Mark Bell's Power Project - Nathan French - Excelling in Bodybuilding, Marathons, Triathlons at age 22 || MBPP Ep. 848

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

In this Podcast Episode, Nathan French, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how Nathan has been able to excel in Bodybuilding, running marathons and completing triathlons, all at the young age of 22. Nathan also speaks about his decision to start TRT at such a young age.  Follow Nathan on IG: https://www.instagram.com/nathannfrench/ 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://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin! ➢https://www.naboso.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 15% off! ➢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 Code: POWERVIVO20 for 20% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://eatlegendary.com Use Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ 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 ➢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

Hey guys, I want to tell you about Merrick Health, the premium telehealth clinic owned by Derek from More Plates, More Dates. Now, when some people think about Merrick Health, they think it's just another one of those testosterone companies or another one of those blood work companies. But Merrick Health is really cool because, yeah, you can get your blood work done, you can get hormone optimization, but you can also get nootropics. You can also get Viagra. You can get literally whatever you need from that clinic and they make it very, very easy for you. That's why we love Merrick. So Andrew, how can people learn about it? Yes, Merrick Health is not just a one trick pony. But if you did want to get your labs done, we highly recommend the Power Project panel. That's 28 different labs. That's also going to come with a client care coordinator that's going to give you a lab analysis, and they're going to work with you and help you optimize your body.

Again, that's at merrickhealthalth.com slash PowerProject. At checkout, enter promo code PowerProject to save $101 off that entire panel. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. So you got to do your own laundry now? Yeah, unfortunately that's what happens when I chose to live on my own. You're like an adult almost. Yeah. like a an adult almost yeah i think um doing the laundry for me like i said it's it's the worst thing in my life right now um like it's just like i like the process of pulling it out of the washer

in the dryer okay okay and then i've been on this for a long time why in the fuck can it be one machine all that it would take is to stack the washer on the top and the clothes could fall down into the dryer when they're done being washed and then it could get dried up and then I don't know about folding. Like they don't have robots that can fold yet. But Lex Friedman's working on it.

Dude, yeah. Right? Just all one machine. Just one big top-loaded machine. If it really needs to work that way, then just put one on top of the other. It just fucking drops down into the dryer. But Nathan, this is the big question I have for you.

Is the washer and dryer you have, is it like not where you live? Is it like you have to take your clothes to somewhere and then wash and dry it? Or is it in your place? It's in my place. Dog! Okay.

So what's the problem it's it's the process because it doesn't take like it it's you gotta wait for the wash to be done in the wash yeah and then you have to take it to the dryer yeah and then that's another waiting like process and then after that you gotta fold it and shit i just like there's some math behind it too like you can't leave it just sitting there in the uh washer for too long it'll get stank it actually happens you gotta wash it all again fuck my geese in the washer right now oh dude it's been in the wash like a last towel yeah i gotta rewash it you won't rewash it oh i have to okay roll with people in that shit i hope not that's fucking horrible but see that's the thing it's in your house so you put it in you wait you chill you lift whatever you do then you dry it the folding No, I have to. I can't roll with people in that shit. I hope not. That's fucking horrible. But see, that's the thing. It's in your house.

So you put it in, you wait, you chill, you lift, whatever you do, then you dry it. The folding thing I can understand because folding that shit fucking sucks. Yeah, you just put it on. I've never tried. You just put it on the pile. Yeah. The pile just gets bigger and then it gets smaller. You got a girlfriend?

Yeah, she helps with that. Yeah, we establish, like I'll cook and show her gets smaller. You got a girlfriend? Yeah, she helps with that. Yeah, we establish, like, I'll cook and she'll do the laundry. There we go. Modern man. Cooking, she does the laundry. Team effort thing. But I think it's, like, if you think about it, too, like,

when you get out of the shower and you have a clean towel, if you're clean, why should you have to wash the towel? Like, why should you have to, you know what I mean? You don't ever have to wash the towel, really. After a while. What do you mean you don't have to wash the towel? I don't think you need to wash it. What's the longest amount of time you use a dirty towel?

Or has Andy always taken it and washed it? Is it a dirty towel? If you took a shower and then you dry yourself off, all you're getting on there is water. But over time, man, that shit starts. How did you clean it? You cleaned it with water, right? Okay, but are you, okay, is that same towel being used like when you brush your teeth and you wipe your face or you wash your hands and you dry off your hands?

Is that the same towel or do you guys have separate towels? Nah, it's a separate towel. Okay. I'm not an animal. Okay, well, because I just dry mine out. But like I can't use it for that long because Andy's going to take, Andy takes everything and throws everything in the garbage and in the washer and in the dryer and in the dishwasher all day long. You've seen her do it, Andrew.

Mark's just leaving a trail of shit that she has to pick up. I'm like, where the fuck did that go? I just made a protein shake. She's like, oh, I already threw that away oh i'm like what that okay so yeah that took me like 12 minutes to set that whole thing up as a whole production it's not quite that bad but like i get super frustrated if i like i'll have electrolytes and i'll put the cup down like i'm gonna refill that like when i leave the house or whatever and i'm looking all around like like babe you see the shaker cup like oh it's it's in the dishwasher now.

I'm like, fuck. Now I got to dirty another cup. That sucks. What's the longest amount of time you've gone with using a towel? The same bath towel. You personally, before it was put in the washer, what do you think is the longest amount of time you've gone? See, I think I'd say a week. A week. Do you think it's safe after a week to continue using?

Would you, if you were alone, keep using that towel after a week? I want to know. I would say probably not, yeah. Because it gets wet, it gets moist, and then it has this like, it's almost like the wash. If it goes through the wash and it's clean and it sits in there, it's going to, you know what I mean? Exactly. But if you dry it, like I hang it up, you're all good. If the towel can dry somehow, like if it hang dries and it's in open air, it's good forever,

man. It's good forever. I think it's good forever. Y'all need to test this out. I'm actually quite curious what would happen if you just did that for two or three weeks. I don't think it would matter. I think I have done it. Behind Andy's back.

God damn. Yeah, I don't think it would matter. I think I have done it. Behind Andy's back. God damn. Yeah, I don't know. So you're figuring shit out. You live in Austin, Texas now, and you live there for maybe just a couple months or a year or so? Yeah, so kind of what happened was I decided to do, after my bodybuilding show, I always like to set goals for myself just because i think like if you don't have a goal you kind of like aimlessly drift and i i kind of apply that to like uh if you think of like a ship sailing across the ocean um before gps or anything um if there's no specific

like specific destination you're kind of just gonna take a while to get to wherever you want. But if you have a destination, you'll get there faster. Um, and I, I always kind of thought that way. So I always like to set goals like, um, even now, you know, after I hurt my ankle, not being able to do the full Ironman, um, now, you know, my goal is to get stronger, hit a 600-pound deadlift, bench over 405, and then squat over 500. But with that, you know, I moved to Austin after my show because I just really wanted to do an Ironman. I wanted to keep progressing, and I went all in, and I'm one of those people that if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it the right way.

So Natasha was my coach who coached Nick bear and I had Nick bear to help me out. Like just like mindset wise and, um, really pushed me and see how he, you know, trains and goes about his day. And, and Natasha as well, she being a great coach, um, and just having really a lot of people to hold me accountable. Because I'm just human like everybody else. There's a lot of times I wake up and I don't want to do things. But I learned by centering myself around these people. And, you know, my dad as well, blue-collar guy,

woke up every morning no matter what the temperature was, he was out with the shovel working. You just have to wake up every single day and do the little things, and eventually that will pay off. So, yeah, like I moved down to Austin, Texas, full circle, started doing the little things every single day and not really seeing any progress, and that was tough. And over time, I would just like slowly week after week, I became like – we had talked before the podcast, I wasn't much of a swimmer and I was able to swim 1.2 miles in eight weeks.

And you didn't swim before that though? No, no. That's a wild thing things I used to place barriers on myself when I was younger. And I think a lot of people do that and they don't realize it. When he was younger. Yeah. That's cute. He's 22 years old.

You're double his age. I know, right? Look, I'm pretty close. Damn. But I think there's a lot of things that people tell themselves that they can't do. Um, and then they live their entire life like that. For you, what were some of those things when you were younger? Uh, well, a lot of them was, uh, I never thought I would ever be, you know, big and strong,

which I still don't think that realistically, I don't think anybody thinks they're big and strong. A little bit of dysmorphia doesn't kill anybody. But I never thought like, I never thought I'd ever have like somebody like that thought I did anything like remarkable. Yeah. And I don't know. I just, I just kind of like would place barriers that would even swimming that was a big thing like I remember I grew up around lakes and stuff and I would only be able

to swim from boat to boat and I'd panic like I'd be like okay I gotta get to that boat I'm gonna swim as fast as I can to get there um and yeah I just I don't know just like subconsciously at these like little barriers that I even like I was I wasn't always the smartest kid in in school um you know growing up I I listened to the podcast before and I told you guys um I remember you saying you weren't school wasn't always something you were necessarily good at um and that was me I had to work for it and uh yeah I just kind of I just realized realized that the barriers that you place on yourself, if you live by those and you don't face them, they're going to take you over and you're never actually going to live your life you're supposed to. So, for me, I was like, okay. I assessed myself, which is hard to do.

I was like, for the bodybuilding prep, I looked at myself and I was like, I have trouble sticking to a diet for a long period of time. I'm going to do that. I did it. 1,400 sticking to a diet for a long period of time. I'm going to do that. I did it. 1,400 calories at one point for two weeks. And how long ago was the bodybuilding, by the way? That was about four months ago, five months ago. Oh, shit. So I turned around after the bodybuilding show and did the Ironman, half Ironman.

But, yeah, I looked at the bodybuilding show and I was like, well, I have trouble sticking to a diet. I want to learn how to diet. So I did that to the extreme. I dropped 23 pounds in seven weeks. And I did good. I got first in my class. I lost to a really good competitor who almost got his amateur Olympia. Oh, shit.

Yeah, he turned into a pro after the summer shredding so he deserved it looked insane blew me away um but then after that the iron man um assessed my life again um i noticed i had the running down had the physique down i knew the diet it was the swimming i i just realized i was uncomfortable like i was like okay i got got something to work on yeah so why do you think there's like a lot of answers to life in doing a bunch of hard work and maybe in particular doing things that are like really exhausting things that kind of take you to like when you do like a crazy amount of reps or you run really far for a long period of time or you're just doing something where you're getting really

gassed really exhausted why do you think that um it's it feels like some of life's answers kind of sit right in those moments yeah and it's funny you say that um because i don't remember any of my training the easy times like i don't ever think that I've gotten anything away from those and I think like diving back into that question is because sometimes the answers come out when you don't have anything to turn to and that's kind of why I alluded to like I don't run and listen to music because I have that. That's almost like a comforting thing for me. So I think like if you're in like a discomforting area, if you are at a low point,

your mind will seek to things that it needs to improve on. And you don't have that cushion there to go to. So I think if you remove that cushion and you get to the ultimate low, you got to figure out, you got to find things that will get you through something. And then when you find that the ultimate low you got to figure out you got to find things that will get you through something and then when you find that thing that gets you through something you can use that again to get you even further and i think that like dives back into like kind of people describe it as like a pain cave like it you can use these tools in your mind that

will make you push further yeah i have a lot of people are getting into running in the audience because Mark's been running like a madman, right? And you've been doing this for a while, but the no music thing is interesting. I wonder, can you remember to when you first started running and you were choosing not to listen to music at that time too, right? What were some of the problems that you were coming across while you were running, like beginner stuff,

that you maybe found a way to fix that a lot of people are dealing with? Because there's so many little things that happen when a beginner gets into running. And I think you probably have ways to go about it. Yeah. A lot of the things that a lot of people run into is boredom. And they get uncomfortable with their thoughts. And it sounds crazy, but like when you start running and you don't have music, your mind like okay i need something to distract me because this fucking sucks yeah you know i mean like you're you're gonna think like okay i want to quit um but if you i like to i like to think about things either i have to work on or things that i'm grateful in my life if i'm at a low point in the run, I think of things that I've accomplished and it gives me confidence to keep pushing. Um, that kind of sparks like a, like a euphoria in me and it gets, you know,

it just gets me through the run. So I think using tools like that and self-motivating yourself is something you learn only by not training with music because you almost, almost have to like soul search in a way. Yeah. You know, what's interesting about that is like recently I've, I probably should start doing that when I'm running too, because recently I was, I was realizing that there's so much of my day that is filled with some type of noise. I could be listening to an audio book or then some type of music, or I'm listening to something and learning something. But I found that there's, I need, and I've started having more time where I have nothing and I can just

actually be alone with my thoughts. And during running is probably a place I need to do it too. But do you do that in other parts of your day too? Or is it mainly when you're running that you give yourself that time to think about things? And do you do that anywhere else in your day? Yeah. Actually when I lift, and this has only been a recent, probably the past three, three months, I started lifting without music. Um, and, uh, and yet, you know, like sometimes it's on cause I work out at the BPHQ. Sometimes it's on, but a lot of times I'm in there with no music. And, uh, I think I've just like preferred it because there's so many distractions for me throughout the day. And I think everybody can relate to that.

