Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How Legion Coaching Helped Cody Lose 18 Pounds of Fat & Get Strong in Just 90 Days

Episode Date: October 25, 2017

In this episode, I interview Cody Lee, who’s a follower of mine and recent graduate of my 90-day transformation coaching service, which helped him lose 18 pounds of fat AND gain muscle and strength. Before finding his way to me and my work, he was a new dad who was overweight and unhappy with his body, and unsure what to do about it. Then, he found my book Bigger Leaner Stronger, gave it a read and figured he might as well try it, and, waddayaknow, it actually worked. Week by week, he was getting noticeably bigger, leaner, and stronger, and he was thrilled. After riding the wave of newbie gains, Cody wanted to see if he could get even more out of his diet and training, and so he decided to sign up for my one-on-one coaching service. My team put together a custom diet and exercise program specifically for him and his goals, and it exceeded all his expectations. He not only lost a whopping 18 pounds of fat in 90 days, but he also gained strength and corrected his technique on key lifts, which is still paying dividends. Cody walks us through the whole story in this interview and shares the big lessons he learned along the way, so if you’re in the middle of your own transformation, then I think you’re going to find it encouraging and motivating. 4:38 - What was your background in fitness and what were you hoping to achieve? 10:27 - After reading Bigger Leaner Stronger, how did the program go? 12:20 - What did you like the most out of flexible dieting and shorter workouts? 17:17 - What made you interested in our coaching service? 21:51 - How did our coaching program go for you? 25:05 - How did you feel after 90 days on our coaching program? 28:02 - How has our program effect other areas of your life? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

the weight started falling off i started feeling better about myself you could definitely start seeing it more in my arms and my shoulders like i immediately started changing my waistline went down it's crazy boys and girls boys and girls this is Mike and I'm back with another episode of the Muscleful Life podcast. And this time I interview Cody Lee, who is a follower of mine and recent graduate of my 90 day transformation coaching service, which helped him lose 18 pounds of fat and gain a bit of muscle and strength along the way as well. Now, before he found his way to me and my work, he was a new dad who was overweight and unhappy with his body and kind of unsure as to what to do about it.

Previously, he had tried different types of resistance training programs and cardio and you name it, and really wasn't happy with how it went previously, and so just didn't know what to do. Then he found my book, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, while browsing around on Amazon, if I remember correctly. And he gave it a read, and he figured that, hey, well, you might as well try it. It seems to make sense. And what do you know, it actually worked. Week by week, he was getting noticeably bigger, leaner, and stronger, and he was absolutely

thrilled. So he rode those newbie gains for a bit. And when they were all used up, he wanted to see if he could get even more out of his diet and training. And so he decided to sign up for my one-on-one coaching service. My team put together a custom diet and exercise program specifically for him and his goals and helped him execute it. And the results have exceeded all of his expectations. Again, he lost 18 pounds of fat in just 90 days. And he also gained strength and corrected his technique on key lifts, which is still paying dividends now, now that he's done with the coaching. So in this interview, Cody, he walks us through this whole story and he shares the big lessons that he has learned along the way. So if you are in the middle of your own transformation, then I think you're going to find it uplifting, encouraging, and motivating. Now, before we dive into this episode, I have to shill for something to pay the bills, right? No, I'm just kidding. I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and really believe in. So instead, I am going to just quickly tell you about something of mine. Specifically, my 100% natural joint supplement

Fortify. Now, Fortify helps keep your joints healthy, functional, and pain-free by reducing joint inflammation and preventing cartilage loss. And its ingredients are scientifically proven to alleviate joint pain, inflammation, and swelling, and to help keep your cartilage healthy, strong, and intact. All of this is why Fortify has over 200 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average, which I might add is fairly impressive for a joint supplement and another 90 plus reviews on my website also with a four and a half star average. So if you want healthy, functional, and pain-free joints that can withstand the demands of your active lifestyle, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Fortify today.

