, mile recently. Guys, four minutes and something seconds. I mean, just so that wouldn't be positive for me in the beginning, I don't think, for me anyway. So those are, when it comes to the nutrition side of things, what I did was I weighed myself at night. And this was like, you know, after a cheat meal and stuff like that too.

But I weighed like 247 or 248, something like that. And the way I weighed 242 the next morning or something. The weight that I've been consistent at in the morning has been now after shoving myself into dropping some weight, I've been around 230, 231, 232, in that range. So what I did was I wrote 235 on my mirror. I've been writing stuff on my mirror for years i did that with power lifting and you know i'd write a thousand on there and i wanted to squat a thousand and eight hundred when i wanted to bench 800 and stuff like that but put two three five on there i'm like i should just weigh around 235 it's a reasonable weight you know i'm normally like 245 240 ish um and i'm kind of always stuck there and sometimes i creep back up to 250 and i'm like i'm not really lifting as much

and uh i should just figure this out because this would be what i thought was i'm like this is the ultimate challenge i'm i'm kind of home all the time the food is like almost within arm's reach all day every day and you know at that time like i think i communicated with you guys i stopped fasting for a bit and all that was actually productive. And it was good to do that. But then I noticed my old habits coming back a little bit. And I was like, okay, we need to put a stop to this. So all I did to help myself out of that is I just weighed myself every day, day and night, a morning reading, a night reading.

And just kind of watched it go down. The way I watched it go down was I just taught myself to kind of eat a little bit less. And I ate a little bit less by utilizing intermittent fasting and by eating protein, just large and large amounts of protein. I don't know how much protein, but I mean, I would say that it would be rare that I would have a day where it's under 300, you know, because I'm eating these like bavette steaks and there's 100 grams in there. So to me, that was kind of like almost magical in a way. And then even when my son was like, hey, let's go, let's go get a sandwich at this deli down the street. I didn't have any problem eating the sandwich because because of the way that I was eating it was just a it was just a

small thing in the grand scheme of things so um when he said hey let's go have a sandwich i was like all right well i gotta eat a chicken breast first you know so i ate a chicken breast or sometimes two chicken breasts and i was still able to eat the whole sandwich and i know it all sounds counterintuitive because it's like well you ate you ate more food overall, but it's like only for that particular meal, you know? Yeah. And then once I was done with the sandwich, I wasn't like, oh, I want to have chips or I want to have, everything was done. You know, I blew my load, so to speak.

I wasn't going to recover from it. So that's been super effective for me. It's been really, really helpful. Yeah. And you said that that was called protein leveraging, right? Yeah, and I think it was, is it Ted Nieman, right? I believe that's the name, yeah. Ted Nieman has an entire, he's written an entire book on it.

And he talks about it all the time. And I believe, I want to say when he's on our podcast, he went as far to say that all living things are in search of protein. And they will eat until they get their protein requirement. Human beings are kind of confused because we're eating Doritos and we're eating these things that are manmade and we're not getting our protein requirement. So we continue to eat and eat and eat. And it's just not there. I think there's going to be more research and science that talks about this a lot more

coming up. I'm sure it's more complex than just that. But the main thing you need to know is that if you just simply eat more protein, I think a chicken breast is a great example. Cause even like egg whites are kind of like light, but you know, fucking stuff yourself with a chicken breast,

man, that'll, that'll slow you down a little bit coming off of a fast, maybe eat a chicken breast. And then, so that's the other thing is I forgot to mention, like I not on a no carb diet either like i'm eating rice i'm eating potatoes i'm eating fruit if i eat a piece of fruit and i'm like i want another piece of fruit i'll just get up and eat another piece of fruit like i just have talked myself into that if i

don't fast that's not going to make me fat if i eat carbohydrates it's not going to make me fat you know like i'm coming to this kind of almost happy medium between the two, the world, you know, you, you came, you came from a different side. I came from a different side and you and I, I think of kind of romantically, I might add met in the middle. Yeah. So two, like two things I want to kind of break down from, from what you said. The reason I asked you, uh, what your goal

was when you started cardio was to understand your approach to it. And you didn't say your goal was dropping weight. You didn't say your, your goal was to get leaner abs. You said that your goal was just to get better at cardio. So cardio is like the process. Cardio is the habit that you got to build and you just want to get better at it because you know, overall, if you get better at that, well, it'll probably help you look better too. Right. Right. And when a lot of people have big goals, right, they, they, they're like, oh, I want to lose 50 pounds and they're focused on the 50 pounds. But if they're just like, I want to get better at maybe doing a little bit of biking and biking longer, more often, and maybe getting better at lifting.

