Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 4: Do You Even Eat, Bro? Part 2

Episode Date: May 2, 2016

This week, Tommy talks about how he eats to get huge, and the guys discuss their favorite and most epic of cheat meals.

M-M-M-M-M-M-M-Massanomics Welcome to Massanomics, the world's strongest podcast. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Massanomics. Make sure you go visit massanomics.com. There you'll find the rest of our powerful content. While you're there, check out our store and buy yourself some of that sweet Massanomics beer. Okay, thanks for joining us here at Massanomics. Last week we talked about, you know, me and Tanner pretty much dominated the conversation talking about how much food we eat.

Eating everything. Eat all the food. So now Tommy kind of has a bit of a different story tommy was a a little bit of a smaller leaner guy for a long time and then now all of a sudden got jacked and tan so we kind of want to know what he does as far as what he did what he learned for diet and all that stuff because you know that's a there's a lot of people in that boat too that are just trying to get bigger trying to get stronger and having trouble with it. So Tommy, you want to just kind of tell us what it was like in the beginning?

Yeah, so I guess my story is a little different than your guys'. Currently I'm 6'1", right around 210 pounds. But growing up I was just always kind of a lighter eater. I never was the type of guy to always just be stuffing myself and um high school my junior and senior year i wrestled 160 and it wasn't because i wanted to cut and be competitive there it's because i naturally weighed about 160 pounds it's like hey this just works out good for me and um so that was yeah that was where i was at that. And even going to college, you know, they talk about people a lot of times gaining weight and everything. And even

in college, I stayed a relatively light eater for probably the next three, four years after high school, I might've got up to about 165, 170. And I kind of thought that that's just where my body maxed out at. And then, you know, you start this lifting thing. And with that, I would say probably, you know, you get a year into lifting and not really knowing what I'm doing, but naturally you do gain a little muscle. So I might've got up to about 180 ish, 175, 180. And what really clicked for me or kind of put it into perspective, I just thought I was one of those guys that that was really where I was at. I had hit kind of the limit of where I was. And it was, I was talking to Tanner at the gym one day and he was kind of describing his breakfast routine. And then I'm just thinking, I'm like, oh, that's why

my two pieces of toast and two eggs isn't getting me anywhere. Like, like he, he probably is consuming more for breakfast than I actually do get in some days. Uh, and looking back, like there, there were days where, or I shouldn't even say there were days most days like it would breakfast would be like you know two pieces of toast two eggs or maybe just a bowl of cereal um lunch would be like maybe a frozen pizza or like two little two little microwavable burritos or like a pack of ramen yeah which is like that's not high i don't know how i even got by like how i had energy. That just seems like no food. And I would at night, it'd be something similar to like, if I hadn't had a frozen pizza yet, maybe I'd have it then or that ramen or maybe if I wanted to get extra fancy, I'd make some hamburger helper and eat like maybe half of it. And I would just eat three times a day. Like

I didn't need to snack. I just, I just didn't really have much of a drive to eat. And so yeah, when you started explaining that to me, it started to click. And so it just slowly added more things in. And now it's at the point where, yeah, I'm weighing around 210 pretty regularly. And it is because I am, you know, just putting more food in. And I still don't do the snack thing really. Like an average day for me will look like I wake up in the morning and it'll be usually I usually do like three eggs I'll do some pieces of bacon turkey bacon whatever that might be and then I'll do a greek yogurt a protein shake started doing some oatmeal recently too and that's a pretty

solid breakfast for me and then I'll go I'll go to work I won't eat until lunchtime and at lunch I'll do you know I try to have something ready won't eat until lunchtime. And at lunch I'll do, you know, I try to have something ready. And like Tanner said earlier, it is kind of a meat based thing. It's just as long as what I'm eating feels like it has at least eight ounces of meat in it, I'm okay with whatever that is and go back to work. If it's a day where I'm working out, I'll come home and try and get just a little snack in just because it feels like going through a workout, not eating for six hours. I just start to feel like I'm running kind of empty.