And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order. Hey Cody, thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate it. Yeah, definitely. So I'm excited to talk to you because this is going to be like a series that I'm going to be doing. And I figured I would speak mainly with coaching clients just because one, it obviously helps promote the coaching service, but two, it's just a very hands-on kind of personal high touch service. So there's a lot that people can talk about in terms of their experience of going through it. I could also talk to people that

read the books and just did the programs, but this way, you know, I have a lot more information in terms of who everybody is and where they're at and what they did. So I'm excited to kind of just jump into it with you and let you explain to everybody where you're at before you found your way into my orbit and how you found me, how the coaching service was, what your experiences were, and so forth. Awesome. Yeah, it's a wonderful story. Yeah, so let's hear it. So tell us and tell me what's your background in terms of fitness? How long have you been into working out? Why did you get into it? What were you hoping to achieve? How was it going and so forth?

Yeah. So, I mean, all my life I was pretty much like the skinny kid. And even in college, I actually was on the A&M Taekwondo team. So I was super lean. I was down to like 155, 160, something around there. And I'm 6'2", so that's pretty lean. It was always kind of a part of it, of my life. And then after college master's degree, kind of let, started letting things go. Family came in, met my wonderful wife, um, who I love. We had a kid and I joke about it. I think I gained more weight than she did during the pregnancy. Uh, I'm pretty sure I did because I was always the one, Hey, do you want some ice cream? And she's like, no, that, that would have been, that would have been my wife. She, I mean wife she I mean I it wasn't me asking if she wants to eat ice cream but that she would have been that person too like yeah no I'm good I'm trying to

gain as little fat as possible so I can fit into all my clothes as soon as possible after having the baby yeah so yeah I got dad bod pretty bad and you know it had been several years so almost not quite a decade but a while since I'd like seriously worked out and really paid attention to my health. And it was about a year in after, you know, we had my son. My son was born and everything was awesome. And I love my son. And it's a year. He's a year old.

He was turning about a year. Actually, it was right before his birthday. And I remember just thinking to myself, it's like, you know what? I don't want to be unable to play with my son when I get older you know I don't want to be that dad it's like I can't keep up with the son like you know it's puffing and breathing with if my son was playing baseball or football or basketball or soccer or whatever right so it was kind of that was kind of like the turning moment I was like you know what I know I need to take care of my health I want to be healthy for me just a good healthy life with my son be able to play with him be able to do all those things that

I'd like to be able to do to be a good dad, you know? Yeah. I mean, I totally understand. There's probably also something to be said for setting a good example as well, right? Yeah, definitely. It's something that I hope that he'll pick up over time, but you know, he's still too young. He's only two years old right now, just a little bit. I think he'll appreciate it, assuming I keep it up, which I don't think I won't stop keeping it up now. Now that everything that I've learned from your program, it's just amazing how much more in control of my health I feel. That's great. Okay, so you decided to do something about it,

and now where did you go from there? I think I had spent about a month, month and a half just researching. So I'm actually a software engineer by day, but my background was in mechanical engineering. So researching is not abnormal for me. I spent a lot of time doing that, and I just kept abnormal for me. I spent a lot of time doing that. And I just kept looking up articles. I ran a bunch of bogus articles. I can't even tell you how much bogus hype that I ran across. And I don't remember how I found Muscle for Life,

but I found a blog post that you made. And I was like, OK, you know what? I'll look at it. It seemed legit. And I was like, well, he has a book and I have an Audible credit. I was like, you know what? It doesn't hurt. And so it's kind of one of those things I did. And, you know, I just got hooked on the book. And it was great because the one thing that stood out to me was the fact that your books were pretty much no BS. You were citing your sources and I can actually go look up your sources.

