Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Ben Coomber on Getting and Staying Fit and Healthy With Kids

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

I’m often asked about how to make time for fitness when life gets in the way. It’s an especially common question from new parents looking for tips on getting fit or maintaining fitness. Life can be especially hectic for new parents and your health and gym time often take a backseat when your schedule feels out of control. So, this podcast is chockfull of practical tips for staying healthy, rested, and in shape not just as a parent, but as a busy person in general. I’m interviewing Ben Coomber, who’s not only a fitness professional, coach, nutritionist, educator, and father, but also a podcaster, motivational speaker, and all-around driven guy who runs several of his own businesses. He also just wrote a book that offers a step-by-step formula for transforming your life and finding more fulfillment and success regardless of how busy you are. Ben first appeared on my podcast in 2015, and in his triumphant return, we discuss . . . - His new book How to Live an Awesome Life and what he felt he could uniquely contribute to the self-help genre - The importance of making time for yourself and finding inspiration - Navigating family, a demanding job, and your own health - His experience with long covid - Why it’s necessary to adjust your fitness expectations after having kids - Tips for meal prepping with young children - Dealing with sub-optimal sleep - And more . . . So, if you’re a busy person who’s looking for ways to improve your health, optimize your schedule, or just find a way to get fit, you’re going to enjoy this discussion! Press play and let me know your thoughts! Timestamps (0:00) - Shop Legion Supplements Here: https://buylegion.com/ and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% or get double reward points! (7:23) - Can you tell us about your new book? (9:19) - What are some of the tools in the book? (13:35) - Are there things that you’ve subtracted in your life that have made a significant difference? (17:41) - What do you find inspiring in life? (19:20) - Do you struggle with forcing yourself to do things you enjoy or is it easier to keep working more? (20:51) - What time of the day are you the most creative? (24:42) - What happened when you got COVID? (34:59) -  How do you stay fit when you have kids? (52:53) - Is there anything you would like to add? (56:07) - What does your meal plan look like for you? (1:03:12) - Where can people find you and your work? Mentioned on the Show: Shop Legion Supplements Here: https://buylegion.com/ and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% or get double reward points! Ben’s Website: https://bencoomber.com/ Ben’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/BenCoomber Ben’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bencoomber/

Hello, my fellow fitness fiend and welcome to another episode of Muscle for Life. I am your host, Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today to talk about fitness when life gets in the way, especially when you are a new parent. I often hear from new parents who are looking for tips on getting fit or maintaining fitness now that they can't work out as much as they once did, or as intensely as they once did because they are not sleeping as they once did. And so I have talked about this here and there myself, but I wanted to get somebody back on the show who I haven't spoken to in a while, who does a lot of similar work as I do, writes books and records podcasts and coaches people and so forth. And that is Ben Coomber, who is a coach,

a nutritionist, educator, father, podcaster, motivational speaker, and an all around pretty driven guy who is also a new-ish parent who has had to figure out how to navigate this next phase of his life. Ben has also recently released a book called How to Live an Awesome Life. And in this book, he shares his formula and his thoughts on finding more fulfillment and more success in our lives, even if we are very busy, because all of us are very busy. And so this episode is for you. If you want to hear Ben's thoughts on the importance of making time for yourself and forcing yourself to make time for yourself, because many people, especially many women in my experience, don't. They're very selfless and they will give all of themselves to their family and to their employer and leave nothing for themselves.

And I agree with Ben that I think that is a mistake. It's a noble mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. In this interview, Ben also talks about how he has found a balance for his family, his demanding job. Well, I guess he has multiple jobs really as the owner of multiple businesses, his demanding job. Well, I guess he has multiple jobs really as the owner of multiple businesses, his fitness, his health. And he also shares his experience with long COVID and how that manifested and what he has done to overcome it and more. Before we get into it, did you know that you don't need supplements to build muscle, lose fat, and get healthy? That you don't need any pills, powders, and potions whatsoever if you know what to do in the kitchen and in the gym. You can get into fantastic shape without supplements and stay that way for the rest of your life.

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So you really have nothing to lose. Go to buylegion.com now, use the coupon code muscle at checkout to save 20% or get double reward points if it is not your first order. And try my supplements risk-free. Ben, you're back. It's been too long, as they say. It's been many moons. Yeah, it has. It's good to connect. Good to see you. Good to hear from you. Good to hear that all the things you're doing and the people you're trying to inspire is still going strong. I like it. Yeah, yeah.

Thank you. And same to you. I know that we have a similar mission, I guess, on a personal level, which is very education focused. And that's why we continue to write books, even though maybe we quote unquote don't have to. It's something that we like to do. And it's a great way to reach people and, and to reach people podcast as well. One of the things I'm sure it's the same for you. One of the things I like about this type of work is you're reaching people who actually want to make a change. And it's more

rewarding, I think, to be able to connect with people who want to make a change and help them and show them the way rather than try to argue with people who don't want to make a change and help them and show them the way rather than try to argue with people who don't want to make a change or try to convince people who don't want to make a change. They need to make a change much more difficult, almost impossible, actually. On Facebook, that's the place everyone goes to argue. Twitter. Twitter is best for arguing with random strangers on the internet. My Twitter is not as hot property anymore. So for me, it's Facebook. That's where the drakes seem to be. There's a clear difference in the, at least in my Facebook crowd versus my Twitter crowd. It seems to be probably age

seems to be the primary difference that the people I interact with on Twitter seem to be probably age seems to be the primary difference that the people I interact with on Twitter seem to be a bit younger on average than the people on Facebook. But I haven't really looked much into it. It just, it seems that way. Let's not get into the depths of social media and how it's warping the world's brains. Well, let's talk about books. You have a new book that it's coming out, I guess, by the time this is published, it's going to be pretty soon, right? It's going to be in the next month or so? Yeah, it'll either be pre-sale or out by the time this goes live, I think. Pre-sale is 8th of December. It's called How to Live an Awesome Life. And so that's self-development, obviously, self-help, if you want to call it that.