Whereas when I work out, I just love being to my thoughts. And it sounds weird, but I just love like self-motivating. I'll think of stuff. I'll think of anything that like, you know, fires me up or, you know, makes me want to just work hard. I just think it like made me, I i don't know appreciate like what i've accomplished because i'll dig for those if i ever need it yeah yeah i think being left with your own thoughts is like a really important thing yeah because you might have some self-doubt and then you talk yourself out of it you're you might tell yourself to stop or you might tell yourself

this is too heavy this is too hard you should go home um you know for me i could think oh i wonder about the kids or like i wonder what they're doing and maybe i should be home and like just any excuse to get me out of like whatever the hell it is i'm doing and when you walk yourself through that process and you don't have something like music or a video or something playing in the background, you get to work your way through it literally and you get to kind of calm yourself down and say, let me see if I can calm my breathing down. Oh, let me see if I can get my heart rate to go down.

Let me see if I could, you know, maybe I could just concentrate on this run. Maybe just run faster for a little while. It's like hard to even concentrate on that if you have music going or or even sometimes listening in a podcast but a podcast i think can be a little different because you can get you can get lost in your run still by listening to a podcast because you don't have like a beat of music that can sometimes take over your stride yeah and i do

listen to podcasts too that's one thing um I'll do that because sometimes, you know, just not running with music all the time does get old. But just switch it up. Like, I'll do it. But I run the best when I have no music and no podcast because I can listen to my cadence, my feet hit the ground, and I just, like, I'm in the moment. Your thoughts are powerful, man.

You can really, when you when you're just like suffering and thinking about yourself it you'll get some weird thoughts like you'll be like you'll you'll kind of like discover things that you never thought about yourself it forces you to like i said like analyze yourself in like a deep form like sometimes when i'm in a run and i remember back to my marathon prep um i would be like, why do I want to cut this run short? I remember thinking this one specific. Why do I keep wanting to cut these runs short? And I think what I got out of that was because I had trouble at the moment finishing things.

I always wanted to cut things in my life short. So I made sure I finished every run. You cut everything short, bitch. Right? You say that to yourself and you're like, yeah, you fucking did, right? You worked your way through it. I think it just came down to how you do one thing

is how you do everything. And that reminded me of like, okay, if I'm going to cut this run short, I'll probably cut other things in my life short. And that's just kind of how i just try to relate life to training yeah um i make training deep yeah but it's just like how i stay consistent to be honest but for you when did um because i'm curious about the timeline of all this so you've been in that maybe you can take us back to like when you were younger because you said you did sports.

But you did this bodybuilding show four months ago and you've done a triathlon. So I want to know, how did you build up to these capacities? Yeah, how did you build up to this? Also, I'm going to take half of this. Kratom cheers. Kratom juice. How do you do this?

Did you already do half? Just crack it open maybe shake it up a little bit yeah cause you want all the flavor on the bottom to come up to the top

yeah oh lord here we go down the old hatch I just did a half a roux you did a half a roux I'll do a half a roux but I took some

capsule or pills too is this gonna hit me like I'm on another planet I hope so Nathan you gonna fly he loves the taste He loves the taste. He loves the taste. I thought this was like, wow, that's a little different than what I thought.

Very organic. That's a good way to put it. Or a nice way, I should say. That'll build your resilience right there. Wow. Watch that shit down. Wow. Hey, now wash that shit down.

Yeah, I think kind of like diving back into how I started, played sports, wasn't a star athlete. I was good. I would say I was pretty good. I had an opportunity to go to a small D2, and then I had Division III, obviously. Football? Yeah.

And baseball. But I didn't end up doing it. I went to a private school then to work construction and help pay for my college. My dad had a business so I learned. And I've been working with him since I was younger. So I kind of learned a lot about waking up early and just starting my day. Your dad lifts. Yeah, my dad, yeah, like shout out for the genetics. He was a state champion in Pennsylvania when he was 18.

Oh, snap. So he actually, I still wear his belt. Is there some good pictures of him on your Instagram or something like that? Yeah, I can throw some up there too yeah he uh built just like me i mean we're like splitting images of each other powerlifter or bodybuilder he was a powerlifter powerlifter okay okay but he he had muscle mass like he was pretty big um he still is proof of all this bodybuilding you're doing does he make fun of you for at least yeah well back then i feel like it wasn't um bodybuilding wasn't as popular um like they weren't really separate it was like people

usually just trained yeah and they kind of everyone's sort of just trained to be like big but at that time there was no big and fat it was just like people would be like 70s big as they call them like where guys are just like jacked yeah the guys that are super jacked with the big mustaches yeah like i i remember when i was tracking calories like my dad was like just fucking eat like get big like it wasn't like yeah um then that's their mentality you know just like eat shit ton and you know lift a lot milk and potatoes and steak and shit like that right it works yeah Like he had whole milk. He used to show me like he would eat tuna fish sandwiches and shit. Yeah.

PB&Js. Yeah. But yeah, so I, you know, working with him, very manual work. We would dig holes a lot of the times with like a shovel because would um dig up pipes at break-in houses that shit is no joke digging a fucking hole yeah that shit is so fucking hard yeah and the ground's like frozen half the time granted we had an excavator but the excavator can only get so close to the pipe because it'll break it so you have to do the rest of the work um and a lot of times the pipe will be broken and you're in like to your ankles and shit.

Dude, there's a difference to manual labor strength because like I've rolled with guys who like do construction manually and their grip. And they're nasty. When they grip things, it's like you can't, you can't,

you're not going anywhere, you know? So that shit built you up somehow. Yeah. Yeah, no, like I said, I give a lot of my strength from how I was raised. Because I was helping him out since I was probably 10, 11.

And yeah, I learned a lot through his work ethic and my family, that work construction. Every day, no excuses. You got to wake up cold. Who cares? You still got to dig the hole and get the pipe out it's such a good exercise and like when you try it when you're helping when you're young you don't have a skill set to really do anything so all you can do literally is pick up stuff like how can i help all i can do is pick up stuff dummy because you can't know how to do anything

else yeah it's like takes a lot of skill to like you know do a lot of the other things that are needed. And then after that, well, I was still helping him in college, and then I transferred to a Division II school, which just had more kids. I wanted to get away from home a little and just meet new people because my other college was close to my hometown. And there I started taking lifting more seriously. So, you know, like in the college gym, you just want to be the biggest guy there. So I was pounding shit tons of food,

unlimited swipes at the hall. Like I was getting huge, you know? How heavy did you get? What? How heavy did you get in college? Oh, I was probably like, I was probably where I'm at now, but not as good as body composition.

Like I was like a sloppy 210. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, that was, yeah. After that, then COVID hit and I decided to start fitness online. And I started posting on TikTok, just like my lifts and like my physique I cut down and I started picking up I started uh building my platform there and then um I was like okay well like this is kind of getting boring like I don't feel like I don't have like I didn't feel like I

was anything special yeah and uh I just felt like the same as everybody else and I was like I gotta separate myself and it wasn't even to like get a specific outcome it was more of just like I was so bored like I couldn't imagine lifting like this forever and the only thing you were doing at the time I'm guessing was like like power lifting movements and bodybuilding movements and that was just that I mean you looked impressive but that was what you were doing at the time. Yeah, that's all I did. Um, and I didn't even really understand a lot of it. Like I was kind of just lifting the lift. Like, um, I, I didn't even think about how many reps I was doing. Like I said, I was, I still don't have the time. I just make sure I'm lifting a lot of weight. Um, but I, uh, you know, I, I just figured out that like I had to keep progressing

and I had to find something that would separate myself from, from other people and for me to continue, put out content and not get bored with it. So I started running, I did a half marathon. Um, when I first started my fitness page and, uh, I did like eight 30 pace. Um, and what type of prep was that? That, that first off, that's a good pace. That's incredible. I think eight 30 or eight 40, a half marathon. And how long did you prepare for that? Like, I think like maybe six weeks. Um, and then I stopped, It's really important to mention to people what I, what I've observed, um, so far in my short little, uh, running career here is that there's so many people that can do really, really well with running and they might not even be aware of it, but there are people

that probably have a good strength to weight ratio. I've kind of noticed that over and over again. So for some people that unfortunately got heavy when they were young and they're still carrying around extra body weight, it's going to be harder. But over time, if you lose weight, or if you have any strength maybe you're a bodybuilder maybe you're a physique athlete or something you're going to find that you're probably going to be able to run pretty pretty damn good and it won't take a long it won't take a long time for you to build out that capacity yeah yeah i mean for me it uh always came really really easy um just because i a lot of people when they see what i've done they they just like assume that it just happened so easily but like i've been like working um for a while if you counter in all the sports i played and stuff and it just you know gave me a good foundation i

never that's the thing too a lot of people stop like i've never stopped running um i gotta always run a mile really yeah even if it was like a big deal yeah and i guess i i even just kind of thought about that now like um i i would run a mile at least like twice a week maybe was that maybe from your dad or was it because you did say that you grew up like basically on the same block ish of uh nick bear like is that yeah was that centralized around something you grew up with or uh i mean i didn't know too much about Nick at that time. It was more of just because of I just wanted to like, it sounds weird, but I have so much energy, I just need to drain it. So it's almost like an Energizer bunny.

It depleted me kind of. Yeah, I try to share with my son. He'll go out and run every once in a while. He likes to walk more than run. But I just tell him like just get out and just like run a little bit here and there and if you do it for the next several years if you don't get too disconnected from it it will never be hard for you yeah so then um uh with that you know i ran a mile or whatever um i decided to sign up for a half marathon and during covid I did that. Did you have a coach for that or did you just do that on your own? I looked up a plan on Google.

Oh. Yeah. There are a lot of good plans. The Nike running app, there's a lot of ways you can get really good help. Yeah. Look at those shoulders. Yeah. And then after that, I didn't run for a while probably a year i just started lifting again

um and i'm still doing like the little the mild so weak or no running at all i cut it out because i just wanted to see like how much muscle mass or strength i could put on okay i got pretty strong got um you know i think i hit 365 on bench and then i was you know just like bodybuilding movements putting on muscle tissue and stuff and then i uh decided to sign up for a marathon and i think you guys backstory in the past year like i did the marathon uh which was 321 pace, which was like a 730 pace for 26.2 miles. That was the first one that I signed up for. That's disgusting. I was like 205 for that.

Did you warm up for that when you went and ran, or did you just start running like hell right off the bat? No, I just sent it. Actually, right before the race, some guy i never ran a marathon so i was like how does this work um like do i pace myself because some people will they'll jog and walk and jog and walk and they'll take like an hour to warm up because you're trying to when you when you do a marathon especially if you're trying to get a good time it it's the accumulation of all your miles. So you don't want your first couple miles to be 12-minute miles

because that will slow you down a lot. So you just went and just started going like hell, huh? Yeah, because it turns out that course was actually, you can't really tell in the pictures, but it was stone. My feet were bleeding. I don't think I have a picture of that on Instagram, but my feet, my toes were bleeding because it was a gravel course and I bought the wrong shoe size.

I think. Too small or too big? I think it was too big because my foot kept sliding back and forth. Once you feel something rubbing and you're running, you're done. Yeah. So I lost, I lost three.

That's not good. I sent Mark the picture. I lost three toenails in the race on the one side. And then the other side, I lost three. That's not good. I sent Mark the pitcher. I lost three toenails in the race on the one side. And then the other side I lost two. But, no, I did the marathon and then I did the bodybuilding show. How did you – I got a question. How did you finish in terms of, like, the field? Like, did you do pretty well in the half marathon?

I know, like, a lot of times you just run and no one cares. No one cares where they finish, but there are a bunch of people that do care where they finish. Did you finish in the top half? I think I don't necessarily remember. I know I did really well in the group. It was a BPN event, so it was pretty small, and they were all beasts. Everybody that signed up was pretty. It was a BPN event so it was pretty small. They were all beasts.

Everybody that signed up was pretty... I think most of them ran sub 4. I did the half marathon recently in Davis and there were some people that took off in the beginning. There were some people that took off. There were some people that I later caught up to

where they were pretty damn big. There were people that were tall. There were people that like I later caught up to where they were pretty damn big. And like there was people that were tall. There's people that were heavy. There's people that I'm like, man, these people are fucking putting in some really good efforts. It was unbelievable. Yeah, I was 205 and I ran my first until I didn't consume any gels or anything because I didn't understand. I just ran. Wait, is this the one you did fasted?

I did this fasted too. You did the 26.2 fasted? Yeah, well, not the entire race, but yeah, I didn't wake up and eat it. You said you... Actually, I think I had a honey stinger. Oh, well. It's still, dude. We're going to find your honey stinger emails.

Yeah. Trying to get honey stinger in SEMA before today's show. No, I had, I think I had like two honey stingers or something. I remember. But the night before, the night before I had a big ass pizza. Let's go. So I, and my glycogen was full. And that's what I thought in my head.

I was like, dude, I'm ready. I'm primed up. Yeah. And I got into the race, and right at the start of the line, the American National Anthem was playing, and I looked over to the guy beside me. I was like, you look fast. How do you gauge this? I was going to start out slow and negative split which means you get faster

as the race goes on yeah and he's like man I'm just I'm just gonna give it hell I was like sounds good me too so then uh started out the race as soon as it popped off I started running I ran 630-ish pace for the first 18 miles, I think. What? I was 630s for a long time. And then I think I started catching up. I was running too high of a heart rate. My glycogen was falling out. I see why you're excited.

I see why you're excited for this guy. I believe in you. Jesus, fuck. And then after that, i started consuming carbs and uh i just couldn't like catch back up and i started really tanking like i started 7 8 30 9 42 i think i was like at one point i don't think i got over nine um but my feet were just bleeding and it was just a bad situation with my body and i just the wind was gnarly like there was probably 15 mile per hour winds and it was on a back road hilly a little i thought and you notice everything like as soon as you start getting

tired you notice everything you know i remember even just in powerlifting like uh as soon as something started to go bad you would fidget and you would move the bar around and you would check the plates and you would like, you just keep checking, messing with shit. And it didn't matter what you did because shit's just getting heavy. Yeah. And there's nothing you could do and you'd try to like set up differently or have different music or smash your hands together harder with the chalk. But any little difference when you're kind of at that top end or when you are fatigued, you notice it. So something like the wind, something like the ground, like, man, there's lots of pebbles on this. There's lots of pebbles on this track.

