Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How Josh Lost 50 Pounds and Maintains Being in the Best Shape of His Life

Episode Date: August 24, 2022

In this podcast, I interview Josh, who I coached through his weight loss journey to lose 50 pounds, get in the best shape of his life, and learn the skills and habits to stay that way for life. Josh has always struggled with his weight. He was one of the biggest kids in his class ever since grade school and stayed that way until he was a teenager. Eventually he lost some weight, but because he didn’t know the fundamentals of energy balance, macronutrients, and strength training, he kept rebounding when his home life got busier, his job got more stressful, or when he just became complacent and reverted to old habits. Well, one day at the gym (where Josh and I met and became friends), he asked me to just tell him what to eat to lose weight. Without explaining any of the science, I gave him a dead simple plan of a calorie range and a protein target. He was shocked at the simplicity. But he followed the plan and immediately started seeing results. Since then, he’s worked with my team to go from 250 pounds down to 200 pounds, and his relationship with food has completely changed. He no longer views delicious, calorie-dense junk foods as rewards for cardio, gets “hangry,” or binges. And best of all, he’s been able to maintain his new physique and feel great in his clothes. So in this interview, Josh and I chat about his story of how he finally got in shape, and learned how to prevent rebound weight gain, maintain habits while busy with family life and work, and change the way he views food and nutrition. 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 7:15 - What has your fitness journey been like since we met? 25:23 - How has your relationship with food changed? 33:39 - Have you noticed benefits in other areas in your life? 45:53 - What is next in your fitness journey? 47:51 - How have you dealt with cravings? Mentioned on the show: Legion VIP One-on-One Coaching: https://www.muscleforlife.show/vip Legion Whey+ Protein Powder: Try Whey+ risk-free today! Go to buylegion.com/whey and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% or get double reward points!

Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Muscle for Life. Thanks for joining me today. I am Mike Matthews, your host, and in this podcast, I interview a buddy of mine, Josh, who I coached through his weight loss journey to lose 50 pounds now, and he's still going. He's not done yet, but he's down 50 pounds. He is in the best shape of his life, and he has learned the skills and the habits, the lifestyle changes that are required to not only lose a lot of weight, but to keep it off. Because for many people, keeping it off is actually harder than losing it in the first place. So you have to know how to do both of those things. And as for Josh, he is someone who has always struggled with his weight.

In grade school, he was always one of the biggest kids in class. And then as a teenager, he lost some weight and was more in the healthy, normal body weight range. But then as he got older, he started to gain weight again, and then he would try to lose it and regain it. And every year he would just get a little bit bigger. And so then fast forward to Josh and I meeting in the gym and becoming gym buddies. And at that time he was 250 pounds. And one day he said, Hey, you are in pretty good shape. You obviously know what you're doing. So what do I need to do to get down to 200 pounds? Do I need're doing. So what do I need to do to get down to 200 pounds? Do I need to go low carb? Do I need to do keto intermittent fasting? What do I have to

do? And of course, I told him he doesn't have to do any of those things. And I told him all I wanted him to do was to eat between 2000 and 2500 calories per day day and about 180 to 200 grams of protein per day. I don't care what foods he eats. I don't care how often he eats. I just want him to do those two things. And he was skeptical at first because he had heard that calorie counting doesn't work and calories in and calories out is old defunct science is an old defunct paradigm and so on. But he also was smart enough and self-aware enough to know that those were things he wanted to believe. And he told me this, what he really did not want to do over all these years is count his calories, control how much food he was eating. And so he decided to do that. And of course, he started to lose weight. And in this interview, you're going

to hear his story about how he went from there to where he's at now, and how he learned to prevent the rebound weight gain, how he has learned to maintain these healthy habits while being busy with his work and his family, and more. Before we get to it, do you want to transform your body, but you just can't seem to break out of the rut? Have you read books and articles, watched videos, listened to podcasts, but still just aren't sure exactly how to put all the pieces together for you? Or maybe you know what to do, but you're still struggling to stay motivated and on track and do the things that you know you should do. Well, if you are nodding your head, I understand getting into great shape is pretty straightforward when you know what to do, but it's not easy. It takes time. It takes

effort. It takes grit. And that's why I created my VIP one-on-one coaching service. We take people by the hand and we give them everything they need to build their best body ever. We give them a custom diet plan, training plan, supplementation plan. If they want supplements, you don't have to take supplements. We coach them on how to do every exercise correctly. We give them emotional encouragement and support, accountability, and the rest of it. And we are pretty good at it too. We have worked with thousands of men and women of all ages and abilities and lifestyles and help them build

a body they can be proud of. And guess what? We can probably do the same for you. Our service is not for everyone, but if you want to find out if it is right for you, if there is a fit, head on over to muscleforlife.show slash VIP. That is muscleforlife.show slash VIP and book your free consultation call now. Joshua. Mike. Hi. So this is kind of funny. So Josh and I are friends and most of the time we're talking about the fascinations of Roman history or the grotesqueries of modern clown world. But this is a different discussion for us. And this is an interview too I've done on the potato cam because my webcam, that's for anybody wondering on YouTube or whatever, Spotify, why I look like I'm almost underwater. Spotify why I look like I'm almost underwater. This is the laptop. I think this laptop's like six years old, the webcam, because my other good webcam randomly died. But anyway, thanks for taking time away from day trading crypto coins to do this, Josh. Crypto is just a fascination on the side. I am, as our mutual friend calls it,

I am a professional stock monkey. I still can't believe that you lost your life savings on that booby butt, you know, 420 fart coin investment. 420? Yes. Mayweather's cousin's barber, he said it was a sure bet. Look, milfhunter420 on Reddit says that boobybuttcoin420 is coming back. So I'm going to use all of my margin. I am going to get my parents to mortgage their vacation home. And we're going to go to the moon. And if we're lucky, we'll join Elon Musk on Mars because it's the wave of the future. And everyone else who doesn't buy in will be left behind.