What's the premise? There are a lot of books. It's a very competitive space. And a lot of people have said a lot of things. What made you want to add to the literature? I suppose in anyone's work, you need to do the work that's most aligned to what you feel your purpose and your mission is. And I'm in the fitness, nutrition, health space like you, but I've always come at it from an angle that I want to be strong, fit, healthy to live a great life. It's not some kind of aesthetic goal or a performance goal. It's like, I want a better quality of living I want to feel strong I want to like the skin that I'm in and for me that's a personal development thing and fitness is just a tool nutrition is a tool so the book's premise is that there's 11 tools or 11 steps in the process

to you living your best life and it's it's about you approach life, then how you feed yourself, how you drink, how you sleep, how you move. So as you know, as a coach, getting someone to stick to a fitness plan isn't as simple as, can you get to the gym three times a week for an hour? It's a case of, how does it work around your kids, your spouse, your work, your motivation trends? It's not just about the plan. And I suppose that's why I wanted to write a book that was a bit more all encompassing, because you turn over one stone, and then another stone needs to be turned over in the pursuit of implementing and changing. And I suppose that's why. And what are some of the other tools that are in the book,

in addition to the to the few that you just mentioned yeah then there's kind of lifestyle and so basically the life you want to live and how do we shape it there's the income and career aspect because let's not beat around the bush the more money you earn the better food you can buy you know the better nice things go on holiday adventures all of that kind of stuff. You also get freedom to find what makes you happy, right? I mean, I agree that to a point, not having financial problems, maybe actually increases the happiness quotient in your life. Beyond that, less so. However, it does buy you time and buy you freedom. And you need that to find what's really fulfilling,

right? Yeah. So the data that I quote in the book is actually US data. And it was a survey done, can't remember about the body, but it basically said that up until about 50 grand a year, you improve in happiness, so $50,000. And then above that, your happiness just plateaus, you don't get any happier. So that 50 grand is obviously enough for people to afford all the normal things, rent, food, that kind of stuff. But then also probably go on holiday, go on, do cool things. Like you say, have the freedom to do nice things, experience life without the stresses and strains of like, oh my God, can I pay for my physiotherapy appointment?

Can I pay for my, you know, Can I pay for my son's new pair of glasses or whatever? So I think that's kind of the premise. So I lean into that in the book. I'm like, let's get you there because the data shows that that's where people are living a more fulfilling kind of life. And then there's kind of like the inspiration element. That was before the transitory inflation though. So maybe it needs to be a bit higher. And also, you know, I've spoken about that research. And my caveat, my kind of asterisk is, I think that that's probably true for middle of Kansas, maybe 50,000 gets you a comfortable life. If you live in the middle of Manhattan, you're living in a dented port-a-potty and living off of like ramen noodles.

And then what about a single dude who just needs to be able to pay for his like Xbox subscription and OnlyFans compared to a married couple with kids. But for just about anybody, once you get beyond probably 100 to 150k a year household income, then I think that that probably holds mostly true. Yeah. But ultimately, we're getting towards the conversation of fulfillment, happiness, freedom. Like I did a few social media polls when I was writing the book because I wanted to nail in the subtitle.

And I said, what does living an awesome life mean to you as an individual? And freedom came up a lot. Freedom of choice, freedom of time, freedom to pursue the things that people want to pursue. And like you say, a certain amount of money creates that. Time creates that. This is a bit of a passion topic for me around self-development in the world of self-development i think there's a bit of a broken record about always adding stuff to your life now you'll look on instagram these days and there's like real trends where it's like here's the morning routine of a millionaire and it's like

they get up and they meditate and they do a ice cold shower and then they journal and then they do this. And it's like three hours of their day is like, who's doing that? No, like, yes, the single man who lives on his own in a city and has the money to afford all of those things. So like for me, in the way of self-development, I'm a big fan of talking of subtraction before addition. It's like, let's create the space space actually just decide what it is that you really want because so many people don't actually know what it is they really fucking want so it's like well let's get all the noise out stop doing all those things that you don't want to do cause you friction make you angry and then spend a bit of time with that and then we slowly add things

because you just keep adding on top you just get more stressed right so when i became a dad it became instantly more stressful. So I was like, oh my God, I've got a human to look after. Oh my God, I've not got as much time. Oh my God, I'm tired. So I think subtraction before addition is a big, big thing for development of yourself.

Are there things that you've subtracted from your life in the last, call it year or two, that have made a significant difference, have freed up time to put elsewhere and the change has been positive? I'd like to say yeah, but the problem was, is I became a parent the same week the pandemic started. All those things got taken away by default. I stopped playing sport, everything closed, I stopped traveling for work. I think I'm a really bad example because it all got

taken from me i had no life design wasn't in control of that and then what did you learn from that experience though like have you have you changed things now that our rulers have allowed us to leave our homes again what have i changed not a huge amount i don't travel as much for work because of young kids, but beautifully the world has adapted to that. We do more online, as you know, and I've already had an online business anyway. What I have realized is that I really miss the connection that I get with my work where I'm potentially speaking at an event once a month, or I'm going to a local gym and I'm doing something. Whereas in the know, in the pandemic,

it all became about computers. And I was like, I have no idea who I'm talking to. I'm not connected to my work. So I have to go out of my way to try and organize. And I talk about this in the book. I talk about continually being inspired, like what's inspiring you because life can become quite uninspirational if you're just working from home living a lot from home like you go out twice a week maybe those trips to the gym maybe they're not so it's like is your inspiration cup getting filled up that much if it's not then we need to address that because it's going to be frustrating for you and I felt that in the pandemic coming out of it so I had to start to create my own environment for inspiration because more and more events

that I used to go to are now online. And I'm like, I don't want another online event. I want to connect with people. I want to feel their energy. So that's probably the biggest thing that I've had to go out of my way to reconnect with. I can relate to that. Sometimes people will ask me to do a video of

a day in the life. I'm like, guys, my life is boring. I can tell you, I do the same things every day. A lot of my time these days is it's chores, running businesses. And even though I have a great team of people and I've delegated a lot of things that are boring that I don't want to do, I still have to do a lot of things that, quite frankly, are boring. And that's something I've learned about myself. Speaking about what's inspiring, business unto itself is not inspiring to me. It's not. I have friends who love it. I have one friend in particular.

He's worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He doesn't have to do anything for the rest of his life. He didn't want to, but he just loves growing his business and getting richer. He just loves it. He does. He'll tell me, it gives him a high.

