Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How Enrique Lost 45 Pounds and Got Strong in Just 4 Months

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

In this podcast, I interview Enrique, who read my book Bigger Leaner Stronger and joined my VIP one-on-one coaching program to take all the guesswork out of his training and nutrition and get leaner and stronger than ever before. And here’s the kicker: he also managed to quit smoking and excessive drinking. As a result, Enrique is now fitter and healthier at 40 years old than he was at 25. In fact, Enrique has enjoyed the coaching program so much and gotten so much out of it, he’s stayed on as a client since 2016 for the accountability. Before finding my work, Enrique’s party lifestyle caught up with him in his 30s, and he was overweight and out of shape. But once he read my book, got over the simplicity, and began following the program, he made such fast progress that he was motivated to take it to the next level and hire one of my coaches. In the next 4 months, he went from squatting just the barbell to squatting his bodyweight, all while losing 45 pounds. In this interview, Enrique and I chat about . . . - What motivated him to finally get in shape - How he got down to 8% body fat without going hungry - How his meal plan took all the unnecessary thinking out of his daily life (while still allowing him to enjoy food) - How being part of the coaching program motivated him to quit drinking and smoking - How he navigated a shoulder injury to keep making progress - And more . . . So if you’re looking for a jolt of inspiration and like motivational stories, definitely listen to this episode. Timestamps: (0:00) - Legion VIP One-on-One Coaching: https://www.muscleforlife.show/vip (3:05) - What was your health and fitness journey like before you started the program? (8:52) - How was the muscle growth and strength building experience? (10:43) - What helped you the most with being consistent in the kitchen and in the gym? (20:20) - Were you aggressive with your calorie deficit? (27:11) - How did you overcome bad lifestyle habits? (32:59) - Where was your strength before the coaching program? (33:29) - What did your workout schedule look like? (35:57) - Have you had any significant obstacles during your training? (41:15) - How was the transition from training by yourself to training with a personal coach? (45:34) - How has it been since you restarted the program? (50:19) - What are your fitness plans? Mentioned on the show: Legion VIP One-on-One Coaching: https://www.muscleforlife.show/vip

Good day, 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 for a success story interview. I do one of these every four to six weeks or so. I like to speak with someone who has used something of mine, a book of mine, my VIP coaching service, my articles, podcasts, whatever, have used my stuff to get into great shape and to share their story. Because I have learned that a lot of people find these episodes motivational and inspirational. And they sometimes see themselves in the guests that I have on and rightfully wonder, hey, if they can do it, why not me? And so in this podcast, I interview Enrique, who read my book, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger,

and he joined my one-on-one coaching program just to take all of the guesswork out of his training and his nutrition and give it to an expert who can just tell him exactly what to do and when to do it and how to do it. And Enrique got leaner and stronger than ever before. And he also managed to quit smoking and quit his excessive drinking. So as a result, he got fitter and healthier at 40 years old than he has been in a long time, certainly than he was at 25, and he talks about that in this interview. Enrique has enjoyed the coaching program so much and has gotten so much out of it that he has stayed on as a client since 2016, just for the accountability and the consistency.

Although part of the pitch for my coaching service is is we want you to fire us after 90 days, we want you to commit to 90 days, but then we want you to fire us at the end of that period. We want you to be self-sufficient. We want you to not just do what we tell you to do, but to know why you're doing what you're doing and to feel comfortable carrying on without us. However, many clients choose to continue with us just because it's going so well. They do feel confident that they can continue getting results without us, but they're just enjoying the coaching so much that they want to continue.

And so anyway, if you want to learn about my one-on-one coaching service, just head over to muscleforlife.show slash VIP. And if you think it might make sense at all, schedule a free consultation call and let's find out if it's a good fit for you. Hey, Enrique, welcome to my podcast. Hello, Mike. How are you? I'm great. How are you? Good. Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, by the way, just to let you know, for people listening, there's a little tropical storm going on right now.

And so if I just disappear, it's because my power went out. Actually, just so you know, it doesn't seem to be too bad, but sometimes it just takes a little bit of wind and then you have no power for two hours. But for now, it seems to be fine. So with that being said, yes, thank you for taking the time to come on my podcast and share your story. And maybe to start, could you just give us a quick kind of snapshot before and after, maybe before you found me and my work and where were you at in your health and fitness journey, so to speak, and then kind of just fast forward to today, where are you at? Just so people understand the contrast, you know? today, where are you at? Just so people understand the contrast, you know?

So before I started your program, you know, I basically did a little bit of sports at school in my early teenage years. By the way, my English is not my maiden language, so forgive me, my accent is a little bit different. Okay, so then, you know, about my late teenage years, I started to, to party a lot. You know, I ended up building my business around it. So from, I don't know, maybe 18, 16 to 35, I did nothing of sports. My health was really, really bad. Drinking a lot, smoking a lot, but like every weekend. It is my business still, you know, music, music events, festivals. It was kind of my job as well. Then around 34, 35, I'm 40, by the way, my little two-year-old saw my belly. My wife was pregnant with my second child. And he told me like, oh, you also have a baby. And I was like, okay, I gotta do something about this.

