Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How Legion Coaching Helped Jared Lose 23 Pounds & 6% Body Fat In Just 90 Days

Episode Date: February 28, 2018

In this episode I interview Jared, who recently completed my 90 day coaching program, which helped him lose 23 pounds, 6% body fat, and 5 inches off his waist while also gaining a significant amount of strength on all of his major lifts. Even more impressive is the fact that he did this at 42 years old with a family and a full-time job, and in this interview, he’s going to walk us through his journey. He’s going to share with us what he’d done previously and what worked and what didn’t, how he found his way to me and my coaching service, and how he and his coach worked through a number of challenges and the biggest lessons he learned along the way. 4:09 - What was your fitness journey like before starting our coaching program? 7:31 - How did you find us? 9:29 - What are some of the obstacles you had to overcome? 13:11 - What was your body fat and weight before and after our coaching program? 13:52 - Are you currently maintaining or bulking? 21:02 - How did you manage your diet during the holidays? 22:34 - What was your diet while you were cutting? 26:19 - What did your workout program look like? 28:27 - How has being healthy and fit impacted other areas of your life? 30:32 - How has being healthy and fit impacted your psychology? 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: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, Mike here from Us For Life and Legion Athletics back with another episode of the podcast. from Muscle for Life and Legion Athletics back with another episode of the podcast. And this time around, I interviewed Jared, who recently completed my 90-day coaching program, which helped him lose 23 pounds, 6% body fat, and 5 inches off his waist, while also gaining a significant amount of strength on all of his major lifts. If I remember correctly, he added over 100 pounds to his big four, to his squat, deadlift, bench press, and overhead press. And what's even more impressive is Jared did all this at 42 years old with a family and a very full-time job. And in this interview, he's going to walk us through this journey. He's going to share with us what he had

done previously and what worked and what didn't, how he found his way to me and my work and my coaching service in particular, and how he and his coach worked through a number of challenges, including previous injuries, dietary hurdles, and more. And lastly, Jared is also going to share with us some of the biggest lessons that he learned along the way, some of his biggest personal takeaways. This is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills, but I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm just going to quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my 100% natural post-workout supplement Recharge. Recharge helps you gain muscle and strength faster and recover better from your workouts. And it's also naturally

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they're just not for you, contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot. All righty. That is enough shameless plugging for now, at least. Let's get to the show. Hey, Jared, thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate it. Hey. I was just looking. Now I realize I remember who you are with your before and afters. And are you in better shape now than you were in your 20s? Yep. Yeah. That was my guess. I was like, this dude is like jacked now.

How old are you now? 43. That's pretty cool. So yeah, at 43, you are in better shape than... Is this at any point in your life? Yeah. I'm pretty close to the best shape. I mean, I don't think I mean, I got down to maybe 12%, maybe in my 20s, but never like 7, 8% is body fat is, you know, amazing. And you have size too, like you've put on a fair amount of muscle. That's great. Some of the things that, you know, from your program that I had kind of been afraid to do, deadlifts and squats. And, you know, I think through the program, I, you know, I was kind of,

I had lifted in my 20s and I was really kind of afraid of hurting myself. That for the abs and the midsection made a huge difference for me. Yeah. So before you found me and found my work, what did, and I guess it sounds like your kind of personal fitness journey started in your 20s. So tell us a little bit about your story, just going back to, even if it goes stretches back to then, and then how did that go from, let's say, your 20s up until just recently? What did you try? What worked? What didn't work?

You had mentioned not wanting to squat or deadlift. Was that due to injuries? Yeah. I mean, I started in my 20s. I mean, I work in software. And so, I had kind of very sedentary work lifestyle. And when I got out of college, I kind of didn't really have that discipline around exercise and eating right. And so in my 20s, I started kind of exercising. I followed, I think there was a program I kind of embraced, but it was mostly around, you know, lifting. But, you know, mostly it was about how to efficiently get in and out of the gym, do it as little time as possible. efficiently getting out of the gym, do it as little time as possible. And I had started lifting heavy weight then, but I still kind of, you know, I would shy away from anything like, you know,

the bar, mostly because I was afraid of hurting myself and, you know, I made a mistake. And then the diet, you know, I'm mostly kind of, it wasn't as disciplined, I think, as your program. And I think it was more of like, hey, just kind of keep it under control six days a week. I think the big thing for me is the tracking and really kind of keeping track of what I'm eating. Calories in, calories out makes a huge difference. Have you found that that has now helped with that more intuitive style of eating? Because I think it makes it hard if you don't understand the fundamentals in play. If you don't understand energy balance, if you don't understand macronutrient balance, what does that mean then to keep your diet under control? There's no context. Do you know what I

mean? Yeah. I mean, definitely. I think my notion of what's healthy has changed because I used to think cashews, that's healthy. But if you eat too much of the cashews, you can't gain weight. Right. And I think I knew that law of thermodynamics, energy in equals energy out. But for me, it was having to kind of look at each food I eat, track it, know what the calories are. It totally changed my perspective on, I think, what I eat too. Because even now, I'll pick up fruit more than I would have ever picked up in the past. Mostly because I can eat more of it and fill up with less calories. Yeah.