He's not into drugs, doesn't even drink caffeine. He's a good guy. He's married, he has kids, but he just gets his high from building his business or businesses and making more money. I don't have that, unfortunately. So I can't just lean on something that simple. And a lot of the mechanics of business are kind of boring to me. I do like marketing. And so I usually can find some inspiration because it's creative. I usually can find some inspiration in the marketing of the business. So, you know, and anyway,

it's just, this is something that I have had to think about over the last couple of years in particular, because on one hand, my business is everything is doing well. But on the other hand, I was feeling less and less kind of inspired. And it's fine. I can just show up and do the work. I'm not going to complain. It's kind of like workouts. You don't love every workout. You just do it and then you feel good after you did it. But it has occurred to me that rarely having any fun is not a great way to live. So what has that been like for you? what do you find inspiring connecting with people you mentioned that are there other other other aspects of your life and your work in particular that you

can always go back to it's like you know that's the ideal thing there aren't that many things in life right that we can just enjoy again and again and again even drugs don't work like that you have to take more and more right sex works like that That's one. But if you can find something in your work that always pulls you into it, as opposed to something you have to push yourself into, I think that that is very valuable. And I appreciate that more now than maybe 10 years ago. Writing and content creation for me, exploring ideas, trying to shape ideas and inspire people, long walks in nature. I just can't get enough of rural walks. Where I live is absolutely beautiful. Adventures, I love new things. I went and did a single-seater driving

experience the other day, again, because I wanted to experience something new and different, to feel alive, to feel on edge. I love doing things like that, a bit of sport and then eating great food. I think they're probably like the four or five things that I probably love the most in my life outside of, you know, family time, kind of, I'm talking on a personal level. And I think it's really important to, we're both parents and like a lot of people would say they don't get enough time for themselves, but do you make that time for yourself? It's really important to fill up your own cup. I have to do it. My wife has to do it to be our best selves. Otherwise we get grumpy, grouchy, we get stuck, we get frustrated. So they're the things that like constantly fill up my cup. Do you,

or have you struggled with forcing yourself quote quote unquote, to do those things as opposed to just working more? Because it's easy just to work more, especially when you have your own businesses. There's a never ending amount of stuff that needs to be done. Yeah. Do you know what? I'm going to say no. And again, I got forced into this in the pandemic. So I got quite ill in the pandemic with long COVID. And there became a point where I couldn't work for a prolonged period of time. Like I couldn't do a 10, 12, 14 hour day anymore. It would just like crush me. So I ended up doing like six, seven hour days. And then as I got healthier, I noticed that actually my concentration would be on fire for six hours. And then there'd just be this rapid decline.

And I started to just tune into that and pay attention. So now I pretty much do my work day where it's like I do these blocks in the day. And if I get up early and I'm in a good mood, I'll do like an hour and a half block in the morning and then I'll take a bit longer, maybe work out and then I'll do a block lunch in a block and I've just kind of stuck to that and I've just had to stay strong and look at the data of my concentration performance and output which is really hard because as an entrepreneur you're just always like well let's just do more it's like you know working out if you're feeling good it's easy to just do more but then two days later you're gassed and your third workout of the week or whatever because you've you've pushed into your

recovery too much so I kind of got forced to tune into that and I'm really grateful. So I generally follow that pattern now of kind of a six hour work day. And do you like, do you find that you are most creative in the morning or later in the day or. Yeah. Most creative in the morning. I'm a morning person. So i'd love to do my my writing that kind of stuff it's not always that easy because of the demands of like you need to do team meetings and all that kind of stuff but yeah if i can shape it that way the best thing for me is just to turn off all distractions put my phone on aeroplane mode log out of my email like right this is my list of tasks do these things and then log back on again. And I, you know, people talk about productivity hacks. I think that's just the

best one. Turn everything off. For me, it's Slack. Slack goes off. I just make myself available. I have digital office hours, so to speak. There are times where we're working on something that, or I'm involved in something that needs to get done as soon as possible. And so that might be the first thing I do in the morning is go to Slack and continue working on it. But for the most part, it's the same for me. I like to do my creative stuff in the morning before I go to the gym or after I go to the gym,

check Slack, what's going on, answer questions, do another block. Usually it's something like this or marketing related after lunch and then do Slack stuff again. I save email for later in the day because it doesn't take very much mental energy to grind through emails. And that's the way that I like to do it. Nice. Nice. It sounds pretty similar. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people, lot of people, it seems who do our type of work,

work in that way. Have you tried doing creative stuff at night? Let's say you're not physically tired yet, but it's the evening. Not for a long time, just because of my lifestyle. I've got young kids. So, you know, food, bed, bath times, always like a two, two and a half hour window. And then me and the wife might eat and then literally I can out because I go to bed really early. I go to bed, I'm usually asleep by 9.15. So yeah, I usually reserve the last hour for the day of like a bit of TV with the wife

or do a couple of chores or fill out some form for the child or whatever you've got to do. So no. Yeah, and maybe some sex now and then. That's the only time when it's going to happen. We'll see if I'm lucky, you know, have a,

have a prayer. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like my household, it just doesn't work logistically for the same reasons usually. But if for whatever reason I get the opportunity and I'm not physically tired yet, if I slept fine the night before, whatever,

I'll find that evening creative work is probably similar. Maybe the morning is a little bit better, a little bit better ideas, flows a little bit easier. But for me, it's probably this time of the day between 3 and 5 p.m. is the worst for me. And like you have paid attention to whether it's how many words or just the quality and how much of a grind it is this period of the day is the worst for me early and late work well

but i've spoken with other people who do this type of work who have noticed that uh as well do you not just think the key correlation there is the sense of freedom that no one else is really doing you're not demanded like slacks, not even any, you know, it's not even working because it's kind of out of hours. So for me, it kind of almost feels like it's just like, these are out of hours time. So I can almost mentally and emotionally be 100% creative and free with it. Yeah. Yeah. That might be part of it.