And my cousin that lives next door, he built a home gym. I wasn't too keen in going to the gym. I really didn't like the vibe. He built the gym and he was asking me like, hey, you should work out with me. I have a personal trainer here and there. I've done it in the past and local trainers,

I didn't trust them. They didn't teach you anything. But I started to think, okay, I need to do something about my health. And I came across your book in Amazon. So I found it. I actually audio booked it in around, I don't know, maybe a week or less. And when I was listening to it, I honestly couldn't believe it was that easy or sounded that easy, you know, because it had always been like, it's very hard, you know, personal trainers put it to you here. Like it's basically impossible.

After I finished the book, I started working out by myself. And when I started seeing results, you know, two weeks in, I was amazed. I just wanted to keep on going, keep on going. I did it like for two, three months, excellent results. And then, then I was, you know, I wanted to take it up a notch and that's when I signed up for the coaching program. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. So then you've been with us for some time with, with the coaching, right? And so now where are you at just in terms of your, so if you look at, I'm just curious again for you and myself. So you get the book and then you start doing the program, then you get a lot of coaching.

And so what do things look like now versus when you started? What was it, I guess, a year and a half ago? Am I getting the timing right about there? No, it was 2016, I guess, a year and a half ago? Am I getting the timing right about there? No, it was 2016, actually. Oh, okay. So I'm just curious, just because what I see, particularly when I'm sharing people's success stories online, is many people are surprised at how much change can happen in the first six to 12 months, for example,

if you know what you're doing. And you don't have to be perfect, of course. You just have to be good enough most of the time and pretty consistent. But I just have noticed that many people find that very motivating when they see other people, again, radically transforming their body in just six to 12 months, because like you said, for the longest time, they thought that that was probably not possible in any amount of time with any amount of work, not for them, maybe for someone else. Correct. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I started in, let's say, around August. By the end of the year, you know, I started with around 28, 32 percent body fat, a big belly. And by the end of the year, you know, four months later, I was around eight, nine percent body fat and lost 45 pounds. So you can imagine, you know, that Christmas, everyone was like, what happened? I mean, what happened to you? Did you get sick or something? What happened to you? Yeah. But then you've also you also I'm sure you gained muscle. So

whatever disease that is, I want it. Yeah. People people joked like if I, if I got sick, that was like a joke, but you know, at seven, nine, 10 body fat, you could see my, my, my stomach muscles, you know, six pack and everything. So I thought it was not possible to do it, you know, and, and for me in such a short amount of time and I didn't know know it was not like militarized, you know, measuring food every day and this and that. It just like you said, consistency. Two things. One, this point of body recomposition is just a hot topic. A lot of people ask about it. Is it possible to gain muscle and strength and lose fat at the same time. Yes, it absolutely is, especially if you're new. And then many people from there, they want to know if restricting your calories in the beginning to

lose fat, does it dramatically reduce the amount of muscle and strength that you can gain in that first year? And so what was your experience with your body composition? So we know that you brought your body fat way down, but how was the muscle growth and strength building side of things? Well, it was very successful to my eyes because, you know, I came from doing nothing. At the beginning, I couldn't even squat only the barbell. It was impossible. I maybe could do one or two squats with the barbell. And of course the, the pull-ups out of the question. And by the end of the, by the end of the third month, you know, I was benching and squatting three times more, or at least maybe my, not my body weight, but a little bit less.

I can't remember the exact weight, but that was, you know, incredible, incredible for me to be able, and you get more motivated when, you know, every other week you put five more pounds, five more pounds. And maybe by the end of the, of the cut, I lost a little bit of strength, but it was not significant. Were you in a deficit for probably most of that first year, at least six months, I'm assuming, right? It was three months, three or four months, because I went in four months to eight, nine percent body fat. So I was already with my coach and we started doing the bulk. Great. And so some people hearing that or even I'm a little bit surprised, not that it can't be done, but I would say that's probably a little bit faster than than usual, just just

than I usually come across. And so can you talk to us a little bit about, you had mentioned the importance of consistency and that you weren't weighing and measuring everything that you eat every day, but did you start out with weighing and measuring and were there any kind of lessons that you learned along the way that helped you with your consistency in the kitchen and in the gym? with your consistency in the kitchen and in the gym? Yeah, I try to make things easier for me. So when I started measuring at the beginning, I had protein, vegetables, and a carb.

And what I did was mostly the whole week was the same. I knew I had to have the same amount of meat. And I did brown rice every day and a vegetable. Everything in the same measure. So on the weekends, I did, you know, go eat something, you know, more fun. But during the week, I just did that. You know, it saved me time. I didn't have to cook a lot. It made things

easier for me. Yeah. And that's, that's a great tip for anybody. I mean, I still do the same thing and I've done that for so many years now. I eat more or less the same foods every meal every day. And sometimes I change things every so many months go by and now I'm in the mood to change my salad. So I change it, but I still eat a salad at the, you know, my dinner is always some sort of protein and there's some sort of vegetable and carb and it'll for a long time be the exact same thing. And then I'll change it up usually with spices or use some different sauces just to give it a different flavor profile. some different sauces, just to give it a different flavor profile. But eating like that, it just makes it so easy, to your point, to control your calories and control your macros and still enjoy your food. And then you don't have to continue to weigh and measure because you kind of just do it

once, right? Your first week or two, just so you can get an idea of what your portion should look like. And from there on out, you are just eyeballing. You know that you're supposed to eat that much of this and that much of this and that much of this. And then on your weekends then, what did you do to just make sure that you didn't eat way too much? Okay, so I'm going to be honest with what I did on the weekends. First of all, I think my body composition has a better, it does better cutting than bulking.

