Mark Bell's Power Project - How Food Effects Motivation to Exercise || MBSS Ep. 50

Episode Date: September 3, 2023

In episode 50 of Mark Bell's Saturday School, Mark Bell explains how the food you eat, or don't eat, will have an affect on your motivation to exercise. Sponsors mentioned on air: ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes! ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 ➢ https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep!     New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://drinkag1.com/powerproject Receive a year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 & 5 Travel Packs!   ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   ➢ https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off Mind Bullet!   ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box   ➢ Better Fed Beef: https://betterfedbeef.com/pages/powerproject   ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM   ➢ https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   ➢ https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori!   ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

If I am to eat, that's going to throw off my whole day. Now I have to allow that digestion to happen for another hour or two. So even with a meal that is very unoffensive, that that will still in a way kind of mess your day up. It just it doesn't really mess me up. It just throws off my timing. When you're exercising often, you need a lot of energy in and you need to strategically plan when you're going to eat. How do people get themselves energy quickly and how do they get themselves recovered from one workout to the next? Usually the answer is carbohydrates.

I had to kind of level with myself and say, dude, you're not pumped and fired up to lift. Not because you don't want to lift. You're not pumped and fired up to lift because you don't have enough energy. What's like a good indicator that's telling you, oh shit, you probably should have had a little something before you want to go work out? Yeah, there's just too many things pulling on you in too many different directions. Even though you're not happy with your appearance

and it may be obvious that you have body fat, I think for most people, the key is to get themselves healthy first. When you get yourself healthy, it's going to be easier to lose weight. You get healthy first by nourishing yourself. You're not really going to get into this game of eating less. But when they go on a quote diet, what do you think is the thing that they should be thinking about initially? I think the only thing you should be focused on in the beginning is...

I always felt like my life was very Seinfeld-like too, like where all these stupid coincidences would happen that were like me and my brother and my friend Brian, we were all heading to the gym one day, and we would stop at this convenience store, which we called Effie Mart, because we'd always get a Fedrin from there. A couple Effies? Yeah, a couple Effies, a couple mini thins.

And we were on our way to actually go to the gym and deadlift. And this guy comes up to us and he goes, are you guys deadlifters? And he had this bright gold tooth. And so we'd always say to each other are you guys deadlifters but it's like coincidences like that like we're on our way to the gym to fucking deadlift and and out of all the lifts the guy could pick or all the things could have said are you guys weightlifters you guys powerlifters he's like are you guys deadlifters like first of all you spit all over us but

secondly great job identifying that we're on our way to the gym to deadlift i remember being at arden mall in sacramento for some reason we were all there and uh some dude was i don't know he was talking about like people bodybuilding or like are you guys wrestlers or whatever and then your brother points at kaylor woolham and he's like oh that guy can deadlift 900 pounds and he's like oh that's when you you pick it up and you put over your head and no it's it's 900 pounds you just like you you pick up and you stand up with it and he's like oh anybody could do that i was like meanwhile kaylor woolham's like under 200 at that point. And he had like an all-time world record

in weight classes and stuff. Anybody can do that. He's a fucking world record holder. He's like, oh, anybody can do that. Like, I don't know. Why were we at Arden Mall? That's awful. I'm trying to remember.

It's, it's... Forever ago. Yeah. I don't know. Fun times. Anyway, we're going to be talking about food, I think, right? Yeah, yeah. Lots of food. times. Anyway, we're going to be talking about food, I think, right? Yeah, yeah.

Lots of food. It's perfect because we're like hungry. Yeah. It hit me right before we started recording. So you haven't had a chance to or maybe haven't been as motivated to get in some lifts lately? So it's, yeah, there's definitely a motivational aspect to it. It's a time thing, though, kind of, too. So it's. Priorities and time thing, though, kind of, too.

Priorities and time. And energy. Right. So I give a lot to jiu-jitsu right now. And I think as I'm like, okay, well, Thursday's coming up. I usually will take a Thursday off. But lately, a bunch of my guys are all getting ready to compete the same time that Nsema's competing this week. And so I'm there for them. Sometimes I'm literally just like a punching bag for them like you know i

will put up some resistance but it's like nobody wants to get hurt and so long story short is like i'm there for other people so it's really easy for me to be motivated for that versus myself there's a little bit less motivation there and then when I think about going again let's just use Thursday like I'm gonna skip jiu-jitsu so I'm gonna not be there for them and then I'm gonna put this energy towards lifting that's gonna take away from Friday so I'm like ah that's like two things I'm taking away from you know people that I'm trying to help out right now so uh yeah I guess I'm I'm just trying to be more helpful than others than I am myself. But it comes down to the energy that I am putting towards jiu-jitsu versus putting towards lifting right now. Yeah, it can be tough to try to balance that out. You know, I got the same thing going on with running.

I got the bug for running. You got the bug for jiu-jitsu. I got the bug for running. You got the bug for jujitsu. And sometimes when you have something new, it's so exciting that doing the other thing just isn't as motivating. Like you've done a lot of lifting and you've made progress with lifting.

Also like what's the motivator to lift right now because your physique looks better than it ever has before. So you're like well i'm spending less time in the gym and i'm jacked but a lot of a lot of your jackness is just getting uncovered from losing some fat from the activity of jujitsu and your lifting has served you really well so it's like we know you know that we have to get back to some lifting because it's important and then it's also important for, you know, that we have to get back to some lifting because it's important.

And then it's also important for performance. So as you get more adjusted to jujitsu and you're in it for about a year, you're now going to be able to lift. And not only lift, you'll be able to lift with more specificity. Good job. To be able to, you know, add to your jujitsu. Like you'll be able to have your workouts not only help you feel better, but to literally to your jiu-jitsu. You'll be able to have your workouts not only help you feel better, but to literally have your workouts,

maybe you're picking up sandbags, maybe you're doing some of that Joss Settlegate type of stuff, to enhance your performance when you go to jiu-jitsu rather than just... It's not just like a bench workout. It's not just like a chest workout. It's not just like a deadlift workout. It's something to... You could still do those and those still have benefit and they still have

merit because they can help make you feel good because it feels good to get a pump feels good to lift a heavy weight but when you're doing your pull-ups and when you're doing you know single arm rows and you're dragging the sled and you're lifting sandbags and different things like that hopefully that translates into you being uh better on the mats as well yeah and it's weird because like i i've said this before where i would look at the gym as like my thing and so like i'd get fired up before i go to the gym i walk in the gym and you know have my this is like a not st but a different gym and like i would have my headphones on and it's like, oh, like, you know, the spotlight's on me. Like it's go time, let's go. And like I'd get fired up for that.

And then now when I look at the gym, it's like, hmm, it's kind of boring. It's like quiet, even if you do have headphones on. Yeah, yeah. It's like slower. It's like no one's trying to choke me. So it's not as exciting. one's trying to choke me so it's not as exciting so what I think what would help me is understanding that yeah doing this sled pull doing these one-arm rows like that's gonna carry over into the thing that I love to do and so I need to use that as motivation to kind of transfer that energy over

to the workout you know the same energy that I put into the you know to the mats and that same excitement that's really what it what it would come down to. Yeah. And I think what we're going to talk about today is like food as a motivator, food as being motivation and food as being sometimes detrimental and pushing you off of the thing that you wanted to do. I'll give a couple examples. It's 5.30 in the morning. I wake up. I have my coffee. I usually

take a dump. I make a super smelly shake, which is I take coffee. I put ice in there. I throw it in a blender with some steak shake and some within you brand hydration, usually chocolate. And it just comes out to be the most amazing thing ever. I drink some of that, take a poop. And then from there, I'm like trying to make a decision. Like, am I running? Am I trying to get to the podcast? Am I going to lift? Like, what am I going to do for today? And normally it's running. I like to run in the morning. It gets very hot here in Sacramento. It's beautiful to run kind of as the sun is coming up. But unfortunately, almost every single time I miss that by a good 30 minutes, sometimes even more. But I love that. I love that hour. I love that time. 70 degrees as opposed to like 90 although 90 and 100 and stuff has its own challenges and it's kind of fun too i don't really enjoy doing that all the time kind of feels like you're just like redlining your workout um so for me to be fired up to go and and uh and exercise and work out if i you know

after the poop if i am to eat i'm gonna eat some eggs or protein you know, after the poop, if I am to eat, I'm going to eat some eggs or protein, you know, mainly protein and fats or something like that. That's going to throw off my whole day. Like now I'm at, okay, now if I'm going to run, now I have to allow that digestion to happen for another hour or two. So that sets everything way back. Now it's like, okay, well, when am I going to run? Okay. I can go to the gym and I can still get a lift in within the next 45 minutes or so and still feel comfortable and have a good workout. My food doesn't have to be all the way digested, but it needs to be all the way digested if I'm going to run. So I can still go and maybe get a

lift in and podcast and stuff. But then when I get done podcasting and it's now two or three o'clock, depending on what time it is now, how motivated am I to get my run in? Right. So it can really throw everything off, but the other secret and the other weird thing here is not really a secret, but a key detail of the whole thing, when you're exercising often, when you're putting out a lot of energy, you need a lot of energy in. And you need to strategically plan when you're going to eat. You need some strategy behind it. So let's just back things up back to that morning scenario again. The super smelly shake doesn't bother me.