You know, I usually do some work on the weekends as well and experience that where there's nothing now I quote unquote have to do. I don't have any interviews. I don't have any calls. There's nothing on my calendar whatsoever, but it's also kind of an energy thing as well. Notice that physical energy and mental energy is just a little bit lower for me around this time of the day and then picks back up a little bit early evening and then it falls off. But anyway, so you mentioned long COVID. I'm just curious, what happened? Got COVID, was fine. Got like a sniffle. And then I did a charity event where I had to hike up a steep hill for nine hours to replicate the ascent of Everest. We did it to

support one of our athletes with our supplement company. And the next day I just couldn't get out of bed. Felt like I had just like a iron suit on, couldn supplement company. And the next day, I just couldn't get out of bed. Felt like I had just like an iron suit on, couldn't move. And I was like, this is weird. I'm not that unfit. And then it just went on and on. And then like, you know, it'd been going on a couple of weeks. And I was like, I really need to delve into this.

Started to look at my symptoms, started to read around. We thought we might have had COVID because my wife lost her, like her taste and smell. And then in the end, it all added up, got some blood work done that showed I had low neutrophils, which would show signs of active infection because I didn't do a test straight away. So I had no idea whether I did or I didn't because it was so early on in lockdown. And then, yeah, it was a really, then transport, but it was just a really dark time. Fatigue, brain fog, anger, depression, couldn't think straight. It was really, really

dark. And that went on for about 14 months. 14 months? Yeah, 14 months-ish. And then some symptoms lingered and I kept getting blood work and my testosterone was really low so I did like three tests did a short cycle of hcg to see if it was my testosterone that was an issue to try and like rule that out did the hgc and my testosterone actually went down about another six or seven percent so ended up going on to trt a couple of months ago and I would say I'm pretty much 100% symptom free from any of that past stuff now but yeah it was an extremely dark time if anyone's out there with long COVID which people that might know of people with like ME chronic fatigue syndrome it's horrific so dark like you just the progress so slow. It's really hard to like stay positive,

stay motivated. Yeah. My brother-in-law is, I think he's mostly better, but he has experienced something similar, not as extreme. He's been dealing with fatigue for, for some months now, probably at least six months. Although I think now he lives in California. So I talk to him now and then, but I'm not seeing him every day. But I think now he's a bit better. But for a while there, I know he was having similar problems, just low motivation, low energy, fatigue, just kind of general tiredness. He could just go to sleep at 3pm if he wasn't working. And he also got his testosterone tested and he had gotten it tested at some point in the past, but it was some time ago. So it was probably a couple of years ago

and it was quite high. So I don't remember the exact number, but it was probably close, let's say between eight, 900 nanograms per deciliter. That's not surprising. He's always gained muscle easily. He's always been lean, kind of like an active guy. Right. And so he got tested again about six months ago, probably. And he was at 500. Now we don't know if that is a consequence of, or just, you know, he's, he's older. He might've even gotten tested three or four years ago and he's older now and he still works out and he still takes care of himself. But with your testosterone, was it lowered by COVID or was it just a coincidence? Well, when I had acute COVID, sorry, acute long COVID, so I was in

my worst state with my symptoms, my testosterone was, I know we measure it differently to you guys mine was 20.5 n mol so like a year later it was then 14.5 and then it went down to 13.5 even when i had long covid it was like still normal so what happened in that time period i don't know obviously i stopped training so that would have a mild factor but not that much it wouldn't wouldn't go down sleep wasn't ideal yeah don't get me wrong young kid not sleeping great and then the long covid makes you sleep really bad always waking up at two three in the morning can't think like then you can't get back to sleep because your head's in this like vice of pressure so it's kind of like i sat down with

the doctor i ended up going private for the trt and I said, look, how did this happen? And he said, dude, you're never going to know. Like genetics, stress, life experience, environmental estrogens, like the list just goes on and on. He goes, the reality is all we can do is look at your blood work and make a decision off that and you have to decide whether kind of a move that you want to make. So I'd love to know.

And I, you know, worked for a period of time to do all the normal optimizations, but like sleep, as you spoke about earlier with sleep, like, is my sleep ever going to be ideal? Or is it going to be ideal for a while? I've got two young kids, like, they're going to keep getting up in the night for kind of a while, right? So I don't know. It's tough. I can't pinpoint it. Interesting. I have experienced what is probably a little bit of after effects of COVID. I've had it a couple of times now, just because people around me have had it and somebody ended up testing, you know, they were positive. And like, for me, it was never more than maybe a light head cold. But recently, my wife had it and had some body aches and it messed up her sleep a little bit.

And then I got it from her. Again, it was mild, the illness itself. But then for the next two or three months, every three or four weeks or so, like one, my sleep was generally worse. My sleep for five, six years since my daughter arrived, for whatever reason, that was just a switch. I don't know, like a biological switch flipped and is what it is. Like for me, it's staying asleep.

I don't usually have trouble falling asleep, but I usually, I don't sleep through the night ever, period. Just doesn't happen anymore, right? But after having COVID, I was waking up, maybe not every night, but it was at least a few times per week, I would wake up every hour or two. And then I would fall back asleep, wake up an hour and a half, maybe two hours later. And again, fortunately, I was able to fall back asleep usually, although sometimes, like you mentioned, I'd wake up, I didn't have any mental symptoms,

anything related to my head at all. However, sometimes I'd wake up, I didn't have any mental symptoms, anything related to my head at all. However, sometimes I'd wake up and I couldn't just fall back asleep. I would notice that I was saying this offline, right? With my heart rate, I don't want to repeat myself. So I'll say quickly. So I, you know, I wear this little whoop guy for, for tracking sleep sometimes. Like if I'm curious where my sleep is at, I like to look at the wakings in my heart rate. And so what I noticed with my whoop is that after COVID, there would be times where my heart rate was just slightly elevated. So instead of 40 to 50 beats per minute when I'm sleeping, I would be 50, it would be 60, not 70, but it's a little bit higher than usual. And then I would also feel a little bit awake, just awake enough to not be able to fall back asleep. So that sleep thing was kind of happening

every other night, maybe. And then every three or four weeks, I also would feel like I was starting to get sick again, same kind of COVID. For me, COVID is I get mucusy. That's one thing I've had it a few times now. And that's the first thing I notice is a little bit of throat, maybe soreness and just kind of mucusy and congested. And so I would feel like I was starting to get sick again. And I would take off the gym. Okay, what's going on? It would last for a few days, then go away. All right, fine. And that happened again, several times, three or four weeks, my brother in law was having the same thing every three or four weeks. He was like, dude, I feel like I'm getting sick again, but I'm not. And so I tried the natural supplements that have any evidence of efficacy, NAC, quercetin,