You know, bulking for me, it's very, very difficult. That's something that I have a problem with. But to cut and to go down in body fat, it was fairly easy because I just ate that and I never went hungry, to be honest. So that's good. And for people listening, that is mostly just a matter of genetics, probably. Just appetite. Some people tend to have normal appetite. Some people tend to have low appetite.

Some people tend to have high appetites. I'm similar to you in that I just don't get hungry easily. I was always kind of a skinny. I played endurance sports. I played hockey. I was never like a big, strong guy. And I don't really have the genetics to be. I've gained a fair amount of muscle, but I would be a terrible strength athlete. I just don't have the body for it. So like you, it's more uncomfortable actually for me to maintain a consistent calorie surplus for three, four months because you're force feeding yourself. You really are.

That final meal or two every day, you get no enjoyment from it, no matter what it is. So anyways, continue. I just wanted people to understand that. And because some people, they have the opposite problem, obviously, where they tend to have a big appetite and it's easy for them to put on weight, but it is more difficult for them to keep their calories restricted. Yeah, correct. So on the weekends I did one super, like super large meal. Like after the meal, you don't need anything for 24 hours. And I ate everything like on Sunday, this was mostly what I did. Sunday, I went to a restaurant, like a brunch buffet,

and I had everything, like three, four pounds. You probably confused some people as they're watching you doing this, getting leaner, getting more muscular, coming in there, eating yourself into a coma every week. Yeah, people were like, how can you feed that much food? And it was desserts, meats, whatever. Whatever was in front of me and a lot of food. And honestly, I don't know if this was healthy or not,

but mentally, for me, it was very, it was like resetting my mind for the week. I'm sure you looked forward to it, right? Like toward the end of the week. I looked forward to it and I enjoyed it a lot more than having a meal here or there. And it worked for me because most of those Sundays, I was so full that I couldn't even eat anything anymore during the day, like maybe a small soup in the evening or something. But I just reset myself for the week ahead and continue with my routine, you know. And were you active at all on the weekend or not really? Yeah, I had a walk at the least or maybe half an hour on the bicycle.

Never just didn't do anything, for example, because on the weekdays, it was hard for me to do the HIIT cardio because of time. So I tend to do it on the weekends sometimes. Yeah. Okay. So you have some physical activity. And then also, do you know, did you ever look at just because you're curious approximately how many calories you think you're eating in that one meal? And the reason I asked that is, you know, I can eat a lot of food. I haven't done it in a while. So I might not have the capacity that I had when I was doing it more often, but there was a time I haven't tested myself when, you know when Thanksgiving would come and just for fun, I would eat seven plates of food until I couldn't even move, right? I remember when I stopped, I was lying on the couch. I was like kind of sweating in pain. I was like, all right,

this is enough. I'm not doing this again. But I mean, that's ridiculous and absurd. But if I were to do what you were doing, if I were to go to a buffet and eat, not to the point of going into a coma, but eat to the point of like, oh, that was a lot of food. Depending on what it is, it might be maybe 3000 calories, especially if I'm starting with some protein, starting with some more filling foods as opposed to only eating very fatty, highly palatable, maybe lower volume foods. So do you know approximately what that looked like for you? Because some people, they might be a little bit confused. How can you eat so much food thinking you ate 10,000 calories in an hour? Like probably not. It was probably a couple thousand. Exactly. I tried to measure it once, well, a couple of times, and I actually entered a discussion

with someone that was with me, and I thought it was more, but with this friend of mine, there was one time that I had six or seven burgers, I remember. And when we did the math on the apps, you know, it was like at the most, you know, 3,500 calories. I think more than that, it doesn't fit. Exactly. Yeah. Because your stomach can only hold so much food. I just wanted to make that point

for people listening, just so they understand that that can be very viable. What you did, I mean, obviously it worked for you, but depending on the person, some people, they do have a tendency, they can get into the binge and purge and I wouldn't recommend that for them. But if that's not the case, obviously that wasn't the case for you and you enjoyed it. You liked eating a bunch of this food in one meal and you didn't eat much the rest of the day. On that day, if you were also active, you might have been in a slight surplus by the end of the day. And so you maybe gained a small amount of fat that day, but you had lost enough fat throughout the week that the net effect was, come Monday, you're leaner than you were the Monday before. you know, come Monday, you're leaner than you were the Monday before. And so I think that the fact that you're able to just eat sounds like more or less whatever you wanted to eat