The protein shake, I can have it and I could literally go run 10, 15 minutes later and there's no issue at all. It doesn't affect me negatively at all. In fact, I think it actually gives me a little bit of like a boost. So if I just do that and then I go on my run, the whole day is set now. Now the thing is for me to go from running to lifting, if I'm going to lift, I need to be prepared. I need to have food with me. So after my run, I'm usually heading right to the gym. So now that means before I leave the house, I'm going to need to have some fruit with me, maybe some yogurt. Like what am I going to eat in that time after my run and before I lift?

I'm going to have to have some good strategy here to get me to that next workout. How do people get themselves energy quickly and how do they get themselves recovered from one workout to the next? Usually the answer is carbohydrates. Carbohydrates and hydration, those are the only things that are really going to hit you quickly. Protein is nice, but I don't know. You can make an argument that we don't really need it at that moment. We mainly need carbohydrates. The options on this can be many. I mean, you could have rice. You could have some lean, uh, you could have, uh, some lean sources of protein and some, and a potato or something like that. But for me, I just like to have fruit just makes

it super easy. It's still the morning time. So like eating a potato, like in the morning is I've done it before, but it's like, I don't know, it just doesn't go along with my morning that great. So what I did today on the way here is I had some fruit and some yogurt. And in that yogurt is a scoop of vanilla. This is the whey protein. And I probably got in about 20 to 30 grams of protein and probably about 40 grams of carbohydrates. Some of that being fiber because there were some blueberries in the fruit. So then when I get to the gym, now I'm fucking pumped to work out. Now I'm excited because I have kind of energy.

I already took a bunch of stuff to get me to work out. It's like a performance enhancer. I mean, it's not even like a performance enhancer. It is a performance enhancer. I got done with a workout. Now I'm going into a second workout, but I need that glycogen again. I need that hydration. And when I do things that way, it's motivating for me to work out. Same thing happened yesterday, except for in a different order. And I was like, you know what? You haven't felt like lifting the last handful of days because you're still losing weight. I woke up this morning at 221. It's probably the lightest

I've been. And I don't know, I guess I think for the bodybuilding show at one point I hit like 219 and then I came back up a little bit. I was dehydrated that day and weighed 219, but this is the lowest I've been, you know, uh, consistently since I've been an adult basically. So it's been kind of amazing, but I had to kind of level with myself and say, dude, you need, you're not pumped and fired up to lift. Not because you don't want to lift. You're not pumped and fired up to lift because you don't have enough energy. You don't have, you don't have the, uh, you don't want to lift, you're not pumped and fired up to lift because you don't have enough energy. You don't have the tools to go in and lift because you don't have the basics of what you need. You need protein, you need carbs, you need, you know, I'm a big proponent of more like protein and fats, but in these cases where we're trying to turn over from one workout to another workout or where we have frequent exercise, like I think that you, I think

carbohydrates are really important, um, because they're much faster sources of energy. So, um, going back to, um, to your morning and setting up the day. So even with a meal that is very unoffensive, it's mainly just protein and fat. So what you're saying is even with that, that that will still in a way kind of mess your day up as far as your exercise is concerned. In terms of running, you know, in particular. So it just, it doesn't really mess me up. It just throws off my timing is all. So if I really wanted to have like eggs and like sometimes I'll have stuff that I made and maybe like a crock pot or something with some eggs.

The thing is with me, if I'm going to eat, I have – sometimes I have a difficult time. If it's going to be protein and fats, I have a difficult time of eating small amounts of that because I really like it a lot. So like I can cook two eggs and I can put a little cheese on it and I can eat that and that would be amazing. And that wouldn't mess me up and I'd probably be able to go run right off of that. But like the odds of me doing that are small. The protein shake is good because it just kind of keeps me more on the liquid side. And that's easier for me to, uh, do from a mental standpoint. And then in terms of carbohydrates, uh, I do like carbs, but I'm not going to eat like seven bananas and then go try to run. You know, um, I might eat like one

or even like I've eaten half before and then kept the other half, you know, um, I might eat like one or even like I've eaten half before and then kept the other half, uh, in my car kind of covered up. And then I eat the other half when I'm done with my training session, you know, um, I've done that before. So anyway, I think, uh, if I'm to eat a meal before a run, I would just like to have more time. Yeah. I just wanted to, you know, kind of focus on that just for a second to be like, this is still a good choice, but you're still saying that like, because it's just the wrong timing for a meal, like you're still going to kind of go without it. I should also point out too, my shake that I have in the morning

doesn't have much fat in it. So it's primarily just protein. It's a steak shake. It's coffee with ice, water, sometimes like a heavy cream or something. Sometimes a splash of that or something, but it's rare that there's any, it's rare that I hardly use any fat in there. I'm trying to think of, the only other thing I put in there is a bubs collagen powder i dump a little extra of that in there um so yeah there's really not much fat in there too maybe like just three to four grams coming from the steak shake okay so then how um i know you're dialed in and you've been doing this a long time and you can feel that in your body like, all right, I don't have the oomph today. I should have eaten a little bit more carbs or whatever it may be.

How does somebody be honest with that? Because people aren't necessarily always going to be at the lowest that they've been in the last 30 years. There's a good chance that they still have enough fuel on their body. How do you navigate that like how yeah what's what's like a good indicator that's telling you oh shit you probably should have had a little something an hour or two before you want to go work out yeah there's just too many things pulling on you in too many different directions so if you're trying to get into working out and you're, you're wondering what the hell's wrong, why you can't be consistent with it. Number one, you could simply just not like it that much. That's definitely a possibility. And you have to give yourself an honest shot with that whole thing. And you have to say,

you know, I got to really, if you're really trying to make changes and you really feel at weights or something like that is, is something that you need to do, you need to give it a handful of months and you need to try different versions of different workouts. And you really need to be honest with yourself. Like, did I really try that for long enough to, to have an impact? And you probably, unfortunately, you probably need to dedicate like almost a full year to seeing what that's going to be like, because it doesn't matter what it is that you're trying to do. It doesn't matter if it's golf, jiu-jitsu, lifting, running.

There's a hump to get over, and to get over that hump. Now you're actually really like stuck. You're stuck in a weird spot of like you're half beginner, uh, half knowledgeable about a couple of things, but you still don't really know what you're doing and you still get hurt and you still have setbacks all the time. Um, it wasn't until recently, so I've been running kind of on and off or maybe for about two years now. And it wasn't until recently that I finally have been able to run without feeling like I'm just totally out of breath. Now there were many days where I ran and it felt flawless and it felt really good. But what I mean by that is there are, there were certain days where I'd go out for a run and I'd be like, holy shit, man. Like, how and I'd be like holy shit man like how come I'm not in better shit like what is going on like I've been doing this for a while I feel

like a beginner and what happens is is that sometimes that's just simply like over training sometimes sometimes it's just part of the process which can be confusing you're just going to have days where you're just like fed up with whatever it is that you've been working on and you feel like you put a lot of time in and it just it feels like unfair and you turn a big baby about it um but there's a handful of things happening all at once i mean it's also a new a new uh a new type of energy that you're putting out. And so if you start to get better at something, the body does get more efficient and you will burn less calories in those activities, but that takes a really long time. At first, those are big caloric burns. And most people that go and