spermidine, I think I'm forgetting one or two others, didn't seem to do anything. But what did seem to help is ivermectin, ironically, which I know there's controversy over its efficacy, but there's no controversy over its safety. So I was like, sure, I'll just take I'll take it every day for a month. And let's see, more or less immediately, my sleep got better. My heart rate was now not randomly elevating at night and keeping me awake. not randomly elevating at night and keeping me awake. And I didn't have the recurring almost illness thing. And so there we go. There's my COVID story with some horse paste that may or may not have helped. Maybe it was just in my mind, but I'll take it. I've heard a lot of very strange stories

sort of post COVID of how people's bodies just feel different. Immune systems feel different. I've got a doctor friend and she is noticing a weird correlation of people getting increased symptoms of arthritis. So again, who knows what's going on? And that's the problem with viruses. Could be connected with inflammation. There seem to be other symptoms that would be related to just elevated levels of inflammation in the body.

100%. So like the last symptom that I really struggled with was getting back to exercise, post-exercise fatigue malaise. It took me nearly six months to build back up to just doing some like basic body weight stuff. It was like as soon as I did a bit of resistance training, my body would just go into this absolute meltdown in response to it. So like what was going on there? You know, no idea, but all the protocols seem the same, like rest, build back up slowly,

but build back up really slowly. And it's painful being a fitness person, building yourself up like that, but needs must. Hey there, if you are hearing this, you are still listening, which is awesome. Thank you. And if you are enjoying this podcast, or if you just like my podcast in general, and you are getting at least something out of it, would you mind sharing it with a friend or a loved one or a not so loved one even who might want to learn

something new? Word of mouth helps really bigly in growing the show. So if you think of someone who might like this episode or another one, please do tell them about it. So your kids and staying fit with kids, how has that been for you? That's something I get asked about. I do these little Instagram Q and A's every week or so. There are always a few people in there asking, saying, Hey, I just had a kid or recently had a kid. I'm not sleeping so well anymore. I'm not feeling so motivated anymore. I don't have all the time that I used to have. Do you have any, motivated anymore. I don't have all the time that I used to have. Do you have any tips? So there's two big things that I lean on. Obviously, we're all trying to get as much sleep as possible. We're young children. That's just a given. So let's not go there.

The first thing was, is keeping your diet super consistent. It's really common that when people have kids, you get a bit lazy and start to cut corners. And I think if you keep your diet dialed in, you keep your body composition in check and that keeps you happy because you're not gaining body fat. So when I became a parent, we just batch cooked even more. Like, you know, on a day that we were feeling good, we'd just do like a huge shepherd's pie or a huge curry or, you know, whatever, just good, wholesome, normal food. So we always had our nutrition in check. The thing that I struggled with, and it took me a while, and especially when the second kid came along, was just realigning expectations. I think that's the biggest thing. And so much of our unhappiness usually comes from our expectations of how life is going to pan out.

So with your training, it's like, oh, I'm going to train today. I'm going to do X and then something happens and then you're pissed off and stuff. So I think it's lowering expectations, lowering your kind of goal bar. Cause if you're someone that for example, was really into like strength training and you'd be doing three or four really heavy sessions a week, chances are really slim. You're going to be able to do that with young kids. So it's like realign that, like, can you commit to like really slim you're going to be able to do that with young kids so it's like realign that like can you commit to like is two sessions going to be enough and the reality is for guys that are into building muscle and lifting weights it takes a really surprisingly small amount of gym time to maintain muscle mass but obviously it needs a lot of gym time to gain muscle mass so actually i found that just getting into the gym twice a week, full body, keeping it

simple, keeping the loads pretty decent, keeping the tension good, all of that stuff, I maintain my muscle mass. And I think that's a big panic as well, especially amongst guys. It's like, oh, if I don't lift for too long, I'm going to lose all my muscle. You won't. I stopped lifting for nearly 20 months with my long COVID and I lost a kilo and a half of muscle. That's it. I've built that back up in six to eight weeks of being back to lifting consistently for about three months now. So yeah, realigning expectations, making yourself really efficient,

because ultimately the most important thing in your life right now is your kids. Kilo and a half is all you lost in 20 months. And that was with low testosterone as well? Yes. Wow. And you're able to maintain that obviously by eating well, eating enough protein and maybe a little bit of genetic help, honestly. I'm surprised to hear that even. I think I would probably lose quite a bit if I were to stop for that long. I haven't tried it, so maybe I'm wrong. Yeah. I mean, there's no way to know. I think I've been at the same body weight for a long time. I think I reached close to my genetic potential for muscle mass when I was probably about 25, and I'm now 36. So it's almost like, I think if your gain would have been faster,

you might've dropped off quicker because your gains are quite new. But I think, you know, my muscle mass I've had for quite a long period of time, I think that's probably helped it to be honest. Yeah. That's interesting. Uh, I can't say that that's not something I've looked into. Like I'm trying to think about just, just maybe research that I've, that I've read. There's nothing that pops into my mind on that point in particular, but there could be something to that, that the longer you've had muscle, the harder it is to lose. That'd be an interesting question, actually, to dig around for. Maybe there's not a pat answer out there, but maybe some possible mechanisms that would contribute to that. What I've noticed is that I just haven't, I guess I haven't taken an extended break in so long. It does seem that

the longer I've trained, the less inflation and deflation I notice. I don't know if you remember, I remember clearly, it's also how I train though, where,'t know if you remember, I remember clearly, it's also how I train though, where, you know, you work out during the week and you have that kind of residual pump and you look pretty good. And then by the end of Sunday, you look like you don't even lift. You look like you lost, you know, 10 pounds of lean mass over the weekend because you have less fluid in your muscles, but with enough myofibrillar hypertrophy, that seems to normalize. And yeah, you know, you get a little bit of a residual pump, but you can always look like you lift even if you take a few days off. So there could be something

maybe similar to just that prolonged training effect that allows you to where you have maybe semi permanently changed your body composition basically yeah i just i think so much of what we experience with our body compositions in our head anyway yeah yeah especially we pay attention to every little thing when we look in the mirror you look in the mirror and you're like oh god i see that minute change and no one else has seen that not even your wife and she's seen you naked, you know, however many times. The right biceps vein is looking a little less pronounced today. Exactly. So I think so much of it is, yeah, psychosomatic.