on this one day. And that's something you looked forward to. You really enjoyed it. And one meal, only one meal, not, you know, the day because day, it would send me back a week. Correct. And that's exactly what I was going to say too. If I'm traveling and let's say vacation, just having fun, and if it's going to be multiple days, three, four, five plus days, that's generally what I will do is I'll have one larger meal. I don't try to eat as much as I can, but we're going to be in a restaurant and I'm going to order what I one larger meal. I don't try to eat as much as I can, but we're going to be in a restaurant and I'm going to order what I want to order. I'm probably going to get an appetizer and an entree and a dessert. And I might share them. Maybe I'm not going to eat them all

myself, but I'm not going to be looking up calories or I don't care. I'm just going to eat what I want to eat, but I'll limit myself to one of those bigger meals. And then the other meals are going to be smaller. I probably have brought some protein powder with me. That's easy just to make sure I get in some protein. And then the other meal or two that might be in a restaurant is going to be lighter. I'm not just going to order anything and everything. Correct. Exactly. I did the same. And so with your diet over this three to four month period, to lose that much weight, it sounds like you were pretty aggressive with your calorie deficit or? No, that's what I was thinking about, you know, and I actually didn't do that much cardio.

I had maybe 30 minutes, 45 minutes over the whole weekend. And it was basically just the calorie deficit. But maybe, you know, like I said, I had my body responded better to the deficit in going down than going up. So it was not that hard. You know, the first month, maybe yes, because I was changing a lot of bad habits from the past. But once I got into, you know, a routine, I didn't even felt it. I was in a cut.

And after my cuts, there was a time, let's say, you know, when I basically stopped working out, the pandemic, a lot of stuff, you know, work problems. And it was hard for me to get, you know, I ate really bad the whole week, desserts, everything. But it was hard for me to gain weight. In the end, I ended up adding a lot of weight and a lot more body fat. I came back to 22, 25 after a lot of years. But going down again, like I said, is not that hard for me personally.

And I'm assuming when you were young, you were always fairly lean before you got into partying? Not actually, you know, I stayed lean, but skinny, skinny fat, not any muscle, or I had a little belly. But not overweight. Not overweight. You just look like a normal kid.

Normal kid. Yeah. A normal, you know, teenager, normal, uh, young adult. It was up until maybe 31, 32 that I started gaining weight, probably because of the age. And that's when I was telling you, you know, at 35, my kid just told me, oh, you also have a baby. And I was like, okay, I need to do something. Well, there's a saying in English, what is it out of the mouth or from the mouth of babes, meaning sometimes kids in their innocence say things that are clever or observational or sometimes they say things that make you go. Yeah.

He was telling the truth. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The reason I asked that for people listening is an element of physical activity is in the scientific literature, it's non-exercise activity thermogenesis, NEAT is what it's referred to. And so this is spontaneous activity that people just tend to engage in without realizing it.

So this is not formal exercise. This is fidgeting and pacing and just tending to take the stairs instead of the elevator and tending to park further away. And there's a lot of activity that people can engage in without realizing it. And that can add up to a lot of calories. I mean, research shows it can be 500, even a thousand calories burned per day in a high NEAT individual. And in a low NEAT individual, it might only be a couple hundred calories per day. And so often what you'll find to gain weight, even if they're drinking and eating a lot of food. And one of the reasons is their body just naturally responds to a calorie surplus with more physical activity. So just something for people to keep in mind that helps explain, because sometimes people hear a story like yours, and then they don't understand the mechanisms

behind it. And they can even then come to question energy balance. Does it just not work in you? Is it just different? No, it works the same in you. Assuming you're a higher need individual, anyone who is a higher need individual works the same. It's just there are factors that are as obvious as the exercise, the workouts that you do. Now that you say that, you know, there was this cousin, also other people that basically asked me what I did, different body compositions. They also read your book. They didn't go into the coaching program,

but results were the same. I mean, if you really are consistent and do not even 100% of the program, but 70%, if you do it right, you're going to see results. I saw results by the second week. That's what got me motivated. And like I said, I did it because I couldn't believe that it was so easy. Like, this is not true. This is not possible.

I mean, all these years, you know what you see on TV or what the local personal trainers say, because they basically here is, OK, do 20 pushups. OK, now what? Now what do I do? Nothing explained, nothing. They got to keep you coming back. They can't give you the secret sauce. Exactly, exactly. And then when I heard the book, I was like, this can be, this can be true.

And I did it just to try it out. And when I saw results, I said, wow, I couldn't believe it was so easy. It was so easy just to get on and do it, you know? Yeah, that's what inspired me to write the book because I had that experience myself so many years ago now. I guess I wrote that book in the first edition was 2012. So, you know, 10 and my personal, like first little transformation, you know, took a year or so. So over that, between 2010 and 2012, I had that same experience. When I started to put the pieces together, I was also skeptical. Like, really, is it actually this simple? And then just went through it and started working with other people and showing them, hey, this is what I'm doing here. Why don't you do it too? And start seeing consistency there and then looking more into the scientific research and eventually concluded, yeah, it actually is this

simple and I should just write a book because that book didn't exist at the time. I wish it would have, I wish somebody would have just given me that book when I was like 17 and said, Hey, just do this, just do this. And this is probably all you need actually, unless you want to be like a high level strength athlete or bodybuilder or something. But you mentioned having to overcome other bad habits. And I wanted to ask you about partying, alcohol, smoking, what other bad habits did you have to change throughout this whole process? And yeah, how did that go for you? And, and I try to, I had a, you know, maybe not a emergency problem, but a serious drinking problem. And I tried to quit drinking and smoking prior to, to starting the program just by will, you know, but it was difficult. To be honest, I couldn't do it. The only thing that got me out of those habits was working out. I think mentally, you know, when the weekend came and I had worked out the whole week and it was one hour a day.