And they will be surfs in the neo feudal crypto intergalactic system. And, you know, we're sitting here laughing, but but there are people losing their life savings on booby butt for 20 fart coins. Yeah, well, you know, you can't save people, 20 fart coins. Yeah, well, you know, you can't save people, they can only save themselves. The Ethiopians have a really good saying, the line goes like this, give people good advice, when they don't listen, let adversity teach them. And I probably heard that in my early 20s. And I repeat that to myself several times a week, you know, part of what I do is I sell my advice professionally for, you know, for quite a bit. And it never ceases to amaze me when, you know, and I'm sure you see it yourself as a subject matter expert and health and nutrition and fitness, where you

give people the keys to the castle, you lead them right to the water, and you even take them by the back of their head and shove them in, and they still won't drink. They hold their breath, and they're going to hold on to their booby butt fart coin no matter what you say. That's a good segue to today's discussion, which is obviously about you and your fitness journey, so to speak. I've actually shared a bit of your story a number of times in the podcast because I like it. I just think it's interesting. And particularly, the point of just wanting to know, like, all right, where is the water? What do I need to do here? So if we rewind to how we met, for people listening, so we met in an Equinox gym in Northern Virginia when I was living there, Josh still lives there. And Josh overheard me

talking with all my buddies. I think about Jordan Peterson and Josh was like, huh, what are we talking about here, guys? Yeah, this was probably summer of summer going into fall of 2017. I want to say. Yes, sounds about right. And then within probably a month or so. So Josh comes to me and he's like, Okay, Mike, you're obviously in good shape. You know what you're doing? Just tell me what do I need to do? I want to lose like 30 pounds. Do I need to go low carb? Do I need to give up sugar, keto? What do I need to do? It actually is right in line with the little aphorism that you just shared, right? Right. Because you gave me good advice and I didn't do anything with it for four years,

at least. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I remember that you did initially. So I did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're correct. So I guess I'll go back to the beginning. My weight has been a lifelong struggle. I remember being 10 years old and weighing myself going into the fifth grade and I weighed 100 pounds. And I knew that was a lot. I couldn't help myself. By the time I was 15 years old, I weighed over 260 pounds. I was the fattest kid in my high school. I just looked like a tick that was ready to explode because back then I was probably, I don't know, 5'7", 5'8". I'm a shave under six feet tall now. So you figure when I was 15. So at the age of 15, I'm like 260 pounds. I'm the biggest, fattest kid in my high school,

which you never want to be that guy. If you're a guy, you never want to be the fattest guy, second fattest guy, third fattest guy. You can point to the one guy or another and be like, Hey, he's fatter than I am. Right. Uh, but when you're the fattest as I was, it's really, really awful. It's kind of like in the hierarchy of birds shitting on each other. You're at the bottom. Oh yeah. Yeah. I get everything. And the moment that radicalized me, I don't want to say it was a, it was a watershed moment. I think in the current milieu, I want to say it was, it was the moment that radicalized me, uh, was some kid made fun of me and said I was never going to get laid. So I was like, oh, that's it.

I'm a 15-year-old boy. It's like, no, I'm going to do something. So the year prior, my dad had done what was back then called the Atkins diet. So before the proliferation of 17 different derivatives and knockoffs and spinoffs, Robert Atkins popularized the low to no carb diet. So my dad, who was heavy as an adult, he lost like 80 pounds in a year. So from age 15 to 17, over the course of about, I want to say a 14, 15 month period, I went from 260 to like 180. So I'd lost 80 pounds as a teenager that also coincided with a growth spurt. So I went into senior year of high school at a really svelte 185. I got to college and fell in with a very, I'm originally from New York, a very New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, tri-state area, gym, tan, laundry crowd. I won't go into the ethnocectarian makeup of that crowd, but anybody

who remembers Jersey Shore can fill in the blanks. So I fell in with that kind of crowd and then started getting into strength training and weightlifting and trying to build a physique. And I did a great job at that. And then like a lot of people, adult life hit me, got into the financial planning and investment advice business in my early 20s, started sitting at a desk for several hours a day. And that's when the weight really hit me. I got married and had my first kid by my late 20s, by the time I was 27, 28. And the weight just kept piling on from there. So by the time we met in the summer of 2017, I was probably up around the 240-ish range. And a personal trainer at that gym that you mentioned was politely persistent. And I owe her a lot in the sense that she really forced the issue. She wanted me to do the fitness consultation. And in the course of doing that, she discovered that my