Vegetables are great like that too. Yeah. I mean, broccoli. I mean, I'll eat a ton of roasted broccoli at night because, hey, I can eat a bunch of it and fill up with less calories. Yeah. Vegetables are great like that too. Yeah. I mean, broccoli. I mean, I'll eat a ton of roasted broccoli at night because, hey, I can eat a bunch of it and feel full. Whereas in the past, I don't think I paid attention to the caloric value of it. I think a lot of those selection diets had convinced me, oh yeah, it's okay. You can eat all the carbs in the world or all the grapefruit in the world. These days, it's all the fat, right? Oh, and if it's healthy fat, quote unquote, then you can just eat as much as you want.

Yeah. And I think I, you know, I went through that phase and I had success on and off, but it's purely, I think, a psychological thing. And I think you turned me on to that book, Mindless Eating. That was good, right? Which really helped me. Yeah, it's an awesome book. But a lot of that kind of helped me kind of, you know, understand how to kind of manage my diet. Now I feel like I'm in control just from tracking and thinking about the foods. And I always felt kind of at the whim of my body, you know, and now I feel like because I'm measuring it, I know what's working, what's not working. I can change things.

I can move things around. And, you know, even if I have a meal plan, but if like in the middle of the day I decide, hey, I want to have a cheeseburger, I'm in that mood. I can have that as long as I change around my calories, move things around. I think that was the biggest thing about your program that really helped was getting disciplined about tracking what I'm doing. Yeah. Makes sense. So, how did you find your way to me? Because you had tried stuff previously, and I guess you weren't happy with the results, I'm assuming, right? Yeah. I think last January, I got really at the peak of my heaviness. I think I hit 240, 48. I was really heavy. And I just decided that I wanted to get thin again. And I started kind of reading around for programs worked. And I kind of

come across your book. And I read that book. And I was like, wow, this is really interesting. And I started applying some of the ideas. But I felt and I dropped, I think, about 20 pounds just from kind of following it. But then I really kind of wanted to get really serious about it. And I saw your coaching program and your meal plan program. And I was like, oh, you know, I really feel like I'm doing this, but I'm not doing it the full enchilada kind of thing. So for me, it was like, well, let me try and work with the program to get this kind of close advice and see what I'm doing. Because even though you read something, it's hard to kind of, unless you're living it with someone who's done it before, it's really hard, I think, to get that real advice. And so when I worked with the trainers and the coaches online, it felt like,

oh, here's what I'm doing this wrong. I need to change this. I need to change that. And also it helped me get over some of my... they helped me kind of figure out how to kind of work slowly back into the bar and lifting, you know, with heavy weight and, you know, how to deal with not having a spotter. You know, it's like always just like a little bit of a blocker. You know, when you go to the gym, you think, oh, well, how am I going to do this? But now I'm back to do an incline bench bar. And I, you know, I was really kind of scared without a spotter to do that. And, you know, I got tips from, hey, look, you know, move it into the cage, do this kind of stuff. I mean, that was really kind of helpful. Yeah, yeah. You want to share with us some of the tips? Because that's also one of the things I like

about these interviews is I try to do my best giving as much of a one-size-fits-all approach as I can in the books. But of course, there are circumstances that just require adjustments. And that's why a lot of people reach out to me via email. And I'm happy to help. Again, in these interviews, which is one of the things I like is we can get into like specifically for you, what were some of the obstacles that you had to overcome? Like what were some of the things laid out in the book that you weren't sure about? Or maybe you just couldn't do because again, if like, let's say you can't deadlift or you

couldn't deadlift because of an issue that you were having physically, how did you get around that kind of stuff? I mean, a lot of it was, you know, just mental. If you've lifted before and you hurt yourself. Did that happen? Did you hurt yourself previously? Oh yeah. Yeah. In my 20s, definitely hurt my back. Not like, you know, go to the hospital or anything, but just like slight injury here and there. And then that kind of puts you off of like, Hey, you know, I don't want to do that because if I hurt myself, then I'm not going to be able to lift or work out for a couple of weeks.