Those are the things that if they do for a long enough period of time, no matter how long it takes, they're going to be able to get to that goal of 50 pounds. And if they want to maintain that goal of dropping that 50 pounds, they're going to have to do that for the rest of their life. So if they're focused on that process and not on the 50 pounds and they just stick to the process long enough, they'll get to their goal. And then that's like, that was what I wanted to ask you to use. It was perfect. Cause you're like, I just want to get better at cardio. Just wants to like run better. Right. So right so like you know the same thing with jujitsu might like i have a goal but i i just really want to get better at it and the other thing you did was you made the barrier to entry really simple

all right so you chose an eight minute run that was just disgustingly easily but it was an easy thing to progress you know what i mean it was like the slowest jog ever just like literally just one foot in front of the other it was barely a run a lot of people go boss the wall immediately they want to start running every day a mile and a half every single day and then they peter out too soon and they can't stick to it their knee is messed up or yeah whatever the case is yeah exactly if you make it super easy to start right you only start by lifting twice a week you only start by rolling in jujitsu twice a week. You can build up to being able to do it for longer periods of time rather than going too hard too fast. I think there's a guy in James Clear's book or someone that read James Clear's book, Atomic Habits.

And I want to say, I could be exaggerating, but I think the guy literally only drove to the gym one day. Yeah. Didn't even go in. Yep. And then the next day he went in and he's like agreed that he would sign up. And then the next day, cause he was kind of scared. He was, he just didn't have an exercise background. Third day, he's like, okay, go in and like do five minutes of something, you know? And then now the guy's lost 50 pounds. I mean, maybe your progression doesn't have to be quite like that. Maybe it could be different because maybe you have previous history of exercising or something.

But you get the idea, man. It's like if you, you know, just implement it, you know, slow. I mean, the same thing comes with like money, you know, ask people about money. It's kind of rare that someone's like all I ever wanted to do is be rich. Usually they're just like, I just didn't want to be broke, you know, which is a different mindset. Like, how do I just not be broke? And then once you're not broke, then you're like, oh, that's kind of like making money. Things kind of cool. It's a little bit like a, a little bit like a sport, a little bit like a game. I bet I could increase that. I better could be, could I be better at that? The way that I'm better

at lifting the way that I'm better at dropping weight, the way that I'm better, you know, could I make progress there? You know, it's a good question to ask yourself right now, like anybody listening to this, could you double your income? You know, like just think logically, you might think, well, shit, I'm out of work at the moment or something, but could you, what would that look like? What would that entail? What would you do? You know, it's a good, it's a good practice, like literally write it down on a piece of paper. Right now you're an artist and you make 30K a year. Could you make 60? What would that look like? Who do you know? Who's around you? Who have you seen on social media that that probably makes a round double of what you may? You know, is there any is there a class you can take?

Are there books you could read? You know, is having more education an issue for you? Or is it not having enough experience, not having enough exposure? Like where like where is this thing? You know, what's this thing that you're looking for? You know, same thing goes with getting stronger. I'm going to try. Oh, that was a pretty interesting program.

I'm going to give that one a try. Like, oh, shit, that one didn't work while I hurt my shoulder. You know, maybe, you know, benching three times a week out of nowhere probably wasn't smart. I'm going to try this one instead. And you land on something that works. And you just keep fighting. You just kind of figure out a way to be better than you were yesterday. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. And then so for your cardio stuff, I know it was during a time where we didn't have gyms and stuff, but did you have a hard time? Because you love lifting. You love squatting heavy. You love benching heavy. Did you just, did you even have a conversation with yourself to be like we're not

doing that now we're gonna do this or did it just because you've been around the game so long you just kind of fell into it yeah it just didn't it didn't matter yeah figured it didn't matter i think that has to do with just like my mentality nowadays you know it's just it's improved quite a bit so i just didn't care i was like'm just going to do something that's challenging. And then I would, I think, again, if I just go back to the fact that I just wanted to simply get better at it, that just, and it wasn't even anything specific. If you're like better at what? I'm like, I don't know. Like, this is better at cardio.