So for me, that was like, OK, this guy's legit. He seems to know what he's talking about. There's something to it. What do I have to lose to give his program a shot? You know, everything seemed to make sense. It was backed up by articles. I didn't feel like there was about there's something to it what do i have to lose to give his program a shot you know everything seemed to make sense it was backed up by articles i didn't feel like there was a lot of hype to it it was kind of one of those did i just stumble across the thing that i needed to see and it's what it felt like i like that yeah so then so then how to go from there so so you're like okay i'll give it a try yeah so i was like all right let's give it a try i actually

listened to the whole book and then i had purchased the book too so i think i've bought your book like three times but score i actually do the same thing like i read digitally um exclusively now just because i mean it's it's too enticing that you can have all your highlights and notes sync to the cloud you know all devices for all time um but i also listen to audiobooks which allows me to get through more just get through through more material, you know, because you probably do the same thing. If you're walking your dog, if you are making food or if you are driving somewhere or whatever, you can, you know, just be productive or, you know, learn something in that time. So then first what I actually do is I use Blinkist or Get Abstract to go through the summary of the book. or get abstract to go through the summary of the book. Because I figure if I don't like a book summary, if I'm not like making some highlights

and if I don't at least have a light bulb flickering when I go through a book summary, I'm not going to like the book. Just because there's an opportunity cost reading and reading books, right? I mean, it's a time investment and it's pretty annoying. I mean, I don't know, I'm annoyed if I, you know, even if it's just putting 10 hours into a book

where I'm like, great, maybe I have like three takeaways from that book that are worth anything. So I do a book summary first. And if I like the book summary, then I read the book, but I do the Kindle and the audio book. So then I can flip back and forth. I mean, I read the Kindle at random times at night if I'm standing in lines, if I'm going to the bathroom, whatever, I'll just read. But then you can audio book. And if you stumble you know, if you stumble on something you want to highlight or make a note, you can always just pause it and flip back to the Kindle. Yeah, mine's actually very similar. So yeah, I read the summary, try to figure out what's available. It's like almost

like a cheat sheet on what the book's about. I almost usually will audible at first, and then I'll listen to it. So I've kind of like a long standing rule that I've had since college, maybe even high school is once I've read a book or listened to a book for the first time i'll listen to it again for a second time or read it for a second time and then on the third time like i'll just put sticky notes in there or like you know soft notes something that can be erased on the third time that i read a book is when i start hard writing notes straight into the book in the meantime like i have put spacing between the time that i read the book between the time that I read the next time and the time that I read the next time, because in my opinion, you don't really understand what's going on with the book and how it relates

to your life and how you should use it until you've had other information outside of the book. Even that's not, you know, that's not within the book. Sure. Just expands it. And that's kind of, that's really worked really, really well for me in multiple areas. And so that was my approach to it. That's clever. I like it. So, so you go through the book and you decide, okay, I'm going to give this a try. And how did it go? Oh my gosh. It was, uh, it was great. Like the long run is great. And the first like month was sore, you know, I hadn't worked out in forever, but I was like, you know what? It was kind of, as I know, it's like, I'm going to be really, really sore. And I just know it. And, uh And my wife was like, yeah, I don't think you're going to make it. She didn't, she didn't think I was going to make it. She's real with me. And I love her for that. She's down to earth real with

me. So I didn't think you're going to make it. I was just sore all over. And I was like, oh man, oh man. It's like, I know I can get through the doms, you know, I can get through it. And then it shouldn't be as bad. It shouldn't be as bad. And sure enough, you know, I just stuck to it, you know, willpower and kind of determination, just kind of get through it. It just, the weight started falling off. I started feeling better about myself. You could definitely start seeing it more in my arms and my shoulders. Like I immediately started changing it. My waistline went down. It's, it's crazy. Like I started off at a, like a very, very snug fit for a size 38 men's pants today. I'm like a few months ago, I had bought some size 32s and they were like decently like that. They weren't snug, but they weren't like

super loose. Now they feel super loose. So I think I'm probably like a size 30 or maybe or something like that. It's crazy. Yeah, that's huge. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me.