run, if you talk to a runner and you go up to a runner, that's someone that's been running for years and years, and they say, I want to run. And then the runner says, why do you want to run? And you say to lose weight. A lot of runners would be like, that's not a great, not a great tool for losing weight. And why isn't it a good tool for losing weight is because it makes you so tired. It sucks out so much energy from your body that you're probably going to gain weight at first. And for most people, from a mental perspective, I mean, ask people, just ask people that run, say like, hey, when you first ran, did you kind of gain like almost all and be like,

not all, but almost all will say, yeah, man, I actually did gain a couple pounds when I started running. It was a real bitch. I didn't understand what was happening. It's because you're going to be hungrier. So if you're not motivated to work out, there's usually a bunch of different things that are pulling on you. It could be some stress from your day-to-day life. It could be your work. It could be the fact that you're not sleeping. You got to start to be honest with yourself about a bunch of stuff. Do you have like, are you smoking on like your lunch break and then not eating anything like what are you what are you doing and then you're expecting to go to jiu-jitsu after eight days of work in a warehouse or eight hours of work in a warehouse like you're not going and if you go you're gonna suck you don't have the ingredients you need you need the right you

need the right ingredients and it has to happen often. It has to happen like day in and day out. I think that the human body works on like a three-day delay. So you might be like, wow, I slept pretty good yesterday. I don't know what's wrong with today. Well, it has nothing to do with yesterday. Like the body doesn't work that quickly. It works on like a delay. Well, how has your sleep been the last week or so? Now we can have, if you slept seven hours every day for the last week and work has been pretty calm, you feel like you've been eating pretty good

and you're still unmotivated to work out, well, there's something wrong with the style of workout that you maybe chose that maybe you just don work out, well, there's something wrong with the style of workout that you maybe chose that maybe you just don't like it. And that's fine, but that would mean that you would start to investigate something different. Maybe it turns out that you absolutely hate the gym. It's not the right place for you at the moment. Go ride a bike.

Go for a run. Go try to pick up a new sport. Figure out something maybe slightly different. But for myself personally and what I've noticed in working with a lot of people over the years is that it's usually a lot of times it's usually people are like under, they're not underfed necessarily. They're like malnourished. They don't have the nourishment that they need because they're not selectingfed necessarily they're like malnourished they don't have the nourishment that they need because not selecting the correct foods so if you can picture if you can picture every single day that you have um if you can picture every single day that you have uh not only these like small cups to fill up every day for like your micronutrients and your macronutrients

you have to fill those up every day your cups need to be full but you also at the same time need to get those full you need to watch those there's like five of them that you need to look at you need to make sure they're topped off all the time and while those are topped off there's a bunch of plates that you're spinning at the same time so you gotta be like a fucking magician to get this shit going in the right direction and there might be like three of those plates that you got to keep you can't let them fall you can't let them crash down once one or two of them starts crashing down your whole body starts kind of crashing down and you're like i don't feel like working out. Because I think it's your body, in my opinion, that really controls the brain. And I think that, you know, it'd be interesting to talk with someone like Andrew Huberman about this, who studied this kind of stuff so much.

He says that you can't control the mind with the mind. And I think that's a really great quote. you can't control the mind with the mind. And I think that's a really great quote. And he's since kind of changed some of his dialogue around that, where he says, you can't only change your mind with your mind. You can't only train your mind with your mind. You can't only fix your problems with just your mind itself.

But I think that your body, if your body's like, if your body's beat up, if your body's abused, if your body is not taken care of, if you're malnourished, you're not getting the nutrition that you need, your body is going to send signals to the brain that tell you like, this is not a good idea. Your shit's not good over here. And who knows what that registers as. Like, is that your adrenal glands? Is that your CNS? Like, I don't know exactly where it shows up or how it shows up, but I know it doesn't feel good. We talked to countless guests on the podcast about the importance of strong, functional feet. And most people's feet don't function the way they should because of years of wearing narrow toe box shoes that over time weaken the feet and then actually don't allow the toes to function the way they should. Most shoes are casts and the toes don't move.

That's why I've partnered with Palooza. Now, Palooza's are flat, wide, and have a five-finger design so that whenever you wear the shoes, you're now getting the benefit of toe space. And that space that's being created through your toes is going to allow your feet to begin to function the way they should literally all day long. You can wear these shoes while running. You can wear the shoes in the gym. You can wear the shoes while relaxing anywhere you want. You can wear Palooza's while getting the benefit of toe space. Andrew,

how can they get it? Yes, that's over at Palooza.com slash power project. That's P E L U V A.com slash power project that's p-e-l-u-v-a dot com slash power project and at checkout enter promo code power project 15 to save 15 off your order again paluva.com slash power project links down in the description as well as the podcast show notes below earlier in the gym you made a really really good analogy uh you were saying you know when it comes to weight loss it's sort of like somebody that wants to start jujitsu, but like they go into jujitsu wanting to compete.

Can you clarify and dive into that one? Yeah, it's almost like too many things going on at one time. So as soon as somebody wants to make a lifestyle change, as soon as they want to, they recognize that weight loss is an issue, right? They need to lose. They're like, I really need to lose some body fat. This has gotten to be too far. But actually what has happened is even though you're not happy with your appearance and it may be obvious that you have body fat,

in my opinion, the first place to start is with I need to work on getting healthier because getting healthier and losing body fat, they can, uh, they can go hand in hand, but they're, they're also slightly different. I think for most people, the key is to get themselves healthy first. And when you get yourself healthy, it's going to be easier to lose weight. So I think that people think if I just can lose some weight, I'm going to be healthier. And there's a lot of research that shows that you lose like 10% of your body weight and you get like 90% of most of the benefits that you're going to get from seeing your markers of health improve. So it has a huge impact by just, you know, somebody weighing 300, losing 30 pounds is supposed to help quite a bit with like your all cause mortality. However, I think in order for that 300 pound person to lose 30 pounds, they need to get

healthy first. And then how do you get healthy first? You get healthy first by nourishing yourself. You're not really going to get into this game of eating less. I think we've done ourselves a disservice by trying to look at everything under a magnifying glass. And we found out that this calorie thing matters a lot. And of course, the amount of food you eat does have an impact. does have an impact. But there's a lot of food out there that floats around that is almost like, it's almost a freebie for some of us fatties to eat.

And you're able to eat some of these foods to an amount that registers, that feels really good. You actually can feel really full and feel really nourished and feel really awesome on a, on a diet where you're still losing weight. And it's not about like, let me just eat less and eat less and eat less. Let me reduce my calories by 250 by 250 by 250 by two fins. Like, Oh my God, now we're thousand calories less. You know, how has somebody You know, how is somebody who's this big, the size of this, like, water flask thing that I have,

supposed to, you know, end up eating this amount where they're now the size of John Cena? Like, you just look at the size difference of these two things, and, like, this guy is supposed to not ever want to eat this amount of food ever again, like it's not going to happen. Like when you're used to eating like 3,500 calories every day and you're not used to really being on a diet and you're used to eating all this sugar and all these other things,

your whole system, your whole body, your everything, your brain, your gut microbiome, your whole system is used to that whole setup and it wants it and it craves it. And as soon as you start to dip down too low, it's going to be like, hey man, you're not giving me any of that stuff anymore. Like what's going on? It's not going to feel great. You're going to be hungry all the time. You can counteract a lot of this by simply making better food choices. And it sucks because the switches are going to kind of like almost rob your taste buds in a way, but they're going to supply your body with the nutrients that you actually need. they're going to supply your body with the nutrients that you actually need. Anyone that's in a sport, anyone that's taking their sport seriously, anybody that's taking fitness seriously, anybody that's taking their health seriously, you just take this as a challenge and just say to yourself, man, you know what?

I need to make a stronger commitment to this. I'm pretty tough in this area. I do pretty good as a dad. I bring my son to school. I pick him up from soccer practice. You know, I have a good schedule on other stuff. I'm never late to work. I've been working at the same job for 10 years, punch in, punch out almost the same time. I always let my employer know when I'm out of town, like I'm responsible. I'm a good husband. I'm a good boyfriend, whatever this thing is that you're in. You can probably look at some of those areas and you're pretty strong in some of those areas. But when you come home from work after a day that was maybe a little longer than the day before, now you want to have a beer. Now you want to have a sleeve of Oreo cookies.