And I could see it, you know, I could look at my heart rate and see that my heart rate was much lower when I was doing exercise that was equal to or sometimes even harder than what I was doing previously. I think also having options, I think it makes it fun. So it wasn't like I wasn't like forcing myself, hey, you got to go run a mile. I was like, let's walk and let's see what happens. And I would walk and I would be like, oh, I feel pretty good. I'm going to run. mile. I was like, let's walk and let's see what happens. And I would walk and I would be like, oh, I feel pretty good. I'm going to run. And then I would say, ah, you know, ankles kind of hurt and this kind of hurts. I would try not to be too much of a baby about it, but I would say, I'm probably going to do some more of this tomorrow. So let's stop and let's, you know, try to run again in a minute. And maybe I would do every minute on the minute. Maybe I would say, Hey,

during this run, you're going to go during this walk run, you're going to try to run every hill. You know, um, I would just try to pick different things each time. Sometimes I'd have a weight vest. Sometimes I would do the stairs. Sometimes I would do, um, I just really mix it up. Sometimes I'll walk backwards for a while, like I'll run backwards for a while, run sideways. Um, I just really mix it up. Sometimes I walk backwards for a while, like I'll run backwards for a while, run sideways. Um, I noticed that with a lot of walking that, um, even though walking is super productive to get a lot of like blood flow and stuff, I also noticed that I would be pretty tight cause I would walk really like far. I'd walk like six miles or something up and down hills and stuff.

And, uh, I was like, oh, you know, I wonder if I could do like some old like football drills as I'm going. So I would just basically take a step. I'd bring my knee up. I'd grab my knee and pull it up like the kind of active stretching type stuff. I would do that. And I would just do it periodically for, you know, 10 steps here and there. Then I would do like butt kicks, you know. Then I would do like high knees and run with my knees high.

Just like, just moving, like making it more. And there's no, there was no, there's no, there's no program to it. It's just like, yeah, just improvise. And I'm lost too, because I'm listening to, you know, music or listening to other shit. And people like, I just don't even, sometimes people look at me weird and I'm like, oh yeah, I'm fucking doing weird shit. Of course they're going to be looking at me weird.

But I'm lost in whatever it is that I'm listening to, so I'm not even really thinking about it. It just felt good. It felt really good. Yeah, you're discovering your body. Hey now. I want you to discover my body too back to the meat flute um any plans to push it any further like doing like marathons or anything like that i have a lot of people that have asked me about that i i don't i don't have any interest

in that i don't think i i actually think that right now that I could run pretty far. I should say jog really far. I could do like just a slow-paced jog, I think, for a while. But I want to be able to just like run further, like run, like a pretty good, you know, a pretty good pace, you know. It would be good to be able to, you know, do this run here. I think it's like about a mile, you know, just to be able to do it in like seven minutes, six minutes, something like that. Like, I don't know how hard, I don't know. I haven't really practiced that. So I don't really know, uh, where I stand with it. I did it a while back. I don't remember, uh, what time, what time I got, but just stuff like that. Like, I don't, I don't care that much, but, uh, it would be cool. And then also in,

in Bodega, there's the, the Heron loop, which we all went on. Um, that, that loop is, is three miles. So it'd be kind of cool to be able to like, again, not just jog it, but to be able to go out there and just like run it and have it have a decent pace. But I, yeah, I don't really care too much about competing i guess the only thing that would interest me in competing would be sprinting you know so like you remember when uh uh oh his name just eluded me precision nutrition uh verardi john verardi yeah john verardi said John Berardi said that he races, he does sprints. That would be interesting.

