Mark Bell's Power Project - What No One Tells You About Obesity's Hidden Dangers - Russell Pierce || MBPP Ep. 1043

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

In episode 1043, Russell Pierce, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about Russell's lifetime battle with weight loss, life as an obese person, and how Russell has managed to lose 120lbs and counting.   Follow Russell on IG: https://www.instagram.com/russellbuddy/   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below!   👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/untapped ➢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

I've been trying to lose weight since the fourth grade. I think fat kids know that they're fat. Everyone lets them know they're fat. You're so fat! This sucks. It sucks to be obese. Fun for me for the last 30 years is eating a pizza. It's about changing my mindset.

I feel hunger in my stomach. I feel appetite in my head. Hunger's not that bad. Hunger you can deal with. I guess, are you able to control your binges easier now? Or is it still like a monster that wants to come out here and there? It's a monster that shows up way less often. I have to figure this out. I have to slow down.

I have to be at peace with the fact that I only lost one pound this week. It's taken you about three years? To lose about 115, 120 pounds. Power Project family, we've had some amazing guests on this podcast, like Kurt Angle, Tom Segura, Andrew Hooperman, and we want to be able to have more amazing guests on this podcast, and you can help it grow by leaving us a quick rating and review

on Spotify and iTunes. If you're listening to the podcast, just go ahead and give us a review. Let us know how you dig it and help the podcast grow so we can keep growing with y'all and bring you amazing information. Enjoy the show.

So what do you keep in that? What's the patented Mark Bell drink combo? Today there is chocolate steak shake. Okay. Banana steak shake. Okay. And some chocolate hydration. That's nice.

And some water. That's nice. And it comes together perfectly. Banana and chocolate. Do you mix it with cold water? That's what I did, yeah. Gave it a shake. Ready to go.

Nice, nice. You gotta aggressively get both sides. You gotta get the clumps out. It's one of those things where if it's still clumpy, it's gonna really hurt the experience. It's gonna sour it. Really well. I like to blend mine.

I'll actually just throw it in a blender for a minute and then go from there. I blend it in a Ninja blender, but those things are loud. I got the bullet one that's a little bit more manageable. And you just push it down and it just goes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how I like to do it. Yeah, my Ninja blender is really loud.

I don't know what the deal is with it. And then also, have you ventured into the Ninja creaminess yet? Barely. We've dipped our toe. Oh, nice. That thing's loud, too. Super loud. And it's also-

It goes on for a long time. It teaches you patience and organization, though. That's not like a quick flip of like, you're not like, oh, let's make some ice cream right now. It's like, hey, let's make some ice cream for tomorrow. You got to plan for the future. You really do. So I was thinking, I've seen some pro tips where people will get four or five of those base containers. We have two that came with it. It's like maybe get two more and then make four at a time or something like that.

I saw a recent video from coach Greg, Greg Doucette. The coach himself. And he had such organization in his fridge. He had like food and Tupperware and it said like chicken breast and steak. Yeah. I don't have that ability. You know, honestly, it wasn't like a natural skill for me, but I have to lean towards that same thing too. If I look in my fridge and it just looks cluttered, my eyes just sort of roll back and I'm like, okay, well, clearly this is a sign that I should grab the pizza from the freezer right now. But if I go through and I got all my grapes together,

I got my ground beef, my cooked meat, whatever I have together, I need to keep like a neat and tidy refrigerator. You got like a label maker and stuff? I should. It's in my mind. That's too much. That's too much.

Well, that helps. You know, in the family, they don't abide by my organizational skills at all, which is fine because then it just gives me a chance to go back through and just like restituate like, oh, okay, these grapes are starting to, these grapes are only got a couple of days left on these grapes. Let's get the grapes out and stuff like that. It helps me a lot. how to like cook at home and stay organized and not just eat restaurant food all the time or pantry food or freezer food that you're microwaving all the time. Like having a clean refrigerator

makes a big difference for me. If I- Access to healthy stuff. If I don't have like meat cooked at home, I'm probably not doing very well on my diet. I have to like, you know, everyone's talks about prepping your meals, prepping your meals. And, you know, I have tried to do that before, but, you know, the rice gets kind of gross.

You know, the broccoli and chicken go bad because, you know, I always just had, every time I've ever dieted, it's always just chicken, rice, and broccoli, just so you know. But it just doesn't last. But I found if I just cook meat and just keep a couple pounds of meat cooked in the fridge, it's just there ready to rock. Helps me a ton. Helps me a ton. Yeah, the organization part of it is, I think it's a huge part of it. We have a video that we're going to pop up here in just a minute that we'll get some reaction from you about. But people, you're listening to my buddy, Russell.

Russell, buddy. My phone, for some reason, doesn't allow to keep like nicknames in there anymore. So it got rid of like the natty professor and it got rid of like Andrew Z and it got all serious. And now you're Russell Pierce instead of Russell buddy. I'll fix that. That's what I never even knew. Is it on your end? Yeah. That's my end. Oh, I was like, man, I don't know what happened. My brother, you know, he was a bore and now he's Chris Bell, but he's super jacked in that photo that you picked, right?

You look great, bro. He is. I think you widened the shoulders out a little bit. I mean, you should, right? That's the standard. In that picture. Yeah, that's true. But Russell, what was your heaviest weight?

Probably like 5'10", maybe a little bit more. But I weighed in at 508 the very first time, almost three years ago, almost three years ago. And what's the body weight at this morning? 398. So I'm starting to hold under four. It'll go up and down over four, depending on the day. You know, it's like, this is not a straight line. I go up and down sometimes because I didn't eat appropriately or sometimes maybe I just had really salty food the day before I worked out. I noticed when I work out, my weight usually goes up a little bit if I have it. So I've had to like.

I've shared that with you before. Like if I run a lot. Yeah. Like if I go on like a 10 mile run the next day or two, I'll be heavier. Yeah. And I've had to like, you know, it's been a journey with me getting comfortable with the scale. But the daily scales, I'll take a day off every now and then on a weekend just because i just want to feel like i'm my i'm my own man mark can't make me do it that's probably why we had the that's probably what it

was but uh uh we've had our battles we've had our battles on uh my uh they've all been good though adherence to the coaching yeah has the scale gotten easier to deal with a lot easier yeah a lot easier i was listening to like matt winning today talk about he likes to just have people do it once a month. And I see the wisdom. Every reason why he said made a lot of sense, especially for females that deal with different things that men don't deal with, right? Oh, I don't know. I think I would get lost in it somewhere. Maybe because the rest of his program is just so detailed. That's just not so necessary. But for me, doing it five, six, seven days a week has been kind of the move. I think it'd be cool if they made a scale, like just crazy accurate.

Yeah. And that way it had grams on there too, because that's how we're losing weight and we're not always noticing it. You know, you lose weight, you're losing weight in grams first. And then over time it's becoming the pounds start to come off. Well, you know, eventually there'll just be some, you know, at home scan and you're going to know your water weight you're going to know all these like extra variables i'm sure now the uh analyzer we've been talking about for a long time analyzes your poop yeah and gives you a whole scan of what's going on in the body yeah oh thanks for the reminder i need to i need to go see if i can sign up for that poop thing i think i have a pretty decent chance um russell i was wondering about this though too

because like you as you've dropped weight like your body composition is totally different and I feel like it's kind of fucked because you know as you look at the scale you've gained a lot of muscle like just saw you in the gym you have this fucking forearm vein out here like you look

really you're looking much better because you've gained a bunch of muscle, but how do you kind of deal with the muscle gain but trying to just drop weight? Because you're gaining muscle at the same time. Man, that's a good question. And I think like, you know, I've shared with you before, my whole like lifelong dieting journey has been like three steps forward, two steps back, right?

Or two steps forward, three steps back, usually most of the time. And, you know, you get so obsessed with the scale. You get so obsessed with the weight. You're seeing yourself getting heavier and heavier and you're just feeling, you know, you're feeling like shit. You're feeling like a failure the entire time. And I didn't have any like non-scale victories to talk about, but now that I've lost some weight and it's just opened up more opportunities to live my life at a higher quality. It's like, it's only the non-scale victories I care about. Like, I don't really care about the number anymore.

Not that I don't want to get down to 275. I want to get down to 275, but I want to get down to 275 because for what it could do for my life, not because the scale looks prettier too, you know, like when you, you know, when you can do the things that you can't do before, you know, this kind of, I'm almost a cliche about it now, but I've just, you know, as I go back and listen, I've been saying like, it was getting so hard for me to move, to walk, to walk 20 yards, to walk 40 yards. I'd take my trash out and I'd have to turn around and come back and go, oh, okay. Am I really going to have to take a break right now?

I mean, I was, I was literally becoming immobilized because I was just so heavy and so obese. And I mean, I still get winded so easy. I went bike riding with a friend named Joe about a month ago. And Joe is just cruising, going at a slow speed, taking it easy. He's like a former fatty.

He's lost a ton of weight. He's gotten in so much better shape. And he's just taking it so easy on me. And I was fucked up for like a week. You know? Like, I can't keep up with other people. Joe, you've got to ease up even more. God, Joe.

But I was having this conversation with him. Because I really didn't know where we were going. We were going around Folsom. And I was like, so what percentage of how far do you think we've gone? And he's like, well, you know, you've got to go around the corner and then loop back and come back. I'm like, so are you saying we're halfway there? That's like Mark on a run. Help me know where to pace myself because I'm already, I could stop right now and be fine with it. But, uh, but that's it though. Like, like I lose another a hundred pounds. I'm going to be able to loop that track and it's not going to be a problem, right?

I'm not going to be crying over here talking to our friend about how, like, I did the elliptical with my son last Thursday, and just that pressure on the feet. I've been limping for three days now, and it's just me doing the elliptical. It seems so simple, so mild, but, you know, the scale is important to me. I value it, but it's only a representation of the life that it offers. Does that make sense? Do you think you're less concerned about it because you feel like you have more control and better? Do you feel like it's a foregone conclusion? You weigh in the 390s now.

You're going to weigh 350. You're going to weigh 300. Do you feel that? Do you feel that for yourself? Is that why the scale maybe matters less? Yeah, maybe it's always been this certain sense of denial that I've had, but I've always known that it's possible. When you lose weight, you just kind of figure out,

oh, why did I screw up yesterday? What happened? What did I do wrong? Oh, okay, I got stressed out. I went and I started eating junk food because I got stressed out. It was this, you know, I talk about, I don't really, like you're talking about, you only like to train like once a day, maybe twice a day, rarely, but once a day, because that's kind of your threshold number. Sometimes when I start training hard once a day, I just beat myself down

and I've had to start learning like, okay, we've talked about high days and low days. And all of a sudden I think low days are fun days. Okay, well, and what's fun for me? Well, fun for me for the last 30 years is eating a pizza. And I have to redefine what a low day is. It's still the diet, the diet, the diet, the procedures, the things. And it's about changing my mindset. Yeah, tomorrow I'm going to relax. And then what do you think about when you relax?

You're like, I'm going to watch my favorite show and I'm going to eat my favorite food. Exactly. Right. Exactly. Sounds normal, right? It sounds normal. Yeah. And maybe for some people their, their thresholds of normal is fine. But for me, it wasn't. And for me, it was a lot of binging and it caused a lot of problems for me. I'd like to ask you a little bit more about binging because you brought it up, you brought up binging and I think that could be just a massive problem. What did that look like for you? And what do you like now when you look at it? I guess, are you able to control your binges easier now?

Or is it still like a monster that wants to fucking come out here and there? It's a monster that shows up way less often. Way less often. And I don't binge like i used to it doesn't mean i don't necessarily go off menu sometimes i still got many i would have lost the weight faster than i'm losing it if i don't go off menu sometimes and i know that um but the problems with like uh and i'm gonna be a broken record about this but the problems with like eating my feelings are way, way less. You know, that I think I, somewhere in my history, and I could tell you when I think it was, but I started using food to cope emotionally.

And it set me off on a path, a really bad path. And eventually binging, you know, binge eating, it rang the bell to hit the serotonin and, you know, to calm down with whatever's got me worked up at the moment, you know. And sometimes the workup is like fun workup, right? But sometimes it's like I had a rough day. I'm stressed out. I heard some bad news. And, you know, comfort food, right? We talk. Comfort food.

It's comforting, you know. But it's also it's going to be really dangerous if it's out of control. When do you think it was? Because you said you have an idea. Okay. Well, I was raised by my grandparents. My father was a, rest his soul, you know, in heaven and all that stuff. He was a bipolar alcoholic who was also pretty

obese. And he didn't have custody of me, neither did my mom. And I remember being at his house one time. And I mean, I didn't have a relationship with my dad. He pops in for a few days every four to six months, a year and a half. And then he gets caught up in his own madness and disappears. six months or year and a half. And then he gets caught up in his own madness and disappears. Anyways, I'm at his house and him and his friends are in the backyard. I think they were getting high. I don't really know.