Oh, man, today was rough. Oh, I did work out this morning too, so I might as well just. And it's like you did not expend that much energy to where you need an entire sleeve of Oreo cookies. It doesn't work that way. You can replace a lot of these foods that are going to be more offensive to your body. You can replace them with better nutrient foods. It's not going to be easy. It's not going to be easy to pick the low-fat yogurt.

It's not going to be easy to start to eat cottage cheese when you're used to just grabbing what – you're normally used to grabbing whatever you want. You're normally used to going in your pantry. You know, you're normally used to going in your pantry and being like, oh, there's a bag of Doritos. And you sit down on the couch and you eat a bag of Doritos. Now you're faced with, okay, don't eat the Doritos. Don't buy the Doritos would be a really excellent choice. And instead sit down and eat, you know, cottage cheese. But if you hate cottage cheese, then you're selected the wrong food. know, cottage cheese. But if you hate cottage cheese, then you selected the wrong food. Like if cottage cheese is bullshit to you, then don't buy it.

But find something else. Like what is some sort of reasonable middle ground? Like you're an adult. How do we have a conversation for you to stop being so fucking weak or surrounded by food? How can you just make a better choice? Like for some people, they just like to fast through it. Other people are like, man, I need different options. Most people need different options.

That's where you have yogurt, cottage cheese, protein shakes, berries, berries of any kind. To me, those are free. You can eat as much fucking berries as you want. In my opinion, I mean, have at at it i don't think it's gonna like make you fat or make you gain weight maybe you get to a point where you start to eat so many of them that it's harder to control your body weight but still over time i think you're gonna learn to be like okay i need to cool i you know ate five you know giant things of blueberries i need to kind of cool it.

During that transition period where it's almost like a withdrawal period, right? If you're used to eating the dessert after the maybe not so great dinner, let's say you eat peanut butter cups because those are my favorite and I would love to do that every day. Do you think switching over to like the quest peanut butter cups which are freaking phenomenal they're still 200 calories so you can't just like they're not free food but do you think uh that can like control some of those weird cravings as far as like because it is a better option um i just feel like if you are having the dessert after after food and you're like have some cottage cheese have some yogurt and berries you're just like dude man I don't think that's gonna work for

me too natural yeah exactly so switching it to some of these um quote health options um and I that sounds mean because quest is amazing but like I said it's still 200 calories and only i think like nine or ten grams of protein so it's not really like the ratio is not really good for it it's delicious it's good it has it has less sugar i think it only has like one gram of carbs for the whole thing so it is pretty good but do you think it will quite it'll it'll satisfy that like it'll fill that gap in for people because you know it's almost like uh if if you tell somebody to switch to to a non-caffeinated soda and they might still get like a headache you know because it's the same feeling but they're not getting the caffeine so it's almost like they're not getting the drug can some of these things help alleviate some of those withdrawal

feelings i think things like that are amazing because, you know, again, you're going to have to try to be more reasonable. You know, like I think that people that end up really heavy, they at some point in their life have gotten to be irrational with their eating. Their eating has gotten to be out of hand. It's got to be out of control. And we have to figure out a way to get control. So if you eat a tasty pastry from Legendary Foods or you have one of their sweet rolls, and you're like, ugh, I still don't like that. That's fine. You don't have to convert to eating something that you don't like,

but find something that you do like. There's probably a Quest bar, Quest peanut butter cup. Quest makes a lot of treats they make chips they make those uh cracker things almost like a almost like a cheese it right man a lot of these things and it could be me it could be andrew like we could be fucked up at this point in terms of our taste buds i think we are we might be we might be far gone but your taste buds need to change too like If you're going to make change, then you need to get rid of these gas station taste buds, and we need to shift gears into something. You can't just be, like Shawn Stevenson was saying on our podcast,

you can't just be pumping out that fucking nacho cheese at the 7-Eleven. That shit's toxic. It's not good for you. I used to do that. It's good. It tastes good tastes good yeah but it would get all soggy like i'd do way too much of it it's really it was no good it's really in the end not that good like nachos can be amazing but normally like nachos are good for just a few minutes and then the whole thing just kind of turns to something else yeah i feel like if there's well

i guess no because some burritos get out of control i was gonna say if you have to like use a fork when you're like not initially supposed to like maybe it's just not the best option uh this is a little bit of a sidetrack but how about the uh like the mental side of things um this comes from me helping a buddy of mine with uh his diet and he's like oh man i guess i'm just gonna have to be miserable for a little bit and i'm like whoa i'm like holy shit like the verbiage you know it's like i'm going on a diet that means i'm gonna have to not go get the pizza i'm not gonna be able to drink the beer and and so like what i was saying was just like initially yeah like for maybe a couple months like it's just a hard no like it's not no forever it's nice not no forever. It's nice to start out disciplined. It's nice to start out with some good rules. Yeah.

So yeah, maybe in the beginning you do have to kiss certain things goodbye. Yeah. I'm like, because we don't have the habits set in quite yet. I'm like, when you get those habits dialed in, then you can control and you'll be fine. But when it comes to the mental side of like, all right, we're going to head out on this journey. What do you think people should be focused on the most when it comes to like, because everyone's going to say that, right. They're going to say these words, shit, I have to go on a diet. Yeah. Even though everybody is currently, everybody in the world right now is on a certain diet. just happens to be you know not not the best diet but when they go on a quote diet what do you think is the thing that they should be

thinking about initially i think the only thing you should be focused on in the beginning is your output not your input don't think about what you're't think about what you're eating. Think about what you're doing, about what you're doing. Like thinking about what you're doing is so much easier than thinking about this tangled web of what you think about food, your interpretation of food, your relationship with food, which I always think is funny because everyone's got a fucking tough relationship with pizza. Yeah. Everyone's got a tough relationship with ice cream or in and out or whatever your devil is. Uh, everyone faces some difficulties with those foods. I realize for some people it might be more so than others, but I would say, you know, concentrate on your output. You need to have like people that are thin, they had, okay. They have managed the

art of not overeating, right? And maybe they manage that too much because maybe they're malnourished as well. But what you find in a lot of people that are heavy and obese is that they're malnourished as well and not getting the right nutrients. And you think, how could that be?

They eat extra calories probably on a regular basis. That's how they acquired body fat in the first place. But they're not eating the right foods. So when you're not eating the right foods, you're not getting the right nutrients. So I think, you know, if I was to pick two things that would help mentally, it would be, let me focus in on some sort of energy output and let me, in terms of energy input, in terms of the food that I eat, let me just focus on getting in what I think would be like sound nutrition. So maybe each day we have a serving of fruit, a serving of vegetables, two or three servings of protein,

preferably from some sort of meat source. And then from there maybe you have like a little bit of dairy to get some calcium and and uh maybe some probiotics and shit like that from yogurt um maybe even have some uh milk or some different things like that i think those things eggs eggs have a like a lot of uh vitamins and minerals and different things in them so i think that we should again if we go back to those cups that we're trying to fill up, you're not only trying to fill up your macronutrient cup every day, you're trying to fill up your micronutrient cup. And it's not even really every day.

It's like in terms of vitamins and minerals, they don't need to be blasted every single day. to be blasted every single day. We have a lot of fat soluble vitamins in our body that don't need to even be like vitamin D is really popular, but don't even necessarily need vitamin D every day or vitamin E or vitamin A. The body has a little bit of a storage for those things. So anyway, it's actually not as hard as you'd think. And I'm not saying like, you need to like measure this out and you need to look at the recommended daily allowance of zinc and potassium. Like you don't need to go that far, but just make sure that you're eating, uh, you're eating some meat every day. You're eating some vegetables every day, eating some fruit every day. And maybe you, you know, maybe you follow

Paul Saladino or maybe you follow Sean Baker and you don't want to eat some of those other things. That's fine too. That's fine too. I think you get a lot of what you need from, from meat. Uh, but for me personally, I've found that, but especially like with this journey of running, it's been really helpful, especially to eat fruit. I don't know if this is a real thing. I don't know if this is a real thing, you know, intertwined into our bodies. But I feel like when I sweat, when I sweat out, you know, the sweat is like salty, you know, and that's that saltiness for some reason. I don't know if it works the same way for everybody, but there seems to be a correlation

for me that the more that I sweat, the more sweets that I want in a way. Oh, shit. And so for me, it's like it seems to make sense to me that I would crave the food that I crave, the foods that I want. It seems to make sense to me that I would crave the food that I crave. The foods that I want, I want meat and I want like berries or I want some sort of sweet fruit, a peach or a mango or nectarine or a mango. Sounds so good, you know, after jujitsu practice or for me after running. I think it's like my body's natural way of being like, you need to replace what you just lost. Like those things that are in your head right now, they actually are, they're a huge advantage and you should go eat them like as soon as possible.