That would be kind of fun to be able to do something like that. But my body is still so tight. I don't know if you guys have seen any clips of me running, but I'm like, I can't really open up that well at the moment. Yeah, and real upright too. Right. That's what I noticed. I wonder, like, because I got that get out run yeah like yeah yeah that's true i can't remember what the um like the the bar was set or whatever but it was like a heavy squat and then like a timed run

like i wonder what you'd be able to like you know like i don't know like insert heavy squat number and then oh and i follow that up with this amount of time of a mile run oh like a six and a six or something yeah yeah six is 600 pounds squat a six minute mile something like that i bet you'd probably be able to do something really well yeah some people are crazy with that shit there was one guy that i want to say he squats 600 pounds and runs like a four minute mile. Yeah. When I say there's one guy,

I mean, there's, yeah, yeah. I actually, I think there might, there might even be like just a couple of guys that can do something like that.

But it's one of the, it's, it's a guy that, uh, I know a lot of people are, they've been interested in like seeing him do like a CrossFit workout. Cause they're like, what the hell? But I should find out who the guy is.

I remember he's super jacked. And those could be some reasons on why he never dabbled in CrossFit. I don't know. How about a Spartan race? Like one of the shorter ones. I think the Spartan sprint is like six. Yeah, CT said he was gonna do one yeah those those are really cool like it looks like fun yeah there's climbing there's there's like axe throws

in some of them like it you know it's not just a run all the way through it's actually really fun and the i i don't know if andrew you see i think the shortest one's like six miles or something my friend invites me every year to do this progenics thing out in Hawaii. Yeah. It's like mud run thing. And that looks like it would be kind of neat. I mean, you know,

you just devastate like, you know, your shoes are toast and you're, you got to just basically just get rid of those clothes. You're never going to be able to like really wash them out all the way. But like something like that might be kind of fun, especially because like, I don't know, like for me i just i'm i'm kind of a priss when it comes to stuff like i don't like to get like dirty and stuff it'd be kind of fun for me to like you know lean into that and just

absorb it you know yeah go for it it's called the uh the spartan sprint so it's like the introductory race for the uh people trying to dip their toes into the spartan race so it's like the introductory race for the uh people trying to dip their toes into the spartan race so it's uh 20 to 23 obstacles and over i don't know why i said over but and three to five miles long okay so not not too bad but yeah i don't know that there's a lot of a lot of mud and like hurdles and shit yeah not a fan that's an ankle twist waiting to happen a good ankle twister good old ankle roll no thanks sushi roll what have you guys been doing food wise anything specific no it's been a lot of the same stuff i have been letting myself like um eat some new things here and there there's this amazing place in uh oak park called look at him just light up nah fixins man it's uh

literally is it like a bbq it's uh southern it's a southern food restaurant yeah some of the best oxtails i've ever had some of the best fried chicken i've actually probably the best fried chicken i've had in sacramento my god do they have like this southern food is where the games are holy shit we're talking about dieting then i talk about southern food but i mean i let myself have some that yeah but do they have the super duper thick mac and cheese yes yes you can't you can't get that everywhere it's gotta be like a soul food place oh and it's ridiculous the mac and cheese was so good and then the biscuit that came with like. There's like a lot of cheese stuck to the macaroni part.

Yeah, man. You put your fork in it and the whole thing will come up. Yes. Yo, you guys both need to check out Fixin's. It's amazing. Is it in Sacramento? It's in Oak Park. Yeah, it's in Sacramento.

But it's, oh my God, the best fried chicken in Sacramento by far. I remember I took Ray Williams to a place like that. He ordered so much food, man. He did not disappoint. I can imagine Ray eating. That's got to be a feast, man. And he took his first bite. You should have seen his face.

His face just lit up. He's like, I thought this wasn't going to be that good. I'm home. Yeah, he's like, this shit's awesome. Yeah. I was just actually talking about it in the, uh, the chat room.

Cause somebody had mentioned that even though they were in quarantine and they were at home, they still treated their meals as they would if they were out. So like, he still had prep meals and they're ready to go. That's nice. And I'm like, admittingly,

I, I didn't do that because I was excited at the thought of like eating freshly cooked food. Like that's huge for me. So, you know, like, okay, I'm going to the thought of like eating freshly cooked food. Like that's huge for me. So, you know, like, okay, I'm going to make, like I started making like bodybuilder French toast. So I just make French toast with egg whites and like, you know, some artificial sweeteners and not using real syrup or anything.