And so like, you know, I think a lot of it was finding how to safely do things. I think a lot of the advice on form and basically kind of being able to kind of videotape myself in the gym and then basically say, hey, what am I doing wrong?

How am I messing up? But also a lot of like tips about how to like do things with like, you know, like if a bench, a lot of the gyms don't have like safety bars on the bench, moving it into kind of a deadlift cage and then putting the bars there. Tips like that were kind of really helpful. I think I didn't want to do initially seated shoulder presses. And so the tip was why don't you do them standing?

And that kind of helped me because it kind of mentally broke that whole like, you know, you're sitting down and if you drop that weight, you feel like you're going to drop it on your head. So a lot of it was, for me, it was mental. Have someone get, hey, try this, see if that breaks you out of that mental kind of model was really the big thing. And it was more just like someone to kind of brainstorm an idea. I didn't think about doing it that way. But a lot of it was just about understanding gym equipment, safety equipment that I didn't really know what it did at the gym. Maybe that's just obvious to you, but to a lot of other people, I think. Yeah, I know. I understand. And I see people at the gym now too, who don't, they'll take all the safety bars off and be lifting weights. And I'm like, why? Maybe you shouldn't do that. But I think that was a big tip. To be fair, I guess these days I'm not using,

I'm not squatting with safety bars, but I'm also not necessarily going to, I'm really not going to absolute failure in squatting. And you've probably experienced it now where the more you work out, the more you understand your scale of RP, so your scale of exertion and how many reps you have left and whether you should go for that next rep or not and especially also knowing that you do not have to go to absolute muscle failure and you really shouldn't be doing it on your big compounds i guess maybe you could do it occasionally on a press like a bench press but there's really no need to save it for your isolation work and then you don't really have to be doing it much so there's that's also nice to know where as long as you know you know where that one or two reps left in the tank point is,

as long as you know what that feels like, you get to a point where you just don't really get stuck anymore. Yeah, no, I, it's more, it was for me, it was like getting in there once I was actually, I felt comfortable with that exercise because I'd done a lot of dumbbell lifts. You know, if I dropped the weight, nothing's going to happen. I always felt it was more of a mental thing than anything else. Yeah, that makes sense. And so the safety bar thing for me was more of like, how do I start to get familiar with doing the form right? Especially with a bench, you want to come down really low into your chest. If you don't have that kind of safety bar there, it might cheat a little bit. there, it's like, it might cheat a little bit. So, lots of stuff like that kind of helped me make that transition to, hey, I was kind of doing some stuff to like, hey, I got the form down. If there's an exercise I'm scared on, I can find some way to put myself in a space where I can do

it by myself. And I think the big thing was, I didn't have a spotter and someone to work with. And I think that makes a big difference. You got someone to work out with, I think it's a different thing. Yeah, for sure. But like you said, you can't do it by yourself. I've worked out alone for many months at a time. And I prefer working out with somebody, of course, but you do what you got to do. Okay. So, you find the coaching program.

And where did you start? What was your starting point when you signed on? I think I was around 221 and around, I want to say close to 20% body fat. Okay, cool. And then it's three months later, you're now around 192, right? You lost about five inches on your waist and you've lost about 6% body fat. Yep. I mean, I'm down to, I think, I mean, right now I'm down around 186. Oh, wow. So, you've kept going. Very nice. I think, I mean, right now I'm down around 186. Oh, wow.

So you've kept going. Very nice. Yeah, I keep going on the program. So I'm right, that was last June, July. And now I'm 186 and I'm pushing about 8%. Very nice. Very nice. And so what, are you maintaining now or what are you doing now?

I went into bulking a little bit over the holidays. Yeah. And then I've been just kind of mini cutting after the holidays to get back to where I was. I mean, I really like being super lean. It feels really good. And so I kind of... Why? What do you like most about it? Well, I've never had a six pack in my life. So for me, it's kind of awesome and amazing. And it feels really good to be that thin. Now I'm kind of working with a coach to kind of figure out how do I go back into that bulking phase, put on more muscle, get bigger. There's always that kind of mental fear in my head about not wanting to get fatter.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm kind of working through that. But, and again, this, you know, one of the things about the program that I really like is that this kind of helped to kind of like, Hey, here's how you do it. Here's if you start to see this change, maybe you should dial back your calories. And that's the beauty of working with the coaching program, I think, because I've been like, it's kind of ongoing advice and everything is, as you said, it's not one size fits all. It's very situational. The things that I'm struggling with, a lot of them, sometimes they're in my head, but it helps to have someone to talk you through it and ask you questions and say, hey, what should you do differently? That's where I'm at. So, I mean, I'm super lean. It's awesome. Yeah. It's fun being lean. It's also though, you're experiencing the curse now