And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. You went through the coaching program as well, right? Yeah. I had actually started off just doing the program of myself using the BLS phase one. So I had bought that I had done the macro planning. One, I started off actually in a meal plan. And then to kind of more of like a reference guide for adjusting my my meal plans afterwards, because my weight was going down. So my TD was changing and everything was changing, right. So I kind of learned what you didn't from that

and was it was adjusting it for a while. but it was about six months in seven months in or something like that is when I started saying, okay, these weights are getting heavy. Um, and I knew my form wasn't good. Like I felt way better than when I started. So in, in the beginning there, what did you like most about, you know, so let's say over the first couple of months you start seeing the changes and what did you like most about the experience of flexible dieting and shorter workouts, more intense workouts, compound lifting and so forth versus things you had tried in the past? I think the biggest thing for me was I had tried a few different workouts, failed attempts before trying that. What kind of stuff had you tried previously? It was a lot of like super set giant set um things

like that or like extreme cardio just like hours and hours of cardio and you know i'd follow up the bandwagon within the first week or two just because it just it didn't feel sustainable it was like i hate this i don't want to do this yeah and it was one of those you know it was immediately like i hate this i don't want to do this this thing is not for me and it was like i got to find something else kind of thing yep um it was a lot that, and everybody goes through that at some point probably, and it's just natural. But when I found BLS and I gave it a shot, of course I was sore at DOMS, but during the workout, I didn't feel exhausted.

It was hard, and I felt like I was actually doing something, but I wasn't out of breath. Why am I doing this? I hate my life was this is this is really really difficult and hard and I feel like I'm accomplishing something and it's like wow I didn't I didn't even believe I could do that before and like I was like at first my weights were low and I didn't even think I could do that and it was almost immediately the weight started I was able to just kind of keep adding weight you know week after week after week you know newbie gains sure but I was able to just kind of keep adding weight, you know, week after week after week, you know, newbie gains. Sure. But I was able to gain week after week. And the whole time I was

doing it, I felt really good the whole time. Like I was like, wow, I actually really enjoy this. It was literally like a second month in. I remember just looking at my wife and saying, I actually really enjoy this workout program. Like it's, it's weird. It's a weird feeling. Yeah. I totally know what you mean. I've been there myself. Um, I went through the same experience, so I totally know what you mean. And I think there's actually, that's one of the underappreciated aspects of not just my program, but well-designed strength training programs, which is primarily what it is. It's kind of a hybrid between a strength training and a bodybuilding program, but is that how much you enjoy your workouts is a big part of the game because similar to, you know, with diets, it's the best diet. In many ways, the best diet is the one you can stick to.

That logic also applies to training because if you had, let's say, you'd say there was a program that scientifically speaking was the most optimized program you could possibly have for gaining muscle and strength, but you hated doing it. You didn't like the workouts. They were too long. You had to be the gym too much. You had that experience where every time you're in the gym doing a workout, you're like, why am I here? You're trying to remind yourself, this is why I'm suffering. This is why I'm doing it. Compliance is just going to erode over time. But on the flip side, if you have a workout that you enjoy, even if it were not a hundred percent optimal, and I mean, it's not so it's not, I'm saying that my program isn't a hundred

percent optimal. I would say it isn't no program. We don't even know what a hundred percent optimal is at this point. I mean, let's be real uh but even if you knew a program was not optimal in one way or another but you really enjoyed it there's something to be said for that yeah oh yeah i definitely agree like it wasn't just enjoying the workout program that was kind of significant it was also enjoying just kind of the dieting part of it so before i was like oh you gotta eat a bunch of salad you gotta eat a bunch of greens or you just gotta you know cut out carbs or you gotta just eat just a shit ton of whey protein it's like well that's great and all but everyone keeps changing it up and it's you know what's what's the real deal and and i love that about your books was

you had a dedicated section to dieting and what's real what's fake what's what's actually known and and what's you know still kind of like pseudoscience or just totally garbage, right? Totally. And so it was very, very informative. And that's like working out, knowing how to work out is half only half the battle, right? And so knowing how to diet is the other half. I must say that the last whole piece, because it's 200%, right, is actually putting your effort towards it.