And honestly, I don't have any problems with anybody getting high. At the time though, I was a kid. I didn't really understand anything about it. And I was sad. I was stressed. And they had like- Kind of scary when you're a kid.

Yeah, kind of scary. We didn't really know each other that well, right? He's doing his best to not ruin the situation. I'm doing my best not to ruin the situation. I'm a kid though, I'm probably four. And he had a bucket of chicken, KFC in the kitchen. And when they're in the backyard getting high, I just ran through that bucket of chicken.

That's the first time I remembered binge eating. So what does that mean? I mean, it means like I haven't, I don't mean it as an excuse. I mean, I've been cognitive for a long time. Eating like I eat is a problem. But that's where I think it started for me though. If I had to guess, if I had to guess, yeah.

Yeah, and it makes anytime situations of uh extreme stress come up it's probably there's probably an association to that comforting feeling of some of those foods yeah definitely yeah definitely it makes it rough yeah all right let's play this being fat or skinny is a choice agreeers now pause now we're only going to go through this segment of video but with that question russ what are your like what are your thoughts do you think some people are like it's purely a choice it's decision making and there's an aspect to that but what do you think people are missing when they say that i mean definitely everyone knows that you eat too much food you get fat you don't eat enough food you lose weight right calories in calories out that's calories are king as i've heard it said before um Um, but the, you know, I, I think you have to, at some point, and maybe this isn't, I don't know the science, I'm not trained in anything, right?

Maybe the closest comparison is an addiction of some sort, right? You're, uh, and I think, I mean, I do think it's a choice. I think, and I think some people get overwhelmed in their circumstances and make the wrong choices. You know, that doesn't mean I don't have sympathy or compassion. It doesn't mean I'm not infuriated when people are disrespectful about stating that it's a choice. It doesn't mean I'm not, I don't take offense when people make like moral judgments and stand on platitudes

about that said choice, but it is a choice. Yeah. It's a choice. What if, you know, what if someone's in your scenario, you know, or what if, so we could say it's a choice, but what if, what if at 16, you're already 80 pounds overweight because you have a dad that's getting high that doesn't have custody of you and you're in your situation you know i'm eating grandma's spaghetti every every day after school and and all that good stuff like maybe it's like it's not a choice yet because you're not making a lot of your own you're making some of your own decisions but not that many you know we're we're putting our whole society into this situation where we're getting our kids so fat and so addicted to food before they have you know cognitive control of themselves

we got to be careful with that you know i i think that's i think a lot of people are just getting brought into adulthood completely addicted to food already and they're making bad choices you know because they haven't connected the dots yet. So I just don't understand why that has to be said so disrespectfully so often. I agree. And so piously. I agree.

Every now and then. Is it helpful? You know, is it helpful to say it's your fault? Yeah. You know. And? I guess maybe it might be helpful to say, you know, you and I talk and we say, this is a calorie equation. You can lose weight.

I've helped other people lose weight in the past. This is how it works. And you might say, yeah, but I have a hard time doing that, doing this. And I could say, but if we follow this plan, we follow some of these rules, we're going to figure out how you can lose weight. And try to be helpful rather than, you rather than just saying it's your fault. And you make a really good point because eating healthy is a skill, right? Not everybody knows the skill of eating healthy. We were talking about I wasn't until my eldest son was like three or four.

Did I start realizing, oh, okay, I'm not giving them any protein and I'm just giving them baby puffs as a kid right now. And I didn't know the skill of eating healthy. I didn't teach him the skill of eating healthy on top of the other things. I didn't know about protein leveraging. I didn't know about, I mean, we always knew about whole foods. I can't say we don't know whole foods are good, but I was in such denial. I didn't understand the concept of hyper palatability. but I was in such denial. I didn't understand the concept of hyper palatability. You know, I didn't, I didn't, it seemed foreign to me. I don't know if I had really had it ever explained so concisely to me as like, you guys are so good at articulating now. So yeah. Did you have any, like, I don't know, any pushback when you did start to learn about like,

oh, maybe processed foods or when you start learning and start hearing i should say like oh like those those baby food puffs aren't good it's like no wait a second but the doctors say it's okay like did you have any like almost like resentment when you started hearing that information i mean there's so much pushback i mean that most of society hasn't figured that out yet you know and you the your my wife my my family his his you know his extended family grandma and grandpa would know and his grandma and grandpa are very fit very healthy um you know they're in their 80s and they but you know they they garden outside all day long all day long clear into the late 70s they're just now starting to slow down a little bit. So maybe they could handle all the pepitas and all this and all that, you know.

Pizza. Potatoes, potatoes. So good. Papitas. You know, it is, and you know, and everyone wants the kid to like them. So everyone's giving the kid the good food. You know, everyone wants to to be the favored care provider. So I'll give you some candy.

I'll give you some candy. I'm going to give you some candy. Let the kid be a kid. Let the kid be a kid, right? I think we missed that. There can be a lot of neglect in there. And again, for parents that aren't informed and don't know yet, that's kind of like one thing. But once you have a better understanding,

I think we know how important it is for our kids to play and to go outside. And we know how important it is just for humans in general to get proper nutrition. And so we don't have to beat everybody over the head with this, but not giving your kid access to some healthy food, I think can be a form of neglect in some way and you have to try to figure out whatever way you can do better you got to figure out the quickest way that you can start to do better even if you're not doing a great job but now trying to implement

it i'm not saying your kids can't have any junk food but it's important to recognize that you know my kid you know went to this restaurant and they had bread and butter and then they had they ordered a burger but they mainly just kind of like ate like french fries and just recognizing like okay that was a meal and maybe that happens once in a while there starts to happen all the time let's start to make sure that we get some whole foods in there yeah and there and there's a whole other mindset in there, right? Do we use food to celebrate ever? Is it ever okay to have a slice of cake?

Some people say no. Some people say it's poison. It's not. As I was telling you about maybe a month ago, it's fun food. It's not like Mike Dolce right now. It's fun food. It's not real food. You're there to celebrate.

You're there to feast. Our birthdays, is it okay to say,'re there to feast you know our birthdays are is it okay to say hey man you can have have cake today but it's because it's your brother's birthday if it's not his birthday or not someone else's birthday there's no real reason for you to have cake you know the you know you you should not you know i i don't know if not teaching any moderation skills is the move. What if you go off and you become your own adult, and next thing you know, you don't really know how to cook. You've always been told you have to eat the cleanest diet possible at home. I'm free now.

It's hard. It's hard. I don't know. I think everybody has their own presets. Ultimately, I think establishing the difference of what hunger and appetite is, and okay, you're having some cake because it's yummy. This is serving your appetite.

This should represent 5%, 3%, whatever the experts agree on, whatever you guys agree on, how often this should occur. So I'm not against having them. I don't even know. Am I answering your question very well? I just think it's showing like this isn't meant to be every day. And when you start letting those unhealthier behaviors creep into your day-to-day activities, I think that's where you get in trouble.

I don't necessarily think it's, I, you know, my wife loves going trick-or-treating with the kids. I was able to walk this year. So I went trick-or-treating with them this year as well. They had candy that night, but I was like, okay, I know I'm going to get people mad at me. None of this candy makes it till tomorrow. So I'm not saying binge and make yourself sick, but I am saying it's going to be gone tomorrow. I just think that's, I mean, I. Yeah, how much celebrating we're going to do. And imagine if you were having a celebration, a birthday, it's a Super Bowl, it's a holiday or whatever it might be.

You do enjoy a piece of cake. You do enjoy a couple slices of pizza, but imagine before that you enjoy a lot of healthy stuff still. You have some fruit, you have some lean meats, you have, you enjoy a lot of healthy stuff still. You have some fruit, you have some lean meats, you have a good meal. I mean, there's ways to cook stuff. You can have lean meatballs and lean beef and all kinds of stuff before you have that. And exactly to your point, last night was the Super Bowl, right? I went over to some friend's house and 10 years ago, that would have meant,

oh, it's Super Bowl. So that means we're going to eat, we're going to eat all the pizza. We're going to eat all the Doritos. We're going to eat all the spinach dip I can possibly consume, right? That's what it's going to mean, right? Last night, it meant a plate of tri-tip and a cookie, you know, and a couple little slices of spinach dip. It didn't, it wasn't, it wasn't like, you know,

I'm going to go get a plate of appetizers before I get my plate of pizza and then follow it up with my other plate of pizza. And, you know, it was, it's just, so even in those moments, I can use, you know, what you guys have taught me, get my protein in, stick to the yummier whole foods. I don't, I don't, but I don't have a,

I don't have a guilty conscience that I had a cookie last night, even though I'm still 398 pounds. I know I'm still fucking enormous. You should. I cannot believe you had a cookie. Shame on me. As a man, how should I even know? You know, it's like, come on.

Just have Mike Dolce on one shoulder and Leighton on the other one. I'm going to report you to Mike Dolce. Well, I think they, well, what would, I mean. Was it a homemade cookie? It was, well, I know it was made with love. I know it was made with love. But was it homemade? I'm gonna text him right now.

Somebody has, whoever made it has a home. So those really delicious sugar cookie kids, I don't know what to tell you. I fucking great. Can't make something out of nothing. Like a politician over here. That was a perfect answer. If you have knee pain or lower back pain, the initial thought is that it's probably coming from the knee or the lower back.

But have you ever thought that it could actually be coming from your feet? Most people wear shoes like this. They are narrow. They are not flat. They are inflexible. So it's almost like your feet are stuck in casts all day long. And if you imagine that your hand was stuck in a cast all day, well, your fingers are going to become weak, but then your elbows might start feeling a little bit wonky because your fingers don't move, and then it might travel up your shoulder. That's the same

thing that happens with your feet when you put them in normal and flexible shoes. That's why you want to throw those out and start using some Vivo barefoot shoes. They have shoes for hiking on their website, working out in the gym. They have casual shoes like these Novus' right here. But the difference with Vivo is that they have a wide toe box so that your feet, like my wide ass feet, can spread and move within the shoe. They're flat so that your feet are doing the work when you're walking and they are flexible so your feet have the freedom to move the way they need to move so that they can be strong feet. That's why you want to get yourself some of these. And Andrew, how can they get yes that's over at vivo barefoot.com power project when you guys get there you'll see a code across the top make sure you enter that code at checkout for 15 off your entire

order again that's at vivo barefoot.com power project links in the description as well as the podcast show notes guys look at this look at that i could stick that in my mouth. Do it. I'm not going to do that. Come on. That's disgusting. No. Get him. Yeah, what you said, though, I do think about that all the time because, like, we're really strict with my son's diet. And it's, like, one of the things that I'm honestly, like, as a parent, am most proud of because, like, I'm definitely not the best dad ever. But with his diet, I think we rank really, really high. Right.

But I am concerned, like, oh, shit, what happens when he spends the night at a cousin's house or something and then you know everybody's eating the way they traditionally eat like is he gonna go nuts and what i think about is it's like i'm gonna choose this route and this difficult like this uh it's like choose your heart i'm going to choose this route and risk that then risk him kind of not having the best foundation with his diet and nutrition growing up. Because I think it's, I mean, you guys can probably answer this a little bit better, but I think it would be easier to have a good foundation and have him be like, you know, a leaner kid, higher protein diet.

And then if he starts to gain weight to get back to that versus the opposite, a little bit over too much body fat, not enough muscle, and then try to reverse that to become the leaner body type or something. Totally. And I think to your point, I mean, I think I've heard somewhere on your podcast that, you know, their body composition in those ages going into puberty sets their hormonal levels for most of the rest of their life. And, and then, you know, I had one son who came out a little heavier. I had one son that came out a little skinnier. Same parents.

You know, I, you know, as you know, what, what happened? I mean, I was still pretty much living the same lifestyle as we were talking about. So was mom. It's, you know, no one's, no one's dealt the same. You know, one of the hardest things to learn in this world is life is not fair and it's and it sucks life is not fair not everybody starts at the same place not everybody has the same troubles right but you still have to take what you're dealing with i still have to help my son that's a little bit more predisposition to be a little

thicker a little heavier to help him navigate right and he And he's, he's a teen now. He, I see him doing the work. He's doing some pushups with me at home and they're doing these little dip things on the pushup bars. And, and I see him like he will grab a banana and a protein shake for breakfast. I, you know, bore got him on the protein pudding. He was having protein pudding like every night last year, practically. So he's changing. I'm not giving him the Ben and Jerry's anymore. He's changing. So I feel the same way. I want to teach my kids good, healthy lifestyle. God, I do. I love them. I don't want them burdened with, this sucks. It sucks to be obese. It sucks to be morbidly obese. And it sucks even more to be super morbidly obese, almost to the point where you're going to die. I don't want that for my kids.