because once you get really lean, anything other than that kind of just feels unacceptable. And you just have to recognize that and not be too neurotic about it, basically. It definitely feels like if I gain two, three pounds, I feel fat. In retrospect, it's nothing. Exactly. And that's how you have to look at it. And it's also, I think it's good to go through the experience now of doing like a lean bulk phase where you're going to put on a bit of fat. You don't have to go up to 15 or 16%. Like the last time I did it personally, I started very lean. So I was off of a cut, maintained seven or 8% or so. And then I got up to like, I want to say 12 or 13%. And it wasn't so much that my body fat bothered me

because I had done this before. And yeah, I prefer to be leaner than fatter. Sure. I got to the point where I was just sick of eating. Like I just had enough of eating, you know, whatever, 4,000 plus calories a day. And so I went for a good like four or five months and I was like, all right, I've had enough. But it's good to go through that experience and then get back down to where you want to be again, But it's good to go through that experience and then get back down to where you want to be again, just so you see, just to reinforce that, yeah, you know that, of course, now the mechanics don't change. Your metabolism is going to work exactly the same as it did the first time, but it's more just you know that, ah, you can do that. You know what I mean? You can, from a dietary perspective,

it's easier to lean bulk in some ways and that you feel like you're kind of, you just have all these extra calories to play with. And then you can also then just dial it in. It's just, again, it's reassuring that your body composition really is under your control. Yeah. I mean, I'm definitely, I've had that, you know, mini experience. I haven't gone the full bulk up to like 15%, but you know, I definitely can see that it's in my control now, which is great. It's been definitely like life-changing for me. I mean, that's the other big thing for me.

I now have kind of feel like I can work my way through food. I mean, that was the big thing for me. The whole, this whole program has been like, I love food. When you talk about 4,000 calories, I'm like, I want to eat everything, you know, if I could. But finding that discipline and control and being able to kind of not feel like I'm being forced to eat a certain way is kind of the big thing for me. And I think that's really kind of been powerful. It's like, yeah, I'm going to bulk up sometimes and I'll be able to eat some more calories. I'll lean up some others and I'll be

able to have to cut back, but I'm still enjoying all the foods that I love is a big thing for me. So, yeah, in that sense, flexible dieting works very well for some people when it comes to cutting in particular, they actually prefer to follow a more restrictive style of eating simply because for them, they find it hard to control themselves. So if they allow themselves too much of anything, they just know that it's more likely to kind of not necessarily spiral out of control, but it just takes too long because, you know, they're in essentially 50% of the deficit that they really should be in because when they're trying to eat

the, you know, a hundred grams of chips or something, they, it turns into 200 grams of chips, like 50% of the time. And so, you know, I think it makes sense. Even, even that you could say even falls, I guess, under the purview of flexible dieting and that it's for you. Like you need, you can be as flexible as works as it works for you. And in the end, like what can you stick best to if it's too flexible and you can't really stick well to it, good. Then make it a little bit more restrictive. If you really don't care and about, like, if you have no problem eating the a hundred grams of chips every single time, even though you love the chips, you're done with that last one, then great. Make your diet very, very flexible. For me, I don't know, maybe I'm using the tracking app sometimes. Yeah, like MyFitnessPal or something.

Yeah. But for me, if I want to go off, I generally am really good about tracking. Yeah. And that's kind of the one rule I have. It's like, I'll just track. But I found that actually just tracking creates this mental thing of like, I can't have that. So, hey, I already had that, so I'm good for the day. And I've been in that binge eating place. I don't think I knew what I was eating. You just have a handful of cashews or nuts or something, even if you just keep eating. Whereas if you know you're going over by 100 calories, you know you're going over. So, you're like it's a conscious decision at least at least for me it was like that notion of i'm making a choice to eat now beyond what i'm supposed to was powerful i mean for a lot of people that may not be you know

conscious thing but i think i didn't really know what i was taking into my body and i think that made a big difference for me overall yeah sure and not knowing how it impacts your body either like not not understanding the consequences really. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I think also, you know, it's also about a lot more protein and just balancing that. Also, I think I also found foods I enjoy more where I was tending to eat, you know, whatever I could get my hands on or whatever was available. And now I tend to eat like, you know, I'll be more thoughtful about like vegetables and