But having the right diet and enjoying your diet, it being flexible enough that you'll enjoy the food that you're getting is well worth it. And knowing that if you slip up, it's not the end of the world. And even planning in cheat days, like we talk about. Yep. So you're doing that. And then how do you go from, from there to the coaching service? That was actually great. So I was, Oh, by the way, how was your wife? So at what point was your wife like, okay, wow, uh, I was wrong. Um, I think it was probably like month four or five or something like that. Like there were some significant changes by then. She was like, wow, you're really sticking to it. And she started giving me a lot of compliments. My other family started giving me compliments at the time we were still in San Antonio and they were all in Dallas and Oklahoma. So I didn't get to visit them very often. And so

they would occasionally see pictures on Facebook and they're like, wow, you got really skinny. So it was about that time. She was like, well, I'm really impressed. So it was about six or seven months, somewhere around there. I was getting into like what I felt was some heavy weight that if I was doing it wrong, there was a much higher chance for me to like tear something I didn't want to and just be injured and I didn't want to be injured because that puts me behind quite a bit right having done taekwondo in college injuries take you out for a while so it's it was one of those things that was at the forefront of my mind that I knew was important not to be doing things incorrectly and so that point my main goal from the coaching service was primarily form and just

getting that extra bit of advice that I knew probably kind of in the forefront of my mind, like, hey, I read the books, you know, I think I understand everything, but it doesn't hurt to have that extra like professional, that person that really, really knows the program very well, help kind of guide you and update your information kind of like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you're on the right track, but you know, X, Y, Z. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I think there's something to be said also for being able to really tailor it to you and your needs and really dial it in. Whereas with the books, just, I'm doing my best to give kind of one size fits all guidelines that people can use to get results. But as with anything,

yes, you can get better results if you're working directly with someone and you can go, okay, cool. Let's really dig in and see exactly where you're at across the board, where you want to be and how do we massage this to make it really your program, you know? Yeah. And that's important. That's one important fact I want to bring up is I'd actually, before looking at the muscle for life coaching plan, I was actually looking at like personal trainers in my local area at my gym. And I had talked to them, I'd done some interviews with them, but it was kind of the same old story, as you might say, they want to put you on your own their own diet or nutrition plan that was really expensive. They want you to do a bunch of supersets. And I was like, you know, this is, this is what I want to do. Like, this is the program that I enjoy. I don't know if you know this guy, you know, Mike Matthews. It's funny. Cause I've heard the same. A lot of people have emailed me and, and I've just heard some funny stories from trainers that sometimes don't take too kindly to stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. And some of them didn't, some of them kind of

gave me the brush off shoulder, like, no, no, no, my, my, my way or the highway kind of thing. And, you know, I was like, okay, you know, you're just not the trainer for me. Great. You know, and the other one's like, okay, you know, I wanted just from any regular trainer. And I probably could have eventually found somebody. And it really wasn't about the price for me. I probably would have paid three times the price that most full life coaching plan actually costed. But it was one of those things, hey, he has it. I know that whoever's going to be training me from that program already knows about most full life, the training program, the supplements that you're probably going to recommend and kind of what I'm trying to accomplish from this and it was like well this

is actually probably the best trainer for me regardless if they're here and it's kind of one of those crazy things that was like you know i need someone in person but then i really thought about it and i was like you know i don't i just need a form check i need to take videos and like the realization is like what i really wanted was form check for what i was doing but i didn't want to pay someone an hour of their time to watch like three minutes of form, right? Or sorry, like 15 minutes of form because half the time I'm resting, right? Sure. And depending on who you would have found, they may or may not have given you good advice. Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing. It's actually funny you bring that up. So when I was interviewing personal trainers, I actually would either have them demonstrate

or if I had seen them in gym training somebody else, watch them and see if they even gave good form tips or form corrections to people. And usually the case was not. It's interesting that even though I knew I wasn't doing things correctly, I could tell that that's bad. Yeah. Like correcting that. I may not be great, but I know that's bad. Yeah. It's one of those things like, okay, I need to find someone that's bad. Yeah. Are they correcting that? I may not be great, but I know that's bad.

