Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How Legion Coaching Helped Lyell Lose 37 Pounds & 15% Body Fat in 6 Months

Episode Date: January 21, 2019

In this episode I interview Lyell, who’s 46 years old and used my one-on-one coaching service to completely transform his physique and add 300 pounds to his big compound lifts in just 6 months. In this interview he shares how he found his way to me and my work, including what he had tried previously, how things changed after he started implementing the advice in my books and articles, and how my coaching service helped him take his body to a whole new level. As with everything, nothing ever goes exactly as planned, and learning to adjust and adapt to conditions is an important part of the fitness game, which is something Lyell experienced firsthand. He ran into a number of roadblocks along the way that most of us can relate to, including issues with workout and meal scheduling, hunger and cravings, dietary temptations, and more, and in our chat, Lyell shares what has helped him navigate these barriers skillfully and prevent them from getting in his way. Lyell’s story is particularly interesting, because as you’ll learn in this interview, he had been trying to get fit for a long time and simply couldn’t get the needle to move. As he told me, “I’m blown away by what this has done compared to my previous experience with exercise and diet. It’s just been truly unbelievable.” So, if you like hearing motivational stories about how people have changed their bodies and lives, and if you want to pick up a few tips that may help you along in your personal journey, then this episode is for you. Timestamps: 5:20 - What was your diet and fitness like before and after our coaching program? 7:20 - Why were you afraid to go to the gym? 10:21 - What was your training program like before our coaching program? 13:29 - What were some obstacles you had to overcome during our coaching program? 14:15 - How was your experience with our diet plan compared to your previous restrictive diet? 19:55 - How did you make your diet work with your busy schedule? 24:23- What does your current training program look like? 29:42 - Have you had a diet break? 31:46- What were some training obstacles you had to overcome during our coaching program? 36:43 - What are your current training goals? 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/

For people out there, I'm a 47-year-old average white guy. I've been on a cut for the past six months, and I'm kind of blown away by what this has done compared to my previous experience with exercise and diet. It's just been truly unbelievable. Hey, Mike Matthews here from Muscle for Life and Legion Athletics, and thank you for joining me for another episode of the Muscle for Life podcast. And this time around, I interview Lyle, who is a 46-year-old male who has used my one-on-one coaching service to completely transform his physique. I'm talking about losing damn near 40 pounds and 15% body fat, which is plenty

impressive in and of itself, but he has also added about 300 pounds to his big compound lifts as well. So yes, he has gained a fair amount of muscle along the way, and he did all that in just six months. And in this interview, Lyle shares how he found his way to me and my work, including what he had tried previously, how things were going, and then how things started to change after he started to implement the advice in my books and articles, and then how his coaching experience helped him take his body to a whole new level. Now, as with everything, nothing ever goes exactly as planned and learning to adjust and adapt to conditions is an important part of the fitness game, just like it's an important part of life. And that is something that Lyle experienced firsthand. He ran into a number

of roadblocks along the way that most of us can relate to, including issues with his workout and meal scheduling, issues with hunger and cravings because he was cutting for a while, issues with dietary temptations and others. And in this chat, Lyle shares what has helped him navigate these barriers skillfully and prevent them from getting in his way. And I found his story particularly interesting because as you are going to learn, he had been trying to get fit for a long time and simply couldn't get the needle to move. And that's why he is now so blown away by what he has been able to do just following my advice, my systems, or my programs, if you will. And especially because he is also genuinely enjoying my way so much more in its own right, regardless of the results. So it's just a huge win-win for

him. And if you like hearing motivational stories about how other people have changed their bodies and lives, and if you would like to pick up a few tips along the way that may help you in your personal journey, this episode is for you. 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 one-on-one coaching service. So the long story short here is this is the personal coaching service that I wish I had when I started in the gym many years ago. Every diet and training program that we create for clients is 100% custom.