And a lot of times that's just like a peanut butter, chunky peanut butter sandwich. Extra chunky. I like to throw some honey on there too just to get some more flavor going. And I'll do that, go to the gym, come home, and I'll usually eat my next meal. So really I'm only getting about three meals in a day, but I do feel like I'm at the point now where I can pretty consistently, I guess I know what it takes to maintain weight, lose weight. Like looking back last summer,

took, I wouldn't say a break from lifting lifting but just took more it wasn't so focused on it and i spent a lot more time at the lake and boating and things like that and um i think i got down to like 185 and it's just the same thing as it's like well you wake up in the morning you eat kind of a light breakfast and lunch you know don't eat a whole lot and there'd be there'd be nights where i'd get home from work we'd go out do whatever i wouldn't even eat like i would i would just so it's like i ate breakfast lunch and that was it for the day yeah and it's like you do There'd be nights where I'd get home from work, we'd go out, do whatever. I wouldn't even eat. It's like I ate breakfast, lunch, and that was it for the day. And it's like you do that and you just start losing pounds like crazy. It's like, well, when you're probably consuming not a whole lot more than 1,000 calories in a day, it makes sense.

But once you get serious with the lifting thing again, you've got to be putting the fuel in if you want to get any type of performance. thing again you know you got to be putting the fuel in to if you want to get any type of performance and i've witnessed firsthand that anytime i'm increasing my calories i see my lifts increasing too and you know you don't want to do it in a way where you're just blowing up i guess i don't want to do it where i'm just blowing up to 250 and in six months and looking nasty just to like get a few pounds and everything it's it is kind of a marathon it's not the sprint of just trying to get get the results right now but yeah i'm just kind of i've noticed just my body slowly kind of i still like i still would say growing and i think over the next uh year or two i will still probably gain another 10 to 15 pounds and get more than that 225 ish range at some point

what about how how does how's training felt since then you know what what did what did your like recovery feel like beforehand what's it feel like now yeah you know it's i guess recovery recovery's never been too bad whether i'm eating a lot or not a lot just the biggest thing that i always notice is performance and you know it's your weights that you're moving now are a lot and that's what they were then yeah and it And if anything, I feel like recovery is harder now because the weights are heavier. But it's just the fact that I for sure hit a plateau. I was just after it had been a point where just nothing had really moved at all in probably about a year. Like bench, squat, deadlift, all of it was just flatlined.

And I was again, starting to think that, well, maybe that's just all I can do. But at six, one, you know, about 185 pounds, that's just not a lot of muscle on a frame of that size. So, um, you start to eat more food and instantly you just start to see everything move up with it. And that that's, it is just huge. move up with it. And that that's, it is just huge. So now, now do you pick, you know, kind of what you eat with, with like a fair amount of intention? I mean, do you, do you really focus on making sure you, you have enough carbs or you kind of keep it, you keep it pretty loose? You know, that's one thing too, that I feel like I'm always learning. It's, it's really funny thinking back. There was one point when I was was when i was just starting

to kind of learn the basics of nutrition because it seems like maybe other people you get maybe you guys had a different background but i don't remember learning about like no nutrition at all in school i remember we turn all about biology and the body but i don't remember really learning a thing about like i didn't know what macronutrients were i didn't know outside of the food pyramid like yeah diagram and i don't remember yeah and i just i don't remember really learning about anything like that and so you know it's just how much initiative you take on yourself to learn that and in the beginning i remember thinking like i don't really consume any carbs at all and uh that was when i was eating i was eating rice

probably every day and i didn't realize rice was a carb because i was like it grows in the ground that must mean it's a vegetable and so i'm like it's not a car like i didn't realize rice was a carb because I was like, it grows in the ground. That must mean it's a vegetable. And so I'm like, it's not a carb. Like, I didn't even know that. And it's just funny thinking that now. But yeah, I try to, you know, I probably, there's a lot of different guidelines out there for how much protein people should consume. And I think, and I've gone through stages of using MyFitnessPal and, you know, just to get an idea of where I'm at.