Yeah. It's one of those things like, okay, I need to find someone that's legit. Makes sense. And so tell me, how did the program go? It went really well. So I got exactly what I wanted out of it. I didn't lose a ton of weight, but that wasn't my goal. I actually had gained a little bit on my lifts and still lost weight.

So you started at 192, about 17% body fat. And then after three months, you ended at 174, about 12, 13%, lost four inches on your waist, improved on a few lifts and maintained strength on other ones. Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. So tell us about it. How was that? So we're talking about 90 days. How did it go?

We know now the start and end points, but fill in the middle. At first, you know, I talked to my coach. Harry was his name. He was a Brit. He's a great guy. You know, we talked about it. We're like, hey, this is what I'm going to focus on. I want to do form.

He's like, sure. You know, this is what you want to do. That's great. Let's change your meal plan. He sent me new meal plans. And it was great because they were actually more tuned in than what I'd done myself. So I learned a lot from that. I was like, oh, I was actually doing it wrong.

I was actually eating too much, what I was trying to accomplish for a cut. And it was like, oh, that was silly. Why didn't I ever go back and actually think about what I was doing, right? What were the mistakes? I'm just curious. I was actually planning in too many cheat meals. I had actually over-calculated my… Energy expenditure. Yeah, basically. And so I w I was actually about 200 calories more than I should be.

So, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't a lot, but it really did help. I think from that extra bit. Yeah. I mean, that's enough to significantly slow progress if you are not starving yourself, you know? Right. And that's the part like we discussed i was like why are you hungry and i was like no really i'm not usually i'm like full and i'm like yeah i guess i'll eat this because it's on my mu-plane kind of thing it was like it was an easy like easy thing to take away and so it wasn't it wasn't hard at all and the big thing was that forms he's like okay so so you know send me your forms and I remember just had a dedicated Dropbox folder just for him and I would upload forms pretty much after every everything that I wanted to focus on he'd just give me very good tips and it was like week after week was little improvement little improvement little improvement and I just remember feeling

after like each improvement it seemed like every single lift felt more natural and I felt like I was actually gaining quite a bit on each each more lift and it was crazy my deadlifts were the thing that I think most benefited from the form checking I had I was just like all over the place I was like lifting my hips before I was swinging the bar out I was doing all sorts of crazy things and yeah he really helped me on that it was a a few weeks ago, actually, I broke 300 pounds, which was a goal for me. And I just seemed stagnant on my deadlifts for so long. And then with the Muscle for Life coaching plan, my deadlifts just started going straight up after that. That's great. And that lift in particular, because it affects, I mean, pretty much every major muscle group in your body. Yeah. The other big lift that I benefit a lot from was squats, back squats. So I do a

low bar back squat. Yeah. He gave me some great tips on that. It was, it was a little tweaks here and there that really made the difference. And I was, I'm actually at two 35 right now, which was, I didn't think I'd ever get, you know, beyond two plates when I, when I first started. Yeah, that's great. And you know, one of the goals, I mean, as you know, one of the, one of the purposes of the, of the coaching service and one of the promises that even I make on the, on the sales page is that the idea is that our clients fire us after 90 days. Basically, it's not, we kind of go in the other direction as opposed to trying to make people dependent on us for ongoing advice. We want our clients to really feel comfortable

going forward on their own after just 90 days of, again, not just being told what to do, but also being educated. So then going forward, you now can program yourself or inevitably we have quite a few people that they just like it so much they want to continue or they come back you know they go okay cool and they go off for six months and they come back and say hey okay I want to do something different but how has that aspect of the

the program worked for you I would say that's that's pretty true like I felt much more confident in everything that I was doing and like just my form, what my meal planning was like, how I should add or remove cardio. Yeah, I totally agree. At the end of it, I felt like I knew what to do. I knew how to control my weight. I knew how to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish, given enough time and focus on it.