But also, when you're militant with your kids, I don't know if it always works out well at the end. So it's a tough way to go. I wish it was so easy and I knew all the answers. It is a hard balance because literally, we've seen people mention that they've had militant parents with their nutrition when they were a kid they get older and then the thing is like i haven't been able to have this now i'm gonna go crazy it's just like the kid that was never able to do anything with their friends or they weren't able to do this and then once they get older i'm doing shit look at everybody i'm going clubbing i'm doing all this you know look how that strictness worked out for the Catholic church.

Can I get a hey now? Let's continue to play the video. Hey, now. Hey, now. Hey, if you're too restrictive, shit happens. Oh, fuck. All right, let's get to it. All right, I never said that. Now that's staying.

All right, let's get to it. All right, I never said that. Now that's staying. Of course, not every factor is purely choice. I don't think that every factor is, but I do think a majority of it is. In most cases, for most people, being skinny or being fat is about willpower.

It's about the environment you grow up in, sure. But who you choose to associate with, what sort of things you choose to listen to, who you choose to kind of have as your friends around you and support you, all of those things are choices that you can make that will lead you closer towards being one or the other. I know what I do with my body. I know what I put into it, day in and day out. I choose not to eat some days. I choose, you know, how I want to look. And I don't fault anyone. Going back to what that other guy said to Russ, do you relate to that at all?

Like in terms of the people that you had to, like friendships over the years or people that you've had around you, has that had any effect on the choices that you've been able to make moving forward and becoming healthier? Go a little deeper with that question, please. Like, I don't know if any of your closest friends

have the same type of issues. Or if like, you know, they go out to certain places or when you guys all hang out, if this was a thing, some people have friends that like to eat a lot. Did you have to change that environment of the friendships around you to be able to continue to make progress? Or are all the same friends that you had 10 years ago,

15 years ago, are those the same people you have now? I've always been the fattest friend. Okay. So I think that sort of sets things there. I've had friends confide in me before. I felt guilty. Like I had one friend, maybe we'd go to Chili's and just crush nachos,

chips and salsas on the cheap, right? You can get, Chili's has an incredible chips and salsa selection. And, you know, he said, I'd feel bad because I know you're's also selection and uh and uh you know he said i'd feel bad because i know you're obese and he wasn't you know he wasn't obese and he was like okay you know i kind of feel bad about this so i think most of my friends and family have been happy for me that i'm you know starting to connect the dots and get some traction in my weight loss i didn't have like i didn't have like a circle of binge eating fat friends

that I had to like let go of. And everybody I know, they're really happy about that. That's good. So you haven't had, there's been no resistance in terms of the chains that you've been trying to make from anyone in your life. So there's, I have tried the method of don't let anything in the house that doesn't, that's not helpful. That's a hard,

that's a hard battle. I'm not a bachelor. You know, I have a wife, I have kids, I have in-laws, I have uncles and aunts on both sides of the family. That you're, you get outvoted sometimes. You just, you just get outvoted sometimes. But I think it's my obligation to have the right stuff there. It's my obligation to make sure I did my food prepping. I cooked my ground beef. I cooked my chicken legs. I cooked my tri-tip. So when it comes time for someone to eat, because you can't beat that food.

That food's ready immediately, because you can't beat it. So when it's time, it's like, here, here, I got this ready for you. Let me just heat this up real fast, or for my own sake, let me go there instead of going there. I don't have a clean pantry. There's stuff in the pantry that I don't even want to open it. But, you know, so there's stuff in the pantry that i don't even want to open it but i you know i so there's pushback but i think the biggest you know when you start doing the right things the wrong things get a lot easier to ignore so that's that's i think that puts your effort in just doing the

right things and then the wrong thing fucking bar come a fucking bar. Come on, man. Come on, man. Let's go, Russ. I just think put your energy to doing the right things. And then it's just like I went and had dinner, Super Bowl with my friends last night. I went to the tri-tip first. I was already full. I second swooped a single cookie.

Not that bad. Not that bad. Not that bad. I offer that to my kids, right? Yeah. Back on the kind of topic of choice, the second guy that's talking, his name is Parker, and he's a much thinner guy for people that aren't watching the video portion of this. And the first guy that was talking was a heavier guy. It does seem like maybe something happens when we're young. I don't know exactly what it is, or maybe we're born with it. But like this guy mentioned, some days he just chooses not to eat. I certainly was never that

kid. As somebody that got used to some intermittent fasting, I certainly was able to develop that skill set over a period of time to where I could be without food for a little while. But I remember years ago, even just having a doctor's appointment and they're just like, you need to be fasted, like to get blood work done or something like that. I was like, oh, my God, I got to fast until like noon. I'm going to die. You know, and so it is an interesting thing. Like maybe this guy, Parker, who's thin, maybe he kind of just has always been that way. Maybe he just doesn't care about food that much. Well, and if I had to guess, setting aside his metabolism or predispositions or anything like

that, it sounds like he never made that as so... I had an epiphany when I realized I was eating off of appetite and not eating off of hunger. Appetite is insidious. It just keeps banging on your ear until you listen to it. It's very hard to fight off. Hunger, it's waves. It gets a little strong. You deal with that final push. I'm a little hungry right now, right? Not a big deal. I don't have that same sense of like, oh man, I want to eat. I'm stressed. I'm stressed, I'm stressed, right? So, and the part of that was helping when we kind of reconnected this last round and you started me off on a one meal a day diet for 30 days. And that was sort of a, that was a little bit,

I'm not a big believer in challenges. I think most people are challenged enough just to keep a base level, but that was really good for me. That was helpful for me to go through that and be successful way more than I wasn't successful and start learning, oh, okay, this is hunger. I feel hunger in my stomach. I feel appetite in my head. Hunger's not that bad. Hunger you can deal with until, I imagine, you know many many hours and maybe even days i don't know and oh and that's mentioned here like one thing that

you you were talking about in terms of this guy maybe he's always been that way but some people you've seen some people where they're like i don't feel good and they they literally feel down so they don't eat and then some people they feel down so they do eat so it's like a different learned behavior that helps somebody deal better with a specific situation right um and oddly enough like that's where i think fasting has helped us a little bit because i was on the side of like i can eat a lot and when i was feeling uncomfortable i would eat but i always had the exercise portion of things that was helpful for me, right? But when I used fasting and I started developing that,

I learned to just be okay with being a little bit hungry. That's something where I wasn't just seeking food because of my appetite. So you can learn those behaviors and use them in a healthy way so it doesn't go out of hand. Yeah, and I'm probably gonna make the same mistake everybody else makes where I just view the world through my own eyes and think everyone lived my experience but i again i i don't i never was

hungry before and i never went through hunger i was always eating off of my appetite or my rituals you know as in now and now when i when i do experience hunger it's i you know it's it's a lot it's it's pretty manageable it's pretty lot. It's pretty manageable. It's pretty manageable. Yeah. Appetite is hard. Appetite's hard to manage still. I still struggle with it. But part of that is learning other ways to regulate the stress that was triggering that appetite. You know, phoning a friend, you know, staying regular on my exercise routine. And I'm learning exercises, not necessarily the best reactively right you gotta you gotta put that time in ahead right to normalize your system and i mean and then you i experience appetite

pushes way less often when i'm exercising yeah i'm gonna imagine with this guy as well this thinner individual that he might have like digestive issues you see that a lot with thinner people and with people that run you see it a lot with thinner people and with people that run. You see it a lot with runners. Part of the reason why they became a runner is because they've always been smaller. Part of the reason they're smaller is they have a hard time digesting their food.

And so when they're in high school or whatever, instead of playing football, they do track or they do cross country or something like that. They're pretty proficient at that. And they can kind of continue on with that. So it's just a guess on this guy. But like a lot of times when you see someone that thin,

it's like, they don't really enjoy food. They kind of just, I remember hearing that for someone from the first time. He goes, I don't like to eat. I remember hearing that for the first time I was probably 18 or 17. It was some,

some adult I knew at the time. And I was like, all right, are you kidding me? You don't like to eat? And then coincidentally he was shredded, you know, and he looked great and he didn't like to eat. Wow. Wow. What's that like? Nice burden lifted off of you. I didn't, I mean, when I was younger, I didn't like to eat either, but that's because I, I ruined it the whole day. So like I would eat like cereal all day long ruin my taste buds ruin my appetite and then by time dinner came around i didn't want to eat and when i did i would kind of get sick and then i don't know maybe there's a little bit

of trauma there but like my dad would get super mad at me for not eating and then so like that kind of like spiraled or snowballed on itself to where i was like well yeah eating's not like a fun experience but so that was like something i had to get over myself because I had to just start eating properly the whole day, not just like, you know, that one meal. And, you know, so that's what I had to get through. And not to try to take shots at what you experienced, but sounds like eating was really fun when it was cereal. Yeah, no, you're right. Yeah. That's because that's what I did on my free time, right? Watching cartoons or playing video games, eating cereal. And then when it was cereal yeah no you're right yeah that's because that's what i did on my free time right watching cartoons or playing video games eating cereal yeah and then when it came to eating real food i was like nah i'm good i don't know this isn't as yummy as the other stuff we get

desensitized to normal to normal food and i think yeah i think circling back that's why you know that's why i've always i've always sort of, I mean, like, God bless the people that have found so much success through the carnivore lifestyle. I've never really, I've always sort of known that really wasn't my call. In fact, I really, I distinctively remember telling you one time, I was like, about a year ago, I'm really going to give this a push and go into it. And you're like, I really don't know if that's what's right for you. I said, I need to just cage this demon or cage the dragon, maybe I said at the time. And you were like, you need to realize there's no dragon

and just stick by healthy eating principles. And there's a lot of truth to that. I mean, cause it is all in your head. It's all in your head. But how come you're, how can you still have something be all in your head still so powerful in your own existence? It's crazy.

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look so good and they're so good for your feet that they're almost a no-brainer. So, well, they are a no-brainer. Andrew, how can they get some of these kicks? Yes, you guys got to head over to vivobare how can they get some of these kicks yes you guys got to head over to vivo barefoot.com slash power projects and you guys will receive 15 off your order again vivo barefoot.com slash power project links in the description as well as the podcast show notes anyone for how they want to look or how they want to be but i think it's a choice at the end of the day i'm very you know always wish washy on how i want to be presented but I think it's a choice at the end of the day. I'm very, you know, always wish-washy on how I want to be presented and if I want to gain weight or not, but the only person that's

going to gain the weight at the end of the day is me and me myself. For me, it's calories in, calories out. Go to the gym, you'll get buff. Don't go to the gym, you won't get buff. I understand that there's genetics that could cause you to want to eat more, but even with the genetics that cause you to want to eat more, the same solution is calories in, calories out. I think the whole choice is, you know, always determined on who they are.

And it's not going to just be a thing done overnight. Yeah, yeah. It takes a lot of, I think it's like breaking the barrier and breaking a lot of things, not only your body, but also breaking your mental state. Sure. And again, that depends on who you are and what you want to go through. Disagreers? I felt like as a toddler, I always viewed myself as big. I grew up in a very like poor home. So where my mom couldn't provide the meals that she could healthily. So when we would get like free meals, even then it would be like canned food and it would be like very much food that's not as edible. It was food for us. Yes. But then I felt like once

I reached a point where I was old enough to try to make my own choices, I made all of the wrong choices. I wasn't eating and I was only eating like grapes and lettuce. And that was mainly because I was in a sport and that sport just worked me out so hard. And it was to the point where I just was scared to eat. I didn't like it. I would only drink water. When you were eating grapes and lettuce, were you thin? I was the thinnest I could be. You mentioned that time when you were really young, when you were four.

Do you remember, was there any of, first off, when you were a teenager, were you heavier? Or was that something that happened later and were you were there any times when you were younger teenager early 20s where you were trying to make changes or did it just slowly ramp up i've been trying to lose weight since the fourth grade oh it's it's been something i think i think fat kids know that they're fat everyone lets them know they're fat their entire childhood i mean i've heard you talk about your family to you know let the kids know hey let the let the young adults know hey what are you doing to yourself people know it breaks my mind when people say oh i had no idea and then i really got fat shaming and i i got fat shamed i had this epiphany and all of a sudden like things came clear for me it just it just breaks mind. I don't understand that. I wasn't like, you know, I went through different phases.