And I usually try to aim for that 200 grams of protein a day, you know, about that, about a gram per pound of body weight, roughly. And I'll shoot for that. Carbs, I don't really pay a whole lot. Even fat, I don't really pay a whole lot of attention to those either. Just because I just kind of feel like I know I'm at the point where I can kind of know how much I'm eating and my weight will maintain. And I think as you go on to it kind of becomes intuitive much i'm eating and my weight will maintain um yeah and i think as you go on too it kind of becomes intuitive just a little bit like you do kind of know based on how you feel whether you are not just full but like in training as well you know and i i i've come across it where

when i when i first started to lose weight i just thought well you can't eat carbs that's how you do it so but i was i was training like pretty fucking hard you know and i was doing crossfit up to like five times a day or five times a day five times a week at you know probably by the time i got to five times a week i was at like 340 335 pound body weight and that's a little man's sport so i was just getting smashed you know and and dying to where like you know know, you just feel overwhelmed all the time, you know. Or like you go into a workout and just get freaking buried and like can't crawl out of it and you're sore forever. I was sore for six months, you know. I just never felt good.

I mean, I felt better, but I never felt good. And then I kind of was told that that well you you can and probably should definitely be eating carbs and i didn't know any better so i said okay so i i did i went from eating like really avoiding carbs not not perfectly but avoiding them to you know now i hit you know over 300 grams of carbs a day which is is a lot it takes it takes work for me to get that in in a day for sure but um in doing that now like you know i kind of attack a workout a little bit better you know you feel stronger you recover better i don't feel just smashed like i used to all the time which is makes a big big big difference for me and that's been the big thing like you know i probably kept the

same amount of calorie intake as i did you know the first six months is the last six but having that carbs is a total game changer yeah so that's we've i know we've all talked about it before maybe the uh stereotype or i don't think there's any crossfitter out there would even say that this is true for them much but that paleo getting tied with crossfit that's not like a lot of the top performers of crossfit aren't doing that i would imagine right you know you almost can't i mean you almost can't and it's plus you don't want to why do you why do you want everybody i think everybody out there would agree with that you just should probably eat as much clean food as you can and get the right amount of protein and right amount of carbs and keep it keep it as

clean as you can when you're in control of it you know don't uh if you're gonna go off the rails don't do it five days a week maybe do it one meal a week you know and uh you know i think i think being so strict about everything having absolutely no, don't ever put ketchup on anything, you know, that type of stuff. You know, you still got to live, but you just can't use that same justification to eat dessert with every meal either, you know. And I just don't get with that, like, what's your end game? Like, is your point really to just, like, I mean, maybe some people just get that much enjoyment and satisfaction out of knowing that they have that type of control over themselves. But it just seems like, what are you cutting all of this out for? Like going through all this extra work of avoiding all of this, like anything processed or all this stuff.

Like what, what are you getting out of it other than maybe just a lifestyle choice? Yeah. And I guess to each their own, but I mean, to me, to me, it's not sustainable for me. So that's why it just why it just didn't work. And I would agree with, I think everybody agrees with, probably like 95% of it, really, that avoid a bunch of over-processed stuff. And I think most everybody would agree with that.

But yeah, being real strict with it, it's just insane. How much joy are you removing from your life by not ever having ice cream? And you said the word sustainable, and I think that's the insane you know how much joy are you removing from your life by not ever having ice cream and you said the word sustainable and i think that's the most important part with because any of us that we're doing we're not trying to do it for three months or six six months or even 12 you know we're probably trying to do it for you know 10 years yeah and i think a lot of people get caught up in that of thinking about this fitness lifting whatever it is this physical activity and they just get so caught up in the need results right now do this right now and the thinking about this fitness, lifting, whatever it is, this physical activity,

and they just get so caught up in the need results right now, do this right now, and the sprint of it, when really it's a marathon. And it's, you know, I plan on doing this for basically as long as I can. It's not something that I'm just trying to just bang this out and be amazing. And, you know, am I going to be completely burnt out from this three months from now, six months from now? Well, and it seems like everything gets diluted down to like, you know, the three week lose a bunch of fat challenge or, you know, you know, a one month deal where everybody's got to completely restructure their cupboards and buy all sorts of new shit and throw away half their stuff.