blood pressure was really high. So that wasn't great. And that inspired me to follow your advice, which was basically at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how you do it, just expend more calories than you consume. And, you know, mechanically, mathematically, you know, the the human machine can only really respond in one way. So I did get down to probably the 220s, which was a very decent weight for me at that time. Just to interject there. I remember, so so you would ask me, right, what should I do? Just tell me. I don't need the whole story. Just tell me what to do. And I was like, okay, I want you to eat somewhere around 2000 calories per day. You can go up to maybe 2200. And I just want you to get maybe 180 grams

of protein. That's it. That's what I want you to do. And I remember you're like, so that's it. What about like carbs or sugar? I don't care about any of it. Do whatever you want. Just go check out the foods you like to eat. Put together a little meal plan. Give yourself about 2,000 to 2,200 calories a day, 180 grams of protein. And keep coming in here doing your thing and you will lose weight. You will lose fat. If you continue to train your muscles, you'll even gain muscle. That's it. That's all you have to do. will. If you continue to train your muscles, you'll even gain muscle. That's it. That's all you have to do. And yeah, it just sticks out in my mind because that's just one of those moments where you listened and you're like, all right, I'll do that. Right. So it did it and it worked. And probably after getting to a very comfortable weight, what do we want to call it? Laziness or complacency. It's probably the best way to phrase it. Complacency set in. I mean, for many people, it's also they have a win. And I think you lost 15 to 20 pounds. And then you're feeling pretty good. I lost about 20 to 25 pounds. Yeah, it felt really good. I sort of got my mojo back. I knew I could do it. But complacency kicked in and let myself go again. And then my weight just ballooned and kept going up so much so that by the time 2021 rolled around, I was probably knocking on the door of like 255 ish. And none of my clothes fit

well. So the gentleman who I get my suits from, he tailors them for me from scratch. So I've got really good data. That's what I was able to share with you and your team. The reason I have all this data, as far as my body measurements is concerned, because I'm getting measured up at least once, if not two or three times a year for new suits or sports coats or slacks, you know, whatever my wardrobe calls for, you know, if you're gonna call somebody and ask them to give you a million dollars to invest, you gotta look the part. So you can't, you can't, you can't be dressed like this. looked apart. So you can't, you can't, you can't be dressed like this. I cannot solicit new business in a, uh, in a lesion, in a lesion tank. Although, although maybe who knows after this,

after maybe that'll be my shtick, that'll be my niche. So what was really alarming was my waist measurement in the spring of 2020, my waist was 41 inches, which was not good at all. And by May of 2021, I had a 43 and a half inch waist, which is just unconscionable. There's just no permutation of my physique where that's ever, ever acceptable. So that was my second radicalizing moment. And in a way that probably radicalized me for life. I told him to make the suits of the measurements from the year prior. There's like a six to eight week lag time between when he orders it and when the mill and the tailors can actually have a finished product to ship to me. So I said, look, make it to last year's measurements. And by the time he came back to me in July of 2021, we needed to tailor it and take it in. So I had overshot. And

I originally just intended to lose maybe 20 pounds and get to a comfortable, manageable weight where my clothes would fit and the buttons wouldn't be popping off and I could close the waistband. But this time around, I just kept going. I didn't stop. I never looked back. And I did diet in terms of low carb, low to no carb. That was for the first nine or so months, I did adhere to that regimen, but also it was calorie caloric restriction. I wasn't eating 4,000 calories of steak dipped in lard. I was low carb, but I was also reducing my calories. The other thing was, I don't know if it's natural, or I don't know if I've just been habituated through nearly four decades of living in the United States of America and overabundance. But I just have a big appetite. Naturally, I'm always hungry. So fat burners, you know, stacking that with caffeine, that was also very useful in taming my cravings, especially at first.

And then, you know, what I found is as I ratcheted off of that, sort of weaned off of that, my body did become accustomed to only taking in maybe 1,800 to 2,000 calories a day. And then what caught up last was the mentality where I sort of shifted from a very visceral and emotional relationship to food, to viewing food as a means to an end, a utilitarian view of food where, okay, I'm hungry, but I only need so much food to feel satisfied and so much to carry me to my next meal or to tomorrow. So I took a more empirical or utilitarian view of food. My relationship with food changed in that respect, but that was probably the last change to happen. And another sort of cliche success breeds success. You know, as you start losing weight, and I was weighing myself anywhere from every day to every other day, at least four times a week,

maybe I'd take one or two days without weighing myself, but never will go more than that. one or two days that way myself, but never will go more than that. I developed this, I don't want to say a phobia or an irrational fear because it's very real. It's very well-grounded. It's rational, but I didn't want to give back any of the success that I had. I didn't want to give back any of those gains because I know I worked so hard for it. I never wanted the scale to go up. And it wasn't until recently in the last, I don't know, four to six weeks where now I'm in the low 200s. So at my worst, I was probably about 252 ish. When this whole thing started in earnest over back in May of last year, now I'm down to 204 and a half to five and a half. It's only been now that I've been going up and down. And I've achieved this

sort of homeostasis where I'm going to stay within a range unless I really let myself go. Or conversely, I really tamp down and get really serious about getting down to like the 196, 198 range and staying there, which is the next phase of this. But what's really interesting now is the first 40 or so pounds almost happened despite myself. I was in control, but in a way, I kind of wasn't because I really never thought that I'd get below the 230s. And then I got into the 220s. I said, oh, I'll never get into the two teens. Those days are behind me. And then I got into the two teens. I said, well, I'll never get into the two teens. Those days are behind me. And then I got into the two teens. I said, well, I'll never get into the two aughts, right? I'll never be a 209, 208, 207.