It's good on paper when you have like two or three slices, but it's like, well, shit, I have all this egg whites left. I'm going to keep going. And so like I would have like two or three slices but it's like well shit i have all this egg whites left i'm gonna keep going and so like i would have like way too much and i'm like that was a bad move so like i would i would eat you know the right things i just would do them wrong because i was at home cooking but again once i kind of grasped the idea that i need to eat smaller portions and i was able to calm down but, that was definitely one of the hiccups that I had during the lockdown. I think people could use like intermittent fasting, the protein leveraging that I was mentioning, and maybe even use a meal prep company

mixed in there a little bit if you can afford it. I'm not saying that like all your meals should come from that because that would be really, probably really quickly. But, uh, I've been having, you know, a lot of icon meals as well, where it's like, they have some stuff that's just not like typically things that would be on my diet, you know, like quesadillas and stuff like that. But they have a little, uh, extra boost of, uh, protein in there. And it's not like my main food, you know, it's like, it's more like a side thing. So I think something like that can be, you know, really effective and it gets you just to, I don't know, it gets you experienced stuff that like you probably just otherwise wouldn't cook.

You know, like there's one, they have a salmon one that I like a lot, salmon and saffron rice. And it's just amazing. And it's got like some green beans in it. It's like, I'm not going to, not that that's complicated. That's not even, that's not complicated at all. It's just that I'm not going to cook that, you know? So, uh, pop it in the microwave for three minutes and bam, you're ready to go. Yeah. No, it's just that these are really simple processes. Like I mentioned before, the fasting and the protein leveraging things that again, save me from just not, cause I can put on weight easily. I can't can't if i if i start eating all day long i'll be back to 260 real quick but i wonder what you could weigh have you ever have you done bulks before yeah yeah yeah it was uh it was like 280 290 well when i did record breakers

i was 272 that was when i was really like i was eating a lot i was seeing like that that was like right after my bodybuilding show and i was like okay let's bulk let's try and put on as much muscle as possible i peaked up at 273 and then i was just like kind of uncomfortable let's start getting let's start let's start dropping but yeah it'd be fun to see yeah and see my close like how far away are you from 300 it's like oh shit here we go I was getting around bro my face my face is getting real round it's easy to forget like you I mean since I've known you it's like dude he's so jacked he's in such great shape and I look at pictures and I'm like oh he's still getting like even more jacked it's like it's really cool like it catches you

off guard like just being totally honest like you have this image of you, and then all of a sudden you look back and you're like, wow, he was a little bit rounder. Yeah, I was. I was quite rotund. I miss that guy. Yeah, you're just hoping that he'll stop, right? Yeah. Dude, knock it off. Start declining.

Oh, man. So, are you allowed to talk your your place possibly opening up or no your oh yeah yeah yeah so cassio actually uh the first class is today um he set it up so there's like a that's exciting you'll be fired up for that yeah i'm super excited for that um there's a shelter in place group so he set it up so that there are classes for people that are forced to stay at home people that are forced to stay at home and they're forced to stay maybe they're taking care of people so it's only people that are sheltering place they can only roll with each other and then an essential group he calls it

where it's people that are you know they're out and about they're working they're with other people wow they can really smart but it's limited right now like right now only the classes that i'm going to go to currently on monday wednesday friday so i can only train three times a week um but at least it's getting people back in and they're able to do some jujitsu and roll safely cassio is really good at cleaning mats too like he's super he's like a lot of schools like they just kind of mop the mat doesn't fuck around i don't think cassio no no cassio he his mat cleaning is a technique in and of itself. So his place is always pristine. It's, yeah, so it's exciting. It's exciting to get back in there.

Did you guys see Cody Garbrandt? Yeah, I did. Threw that punch from the fence, man. That was like a video game. That was just like, like it was so insane. Yeah. Oh, my God. The way that he just kind of like turned his like hand over at the end.

It was just like kabink. And the end, it was just like, and it just, it was like a lever. Like it looked like he got, it looked like the guy got hit by something other than somebody's arm. Yeah. You know, it was crazy. Dude,

the guy I was watching it with, cause he's a boxer that the guy I was watching with, he was like, man, how could he not see Cody winding up for that? I was like, yo, I think they slowed it down for us a little bit because when you see it full

speed, yeah, he's winding up, but then it's like, it pops in your face in a second. It's like a, it's like a freaking cannon. It's, it was, it was beautiful. That's all I can say. Well, it was, uh, really switching up the pace too, right? Because he ducked down kind of slow.