There's probably some truth to that. So with the two workouts per week, how do you decide when to do them? Something that I will mention to people is sleep is a big thing. They're asking, what should I do? Okay. If I didn't sleep well last night and I wanted to train today, should I train? Should I not train? Should I take a nap and train? Should I take a nap and not train? Yeah. How I've done it is I've tried to let the flow of life dictate that. That's harder for some people. It's easier for me.

I work from home. I run my own businesses. Like I run my life. So I have that flexibility. So you wake up Monday, you're feeling great. You slept pretty well. Cool. You get into the gym, but then you have three days of really bad sleep.

Your kid's ill or something like that. And it might not be that you work out till Friday again. And I just think that's okay. So as long as you have that commitment to like, I'm going to train twice this week, I'm going to train when I feel good or the opportunity arises. And maybe I get to the end of the week and I still haven't found that time. So rather than not train, I'm going to train, but I'm just going to dial back the intensity and just like, you know, train at an RPE of five or six rather than seven, eight, you know, lifting at an RPE of five or six rather than seven, eight, you know, lifting weights or something. So again, it's about having that flexibility.

Like so many of us previously before kids might've been like, right, I'm in the gym four days a week, Monday's legs, you know, Wednesday's this, Thursday's that, Saturday's that. And it's like rigidity is probably going to be really tough to achieve being a parent. So that's why I sort of mentioned, look, let's lower expectations. Let's lower the volume a bit. You don't need as much volume. Best things that you can probably do when you're underslept, you're a parent, you know, your mental health's under pressure,

is probably walk a bit more. So like less lift twice a week, keep it pretty simple, and get outside more, get outside with your kid, get him in the buggy or whatever, because that's probably going to do you just as much good and help you keep your weight down because i mean your kids are a little bit older now did you say five and ten yeah i found it actually really hard to be generally active with young kids because you're in the house quite a bit or you go out for a walk but then it might not be ideal. And then when two came along, I found it quite hard to get out.

So I really appreciated those walks. And as we know, non-exercise activity thermogenesis, just being active and walking can really help you keep your body composition under control by just burning a half decent amount of calories every day. Yeah, I'm a regular proponent of walking, getting outside and going for walks. It is, I think, a very underrated form of exercise. It's good for well, just general well-being. Just sitting here and doing this kind of stuff all day long every day is not great for us in any way, our physical or our mental health. And that's something I wanted to ask you about is so you would make sure to get outside and go for walks every day, regardless of sleep or anything else. And then your strength training was dictated by the time you have and the energy

that you have. Yep, pretty much. And then another thing that's been really helpful, actually, is I've got a standing desk with a small walking treadmill under it. And I found that really helpful. That's been helping me get an extra like 5,000 to 8,000 steps a day. And that's been great. Yeah, that's smart and simple. What about naps? I've never been a good napper.

I mentioned earlier that I only generally work about six-ish hours a day. So fitting the nap in alongside the kids in the morning, the kids in the evening, it just really, really rarely happens. Sometimes on the weekend when like family's over and the kids are being looked after or they're out playing or whatever, I might sneak it in. But it's pretty rare I get a good quality nap in. It just doesn't seem to work. And then you might attest to this, I've got quite a busy mind. So it can be quite a challenge to actually just calm my mind down enough that it will happily take a nap. Yeah, fortunately, that's generally not something that I have struggled with.

However, if I do try to take a nap, usually I don't. These days now I'm sleeping a little bit better. It's not necessary. But when my sleep was really screwy after COVID, I was taking probably two to three naps per week because otherwise doing something like this was more difficult than it should be. Anything that I had to actually think. If I was just answering emails all day, fine. I could do that with not much sleep. But if I'm trying to write, if I'm trying to have a conversation, if I'm trying to work on marketing projects that require me to think, especially creatively, it almost just didn't work if I was underslept. At least the productivity was so bad that

it made more sense to take 45 minutes, maybe even 60 minutes and take a nap and then work less 45 to 60 minutes, but at least get more done in that time. And so what would happen is often, so I'm lying down, kind of trying to relax. And then randomly, something pops into my head related to work always that I want to check on some idea. Did that person do this? What's going on with that? However, what has worked well for me is I use Google Keep for this, just some free Google app. And I got this idea, I think probably from getting things done, that David Allen book that I read years ago, that I don't try to remember anything, whatever is whatever kind of appointments I have anything I need to like do at certain times that goes on my calendar. In the case of like, Oh, I need to find out what's happening with blah, I need to remember to check on blah, whatever, I just drop

a note in Google Keep. And then I process that. Usually every day, there's stuff in there that is a little bit more pressing. Sometimes it's things I can get to on the weekend. But that has helped me. Maybe also I just don't have an inclination to have a racing mind. However, that process has helped me where like anything that if it comes to mind, and I want to do something later, I just dump it. Even if it's, hey, look into this. I wonder if this is a good idea. Dump it into my Google Keep. It's there. And now I don't have to try to keep anything in my mind. That's a really good tip. I like that. Because normally if you're lying there not

being able to get to sleep, you're holding on to things, aren't you? So yeah, I like it. Good tip. I need to make sure I remember to do blah. Yeah, that does not work for me. I will not be able to sleep. But if I write it down, there just seems to be something to that where now it's not on my mind anymore. And so with expectations, I wanted to come back to that because I think that's a very, very good point. Something that I've experienced over the years of the expectations of I wanted to come back to that because I think that's a very, very good point. Something that I've experienced over the years of the expectations of I want to push and make progress versus I want to keep what I've got. And I think that, you know, in my experience, at least working with people, I don't know if you've had the same thing. Many people, they have a hard time, especially with kids where they're used to before kids, they have all the time they want and they have all the energy they need and they're sleeping