And there's something to be said for that. throw away half their stuff and you know there's something to be said for that but if if you're hungry and you hate the food that you're eating and you're miserable all the time and you're never gonna starving all the time you if you can't do it forever then you probably shouldn't waste your time doing it at all and find something that you can like really hang on to that'll work for you and maybe maybe losing that that first 20 pounds may take three months instead of one, but at least the next 20 will happen as opposed to just getting fat again. And then when that happens, it seems like a lot of people have a tendency to get fatter than they even were before they started.

Yeah, and you bounce way back. When you're so strict, you're almost setting yourself up for this like this like rebounding guilt cycle and that's sustainability i think even if you're if you're eating for strength if you're eating for physique everything it's it's got to be sustainable it's got to be something you can do so if you know like tanner had said the other day that if you know he doesn't probably enjoy every single meal that he eats but you know maybe you don't have to yeah i've got anyone has goals in mind and as long as you can look at the bigger picture and know that that's what you're shooting for i don't mind you know throwing down some vegetables that i don't really like the taste of and yeah yeah but but you also can't do without all of

the things that you do like either you know that's yeah's, that's a, that's a big deal too, is like, you know, if I, you know, I, I enjoy eating ketchup with my food. I really do. And we just went through a walkthrough with our nutritionist the other day and we went over to the condiment aisle and there was a few things, you know, yeah, this is definitely good. This is not, we get over the ketchup. This is non-negotiable. It's coming home. Yep. This one's, we're over the ketchup. I said, this is non-negotiable. It's coming home.

Yep. This one's, we're not flexible on this one. Tommy, what about water for you? Is that something you do like intentionally or do you all? That's actually one too that is been, that was overlooked for a very long time. I was the type of guy, I could when I first got into, first of all, I never even paid attention

to how much water I drank at all. It was not even a thing. And when you first get out of school, you get a job, you're at the office, this was my routine every day. I would get up, I would eat breakfast, have maybe a glass of water, I would go to work, not drink a single thing until I went home for

lunch, and then at lunch I would probably have a glass of water. I would go to work, not drink a single thing until I went home for lunch. And then at lunch, I would probably have a glass of water with my lunch, go back to work for four more hours, not drink anything. Maybe before I go to the gym, have a glass of water. And then I wouldn't, there's a water fountain at the gym. So I might drink that a few times. And then when I'm done with my workout, have another glass of water. So I'd be probably – there's probably a lot of days where I would consume less than 60 ounces of any type of liquid, which is mind-blowing because that's so little. And that was fairly common for me for – I mean that was how I operated for several years. And it wasn't until just probably about two years ago where I started actually taking water with me to work so that I would remember to drink it. And even with that, it took me a long time. I'd bring like a 20 ounce bottle of water and it was routine. At the end of the day, I would probably have 10 ounces gone. I'm

just terrible at this. And now this has been about a year is I've focused much more on getting liquid in and that's, you know, having water for breakfast and then making sure that I like, I think it's like a 24 ounce container for water now. Making sure that before I leave for lunch, that has to be gone. And then at lunchtime, making sure I'm drinking one to two glasses then again. And then I fill that 24 ounce bottle back up after lunch and I have to have that gone before the end of the day. Otherwise, I just know I'm not drinking enough water and that is not the way you should operate do you get do

you get to the point then where like you're headed headed towards lunch and you still got two-thirds of this thing full and you just i do yeah there will be times where it's like it's you know i usually i'll usually like like noon and it's 11 50 and the thing is basically full so i'll just chug the entire thing knowing that i'm to go home and chug more water. People look over and say, that guy likes to party. And that's just kind of, I can't really do the sip thing either. It's not like I can't just take the water and sip it out and sip it out. It's just like I have to just chug it if I'm going to drink it.