I mean, that's or sometimes 50 minutes. You know, it's not like I went into and I did it at a home gym. Then I joined a gym because it was closer to my home. That the gym that I used to go was in my mom's house because it was near my office and my home gym. But then I joined a formal gym and it was 50 minutes i mean it was not like i had to be there four hours working out you know sweating my ass off people saw me come in and out and they were like how do you have that much strength how are you you know that fit because we think you don't do anything and they they say, yeah, because you're resting.

They're like, all you do is sit around. Exactly. This guy doesn't do anything, but he's squatting 200 pounds. I'm like, yeah, this is my program, you know? I mean, I'm going to follow it because it works. And you can see other people like breaking their asses off, you know, having a really, really bad time. And I'm like, you know, looking at my phone, do my reps and then looking at my phone again

or chatting with someone and the results were there. So the drinking habit went away with working out. The smoking habit went away with working out and definitely the bad eating. I think from when I started the program till now, I was never, my, I mean, better health now at 40 than I was at 25, definitely. Yeah, I mean, that is absolutely achievable. Like you could get with your doctor.

If you had the same doctor at 25 and you do blood work and you can get very specific. And if you're not living a healthy lifestyle at 25, you're still as physiologically as invincible as you're ever going to be. But, you know, with enough bad habits, you can put yourself in a worse place health-wise than 40, absolutely. No, I did the blood work right before the coronavirus lockdown. And the doctor told me like,

man, you're like, you have a metabolism for 20 year olds, cool. That's very cool, that's great. And the drinking and the smoking, so did you just kind of lose your taste for it, basically? You just, the desire to do it just gradually declined to where you just stopped? Yeah, the drinking was easier, you know, to where you just stopped? Yeah.

The drinking was easier, you know, because I didn't go out to party and it's not like I drank at home. So I had to go out and party, you know, and drink. But then, you know, after working out the whole week, you know, I said like, yeah, I mean, going out today drinking, I'm going to set back all the effort that I did this week. I'm on a roll, you know, I mean, every weekend that I went on the scale, you know, two pounds less, two pounds less, 1.5 less. And I just wanted to see what was the, you know, the, the limit, you know, I wanted to go as far as I could

and I was motivated. And then it kind of changed the habit into a not habit. You know, after six months of not drinking, I just kind of had a new habit of not drinking. And the smoking was a little bit harder because, you know, at the beginning I finished the workouts and I had a cigarette, you know, after breakfast or something. But you get to a point, I got to a point when I started to see that I was reaching a potential in my breathing, in my strength. And I said, okay, I'm going to try not smoking.

See if I do better at the workouts. And I started doing way better at the workouts. Way better at cardio. I just dropped it. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. 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. And on the training side of things. So when you started the coaching, where were you at strength wise? Do you remember? Because you had done a couple months of weightlifting.

But probably at 20% of, yeah. The coaching program really, that was like, okay, I like this. I'm gonna step it up and, you know, take it to a level that I want to, you know, see where I, where we can get me. Yeah. Yeah. And, and how many days a week were you training or, or, I mean, well, just throughout this, this process generally, what, what does your workout schedule look like? Five days a week, sometimes four. But I try to do the five day, five days a week workouts

because it also, you know, it also helps me. I work out in the morning and then I go to work with a better attitude. I feel better. And it was at the beginning, I kind of felt really bad if I didn't work out one day. You feel I felt like, okay, I didn't do something today. You know, I'm missing something. And even now, if you miss a workout, there's still a little bit,

because, you know, you get used to doing it. And it, I mean, I don't know about you, but that's how it is for me. I'm trying right now a four day a week, because I've been doing five days a week for so many years and years and years and years. Yeah. Forever. And, uh, so I'm going to be playing with my programming probably for the next year or so, and some trying some different things. And so, uh, it's, you know, it's even just feels a little bit odd to miss miss quote unquote.