Because now obviously you can get sidetracked by that, by having like a craving, like a regular craving for pizza or things like that. But I think it's like the same signals. It's just, it's a little crossed, right? or things like that. But I think it's like the same signals. It's just, it's a little crossed, right? Yeah, it's a little crossed, but also I think those other cravings are also like a little habitual. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. And, and it kind of overrides like your, your ability to be rational. And we're saying, you know, some of this is based in some irrational thought. Um, but you're right. Like a pizza after exercise, it's got sauce on it which is sweet and it's also salty so you're probably but if you're craving pizza not there's anything wrong craving pizza there's nothing wrong with eating pizza uh but i think your wires may have gotten crossed by um not consuming enough food not consuming enough food, not consuming enough calories. Uh, I mean, just think about like, think about shit that you have cravings for. Think about things that you have. Um, think about things that you, you know, if you get, if you get real horny, right. What cools you off the best way, you know, you know, if you, if you you get have sex you're like fucking like you were

you were like kind of desperate there for a little bit you know what i mean you were like things were getting rough there for a minute you were thinking irrational thoughts probably thoughts that weren't good we're not going to share with anybody there's no reason to go down that rabbit hole but um you as soon as as soon as you get what you need, you're good. You're like, oh man, I'm good. So like, same thing happens when you, um, have food at your home that, you know, is good for you and you're really hungry and you're like, all I gotta do is drive past in and out. All I gotta do is drive past in and out. And if you make it to drive past in and out, as soon as you get home and you cook up some of that food that you maybe weren't craving, you eat some of the stuff that's good for you.

You're like, oh, I'm so glad I fucking, that was good. That was the right decision, you know, to eat that food and to stick to my plan. I got another victory. to my plan i got another victory when the unfortunate thing is that when you mess up is that it can be a negative in so many different ways you can be like oh the same fucking guy was yesterday same fat fuck same piece of shit um same loser like i'm never gonna make any changes like i i tried it for a week and i messed up and I tried it for a week and I messed up and I tried it for another week and I messed up. I'm only making it two or three days in a row and I just can't seem to make this work. Like what is, you start to ask yourself what's wrong with me. I

don't know how to do this. I need a different plan. And you start to kind of scramble. And I think, you know, I've mentioned this before, but I don't think that people necessarily need a strict diet. They need prevention from having crazy cravings and they need prevention from binging. Most people, if they have prevention from binging, they'll probably lose weight because most people, I believe, are sabotaging themselves. They're not really being honest with themselves. They're eating alone. or sabotaging themselves. They're not really being honest with themselves.

They're eating alone. They're probably waiting for the family to go to bed or having some other scenario where they're kind of like almost eating food shamefully behind everyone's back, thinking that that food doesn't count. But it all counts. It all adds up. Beef.

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And you know, it's, it's grilling season. So dust off those grills, dust off those smokers and head over to cpbeef.com and at checkout enter promo code power to save 25% off your order. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Get your glizzy goblet on. Yeah. And you know how we got on this conversation about like the the food being a motivator or or uh what's the opposite yeah demotivator unmotivating um you know you were talking

about like eggs and stuff it's like how good do you feel after eating eggs like there's so many good nutrients in there right uh like i'm a huge fan of nootropics so like something like alpha gpc all that stuff it's just like precursors to shit that like is good in our brain well all that choline and yeah i can think of the name so choline is in eggs and so you're taking like a nootropic with that egg but um how often how often is this the case where you you are recommending to somebody that they actually eat more because for a lot of people they think that that's not the answer right they think like oh no i got it like you were saying like oh i'll cut 50 calories here 50 calories here and by the end of

it they're you know eating a thousand calories a day like you said and they're feeling like shit and feeling like oh this diet stuff's not for me i think that way too do you find that it's more common that you need to recommend that people eat more? Or is that just a certain subsect of people where it's like, okay, actually, no, you don't need to eat more. I just don't want to confuse people into thinking that they're not this person that needs to eat more. Yeah, I actually think that a lot of people probably do need to eat what they would feel like is more. It would feel like more energy to them, but it wouldn't be more energy because it would be more protein, which I don't consider a great energy source. Protein has four calories per gram, but I think that protein, I think that that estimation I think is off. And I think that

protein is almost free calories in my opinion. And I think that if people would eat a lot more protein, as long as it's not accompanied by a lot more fat, then they'd be okay. And that's why we talk so much about certified Piedmontese beef on this podcast. I think sometimes people think everything that's attached to me, everything that I try to communicate about that I'm making a sale or that I have like a gimmick behind it. But certified Piedmontese beef has hardly any fat in it. It's an opportunity to eat red meat without some of the negative stuff that's been associated with red meat in the past.

It doesn't have the same amount of fat, period. It doesn't have the same amount of saturated fat. of fat period. It doesn't have the same amount of saturated fat. If you get grass fed, grass finished on my last blood work that I got done recently, my omega-3 to omega-6 profile was like, it couldn't have been any better. It doesn't make any sense because I don't, I do eat fish, but I don't eat fish that often. I don't eat, if I am eating fish, it's not always stuff that's rich in omega-3s. I am eating fish, it's not always stuff that's rich in omega-3s. So how did this happen? It happened because I eat beef and grass fed, grass finished beef does have a better omega-3 profile. And, you know, some of this stuff, you know, gets to be way out of like, it's too much for people to consume. They don't need to really worry about some of these finite things. Need to worry about the bigger picture. The bigger picture is I would, first of all, if you're a

heavier person, I would think about your energy out. And then I would also think of what energy out your output of exercise movement, uh, your neat, um, non-exercise activities. Um, you know, uh, you getting on a couple of walks every day, you starting to engage in some sort of fitness routine, you hiring a trainer, or you going to a gym, or you, maybe your first place to start is to walk around the block. Maybe your first place to start is to walk to the mailbox. Depends on what level you're at or where you're at. So your energy out, and then also focusing on, focusing on what you're eating and how much you're at. So your energy out and then also focusing on what you're eating and how much you're eating.

So to me that would mean like get on a natural food diet. You can just go and you can check out a diet called Whole30. Really simple. Like I can direct you to a bunch of different diets. Whole30, vertical diet, any of these kinds of diets and, and eat like eat a lot, eat a lot and tell me how far, how long you make it. Like, you're not going to make it very far.

Like I could say, eat as much as you want. Most people, I mean, you know, there's always an exception to every rule. Someone's like, I got this challenge. Um, if you pay attention to the amount of overall fat that you eat if you were to keep your fats like under like a hundred or something like that you should be able to eat almost as much as you'd like without any repercussions if it's from natural foods it will balance itself out over time um i mean you know, eat a serving of meat and eat a good serving of meat and potatoes and a potato. Eat like six or eight ounces of meat five times a day with a potato. You're dead.