Do you drink, as far as liquids, do you drink mostly water throughout the day then? Yeah, it's just water. I'll have milk uh for breakfast and and dinner i think if people are if you're drinking enough water like you're probably not thirsty for much else you know that's what i that's what i find for sure i it almost deters me from from getting anything else to drink because i'm like fuck i gotta get through the rest of this damn thing by the end of the day today. And so after you've gone with having a lot of water and really knowing what it feels like to be dehydrated, that's the first thing. If I get dehydrated, I can tell that

immediately, like on my lifting performance or just the way I generally feel even more so than nutrition. Like if I went without eating for six hours or 12 hours or something you could i would probably be able to tell but if i get off my water and i'm like dehydrated or you go out drinking and you get dehydrated once you know what being really hydrated feels like when you go to being really dehydrated it's a noticeably shitty feeling i think yeah yeah that's for sure and i feel like that that olympic lifting soreness practically crawls inside me so like if i'm in a so if i'm dehydrated like i just i just get totally totally totally beat up so um that's that's like always where it starts if i haven't drank enough water that's where i feel

at first um and then if i'm just generally not eating enough, I can't bounce back because that stuff that hangs with me for two, three days. It's it's it's pretty wild. So what about cheat meals? I'm a huge advocate of cheat meals. Anyone do you guys have like a favorite favorite cheat meal, like a go-to cheat meal? Or how consistent do you have a cheat meal? You plug it in once a day, once a week, once a month? Yeah, I don't have a program specifically, but I do.

In a normal week, I probably have, supper would usually be my cheat meal. That's the time when because uh because my work schedule my breakfast and lunch are both pretty regimented but supper i you know it's kind of free to do whatever i want so a couple i'd say two nights a week a typical cheat meal for for me would be going and buying a large pizza and sitting down with it like like a large pizza like like not a kind of small large tombstone frozen pizza but like a like go to like pizza hut or dominoes and get a full pizza and sit down and eat it until it's gone like a large as a relative to the rest of the world and and you know what a lot of times i'll get down to the last one or two pieces and be like god i'm fat i don't need to eat at all and you know maybe i'll wait like 45 minutes and be like i'm actually not even that full right now i'm just gonna eat those last

two pieces so that that that would be a typical one for me is eating an entire pizza that one was uh i i kind of had that for a while too is like we have usually squat on friday nights and it's like well it's the weekend you know i just feel like living it up. And I would go to a, what's it? Little Caesars and get there. What are they? Like $6 for their large pizzas. And I would get that and I would just try as hard as I could to eat the whole thing. Some days I could get the whole thing down and sometimes I might have a piece or two left. And after you eat that whole thing, you're kind of just like, what did I just do? Like, you know, you can feel the grease the grease running you can just feel the six dollars worth of cheap calories it's just like what do they make what are they putting this pizza to make it so it's only six dollars and they can still sustain

a business with this cash flow so that one that one was yeah fairly common when i had for a while too yeah and it seems like pizza pizza is pretty common go-to that seems to be mine also um what i usually do it's usually saturday saturday morning we'll get up like stupid early go grocery shop and and then we'll go work out saturday morning and then immediately after i work out saturday morning we usually go hit up like a like pizza ranch buffet or something that's a good one because i i had to one thing i learned is i do do not do my cheat meals at home. Because if I cook my cheat meals, I usually have leftover cheat meal. And that ends up stringing that into a two or three meal episode. So I usually go and just hammer a buffet.

And that's, but pizza seems to be the one. It's either pizza or just like a general Sunday brunch. Yeah. Is usually where I like to totally go off track. It's tough to beat a whole pizza, know so you get that sense of accomplishment too that you just usually can't get i'm full right now i'm just thinking about it i kind of want to eat a pizza um so so nobody nobody's really on par then with like the rocks cheat meal where he has like 12 pancakes and four four large double dough pizzas and 21 brownies i did try to do the three burritos at once from Qdoba.