I was chubby in kindergarten. And then, you know, and then when you're a kid, you stretch out of it, right? You just keep getting taller and you stretch out of it. You catch up to yourself. You stretch out of it. I started playing a little bit of football in like the eighth grade, seventh grade maybe. I don't remember. And I started exercising for the first time beyond just

like riding bikes with with with the friends which we're not allowed to let our kids outside anymore you know this right i mean you can't let your kids outside there's there's someone driving a million miles an hour outside your front front door and you're worried that they're you know they're going to take your kids and swooping in a white van it's you, you just, you know, so I wasn't enormously obese as a kid, except in the kindergarten. I got pictures, I'll send you. But I, you know, this was the 80s, man. Kids weren't fat in the 80s, you know?

Everyone was skinny in the 80s. Really? Oh yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, everyone was skinny in the 80s. And I was one of very few fat kids in my school. Yeah. And I wasn't even giant obese.

But I've always, I've been, yeah, I've been wanting to lose weight since the fourth grade. And why? Because I wanted girls to like me. And no girl likes a fat kid. It's just the way it is. Maybe it's a little different now because of choice and selection. But back then, no. They weren't choosing this.

They were choosing the skinny kids. So, yeah. And as you got older, you were in the military. We should kind of mention that. And, like, what was your weight when you were in the military? That's very rigorous, I'm imagining. You know, and I hate this story. You know, you even asked me yesterday, is everything on board? And I almost

wanted to say, oh, everything but this, but there's no reason not to be upfront about it. I was probably 210, 215, six foot going into the army, got down to like 195 in basic training actually was fit for the first time different question altogether what what body composition do you need to have before you start calling yourself fit i'd love to have that discussion with you guys um and uh basic training is awesome you march all day long and and you got a drill sergeant making sure you're only eating eggs and bacon, you know. But then again, though, once you get autonomousness and you're out getting your own food, even though I was doing my PT five days a week, I still got fat and I got fucking kicked out of the army for getting fat. I hate that. I don't like to tell that to people. It's my biggest shame in this world or near close to my biggest

shame in this world. So you can't outrun, you can't out push up. You can't out train a bad diet. If you're living off of Domino's and Burger King, you're going to fucking get fat and destroy your body. And, and I knew that just didn't have, and I did what she did when I needed to lose weight. Listen, listen to what she said. I ate grapes. Yeah. Well, I would buy a bag of shredded lettuce and pour salsa in it and eat a bag of shredded lettuce with salsa to try to lose weight. And then realize, oh, this doesn't work if you don't put enough protein into your diet. So, you know, listen to what she's, you know, that one of the young ladies there, she's, you know, she's saying everything right. It's just also really hard to accept accountability that ultimately at some point, once you know the skill of healthy eating, you kind of have to start leaning on that. You have to start going, okay, I get it. I've been

behind most of my life. Some of it wasn't my fault necessarily. Some of it wasn't my fault at all at some point, but at some point you got to take responsibility of your actions, right? Yeah. So. It's still you living in that body, regardless of whose fault it may or may not be. It's your life. Right. I know it's painful to take accountability for your own bad decisions. It's your life. But I mean, listen to what she was saying. She's saying she's eating grapes yeah how how are you going it's calories in calories out it's only willpower not going to fuel yourself if you're eating grapes you're going to crash and who you know let alone metabolic diseases and stuff like that which I'm sure are very curable but you know when your energy tanks or anytime you do eat any carbs you

just want to go sleep because you're so broken inside. All that stuff, this is so easily unaccounted for in people's mental equations on how to communicate this. Yeah, it just doesn't work. It's really, really rare to hear someone say like, oh, I chopped out 1,500 calories from the food I was eating and I'd lost 100 pounds. Right. Now that could happen, but it's very rare for it to happen because it's not sustainable usually.

And I've been thinking about this a lot lately. We see these people that do these ginormous transformations in six months, 100 pounds down in six months, and they get such accolades and such, you know, respect and appreciation for that. And then it's like, oh, okay, well, I guess then that's how you do it. You just starve yourself for six months,

train like you're, you know, like you're going to compete for something. Like you're on biggest loser. You're on biggestgest Loser. And then that's how you do it. And that's what I tried to do my whole life. And it wasn't until I said, this is just not working. I have to figure this out.

I have to slow down. I have to be at peace with the fact that I only lost one pound this week. And if I can do that this entire year, 50 pounds is a lot of fucking weight. Most people don't have much more than 50 pounds to lose. I'm in a rare situation, a growing group of people, been a rare situation where if you lose 50 pounds a year, it's still going to take a few years or more to lose all that

weight. But wouldn't you rather lose weight slowly than keep spinning your wheels and never getting there and just continually just watching your life slip by and never getting anywhere with your health. So, you know, I just, I really wonder everyone's own personal journey is fine for them. I mean, good for you if you did it that way. Good for you if you lost 100 pounds in six months.

I don't know if you're necessarily like, are you making the world a little bit better? Maybe, but also I think you're setting a lot of people up to fall on their face and trying to like follow your footsteps. What made that clear for you? That slower would be better for you because I can totally understand when someone sees somebody lost a hundred pounds or 50 pounds in six months, I can totally understand the want to just keep fucking banging your head and trying that and trying that, because it should work.

Six months from now, I'll be a totally different person. But for most people, that doesn't work. So what made you realize that slower could be the better option for you? I mean, I actually had success for the first time. You know, I remember, conceptually, I remember, say, like in 2000, I was, I was doing all the things you're supposed to do when you're desperate and you want to lose weight. I was going to weight

watchers. I was going to Jenny Craig. I was doing all the things you're supposed to do. And I remember this, uh, Jenny Craig coach, he called it JC because, you know, you want to be cool. And, uh, and, uh, Hey, it's Jeff from JC. Hey, you want to do that diet? And I'm thinking about my, no, because you pitched me to choose, lose one or two pounds a week. And that sounds ridiculous. I'm used to the biggest loser where they're dropping 10 to 15 every week.

Why would I do that? That's clearly inferior. You must be wrong. You know, you must be wrong. So no. And, you know, eventually you just get tired of hitting your head against the wall and not getting anywhere and and you know i just you know through our relationship and through just having a steady diet in your coaching you know eventually you just start going okay well

20 pounds i've been here before okay 25 30 pounds I've been here before. Okay. 25, 30 pounds. I've been here before. Oh, wow. 40 pounds. I don't know if I can ever say I've lost 40 pounds before I'm in new territory. And then again, and then that thing happens, you stop caring about the numbers. You start realizing, oh, I can move again. I can, I can, I can, I can, I I'm getting my mobility back again. And then, and then you, and then I stopped caring about the non-scale victories became more important than the scale. Yeah. I mean, we were talking about earlier once, once I started realizing that the benefits of getting healthier were way more important than my ego or my pride of saying how fast

I could do it. Who cares? I'm just enjoying getting a little stronger. My mobility was shit. You know, I had to get my mobility back, you know, and, and then again, when you're super obese, I know we were talking about this sort of stuff a little bit, maybe it's kind of off track, but like, you know, you get fat enough. You can't wipe your asshole. You just can't. What's that like? Imagine not being able to wipe your asshole, pal. Yeah. And still eating shit.

Right? And you're like, oh, wow. I can wipe my asshole? That's great. You know? Well, just think about, like, what something like that does to your whole day. Like, if you have to use the bathroom, now I'm imagining, like, because I was 330 pounds and it got to be more difficult to clean myself as well. And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to take a shower after I take a shit. Yeah. That's what you have to. But that,

I mean, that's a lot of planning. Like there's extra time into your day. I think that we don't really truly understand where someone's drive to do certain things comes from. I think that we, we think because we see these motivational videos and we see these things, we think that the driver of, of somebody you know going outside and jumping rope or somebody going on a run we think that that just comes from deep down inside just comes from willpower and just comes from the drive that they want to do it yeah but we're missing that it comes from energy it comes from the food that they're consuming it comes from the sleep that they had it comes from all these like recovery tools and you've been working a lot on all these recovery tools which is a huge piece of the pie but you can't

do the things that you want to do when you have so much interference from your own body that that's it ends up being way more limiting than we give it uh than we give publicity to it really does and and also to the point of eventually and then i applaud these big kids that can still get it being so heavy but i keep thinking you don't know i know where you're going to be in about 8 or 12 years you do not realize what you're doing to your joints and you're going to lose your mobility because you're going to just start hurting yourself all the time and uh once i once i kind of started getting fat and I got out of the army, I stopped running. I didn't like running anymore, but I really enjoyed doing the elliptical, right? And I was a big guy. I'm like, you know, 260, 270.

And I mean, making it look okay. Let's be honest, right? I'm sorry. Please, please get rid of that. And I took a certain sense of... I've seen the pictures. I took a certain sense of like, I can still crush it in the gym. And I started losing that ability to crush it in the gym because my body just could not handle it. And then you break yourself and your ego gets in the way and you break yourself

and now you're out for a couple of weeks and then you go back. And I mean, the weight eventually wins. The weight, I mean, setting aside like the heart issues and the longevity issues, out for a couple weeks and you go back and i mean the way it eventually wins the weight of it i mean setting aside like the heart issues and the longevity issues i'm just talking about and the quality of your daily existence the way it eventually wins so um i think circling back to your initial point i just i just had to realize maybe losing weight fast is what worked for somebody else. It's not working for me. It's not really my place to, or am I knowledgeable enough to say who it does and doesn't work for?

But I know for some people it doesn't work and they have to, you just have to be willing to meet your health where it's at, not where you wish it was, not where it used to be, not where you want it to be. You have to train for where you's at, not where you wish it was, not where it used to be, not where you want it to be. You have to train for where you're at today in a way that makes it so you can show up again tomorrow. Three years? It's taken you about three years? Three years to lose.

That's something for people to think about, over 150 weeks, right? To lose about 115, 120 pounds. I'm not even averaging a pound a week. But caveat, again, 115 pounds, but the muscle gain. It's like. Sure. You have a very different composition.

Thank you. Yeah, and I do. I think it saved you. I think it's been the kind of driver behind everything because you and I have talked about this a bunch of times. It's like, just don't ever get detached from everything. You know, you either have the diet in place or you have the lifting in place and one might fall and the other one might fall here and there.

But like, please pick up the pieces of the puzzle the best you can. Yeah. On one or the other and or both as much as you possibly can. Yeah. And again, I'm speaking from my own experience, but also of others who I've spoken with. as much as you possibly can. Yeah, and again, I'm speaking from my own experience, but also of others who I've spoken with. It's, you can't out-train a bad diet. You just can't.

You cannot work it unless you're an elite athlete and your health and fitness level is already at a point to accommodate pushing your body so hard. You know, like what you used to do. I mean, you trained all day long to get as strong as you used to do i mean you you you you trained all day long to get as strong as you could to lift that weight right right you you it accommodated you eating cookies and that was sort of part of your goal too you wanted to be heavier right but to your point i did gain a lot of body fat and for your average human that just doesn't work right

it just doesn't work are you still big't work. Are you still big though? I was still big, but that was the skinniest I've ever been. And that's coming from somebody who was only eating somewhat salads that are just fruit and lettuce and water and maybe ice right before a practice. Do you think that right now you would not be capable of becoming a thin woman? I possibly would be capable of becoming a thin woman, but since I was young, I was supposed to get blood tested probably when I was very, very young,

and I never did. And they had mentioned that it could have been because of my weight and how that connects with my thyroid. I never made the connection, and I never had, like, that, like, leaning parent to be like, go and get checked out, go and do this.

Like, your weight is probably not your fault. It was always like, your weight is your fault. So that's your issue. I mean, I also struggle with, you know, thyroid and my own blood issues. I'm not quite sure, but I do see an endocrinologist and I go see a doctor. It's a choice to do the requisite steps. It's a choice to go grocery shopping instead of going to fast food when it's easy. It's a choice when you're grocery shopping to go to the outer aisles and like not go in to the bread section and not go into the junk food section. These are all choices. As a disabled woman, I can't do a lot of the things that people say calories in, calories out. Oh, you got to go work out and exert it.

A lot of the things that are typical, oh, this is how you lose weight, put me in the hospital. I have to navigate weight differently. I have to look at it differently. My weight is the way it is because of medication, because doctors put me in this position. And I had to learn, okay, am I going to be so hateful of my own body that I am going to backlash

and put myself through extreme gym nights, through keeping myself from eating things that I should be able to eat. You should be able to have a balance. You should be able to go into the junk food aisle like other skinny people do and still not have to worry about gaining 20 pounds. But I don't think skinny people go into this junk food. Pause real quick. Russell, she mentioned something about, you know, she's disabled and there's certain things that she has to deal with navigating that. But you mentioned that, you know, there was a time that you were going on the elliptical, you were working out, then you'd injure your foot.