I just, now I'm taking, I still do do my cardio but to not lift on wednesdays is like weird i feel like i'm you know there's there's something wrong and and you know probably people think that something hard to do but or that i have something different but i've seen it with you know friends that i recommended the book it it gets you. My sister, actually, my sister ended up joining the program. She and I, you know, we were both anti-sports, like anti-gym,

that we saw people that worked out like ridiculous, you know, why do that? Go have fun. Every person that was like that, that I've showed them the book or, you know, got him into the program, go to this side. You know, it tends to, you miss something if you don't work out. You know, it creates a habit that it's a good habit. It makes everything in your life better. It really does. I'll say sometimes that fitness isn't everything, but everything is harder if you aren't fit. I think that the, I think that's very

true. Um, and in your, in your training along the way in this journey, have there been any significant obstacles that you've had to overcome anything Anything that maybe you couldn't just go, quote unquote, buy the book and you had to figure out how to, like, for example, on the dietary side of things, you figured out that, all right, what you like to do is you like to eat a really big meal once a week and that resets you psychologically and you look forward to it. Were there any things like that on the training side of things that just made it more fun for you, more enjoyable, easier to stick with and be consistent with? No, but I do remember I've had a couple of injuries and those were the worst, you know,

couple of months because I wanted to go work out and I couldn't. And the first injury, I wasn't that obedient to the doctor and I did and I got worse. And so afterwards, you know, I tried if I got injured or I felt some pain, I really looked into it because it was more painful to not work out for a long time psychologically than, you know, give it a rest for a couple of weeks or something. And what happened? I injured my shoulder working out, actually. That's when I wasn't that obedient and I had some problems afterwards. Then I had an accident with a horse in my leg. That's where I had to stay like two months without doing too much. I actually lost

for a little bit my sensibility on the leg. I got really, really scared. It actually turned out it was nothing, but those were kind of the the the obstacles i had uh working out at the gym or anything i cannot remember obstacles and when i had questions or problems or i needed to change something i always went to my coach and it got resolved you know super easy and so you were able to work around like with your once you were able to get back in the gym, you were able to work around any kind of lingering limitations? Yeah, with the help of the coach as well, you know, try to start step by step, not go back and try to do what I did before getting injured.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the smart way to deal with any sort of injury or just pain. If something is hurting, like actual pain, not, oh, my muscles are burning because it's hard. But if there's pain, the smartest thing to do is just find something else, find a different exercise. I slept on my shoulder, strangely, I guess, a couple of nights.

And then it was bothering me a little bit in the gym, simply from sleeping on it weird, like a couple nights in a row. And so flat pressing just didn't feel right. Flat bench pressing, flat dumbbell pressing. I could do it, but I would be pushing through pain. And at one point, maybe I would have just done that. But now I'm a little bit more enlightened, a little bit wiser. And so instead of that, I found that incline pressing caused no issues. Don't feel it at all. Great.

That's all I'm doing right now. And my shoulder is about better. I'll probably get back to flat pressing the next week or two. But I've just been incline pressing for a couple of weeks now because I want it to be fully resolved for what you experienced with your shoulder, where if it's not fully resolved, then you can hurt yourself even worse, it's not worth it.

Yeah, and for example, this time when I was working out, I felt I got injured, but you're working out, you're hot, you're sweating, you know, it doesn't hurt that much. I kept on doing, I kept on working out. And the doctor told me like, you were this, this bit into really getting very injured and having me, I would have to operate you. And that's another thing, you know, he told me like, you never go back to the way you were, you know, it's going to hurt most of the time, or if it's very cold, you're going to feel it.

So from that day on, I said, and that was the first time I went to the doctor for an injury because I wanted to go. Prior to that, I just got injured and I just waited, you know, for a month two months oh it doesn't hurt anymore but because i wasn't even working out so it didn't matter from that day on i started you know taking more care of myself and and pains and injuries and which exercise uh what happened with your shoulder i think i was uh benching with dumbbells. Too much weight when the dumbbells went to the side,

and I felt a little bit of the crack, but I said, ah, nothing happens. No, just a little bit unlucky. I mean, the dumbbell pressing is even, not that the barbell press is bad for your shoulders, but dumbbell is even more shoulder-friendly, I guess you could say, because you can kind of position your hands and your elbows exactly where you need it. But and, and so there was a period there where you were working off of the book, and then you signed up for coaching. I'm just curious how that experience was for you the difference between

doing it all yourself based on what you had learned versus working with someone? It was a totally different experience because now I, you know, I didn't have to figure things out. I didn't have to go on Google and, you know, you search something on Google and there are so a hundred or a thousand different opinions on the subject. And with my coach, you know, everything, all of my doubts got resolved and I didn't have to go look elsewhere. And I just followed that one, you know, program. I'm that kind of guy.

I follow one. If it's the best or not the best, or if it's wrong, I don't matter because I don't want to confuse myself and do this and do different things, you know. Learning anything, that's the major benefit of, of coaching, right? Is that it might take, you could, you could waste so much time trying to sift through all the opinions on, let's say you just want an answer, a simple, it's a simple question. Let's say you're like, should I be taking BCAAs, for example, a supplement, and

you might spend two hours online listening to people arguing, although the argument, I think is mostly over with that. But there was a time when it was, you could spend a couple of hours watching YouTube videos and reading. And these are, here's research that seems to suggest that BCAs do help muscle growth. And then here are people saying they don't. And with a good coach, it's, should I take this supplement? No, you don't need to. Okay, great. Next question. Exactly. And with your book and the coaching program, it was for me a one-stop shop. You know, everything I needed to know was there. And to be honest, there's a saying that you learn a new thing every day.