He took his time with that and then when, and he was real loose and then he just delivered like a shot. But yeah, your friend is right. I mean, uh, I've never seen anybody load up with a punch you know bigger than that yeah that it was great to see cody you know back in there three losses in a row and ufc you know you lose one fight and it's like devastating i mean it looked like a straight video game whoop oh my god like uh when you have like your your super power like special bar is full and then you click that special button.

Uh-huh. And then it's like, whoop. And then, bam. Man, it's crazy. He just knew. One more time. He just knew it was, he just knew the guy was done, too, the second he. And he couldn't regain consciousness for a while, too, when he was sitting down.

But, yeah, he did say that he thought that if he would kind of lean a little bit, that the guy would kind of go for it. Bam. Yeah. So, the guy would kind of go for it. Yeah. So the guy, so if you, one more time, so watch the punches from the other guy, from his opponent. He throws two punches because he's going for Cody's head. So focus in on that this time.

Right here. See, he's thinking, yeah, he's thinking I'm going to hit him with this and this and like he just he had nothing that was such a piece so it wasn't even like he didn't really i mean he didn't see it clearly but he didn't see it because he was distracted by you know a little bit of head hunting right there yeah and there was like no time left on the the round too yeah once he punched him the belt like the the horn rang or whatever. It was just impeccable timing.

The guy kind of looked like the way somebody looks when they're trying to punch one of those bags, the double-end bags that they're trying to hit. He looked like he missed it, and then he couldn't land. He couldn't land anything. He looked like he was confused on how to hit Cody, and then Cody

just whacked him. One thing that I was just like, I was just in awe about was you saw how much Cody was popping around and moving the whole fight. The whole time. He was just like the whole time. He didn't stop. Like his gas tank is something else. And the other guy was just like pacing,

but Cody was just like, like a bunny. He's like a bunny rabbit. It's insane. But that was a dope fight. Yeah, man. I hope he gets back into that title picture picture and stuff and i mean ufc i

i love watching ufc it's uh you know sucks that a lot of other sports have been uh you know shut down for a while hopefully football gets back and and all those things but it's been fun you know we've at least had some ufc and some uh weird wwe with no fans you know i heard with baseball that they're gonna like announce from home or something like the announcers they're not gonna be like at the stadium so that's weird that's pretty odd yeah i wonder if there'll be like a delay or something i don't know yeah basketball is back as well yeah i'm excited because like i mean it's it's like a 22 game like shortened season or something like that yeah they're already knocking some teams out right now yeah or maybe

it's only 22 team whatever the case the kings made the cut because they're pretty close to being in the playoffs and so they're like whoever has a chance to get in can still play and everyone else kick rocks so it'll be cool i can like follow them right now and I don't have to commit a whole season. I can just like watch Luke finale, which is, you know, it's cheating a little bit, but I'm hoping that they can make some waves because you know,

they, they're extremely young team. So it's not like they're like too used to a whole 82 games season to where they can't get back in the groove right away they might see would you get a spider no i've been messing with that thing i guess i think uh you know this will be great you know to get some sports back and get some like normalcy back to a lot of things and um you know hopefully it will give people uh just a lot of good positive stuff you know i think uh at this point i think at this point, everyone could could use a little bit of that.

Yeah. Why don't you take us on out of here, Andrew? Dude, had a blast. It was really fun hanging out in the studio today. Really? Yeah, really. Yeah. So thank you, everybody that checked out the live stream.

Please make sure you guys are following the podcast at Mark Bell's Power Project on Instagram at MB Power Project on Twitter. Please drop the ratings and reviews on iTunes. It is one of the biggest and best compliments that you guys can give us and that and telling a friend about us, of course. My Instagram is at IamAndrewZ. And before I forget, thank you again, Perfect Keto for sponsoring this episode. For more information on Perfect Keto, check out the YouTube and Facebook description

or the iTunes show notes or wherever you're listening to this on your podcast app. And Seema, where you at? At SeemaYinYang on Instagram and YouTube. At SeemaYinYang on TikTok and Mark. At MarkSmellyBell on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch you all later.