And as you've tried to build these healthier habits, what are some things that like you've had to deal with that you didn't even realize this is actually a problem? Like as you're trying to work out, it's just even realize this is actually a problem like as you're trying to work out it's just things just kept getting in your way you've mentioned some of these things before oh you know you you start realizing just your capacities aren't where you want them to be right and then where you are in that man and her you know and i wouldn't say necessarily her capacities aren't where she wants them to be but she's saying that her capacities are limited yes and i and i think

that's an out outside of her story just in general as we age unless you've gone into it very intelligently our capacities will fade right you know at what age does the average person in this country lose the ability to run you know and once you lose the ability to run? And once you lose the ability to run, how many of them ever get it back? So it is, as you lose your capacity and you have to account for it. And then that's that same question we had earlier, finding the balance. I would love to hear what her definition of what a balanced diet is. Is a balanced diet for her rich in protein? Is it rich in protein? Is it high in fiber? Yeah, normally when people talk about balance, they're talking about like not

such a great diet. Not such a great diet. They want to make room for junk. And we can have discussions on who defined what a balanced diet was and what the common thinking is of what a balanced diet is. And to the other young lady's issue of saying, you know, her thyroid was messed up. My thyroid's been messed up since I was a kid, you know, and I've had this question when I spoke with Dr. Whitmer and his staff, you know, when you have, you know, if your hormones are out of whack, for sure that's a problem. And we all come into the game with our own set base point of our hormones, but then also how much is our lifestyle driving our hormones down?

And I take thyroid medicine today. So maybe that would help. Like, hey, maybe get some thyroid medicine and maybe that would help. And also it's, yeah, definitely. And people have challenges with this. But I don't, I don't, And also, yeah, definitely. And people have challenges with this. But I don't, it's not really about the movement.

It's about the diet. The movement is, if you can move just a little bit, you said start with a 10-minute walk once a day. If you can bump that up to three 10-minute walks a day, I mean, I think most Americans can still do that. Even with her, in her case, maybe she's got a cane, maybe it's modified, or I don't know exactly where her physical limitations are or not, but most people can move for 10 minutes. For me, I found it enormously helpful to get a membership at a gym that has a pool. So it just takes weight off my feet. I can get a great sweat in the pool.

It's cool. No one can see I'm sweating like I am right now, which I'm sweating like 80% of my existence, right? Perfect for Sacramento. Andrew, see if you can bring up a clip. Do you have some clips on your IG of you swimming, right? Just like wine, maybe, yes. Maybe you can dig up and find.

It's not that far back. You could find it pretty quickly. I would imagine. Well, I just think it's, I think it's cool. And I think it's good to demonstrate if we can show it because it's not like you have this crazy prowess to be this like incredible swimmer, but you're in there getting exercise and you're getting exercise that fits where you're at right now. Most of it's walking. I mean, freestyle swimming like your wife does? No, no, I'm not. But I think most people like would think like, oh shit, like that's, they might hear you saying I'm swimming and they're like, oh man, but I can't swim. It's like, we're not really talking about like, you don't have to be some expert level swimmer. You can just walk in the water. And most everybody, if they can swim, they can swim on their back.

So, you know, when I'm at, So when I'm in my slowest mode, I'll walk up half of it and then swim on my back the other half. I won't even turn belly down because it's just so much easier for me to keep air coming in and out of my lungs at full capacity when I'm face up. So I'll walk one way, I'll walk back.

At one point, I had this really cool membership to this swim club where they had a really deep pool and I would just go to the deep end and I would just tread water. And it was actually kind of cool because the fatter you are, the easier it is to tread water, right? So it kind of meets you where you're at a little bit, right? So it's an enormous tool for anyone that has access to it. And I understand there's limiting factors in that as well. So it's not her... I mean, there's something to be said. I'm certain there's limiting factors in that as well. So, you know, I, it's not her. I mean, I would, there's something to be said. I'm certain there's something to be said to burning out the glucose in your muscle and to stabilizing her emotions from getting, from exercising, right? And we talked about how when you're in a, having a healthy exercise regimen, it stabilizes your

emotions. I heard someone say on Instagram today, it's the best antidepressant you can find is, you know, working out. So I would, I would, I would key into, okay, fair points. Let's talk about that balanced diet. What's your, what do you think a balanced diet is? Healthy eating is a skill. Most of us have been taught a wrong definition of what healthy eating is. You know, we're, we're watching these NFL athletes pound Subway sandwiches, you know, and we're thinking, oh, oh, a foot long Subway with some chips. That's healthy eating for me. And your kid wants you to bring him there. Cause he saw Patrick Mahomes eating it. Right? Absolutely. Um, you also, uh, you also will bike here and there. I know, especially like last year, I think you were a little bit more into it, but do you have, I'm not trying to joke,

do you have a special bike? Because I know some things that you look at, you're like, Mark, I don't know about that chair, dude. Is it going to hold me and so on? I've busted many a cranks. I've thrown many a ball bearings on a bicycle. And I did a lot of research. I've thrown many a ball bearings on a bicycle and I did a lot of research. Uh, I Googled, um, and I stumbled across this brand, a small brand Zyze bikes. They make

bikes for enormous people, enormous people. My bike has like a weight capacity of five 50. Oh, sure. They make tricycles that can go even heavier than that. So good for them. Good for them. But I always want to make the distinction. That's awesome that you're making bikes for really heavy people. Really heavy people. Hey, look, this is a tool for you to get less heavy. That's somehow, that part of the narrative is getting a little lost in our culture right now. Good for you for being heavy and getting after it. Are you also trying to get less heavy?

Because I think getting a little less heavy would be, I know getting a little less heavy would be enormously beneficial in your life. So God bless Zy's bikes. I wish I was a sponsor. I wish they'd send me a bike for free because I always talk about them, but I didn't. I had to break open the penny jar and spend way too much money for a bike than I think. But when I compare it to other high-quality bikes, that's what they go for. Again, though, price is a limiting factor. But for anyone that can afford it, find a plus-size bike. They do exist. The market's going to chase chase the clientele right and that's another discussion

where you get so offended that there's a size six t-shirt for someone and how dare they work out and put it on social media being size six what are you doing your size i mean men's size six or women's size 18 or 24 or whatever they sit at um we get offended at that because i think part of the narrative is sometimes when heavy people are showing you that they can be fit, they don't include the part of, and I want to get to a healthier size and be lighter because lighter is going to be easier on my joints. Those joints aren't going to last into your, they're not, I don't know who it's going to. And for me, I started exceeding the threshold

of what my joints could handle and it sucked ever since then it's really been not a fun journey ever since then so when i see young people sort of showing off their physical prowesses and still being really heavy i'm impressed and i applaud them for the work but i also go hey i hope also somewhere whether you're public or private about it, I hope somewhere in the back of your head, you're also thinking, I would like to lean out a little bit. I think that's important.

Yeah, you've had a lower back, knees. Ankles, ankles, feet. Ankles, feet. Maybe like, is it fair to say like a couple times a month, something pops up that's a little bit of a hindrance. Yeah. I mean, it just is. For me, I have to check my ego out.

My ego can easily outwork my ability to, it's not like I can't get through the workout because you get some adrenaline, you get motivated, you get that playlist. I'm listening to Motley Crue in my ears, right? And I go. You're all fired up and you're training with Melvin and you're hitting the bags and everything. I was like, Melvin, I don't know about this last round, Melvin. Melvin, I don't know about this last round.

He's like, nah, I'll be fired. We'll get something for Instagram. I was like, fuck it, let's go. And then I limped for three weeks, you know? So it's just the way it is, man. It's like me going for a ride with joe you know joe's just at the end of that i took a picture with joe i look like i look now sweaty joe's just chilling not not a single bead of sweat on his forehead i don't have the physical capacities to keep up with most people

still no i'm not proud about it i want to do something about it but you are i'm trying yeah i'm getting there and uh yeah i just hope i hope these people are like realizing like yeah go get it stay active also get your diet right try to lose some weight yeah there's joe joe's a stud some biking action that went 11 miles yeah that's a big loop how uh did it take you a long time to get used to the bike and used to swimming and stuff like have have those things been difficult or they've been has the transition of doing some of that stuff been fairly smooth i've been lucky pretty smooth you know i learned how to ride as a kid you after 20 minutes you kind of get it back and again i'm a horrible swimmer i can't i can't swim freestyle like i i'm i i can do it like for half a lap and then i'm i'm not breathing well so i just

swim on my back and i walk you know you account meet yourself where you're at and then every now and then i feel a little ambitious and i try to turn over and get some laps in and i do and we've figured out for you too that that walking wasn't such a great idea Like we had you walk a little bit and this was uncomfortable and. Yeah. You know, I had to go back and forth on that a couple of times. My feet sort of wear out at 6,000 steps, whether I, however I get them, I just sort of wear out at 6,000 steps, 8,000, 8,000 steps. I can do 10 or 12, 14 every now and then I've had big number days, but I can't, I can't, that's not a pace I can hold. So I have to either go, okay, well now you're going to swim for a couple of days

to just come back from that. Cause it's the recovery is the work without the recovery is just like a pathway to just hurting yourself. Right. Or tone it down, have a little less foot pain systemically day in and day out. And then like, I did the elliptical with my kid on Thursday. I'm a little sore today. You can work a lot of it out. Man, that recovery work you've been teaching me, watching you use the pulleys and get your back stretched out with the, you know, with the, what's it called when you get extended?

Yeah, like the seated Jefferson or pancake. Seated Jefferson, yeah. Decompress. Decompress, yeah. Myofascial release. Oh my God, they've made such a giant role in my life. Learning you can come back from a lot of it. But some stuff's harder to get to.

Some stuff's just harder to get to, right? I think one of the really cool things here is that you are using multiple tools. Because I think sometimes when people think about exercise, they about one thing they attempt that one thing something gets in their way and the only thing they know is that one thing right but you're walking some days you're swimming some days you're lifting some days you're sledding some days you have all these things that you can pull to and use when something isn't feeling the way it should yeah I mean it's uh I don't have a goal to deadlift 500 pounds.

I have a goal to be able to move freely, get up off the floor with ease. That's what I'm training for. I have a goal to be able to go hiking. Look at that guy. I have a goal. Yeah, that's how I modify. I have to modify a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff I learned from you guys, a lot of stuff I learned from Ben Patrick is still ahead of me. his like start here spot is still too hard for me i have to go like it's a good morning it's

a cable seating yeah yeah and it's wonderful helps me a ton so you know i have to find like okay this is you've established the start point for your average out of shape person i have to find like the basement start point for like your morbid morb obese person. And it doesn't mean I want to stay there, but it's, you know, if you can't find where you're at, then you never start. And play the video again a little bit. I made a lot of junk food. Yeah. I made a lot of junk food.

Yeah. I mean, my DoorDash would tell you otherwise. There's a thing called set points. There's a ton of research on it. That your body likes to be at specific weights. It likes to be in a specific way. So if you are fighting yourself to lose weight by not eating, over-exercising, and you are damn near killing yourself to be at a specific weight, your body's unhappy.

It's important to note that a choice can be harder for people to make due to conditions in their life. But at the end of the day, it's still a choice. I could say that I had food addiction. I looked to food when I was stressed and this and that and this. And so it's harder for me to choose it than for someone who has like the perfect lifestyle, someone who has parents who are giving them this and that and this. But I definitely still acknowledge that it was my choice. At the end of the day, when I go there and I look and I see, should I order a second hamburger? I'm the one choosing whether or not

I order that second hamburger. I'm the one making that choice. Yeah, I mean, and they both make good points. I wonder if there was any fancy editing. I wonder if she would have said, you know, there is a set point. You are fighting yourself. So did she say, so take it easy, accept losing one pound a week, learn that more protein satiates your appetite and your hunger? I mean, who knows? They edited or they did a pretty sharp edit there.

It sounded like the set point thing was like a statement of like, we have these set points and there's not, it's going to be hard for us to change them. That's the way it seemed that she was talking about. Yeah, and to his point, he's right. He's right. He didn't say anything wrong. No one gets fat on accident.

No one gets fat because, you know, you did all the right things and you still got fat anyways. He's super right. Again, though, you don't necessarily need to get a bun with those burgers, right? You can, and I'm not saying that only protein is the way to lose weight. I'm not saying that having a slice of bread is wrong. I'm saying though, but does it, does it match your lifestyle that you're living? And do you really understand, do they really know what the right values and proportions

are? You know, I, I, I still fall back to what you had taught me with, uh, with the protein leveraging, right? Am I expressing it correctly? Yes, you are. I think the more protein you have, the easier it is to bring your caloric totals down without it being so filled with turmoil. I'm curious, Russell, has your palate changed over time? Because you mentioned the type of foods you used to binge on and the way you eat now. If you can maybe describe the way you eat i knew you did that earlier but do you enjoy the way you eat now yeah i and did you enjoy it initially yeah i i'm not really uh i don't enjoy cooking

that much maybe that's sort of where my, I have busy days, at least busy for me. And I don't necessarily enjoy cooking that much. My palate has changed a little bit, but I haven't gone like through, I didn't have like a lot of food sensitivities. I didn't like Brussels sprouts as a kid. Brussels sprouts for some reason taste delicious to me now.