But, you know, after five years of being in the coaching program, I mostly know everything. But I keep myself in the coaching program because it makes me feel accountable, you know? I need to be accountable for what I'm doing. And there's always something new that I want to ask and it gets resolved. And to be honest, you know, it's investing in your health and it's not expensive. And that is the best, at least probably the first investment that we should all be making is in ourselves. And that starts with health, because if we don't have health, what's that quote? To paraphrase it, it's like if a healthy person wants many things, an unhealthy person only wants one thing, right? And that is to be healthy. And so we have quite a few people who are in exactly the same position. with their knowledge and their ability to continue doing what they need to do.

But they like the accountability. They like, like you said, not having to work on their meal plans at all or their training plans. If they want anything changed, they can say, hey, I'm getting kind of tired of eating this. Can we change this up? Or, hey, I'm going to be out of town for a couple of weeks. This is what I'm doing. Hey of town for a couple of weeks, this is what I'm doing. Hey, this exercise is bothering me a little bit.

Hey, I would like to try, you know, and just have somebody else take care of the details so you don't have to. Exactly, exactly, and I don't have to think if I need to change something, you know. Yes, yes, exactly. What do your kids think now that they like it? You look like an action figure now.

Not that much. You know, during this year, maybe by the end of last year and this year, I kind of went missing. I don't know how to say it in English, but so I gained a lot of weight. And to be honest, I restarted it two months ago. Okay. And how has that been,

the restart? It's been good. I think I, I don't know if it's psychologically, but I think I haven't lost the weight at the pace that I used to do it. Maybe because I got fat again. But, you know, it's once you get again on the routine, you know, it took me like three days, four days to get back on it. routine, you know, it took me like three days, four days to get back on it. And you'll see, I mean, you're already seeing that your performance in the gym comes back quickly. The muscle that you had before comes back quickly. You get to have kind of another

newbie gains, like a honeymoon phase where you're adding weight to the bar every week and you're watching your body change, which is kind of fun. Because to be honest, I didn't work out for about six, seven months, maybe. And is that because life got in the way or what happened? Life got in the way, you know, after the two years of the of the of the corona, we were closed. You know, I own a music festival. We were closed. You know, I own a music festival.

So this year the government gave us the green light, but we had to delay that a little bit because of the corona, you know. And we actually have like six, seven months to organize it. This year we had two. So we delayed it a little bit and a hurricane came in. So we had to postpone day two and, you know, a mess. And prior to that, in the organizing, I didn't have time to go to the gym and this and that. And then afterwards, you know, I just didn't go.

And it kind of, you know, when I'm not working out, my mind plays me games, man. I started eating bad junk food, desserts. I didn't smoke, but I started vaping. I think that's even worse. So for a couple of months, I baked. Then I had to go back to the gym and, you know, return to my good habits. Well, the good news is, you know, you can do it. You've already done it. You're already on your way now. And, you know, I've, I've heard from many people over the years that

had similar experiences and they, they also, they found that it came back easily. And so it's okay to completely fall off the wagon, avoid it if you can. That was the word. Yeah. Yeah. Avoid it if you can. But if it happens, it's fairly straightforward to get back on the on the beam, as they say in English, get back on track because you've done it before. You have the confidence and you know exactly what to do. And you also know that once you start up again, some of these other unhealthy habits kind of just fall away. And that's probably because there's a bit of, you know, I think that our, our identity has a lot more to do with our actions that like at a, on a kind of subconscious level, we look to our actions to tell us who we are, basically, what type of person we are. And so once you get back into taking those actions

of a healthy person, of a person who wants to take care of themselves, then it's a lot easier and it feels a lot more natural to do that in other areas now, to eat better, to not smoke or vape, to not drink too much alcohol, because naturally that's what a person who takes care of themselves does, of course. Correct. Yeah. And for everyone listening, you know, it's in my experience, I didn't have to be perfect, you know, to see results. Just consistent. Yep. Consistency is the secret to excellence in anything. People who are great at things are not consistently great. They are great at consistency, though. And every so often, they are great.

And the people who are really great, they're great just a little bit more often than their peers. But behind the scenes, what a lot of people don't see is just great consistency, but not necessarily consistently great performances. They're just always showing up, putting in the work, getting a little bit better, getting a little bit worse, but getting a little bit better than that. And just sticking with it. that's very true of fitness. Yep. For 45, 45 minutes a day took me, but you know, if you add that up for a year, the results are going to be there. Yep. Yep. Well, that's great. And so where do you want to go from here? What's your plan?

Well, that's great. And so where do you want to go from here? What's your plan? Keep on the coaching program because I want to see how far I can get bulking up. That's been my difficult side. And to be honest, when I was on super track, something happened, like my injury or then the horse that kicked me on the leg. like my injury or then the horse that kicked me on the leg. And, you know, now I want to go for it again because on the cutting side, you know, being to the lowest I can be and, you know,

super fit and athlete body fat or whatever, what I haven't done is the bulking side. So I want to try it out. Yeah, you'll enjoy the workouts you're gonna have great workouts you're a lot of energy you're gonna gain a lot of strength you're gonna gain a lot of muscle and then at some point you'll see when you decide like all right i want to bring my body fat down and eventually you get to that point where you're like okay i'm just happy with this and now i just want to keep what i have, maybe improve a little bit, but mostly just keep what I have.