And then sure enough, I just stayed on the program, right? Just didn't deviate. And if I plateaued, you know, plateaus would last the better part of a week or so, but you just keep going. And we've checked in throughout several plateaus. I think plateaus probably happened at least once every six to eight weeks. And it's just a function of maybe I needed more water, or maybe I needed 100 less calories, or maybe I needed to go a little bit harder on strength training, which is another thing

that really surprised me this time around. I'd always lost weight by increasing cardio. And this is the first time in my life where cardio factored very little into my workout regimen. I will always either begin or end with at least 15, if not 20 minutes of inclined treadmill. But other than that, the steak and potatoes of working out is strength training. You know, that's how you change your physique. And that's how you build, pardon me, burn fat. And you know, that's something that, you know, you coached me through and you helped me through was, I really thought that weight loss was about

killing yourself on the pavement or on the treadmill and literally burning or sweating out fat by jogging for 40 minutes or doing a high intensity interval class for 60 minutes. And I did all that stuff while I was fat and I didn't lose weight. And of course, you know why? Because, yeah, because I would, if I did 60 minutes at a HIIT class, I thought it gave me the right to grab a pint of Ben and Jerry's or Jenny's and then I'd give it all back. You mentioned going low carb. Why did you choose to do that? Because that was obviously a choice you understood you didn't have to. It was familiar. It was

familiar. That's what I had done as a teenager. And that's what I had done previously. So I knew how my body responded to it. What surprised me is the last 10 pounds is the last 10 pounds that I've lost. I lost eating a very balanced diet that incorporates bread and rice. Do you prefer that? Or do because some people actually like the low carb high fat because it usually coincides with foods that they like to eat where they just kind of like to eat fattier foods. I am and that's something but that's something for me, you know, now that I'm knocking on the door of 40, that I have to recalibrate because my triglycerides and my bad cholesterols are high. So that's something that I have to be very cognizant of, especially like I said, not that I'm turning the corner of 40 sooner rather than later.

Yeah, saturated fat in particular is what you want to pay attention to. You know, if you can limit that to call it 10% or so of daily calories, I would be surprised, especially with where you're at now. You're definitely now in the range of a healthy body weight, healthy body composition. now you're definitely now in the range of a healthy body weight, healthy body composition. So I would be surprised if you had LDL or triglyceride issues, if your saturated fat were where it should be. I'm guessing when you do when you do a high fat diet, it's just more set. Oh, it's probably Yeah, it's probably a fifth, if not more of my caloric intake. Yeah. And, and I have, I have something of an amateur chef, although I've, I've picked up some formal training along the way in my early twenties, uh, college going into the early twenties. Uh, so butter and steak and fat.

Yeah. Buttercream. butter and steak and fat. Yeah. Buttercream. Buttercream. Yeah. I, I find ways to, to sneak that into as much as I possibly can. So again, but that's, that's a habit issue. And that's, that's something that I could certainly, that certainly on my radar and I'm actively recalibrating and modulating, but now, now my diet includes, uh, rice. I get, I get this low glycemic index rice from, uh, an ethnic, uh, supermarket or, or a grocery store near my house. I incorporate that into meals. I like to, uh, get some rotisserie chicken from the supermarket and dress it up on the pan with some seasoning. And I like to get squash and zucchini and, and white onions and make a nice fricassee of that. And

you know, that's a really good meal. That's a really good meal for me. I get my protein from the lean white meat of the chicken, get the vegetables, get a little bit of the grains, those carbs. And that's a complete meal that I can have at five o'clock in the afternoon and I'm not hungry at nine or 10 o'clock at night. Yep. Similar to my dinner these days, it's usually some sort of lean protein, often chicken, sometimes turkey, sometimes a lean ground beef, if just kind of, I guess, how I'm feeling. But then some root vegetables, often some squash, some onions and garlic, some rice and cook it all up these days with some chicken broth and maybe a couple other things. And it's delicious. I'm salivating now just thinking about it. So you mentioned how your relationship with

food changes. Is that something that was conscious or did it just kind of happen? Did you just realize one day that you don't now look at food the same way anymore? Yeah, that was something that developed organically. I knew I had a pathological relationship to food. I saw food as an outlet because I worked really hard. I have a really stressful career. I'm dealing with married life, home life, small kid at home, all the things that go along with that. So I would reason within myself, you know, do I really want to make more sacrifices? Do I really want to compound all the other stress in my life with now punishing myself with diet food? So that was my inner talk. That's how that's how I talk to myself. So if we were going to a restaurant or wherever, and there was a double patty bacon cheeseburger with barbecue sauce on it