Really? Must be how you're fucking making them. Have you never had them? I've had them. Have you baked them with bacon? I have. I mean, again, I've had them. They're good.

Have you baked them with bacon? I've had them baked with bacon. Okay. I've had like the bacon Brussels sprouts thing before. And it's good. You're not for it yet. But it's not like I'm not seeking Brussels sprouts. I mean, there's few examples of all of a sudden something tastes good that you say. I didn't have like a lot of food aversions.

I'm pretty lowbrow with my food. I like pretty much anything. Yeah, Brussels sprouts make me super duper gassy. Not sure what that's all about. Yeah, that's fun though, right? When you did start implementing, again, in the beginning, walks and then eventually stuff in the pool, did some of that backfire with your hunger and fighting off some of those hunger feelings? Because you went from sitting down a lot to moving. Now, all of a sudden, you're like, wait, but I need to eat less.

And now I'm even more hungry. Did you have to battle that? A lot. A lot I did. And it wasn't until I started like learning how to meal prep in a way that works for me that I start winning that battle. You know, a lot, you know, I used to go to OA and I would stop and get drive-through leaving OA, right? Because I was super stressed out and I knew I didn't really have anything at home to eat and Overeaters

Anonymous, right? And I only went a few times, but yeah, the meal prepping, the cooking the meat, having some sense of planning ahead of what I'm gonna have tonight or tomorrow, it does help. Because otherwise, yeah, I'm super hungry. Worked out today, I had this incredible intense conversation with you guys and there's gonna be a little bit of a ping. Oh man, let me grab a burrito on the way home because I'm hungry and I'm a little stressed and that ping oh man let me let me grab a burrito on the way home because i'm hungry

and i'm a little stressed and that would make both things go away and i have to know no it's okay i i have meat cooked at home i'm ready to roll when i get home or and uh that that has been the biggest key to a successful diet for me is uh after knowing you, bring meat back into my diet, then having some ready at home has been like the biggest key to success for me in my diet. How are you making, um, ground beef taste good? Ground beef, I think is easy to taste good. And again, I'm, I'm a, I'm a simple lad. I, uh, I, I season it, you know, I, I will put some, I'll put it in some salad and salad and salsa or in some taco seasoning, or I will, I will sort of do a knockoff of the vertical diet and I'll put some chopped, you were just looking at some chopped onions and some cauliflower rice

in there and, and some tapatayo sauce or something like that. I know it's, I think meat, I think meat just tastes good in and of its own self. I think, I think it's hard. You can't mess up chicken thighs, right? Who's ever had a chicken thigh and said, this tastes bad. Just it's, it's impossible to do. Right. So, but when you're hungry and when you're stressed and everything's frozen in your freezer and nothing's ready for you and you're not prepared for the moment, you know, you fall back on bad choices. Yeah, one of the easy things I do with ground beef is, like, I'll take, like, tomato sauce and just chuck it in there with it, throw some cheese on there, throw some little Italian seasoning,

or I'll go, like, Mexican style with it. Also, sometimes, you know, people are so crazy about, like, meat versus vegetables and some of that stuff. But I think vegetables can help make a meal taste amazing. So I'll just buy some peppers and some onions and I'll cook that up with some meat and it's delicious. Right, right. And I know some people have food aversions. And I think for those people, if those food aversions require or they feel somehow advantaged by not having any vegetables, then like good on them if that's what works for them i tried just doing all meat many times it just never stuck with me i think uh i was gonna say i think for the most part i think that uh you know in that in that video the woman was saying like she felt like um she was kind of killing herself or it was so hard and

and that it's not she wasn't being nice to her body and her body wasn't happy. I personally don't think that it should feel that way. But in your experience with losing 100 pounds and continuing to work on losing weight, like how hard should this be? Like how hard should it feel? Yeah, that's a good question. For yourself, I guess. I mean, I didn't have like 15 pounds to lose.

I didn't, you know, I wasn't trying to get shredded in 30 days. You know, it wasn't part of my reality. So I had to pick something that I could sustain. I had to pick something that like I could easily invite my wife and my kids to share in with me. You know, if they're seeing me miserable and cranky and grumpy from doing the, you know, protein sparing modified fast all the time, that's not going to be a really good light on them. I mean, maybe I'd say, hey, look, I lost this weight really fast, but I think then I've done that. And then I just put it on really fast right afterwards. I've had to

find something that's very close to maintenance that I can line into. I think slowing down is the key for a lot of people to be more successful. I think this, I mean, we know it's called yo-yo dieting. Yo-yo dieting doesn't work. So, I mean, maybe if you're someone like Kenny or someone like you where you're preparing for a show and you got to make a weight for a competition or something like that,

there's extending winning circumstances. But then again, that brings me back to people thinking that these elite athletes or these one-off situations are the right course for them. And maybe it is, but I think for many, it's not. Was your grocery bill higher or lower when you were a hundred pounds heavier and eating less healthy food? Way higher. Cause I was eating restaurant food. You know, you're, you're paying triple when you're getting restaurant food, right? Maybe you could say if I was just eating, Oh, you know, like frozen burritos and like really cheap processed food and cheap $6 frozen pizzas, you know, you can make an argument like that's cheaper. And I know, I actually know that I know I offended somebody because I shared how awesome

Certified Piedmontese is on Instagram. And they wrote this big Instagram, they proceeded on, follow me, write this big Instagram post on how they don't like people poverty shaming and did their next podcast was how sick and tired they are of people poverty shaming and food scarcity issues. And hey, I get the point, but I'm not a very wealthy person either. But Certified Piedmontese is fucking awesome. I dare you to show me a better flank steak than Certified Piedmontese. It doesn't exist. I'm not going to say that. you to show me a better flank steak than certified Piedmontese. It doesn't exist. I'm not going to say that. We have to live our life only communicating to people that are impoverished

or struggle to pay the bills. I mean, my wife and I, we live modestly. You can get ground beef pretty cheap. You can get really fatty ground beef. And as you saw in that video, I will just strain it. You know, chicken is not expensive. It's not expensive. So I know that's a, maybe that's a, you know, what's not expensive for me might be expensive for somebody else. But I know that my food bill has gone down. Not binging, not eating all fast food, not eating, you know, junk food. I'm paying less now myself, I know for sure. Yeah, because that's the argument that people like to point out too, is that healthy food is more expensive, right? Your dollar doesn't go as far when you're buying healthy food,

whatever that may be. But you're a perfect example of saying like, yes, eat ground beef and chicken and your dollar is going to go way further than the boxes of whatever. White rice is pretty known to be pretty cheap, right? Beans are pretty known to be pretty cheap. I think healthy restaurant food is more expensive than junk restaurant food for whatever reason. Easily. But when you're actually in the grocery store, I don't think that argument is as clearly stated. At this point, nasal breathing while you're asleep is no longer something that just us bros do,

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where you guys can receive mouth tape and nose strips for an entire year for less than a dollar a night. Again, HostageTape.com slash PowerProject. Links down in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. Yeah. Let me ask you this, man. Mentally, how have you been able to... Do you maintain a positive self-image of yourself?

I try to. Okay. Yeah, I try to. And has that improved over time? Has there been a time where you didn't have that positive self-image? Like, how do you work that? Yeah. I mean, there's... I mean, I think a little self-loathing is something I deal with from time to time, you know? You don't want to, like, you don't want to be out of shape.

Aesthetically, I want my wife to be happy when she looks at me, right? I always say I do the shoulder presses for Rebecca, you know know i want to give her some shoulders right um yeah definitely i mean the answer is yes i suppose it it you do feel better you know i do like that i'm getting back my getting back my ability to move when when you start losing your mobility oh my god i have this conversation with a guy named Sean. He lives most of his existence out of a chair. You know, as bright as his life is, as much as love as he has within his family, there's just no way life wouldn't be a little brighter if he was able to go for a walk with his kids. No offense to him. He's fighting for his life right now. He's fighting

to lose the weight right now. And I'm not making a moral judgment on who he was and who he is as a man because his obesity has made him homebound. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, yeah, you get yourself homebound. How could that not affect? How could that not affect you, right? Do you think that obesity is like a mental health issue? I think it's a byproduct

of a mental health issue. Can someone have a healthy, can someone have good mental health, you think, and be morbidly obese? Or does it start to just pull on you too much? I think I was as close as you can be to it. I love my wife. I love my kids. I'm still able to have relationships with friends. I still have a relatively, I mean, you can't judge your entire existence on one dimension of your life. And anyone that would impose that upon somebody else, like, you know, shame on you. And also, hey, stop being an asshole, right? But it's got to be calculated, you know, shame on you. And also, hey, stop being an asshole, right? So, but it's got to be calculated, you know?

If my kid's got a bad grade in writing, does that mean that I discount his good grade in math? You know, he's still got to be in math. That's great. You've got to be in math. Teacher says you're one of the best kids in math in class. Awesome. Well, let's work on this reading and writing, though.

You know, don't let that overshadow, like, your entire existence. But also, at the same time, you need to be honest with yourself and be willing to address the deficiency, you know, for all the reasons we've talked about. You know, you're not going to show me a 65-year-old, 500-pound person. Show them to me. What's their name? They don't exist, I don't think. You die early.

And the journey there sucked, in some aspects at least. So, yeah, it has to affect you. Has to affect you. And then also, too, I think to your point earlier, when you're not moving as much, I think it doesn't blow out your system inside you. You're probably angst, right? I know I dealt with anxiety a lot at my heaviest. And so that's got to be part of it too, right? And I think probably a lot of mental health stress and anxiety disorders would be for a lot of people, maybe not for all, would be partially alleviated if they were able to get their heart rate pumping and get moving, right? Get outside.

Get outside, get some sunshine, right? Did you say you've had a heart scare earlier in the podcast? I don't remember saying that in the podcast, but I know my sleep apnea would cause that sometimes. Okay. I get these dreams. I'm drowning in a pool. And that's pretty scary. And so I know.

Would you be waking up not breathing because of this? Well, you're breathing when you wake up, but your heart is just. You know what i mean like you're you're you're breathing when you wake up but i got a c-pap that's helped me a lot nice i i had a c-pap forever i didn't like wearing it over the mouth it just it would dry out my mouth it was miserable i had it for years i wouldn't wear it finally my wife and her wisdom convinced me to try the snorkel through the nose. Now it's like, oh, good. I get a good night's sleep. And I get my sinuses blown out from the CPAP machine.

It's a win-win. I sleep great. And I almost never have those dreams anymore unless I forgot to put it on before I go to bed. You have had health scares. I have had health scares. I have had health scares. I, um, oh, I had a case that I ended up getting lymphedemia in my right leg, my right calf. And I say it was a spider bite because that's the answer. That's what I want to think it was. But I ended up getting some cellulitis in my front shin and it near killed me.

And just a matter of a couple of days, it near killed me. There's a big, long story. I go to my local clinic. The guy's like, oh yeah, you're so, you know, I waited. He's like, oh yeah, this cellulitis, you're in the wrong spot. Go to the emergency room. So then we drive down the road to the emergency room. Emergency room's packed.

Go to the emergency room. So then we drive down the road to the emergency room. Emergency room's packed. I've never seen hospitals have to put beds between the rooms outside. So everyone was in two in a room and then one in between every door. And they're just like, we have no beds. Well, I don't know what to tell you. Keep waiting, I guess. They gave me some IVs and stuff like that.

I thought, oh, this is not that bad. I'll just go home and go to sleep. And I wake up and I can barely walk. My pee's starting to get really, really dark. And drive back to the hospital and like, I mean, I could barely walk. I was telling you about how like it felt far to walk those 20 yards to my garage.

It was like, it was one of those two, but at a level where I'm like, God damn, am I going to fall right of like god damn am i gonna fall right now am i really gonna fall right now so they get me in they start giving me antibiotics the doctor at some point says you're gonna if you don't lose this weight you're gonna keep getting cellulitis just so you know we're giving you the maximum dose of the strongest shit we have and anything more we think would kill you so because antibiotics are horrible on your system right and uh i got after about a week and a half of being at a bed in the hospital and then about a month of taking iv antibiotics at home i i got over it and i've had cellulitis

a couple times since then and i gotten them treated earlier oh but knock on wood i haven't had any cellulitis in a while and i think me walking and moving more moving is the best thing you can do for your lymphatic system so even if you do deal with lymphedemia like i do moving is the best treatment you can get for it. So, yeah. So yeah, I've had one really scary, you know, like this almost got me. How long ago did you say it was? I should know the number. I apologize, I don't.