It's like everyone else is doing the same fucking thing. Get over yourself. Keep moving. Yeah, I think we had talked before, too. It helps me during a run. And I think anybody that is interested in running and they want to kind of get better at it think of yourself as a car and this is kind of how i did it so when you drive a car it's going to downshift when it gets hard um when there's a particular force on

it like if you're going up a hill it's going to downshift or if you're trying to slow down it's going to downshift so when i would approach a hill, I would take smaller, faster steps instead of taking large, big steps, which would spike my heart rate if I did. So I dropped my gearing like a car would, and I took small, fast steps, which would keep my heart rate lower. And that's just kind of something I discovered on my own. And then when I would run, if there was a headwind uh and i think people do this and i'm pretty sure i learned it from just watching stuff is if you lean into the headwind

um and you kind of like just let your feet fall out in front of you just like leaning like almost like lean into it like you almost feel like you're gonna fall your feet will be there and for my dumb ass headwind is wind coming towards you yeah yeah okay so just lean into it and just like take small fast steps and it you know before you know it like you're going to feel good running into the wind wow um whereas people try to overpower it and you're not going to win um it's wind like it's just it sucks uh but yeah that's just like a little minute things that helped me in my marathon and and always like anything that i've done i've always broke it down into very simple things that i could focus on and control so when shit gets hard you and you look at the big picture like for my iron

man when when i if i would have like thought about all the shit i had to do after my 1.2 mile swim or during my 1.2 mile swim, if I knew I had to get and think about if I had to bike 65 miles after or 56 miles after, I would have been pissed. I would have been in my heart rate would have spiked. I would have been annoyed. Whereas I was just taking one stroke at a time. I get out of the water. I'm like, okay, just got to find my bike.

Once I found my bike, I was like, okay, we're just going to bike. Let's just focus on five miles at a time. I think running and being on a bicycle are pretty similar to the point where you mentioned in the gym, you said, I just wanted to keep my feet moving. And I think you said you didn't even stop, right? You didn't stop at all for any hydration or nothing, right? You just kept.

Yeah, no, I didn't stop at any aid stations. I ran through them, grabbed the water, threw it back. I think in cycling, when you push on the pedal, your other foot goes kind of freely, right? And that happens perpetually the whole time. When you get into a flow with running, and somebody that's out of shape wouldn't be able to feel this, once you get into some shape with running, you may be able to feel this. If you keep your feet moving, it will feel like they're assisting each other. And your foot is almost getting laid down in front of you for you rather than like you picking up these heavy ass legs running through cement.

So it's an interesting thing when you said just keep the feet moving. It sounds so simple, but it is really an awesome cue. And you can almost kind of envision yourself on like an elliptical with every push that you do of one side or every pull that you do. Your legs are going to be moving in conjunction. So if you do get tired or fatigued, especially if you're not listening to music, you might be able to pull yourself kind of into yourself and say, I wonder what this looks like. Okay, I am a little fatigued. I wonder what it would look like if I just used my arms a little bit more. I wonder if I rotate a little bit more, what I'm going to get from that.

I wonder, and you start to play around with your stride and your body and you start to really learn what feels good and you'll get into a state where you feel that it's pretty effortless. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like even something if you're listening to music, you might not be able to tap into that. Kind of like you're saying. I noticed that if music distracts you.

So you're probably not going to think about the little things. Curious about this. Just your thoughts. We had our friend Sam Okunola on the podcast and he's a natural bodybuilder and he's runs now. He listens to military cadences. So just literally like uh you know those were dope he sent me some of that and yeah i listened to it on a run recently and it was it was cool because it's not on repeat it's different from music because it's not like you totally focus on it it just

helps you have a cadence um but your mind can start wandering on other things have you ever tried that or do you like is it either podcast or nothing so i think i never tried that but my feet are probably similar to what you listen to yeah because it just you listen to your feet and you get in a rhythm um so it's probably the same you know kind of system but no i uh i for running and stuff like kind of diving back into what you said about just the things that you can do to get in tune with your body, there's a lot of things that you can pick out when you're running too. You'll notice if you're getting tired, just focus on just bringing your feet off the ground. They're going to come down.

Just lift them up. They will come down. I promise you. You're not going to fly up in there. I just focus. I learned that from Natasha. Like I said, I was around amazing people. She was a pro triathlete.

She taught Nick a lot. What's her Instagram handle so we can plug her? Or what's her name uh her her name is uh she owns nvdm coaching uh her name is natasha von der mire i think i sorry if i mispronounce that sounds good enough yeah yeah she's great she helped me through shout out to her i've heard excellent things from uh nick as well yeah and uh nick too nick helped me out a lot with just a reference of because i i told him i was like dude i feel like crap you know during the ironman nick's gonna be like hey i got advice for you know what it is go a little harder yeah you're like

okay yeah he pushed me through my ftp test which is um on the ironman or and when you're on the bike it's how much power you can put in your pedals. I saw that video. He's like yelling at you, right? Yeah, and he was like ruthless. I was like, keep turning. What's the test?

Like what do you have to do in that test? So basically, you start out, imagine pedaling. It's on his Instagram. I'm looking for it. Yeah, I did it.

There's like a cloud post with Nick. It kind of flashes back and forth. And for Natasha, guys, it's NatashaV vdm 81 i found her on social she's sweet pulled her up too yeah let's just check this out for a minute so yeah tell us about the test again so basically what it does is it measures how much power you can put into your pedals and how long you can do it for and each set or uh each minute the power gets

progressively harder so it'll start out relatively easy and then um as you can see he's counting down is that a special bike or is that just kind of a regular so my bike hooked up to a uh oh your actual okay that's it that's my actual ironman bike yeah it hooks up to a trainer and basically just how much power you put into the pedals is what it measures. And each minute it gets harder. And it's weird because it starts so easy, but then your fatigue plus the increase in power on the pedals that you have to apply to keep them spinning is really hard. So at the end, you're barely spinning. You're pushing it like this,

but you can't stop because you need your power to go up, if that makes sense. Even if the pedals are barely spinning, at one point, they were going like this, barely finishing a circle. Dude, that's gross.

That must have killed. Yeah, I think I did, I forget, like 20 minutes. But my FTP wasn't even that good. It was good for beginner, but there's triathletes that, I don't know if you guys really looked into Ironmans, but there's people that get off a 120-mile bike and then run a sub-three-hour marathon.

That's fucking disgusting. Question about this test real quick. So at the beginning, is there any rest period? You're not pedaling as hard as possible the whole time are you yeah like there's no rest but as hard as possible the whole time like or are you like when you start it's easier intensity so do you go a little lighter and then you increase how hard you pedal yeah as it gets harder yep okay yeah okay yeah how long did you say you do it for? I think I did. It was like total probably 25 minutes. Holy shit.

Yeah. But I'm telling you though, like that's what. Did it give you a lot of good information? Yeah. It just provides kind of like a baseline. Like I did it when I started and then when I finished. Oh, I see. Just to see how much strength you got throughout the training.

But basically like I'd say biking is the hardest thing that I ever did. Really? I think it's way harder than running. And harder than swimming. Swimming is more technical, but as far as effort. Effort. Yeah. Really?

Like, on a bike, if you're not, and I think a lot of it's, like, you got to put power into the pedals. Like, when you're when you're uh 70 miles into a ride like your body i don't like unless you're you're really trained for it you're gonna feel it and it's almost like squatting on each foot if that makes sense like do your legs kind of like almost feel like they don't work after a while uh yeah i mean if i don't feel right like because i know sometimes when i'm running especially if it's like it's been colder sometimes it's a little bit windy i like can't feel my legs

yeah i imagine that has to happen on this well a bike for me it doesn't just because like you have to put power into the pedals like you have to feel it um but i'm clipped in so i can push and pull oh yeah yeah but if you guys haven't gotten into biking, it's awesome. It's fun. It's really... Goddamn, turning into one of those guys with the padded butt. Yeah. Walking into Starbucks with the shoes that make all the weird noise.

Yeah, those are the clipped shoes. But no, it... And all bikers have great quads. Like, that's one thing you notice. A lot of cyclists have really large quads. Yeah. And actually, biking, you would think you push but you pull so i'm not i'm not instead of pushing down on the pedals you know if you think of it like that you're taught to pull interesting so like when the pedals here you're pulling so so full circle if you think about like what i said

about running lifting your foot off the ground it's going to come down on a bike if you lift your pedal up from the back side it's going to come around. Now, quick question, Nathan, because I don't know, for the 26.2 that you did at 321, did you do a prep for that or did you decide to do it and you just went into it? Yeah, I did 16 weeks. You did 16 weeks. Okay. What was that like? Was that coming off of your year where you stopped running and then you're like, I want to do a marathon. So 16 weeks you prepped.

Yeah. My first run was like a two minute or two miles. And I think I remember it was like 930 and I was really like kind of upset about it because I was like, man, like sub four seems like impossible. And then I just kept chipping away at it and kind of just forgot about that run and just slowly, incrementally focused on increasing mileage and staying low heart rate. And over time, honestly, even before the race, like, I thought sub four was hard. Like, I thought, man, I might not be able to do it. Like, I was running eight-minute miles for like 22 miles um so I you know I knew I could do it but I didn't know

how the race was gonna happen nobody knows what a race is gonna do how you're gonna feel um so then I went into the race and I just had the mindset I was like I'm not gonna fucking quit we're just gonna give it everything i have you know say say it takes four hours once it's done it's over like no matter how much pain i feel like it'll it'll eventually end and i just had that mindset like throughout the race and i just it really helped me just being like fuck it i'm not quitting was Was it painful? Yeah, yeah, for sure. How many minutes or miles in? I'd say only after mile 22 it started to get painful. That's when the race starts. They say the last six are the worst. Even though you were running a 630 for the first 18 miles.

But yeah, I think that might have been why it actually really was bad for me. That's what you're on, a 630 pace? For a lot of it. I don't exactly remember's what you're on 630 pace for a lot of it i don't exactly remember i started out like 630 642 yeah i'd probably pop up the 720s and then i'm dropping the sixes again it's all depending on the wind and how i felt but yeah i was wow dude but uh yeah no i think it just i just flicked the switch i think that's kind of one thing I do take pride in um I can flick a switch and just get after it like I just don't give a reason or any justification to quitting what does your coach think um does your your coach like do they mention it there are they

like man I think you really because it sounds to me like you could really push this and it sounds to me like sounds to me like with with some more this, and it sounds to me like with some more time, you could get under three hours. Oh, yeah. Now, one of the running coaches who's a part of BPN, he had mentioned to me, he said that, like, I could have ran sub three if that was a nice course, like he said, because it was that difficult.

That's what he said. I don't know if I could have, but that's what he had said said and i think yeah i'll definitely you know prep for one and run the sub three um i just right now it's just um i i liked it like i'm not even running right now um i can just jump into it to be honest i don't really need a whole like as long as i do cardio stairmaster or elliptical or just master this morning right yeah as long as i do cardio, Stairmaster or elliptical or bike. You did Stairmaster this morning, right? Yeah. As long as I do some sort of cardio, I feel like I'm fine.

Like, and like I said, for my Ironman, I barely ran for my Ironman, my half Ironman. What do you mean? I barely trained running, like barely. I mean, the furthest I ran,

that prep was like eight miles. Probably makes sense since you seem like you have a proficiency there. So you're like, let me spend my time on the bike and in the pool. But yeah, so what the cool thing is and which was really cool is like Ironman training, the swim builds everything. Really? The swim and the bike build everything. Like everything builds on each other. So like if you can become efficient with your breathing in the water,

you're going to be an amazing swimmer. We got to swim, bro. Shut up. I saw the glisten in your eyes when you said that. No. I can. Okay? Not great, but I can.

Why are you saying it that way? I think you could do it. I think I can too. Thank you, Nathan. Thank you. Like I said, I was not a swimmer by any means. I remember Ben Alderman. I think my wife saw a video or something of him swimming,

and he was really trying to get, he's really trying to get a swimming better, but when he was doing CrossFit and she, my wife was like, this is just like hopeless. Like it's just not gonna, Andy's the worst with that stuff, but it's just cause, uh, Ben has, it's like so bottom heavy. He's got a big old ass and he's got some thick ass legs. And so Andy's like, nah, it's not going to work out. Yeah.