fruits, but also like, you know, proteins having clean chicken, just because it's more filling. So, when I'm looking at the calories at the end of the day, I'm like, oh, I have 500 calories left. It's like, do I want a chicken breast or do I want something else? And I'll actually be more conscious about everything. So, I think it's not just flexible. I think for me, it's become kind of a game of what can I eat and what should I eat and, you know, making sure that I'm balancing everything out. It's like maximizing your calories basically in terms of not only your body composition, but also just enjoyment. Yeah. So, and I think that works for me. So, I mean, for me, it's been, the eating part is so powerful. Like it's, especially in today's world where it's just

everything is, you know, like there's tons of junk stuff out there and it's hard to realize what you're eating, you know, especially if you go out to a restaurant, it becomes, I mean, that was like another big thing. I think I learned how to track restaurants have, you know, a lot of them don't have the calories on their menus. And it's like, how do I make that work for myself? And I think, you know, I started kind of picking more simple foods when I would go out to eat, like I'll have things like, you know, oysters. I know there's one oyster. The calories are pretty consistent. So, I got a lot of these kind of like, how do I eat? How do I function also with my friends and go out and eat and not feel like I'm trapped in a diet?

It was a huge thing for me. So, being able to go out socially and not feel like I have to live like a hermit was a big transformational thing for me in this whole program. Yeah, totally. How did the holidays work for you? Because I mean, it sounds like you did what most people do. You just ate more than you normally would. And how did that play out? I mean, I'm mostly just kind of up. I was upping my calories to a bulk anyway. And so, I think I added to, I got up to about 2,800 calories. I mean, the bigger thing for me in the social scene is the drinking. Because if I drink, that's where you start to lose control, at least for me on what I'm eating. I mean, the bigger thing for me in the social scene is the drinking. Because if I drink, that's where you start to lose control, at least for me, on what I'm eating.

I'm pretty disciplined when it comes to food. If I'm not having a glass of wine, two glasses of wine, suddenly it's like, hey, pizza sounds good right now. Yeah. And so, for me, I think the holidays were always kind of just keeping my drinking in check. Was that just a decision that you made? In general, I've been kind of dialing back my drinking over the last year to minimal. I mean, I went from probably drinking. Part of my job is very stressful too.

So, I was drinking a lot regularly, three drinks a day. Now, I probably have that maybe three drinks a week, if that. So, my alcohol consumption has gone way down, which has also led to... It's the controlling the inhibitions around food. Definitely alcohol kind of has that tendency to be like, hey, we just had a beer, let's have some tachos or whatever. Even the tracking helps me with that because I track my alcohol too. So, I'm thinking, oh, I've had one drink that's actually lowered my alcohol consumption pretty drastically as well. And I think that a lot of people get to a point where alcohol becomes kind of this de-stressor and you use it as kind of a method. So, that plus working out kind of helps balance everything out, I think, too.

Yeah, yeah. Makes sense. So, when you were cutting down, what did your diet look like? And were there any adjustments that you had to make? Were there any struggles or obstacles that you had to overcome? You started obviously with a meal plan that checked the boxes, had the right calories, right macros, foods you like. How did it go though over the course of the three months? Yeah, the first three months were super strict. I think it was more about getting into the groove and knowing how to do it. The diet was pretty simple. It was basically, I don't like eating before I work out. So, I would basically have, you know, I think your pulse supplement to kind of get started. Then after workout, have a protein shake and a banana.

And then lunch, usually tuna or like a sandwich. And then for dinner, usually chicken breast or and veggies, a lot of veggies and like a potato or something, depending on what it is. And that's generally like kind of what I was eating. I was really strict the first two, three months, and I didn't really kind of even go out at all. And then I started kind of figuring out how am I going to make this work in my regular life? Yeah, because by then you obviously had seen really good results, but now it's time to look for sustainability. By then, you obviously had seen really good results, but now it's time to look for sustainability. Yeah.

And so, I mean, the first two, three months, I was pretty much just trying to follow it exactly to get super lean. And then I was like, all about how do I make this? How do I incorporate everything into my life? And I started asking a lot of questions like, okay, well, what are the physics of the diet? The coach gave me some advice. He's like, well, first, make sure you hit your protein, then make sure you hit your fat, then put the rest of the carbs. And that kind of helps me kind of figure out how do I work it. And then I started like thinking about if I go out to have sushi with my wife, how am I going to make that work? And how do I plan that out? And how do I think about it so I can feel like I'm not restricted in any way? So, you know, slowly just to kind of learn, like, how do I go to a restaurant and plan for calories? And if I go there, I'll, you know, I think one tip was also to kind of, you know, buffer, leave an extra 150 calories just to make sure if, you know, the restaurant miscalculates.