Yeah, that's the plan. Yeah, exactly. One other thing I'll mention, just because it's relevant to your experience previously, is when life gets in the way and things get stressful and you have a lot of reasons to not get in the gym or you simply can't, one thing to keep in mind and for people listening is just how much of a difference even just one workout a week can make. Or if you can get in there maybe two days a week, you can, for example, I recorded a podcast on this yesterday. So depending on the timing, this might be a little bit redundant, but I'm going to say it anyway, for people who listen to everything. With just one, let's say a full body strength training workout, just sticking to your compound, you know, maybe you're starting with a squat

and then you're doing a hip hinge, some sort of pull and doing a push. So let's say on the hip hinge, let's say it's a deadlift. So it's like a squat, a deadlift, a bench press, and just a chin up. Let's say you're just doing two or three sets of each exercise, again, about an hour in the gym. If you were to do that one time per week, you would maintain basically all the muscle that you've gained. Even if you are very muscular, you're going to be able to maintain basically everything on that and probably most of your strength as well. everything on that and probably most of your strength as well. And if you can get in the gym two times per week, you might even be able to keep making progress. It's going to be a little bit slower than three, four or five days per week, but even just two, if you're like, all right, I can do an upper body workout and a lower body workout and that's it. So just wanted to let you

know and let people listening know that yes, we all might like to be able to get in there five days a week or four days per week. But if you can't or you just don't want to for whatever reason and you do want to, like life is coming, it's just throwing a lot at you and you want to kind of dial down the training without losing. Very effective way of going about it. Just one or two workouts per week. And then once you're ready for more, you can bring it back up. And again, just with that one or two workouts per week, you'll find that you are able to carry on, right? You're kind of just pressing the pause button. Like, all right, let's just keep what I've got. And when I'm ready to train more and get to a new level. Press play again.

Exactly. Press play again. So, and it has happened to me like that when I, when I, you know, did some traveling for a month or a month and a half, I went to the, to the gym. I couldn't go to the gym every day. So I did once or twice a week. And when I got back home, was exactly where I left off. Yep, I've done the same thing where it just wasn't really feasible.

And also, if I'm on vacation, my family, I don't really care to go out of my way and spend a chunk of my day to get in the gym and work out. But if we're my wife's from Germany, so sometimes like we'd be there visiting her family, and it might I might be there for two weeks and I don't want to necessarily, I mean, also sometimes it was kind of boring. So I didn't, but, but I would just make sure to get in two, maybe three workouts per week. And, and then when I would get home, there was no catch up. So, well, this was a, this was a great interview. I really appreciate you taking the time and keep up the good work and, uh, I hope you're, I hope you enjoy your, your bulking. I think you will. Yeah. I mean, again, it's, uh, it's great for me to be able to connect with people like you and hear the stories of that, you know, cause otherwise I

kind of just sit here in my cave and work away. And I know that I'm helping people out there, but it's nice to like actually meet people though, as opposed to just knowing, like, I know that, that I'm not wasting my time. You're not Mike. And, uh, thanks a lot for having me. You know, it was a really big surprise. having me you know it was a really big surprise very thankful for you know your book and and the coaching program because it changed my life awesome well um thank you thank you i'm flattered and for anybody listening i'll probably mention this in the in the intro but the coaching is uh it's legions coaching so it's over at legion athleticsletics.com. You'll see it on the menu. We've worked with over 3000 people now, men and women, all ages, all abilities. And we really go all in on our service. And it's a very kind of high touch service. And we do everything we can

to make people happy, help them reach their goals. And if we also even say, say hey if for any reason any point if you're not happy we'll just give you your money back it's um it's obviously not legion's primary focus but it's something that i wanted to do just because i would get asked so much to do it myself and while that would be fun i have too many other things that i have to do. It just doesn't work. So that was my idea was, all right, let's put together a team of really good coaches and let's make it a really high touch service. There are stories out there of other coaching services where it's just all over text, for example, and you think you're working with someone, you're actually working with an assistant that doesn't even maybe necessarily know what they're doing.

And the idea is it's cheap and you just fill as many people. I didn't, I want to do the opposite of that. And so it's fun for me to see the effects that we can have by really being able to give the type of service, like if I were to get coached, this is what I would want. This is the service basically. Yeah yeah I can agree to that everything Mike just said you know it's it's there guys well thanks again Enrique and have a great weekend enjoy the food if you're going to be eating a bunch of food although maybe not now that you're Sunday Sunday. I still do it, not that much, but because now I'm, you know,

I've been not eating that strict during the week. So I don't need to go on the weekends like that. Yeah, yeah. You'll also find probably as you continue in your lean bulk, again, you'll probably just generally get sick of eating food. That's what's going to happen. That's normal. It has happened.

It has happened. You know, for me, it's super difficult to eat a lot like that. Yeah, it can be easy to eat a lot of really tasty stuff in one meal, but to consistently overfeed yourself every day with nutritious calories, your body becomes resistant to it. Anyway, have a great weekend and thanks again for taking the time. You too, my friend. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye. 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.