No, but swimming was one of those things that are kind of just like, it taught me how to just really do things that were uncomfortable. And I wanted to talk about this on the podcast. There was a period of time where I started swimming. I don't know if you guys ever had a fear of water. Fear of it? Like being in it like I have a I have a very healthy respect for it like I don't want to do too much crazy stuff like in the ocean because I'm like I am not a great swimmer and so I recognize that I know the ocean you could feel like you're fine and then you cannot be fine really quick and

then it'd be hard to get out of it for me personally that's also like that's where i get uncomfortable when i got a lot of respect for i'm like i i know that i'm gonna panic but i know it's deep like if that shit's like 12 16 feet i'm just like so that's that's where i'm uncomfortable yeah getting stuck in an undertow when you're a kid will change that shit what's an undertow just like a like a kind of basically like a wave under the water but you can't like get out of it so we were we were boogie boarding and same thing like i got taken under and i'm like oh it's time to get up and then just wham and it just shot me like even further down i'll just like i can't breathe and there's there's a long way to go so since then i've been like pretty like i'm gonna not get into the water where i can't touch the ground yeah did you have a fear of

water yeah so that's what I wanted to talk about. Did you guys ever have anxiety before? Well, there was a, yeah, I've had anxiety. It was within a bad relationship, but that was the first time I felt real anxiety. So real anxiety, though,

is no joke. And I didn't know that. I never had anxiety and I sound like a kind of like a dickhead saying it but i kind of thought it was like weak to feel anxiety i thought it was just an excuse um a lot i think a lot of people still think that yeah and that's just one thing i kind of want to say is it's not it's real so anybody's struggling with it like it it's tough but you can overcome it so what happened with me was i uh nick gave me his wetsuit so it was worn before but it was in good condition um and i got in the

water with it keep in mind uh i didn't know i was supposed to wear anything under my wetsuit so i was completely naked i would have thought so either i I thought, let's put that on. Hey now. Yeah. So my girlfriend was there at the time, but she's not like a swimmer by any means. So I was kind of practically alone out there, and it's a big quarry, and it's 130 feet deep. Jesus. And I wasn't an excellent swimmer at the time. Was anyone watching? She was there, but she was watching me. But it's so big that you kind of lose what's out there.

And I had, I think it was a mile swim. And I started swimming. And I think I was maybe a quarter mile in. And I started getting tired. And I remember I kind of stretched oddly to uh to extend my stroke in the water and uh my wetsuit broke yeah like broke on me and i started filling up with water my wetsuit almost was becoming something that made me sink and i started freaking out it even makes me nervous talking about it

it's making me kind of nervous I started I'm like shit I started freaking out and uh I was looking into the depths of the water and I was like dude this shit is 130 feet deep and I feel like I'm gonna drown so I looked to my like ahead of me and I was like, okay, there's probably a little platform I can grab. I just have to make it to that platform. And so it started to fall off my legs at this point. It was pulling me under the water. So I, it just became like a weight. So, and it was still on me. So it was kind of dragging me down. So I swam, I kept swimming and then my mind just was racing. I was panicking at this point, and I didn't know how to calm down. And it triggered anxiety.

It turned into this panic attack. Yeah. So I looked at my watch, and my beats per minute were at 194. Oh. Yeah. That'll give you even more anxiety. Yeah. So then my goggles started fogging up because I was breathing in the air and it was just really bad.

And I got to the platform and I remember thinking to myself, I was getting lightheaded. I was like, I legit feel like I'm going to pass out. I think I could pass out in the water right now. And I looked to the shoreline and I could see my girlfriend and I was like okay I just got to get back there um so then I like I swam finished like most of the swim did you still have the wetsuit on or did you ditch it at that point no I kept it on um and one of the reasons why I kept it on is because uh I have like on is because when I had the panic attack, I realized that I like to self-reflect a lot.

But in that moment, I was like, what am I going to do when something like this happens in the race? I can't just quit. And some people do. A big reason why people don't finish Ironman is panic attacks in the water because you're surrounded by people swimming on top of you, kicking you, pulling you, like scratching you. So I was like, okay, well, I got to get back.

So I legit had a panic attack the entire way back to that platform. Like it was the longest swim in my life and it wasn't even far. And your breathing was probably like, were you inhaling water too when you were trying to come up for yeah yeah and i was also like i had to stop and like tread water because i couldn't every time i would look into the depths of the water it scared me and i never had that before i just saw darkness and then so i had to like like i just forced myself so that, it was really bad. I was afraid to get back in the choir. I went like a whole week and a half without going back in.

And I told my coach, and there's another guy at the time who really was struggling with this, and unfortunately he ended up not doing Ironmans because of it. So I knew I wasn't alone but I knew it was something that could get worse if I didn't address it and in the moment I was like I need to face my fears and I need to overcome this anxiety of the unknown and I realized that's what I took away from it I actually made an Instagram post about this there's a lot of things that in life that you can't control and that scare you that are unknown and i think that was for me was that that was a signal for me it wasn't the swim

like that's not what made me have a panic attack is being worried or scared about what you can't control yeah the water's deep you can't control that yeah but what you can't control. Yeah, the water's deep. You can't control that. But what you can control is how you react in the situation. So I forced myself to get back in the water and just swim and focus on the things I can control, like my stroke, my breathing. And after a time, I just made myself swim every single day and get used to it. Are you able to use a similar resilience when you see negative comments on Instagram?

No, just because like the negative, yeah, I kind of do. Like I feel like negativity in anybody's life is a lot of the times it's just their insecurities. life is a lot of the times it's just their insecurities but also i think uh i think it just bothers me because i work very hard and like you know people always want to come to the like they'll say oh steroids or they'll say uh you know like they'll just throw out some random shit that is completely irrelevant and like probably would make it worse. And they really feel the need to say it. Like they feel compelled to say it. Yeah, like my comment section like on TikTok when I post a video, it's always like trending things possible.

And I'm like, you really think I'm on trend training for an Ironman? Like what is going through your head right now? for an Ironman? Like, what is going through your head right now? Like, I just, you know, I think it just, I think the only reason it bothers me is because my, the amount of effort and work I put in to trying to show people what you can accomplish, whether you're on stuff or not, like, I imagine it's definitely way harder being on shit, like, which people don't understand. It makes you heavier, I'm sure.

And you, you you know you just for something like running it could potentially yeah and even like swimming like you probably get so pumped up that it would be hard to even be flexible like that's all being arrow in the water you would have to choose your performance enhancing drugs wisely yeah i guess and I think it just, uh, it made me realize like, I think our, our society, my society being 22, everything's instant gratification. Um,

like you think of everything, whether it comes to like, you know, kind of instant, everything, everything, instant, instant cancel you because like they want to cancel out.

Not that they're trying to cancel you necessarily, but trying to cancel out what you did because, oh he has this yeah and it's like it's one of those things like you can go on your phone and get anything right now whether it comes from sexual desire which is i think fucked up like that you that's a whole rabbit hole in itself and then also you talk about um instant gratification of about instant gratification of food, instant gratification of just seeing something that's going to motivate you. Like why do you, like I'm going to be honest, like I used to use a lot of motivation of other people and then I was like, to a point I was like,

why the fuck do I need that? Like I don't, I shouldn't need someone to motivate me. I should want it for myself. So then I just like, I shouldn't need someone to motivate me. I should want it for myself. So then I just like, I started distancing myself from social media of desired instant gratification. Yeah. And I just kind of earned it for myself, if that makes sense. I think the most effective thing for me when it comes to like comments is just to not look at them. I can handle them.

I can look at them, can handle them i can look at them but it's just it's it's not a great like what am i looking for in the comment section you know what i mean yeah um if i'm looking for people just to pat me on the back and to agree with me like what does that mean like that's not necessarily great and uh otherwise i'm probably just looking for something negative. I want to see, like, was there a negative response to this post that I totally did an underhand pitch with to leave myself wide open for criticism? But you still can find yourself sometimes wallowing in that, and you're like, why did I choose? I was talking to a friend this morning about this,

and they're getting more and more popular, and I're like, why did I choose? I was talking to a friend this morning about this and they're getting more and more popular. And I just said, you know what? It's not your only choice, but it kind of is your only choice just to not even look at the comments at all because they're not very relevant because they're not coming from people that are like in your day-to-day.

Yeah. And I honestly think that like anybody that is hating on it, you guys have platforms, like anybody that has ever given you hate, I doubt it's ever been somebody that has been above you in a sense of what they've accomplished. You know what I mean? Like, I can't imagine someone having a successful business and knowing what it took to get there and hating on anybody or a podcast, hating on them like Joe Rogan.

Like, you know what I mean? Like he wouldn't hate on anybody below him. Yeah. Um, so that's just kind of like my outlook on it. Like people that hate are just envious. There.

Yeah. There, you know, it is tough because sometimes like you, I have a tough time not looking at comments because I'm curious about feedback. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Um, but we are, we doing a good job and then you see a negative comment and sometimes you might interpret that as, I think that's what we do is we interpret it as that we're doing a bad job. We're really a bunch of softies and it kind of hurts your feelings. You're like, no man,

I'm, I'm talking, this is a good effort that I'm putting in. Try to help people, you know, and someone shoots it down and then you kind of feel crummy about yourself. Yeah. your feelings you're like no man i'm i'm fucking this is a good effort that i'm putting in try to help people you know and someone shoots it down and then you kind of feel crummy about yourself yeah but but i do find it interesting the perspective of an individual that's quote unquote hating because like they're okay so there there's comments of people that may disagree with what you're actually doing and like oh you could do this better blah blah okay and and there might

actually be something there but it's an interesting perspective of, like you mentioned, taking the time to go on somebody else's thing and like leave a legitimately hateful comment or a comment that like discredits what you're doing because of what you look like or whatever it, it, it is almost sad, you know, because you got to imagine some, some people, maybe they haven't been able to achieve or they want to be able to maybe achieve an aspect of what you're doing, but maybe they don't think it's possible for themselves so sometimes the easiest thing is to be like oh fuck that dude i'm gonna let him know fuck him you know so when you kind of look at it as it was more so of like oh then you kind of have some some sympathy you know because to be in a situation where you are doing that and you do that

continuously on the same person's post, it's sad. And you're like, they're not getting what they need in their life. They aren't getting what they need, which is why they feel the need to do that. It is what it is. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. Cause there, there's, there is time and like an opportunity to have a discussion, right? Like we didn't like this guest you guys had on the show whatever and then sometimes there's people that are just trying to stir the pot and

talk shit so when that does happen though like when you say like i'm gonna tell this guy fuck you but like that's kind of what he wants though right like so are you just like feeding the trolls more feed them with man i you know what you i think you'll like this we i personally like to uh i like to make them uncomfortable so if if they leave something weird i'll be like okay baby i'll leave like a little heart or something like oh daddy like i'll do shit like that because they don't know how to handle that i will eat your ass i will eat your asshole these trolls don't understand you troll me man we're about to be best friends i think that's the best way to handle that shit yeah you can make it fun make it fun i used to uh look up like random stuff and send it to people i found like the metal that was originally used for like

space exploration and i i looked it up and it was like this alloyed something this whole big thing and this guy was just saying like well it's easy for you to say because you're on steroids and so i sent him this whole thing back i'm like here's the facts and it was all about this like steel or some shit he must have been like not wrong they did use that steel to get to the moon i sent somebody like facts on giraffes or something one day because they were talking shit and i was like yeah dude but did you know and then just like a whole thing about like baby giraffes heard this before and it shut them up completely i was like that worked oh man you gotta troll them back i guess i guess what's up

family it's time to stop dressing like you're a fucking preschooler and step your game up by checking out viore clothing now i'm not one to talk i wear a fucking pink hat that has a dog on it but at the end of the day at least my shirt and shorts are popping so head to viore because they have great stuff for your top and your bottom andrew how can they get it yes you guys gotta head over to viore.com slash power project that's v-u-o-r-i.com slash power project and you guys got to head over to viore.com slash power project. That's V-U-O-R-I dot com slash power project. And you guys will automatically receive 20% off your order. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes.

Let's get back to the podcast. But I think it's pretty cool, man. Like it's an interesting thing because you're 22 and you started off on TikTok a few years ago. So a lot of this stuff is kind of fresh for you. But you're also in that generation. So it's interesting that you're choosing to distance yourself from social quite a bit because with you having to create so much content, it's somewhat difficult to create so much shit and then put it away, which is something that we should be doing. But

that's a really dope observation on your side of things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you see that with other people your age? I know you said you're mainly around people that are a little older, but are you seeing more people kind of push some social away or not really? Uh, so a lot of my, a lot of, you know, um, I don't know. Do you guys know who Alex Eubank is? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I know Alex. I know all those guys um we all started together actually on tiktok so me you know i kind of met alex back then um and now he's very you know he's very successful he's killing it yeah um yeah i think i think he does too i think we all try to it's just tough because um you look at it as like you're trying i think generally most people are have good intentions with it like i've good like my intention is just to show people like

don't ever tell yourself you can't do anything like i i don't know that's just what i try to portray out there and then when people say try anything's possible it's just like like you're getting the opposite of what I want you to do. You definitely need to make a shirt. Yeah, I should. You need to make a training things possible shirt. What they said, the one comment saw that, it said, God, they put my name in it. I forget what it was.