Basically, like, if they do provide numbers, increase them by 20%. Or even if you're estimating yourself, just bump them up because you never know how much oil and butter is in anything. Yeah. And so that was kind of... And also changed kind of where I went to eat. So I'll go to places like steakhouses where I can order a steak and they'll have the size of the steak on the menu. I'll tell them no butter. I mean, stuff like that.

That's a good little tip for people listening, actually. You might be surprised how many calories steaks have at steakhouses because of how much butter these steaks are soaked in i mean they're basically like saturated in butter yeah you gotta tell them though i mean and a lot of them are really cool about they'll tell you yeah we cover it in butter and they'll take it off all those kind of like learning those kind of tips and how to kind of make it work for you is i think the the really hard part of going from from strict program, because I mean, I think could have followed that strict program for another three, four months. But I think the bigger thing for me was about how do I start to work all those things into my natural every day

so I can feel like I can do whatever I want and not feel constricted, even though I am really constricting myself. 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 MuscleForLifeFitness, Twitter at MuscleForLife, and Facebook at MuscleForLifeFitness. And what about on the exercise side of things? How did your workout program start? Did you guys have to change it? Did you have to work through any issues? I think I've, you know, I've had, I hurt my shoulder, you know, during the program a little bit. What happened? Just tore a little bit of muscle tear, nothing crazy, but definitely had to work around that a little bit. So I laid off shoulders for a little bit and then just, you know, focused on doing legs a little bit more until that side came back, switched up the exercises. I mean, I mean, the big thing is like, you know, if you hurt yourself like you're going to have to stop working out for a month while it heals. And so, it's like, okay. Don't let it stop you. Unless it's a catastrophic

injury, you can always work around it. There are always things you can do. And usually, you don't even necessarily have to stop training the muscle per se. You may have to stop a certain exercise for a little bit, but usually you can find alternative exercises that feel totally fine. In the case of a muscle tear, no. But if you have little nagging kind of aches and pains, those are usually very easy to work around without just having to abandon the muscle group altogether for a little bit. Yeah, but even then it was like, oh, switch to this side, do more legs, move stuff around. I felt like there's always something you can do. And it's just about moving things around because you can even get fancy like blood flow restriction. If you really want to go there, which anybody listening, if you want to

learn more about it, just, I wrote an article on Legion athletics, just search for blood flow restriction, but that's, for example, it's great for if you're dealing with an injury and you really need to be using lightweights, you can make it far more effective, at least for maintaining your muscle by incorporating blood flow restriction. For example, it looks kind of goofy, but it works. And you're right. It's like sometimes just a little bit of a, oh, I hurt my leg. It's not that big a deal. But if you keep hitting it, three weeks later, you're going to be in a real bad place.

And so that was, I think, really being able to move, oh, I'm going to move over to this muscle group, shift this around, made a big difference for me throughout the program. So, where you are now, what you've achieved so far, how has it impacted other areas of your life? Well, I mean, people comment at work all the time, which is people, you know, what are you doing? Like, how did you do that? It's like, especially visibly, people like notice because it's such a physical transformation. I went from being 248 pounds to being 192 and not just that I'm like, people can comment to me a lot, but I also think it made me feel like I'm in control of my health. I mean, biggest thing is I went to the doctor and I had, you know, some slight triglycerides were really high. My triglycerides

were like the four hundreds. They're now sub now sub 90 very nice so your doctor's happy yeah my doctor asked was like what are you doing i want to get on this program so in general i mean like my health is way better than it was uh and that leads to everything you know with my kids picking my kids up or you know playing with them is not a i'm not winded i don't feel like I'm run down at all. My energy levels and a lot of why I even thought about getting healthy was about making sure I'm around for my kids. That's ultimately, I think, part of this for me was about how do I get healthy for them so that I'm not in a place where my health is a problem. Yeah. And also setting a good example for them. And now they're going to grow up seeing that

that's just what they're going to be used to seeing is like the super fit dad. You know what I mean? Yeah. And well, my wife too. my wife is also really um she you know she was laughing at me when i first started because i was weighing my food and she's like it's like i'm not gonna weigh my food that's just dumb and then you know about a month later she's weighing her food working with a trainer doing the same thing and i thought you know she you know it's great because we're both kind of healthy now. And people have come up to us both and they're like, my God, you guys are the only couple I've known who've gone from being heavy to being super thin and in shape.