great and their expectations are pushing, making progress. And they've been like that for a long time. And now that they're not doing that, it feels like something's missing from their life. And they have a lot of trouble accepting that that's just not possible right now. But that doesn't mean that nothing is possible. It doesn't mean that the wheels just have to fall off. And I suppose attached to your question is, I suppose, how did I potentially sort of come to terms with that? Or do I have any tips? I think it's kind of a time thing and a maturity thing that you kind of learn to just accept that. But it comes back to kind of, I suppose, the question

of why, like why are you chasing progress? So when I was in the gym, when I was younger, I wanted to look good, you know, not going to lie. I wanted to improve my athletic performance to play rugby. And I just enjoyed the feeling of being a bit bigger, a bit stronger and stuff. But then when I came with dad, I was like, well, I can still keep my muscle mass if I train less and I eat well. So that's one goal achieved. I'm not playing rugby anymore. So I don't know, I don't need to do that. And the kind of strength component of training, that's just kind of like a nice to have really like in your everyday life, if you can deadlift 300 pounds compared to 200 pounds, that's not going to change your life in

any way, shape or form. Like it's just a gym thing. So actually when you kind of boil it down, you say, why do I want to have progress? Sometimes it is case of, well, I'm used to having progress. I'm used to seeing progress in that area of my life and especially when you're not getting progress in other areas of your life because it might be quite chaotic you know being a parent can be very chaotic so I think sometimes it's just a case of you need to sort of go right back to basics go to the notepad and pen and go why am I looking to achieve these fitness goals and I think if most you, dad's mom's ball down to it, we just want to be pretty healthy, stay pretty lean, feel good about ourselves and try and maintain our strength. And that doesn't really have to look like progress

like it usually would have in the gym. You know, sometimes I'll say that I think in some ways, just maintaining what you have is a form of progress because the longer you maintain what you have, if you have health, if you have a good body composition, you have maybe not the strength that you once had, but you still are very strong compared to the average person. You're not a weakling and having strength comes in handy as well in life. The longer you maintain those things, the easier it is to continue maintaining those things. And so, you know, I think that you can kind of reframe it then and say, hey, that that is a form of progress. Progress is not just one

dimensional. Did you get bigger? Did you get stronger? Did you get leaner? If it's three no's, then I'm sorry, three strikes, you're out. And you can think like that. And maybe that's appropriate under certain circumstances. But to your point, I think this is I've had the same experience. As you get older and your life gets more complicated and there are things that matter more now than just getting bigger, leaner and stronger. You have to change your perspective or training becomes, you lose your motivation. You know, I hear from people who they're struggling to work that out and they no longer enjoy their training the way that they did because they're looking at it through that same lens.

Part of it as well might be the comparison component. So if you go to a gym where all your buddies have not got kids and they're all crushing their workouts they're progressing and pushing like you used to then you're feeling left behind because of the environment that you're in so i've trained from home for quite a while for like five or six years i've trained from home whereas i used to go to a gym and the only person in my gym is me. And when I go out into the world, like you say, I'm still kind of in better shape than most people. So actually like my comparison pool is tiny. And actually that could be quite a good thing because it's like, well, training is just for me now. I don't need to compete against John or Dave

or Tim or, you know you know whoever because it's just me and i think sometimes that's a big part of it as well because we're very good as we know as humans of comparing ourselves to others and the progress we might not be making to their perceived progress do you like training by yourself at home yeah i do i really enjoy it i'm a natural introvert like i'm you know really happy in my shed. I've just got a tiny little setup in my shed and I do enjoy it. I quite often do my social media on my phone as a work thing because it's one of those easy jobs. I'll just hide away for an hour and yeah, I'm more than happy. That's usually what I'm doing if I'm on the bike back there.

Either that or if I have to make a call of some kind, might as if I'm on the bike back there, either that, or if I have to make a call of some kind, might as well do it on the, on the bike. And if I don't, if I don't have either of those things, then I'll read, I like to read on my phone. So with your experience here as a parent, is there anything else that I haven't asked you that I, that you, you're thinking I should have asked or anything else that you want to share for uh people who are again the people who tend to ask me about this are people who are new parents and they're struggling with the changes i think the only other thing is be really honest with yourself when you need help. Like, make sure you're asking friends and family because, like, you know, it's so easy to, like,

you know, soldier on through and try and do everything yourself as a parent, especially if you've got a bit of a, like, I'm going to crush this parent in luck kind of mindset. But we all need time by ourselves. We all need time out. We need time to reconnect with, you know, nature or our wife. Like, so don't be afraid to just like,

even if it's like, hey, mom, can you come over? See, I can have an hour. See, I can go out into the gym because it'll make me feel loads better. I think just ask for that help. It can be life-changing. And if you've got supportive family that live close, they're probably more than happy to give you that space

to look after your physical and mental health because they both take a passion as a parent. I've heard the same from even many partners where it just never quite occurred to them that they should kind of sit down together and strategize. Because let's say I've heard from many men and women, for example, who both want to be able to do at least a couple of workouts per week and have at least a little bit of time for themselves. And life is busy and frenetic and they hadn't sat down to work out the logistics of it. Like, okay, things can change. Maybe we won't be able to stick to this plan perfectly. However, this evening from this time to this time, you could help, you could get the kids ready for bed

while I'm doing this. And then I could do this for you. And then on this day, maybe we could combine these activities. I've heard from many people who were able to work out just amongst themselves without outside help. Having outside help, I totally agree is even better, but that's not always an option. Like in my case, you know, my kids are 10 and five, so it's a little bit different, but when they were younger, my wife and I were living in Virginia. We didn't have any family and yeah, we had some acquaintances, but nobody close enough who we could recruit for babysitting per se. I mean, maybe you could work out some play dates where like the kids are over there or whatever, But anyway, so I just wanted to throw that out there that I have heard from people over

the years who were able to figure it out just amongst themselves by just getting very specific and sticking to the plan as best as they could. Totally. Me and the wife, usually on a Sunday, we organize our weekly food shop. We have like a Monday, Wednesday, whatever food plan. And at the same time, we'll do our commitments that week. So like, where are you going? What are you doing? How do you need help? So the whole week, we plan for both food,

supporting each other, logistics. Then we sit down and ask family for help and stuff where needed. And yeah, it's really important to have all of those things aligned. So you go into the week working together as a team, as a couple. Can you talk quickly before we wrap up on the food side of things? Many people will ask me, what do I eat in any given day? What does my weekly kind of meal plan look like? What does