with tater tots or French fries or onion rings. I was like, yeah, of course, I'm gonna have this. It's delicious. It tastes good. You feel good. You feel good for a little bit. You feel good. It's like drugs. You know, it's it's just it's no like junk food is junk food is a lot like drugs i'm i'm neither one of us are qualified to you know to explain it probably but i'm sure i've taken an advil now and then the brain you know the brain well the brain cat scans you know in terms of the parts of the the pleasure areas of the brain that are stimulated, I'm sure there's some sort of similarity between certain foods that people get a kick from, whether it's chocolate or some other kind of confection, or even if it's something like I

described, like a double bacon cheddar barbecue burger. I can remember myself, Tom, I don't eat food like that often, but I can remember several times in the past when it had been a while since I'd eaten something like that. Like just go to Five Guys and get literally that, you know, or their version of that. And I can remember eating that food

and being awash in dopamine, understanding, like this feels really good. I mean, I understand. Just like an illicit drug, there's that once that once the glow fades, there's that sinking feeling. And with food is it's horrible, because, you know, all of the lipase that your body has to secrete to digest all of that fat, That's really tough on your body. The other thing I've noticed is my immune system. I don't get nearly as sick. When I get sick, which is not nearly as often,

I don't get as sick as when I was carrying around 40, 50 plus pounds of extra adipose tissue like I was. of extra adipose tissue like I was. So there's a ton of benefits to shedding that weight and maintaining a really good physique. To say nothing of all the other benefits, just being able to wear something and it looks decent on you. Or to enjoy your clothing shopping or your suit tailoring. Right.

You don't feel like 20 pounds of crap in a 10 pound bag. Or, you know, you don't have to. For me, I didn't have to unbutton my dress shirt just to sit in my car and drive home, which I would do. I would do. I'd have to unbutton my shirt so that I didn't bust the buttons on the ride home. Did that for years. It's a horrible way to live. And for me, I don't know what makes me different from anybody else,

except that I just reached my internal limit. I couldn't live like that anymore. Now, if you want to get weird, there's a guy who has read my natal chart, who I consult with in terms of astrological stuff. And it seems like I have a turning in my life every seven years. And this was one of these seven year sort of shifts in my consciousness. The previous one had been the birth of my son, which had been seven years prior. So I don't know. That can't be quantified the way that diet and exercise and deliberate nutrition can. But to take it back, to digress to the original point, is in this day and age, as far as I can see, because we're in a demographic, our kids are within a year and a half or so of each other in terms of age. We interact with a lot of parents, people who are in their late 30s,

in their 40s, early 50s. And the standard is the typical person, the majority of people with kids under 16 at home are grossly out of shape. That's just the standard. So to have small kids and to be in shape is a flex. Like you go to the playground or you go to the pool and you've got a bod and you've got kids, like that is a massive flex. Like that is a bigger flex than any car or house because anybody can take out a seven figure mortgage and buy a nice house or, you know, service a six,, but we are well seasoned and we have a lot of experience and we have a lot of responsibilities.

old, but we are well seasoned, and we have a lot of experience, and we have a lot of responsibilities. And the average person in our demographic or cohort or peers, they are just disgustingly out of shape. And when I say disgusting, I don't say it as a pejorative to demean anybody. I mean it in the sense that all of the health, adverse health consequences that go along with carrying around all that weight and not being deliberate about the food you put in your body, because that's where, you know, we know all the other complications that are coming down the line for these people. That's, that's really where people really pay the price on top of not feeling comfortable in your clothes and not feeling great about yourself when you stroll past a mirror. I mean, that's a lot of that's vanity and ego, but it is correlated to all these things that

are going to come down the pike for all of us as we age. So I'm happy I was able to get a handle on that now. And this is like the first time in my life where I don't anticipate going back, right? I didn't have that commitment back in 2017 going into 2018, like you were mentioning. For whatever reason, I don't know, my consciousness wasn't there or perhaps

I just hadn't suffered enough, right? I'm the type of person I have to learn by messing up and suffering consequences. And I guess for me, I've reached my internal limit. I hit my governor in terms of, I don't want to look or feel like that ever again. I don't 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 I'm sure you've noticed benefits in other areas of your life as well. I mean, most people do. By the time they're at your stage where they've really made quite a significant transformation internally, externally. Oh, yeah, everything. Like I said, immune system, not getting as sick as often.

And to the extent that I do get sick, it's very mild. My body bounces back very quickly. Energy throughout the day, very even. I used to crash in the middle of the day by noon or one. I'd need a big cup of coffee to power me through the rest of the day. Now it's more even. What's interesting is I don't get as hungry anymore. And when I do get hungry, I can put off eating longer. That that's, that's a big one. That's a big one that a lot of people struggle with is, at some point, they often picked up the idea or just the habit of right when they feel a little bit of hunger, it's time to eat and that you can't just be hungry and not eat food. So that's actually a big one as far as my psychology was concerned.