It was funny. But yeah, no, it's just, I don't know. I think just in general, social media can be good if you follow the right people. And like I said, following you guys and being on the podcast now has come full circle because I used like what your approach to dieting with protein leveraging and the people you had on the podcast podcast with Stan Efferding, with how he eats. I literally do that. I guarantee you I eat very similar to you guys just because of listening to what you guys do. I was going to fast today, but I didn't because I wanted to PR on bench,

which I didn't fucking get. Yeah, I think social media can be, like, kind of transforming if you do the right things and follow the people that, you know, inspire you or make you want to be better. You said that the protein leveraging had a huge impact. What do you think are some things that it did for you? So for me, it taught me that I'm not really hungry when I think I'm hungry. And it taught me too that – it taught my body that I think like it helped control my – I feel like my hunger because I don't have the spikes in my like blood sugar where I get really hungry, if that makes sense. It does make sense. I know exactly what you're talking about if i just had a protein coffee in the morning rather if say i just ate a honeycomb stinger or something

since we talked about that say i just ate that my blood sugar would spike and then eventually come down at some point in the morning and i'll get hungry again where i you know i still get hungry but it's not as like doesn't smack me in the face um so protein leveraging has helped with that and also like it just minimizes how much food you can eat in the day because you're only eating um till you know 12 or 1 o'clock yeah helps you control the overall amount of food that you consume and then most of the other food that you eat is like rice meat potatoes but you still eat uh a little bit of random stuff here and there or not really yeah so uh for the most part, I think for me,

and I think a lot of people can relate to this, if it's too strict, I just can't stick to it. I have a lot of willpower when it comes to physical attributes, but when it comes to eating, it's just something I like to enjoy. So for me, I love the variety. I love eating healthy. I love the variety of food. Like I love the variety of food like i'll have i'll have uh you know i'll go out like there i'll have kava that's kava i don't know if you've ever

had that what is that like a poke bowl no it's uh mediterranean chipotle that's a socal it's like super popular so yeah right it's amazing i've heard of it um but then you'll have like some monster mash type stuff yeah like i'll i'll i just like i always keep it very clean the only time i'll ever make it like necessarily unhealthy not even like a rice crispy i'll have that pre-workout i'll always make sure i have it around my workouts yeah so and it's never over indulging i would over indulge when i cut it out completely. But if I can sprinkle it in, I'm fine. I don't really need anything crazy. That's a good concept.

But that's just – Yeah, if it keeps you on your path for longer, like as we talked about in the gym, I think if people can just open up their playbook a little bit in their diet and then you can always shrink it back down if you need to. You might need to say to yourself, i need to stop doing that shit like i had a rice crispy treat but then it turned into two rice crispy treats and i ate a bunch of other junk i need to rein that back in again and so you can do that periodically and i i agree with it because so many people they uh restrict so much that they end up binging. And that even if you're staying in pretty good shape,

I think going back and forth on binging just can be a slippery slope. Yeah. I was there before, after my show. I would eat healthy for a day and then I'd binge for two days. And granted, that was because I crash dieted. I had to for a seven-week prep. I mean, I was lean, but I wasn't to the shredded level that I got to. And did you do this yourself or did you work with somebody? I worked. Do you know who Alex Toplin is?

I don't. Yeah, I coached Christian Guzman. Oh, cool. So I worked with him. He was great. But unfortunately, we just had to lower the calories just to get to the goal. Seven weeks. Yeah.

Yeah. So anyways, I just was in a period of like just eating clean for a day and then just like saying fuck it and binging. And it got pretty bad because not like I was never like I was never close to like eating so much I would puke but like the one time like the day three days after my show I'll never forget this this is literally absurd like you guys are gonna think I'm disgusting like I got my flight got laid over so I had to sleep in a hotel by the airport so I didn't have any healthy food alternatives yeah and I didn't cheat on my diet after the show after the first day like i was fine so i thought i was good well i never used doordash before so when i did i looked up what doordash was like because i'm from a small

town like we don't have that shit um and i looked at doordash i was like first thing that comes up of course it's something like cookies. Did you ever have crumble? No, I've never had crumble. We have like an insomnia cookie and stuff like that. Yeah, but we have a bunch of crumbles around here too. Yeah, you do. I need to try it. Oh my God.

Dude, I have two near my house. Dude, I love cookies. We're going to DoorDash some crumble here right now. I'll tell you what. I legit like looked it up when I got off the plane flight here. That's how bad it is. Oh, shit. Maybe I shouldn't try it.

These cookies are this big and they're perfectly made. And it weighs like 10 pounds probably, right? Yes. Thick, like a whole stick of butter probably to just make one cookie. It's stupid good. How many did you eat? I had eight. hundred hell yeah six hundred calorie uh a cookie all right so close to five thousand calories that was just the cookies uh-huh let's go let's go this is getting good i fell asleep i was in a coma i think i fell asleep i woke up i was like all right i'm hungry again what's the next thing i can eat i ordered uh a foot long from subway because there was a foot long what

dude this sounds like a commercial for doordash there's uh there's a foot long close by so i ordered it it's cheap subway though you to listen to what I put on it. For some reason, I was craving tuna fish. Do you like tuna? Yeah. It's kind of weird. To weird craving, especially with cookies. Tuna mayo.

Was that a tuna? Tuna melt. Tuna melt. Those are good. That's what I had. I see. But instead of being normal and getting a tuna melt, I asked for double everything. So I got double bacon, double cheese, double tuna.

I finished that. At least there's protein in there, right? It's probably like, what, 1,800 calories, right? Maybe? Oh, yeah. You think more? I think more. Probably more.

Let's say 2,500. 2,500, yeah. Double cheese, double bacon, yes. And hit the spot but i still uh we're currently at 7300 calories yeah okay wow dang i never even thought and then uh he's like maybe i shouldn't finish this story it's bad he's like so i'm in the hospital well i'll tell you what happened to me on the next morning um but then i was like, all right, I just need something small because my stomach couldn't. But I didn't feel like if I don't know if you guys ever like dieted that hard that like nothing that you will like make you feel good.

So I was like, I just need like one more thing. So I got a chocolate bar and then I went to sleep. Like I think I fell asleep at like seven o'clock and woke up in like a coma um but the next morning i had an early flight and i remember waking up and like i was like my face felt fat as shit like i was like all bloated i had a headache i could barely get out of bed it looked like i i almost felt like i just had like 30 beers like it was horrible like and uh i got out of bed like i remember when i got on the fucking when i got on the plane and we took off i swear to god my blood pressure was that high there was air coming out of my ears i swear to god it was releasing out of my fucking ears like

it was like pressure valve yeah like i literally felt my ears open up and just like i was like did your feet feel weird yeah like yeah yeah like my socks his face the morning that's how i felt i i didn't barely open like a sharp pay i remember walking like through the airport been there and i thought people were just like staring at me like i was like they probably they know i just binged yeah god damn hey that was bad that's really bad discovering doordash for the first time yeah it was powerful too powerful but yeah that was uh and then after that i i kind of almost almost like I needed it. It sounds stupid, but I don't recommend doing that at all.

What are your current thoughts on the Liver King stuff that we're seeing swirling around? So with Liver King, I think a lot of people are just hyper-focused. I don't agree about him lying. I don't think that's a good way to go about selling something. I don't think you should lie about anything um i don't think that people should hate him though and like completely like lash on him because yeah he might have taken peds but his intention was to was to i think was the ancestral like life which gets you away from being on your phone and kind of like living like people do today. Like focus on the simple things in life and you'll be happy.

That's pretty much what the ancestral – You think it's a little bit reasonable for him to be attacked only because he was like so like he denied it so much and talked about it being subprimal if you take them and all that kind of stuff so like maybe he needs to get roasted a little bit yeah no i think it was just a wake-up call for him because it's like when you when you start if you would just say whatever say he did lie about it and i was at like he just said he didn't do it that's okay we're not okay but it's not as bad whereas if you're gonna tell people that do take steroids that they're inferior and you're doing it yourself it's like there you kind of like shooting yourself in the foot but like I said like I think

he I always see the good in people and I think he generally, I never met him, but I think he, he wanted to put out a message of living simple in life, living, don't, don't just get caught up in like all technology and social media, which is very easy to do. Oh, he got caught up in technology. Yeah. And then again, I don't know. It's difficult because then he's doing it himself. Right. It's weird. Like the whole situation is. It's a big reason why I think he didn't do it until, you know. It's difficult because then he's doing it himself. It's weird. The whole situation is –

It's a big reason why I think he didn't do it until like a year and a half ago or whatever it was. What do you guys think about it? Yeah. I made the statement on the show that I had my own opinion and I just never shared it. And I'll probably just keep it that way because I just – I've been around a long time and when you see certain physiques, you think certain things. So, um, I just didn't think it was helpful to really talk about it a whole lot. And, you know, now that, uh, I guess we'll see if we can have him here and we'll see if we can get, uh, you know, some other guests on the show and

I guess just get people to talk about it and people to talk about it openly. I think, uh, there was, I think the reason why I went think the reason why I personally went to see him was I thought there was a lot of information that was misunderstood. So I started hearing that he was successful before he was on social media and things like that. And I saw most of the comments are, oh, this guy is just shilling stuff. He's just trying to sell stuff and things like that. And I kind of looked at it a little differently. I was like, oh, I don't really see the same thing. So let me go find out.

Let me go see him. Let me go talk to him and let me – I like him. He was a fun guy to be around. I hope I see him again soon. I hope we cross paths. And what he did is something that is going to live on for a very long time. It's going to be a verb. Oh, the guy liver kinged it.

He's not in the same category as Lance Armstrong, but he damn near got himself to that level where Lance Armstrong went after people and sued people, you know, for lying about this and lying about that. And the whole time he was lying. And Lance Armstrong is the greatest endurance athlete. There's not even a close second to how good of an athlete he was. But I don't think anybody will ever really give the credit to him because of the way that he acted, not so much the fact that he just did PED. So I don't know. It's a really interesting situation, and it's something that people will talk about for a long time. The way I like to kind of look at things is that there's a lot of lives involved in sharing this information and in talking about it. So I think there's the one

side liver king deserves to get fried um and uh he he did lie he was asked many times i asked him specifically myself he lied to me he lied to my brother he lied to probably had to lie to his family he probably had to lie to a bunch of other podcasters to ask him the same exact question. So I had to take that lie and he had to continue to propagate it around. Does that make someone a bad person because they lie? I ain't the one to judge that. I don't have any idea. I've lied many times.

I will continue to lie. I think it's part of human nature. I think we're all a little flawed in that way. And I guess the one thing that I didn't really like seeing was just the airing out of like someone's personal information. And again, you could say, hey, I think he deserves it and that's fair. But I don't want my own stuff being aired out, and I don't wish to see Derek's stuff being aired out or Zach's stuff, or anyone that was involved in any of this stuff. I don't want people, you know, hey, in 1997, so-and-so did this. It's like, man, it just gets to be kind of that cancel culture type stuff

that I don't really like to see. Yeah, that is, I mean, you make a good point there. It's almost like, you know, having your personal conversations with somebody, especially even if you say you wanted to keep it a secret, just having it dropped out there like that, that had to be pretty hard. And social media and internet in general, everything you put out there, you might think nobody has access to it, but I'm sure somebody does. There's an interesting aspect to it because whoever his coach was, whoever his coach, like Liver King's, I'm not going to call him Liver King, fuck that.

Whoever Brian's coach was, right, who gave that information, that individual at this point, if people find out who that is, people won't be able to trust that individual. But at the end of the day, this is a net good. I personally think this is a net good because even though we've talked to – I agree 100%. Before this came out, we all mentioned that the nine tenets themselves that he was talking about are overall, like you mentioned, beneficial for people. You know, it's a beneficial message. It's just at this point, you can clearly see that it was the wrong messenger. Because even myself, like, I didn't know he was now.

I mean, people think like, oh, obviously. But when I was looking at his physique, I'm like, okay, he's a buck 85. He's very lean. But I know people with great genetics that look way better all we can do is take people's word for it what are we gonna do just think everybody lies all the time yeah i i was one of those stupid people who's like he could be natty and it's a decent message but seeing like honestly man he's taking a lot of fucking drugs and he i think the one of the wildest things is kind of what you mentioned there.

He deems people, or he was talking about people who do take steroids as subprimals. Why would I do that? Subprimals. Why would these subprimals saying I look like I take steroids? Subprimal. Liver King. Subprimal. And now it comes to light that you are on a fuck ton of drugs, and you were calling all these people this term.

You literally made it an us versus them thing. Kind of burned an industry. Yeah. Right. You burned an industry that's been around for like, not that long. Like fitness industry isn't that old, but you came in,

you kicked everyone's ass. You kicked everyone's ass in the same exact game that we're all playing, no matter how we want to say or how we want to spin it. I'm playing the same game as Liver King and he kicked my ass. He came in on social media and he got a lot of attention. He got a lot of people talking. But he got himself caught in a lie. And it's going to be interesting to kind of see some of the,

some of the fallout from that, but it's just, it's, it's polarizing, you know, it's being talked about like pretty much everywhere. You know, no one wants to talk about any of the good, but there is a good side of things where if there were people that did become inspired and there were definitely people that were inspired because he gained 1.7 million followers on Instagram. And I don't know the ungodly amount that he probably has on TikTok. Some of those people may have changed their lifestyles. Like he's put out messages of people that have, that have actually changed their lifestyles and had benefit. But, but also you lied about a, you, you yourself were your marketing

tool. You know, it's not like he was saying you eat liver, you look like liver King. But at the end of the day, he was saying that this physique was built on top of these nine tenets but it looks like it's not just nine tenets it's nine tenets and a lot of gh and some other shit so maybe it's subprimal to be on trt but to be on a full stack of shit is maybe not so primal yeah right i think my career has been the exact opposite not that i'm like truthful or on some sort of moral high ground but i've just always shared it yeah and i made a decision to do it in a movie that was kind of before social media came along so uh there's i who knows i who knows if i if i let's say i invented the slingshot before I was a big-time powerlifter or something like that.