that look like for you? Yeah, real simple. I'll get up in the morning, usually work for a bit, meditate, organize my day. And then I'll make my girls breakfasts. They have like a porridge with like mashed fruit, nuts, seeds, like that kind of stuff. I'll quite often eat their leftovers with a little bit of like something added. You can't throw it away. You got to eat it. Exactly. So my breakfast is their leftovers. Sometimes Sometimes I'll crumble a protein bar in it. I even think about that when we go to restaurants. I know my daughter is going to order whatever, and she's going to eat half of it at best. So sometimes I'm only eating an appetizer because I know I'm going to eat half of her entree. And then my son's probably going to leave some of

his as well. And so that works. Tactics. And then lunch is really simple. Sometimes I'll have like soup, sandwiches. I'm a big fan of sourdough. We've got a little deli in our town and I'll have like eggs and sourdough,

like real simple stuff. The kids, they've never been very good with hand feeding. So we quite often feed them like one pot meals like spaghetti bolognese risottos you know one pot dishes sorry what what's hand feeding um like you know if you made them like carrot sticks and cucumber and like bits of cheese like they just lose interest they're like they're gone and then evening time is just classic food like spaghetti bolognese, curries. This evening we had like chicken in kind of like a white sauce with couscous. So just like really simple stuff.

And then, you know, we've always got snacks kicking about. So it's a really simple meal structure. It's three meals a day, a snack, keep it wholesome. And at least with the porridge recipe for them, like I've swapped out the fruit that I grate in it and the different nuts and seeds and that kind of stuff. So it keeps it simple because I've noticed that kids are creatures of habit. So I've got them hooked on what I would hopefully describe as a pretty healthy breakfast for them really early when they're young. Sounds very similar to my kids and my household. For your meal prep,

like for your dinners, for example, is any of that prepped beforehand or is it just... We'll do two bulk cook days. On a Monday, we cook for Monday and Tuesday. And then Wednesday, quite often, I'm out. I play paddle on a night. And then we'll then bulk cook on a Thursday for Thursday, Friday dinner. And then the weekends quite often with family. So we keep it flexible. We'll quite often have a roast on a Sunday and a curry with friends on a Saturday night. So, yeah. And so you are then, the food is fully prepared.

It's not like a, cause you know, you can partially prep meals and then kind of cook it fresh or is it fully prepped and you just heat it up? It's not fully prepped. No, we're sort of like yeah partial yeah and um the wife doesn't work currently so takes full charge she's the boss she works uh it's just yeah it's a different kind yeah yeah it's uh it's a full-time job being a mom and it would be another discussion but I think a full-time job that at least here in the, in the U S I don't know how it is over there. I don't think it is given the recognition that it

deserves at least there there's, there's a, a kind of a glamor that is portrayed, uh, in just being career focused and obsessing over work and not having a family, or if you do have a family, you just have other people raise your kids, you just send them off to daycare or have a nanny or whatever. And if you if you're succeeding in your work, if you're moving up the corporate ladder, if you're making more money, that is admirable. If you're not doing that, but you're a great mom, you have a great household, your kids are doing well, you're kind of a relic of the patriarchy. It's a shame. That should change because ultimately, the most fulfilling things in life are bringing up your kids, having an amazing experience, having connection, seeing them thrive.

And they're only going to thrive through contact time, love, care, support, education. And yeah, that comes from us being present as parents. And that's our next generation. So a lot depends on it. This was a great discussion, Ben. I appreciate you taking the time to come back and do it. Is there anything else that you wanted to say, uh, that, uh, I haven't asked you about or anything else just kind of banging around in your head before we wrap up? I don't think so. I think I was actually having a session with kind of a, we'll call them a therapist earlier on today. And, um, I think when you're individuals that

are into the gym and into pushing yourself in business and career and trying to do everything, we can be pretty hard on ourselves. And I think sometimes it's important to just stand back and be kind to yourself and look at kind of the bigger picture of your life and say, is the thing that I'm worried about, does it really matter? Is it really that important? You know, that workout that I might've missed, is it really that important you know that workout that i might have missed is it is it really gonna you know be too detrimental and i think you know as parents we can be pretty hard on ourselves it's a tough job and we're all trying to do things like brilliantly we're all trying to be a players in the parenting department but also you know keep keeping shape and all the rest of it so keep being kind to yourself and keep realigning your

expectations and getting the right kind of focus and support around them i think part of it. So keep being kind to yourself and keep realigning your expectations and getting the right kind of focus and support around them. I think part of it might be that people, like you've mentioned, a lot of people listening certainly are very process oriented, which is good because that's ultimately what produces results, right? Is you have to be consistent, you have to do the right actions, you have to be consistent. You have to do the right actions. You have to be focused on the process to ultimately get the result. And so if our process gets messed up, at least for me, I can say that is uncomfortable. And we're not inclined to look at the results, though, and to your point saying, hey, look at how far I've come. I actually should pat myself

on the back. I am doing pretty well. The results are good, even if my process has gotten kind of messed up recently. I can speak personally. I've had those thoughts myself because I am very much that person that always wants to do more, always wants to do things exactly the way that I want to do them. I do not like when my routine gets messed up, blah, blah, blah. So, you know, I'm speaking personally here. Sounds like you need to readjust your expectations, Mike. I have. I've worked on it. I've made progress. Some of it, though, seems to be hardwired. I'm not sure that we can completely change ourselves. I think we can improve in many ways, but in some

ways we are what we are. At least that's my opinion. Awesome. Yeah. It's been really good to connect again, Mike, and hopefully everyone listening has got some value out of today. Absolutely. And before we wrap up, let's just tell people where they can find you and your work. If they want to check out your supplements, your educational courses, anything else you want them to know about. Sure. Social media is just Ben Coomber. My name, C-O-O-M-B-E-R. So if you want to come hang out, awesome. My supplement company is called Awesome Supplements,

only available in the UK and some parts of Europe. And yeah, my book, How to Live an Awesome Life, you're able to find that on Amazon, Audible. And if you do have a read, connect with me. It'd be awesome to hear what you think. Awesome. Well, thanks again for doing this. I really appreciate it. And good luck on the book launch. Thanks, Mike. Awesome. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes.

And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.