I couldn't quite finish three. How long did that take you? It was kind of drawn out, so it was like 30 minutes. But I did go back and then they had a challenge where you had to eat two of them. And I ate two of them in like six minutes or something like that. challenge where you had to eat two of them and i ate two of them in like six minutes yeah or something like that i i don't know like i think normal people seem to always tell me that qdoba makes them so full or chipotle if you're further out in the world but if i go in and i get a burrito i walk away thinking okay i didn't i didn't eat that much no that's a pretty normal meal i'm just

kind of mildly satisfied like i'm not full i'm really not the the meals that i cook for myself you know bring for myself for lunch are bigger than that for sure yeah chipotle or qdoba i don't consider that a cheat meal for myself either because it's pretty it's basically kind of what i eat anyways throw some meat and some rice and some beans like i guess you have a flour tortilla you can get rid of that you gotta carry it somehow need the transport vehicle yeah i did a while back we had a there was a restaurant off on the east side of town here that does a uh they got some pretty pretty damn good burgers but they have uh just a regular like a triple triple cheeseburger um patties are about probably three quarters of an inch thick and the thing's huge you you really you can't eat it with your mouth unless you smash it or you have to cut it up it's it's huge it's

probably pound and a half of meat um and so i was just there fella yeah yeah yeah so i was there i was just eating it and uh i had it i was just done because that's kind of the way i eat so i finished it like five minutes. And the lady, our waitress, must have noticed it. And she goes back and talks to the guy who owns the place. He comes out and he says, hey, next weekend we're filming a deal for our – they're having like a TV show that's filming here. And you got to eat for it. So they brought out this.

So I agreed and I went out that next week. And it was for – I don't think it was for a pilot episode for a TV show So they brought out this. So I agreed, and I went out that next week. And it was for a pilot episode for a TV show that I don't think ever got made. But they brought out this burger. It was six pounds of ground beef in three enormous patties. It comes out on a pizza tray. One pound of cheese and one pound of bun. And the bun, I mean, it's huge. It's the size of a large pizza, but it's, you know, eight inches tall. Um, and, and then you had to

eat a pound of French fries also. So I obviously put the French fries in the bun right away just to solve the problem, cut the thing into quarters and just went off on it. And I'd never done any like competitive eating thing. So I ate and ate and ate and ate, but I'd never eaten that much so fast. So 12 minutes in, I have an hour to do this, and they're filming it. There's camera crews and crowd and the host of the show is running all over the place.

But 12 minutes in, I'm halfway done with the whole thing. I'm like, oh, we're fucking, it's over. I got this. It's pretty good to get that far ever. Yeah, I got this for sure. And he's had this burger challenge for quite a long time as far as i know um still to date nobody's gotten as far as i did but i never finished it i got 12 minutes in and my fucking jaw was just hurting it's chewing that bun like and it was it was delicious but the guy a friend of mine was there and he was sitting right across the way from me and i'm i kind of point to my jaw and i said man man that hurts i'm getting tired and he and he he gives me

the worst advice ever in an eating competition and he goes just slow down yeah and so i did i'm like yeah i think that's a good idea i dial the pace back my jaw what happens is all that food gets cold and then your body stops producing saliva after about five pounds of meat and so that's the cutoff mark i ended i ended up getting getting i you know i cut it into quarters and i had three quarters and then half of a quarter so i had seven eighths of this eight pound burger gone in an hour and and i just but that little bit of it you know it looked like i was so close to finishing it but at that point that would have taken me two and a half hours to eat that like just one more bite yeah were you getting the meat sweats at all where you're sitting there kind of like i had yeah i had and the funny thing was afterwards i was full

but like i still like hung out and and had a beer when I was done. I wasn't as bad as I expected to be. So no puking, though? No, I didn't puke at all. One of the guys that did it as well as me, though, I think he didn't even get halfway through it, and I think he threw up. Host of the show quit right away. He was cutting it up and handing it out to people.

Yeah, that was a fun deal for sure. The next day, though, was like the great emptying of 2011. The system purge. Yeah. Well, I think we've kind of covered everything that we wanted to cover today, guys. So that'll do it for us here from massonomics studios if you guys uh want to get a hold of us or have any questions hit me up here at tyler effenstone at instagram that's tyler effenstone at instagram and you can find myself

at massonomics on instagram check it out and on instagram i am at tomahawk underscore d all right thanks everybody stay strong peace out later And on Instagram, I am at Tomahawk underscore D. All right. Thanks, everybody. Stay strong. Peace out. Later. You just heard the Masanomics podcast. With your ears, you're welcome. Check us out on Facebook.

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