Maybe I would have tried to just not talk about it. I don't know if I'd lie about it. I think that's – trying be able to see anyone else do this same way probably again because there's too much, there's too much, there's a lot of like red tape for everybody, you know? So if someone's trying to lie

about being natural or not natural, only the older guys can kind of be grandfathered into that and maybe not have a paper trail. Yeah. No, I was just going to say like my whole thoughts on all of it is just literally like, you know, you can have your opinion on what he was taking or what he was not taking before it all came out. But the thing that I just, I dislike is that when somebody big comes out and they have

a great physique, everybody just instantly is like they're on steroids. Okay, so if you did follow the nine tenets or whatever, you're not going to look like him, but could you look better? Of course you could. You might be able to develop the best physique for yourself, but the thing that I just fucking hate is just like everybody is just like instantly like, oh, he's on all the shit you know he has an ass full of steroids which in this case i guess he did but he did but if you followed his shit

like would you be able to get better like yeah you would and then as far as his his coach the internet is really good and they've been doing a lot of digging and like yeah so there's a yeah yeah it's a good chance that they're correct and we do know his coach you know what what you mentioned though is what i was literally about to say because now what's there's a there's already the whole the whole natty or not thing where people like will pull out people with physiques and they'll be like okay this person's this person's on drugs this person isn't they'll they'll do their their judging but now with what he's done he's literally put a big old shit smear on everything. Because now it's like, number one,

he was one 80 fucking five, one 85 at five, six. I know a bunch of natural bodybuilders who have better looking physiques than him. I know a bunch. And now people that look better than him, that actually might be natural immediately.

What people are going to do. I was like, Hey, liver, liver King, like liver Kings on a, like liver king's on a on a on a fuckload of steroids how's this person how does this person look better than they can't be natural that's what's gonna that's gonna be a lot of shit that happens too so he's literally

shat on a lot of aspects of this whole industry yeah disrupted uh you know uh quite a bit i think also to the underlying thing here too that isn't really talked about is like steroids, they don't, like I wish they did more. Like I really do. They're kind of disappointing in some ways. And yes, you can start to take

like a lot of pharmaceuticals or performance enhancing drugs and you can start to really alter things and you can get into growth hormone and insulin and you can start yeah, that's like a reasonable cycle for someone to start on. You'd be totally shocked at what would happen in three months. Like you would be shocked in a bunch of different ways. I think one, I think you might be like surprised at what it might do for you mentally because I know a lot of people who've had really good results mentally. what it might do for you mentally. Because I know a lot of people who've had really good results mentally.

I also know some people who've had bad results mentally. Because if they were angry or frustrated, they got kind of worse that way. Or they have bad sleep. They have bad sleep. There have been some people that just report just being in a better mood and having better motivation. But when it comes to like the muscle mass thing, it's not going to slap on the muscle mass like you might think it would. But it's still going to be very, very drastic.

It's still like in perspective, you might gain five pounds, which naturally gaining five pounds like that is really, really difficult to do, especially when you're already trained. really difficult to do, especially when you're already trained. And if you talk to someone like Steven Grinzella, Smokey, who we've had on the show talking about his, you know, he started TRT a while back and he's gotten like body fat tests and he's continually at a heavier weight with a lower body fat percentage. But again, the numbers aren't, you're not looking at the numbers being like man roids do so much it's fucking crazy it's like he gained like six pounds of muscle and lost a couple pounds

of fat i'm not saying that they don't do anything i don't want to get that message wrong either um but they're not going to do everything for you there's a lot of work that still needs to be done yeah i was just shocked literally like, like, I didn't know. This is my ignorant ass, but I had no idea if, like, somebody could take that much HGH or whatever it was. Like, I didn't know. I don't, like, I don't really understand the stuff he's, like, taking. Like, I don't understand, like, all the, like, stuff he's injecting. But I still feel like if someone, because people have a lot of things twisted, kind of like what Mark is saying of what's natural and what isn't.

Also what you can achieve on whatever. I think everybody responds differently to different things. But, you know, even if someone took that same stack, would they have the discipline and the diet to get to his physique? You know what I mean? Like the man stays shredded. That in itself is hard, I'd imagine, no matter what you're on. You know what I mean? Being shredded is discipline.

I don't think drugs make you shredded. Do you think he wouldn't have as good of results in terms of how many people follow him if he occasionally maybe mentioned, you know, I got on some TRT because I think there's too many things of modern times and I've been exposed to too many things in modern everyday life for me to really truthfully alter my testosterone in ways that I would want. So I chose to do some TRT. Like if he had a message like that behind, do you think he would have gotten as popular? Cause I like, anytime I take a picture with like a fucking T-bone, you know, or like hold up a, you know, one of those big tomahawks, it gets a lot of views. It gets a lot of interest and I don't like wrestling it. I don't like make it all crazy, but do you think it would be a much different situation if he did say that he did them from the beginning?

I think, uh, I think it would, it wouldn't benefit his business as much because he literally said like the reason why he has this cause of his supplements, you know? Um, I think it would have hurt his business

but i think people are getting smarter now like they understand like how hard you know even with taking things like how hard it can actually be to achieve the physique you want and how long it might take and honestly like um just like thinking of like dogs like i said with genetics like a lab's always going to be a lab fat hungry you know whereas uh and it's hard to change that whereas uh a freaking pipple is going to be ripped aggressive and an alpha is shit like it wants to eat the other lab um and i think humans are like that too like genetics play a huge role and i think people downplay it a lot um no matter if you take stuff or not, like some people, you know, just might respond way better and just, I don't know. I just feel like the industry of fitness is, they're focusing on the wrong thing.

They're focusing so much on what is this guy taking to look like this? It's not like, what are the little things that this guy is doing to make him be able to perform the way he does. Like, I think just people are naive and they think it's just like magic bill. You said something earlier that I think is really critical. And you said, you don't want to get your motivation from other people. And I think that that is a really important thing. Like I think in general, not that getting motivation from somebody is a negative at all. That can be a great thing. But to have that be your primary source of fuel all the time is probably not a great idea. You want some more internal motivation. But I think in general, I think we

look to these people on social media and athletes and people that are famous celebrities and so on. We just, we put way too much weight on them. And that's why Joe Rogan has many times said, don't listen to me. Like I'm fucking around. I'm with my friends. I'm getting high. Like I'm on mushrooms and I'm giving you this information.

And as much as some people have tried to share that message that we're just, we're all people and we all have flaws. We tend to kind of put people up on a pedestal or take some of the stuff that they say. So literal we should know that people on the internet are lying. But at the same time, I mean, he,

he did fucking lie to people. He did deceive them. And, you know, I think he deserves any of the backlash that comes to him. I think some people were looking for some sort of major statement or response from me, but I just, I don't care about it that much. I do care about him. I got to know him a little bit and I care about him and his

family and I hope everything's good with that and I hope he's able to proceed and be successful. And I hope this is a turning point for him. It could be a learning experience in a lot of ways but I think that just because I'm on a podcast with somebody or I visit somebody or I take some pictures with somebody or we have talked about him a bunch on the show, he was getting talked about a ton because he did hide behind being being he hid behind the lie of being natural and I think that was a big reason why he got talked about so much I do think if he said he was on steroids it would have been a little bit less but I still think he would have had a big following I still think he would have been able to have a big influence I go back to what and sema said earlier in the podcast it kind of

makes me go oh a little bit like bro like it sucks that you feel that way about yourself that you're not enough that you had to try to pull this one over on everybody because the guy is like he literally kind of lives like a king you're like this is pretty awesome what you're doing so i don't know why i don't know what's in your past, this is pretty awesome what you're doing. So I don't know why. I don't know what's in your past or I don't know what you're hurting from. But I think that's part of the reason why he probably did it. There's also a pressure

on social media to look impressive. And we've seen some pictures of what he's looked like. And he didn't look bad. I was talking to your brother about this. He looked like he was in shape. And obviously there was a whole marketing effort for him to gain a following so maybe he wouldn't have gotten as big of a following but his personality his larger than life fucking more all that shit that with a decent physique he still

would have done and he still would have blasted through a majority of people on the internet currently he still would have because the consistency a majority of people on the internet currently. He still would have. Because the consistency and the amount of content. And the type of content. The personality behind what he's doing. No one's really doing that shit. So he still would have blasted by people. People would have still been pissed at him.

But at least it would have been truthful. Right. You know. You mentioned labs. And it kind of made me think. I saw somebody mention this. How someone was asking him about blood work. And he said he doesn't do blood work because of his ancestral living.

Obviously, the motherfucker does blood work because he's, you know, like those. And we know that blood work is necessary if you are or if you're not using anything. It's tough not to think about when somebody lies like, hmm. not using anything. It's tough not to think about when somebody lies like, hmm, you know, like when we have, if we have somebody, if we have someone we're close to and you kind of catch them in like a little lie or something, you're like, okay, you know, and you catch them in a couple more, you're like, oh my goodness. Like I have no idea. Cause you're just taking most things for face value. Then you can kind of just say like, okay, well this person, they kind of don't always tell the truth. So I'm not really going to take what they say very seriously.

And that's how I operate. Some people might think I'm a gullible individual. I do think critically about things, but if someone tells me something, I'm just going to believe them for the most part, unless it's like obvious, right? But I'll typically believe what somebody tells me because I'm like, well, I'm not, I'm not going to come out of this with all this doubt because it doesn't help our communication. That's how we get to a better spot too. You think about what someone said and you're like, how do I put that up against some other things that I believed before? And you're like, Hmm. And then maybe you find out that it's

that it is like total bullshit, you know, or, or you find out that it's something that has a little bit of truth to it and then you can then take that and put that into your day-to-day life i think it's how we get answers and how we move forward yeah but it's a weird fucking situation it's very interesting so that brings me to the question how are you handling uh some of this with uh trt and stuff like that yeah so a lot of my comments are flooded in. A lot of people are saying trend, and like I said earlier, everybody's saying I'm on a shit ton of shit, and I've always been.

And to me, I've never been on a shit ton of shit ever in my life. I did just recently start TRT, so I'm no longer lifetime natural. I did just recently start TRT, so I'm like no longer lifetime natural. But to discredit everything I did in the past, it's hard for me because it's like, it just sucks that like people had to think that. And I'm telling the truth. Like I'm literally saying I'm not natural. And it's just to hear like people like still, and I never lied. I never talked about it.

I literally never did because I had no reason to, I wasn't on anything. So it was like, why, you know, why did I, I just didn't even want to address it. Cause if I did, it just stirred up this whole big pot. And I was like, I'm just not even going to answer the question. So then I was like, it just became something where it was like, I don't know. It, I think it's just frustrating because people don't understand. Like there's a difference between someone on TRT and there's a difference between someone blasting gear. You know what I mean?

Like, you can see, like, I'm going to be honest. Like, when I look at myself, I think I look fucking pretty normal. Like, I'm being, like, I look good. You look a little normal-ish. Your shoulders are fucking really wide, but you look a little normal. But I look like Captain America, you know? But, wide, but you look a little normal. But I'm not like Captain America. But yeah, normal. 30-inch waist. But I'm like,

I'm 210, 6-foot. I'm nothing crazy. You know what I mean? And it's just, I'm 22 years old, and I also don't like even talking about it just because I've never really had the opportunity to talk about it the women in our gym they're like 22 year old guy in there looking hot

they go whoosh we went right in there I'm in there every day you're in there every day do they ever film us or ask us any questions or anything never they're never in there like it's two calls but once you come they warmed right up yeah but it for me But once you come... Yeah, they warmed right up. They come.

Yeah. But for me... I didn't even know they worked here. I'm not saying they were in heat today. I'm not saying that. They may have been. Traveling in packs. Yeah, actually, I have a really serious girlfriend, too. You better be careful.

Yeah, I actually met her on girlfriend too. You better be careful. I actually met her on social media crazy. I DM'd her. There you go. Sliding in. Yeah, and she flew in Texas to meet me. And after that, it just clicked. She flew out. You flew her out.

Yeah. Nice. That's great. But just getting back to what we were talking about. I never really had the opportunity to talk about it just being recent it comes full circle being on the podcast it's just something that

people will always people are always going to want the reason why they can't do it oh it's this you take anything that's hard people are always going to look at something that's going to help or make it seem easier to discredit or

make themselves feel better about themselves yeah so uh like i said i mean i'm very like open to anybody that wants to like try what i did like i you can take all shit in the world like i seriously want you to take whatever you want and let me know like i i don't know what else to say like i literally like two months after i finished my marathon i benched 405 i was the day before i did my marathon i have a video of me benching 315 for reps like like even if like say somebody decided to take lost steroids and run a marathon like i guarantee you it's going to make you slower. It's not going to help you. I don't know. I just think a lot of people nowadays look for the magic pill to losing weight,

the magic pill to putting on muscle, and they just forget about what matters. You've got to focus on little things anything in life if you focus on the little things granted i'm young but i noticed that the little things that you do day in and day out are what change are what change your life change who you are if you focus on one thing and think that's going to get you anywhere you're going to be very very upset with your life like if you if you guys think about the day you started this podcast and you, uh, you just focus on the little things every single day, like that's why you're here. Like it wasn't because of one video is because of multiple videos. Like you guys are like one of the top fitness podcasts, if not the best fitness podcast out here is because you guys

consistently show up and put in good videos that build not just one video that blew up like that you guys wouldn't you know i mean like it won't be sustainable yeah i think that's the same for anything like literally like if you do the little work or like don't yeah okay it's gonna help um but if i didn't show up every single day if you know i still wouldn't be here. You know what I mean? Like, it's just,

I think that's what people have wrong. There's no magic pill for anything. What did you, so this is recent. I think you said you've been on for maybe like six weeks. Yeah. I mean, if we go back and look at some of your Instagram from weeks and months ago,

you looked incredible. You, you already did all these like running accomplishments and, and some of your Instagram from weeks and months ago. You looked incredible. You already did all these like running accomplishments and some of these things. Was there some other reason why you felt the need to take some of this? Because like I don't really know build-wise like what you would do other than just like way more, I guess. Like, you know, get up to like 240 or something. I don't know what else you would do with your physique because you look great so what was the reason was there something that you were trying to fix yeah it was uh more of just like um i was having trouble just like recovering after what i did i just kept digging myself in a hole i couldn't really like i felt awful like getting out of bed

i was like uh sweating in my sheets because of my body was so stressed out um i uh couldn't sleep at all and um yeah just it was more of just like all the factors um of just like living kind of like like i hadn't like low libido like i just you know i just didn't feel good i didn't feel myself um and i think you know if that happens to anybody, like, go get checked. See how you feel, you know. See what's wrong under the hood. And that's the thing. Like, TRT is not going to make you a bodybuilder.