Yeah, that's perfect. And then that's exactly what we want. So you can go, and then if at some point in the future, if you hit a sticking point or you're not quite sure, or you want to get a new, just analysis of where you're at and where you want to be, then we're always here. But I just didn't want it to be one of those services where you have people that are, they feel almost beholden to their trainers because the trainers have some inside line or inside baseball on how things work. And you don't really understand the reasoning behind the things

that you're being told to do. But hey, the trainer must have some sort of secret knowledge that I don't have. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. No, it was definitely not that way with the coaching plan. You know, Harry was great. He'd tell me kind of give me points on what to do and explain them and why they were important to do that. And it really helped like fortify that knowledge and kind of, you know, sometimes he'd explain it more than once because I didn't get the first time or the second time.

Right. And I bless the guy because patience is great with him. It really did help. And, you know, it was kind of the whole time we were doing the discussion, you know, especially towards the end, he was like, OK, you know, he's. And you'd confirm that and be like, yeah, I think you're good. And it was great. I definitely agree with you. The coaching program is designed to get you to know what you need to do to accomplish your goals and be on your own. So you don't need or are dependent upon anybody except yourself. Absolutely.

Absolutely. So tell me then, looking back to before you started Bigger, Leaner, Stronger to where you are now, how has this affected other areas of your life? Oh, my gosh. So I'm actually like a software developer. And before I was at a company and it was kind of just sucking the life out of me, for lack of a better word. And so it's great. I've actually I quit that job and now i'm working for this other company and a software developer and it's it's completely changed my life my attitude it's like i wake up and working out is pretty much the first thing i do besides you know helping my kid up making breakfast for my wife myself and uh going to work out and i come in and i'm just ready to like crush the day get things done if I hit a new PR the day goes even

better getting involved my son like my son comes home and playing around with him just everything seems to change it just seems like I don't feel like like a lazy piece of shit basically I just don't feel like that I feel I feel great I feel full of energy oh yeah let's go conquer the world I can pretty much do whatever I want now and And that's amazing how much that can come from something so simple. Yeah, it's amazing. It's just knowing that you can accomplish it and then just the self-confidence that comes with it. And, you know, I feel good about myself this summertime. I think the first time that I'll go completely shirtless for the summertime, just because I can, you know, milestone. I like it. Okay, great. Well, I mean,

that's everything I had. Is there anything else you'd like to add to the discussion for anybody that's thinking about doing bls or muscle for life or even the you know the legion supplements or anything you know mike's not bsing you this stuff's good it works you just got to put your mind to it and listen thank you as uh professor ronnie coleman says there ain't nothing to it but to do it, right? Yep. Okay, Cody. Well, that's awesome. Thanks a lot for taking the time. I really appreciate it. I know that there are people out there that are going to be inspired by your story.

And whether they take the same route that you took or some other route is fine with me. I just want to see more people have the same general experiences, experience the same benefits that you're experiencing. And my work is one way to do it. And there are other ways as well. So I appreciate you taking the time. Definitely. Definitely. Anytime, man. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show

out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.

And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously, though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in, so instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my 100% natural joint supplement Fortify. Now, Fortify helps keep your joints healthy, functional, and pain-free by reducing joint inflammation and preventing cartilage loss. And its ingredients are scientifically proven to alleviate joint pain, inflammation, and swelling, and to help keep your cartilage healthy, strong, and intact. All of this is why Fortify has over 200 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average, which I might add is fairly impressive for a joint supplement, and another 90 plus reviews on my website also with a four and a half star average

so if you want healthy functional and pain-free joints that can withstand the demands of your active lifestyle then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of fortify today and just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order.