I would get very hungry very quickly and feel intense hunger pangs. And it was psychologically very taxing to remain in a state of hunger. taxing to remain in a state of hunger. So what I noticed was, after the first seven to 10 days of habituating my body to less calories to different sources of energy, my body kind of met me there. And I wouldn't get as hungry as quickly. And even when I was hungry, I could hold out longer. And when I say I was holding out, I wasn't holding out deliberately, it was probably, you know, I'm at work, I'm making calls, or I'm in a meeting, in a consultation with a client, or I've got to get home before six to pick up my son from after school care. So normally, these would be times

of not normally previously, these would be times of, or not normally, previously, these would be times of intense psychological, emotional turmoil. Yeah, yeah. Where you're hangry, right? Hangry. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I was the canonical hangry person. And what's really interesting, yeah, I haven't been hangry in nearly a year now. I don't get hangry anymore. And like I said, I get hungry just like everybody else. But if I have to make a call first or take a client meeting or get to after school care by six o'clock, I can do it. And when I eventually do get around to eating, I'm not binging. I'm not gorging myself like I used to, I can have a normal portion meal and feel full. So that's another big benefit of just training your body and training. We talk about training our bodies, and it's not just strength training and trying to build a physique through

lifting weights, and other exercise. It's also training your physiology and training your emotions. So much of this is mental, as you well know. And that's just another one of those fringe or ancillary benefits. Yeah, the psychological aspect of hunger is interesting. I mean, I can remember years ago. So I was always a skinny kid. I was like an endurance. I played hockey or whatever. But there was a there was a time when I was into weightlifting. And I had this idea that if you didn't eat protein, if you didn't eat food every few hours, I had read this in a bodybuilding magazine or heard it in the gym or something. I don't know, that your body basically just starts burning up muscle. And so I had that idea. And then every few hours or so, I'm trying to eat protein, trying to eat some food. And if I was not able to do that, I got this idea that is like you mentioned earlier that I'm giving up gains, I'm losing muscle, right? And so that would drive, I'm thinking back, I guess it was hunger, but it was driving the desire to eat.

Like I need to eat some protein, eat some food. And then if I fast forward a little bit and I decided to actually get educated and I learned that's not true for me, that was the end of the hangry episode. Simply understanding like, oh, no, it doesn't matter. You just eat protein, eat enough every day. understanding like, oh, no, it doesn't matter. You just eat protein, eat enough every day. Yeah, if we want to be really fine grained, then we could say, well, five or six servings per day is better for muscle growth than two, but it's not a big deal. Just eat enough. Once I understood that, that again, that was it. I was never hangry again. So it's just interesting that the psychology. Yeah, I'll also make a plug. I'll also make a plug for

whey protein shakes. Legion whey protein shakes. Of course, whey plus. So I use those strategically two reasons. One, of course, to hit that top line goal of how many grams of protein I want to, I want to consume every day, but to, uh, to level out my blood sugar and to help me, uh, even out my appetite and carry myself to my next meal. So I, even when I was losing weight or I'm, when I was in the thick of losing weight, When I was in the thick of losing weight, I was consuming anywhere from one to two 40-gram servings of whey protein shakes every day, every single day, which, again, kind of bucks the conventional. I don't know that it's conventional anymore. I think the fitness and weight loss consciousness and scene is a lot more sophisticated than it was in the 90s. That was that was the low fat craze. Remember that? No, that was Yes. Yeah, you beat me to the punch. We grew up in the low fat craze. And looking back, it's like,

how could anybody be that stupid? Right? But we believed it. i remember going to the supermarket and buying an entomans pound cake that was like reduced fat 98 fat free and thinking yes if i eat this i'm gonna be able to eat pound cake and lose weight it's like of course it's made with flour and 1700 ungodly ingredient well ingredients that also double as insulator for rockets that go to the moon and it's like yeah we believe that ab machines were big in the 90s and ab workouts what was that what was that there wasn't it like seven minute or five minute ab i owned it i own i own eight minute abs i own eight minute arms i own eight minute glutes or maybe it was called eight minute buns i don't remember buns were called eight minute buns. I don't remember.

Buns were another big one. Buns, abs and buns. That's come back with a vengeance. Oh, is it back? There's an obsession in the fitness space, mostly among women. But I mean, even now, fake butts, like girls are getting implants and- No, look, there are a lot of personalities on instagram who shall not be named we're not going to give them free publicity but their their

entire persona and their entire shtick is building butts but to digress to what we're talking about the 90s yeah the 90s were a horrible time it was all just urban legends and myths that were sold in these uh tv infomercials you know you dial the 1-800 number to give them your credit card and for for three easy payments of 1999 you'd get eight vhs tapes and you'd have eight minute abs and i remember there was one contraption it was like this bar on this long, flat iron looking thing. And you were supposed to like, while you were sitting crunch into it,

and it was supposed to be like a resistance. I don't even know how to describe it. Probably somebody out there knows exactly what it is. And they were expensive. They were like 100 to $120 back then, you know, which is like $250 now. And they sold millions of these things. And they were, they were worthless. They were they were less than worthless. That along with low fat dieting.

It's really a miracle that any of us survived the 90s. If you want to laugh, find some footage of women's gyms back in like the 40s and 50s. Let's talk about contraptions. So you have a bunch of weird contraptions devices that basically just shake and like vibrate the women in different ways. So like the woman will be standing in a in almost like a tube of sorts and have like a vibrating coil that just kind of goes up and down all over her body. And there are various versions of machines that just shake the shit out of you. And that was a lot of Mike, can you can you Google the ab flex? Can do you have a laptop or a phone? You got to look at this thing? Yes, this is exactly how I remember it. And

this looks like a kid's toy. Pulling it up right now. Jenna Lee Harrison, congratulating me on my purchase of the Abflex. Yeah, look at this thing. It looks like it belongs in Blade Runner. Yes. Or Blade. It looks like, you know, Blade could have thrown it at a vampire and killed it. Yeah. And I had one.