Like, I don't look any different. Like, I haven't changed my physique. Like, I'm pretty much the same. But it helps with all the little things in life. I just want to mention real briefly that that's about how long it takes. It takes a couple weeks, if not a few months for it to accumulate, and the small things that it's doing for you over time will compound a little bit, and then you'll start to get the results will start to hit like now-ish.

So has it solved some of those problems for you? Has it helped your mood and other things? Yeah, I feel great. I actually haven't felt better. I feel healthy mentally. I have more confidence, and I have better resilience of feelings, I think. Like I'm very – I think it just may make you like, just like,

it sounds weird, but like I enjoy like hard work and stuff. Like I just feel more resilient. And if that makes sense, like more so you, you enjoy it more now because like, obviously you enjoyed it to an extent before you've done some amazing shit. No,

I know. I, I think, you know, it makes me even more hungry. Yeah. It's interesting. Cause like we had our boy Kenny on the podcast and you and Kenny, man, I know. I think, you know, it makes me even more hungry. Yeah. It's interesting because like we had our boy Kenny on the podcast and you and Kenny, man, I hope you guys are able to meet before you leave because you two are very fucking similar human beings. He's like, I think he's 21, but he just recently did a bodybuilding show.

He was big before he chose to do TRT or anything. He was fucking huge. You were also very big before you chose to do trt or anything he was fucking huge you were also very big before you chose to take that path um and it's it's it's a decision you chose to make it's not like it's not like it's it's some magic pill for you like it's just something you chose to do to boost you to another position potentially yeah that's like when i started lifting right there how old are you there i think uh when was that what i think well at least it was posted 2019 not sure when the picture was i was 19 yeah the uh labrador comment pops up right there you always had shoulders like who you are you're always gonna be right i mean

you already had the makings of a good physique yeah like it was all there you've been like even though i guess around then's when you started. You've been like, even though I guess around then's when you started lifting, you've been an athlete, you had that type of physique for years before doing anything. So guys like, especially younger people, um, look at guys now and they're like, Oh, maybe I need to take TRT if I want to do this or to do that. But you put in a lot of work before you made that decision. Yeah. It was a tough decision too. It wasn't something that I just woke up and decided to do. It was something that I wasn't recovering.

I felt like shit. And obviously, I think I kind of put myself in that situation, to be honest. I was just overtraining, being straight up. I do have a question for you, though. TRT is something that's becoming really normal with like guys in fitness. Do you think because it was pretty normal, like it was just an easier decision to make because you like, there's a lot of fitness influencers that are like, okay, I've done this for a while and I'm going to get on TRT and see what else I can do. Did that make it easier?

else I can do did that make it easier yeah no it did 100 because it's like anything I mean you talk about something it seems like less of an entry like uh if say you know TRT wasn't a thing like I don't even know if I would have thought about it I'd have just been like man I'm over trained I gotta chill yeah but at the same time I didn't chill because I knew I had shit I had to accomplish. So, no, I think for sure right now being normalized, I don't, I'm not against it. I don't think it is bad. People, some people are very against it. I think if, I'm against it if you're doing it for the wrong reason. Like if you're just doing it to get jacked, you're going to be very upset.

You're not going to get like freaking huge. Definitely need to have your diet on point. Yeah. Anyone anyone that's gonna try to take it to like get lean uh if you're if you don't have your nutrition intact like it's not for you i think it makes it worse because you hold water yeah you'll just get like puffy as fuck yeah um but yeah it's just it's just crazy like i said i think because so many people lie about it the perspective of what it is and what it does is so off. Anybody that even thinks about it, unless you really need it, it's not even worth it. But it does, as far as lifestyle, it'll help your life.

So you got your blood work done, I assume? Yeah. And then did you have a follow-up consultation of some sort with somebody and yeah did they kind of or was it just or were you just more like looking for trt straight up um no i got my blood work done and i wasn't like super super low like i wasn't like like you know qualified necessarily um yeah but your blood work came back plus you have symptoms yeah right and it was low don't get me wrong but it wasn't anything of uh like i think someone there was a kid that like had like 20 nanograms for dyslexia but uh like some people are like legit can't yeah but it was for me it was like i said i don't it was for me, it was like I said, I don't, it was something that it, I knew that they were treating it on symptoms.

So, you know, it just made sense. But honestly, like I'm on it, but it's like kind of like, you know, I could come off anytime and feel, you know, like I think I will too it's not something that I want to continue forever to be honest because it unless like I'd say the only ever reason that I would ever decide to you know really pursue like like pharmacology is if I wanted to be a IFBB pro and honestly I don't know like I don't know I have good symmetry I think I have a good future for it but i don't know if i don't know if i'm willing to do that because like i even taking this like i'm very conscious of like i don't know i'm not like that's why i said i i'm still naive to a lot of it like i don't know also i wonder if you'd enjoy becoming an ifbb pro because that would kind of take you like you mean you don't see ifbb pros doing triathlons or running marathons right because that would kind of take you like, you mean you don't see IFBB pros doing triathlons

or running marathons, right? Because that's size. You could be the first. You could be the first, honestly. You could be the guy. Part of me wants to say, fuck it. And it's like one of those things where it's like, I don't know, just the whole process of it all

and like how complicated I think it would get with like having all, having all those variables and just, I like to be healthy. I like to be, I don't know. It's just, I wonder how far off he is.

Like what? And like classic physique or something like you're six feet. I'm six foot. Um, I, I think I have, I don't know if, um,

I have stage shots somewhere. yeah. Um, you could kind of see where I stacked up against. The guy that was next to me was 100% natural. He was nuts. Like, he got his pro card right shortly after. That's fucking crazy what people can do naturally.

Yeah. People, they just lose sight of that, unfortunately. He has genetics like you, man. Yeah. Like, he was. I lose sight of that. Unfortunately. He's like, he has genetics like you, man. Yeah. Like, I look small in that picture. How much did you, how much did you weigh there?

Like one 70? No, I was like one 92. Oh, Oh shit. Oh, I was just guessing that because of your current weight. So you're,

you're pretty close. You're not far off from your stage weight. Yeah. All right. Where's, where's the other one? 92, one 95.

There's collage. Oh, here we go. You look good, dude. The guy next to me. Was he the black guy or the white guy? The black guy.

He said he had genetics. So you don't like. I don't know if there's a picture of him or not. Oh man. Yeah. And this is your first show, dude? Yeah.

First show. That's fucking awesome, man. It went really awesome. If you continue to go, like if you continue down like this path, would you want to do physique or classic bodybuilding or bodybuilding? Men's physique. Men's physique, you want to stick there? I have a really, really small waist. Yeah.

Like when I was shredded, I fit in, I think it was like a 27. Holy shit. Yeah. Not even. I think I was 26 at one point. Dude. Like, I hold all my fat. Like, there's some videos, too, that you can kind of see it.

Anything that you, like, does anything contribute to a small waist, or is it just always been that way? I think it's just genetics. Like, I've always had a really small waist. If you put on body fat, where does it go? Into your shoulders? It goes right here. This is all like, I don't know. I literally have a really small waist,

which I think helps me with running, turning. From my lower half down, it's just small. Hey, now. When I said that, I didn't know. That's just small. Hey, now when I said that, I didn't, um, there's some context, you know, I,

this one thing I hope that like, you know, as, as you continue to do what you do, you're doing some amazing stuff, dude. Like you've done a marathon, you've done fucking Ironman.

You've done a, like a physique show. You're picking up these different capacities. I think like when I pay attention to something, like someone like show, you're picking up these different capacities. I think like when I pay attention to something, like someone like you, I'm like, wow, okay, what is he doing to be able to progress and balance all these different things? Because you're different, bro. Like you're not just, you're not just lifting me. And it's cool. Don't get me wrong. Like lifting is amazing. I love it. And people that are doing great things as far as

powerlifting and bodybuilding is really awesome. But seeing guys like yourself, Nick, you that are building different capacities, I think it gives people options. It opens up their eyes to, huh, so I can lift and I can run, or I can lift and I can do something else. Like that's really dope to see. And just because you're on TRT, some people are going to be assholes and they'll think, Oh, you'll get those comments. But at the end of the day, people that understand the type of work you're putting in, that's going to inspire people. That's a big, that's a big fucking deal.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. I still have a lot to learn. I still have a lot more I want to do. Like I said, I want to run an ultra marathon. Yikes. I want to, you know, do the Iron iron man and and maybe get my pro card like i just want to like if there's one thing that i love doing is proving people wrong um like i if someone tells me like i can't do something that's like the worst thing you could tell me because i will

like almost die for it like i i'm very very competitive when someone places a boundary on me. It drives me nuts. I got a lot of comments during my Ironman, like, you're not going to be able to swim, because I posted the first video I had. Actually, I think there's a video on my Instagram. It's a picture and then the post of me swimming. But the first time I swam i legit looked like i was gonna

drown and people kept commenting you're not gonna be able to do this and every single time i got in the pool even when i had the panic attack like i was like i thought about that yeah i'm gonna fucking do it and fuck these people so yeah i think uh like taking negativity um can be very powerful for me um but just stuff like when they try to downplay what i've done is kind of annoying yes because it's like why don't you do it yeah what led you to uh get coaches for each one of these things because like um a lot of times especially like a younger guy might be like i I'll just fucking figure it out myself. But you're getting a coach for swimming, getting coach for running. What kind of led to that?

Actually, this is, like I said, I listened to your podcast. You said, I'm not sure if you had asked him, I forget how it went. But you said that you always go to the source if you want that right answer. So for me, I was like, that's what I thought. Yeah, I'm like, I don't have all the answers. Let me go ask somebody else who I think is a lot smarter in this particular thing. Yeah, and anybody that follows me, I'm not, like, I don't know shit most of the time. I just work hard.

Like, I just, like, I like to work hard. So I let the decision-making up to the athlete. And, yeah. But, you you know a cool thing doug i was like when i kind of sucked but yeah a really cool thing that is like by working with these coaches i learned so much when i worked with my first bodybuilding coach alberto nunez because he led me in the directions of things that he learned and i was able to like learn from those books that he read, right? Within like, I think that there's a level of understanding that comes from reading. And then there's a level of understanding. There are nuances to what you're doing that people who, let's say they just coach it. They won't understand the little things that you have to develop when

you're in a pool being as big as you are, or having to like having a muscular physique and developing running as you're, as you're having a muscular physique and developing running as you're as you're doing it you're understanding nuances because you're doing the damn thing which is where most people don't do it you know so like even though you say you don't know shit man you know a lot you know a lot i think uh the more you get into something the less you think you know it if that makes sense like the more you're into fitness the more I realize I don't know shit. Yeah, that's true. Like before I came on this podcast, I was like, what am I going to,

like what do I know? Like I was actually like talking to my girlfriend and I was like, I'm not like the science-y guy. Like I'm just going to tell them like how I think. Like I just work hard. Yeah. That's the answer for me. I honestly just work hard.

But yeah, I just keep it simple and I'll follow it. If it's too complex, I burn out. With your training in the gym, you mentioned that you kind of like to keep it super simple and you like to just kind of go heavy. So I asked you about shoulders and different things and you were pretty much just like, yeah, seated dumbbell presses. I go kind of as heavy as I can handle.

And you don't love to do like tons of sets. You don't like to do a ton of volume, but you like to kind of keep the intensity high. Yeah, I think that's because, and I have this mindset, I don't know. I think it makes sense and I think placebo is everything. I think it's the most powerful thing out there.

But my placebo in my head is like when I grab those heavy weights and I'm putting like a very like intense stimulus on my body like there's no way my body doesn't adapt and build muscle tissue to those shoulders when i'm like okay i'm gonna literally put 110 pounds on each hand like you're gonna have to get that up um and over time like you're gonna have to build structure to support that whereas if i was like oh i'm to use 60-pound dumbbells and do shit tons of volume, that's just, to me, it's not as efficient. Like, why would I do that?