It was probably seven or eight years ago at this point. Yeah. And the lymphedema was something that I got about 15 years ago. So I had had lymphedema for years and years and years before that particular scare had happened. Yeah. I think something that people probably are curious about when somebody gets to 300 pounds, those clothes start to not fit anymore. It's hard to shop at the department store.

How does it happen where you keep ending up going further? Because the logical thing from a lot of people are like, man, I can't, I don't understand. It's insanity. What are people missing that maybe they don't understand because they haven't seen and they haven't been where you've been. They don't have the perspective that you have.

They're missing that if it was easy for this person to do it, they would do it already. This is simple, but it's not always easy. And I know it's easy for some people. It's really easy for me to not be a drunk. It's really easy for me to not pick fights with people down the street. It's really easy for me to do most things. Eating healthy food, and in some small part because I didn't know the skill of healthy eating, but eating healthy food had just become really hard for me. And part of that is because I made it harder than it needed to be because I wasn't eating the right kinds of food. I was doing like our young lady was. Whenever I dieted it, it looked like salad and salsa. And I thought that was the answer. And I, you know, I've tried,

I've had some bouts with chicken, rice, and broccoli before. I mean, I've tried it before. I've, you know, and again, I fall back on, it's a lot faster to pour yourself a bowl of cereal than it is to cook up a tri-tip, right? So me personally learning to prep my meat and have meat at home is, it's an accommodation that makes it easier for me. Not to say that I always necessarily would be at a state of, I would throw my diet out the door if that meat wasn't there. But when those moments do come,

my diet out the door if that meat wasn't there. But when those moments do come, I am sort of, I do kind of have a fallback. So yeah. Yeah. So it makes no sense. How do you, how do you eat yourself to the point where you can't get out of bed? How do you eat yourself to the point where you can't reach your asshole when you go to wipe? Makes no sense. Do we call that a mental health issue? I don't know. It's for smarter people than me. How is it that like, because you have your two boys and you probably have had discussions about this.

How do you guys communicate about this as you've been on your journey and you've been improving? How have you talked to them about it? Different conversations for both of them because they're older and they're both in different spaces. Like I said, my youngest is a little more predisposition to stay lean.

A lot of don't do what I did. A lot of don't do what I did. A lot of explaining the skills of healthy eating. You want to lead with your protein. You want to get your proteins in. Okay, that's great that you had a cupcake at grandma's. That's awesome. That does not mean that we should have cupcakes every day. So I'm trying to teach them and trying to model the skill of healthy eating. And as they become older, they're just going to, they're going to see dad. They're going to go, look, dad's fucking huge. You know, this doesn't mean they don't love it when I hold them. They don't love it when I talk

to them and act fatherly in their life. And you know, it's not like, they're like, oh my dad, I could never respect this man. What place does he have in society? All this bullshit you hear on Instagram. Yeah. And they don't think that. But they obviously see. They see. I go, hey, grandpa was heavy.

Grandpa on your dad's side was heavy. I'm heavy. It's just a little bit rude. Hey, look at your buddy. You have classmates that are heavier than you. What do you think about that? Again, we're not making moral judgments. We're making health assertions.

There's a difference, big, big difference. So just like you do with anything else, when I've had the talk with my kids, I don't just do one talk where I just lay out a dissertation and say, we're done with this. You just sort of skim the topic to the depths of their ability to have understanding and awareness of it. And mostly just model good behavior. My kids are pretty picky with food, but as they get older, as they're starting to want to do push-ups you know they're they they're i think they're getting their own natural desire to want to have a level of being fit is there an aspect where because people have mentioned this before like you know plane seats

or seats at rides and people have mentioned that that society has been discriminatory against people who are heavier. Do you agree with this? Is there a sentiment of that? Do you see that anywhere in society where there's an actual discrimination? Or do you think there's a level of people needs to change to fit better within society? I don't think... Setting aside whatever guy that set his brands for skinny people, right?

Wasn't there a guy that recently said... Yeah, Lululemon. Yeah, you know? And he's right, though. Isn't he? Isn't he right? Can't there be a brand for skinny, hot people? Uh, I don't think there's been any, like, active discrimination. I... I think... it can sometimes border on the ridiculousness of people wanting the world to accommodate 500 pound people.

You know, I like at the hospital now, they have some seats that don't have railings in between them. So they're making accommodations for fatties right and and i i'm grateful that i have a size 5 shirt i can wear in front of you here today even though it's ridiculous that a human ever even gets up to be size five we're not meant to be this big i don't think um but i'm i don't think i think i don't like the idea of obese people trying to get in on the marginalized group of society. I don't think that's healthy for them or society in general. think obese people should have free access to everything. And like the real, like, respect yourself and responsible society, tending people think, oh, what are you doing?

You're promoting obesity and stuff like that. Both are ridiculous to me, you know? Both, I don't, I, like maybe it would make sense to have a couple of fat on southwest right in the middle you don't want them on the back right i can't get off the ground seats yeah i mean i don't i mean that doesn't sound very comfortable playing just like thank you i know he needed to i was mad at you for not. That was meant to happen.

That was for you. That was your softball. You didn't hit it. He picked it up. I'm not the guy. I'm not the guy. No, I mean, sure. Why not?

I have to. I preface that with him all the time. He and I were talking, and I'm like, okay, I need to insert a fat joke. He's like, go for it. Go for it. He's like, please go for it. Please go for it. We know each other. You've poured so much love and goodwill into my life. I know you insert a fat joke. He's like, go for it. Go for it. He's like, please go for it. Please go for it. You know, we know each other. You know, you've poured so much love

and goodwill into my life. I know you're not being malicious. I think some people get a hard-on for being malicious towards fat people. So I- That's real. Yeah, so yeah, why not have a few seats in the middle

that are, you know, wider? Charge a little bit more for him. Fine. I would love to fly. I just don't really expect airlines to accommodate my obesity. Yeah. I am not saying, I haven't said to you, I really can't wait for magic mountain to make roller coasters big enough to handle me. I want to get small enough to fit in the roller coaster. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What gave you the courage to come to super training? Because you came to a seminar and you came to a couple of things that we had here. Yeah, it's a good question. I had been

in need of fat friends for a long time because all my friends were skinny and they were much like our young lady there. It says just calories in, calories out, what's wrong with you? And I started going to social media just to sort of find other fat people going after it. You found super strong. I did. You've never been so proud. That's really the shortest version of it.

And I met some people that seemed to be like seemingly like East Coast on the East Coast. And it was when the keto trend really took off and all that sort of stuff. And I was trying to kind of befriend people across the country. But how close can you really be with someone who is so far away? And then, you know, Chris, I saw you guys on the Joe Rogan podcast. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. And I was a fan of, I mean, who's not a fan of Chris's documentaries, right? So, and then I think, and I started, and again, I started following you guys

because of the war on carbs and Chris is, Chris being a bachelor, he loved to get his In-N-Out burgers, right? And I was like, oh, okay. So I wasn't necessarily like dealing with my, you know, my addiction to drive-throughs and not having the skillset of cooking much at home at the time, but I was at least trying to modify and then i think chris sort of highlighted hottie at one point you know the

carnival chef on his transformation and this road to good health and i think i dm'd him and and and then i was just like hey man you're an inspiration love to catch some coffee with you kind of learn from you and he sent my d DM to Chris and I probably DM Chris somewhere before, you know, I was, uh, and then, uh, Chris was like, oh, wow, that's awesome. We're doing, we're actually doing a seminar in a few weeks. You should come by. And, and I came in that day and got a chance to meet you. And, and, and, um, yeah, that, that day right there. Right. I mean, it was a good find. Yeah. What year was that? Yeah. What, what, what year was that? Three, four years, four years ago. Yeah. I think so.

Okay. And there, you know, and, um, dude, I got my ass kicked that day. Oh, wow. Did I get my ass kicked that day? Two mistakes, two mistakes were made. Mistake one, only fit people were there. Mistake one, right? Mistake one. Mistake two, I got paired up with Hadi thinking that was a really great idea. But most, so that day in the gym, they had like the gym broken off into like 12 or 14 different sections. Most sections had like three or four people in them. And then they would just rotate, taking turns on the exercise. I was only with Hadi.

And Hadi was peak fit Hadi at the time. Before he got so strong, he could deadlift a million pounds. But he would just bang out these sets in about 20 seconds. And they're like, okay, all right, fatty, your turn. So for what, 40 minutes that day? It's just like, what's that called? On the minute? What's that thing?

Oh, yeah, every minute on the minute. I was E-moning for 40 minutes that day completely out of shape and just destroyed myself there's there's there's our pal uh so uh you know i i chris invited me and i man i wanted it i knew i needed to change i i i knew i wasn't being i wasn't living the life i needed to live for myself or for my family. And I was motivated to do something about it. Yeah. You know, I'm curious about this too. When it comes to your weight loss, you've used Ozempic.

Yes. And how has that been helpful for you? So I haven't technically used Ozempic. I've used Semiglutide. Semiglutide. Yeah. And, you know, I've tracked. So I got introduced to the Whitmer Rejuvenation Clinic almost just very shortly after we sort of got reconnected with each other after COVID.

And they ran my lab work and tested all my results. And I got on HRT probably three or four months afterwards, just because there was some follow-up conversations and stuff like that needed to be done. But they got me on to HRT. I would say I've, I had to guess, I would say, I should know these numbers, but I'm going to say probably like around June or July, maybe August of 2021. Is that something you still utilize, by the way? Yes. Okay.

And then, you know, Chris, he's always on the front edge of knowing what's out there and what's going on. And like around the next year, 2022, he started bringing it up. Oh, have you heard about this? Have you heard about this? And he talked to the Whitmers and they suggested it to me. And, and I've watched, I've actually watched my, um, my scale of like how fast the weight has gone down. I think in that one you were looking at of like, there was about 10 different, 10 different slides. One slide was my, like my chart of when I've lost weight.

It hasn't, for me personally, it hasn't made an enormous acceleration in how fast the weight's going. But I will say I do get fuller sooner. It's not that bottomless pit and the stomach is always there. But I don't even know how much of that is a true comparison for me, though, because I, yeah, see, there's that. I don't necessarily know how much has been me getting better at not eating my feelings versus the influences of the weight loss drug. It obviously has to help a little bit, right? I don't know how much. But it does help. It has to help, right? I don't know how much, but it does help. It has to help, right? It's a hard equation

to try to find how much has HRT helped, how much has semi-glutide helped, how much has eating more protein helped. I think they all accumulate and all kick in a little extra. It's helped enough, though, to make a difference, though. That's for that's for sure i think a huge difference too is just the habits you know without the habits i don't think the other stuff being the habits and then having a little intervention of uh some pharmaceuticals could be really impactful after because i think at that first seminar i think you uh brought up a question about like tr. And I was like, I don't think it's a great place for someone to start. It's not a great place for someone to start, but getting blood work done is a great place to start. You get blood work done, they make an

assessment from there. And then they say, you know what? You are a little bit low in testosterone. Did they find that with you? And do you think that testosterone is like maybe a little bit of a motivator for you? well i will say this i had actually tried trt once before before going to that seminar and it was from a local guy and and i'm not saying anything disparaging but in my opinion the guy was a quack he wanted me to get on statins because i wasn't vegan and i had like a 180 cholesterol level and that was way too high and and he wanted to charge me a weekly visit fee. So the nurse there could give me the shot. Is this a doctor? Yeah, it was, he's got a clinic

in a town near here. And, uh, and I finally was like, this guy's a kook and it's just not worth it. And I stopped going to it. And then, but at the time when I got my initial test, 192 was my total testosterone. And that was deficient in thyroid at the same time as well. So I know it's helped. I don't deal with the brain fog as much. I was pretty open with people that, you know, with friends. It's not like it's really fun to talk about, but I was dealing with a lot of ED. I wasn't totally broken, but it was a lot harder to make everything work like it's supposed to. That helped with that right away.