You're fucking done. Not five times a day. Oh my gosh. You know what I mean? I don't know. Six times a day, like however many times a day you want. Good luck. It's just going to be hard. You know, obviously, if we have a ribeye and you throw butter on the potato and, like, start getting into a lot of that stuff, we're mixing a lot of things that make it a little easier to eat. But, again, you wouldn't – how many ribeyes are you going to – you're just – it's going to be rough. I did three ribeyes. Three ribeyes every day for three days and it was it's hard it was really hard yeah i made it to the third day and on day three i was

like can't do it i only had two i think so i had to bail it just i've never i've never done anything that made me really like truly want to just stop eating i was done you know when i was trying to like prove you wrong by eating like 400 grams of protein a day i was like i just like i'm tired like i just want to go to bed like i was literally like i couldn't i didn't have anything um but you were talking about like some people might take on the challenge this reminded me of uh i don't know the name of the movie but it was john candy and he ate this like gigantic steak oh yeah you got to bring up that clip it's from the great outdoors is that okay the old 76er or whatever it was or 96er yeah and he gets like a free t-shirt uh-huh and he's just

like dying he eats it so slow well they're like there's nothing left but fat and gristle and they're like yep you got to eat the whole thing yeah yeah that was brutal i'd like to kind of go back for a second and talk about i don't think i nailed this that good when we talked about like getting into something and then wanting to compete in it right away like getting into jiu-jitsu and and the analogy there so this happens a lot in bodybuilding and uh in sema is so brutal with this because in sema just looks great and he's so fucking jacked and everything um but when someone asks in sema and they start talking about like you know prepping for a bodybuilding show he's like i i know in his head like he's super polite so he'd never say this to anybody but i know he's thinking like this guy

needs like four or five years oh you know i mean i know he's thinking like this guy needs like four or five years. You know what I mean? I know he's probably thinking in those terms. But he'll try to change his wording a little bit and he'll say, you know, when is this show? Like trying to figure it out. Did you sign up for it yet? Okay, you didn't. Give yourself six months. You know, six months of good hard training and good eating before you even start your prep. You know, and so I think a lot of times when people are getting into something, getting into running, getting into

jujitsu, getting into bodybuilding, they want to like compete too early on. And the reason why that's a good comparison to your nutrition is as soon as everybody starts making a change with their habits, their lifestyle habits to their, their first goal right away is to lose weight. And you can't be in a rush for that. You can't be in a rush to, you can't be in a rush to sign up for a, like if you sign up for a marathon or half marathon, as soon as you got, as soon as you started running, there's just going to be suffering going on, unnecessary, unneeded suffering. Now, maybe you feel you need that because you need that to plug into your head because someone died and you want to run in their honor or you want to do a match or like, okay,

the mental side of things, that's different. But if we're talking about you losing weight to actually change your life, this is not a competition or a race. losing weight to actually change your life, this is not a competition or a race. This is a very serious thing. And let's work on the fundamentals. Let's get you healthy first. And the way they were going to get healthy first is for you to concentrate on natural foods, eat a fuck ton of protein. How much protein? One gram per pound of body weight, at least, I think is a great place for people to start. Eat some fruits, eat some vegetables, have a little bit of potatoes here and there, have some rice here and there. So you have at least some carbohydrate. The more that you exercise and the leaner that you get, the more that you can afford to utilize those

carbohydrates. The more that you exercise, the more that you turn into a beast, the more that you want to increase your frequency of how often you work out, like Andrew, myself, and Seema, we're all fucking idiots. We all work out twice every day, almost every single day. And we're addicted to this thing and we really love it. So for us, we're going to not necessarily need carbohydrates, but they're convenient to get you from one workout to the next to keep you motivated and fired up. buddy um let's see what do i have here oh there's a 96er oh yeah i do have the 96er i'll pull it up right now god this is good john candy the king don't forget john candy huh dude oh where's the thing oh you know i fucked

it up it's okay i'll put it up right now but what I wanted to ask you is like how do you avoid doing what he's about to do right now, which is – well, I mean I guess he'd be okay. I don't know if that's – I think we could do that. That's not too big in my opinion. That's crazy. But what are some tactics to avoid binging? Because you said you got to avoid that. What do you got for us there? Yeah, I would say that you're going to avoid binging

by starting a new form of binging. You know, the binging I was talking about would be like bad binging, like binging on like ice cream or binging on junk food or, you know, having a little bite. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's good. One tiny little bite at a time.

John Candy's smart. But the way that you would accomplish that and the way that you would get through some binges would be to feed yourself really, really well with foods that are nutritious. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. Oh, he's like shaking. Dude, that's how I was at the steakhouse. Yeah, the Brazilian steakhouse. So the Brazilian steakhouse is a great example okay we we did overeat um you know we were like okay we need to kind of cool it

on how much we eat during this trip well and shout out to the guy that was like came up to us and then he was like he looked at me he's like dude you're way bigger than i thought oh yeah way bigger in person i'm like dude'm going to ride that compliment for the rest of my life. That was so fucking cool. Yeah, I am. But that's a great example. Like we still have fun. We still eat.

We ate the whole time we were there. We kept going to different restaurants. Kind of all we did. We just kept going to different places. And I ate my way through Austin, Texas. But I also had a routine down. Like I ran. I ran with Zach Bitter. I ran with

Nick Bear. Um, I ran with Jeremy Miller. I just, I ran the whole time I was there. You were practicing jujitsu every day and SEMA was practicing jujitsu almost every day. And, uh, we were doing stuff. We were active, you know, it wasn't just't just we didn't just eat but when it was like any sort of downtime like where are we going to eat yeah yeah what i noticed honestly was that i actually eat a lot like i eat a lot of food and even though the the stuff that we were eating out there was kind of like a caloric bomb because like some of it's prepared differently than like that's burgers well I feel so cheap. Out of everything we had, if I could have anything, it would be one of those hamburgers.

Like, that's so silly. But, like, that's just, I don't know, man. It was good. It was really good. But, like, trying to get enough food for me out there was really hard because I eat two meals a day. I eat a big breakfast, almost nothing throughout the day and then like steak at dinner time trying to get like enough eggs for breakfast out there was a nightmare because like i would ask for food and they wouldn't even understand i'm like can i get you know this omelet but then like you know

four eggs poached on the side and they're like we don't know how to ring that up like they just didn't have like a button or whatever you know and. And so I'd end up paying like 50 bucks for like four eggs. This is, I can't sustain this. It was impossible. And then throughout the day, all I could think about was like how hungry I was throughout the day. And I'm like, damn, like I think I have a problem, you know, because I'm like I need to kind of arm myself a little bit better with like fasting like you know I've gone away from you know like skipping breakfast and going throughout the day without eating and out there it really showed like I got like some holes in my game right now but now that I'm back home I'm like way back on the on the egg and breakfast train but it was

crazy I'm like dude I think I'm eating too much right now and it's crazy because yes i am the leanest i've ever been without trying eating more you're right you're right i mean it it's gonna take a while for people to you know it'll take a while for people to get there to where they're fit enough they're motivated enough they're in shape enough to be able to have all this work out like that well but um i think if you really just take your time like there's no there's no real rush you know you don't have to um you know i have a friend that lost 70 pounds in uh in seven months you know like that's pretty wild like that's 10 pounds every month our friend adam who owns the uh country butcher um i don't know if you remember him he was like we did the steak shake shoot out yeah okay yeah yeah yeah the owner of

that place he wasn't like a big fat guy he he's maybe i didn't meet him because i don't he wasn't there that day i'm like i don't remember meeting somebody that had 70 pounds to lose yeah he wasn't there that day um trying to think like we were up there so at some other point but he he's he's huge he's tall you know he's like i don't know six four so um he weighed like 250 or something and now he's down to like 190 so so he didn't he didn't look that bad you know being 250 260 wherever he was um but yeah he's pounds. I noticed this because he posted on his, it's like country butcher, I think, on Instagram. He posted that they had a baby girl.

Him and his wife had a baby girl. And I was like, what the fuck, man? He lost a lot of weight. And, you know, for him, it's just some changes, small changes, just like eating a little bit better, getting in the gym you know some of some of the things we talk about on the show and it's uh yeah you're gonna have a departure from some of the previous eating that you were doing yeah he does look good you able

to find it yeah yeah he looks fucking jacked damn congrats to them yeah uh but you know there's a guy that's uh you know he has a butcher shop. So he's got the food there. But he's got to – he had to make changes still. And he knows about all this stuff. He listens to Rogan. He listens to this show. He's a hunter.

He hunts his own food, eats his own food, all that kind of stuff. But probably just fell into some bad habits for some people. Some people are also drinking, which we don't really talk about that much on this show because the three of us are fortunate enough to not be that attached to it. We could come or go for us, but it's not that way for a lot of people. You know, Bert Kreischer, we're starting to see him make a lot of progress. He's I think he's down like 30 pounds. He's been doing keto but we've seen it happen with a lot of big guys before where they get all fired up about like keto but they still have some of these bad habits so hopefully for him you know

as he starts to go down this road he sometimes at some point has to understand like there's gotta be like, like less drinking has to happen. It just has to. It's, it's the, the issue is going to be for most people as they get older, you're going to lose what I would consider to be like your strength to weight ratio. Like no one really talks about this and I don't know why, because it's the most important thing when it comes to longevity.

In my opinion, there's, there's not a single thing that would be more important. I hear Peter Itea talking about VO2 max. I hear people talking about grip strength. Sometimes people talk about your leg strength. There is nothing more important than your strength to weight ratio, your relative strength. And what that is is how strong are you in comparison to your own body weight?