And it's great. And so, I mean, overall, I mean, we're living a different lifestyle. And we both, you know, that's the other thing. I think, you know, my wife, you know, started kind of doing a lot of the same things. She didn't do the program, but she, program, but the same principles she's applying. We live both very cleanly. We eat the same way now. And that really helps too.

Makes a huge difference for both of us. That's awesome. Has it impacted your... I'm sure it has. So, how has it impacted your psychology, your mood, your confidence? What have you noticed there? I don't mind taking my shirt off, which is something I never would have ever thought I would feel comfortable doing. Going to a beach or going to a, sitting out at a pool is something I

would have never felt comfortable in my body. So, I mean, there's definitely that. Definitely more confident in physical situations and exercise and moving around and doing stuff. Work, you know, but there's also this intangible thing I think you get from being in shape and being healthy that people pick up on when they interact with you. You're more confident. You feel my general, like my stress level is way down.

So I think, you know, people think I'm way calmer and I'm chill, you know, especially in my job. I think people notice me being much more happy and positive. And even in a high stress situation, I'm just way more calm than I was maybe a year ago. Makes sense. I mean, what you've been doing is adapting your body to higher and higher levels of stress. I mean, that's essentially what you're doing with exercise in particular, right?

And that spills over to the psychological side as well. Like there's definitely a connection there. Yeah. I mean, I was in a really high stress role for years and my body took the brunt of it. And now I'm kind of rolled it all back and people are commenting to me like, you're super happy and you're pumped up and your energy level is great and you're encouraging people to do all things they didn't used to do. And so it's a pretty tremendous effect on my life. It's just hard to sum it up in two, three words or even in a couple sentences. It's so pervasive. Sometimes it's not even apparent to you.

Other people will come up to you and comment to you like, man, you're really happy. And I'm like, I guess I am. Yeah, I feel really good about it. You know, cause you don't, you don't, you start to, it becomes so natural to you that you feel that way that you're just not, you're not thinking about it as a very first class kind of thing. It's just, yeah, this is how life is now. You know? Oh yeah. When you want to go do something on the weekend and go hiking or, you know, go out and do stuff. Oh yeah. That's, that's no problem. Whereas, you know, I might've been like,

eh, I'm going to stay home, not do some stuff. I'm more open to doing stuff now too and exploring than I was probably about a year ago too. That's great. That's interesting. I mean, it makes sense if you're feeling better just in general, then you're more interested in engaging with the world. And when you don't feel so good, you are less interested in engaging with the world. Have you noticed also that, I'm sure you do. I think it's one of the unsung benefits, one of the big benefits of being in great shape that you kind of have to experience to realize is just not having to have attention on your body, really. Knowing that you have nothing really to worry about, even if you catch your reflection in a mirror previously. well, I mean, I can say,

I just know working with a lot of people, that alone could just be almost like a jab where they don't like what they see. But if you were to add up all the time and all the energy that, and again, I'll speak for people that I've worked with previously, that they would spend every day just worrying about their body or feeling bad about their body or feeling bad for themselves. All that just goes away once you get into good shape. And now you have this newfound amount of energy and attention to put on other things that are positive. me, I felt that more around like health in general. I mean, I used to worry about going to the doctor, you know, oh, what am I going to hear? Am I going to hear my blah, blah, blah? I got to do something different. So, from that perspective, I definitely feel like I don't worry about that anymore. You know, that worry, that energy you spend on worrying is pretty substantial. And to have it just taken away all of a sudden is like, wow, now I got all this energy to

apply elsewhere. I definitely felt that for my health overall, which is great. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a huge point. You know, my wife's grandpa died just recently of cancer. And she was kind of just like, she was saying stuff just kind of freaks her out. And I was, you know, saying, I understand. But, you know, she, in both of our cases, right?

I was like, look, if you're talking about us, we do everything that we're supposed to do. We exercise, we eat right. We don't destroy ourselves with stress and we take supplements to help with our health and blah, blah, blah. So for me personally, if I get cancer one day, then, oh, well, I mean, I'll say that right now where I'm not worried about it because like, I guess that was, I guess that was just meant to be or something. And there's nothing you could point to that's like, yeah, of course you fucking have cancer. You're an alcoholic and you smoked two packs of cigarettes. What did you expect?