My brain fog went down. My energy did seem to go up a little bit, but these things are sort of hard to know exactly where it slices in, but definitely it made a big difference. Definitely noticeable for me. Yeah. You've been getting great sleep. You've been handling your nutrition. You've been working out in the gym. You may have been running and doing all the things that you believe are helping you get in better health but you haven't gotten your blood work done that's why we partner with merrick health because you could be doing all these things but underneath the hood there might be some deficiency or something small that could be the thing that moves you in the right direction and without understanding what that is and how to change it with your nutrition or your

supplementation then you might just be spinning your wheels. So get your blood work done with Merrick Health. Work with one of their patient care coordinators so that they can give you the ideas of what you may need to optimize in terms of your supplementation or your nutrition or potentially hormone optimization. And they can help you move in the right direction by helping you from the inside out. Andrew, how can they do it? Yes, you guys got to head over to MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. That's M-A-R-R-E-K Health.com slash PowerProject. And at checkout, enter promo code PowerProject to save 10% off the PowerProject panel, the PowerProject checkout panel, or any individual lab that you select on their entire website. Again, MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. Links in the description,

as well as the podcast show notes. And imagining if you had brain fog every day. Yeah. That, like, I've had brain fog every now and then. It doesn't happen to me often. But if I had to deal with that every single day, and then I was also having to transform my body, it's like, it's difficult to keep momentum going

where every day you feel like you're drowning a little bit. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, I'm not an expert in any of this. I know I've felt better since doing it. I know I have tried lifting weights many a times to just sort of fall. I would go get a membership at the local gym. I'd go to the apartment complexes gym. I've always known that lifting weights and exercising was part of the equation, but I just never really felt like I was getting any results. Never really saw I was getting any results from it. You know, a little bit here and there.

I know it helps. I'm grateful for those guys, though. I mean, they really, they really have helped me balance out. And, and, and again, I don't know if my, if my lower numbers are related to my age or my, my set point, as we heard earlier, or was it just, uh, my unhealthy lifestyle had pulled all my numbers so low that it just felt like you couldn't get going again? And my numbers are not enormous. I think like my total T is somewhere in the mid 500s right now.

Apparently, I have a lot of free testosterone, apparently. And my thyroid medicines really help. So maybe getting that just sort of sets you back to like a more fairer, you know, a more, you know, realistic chance to go. I imagine it's not impossible without it, but it's helped me a lot. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot easier to train when all those things are connected to each other like that. I think so. Makes it way more comfortable.

Yeah. You've been super consistent with lifting. things are connected to each other like that. I think so. Makes it way more comfortable. Yeah. You've been super consistent with lifting. And you started lifting probably a long time ago, probably maybe for football? Yeah, I started lifting in high school for football. And, you know, just the basic ones, bench, squat, deadlift, that was all we really did.

And then, you know, you do your runs and your sprints. And every now and then the offensive line coach would do that thing where you had to sit on the wall. And he was German, and we'd have to count in German. I still don't remember the numbers, but I remember it was hell. And then I was in and out of the Army. And I've always known my brother likes to lift, and he has always encouraged me to lift. And I had always known that who doesn't want to be a little stronger, right? I think, you know, it feels good, especially if you're the fat guy. If you're the fat guy and you're the fat guy and you're not strong, that sucks.

So it feels great when you train. You know, you get your adrenaline going. You get the dopamine hit at the end of it. It's never been I didn't enjoy training at some point i got to the point where i i was i would as silly as this was and i know a lot of people think that this is never the thing all you ever hear is you're not training hard enough out there i was training too hard i was breaking myself down i wasn't following it up with with the skill of healthy dieting and i would just i would eventually fall apart. So, yeah. Yeah, I know you and I have spent a lot of time thinking about all this stuff.

We've done versions of intermittent fasting. We've done ultra low carb. We've tried to reintroduce carbs. We've talked about cheat meals. We've talked about everything that you can possibly think about. But the reason why I'm mentioning it is because I think it's important for people to understand that even with somebody like myself who's been around for a long time and what's on the plan and you go and you do it and you just lose weight. It never has really worked that way.

We communicate back and forth. You try something, you're like, that sucked. We go back to the drawing board, try something else. Then you might even pick up something because you're listening to maybe some other people as well, pulling information. And you're starting to piece together over time, not just what I'm saying, but what is going to work for you and something that you can implement into your life. Yeah. I mean, I am blessed. I get a direct line to this source of knowledge that you guys

provide the world, but so much of it is already there. If they would just subscribe and hit that notification bell, you guys discuss everything. Almost everything I've learned has been through a guest that you've had on or something I've heard through you guys directly or tried modeling after some of your movements that you're really good at doing. And I do want to say I think I'm starting to get to the point where it is, like you're saying, it is getting pieced together. And I can kind of take it here and there. At this point, it's about taking the knowledge that you guys have taught and learning how to integrate that into my lifestyle. And when you're dealing with kids and family needs and all that, it's not always easy. Some people have it just dialed in.

And I'm hoping that in five years I can say, man, I got this dialed in. I know it. It's routine. It's more normal to do it the right way than it is the wrong way. And I'm striving to get there. But you're right.

These are all skills and tools that can be used. And probably a lot of them work. Like probably like we talked, we were joking once, you know, there's that guy that loves to yell at you and call you a piece of shit while you fast, while you're dieting. Snake diet. Yeah, fuck that guy.

Cole Robinson. And I told Chris like, hey dude, I could just throw you in a closet and slide a couple of pieces of bread underneath the door and that would be the closet diet, and you'd lose weight. It would all work, right? Is that really going to work? You know, maybe there's a couple people.

I had a guy today tell me that fat shaming is what it really took to get him to be able to lose weight. It breaks my mind to hear that, but I don't want to fall into the trap of only seeing the world through my own eyes. Maybe that's an authentic experience for that guy. Hard for me to even believe that. But maybe it was. So for you, hearing people say that totally negative, dismissive type of stuff to individuals who are bigger, that's not helpful for you at all. That type of communication is not helpful. I don't see how it could be helpful for anybody.

I don't, but certainly for me, it's not helpful. You're not telling me anything. I don't know. Oh, you think I'm a fat piece of shit. Hey, congratulations. I've been hearing that since I was eight. You think you're telling me something I haven't heard before? It hasn't worked until now.

You somehow, you know, maybe it seems so unauthentic to me. I got you. Yeah. And then they claim they're authentic because they're really good at cussing into the microphone. I'm authentic. I know how to make curse words. I don't get it, dude. I don't get it.

It doesn't make any sense to me. When it comes to the particulars of your diet um i don't know where you stand exactly right now on what you're eating but um what does it look like and what have you found for you that's uh effective yeah okay so i love having a protein shake through my coffee i just think that that's an easier way to go sometimes i try to get on the andrew train and I'll cook a few eggs, right? I even had sourdough the other day. Attaboy. Oh, I don't know, man. I don't know, man.

What do you mean? Well, it could be getting a little too close to the sun for me. I got to be careful with how much carbs I'm eating and how much food I'm eating. And again, like you kind of taught, when I go a little lower in the calories in the morning, it just sort of allows me to have a little bit of a fuller lunch and dinner. Right. And then I'll try to have, I will have meat with my lunch and meat with my dinner. And when I'm really on my game, I'll only have like one serving of, of like grains a day. And the rest of it's just sort of wrapped up in vegetables and fruit. I remember, uh, not too long ago, like we would have conversations about like, whether it was like

G Hughes sauces or just like some cool hack, like, oh my God, did you try this like zero calorie X, Y, and Z? And I remember you were kind of tracking calories for a little bit. Do you still do that? Yeah. I thought about that today too. And thinking about coming here, I haven't tracked calories in a long time and I'm not certain if it ever moved the needle for me. I'm not certain if it ever did. It was an opportunity to put my intention a little bit tighter on what I was eating. But I don't know if it ever made any difference for me. Did it help you learn anything about the food you're eating or not really?

Maybe that's what it is. You sort of get some sort of baseline of the, you know, how dense and calories different things are. You know, my denial with cheese, how I'd want to, you know, think that this is a quarter cup of cheese and this was one serving. It's like, no, it's not.

Did the caloric amount of cheese surprise you? Yeah. Cheese is deceiving. It's dense. Yeah. And, you know, we all talk about how good tuna is for you who has tuna without mayonnaise

right and you cannot put enough mayonnaise in tuna to make you know the amount of mayonnaise that's required in a can of tuna

and it's like okay well this you know it's the only way to eat tuna some people are built different some people are built different they don't have any mayonnaise with their tuna

they don't have any cheese with their you know with their whatever you know I have to avoid those foods mostly it's easy They don't have any mayonnaise with their tuna. They don't have any cheese with their whatever. You know, I have to avoid those foods mostly. It is easier for me to have some certain level of abstinence with a lot of that stuff. Because it's still like, it's just so ridiculous. It's still a challenge for me.

And even with rice, like, it takes, you know, when it's really gut check time and it's time to take, take a measuring cup and say, I'm going to have one cup of rice. Okay. Well, is this one cup before it's cooked or one cup before after it's cooked? We just lie to ourselves so easily. And yeah, it did help me at some point. Maybe if I, maybe if we had like a more traditional coach relationship where I'm sending you my macros week in and week out, it'd be really, really useful. But I haven't been measuring.

I haven't been using like the MyFitnessPal in months. Yeah. How about snacks and meal frequency? What is that like? So they can be dangerous. I'm really trying to convince myself that fruit is the best snack. And it is. Grapes are awesome. Yeah, they are.

Grapes are awesome. You know, you just, you know, and if I'm feeling snacky, I always, I told my wife what you said, snack is for kids and for dogs, right? Snacks are for kids and for dogs, right? She was not happy. She didn't like that. She didn't like that.

She didn't like that. She loves you, but she did not like that. Well, I think our problem with snacks, like when you think about a snack, we're just thinking about fake food. Fun food. Unfortunately. Fun fake food. Yeah. They are great though. I've ran the gamut of all the protein chocolate bars that you eat four at a time with. Legendary tasty pastries. Those are kind of satiating, though. They are. So I can have one or two of those every few days and not feel like it threw me off. I don't find myself, it's got to be that sweet spot. It's got to be good sweet spot it's got to be good but not

too good some of those atkins bars are just too delicious they're just too delicious and i've heard people calling the question about the quality of food i i don't know if that's true or not i've heard you know but yeah most of those companies that make those products most of them are lying yeah most of them right when. Yeah. Most of them. Right. When you say lying, you mean lying about like the ingredients? The food labels wrong. Food labels off. Yeah, because they have a little bit of leeway to kind of.

They got some leeway and they use as much of it as they can. Yeah. Speaking of that stuff, how about like, oh, and real quick, I switched to sprouted bread since Mike Dolce was here. I'm no longer doing the sourdough bread. Was he right about that though? I don't know. I'm going to find out.

I've heard sourdough many a times too i'm giving everything i mean i know the guy's a legend and i know he's super informed and has just a resume of all the people forever why is sprouted hey mike can you please do a reel of telling me why sprouted bread is better than sourdough because i i need to hear that because i've always heard sourdough is the way to go yeah so that's why i was doing it so we'll though. I mean, time will tell for me personally, because like the reason why I'm doing it is just to help like with my stomach and stuff, digestion and energy throughout the rest of the day. But that's a whole nother subject. What I was going to ask you about was, because I've seen you again, kind of going back to the tracking and stuff,

like lean on some of these zero calorie things like diet sodas and stuff is that something that you're still doing because i say that because some people will say oh if you have the the diet the the fake sugar thing it just makes you crave more sweets have you found that to be true i'm still so undetermined with that i i i'm not so in tuned with my system that i can tell one way or the other i've heard the arguments that i've heard the arguments that sweeteners throw your body off and you insulin dump and all that sort of stuff. I have no idea what's true or not. I look to the informed with that. I know when people sometimes talk about studies, it seems like they're sometimes dismissive of the outliers. it seems like they're sometimes dismissive of the outliers.

So I think we should be more considerate of the possibility that there are outliers to your study. But I haven't been able to determine. For me, diet soda gets me in trouble with caffeine more than it does with sweet flavoring, I think. But I do do some sugar-free stuff, like Diet Coke Zero, Gatorade Zero, some of the sauces that we talked about. Yeah, yeah.

So I still use that. I still use that. Maybe a few years from now, I'm just going to be so evolved and comfortable with just whole foods, nothing extra, but salt and pepper and on my eggs and eggs and steak and rice. And then that's all I ever need.

But right now I still like to use that. Thank you so much, Russell Buddy. I love you, buddy. I love you too, pal. Yeah, thank you for coming on the show. Appreciate it. Where can people follow you and where can they find your podcast?

Russell Buddy on Instagram and same on YouTube. And I started, I have a little hobby. I do a podcast every now and then called Heavy Conversations, which I ran that name by you and you loved it. So I'd like to say you loved it. And I'm just like, I'm just efforting to talk to other like heavy people to find the trends, to maybe try to dispel any notions.

I mean, like I talked to this guy, Billy, a month or two ago, and he's like, how are you going to say Billy's lazy? Billy's a family man, owns a business, very, very successful guy. And yet we're going to say he's lazy because he's heavy. Come on, guys. Let's do better than that. He struggles in this one area. Give the guy a fucking break.

He struggles in this one area and he's doing something about it. So yeah, Russell Buddy, anywhere you go, find me there and I'll see you there. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.