How can you move your body through space? So think about someone that is, um, think about someone that's like a collegiate wrestler or someone who's like a gymnast. Like they have unbelievable strength to weight ratio, but now also picture in your head, someone who's 75, who can't hold up their own body weight and they have a walker in front of them there's a huge difference there the person that's 75 that has the walker does everyone at 75 have a walker no right um when you're 75 is it going to help to be 280 pounds or is it going to help to be 180 pounds? You know, you're at that age, it's impossible to maintain a really awesome strength level. So for someone like Bert Kreischer,

some of these guys that are, you know, 240, 250 and so on, if you stay that body weight for a really long time, unless you're tall, your strength is going to diminish over time, especially because there's a lot of people that aren't sending a signal to their body to stay strong in the first place. So we don't just lose strength because we're getting older. We don't just have a poor strength to weight ratio because we're older. Your age has very, very little to do with it. It's accumulation of body fat and it's a decrease in your testosterone, a decrease in some of your other hormones potentially, but it's also a decrease in your strength because you're not sending a signal for your body to hold on to that strength anymore. You're not giving your body a reason to hold on to that kind of

muscle mass and the body is very smart. It doesn't have a reason to carry around muscle mass if there's not a signal for it because you don't have a demand for it because it doesn't think that you're still picking up stuff. It doesn't think that you're still walking and searching and seeking stuff. You're not still running. You're not still doing the things

that we were put on this earth and made to do. So the difference between someone that's nine years old, that's running around all day long, again, someone who's nine, 10, 11, their strength to weight ratio is really good. Remember when you were a kid, you could lay on the floor, you could do this, you can jump on your knees, you can do all these things. Some of it has to do with they don't have a lot of body weight. They don't weigh a lot. That's part of it. But they're also strong in relation to their body. That's why they feel so fucking good. You can make yourself feel that way through training, through figuring out a way to lose weight, to lose body fat, to gain muscle mass,

to gain strength. And over time, you'll be able to run faster. You'll be able to jump higher. You'll be able to, and maybe when you're 80, maybe you can't jump the same way as when you were 30, but maybe you could lose less by staying connected to fitness and staying connected to your nutrition. Yeah. Like when you see kids on, on the monkey bars, right. They can do that shit all day long. Uh, I took my son to the park and I was like, yeah, fuck, let me see what I got. And I was like, Whoa, like, dang, that was, it was like a wake up call, you know? Cause I was like, yeah, fuck, let me see what I got. And I was like, Whoa, like, dang, that was, it was like a wake up call, you know? Cause I'm like, I could do pull-ups. I feel like I could hang for a long time, but just the motion of going, it like almost jacked up my shoulder.

I was like, Oh, this is not cool. Power Project family. If you're trying to increase your muscle mass, if you're trying to lose body fat, if you're trying to stick to nutrition plan, if you're trying to get fit, pretty much, if there's anything you're trying to lose body fat, if you're trying to stick to a nutrition plan, if you're trying to get fit, pretty much if there's anything you're trying to do for your health, we know that sleep is the biggest determining factor to help you get from point A to point B. That's why we've been sleeping on eight sleep mattresses for probably more than two years now. And the main reason is the technology behind the Pod Pro. Now the Pod Pro is like the Tesla of beds. It will change its temperature based off of how you're sleeping during the night. And if you have a partner that's sleeping on the other side, they can have their own temperature settings.

We all sleep hot here, and I used to wake up in a puddle of my own sweat. Gross. That doesn't happen anymore because of the 8 Sleep mattress, and I've been getting the best sleep of my life. Now, if you don't want to replace your mattress, you can just get the Pod Pro cover and you can put that over your current mattress to get all the benefits of Eight Sleep. But if you also need to replace your old nasty mattress, you can get the Pod Pro cover and the Eight Sleep mattress. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, you guys got to head over to eightsleep.com slash power project and you guys will automatically receive $150 off of your order. Again, eightsleep.com slash power project Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes.

The drinking thing can get really, like it's a sensitive subject for people because, well, I think it's okay to share it, but like Newsflash, Tom Seger is really funny. And when he was talking to us about Burt Kreischer, he was like, Tom, get this straight right now. I am not going to quit drinking. And it's just like

fuck do you like come on man but for some people like it becomes like their identity especially with him um but it's also the culture right like sean stevenson was talking about it's hard to if you family's over it's like people are gonna drink beer like that's just what happens and the second you don't it's like oh what why are you not doing this you know i was telling a buddy of mine um like yeah it's it's hard at first i'm like people they look at you weird you become the weirdo i was like but then eventually which is what happens to me is i so i got questioned why i'm not drinking uh when i was going for uh when i was doing abs for christmas why are you doing that i was like really like you want a question like that's interesting that you're wondering why i want

to you know do this and i just told him i just want to get in shape and this is like the best way to do it in my opinion is to have a goal and like put it out there and you know go achieve that goal i was like so that's that happened initially and then eventually it was like oh shit you're still going and then it's like how oh, shit, you're still going. And then it's like, how did you do it? How are you able to work out every day? How are you able to not drink? How are you able to do all these things?

So it's a cool shift to go from, oh, you're a weirdo. Nobody really says that, but you feel that. And then going to, damn, there goes Andrew. He's still doing it. He's still in shape. It's a really, really cool shift. And when it comes to that culture, the culture might not change, but then the culture accepts you as the one that's not going to drink the beer. So when it comes to all of this stuff, it's just going to take time.

So you might feel like an outsider initially, but then eventually it's just like, oh, no, that's just what we do. And so what I'm trying to tell a buddy of mine is like, don't don't kill yourself to try to go get the pizza in a couple of weeks. Like you're just going to become the person that can handle himself and skip the pizza or have two slices and be good. I'm like, we got to develop those habits first. Like, that's the thing that you need to do. It's it's just gonna take time and that's the hard part for everybody right is the timing aspect yeah you know i think it uh it'll feel lonely you know it's to some degree but you and you and your wife are both committed to fitness and so uh the family might view you as being more extreme or more weird just because sometimes as a guy sometimes we want to take it to like a different a different level

you know but um i think in my family i think most people are just like i don't think anyone really cares like it doesn't really it doesn't seem to negatively impact anybody that I can think of really. It might, like I don't, you know, I will drink, but it's weird because I'm less likely to drink around like a group of people because I don't, I feel like, I don't feel like it's going to enhance the situation for me. I like to use alcohol as like an enhancement. So like sometimes if I'm with my wife, uh, we just celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary. I'm like, well, I'm just gonna like have some wine with her. Like she likes wine. I kind of dig it. So I'll just have, and, uh, we went to a nice restaurant. I had two glasses of wine at the restaurant. That was plenty for me. I felt great.

And we went on like a walk and stuff afterwards. And it just, it felt good. And it did do what I wanted it to do. It did like enhance the moment. It did make it, I don't even know what the right words are, but it just made it better. And so I'm not going to just like randomly. Luckily, I don't have like an addiction to alcohol, but I'm not just going to like randomly drink. To me, like if I if I am going to drink, I also need to start like it gets me kind of worried.

I'm like, I think I'm going to like end up eating. I'm like I think I'm gonna like end up eating like like if I if I if I drank a lot like when my wife and I went out if I drank like four or five glasses of wine even when we got home even though I'd be stuffed I would want to eat more food I would be like I want pizza or want something because I'm drunk at that point and I'm not really making like good decisions any longer. So I think that alcohol, I think it does have a place in a lot of people's lives. It's been in this world for a very long time. It's around for a reason. So I think it can be of benefit. I think it can help people socially and stuff like that.

But you're going to have to be like responsible. You got to be reasonable with it. And if you're having a hard time being responsible or reasonable with anything, you have to figure out a way to cut it out of your life probably for a little while. And then maybe potentially you could go back to it. Yeah. And again, going back to like the food being a motivator, I don't know. It's hard for me to think that if I have a drink tonight that I'll be more motivated to go train in the morning.