I remember the Ab Roller, too. Ab Rollers are kind of legit. I've, I've seen some. No, it's a legit exercise. It actually is. It's, it's been researched. It's, uh, I mean, it's difficult. Anybody who has tried it knows that, but it is as far as core exercises go, which is another discussion, not entirely necessary, but if you like to do them, that's not a bad choice. Actually. Uh, that one I've encountered in gyms, you know, they're, they're just like leftovers, someone forgot to throw it away, or somebody did throw it away, then somebody went out to the to the dump and salvaged it. I mean, you'll still find them here and there. But they're really legit. They're pretty good. Again, to the extent that you're going to do abs. Yeah, they're, they're pretty

cool. And if you can do it standing, it's, it's like a weird flex, you know, like a gym flex. If you, if you can go standing all the way to planking and back up to standing. Uh, so where do you want to go from here? You mentioned that you're thinking, so you're in a kind of a holding pattern. Yeah, I've been around 204 now for about a month. That's kind of deliberate. I've had a cold a few weeks ago and just had some changes in my personal life that distracted me. I'm in a place now where 198 is the next goal. And I think 198, 196. The other interesting thing about where I'm at in terms of physique now is I'm starting to be able to perceive very fine grain or fine gradation differences. And the other thing is now with my physique, I could be like 103, 104 and have some definition. I could be 104, 105 or even 103, not have as much, not as much definition. So I'm starting to get into the, depending on, uh, how my, how my strength training regimen is at the gym, my caloric intake, my water intake, my sleep, I'm starting to see these very fine level gradations in my physique,

which, you know, when you're, when you're 220, and you need to lose 15 pounds, you're just, you know, a slightly chubby guy who needs to lose 15 pounds, like there's no, there's no difference. But now I'm at a place which is really interesting and exciting where every pound or even every half a pound, it makes a difference. And in terms of what I want to look like with my shirt off, the kind of definition I want to have in my midsection, in my pecs, in my arms, in my back, all these things are coming into play. All these things are coming into play. And that's a pretty cool place to be at. Again, somewhere that I never thought I would be, which is where I'm playing a game of inches now where, like I said, caloric intake, strength training at the gym, water intake, sleep, source of calories, macros, you know, now I'm in a place where within a narrow band, right, let's just say 198 to 201. Like, there's a lot of difference in there. You know, like, where I might look better at 201 than I look at 190 than I do at 199, for whatever reason, right. So that's a really

interesting and exciting place to be in. And I'm looking forward to mining and learning whatever I can about this because this is totally new territory for me. And I have no experience with it. For people listening. So in men, that experience begins when you start to approach 15% body fat, then that's when you start seeing approach 15% body fat, then that's when you start seeing that muscle definition. And like you're saying from there, every pound of fat that you lose actually makes a pretty big visual difference. Whereas if you're going from as a man, 25% to you lose a pound of

fat, you don't see any difference whatsoever. And for, for women, and this is just good for people who are maybe starting out newly in their weight loss journey or still have a lot of weight to lose, it's good to know that, you know, like you said, Josh, that is a point when it gets even more encouraging. It's something that's new. And so for women, it's usually around 25% or so. Once women start to approach 25% is where they have that same experience where they're seeing that with every successive pound of fat they lose, there's more definition in their arms and there's more shape in their legs and their glutes and so forth. So that's part of the payoff of just sticking with it. So, um, one of the thing I wanted to ask you is how have you

dealt with cravings and just eating foods that are good to eat? How have you made that work? I'm dumb. The reason I asked that is you you probably didn't give it all up. And that wouldn't be my recommendation to people. So you kind of got to find what works for you, to allow you to indulge now and then without just setting yourself back. So along the way, I didn't deviate very much in terms of cheats or treats or anything like that. I was really focused. And I would say slightly paranoid, not, not totally neurotic, not pathological, but a healthy fear, I would say. And is that is that because just your experience of a little bit turns into too much? Oh, yeah. It's that wonderful Oscar Wilde saying,

I can resist everything except temptation. So it's better not to cede. For me, for my psychology, for my emotionality, it was better not to cede that inch. Now I can get a delicious pint of our favorite ice cream, which I haven't eaten in a while, just because I just lost interest one day. I was like, I'm done with ice cream for now. Well, that's the thing. When I was heavy and I was eating whatever I wanted, I would go through phases where I'd have ice cream every day or every other day. Now I can buy a pint,