You know what I mean? But I think when you do a good job taking care of your health, you can let go of that stuff. At least for me, I found that. And legitimately not worry about it because it's kind of like similar to what you were saying earlier with diet. Once you start to understand the mechanics, you were able to kind of disassociate from food or be able to see food a bit more objectively and see it as something you can use as opposed to something that's using you. I think that, again, I've experienced this at least, a similar type of effect with health where I understand the big levers I can pull to positively impact my health and I'm working

on all of those. And so what is there to worry about? Worrying doesn't even... Actually, not only do I not need to worry, it doesn't make any sense to worry. There's nothing that I haven't... I'm not shoving things into the memory hole, chanting affirmations all day about how healthy I am and how I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm not, you know what I mean? Cause you don't have to, if you're doing all the right things, there's no part of you that's nagging saying, Hey, you're lying to yourself just so you know, Hey, you know what I mean? Yeah, no, I mean, like you just made me think about, uh, you know, one of the things is that, you know, when you're unhealthy, you're

constantly looking for the boogeyman and you know, you're constantly worried. At least I was constantly worried about, like, all these things come out of the woodwork. And I think just getting healthy is, you know, you kind of go, eh, you know, I don't really have to worry about that. I'll be fine. And I think also, you know, one of the things that was unique about your books that I really kind of appreciated was the level of research and the quotes of articles, because there's so much crap out there about health in general. I mean, every day there's an article in the, you know, in the news about how you get cancer from this, that, this. And it's, you know, it's kind of nice to have someone actually have kind of pulled together a bunch of research for you to kind of say, hey, this is what all this

is really telling you. You know, it just kind of made me think of what you're talking about. It's like the more intellectually armed you are with information about your health, the better off you're going to be. And I think that's a big difference, both whether it comes from diet or even from cancer or whatever. Being informed is what makes the difference, I think, ultimately. And yeah, you get unlucky, but if you know what you're doing and you kind of, if you're drinking and smoking every day, yeah, eventually you're putting yourself at risk. But if you know what your risks are, if you're drinking and smoking every day, yeah, eventually you're putting yourself at risk. But if you know what your risks are and you're managing them and you're, you know, you kind of go, ah, it's going to be okay. Yeah. And that's what you do every day when you drive to work every day.

That's what you're doing. There's a, you know, the probability is low, but there's always a chance that anything, you know, something bad could happen. But when you go, all right, well, I'm a good driver and this, that and whatever. And so that's just, you know, that's life. There's a little bit of risk in everything. But yes, if you can minimize that risk, then worrying just becomes not only counterproductive, but really it just becomes unnecessary. It's very hard for us to delude ourselves. It's easy to lie to other people and trick other people into believing things, but it's very hard to do that to ourselves. And so, yes, if you are drinking a lot and smoking a

lot, there's always a part of you that knows this is a bad idea. This is a bad decision. I'm making a mistake right now. And you could quantify it. Somebody out there could quantify it and say that your base rate of this or that disease has now gone up by X percent, but you know that intuitively. And so I think, again, it takes a lot of energy and a lot of attention to keep whacking that mole. Every time it pops up, whack it down, whack it down. It's something you have to constantly keep your eye on. But then once you free yourself of that, you, I just think, again, it's very liberating to not have to play that whack-a-mole game with yourself. Yeah, no, definitely.

I mean, I definitely pushed a lot of that health stuff aside just by, you know, being educated, but also being, right, it's about being in control in some ways. I mean, like, get in your car, you know what you're doing. Yeah, random things could happen, but if you're in control, you feel like it's a decision you're making. Exactly. And that's where the tracking stuff comes in too. I think, you know, it's like that for me was like, well, now I'm making a decision on what I'm eating, right? Versus, and I'm informed and I understand the inputs and the outputs of it all together kind of all comes together that way. So it's great.

Absolutely. Okay. Awesome. Well, that's, that's everything that I wanted to ask you about. Is there anything else that you'd like to add? Anything that we didn't cover that you think we should talk about? Oh, no, I don't know. I mean, I just want to thank you.

I mean, really, if I hadn't kind of turned on to your book, I wouldn't have been turning on a lot of great stuff. And so, even your podcast is a bunch of great stuff that I've been turned on to. That estrogenics book was really great and a bunch of other stuff that I think. Yeah, that's good information. That's something that isn't spoken about much. I was pretty happy to get him on the show and to break that down. Yeah, no, it's awesome.

Plus, I think the Mindless Eating book was also another great one you turned me on to, which I thought was, you know, probably super impactful in my life too. So both were really helpful. Awesome. Awesome. Glad to hear it. Okay. Well, thanks again, Jared.

I appreciate you taking the time and a great job again on what you did and what you're, what you're doing now. And that's cool that you got your wife into it and that's cool. It's great. It's a great story. 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

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