Like it would do the complete opposite. And it's just, man, it's tough. And so that's why, and Seema has been preaching this for a long time, and I'm now seeing it with myself, but not necessarily chasing the physique, not chasing the cool selfies and Instagram posts, but chasing the physique, not chasing the, you know, the cool selfies and Instagram posts, but chasing the performance. Because once you have something that you need to perform for, it's a lot easier to put the food down or not put the food down, but make the better choice. Yeah. Maybe stop eating, you know, an hour and a half before bed so that you can have better sleep, better rest, you know, or wake up a little bit earlier so you can have that extra meal to have the extra calories for the day. So you're

stronger. Yeah. It's just tough to, to be honest with yourself, to be like, yeah, I do need more calories for tomorrow. Okay, dude, but it doesn't have to be a Ben and Jerry's or something, right? Right. Right. That's, yeah, that's where it gets to be tricky. I think that your food can be motivating and your food can be unmotivating kind of depending on the situation. You could eat too much. We were talking earlier about eating so much that you can't have sex.

You're like, oh man. Everything in my being right now is focused on digestion and breathing. And trying not to fart. Yeah, yeah. And trying to crap myself over here. I know the ladies feel that too. It happens to all of us.

So you have to be kind of, you have to pay attention to like how much you're eating, when you're eating. If it was really easy to manage food, I think that all three of us on this show would probably eat with a little bit higher frequency. But it's also, you know, like if you have an option to eat something that's delicious in the middle middle of the day like you might eat way too much of it so like that's why i choose to bring i'll bring like pieces of fruit because i'm gonna eat an apple uh i'll bring carnivore crisps and i'll eat you know just half a bag of them like they're not so they're good i really like them a lot but they're not so good that i want to trash them and just eat like a crazy amount of them and then feel way too full i can even eat some of that stuff you know if we stop the podcast now and i eat an apple and i eat some

carnivore crisps and maybe even like a kai's bar or something like that i could still go run after that you know i might need like 20 minutes or so to let it settle a little bit but that's a that's a good snack it's a good motivator and then when i'm in the middle of the run i'm not like oh i'm not like man i don't i shouldn't be out here today like this is this is rough man it's hot today fuck man oh man my my watch isn't fucking sank you know you just get like annoyed know, when shit ain't going right. It's like everything seems to be kind of soured by it. But I think it's great for people to figure out some form of fitness they want to do or some form of exercise they want to do. We talk about it a lot in this show that your exercise doesn't need to look traditional.

You don't have to spend an hour in the gym four days a week, although that can be beneficial. And for some people, that's a lot of fun. All three of us on this show, we spent time doing that. But now we spend time doing other stuff. And so now we spend 20 minutes. We pop in the gym. We pop back out. We're back in. We're back out. We're fortunate that the gym is right here, but your gym is everywhere. Your gym is like your gym should be like in your heart.

And when your gym is in your heart, when your exercise is in your heart, you want to get that shit out all the time. You're like, oh, I'm just going to do a couple squats before I cook my breakfast. I'm going to go outside. I'm going to do a couple pushups. I don't do a ton of that stuff because I feel like I get so much out of running and so much out of like the routine that I'm in now. But I do find that when I'm not around that stuff, like when I'm not home and have the setup the same way like when we were in austin i was doing push-ups in my hotel room nice i was doing uh i was doing like lunges and stuff in the morning just because i i didn't have the same routine and we still luckily we still got to the gym and luckily we still got to do some other things but um you you want to try to have your exercise be super convenient and you want to

try to have your food be super convenient so the only way that people are going to really have breakthroughs with their nutrition is I in my opinion like kind of the following things make exercise normal and make exercise convenient whatever way you have to make it convenient. That might mean that you got to buy like a new pair of shoes. So like your feet don't hurt when you're doing certain activities. That might mean that you have to have a barbell or a dumbbell set up kind of near your TV. Who cares? Like, oh, it's kind of weird. Or my wife doesn't like it. Communicate with her. Talk to her. Say, look, I really want to make some changes. I'm trying to, trying to be less fat. And I don't think that your wife or your kids or anyone's, I think it would be rare for someone to be like,

you're not doing that. Like, this is dumb. I think that you can come to a compromise. So try to make your exercise convenient. Don't focus so much on just losing weight. However, if your goal is to lose weight, at some point you should be weighing yourself frequently to see that the scale is going down. Because that's like one of my most hated things when someone's like, I don't even bother to weigh myself anymore. And they're still really heavy. I'm always like, eh? Does this make any sense? You're fat as fuck.

You need to get on that scale. You need to make sure that the weight's going downward. It should be going down pretty easily when you're heavier. It's easier to lose weight when you have a lot of it to lose. Although it does take time. But don't focus in on the weight loss right away. Don't focus in on the look right away. Give it about two or three weeks where you're actually eating more food than normal.

Those foods should be high in protein. Keep your carbohydrates pretty modest. If I'm going to just give you a number, I'll just say keep them at like 100. Keep your fats probably around the same, 75 to 100. Sounds pretty reasonable. If you're a smaller person, maybe you got to put them down a little bit lower than that, but about one gram per pound of body weight in terms of the protein, as we always say.

And you're going to have to make the food really convenient. Like you need to have chicken breast in your freezer. You need to have, or it doesn't have to be the food really convenient. Like you need to have chicken breast in your freezer. You need to have, or it doesn't have to be chicken breast. You need to have chicken thighs or whatever the fuck it is that you like. Don't think that you need to eat a bunch of stuff that you don't like to make progress. You just need to get rid of some of the things that you, you just need to part ways for a period of time with some of the shit that made you in the shape that you're in currently. You're not going to be able to. I wouldn't say this for everybody, but you're not going to be

able to lose body fat by eating less of the foods that made you fat in the first place. It's most likely not going to happen. Over time, that could happen. Over time, you could be like, yeah, I still have ice cream, but it's like every other week. But right now, when you're having it every night after dinner, it's not in your best interest to keep eating that shit. Yeah, last thing for me is more like just an announcement, something to look forward to.

We did an episode with Shawn Stevenson. It's going to come out in like a couple of weeks. But some of the stuff that he said will just blow your mind when it comes to some of the stuff that you're eating. Even for me personally, I think some of the stuff is pretty, it's okay. I'm just having regular bread. And in the gym, he broke it down and he was telling me all the different stuff that's inside bread. And I'm just like, wow, my gosh. And then how all the seed oils can make their way into your brain.

It does sound a little scary, but it's just stuff to think about. And then how like all the like seed oils can like make their way into your brain and like all these. It does sound a little scary, but it's just stuff to think about. And I think with the stuff that you're preaching and then the previous episode, I think all of it lines up really, really well. And it's just going to arm people with so much good information that like this whole diet thing, it just won't be such a foreign, just crazy. Like just, yeah, just crazy. What's the word I'm looking for here? Just won't be a foreign thing for a lot of people anymore. And I just think it's really cool that some people are latching on to these Saturday schools and they're just like, dude, that was good. I'm going to start implementing that stuff.

It's really, really cool. That's awesome. Yeah. That's all I want to do is give people information so they can go out and try some of these things for themselves and lose weight. You know, I'm now, uh, 110 pounds down from my heaviest. So I know a little something, something about losing weight. And I think some of the answers are in some of the stuff we've shared today. shared today but also in this kind of simple idea of protein leveraging which very simply is when you eat large amounts of protein especially lean sources of protein it will help drive down your hunger and hopefully over time it will drive down those cravings uh andrew and i are you know we're not stupid like we know that those cravings are there

they're there for us they're there for you we know that those cravings are there. They're there for us. They're there for you. We know that they exist. Like they're always there. But also once you get used to this stuff and once you do lose some weight, once you are making some progress, you can then start to say, yeah, man, it's not a big, I'm going to have some pizza. And for me, whenever I have like pizza, whenever I have something like that, I'll usually kind of think about what did I eat for the day? You know, like what was my day like? Well, I really didn't eat that much. So if I'm going to have pizza at six, I should probably start to get home now and I should probably eat a decent amount of steak so that I eat less pizza.

Still going to enjoy the pizza. I'm not going to be weird if I end up still eating four or five slices. I'm not going to make a big deal about it. But let me eat what I'm supposed to eat first, and then let me see what I think about my decision of eating pizza. And every single time for me it's worked out that I eat less. I also find it like it still tastes good, but it's not nearly as good. I'll eat what I'm supposed to eat. I'll the stuff that's that nourishes me that is an advantage and then when i go to eat that i'm

like it's yeah all right it's good but it's like it's not so good that i need four or five slices i might only eat two strength is never weakness weakness never strength catch you guys later bye