I don't know. It's just my mindset. And maybe it can be efficient, but maybe for you it's not nearly as fun. Yeah. Yeah, no. I mean, like, you power lifted. You love lifting. So it's like, who doesn't love going into the gym and just

throwing weight on and being like, fuck it, let's give it a ride. Like, slam some chalk, smack yourself in the face. The intensity, you know, when you grab heavy weight, it, I don't know, it just kind of forces you to like behave a certain way. And it, it does kind of force you to dig deep. And so it's interesting to say, but it's almost the easiest way, I think, to gain muscle mass. I'm not talking about like going crazy heavy, but just going heavier than probably what you would normally want to do just by a little bit because it forces you to push a little harder. Now, you could take those 60-pound dumbbells and you could have one-minute rest and do 12 reps every minute on the minute for four sets and you can get a similar effect. But again, I think I would rather go in the gym

and maybe just do the 40s for a couple reps and get right to maybe the 80s and hammer out a set and maybe leave a rep or two in the tank. Maybe do one more set and then be done. And that way it's a little easier to manage the rest of life and the rest of the other things that you're trying to get good at because you're not spending so much time just in the gym. Yeah, it's almost like being more efficient in a way and still getting the work capacity in. I don't want to skip over the first thing you said right

there about placebo explain that i want to know more of what you mean when you say that uh like so when you think that something works one you're more likely to follow it two i think that where your mind goes your body follows so if your placebo is in your mind your body's going to follow it so when you think about diet if your placebo is that carnivore works you're probably going to lose weight because you're going to stick to it and be consistent yeah um and placebo i think is powerful because it makes you almost feel like you have something that you don't have i don't know how that makes sense like the like the biohacking stuff like i don't think that does much for you,

but I think it's placebo-based, so it's going to do something for you. It's not necessarily the – it's the believing in it which matters, not the actual doing it, if that makes sense. Yeah, just the power of self-belief. You really believe that this is going to work, and then therefore you kind of go and make it work. Yeah. And I think like anything like like

what you said um believing in yourself like i said that's literally what i try to do like believe in yourself and i give myself placebo all the time like everything i've done has been placebo like i've been very naive and i give myself a lot of placebo i'm very like that half iron man i said this is going to be easy. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. And then I found out it was the opposite.

But I believed. I believed. Like even swimming, I was like, fuck it. Like this guy doesn't know shit. I won't be able to swim. And I did. But it's because I believed. If I had any doubt, I would not have done any of the shit I did.

Like if I had any doubt that I couldn't stick to a diet, I wouldn't have signed up for the bodybuilding show, but I believed I could. So like, if you just believe in who you are and what you say, and, and I think it's only dangerous. Like if you say something and you don't do it,

that's when it starts getting dangerous because you lose the confidence in your words. And if you don't have confidence in your words, your actions are never going to follow where your mouth goes. So I think, like speak into existence and take what you say more importantly

than what you take anybody else's advice. I don't need to add shit to that, man. What if you were to think, what if you were to think about like a triathlon? What's the order? It goes swim, bike, run.

So what if you were to think like just say that you saw some literature, right, where swimming is therapeutic and it's a great way to recover and it's going to amplify your running and your biking. You know, who cares if it's real? If you think that, hey, with every

stroke, I'm going to be a little faster on my bike. With every stroke, I'm going to be a little bit more well-rested for my run, which we know it would be, it wouldn't be impossible, but it's very unlikely that that is a scenario. But you can kind of envision that and you can kind of think about that. And you can look at any of these events that you're tackling or any of the things that you're doing in your life. look at any of these events that you're tackling or any of the things that you're doing in your life and you can you get to choose the perspective that you have on it and you can say I'm going to get stronger with every set I'm going to get stronger with every rep I'm going to get stronger with every step I don't care if I swam already I don't care if I biked already or you know however

yeah yeah no I think it's super powerful because I think even like day to day, we all convince ourselves that we feel a certain way. But if you can talk yourself out of that so easy, if you believe in what you say, like I said, the moment you start losing is when your words don't follow your actions. Because I can relate to this so much before. Like I would say, I'm going to start my diet Monday. And I'd say, I do my diet Monday and then I wouldn't finish it. You know what I mean? And then I would lose the sense of my words when I said I would do something. But if I showed up every single day and I said what I did, I had confidence.

And I think that's when people lack confidence. That's why people full circle criticize themselves or other people. It's because they don't believe in who they are and they look for external comfort of somebody else. I don't know. I think a lot of it is say something and fucking do it. Because if you don't do it, you're just lying to yourself. That philosophy, where do you think that

that stemmed from for you because that's something that i think that a lot of people don't necessarily put a lot of importance behind right it's they don't put a lot of importance behind their belief in themselves to be able to achieve certain things and and it's tough because when you don't think you can do something you're definitely not going to do it right so was that like did your dad drill that into you is that or did is that just something that you've done over doing a lot of work yeah so uh my grandfather he always told me like i remember we would be at a job and he would tell me to do something i'd be like i can't do that and he And he said to me, he was like, never tell yourself you can't do something because those

words are what you're going to believe. So then I thought about that for a while and it took me a while to understand it. But the words that you say in your head are going to be the outcome of what you do and who you become. So if you negative self-doubt and talk bad about yourself or you don't follow what you do and who you become. So if you negative self-doubt and talk bad about yourself or you don't follow what you say, you're going to follow that direction. I think your words are like the steering to a ship.

You know, where your mouth goes is where your actions will be. And even if you, like I said, and if your mouth doesn't go where your body goes, then you're lying to yourself and i think that's where you lose confidence you lose that uh that kind of like self-awareness if that makes sense makes total sense what you got over there andrew that's really freaking dope dude because there is a lot of people that want to start monday and they they don't end up doing it i've asked many people this like why some people will say Monday and they don't end up doing it. I've asked many people this, like why

some people will say that and they don't follow through, but then there's a good amount of people that do follow through. What do you think it is that like actually makes people follow through? I keep bringing this question up because I keep seeing it everywhere. I see it in my day to day. I see it within my family. I've seen it within myself. But I'm curious what your thoughts are on that question of like, how come some people fail and some people can actually strive and, you know, make it? I think it comes from like smaller wins in your life. So people that have, so people that like, say you set like start Monday, People that actually start Monday have started something and seen the outcome and had success with it.

Or something in their life has, they've seen what a process does. And you're not ever going to see results for anything you do that instant. So I think it just comes down to, like, you need to almost have something that you followed through with and, and had great results with that. And that will give you confidence. And if you never put yourself in that situation where it gets really hard, you're not going to have confidence to start something else. Like if I didn't do that marathon and I backed out, there's no shot I would have done the bodybuilding show. There's no shot I would have did a half iron man. There there's no shot. I would have even maybe kept posting on social media. Like that would have been transforming for me to quit on myself.

I would have lost all the confidence in my words and what I said and what I tell people. Like I would have felt as a liar to myself. I like my, like. I think you as a person should value your words the most. If you don't start on Monday and you tell yourself to start on Monday, that should fucking hurt you so much that it pisses you off because that's your own voice. You don't believe in yourself. You're lying to yourself. Everybody's focusing on liver king lying.

Fuck. Who cares if you lie? What the fuck? Focus on you. You lie to yourself all the time. liver king like lying like fuck like that who cares if you lie what what the fuck like focus on you like you lie to yourself all the time you say i'm gonna eat healthy and you don't eat healthy like i'm a guilty like i hate myself when i do that but it's like one of those things that's like who the fuck cares like his life is irrelevant to yours just focus on yourself like people just want something to complain about and make them feel better but everybody lies to themselves

that sounds harsh but i don't know it's just kind of like my that's my favorite answer so far to that question that was great i don't know it's just kind of what i think it just fires me up because like it derives to everything like the hate comments it's like they're they just take ownership and what you say and what you do and your life will be the outcome of that the reason you guys are all here in this is because be the outcome of that the reason you guys are all here in this is because you guys worked hard to get here you guys are the product of where you're at you're never like you're taking ownership for that is great and if you take ownership for something that isn't great fix it like is this 22 year old kid a prophet or something

i dude you know he's uh well i have people told you before that like your old soul like some of your friends probably when you were young they probably thought you were boring yeah yeah actually i i wasn't always like this like it took i think like honestly like just being around who i've been in the past you know my dad helped me and my mom are great like they were very i was never really a bad kid. I tried stupid shit and we were all young and dumb. But I think it was just I learned. I surrounded myself with like even at BPN, the guy, I actually just read the book,

you know who Leif Babin is at Jocko Willink? Jocko, I've heard of you. Leif Babin was like, or I think I'm saying his name right he was the other Navy SEAL in the book and I watched him and Nick talk on a podcast and uh and I met him and shook his hand and just just to meet people and hear what they have to say and I'm one of those people like I listen to everything and I actually apply it to my life like you guys I'm being like when I tell you I literally do the same thing that like as far as protein lever i literally applied that for my life because of you guys like so everything that i hear from these people that have accomplished stuff i take inventory and i

actually believe i actually do it um or at least try it and if it doesn't like i tried carnivore for 30 days and it sucked and i would never do it again I binged like a motherfucker after it but I tried it you know and I learned extreme isn't good for me with diet so yeah I just think uh I learned it from and the reason I am like this now is just I'm literally around like the greatest people and I get to meet you the greatest people ever with social media um and just seeing how other people live their life is just it's cool it's it's I think you're the greatest people ever with social media. And just seeing how other people live their life is just, it's cool. I think you're the product of your environment, and it's that easy. Something that motivates me is I kind of think it's a disservice to yourself when your eyes aren't open and you're not paying attention

to how many great people are around you, how many great things are around you. For you to go out and fail, it's like not an option because you're like, no, no, no, there's way too many good people in my life. There's way too many good people from my past that have helped me, assisted me. There's other lifters. There's other people who suffered through some of these things, gotten injured, gotten messed up, but showed me a different way so I didn't get messed up. I kind of owe it to them, pay homage to them. Those are some things

that come through my mind sometimes when it comes to this kind of stuff. Yeah, I think too, and just like kind of getting back to that, it's like, I know I keep talking or we keep talking about the liver king thing, but in reality, it it's like i don't know i feel like everybody's always looking for something else to pick on and and focus on what are they doing wrong in their life and yeah that's some it's entertainment it you know whatever you get from it whatever dopamine might make you feel better from it but at the end of the day, you might lie to yourself about some things that really suck that really maybe you should fix. And I think we're all guilty of that.

Like I said, I lied to myself a lot. I'm not saying I'm perfect. I'm not by any means. I lie to myself almost every day. But I fix it the next day. I'm always trying to fix the little lies I tell myself. And if you're constantly focusing on what other people are doing wrong in their lives and what else they're lying about like the whole liver king people are so caught up in it because he lied like he everybody

that watched that video lied at some point in their life and and lied on themselves daily about doing shit that they're not going to do yeah and i just like the full circle just goes back to social media don't focus on social media focus on your fucking self like focus on who you are and and take inventory in your life don't worry about liver king like he you're probably never gonna see him so what's it fucking matter like i don't know it just i think it's just uh being present and just you know you're only here once it's noise yeah anything else andrew uh in regards to social media and stuff being 22 years old uh how do you like stay up to date on like trends and like what like what's going on in the planet because for me personally like i'll check twitter for random things here and there and like so that's how

sometimes i get my news. So like, yeah, for like topics and shit, like how do you stay up on what's going on in the world? Uh, I, I kind of like, I honestly don't even look to be honest.

I was half expecting you to be like, Oh, I get the paper and I sit down with a cup of coffee every morning. Like I said, I think mental energy is a thing. Yes. And I experienced that for the first time with my Ironman.

If I didn't dedicate all my energy into the Ironman, I pulled, like if I tried focusing on, like for the first time I had someone edit my videos on YouTube. I've done that myself. But I did that

because I didn't have enough mental energy to do both. So I think the news, news is just like, it's a lot of, myself um but i did that because i didn't have enough mental energy to do both um so i think the news news is just like uh it's a lot of a lot of it can be positive but most of it's negative because drama sells news has mastered that um so that's going to take energy mental energy from you because you're going to fixate on that for a little it's going to take time away from you so why even look if like what's going on in the news, there might be some things that are important,

but it's not enough to alter your life decision. So I don't even look at it to be honest, because it's just one less problem or one less thing to make me more stressed out about that I don't have no control over. So that's just kind of what I think. Want to take us on out of here, Andrew? All righty. Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's podcast.

For everything podcast related, head over to powerproject.live. Links to our website down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Make sure you guys drop some comments down below. Let us know what you guys think about today's conversation. Hit the like button on the way out and subscribe if you guys are not subscribed already. Follow the podcast at mbpowerpro on instagram tiktok and twitter my instagram tiktok and twitter is at i am andrew z and sema where you at oh what happened that sweatshirt the think less sweatshirt and oh is it on the site it's on the site the think a hoodie hoodie oh my god it's got a power

project that live and it's it's nice plum color very nice it's a dope in it. It's at PowerProject.Live, and it's this nice plum color. Very nice. Dope color. It is a dope color. Go to PowerProject.Live to check it out. And see me ending on Instagram, YouTube, and see me yin-yang on TikTok and Twitter. Nathan, where can people find you? I actually think my Instagram,

I don't even remember my Instagram. I think it's just Nathan French with two H's at the end. Yeah. It tells me I literally don't, like I just post, and I kind of like don't even look yeah Nathan

with two N's so yeah Nathan wait two N's the extra N oh shit French yeah yeah

and YouTube yeah YouTube just Nathan French we'll link everything in the description just in case TikTok Nathan French yeah

alright it was fun bench pressing with you today and getting a little bro session in there oh yeah yeah slingshot I like that I might hide that It was fun bench pressing with you today and getting a little bro session in there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Slingshot.

I like that. I might hide that under my next sweatshirt and say PR. No one will ever know. Smelly's tip for the day is, I wrote it down over here. Let me see. Oh, no. I can't share that. That's too good.

Whoa. That's too big it's just I heard this from sad guru and he said without possibility we remove problems and so it kind of thinks like well you know the possibility of this or possibly that like you're thinking you don't want to limit your possibilities right but that's not really what it's in reference to. It's just in reference to giving yourself way too many options. And so if you go and run and you make a statement of like, I'm just not going to stop. I'm just going to keep moving my feet. And it's not an option for you to bail. It's not an option for you to use an excuse or however you want to throw that in

your life. I found that quote to be helpful for me. So maybe you'll find it helpful for you as well. Strength is never weakness. Weakness never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.