I can have a couple of bites after dinner, put it back, it can last for the better part of a week, and then it's gone and I don't replace it. So cravings happened to me at the beginning of dieting. The first, I'd say, seven to 10 days, I'm ignorant as to the exact physiological explanations for it i'm sure it has a lot to do with blood sugar among other things but the first seven to ten days were challenging as far as cravings and habituating my body and my palate to eating different foods

and not eating certain foods after that that, you get into a routine, your body learns how to live on less calories, and your emotionality, my emotionality and appetite caught up after that. And again, now I'm in a place where, yeah, I'm in the driver's seat, I can indulge a little bit. And then I can put it away and not think about it. Whether that's a certain sweet or a certain food, that's something now where I've mastered it, so to speak, in the sense that I can have it, I can enjoy it in a small denomination and then not think about it anymore. Whereas previously, it was almost like a compulsion. It was almost something that had a power or a spell over me. And again, and again, you, you,

you get so far, if you're somebody like me who lost over 50 pounds, it's, I don't have to go through that again. You know, I'd rather I'd rather deal with the issues that I'm dealing with now, which is like we described, actually building a physique or getting my physique to the next level. Those are the fitness challenges that I want to have. I don't want to go backwards and go back to 210 and have to lose five pounds or something just to get back to where I was. But again, for somebody who's done what I've done, I think you turn a corner just kind of emotionally or mentally where I just don't think that'll happen, right? Knock on wood. And I really feel like for the first time in my life, I'm in the driver's seat and I'm just being really deliberate. It really is up to me where it goes. Whereas before I was at the mercy of how I felt. You know, I would feel like doing it

for three or four or five months and I'd do it and I wouldn't feel like it anymore. It also helps that I've made significant capital investments in my wardrobe. I was gonna mention, your tailor's happy. Oh my gosh, yeah, yeah. I've kept my tailor in business. I've kept the guy who makes my suits in business. I got another I've got another gal who, who makes shirts and pants and other things for me. Yeah, all these, all these people rooting for you. Keep whatever you're doing. Keep it up.

all these people rooting for you. Whatever you're doing, keep it up. You know, something exciting that is in your near future also is, so as you continue to work on your physique, you'll find that staying fitter is not harder than what you're doing right now. You just put in the work and you know what it takes to lose a bit more fat. If you want to do that, you keep strength training. But just how it's easy for you to kind of cruise at your current body composition, you'll find that as you improve your body

composition, it might even actually get easier to cruise. There is a point where if you were to say, I want to be 7% to 8% body fat at all times, there are some sacrifices that have to be made. It's not very fun. I wouldn't really recommend it, but you know, I think anyone can, any guy can hang out around 10, 11, 12 body percent body fat with the experience of exactly what you are going through now, where you're like, I'm in the driver's seat. I get to eat foods. I like, I eat a little bit. I don't eat a little bit because, uh, maintenance is, is, is enjoyable if you know what you're doing. And actually, the fitter you are, like the more muscle you have, for example, the easier it is to maintain because, for one, your metabolism is a little bit faster.

You usually are training a little bit harder, so your energy expenditure is higher. Yeah, it's almost at this juncture, like I can't mess it up because I've indulged a little bit here and there in the last 30 days. And I'm really shocked where I know that six months ago, a year ago, it would have been chaos on the scale. And now the scale is more or less the same every day. And if it is a little bit too much for my liking one or two days of straight and narrow just puts me right back to where I need to be. And it's not a sacrifice. It's not hard just to say no to the wrong foods, to consciously choose the right foods, to challenge myself in the gym if it's lifting heavier or maybe one or two extra sets here and there. It's totally different now

than, than when I began. That's great. Well, um, this was, this was a fun chat, a different kind of chat for us again. Well, thank you, Mike. Yeah. Our, our talks and check-ins were very instrumental and, uh, you know, so I, I owe you a debt of gratitude. So I definitely appreciate that. And yeah, that and I guess that's maybe one thing we can we can leave off on, which is, it doesn't really change whether, whether you're trying to lose 50 pounds, or you've lost 50 plus pounds or more. And you're just trying to maintain, it's the same thing. It's the it's the same. It's the same thing. It's the same diet. It's the same strength training and workout regimen. There's nothing different from where I was 12 months ago to where I am now, except 12 months have gone by, right? And my body has responded accordingly. So that's a really interesting, perhaps note to leave off on, which is the action items, the proactive steps that you have to take to get the physique that you're looking for is actually is the same exact thing that's going to get you and help you to maintain it.

Yep. Yep. It's just it's just the lifestyle. Right. And and a final little, just comment on that as far as, as dieting goes, just to your point. So for me, like you, I eat foods. I like, I tend to eat the same type of stuff because I like it. And once I want to change something, I change something, but I don't need a lot of variety in my diet per se. Um, and so, you know, recently I dieted, I wanted to lose a few pounds of fat. And so all that meant is I had a little oatmeal dish that I would make at night. I just stopped making the oatmeal dish and otherwise everything else was exactly the same.

And that was the three to 500 calories that I needed to take out of my diet to create that deficit. Okay. I do that for, I don't know, six or seven weeks. And then I'm like, all right, I'm done losing fat. I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish. And then I add those calories back in. Normally I would have just added the oatmeal back in, but I was like, actually, I feel like eating some other stuff. I'm going to add some more carbs to my dinner,

some more rice, some other things. But that is just to your point. Once you get into that kind of routine, it just gets very easy. Anyway, queue up the good work, my friend. And thanks again for taking the time to do this. Get back to the crypto, the fart box, 420 coin weights. We had a good day on the stonk market today. Did we? I haven't looked. I don't really pay attention. Yeah, yes. The line went up today. Hopefully the line will continue to go up. And the scale will continue to go down. 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.