We provide daily workout logs and do weekly accountability calls. Our clients get priority email service and discounts on supplements, and the list goes on and on. priority email service, and discounts on supplements, and the list goes on and on. Furthermore, my team and I have also worked with hundreds of people of all ages, circumstances, and needs and goals. So no matter how tricky you might think your situation is, I promise you, we can figure out how to get you results. If I have piqued your interest and you want to learn more, then head on over to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash coaching and schedule your free consultation call now. I'll tell you, there's usually a wait list and new slots fill up very quickly. So if you're

interested at all, don't wait, go schedule your call now. Alrighty, that is enough shameless plugging for now at least. Let's get to the show. Hey Lyle, welcome to my podcast. Thanks for taking the time. Hi Mike, I appreciate you having me on. Absolutely. So as I was just explaining, these episodes just kind of occurred to me randomly as I would get people reaching out by email, mostly kind of sharing their success stories, putting them up on the website and finding a lot of people liked to hear other people's success stories because they can be motivating and also helpful, particularly in kind of getting into the details of how you have achieved what you have achieved and what obstacles

did you run into and how did you overcome them? So that of course is what we are here to talk about today. And I think a good place to start is maybe let's just give a quick snapshot of kind of your before and after the coaching program for people listening. So Lyle went through, well, actually you can, you can just share the details, but let's just give people a quick idea where you started and where you're at now. And then I think we can rewind and go, okay, so how are things going at that starting point? Sure. Well, my starting point was about six months ago. Actually, I'm enrolled to do another three months with one of your coaches. I started, I was about 196 pounds, I started, I was about 196 pounds, probably 30% plus body fat. And in the past six months, I'm down to 160 pounds. And I'm now about 11 to 12% body fat. And for people out there, I'm a 47 year old average white guy. You know, I've been on a cut for the past six months.

guy. I've been on a cut for the past six months and I'm kind of blown away by what this has done compared to my previous experience with exercise and diet. It's just been truly unbelievable. Yeah. I mean, your results are really impressive. It's also, it's probably worth mentioning that you have gotten a lot stronger as well. I mean, I'm just looking at your numbers here. So what Harry had put is for your bench press in the beginning was 90 pounds for eight reps, sumo deadlift 135 for 10 reps, squat 100 pounds for 10 reps, and standing military press 70 pounds for it says 70 by eight pounds, but 70 pounds by for eight reps. And then after after, so in the course of losing nearly 40 pounds, 35 pounds and cutting your body fat percentage in more than half, your bench press is now up to 160

for five. Your sumo deadlift is up to 255 for six and your squat is up to 190 for five and your standing press 115 for six. So that's pretty significant too. So you've not only lost a lot of fat, but you have certainly gained muscle as well. Yeah. I don't feel like I'm Arnold Schwarzenegger in the gym, but I actually, you know, one of the more intimidating things about starting this program really for me was going into a gym. I've always been a solo cardioholic on my bike or a run. And so going into a gym when, you know, I'm not lifting that much weight initially and you have to kind of get over that. Yeah. What, why, what specifically was it? Is it, you just felt uncomfortable because. Yeah. I mean, you see guys in there who are

throwing around a significant amount of weight and now I know what I know. Some of those guys have really poor form and really not, if you're not educated in really the form and technique, you know, when you see some guy putting up 300 pound batch press, you're like, wow, I don't know if I deserve to be here, you know? And so I think a lot of people feel threatened by that initially. Eventually, you know what, once I put my headphones on, I get to the gym now. I'm not competing against anybody else other than myself. You have to take that attitude on a daily basis. Totally right. And that form point is a good point because if you were talking about quarter reps or even half reps, it's kind of like zero, zero, zero, zero. I mean, I learned this years and years ago when I first started to educate myself on proper barbell training.

And so I had been squatting for a little bit at this point, but wasn't paying attention to depth. And so I had gotten up to 405 for what was really, it was a quarter squat. I don't even, I'll say maybe it was a half rep. I'll give myself maybe that much credit, right? And then I started to educate myself and I was like, that makes that makes a lot of, it makes sense. Actually this, this range of motion thing, I should try that. So next time I go to squat, I didn't anticipate, I think I took some weight off the bar, uh, but I didn't anticipate how much more difficult it is. And so I maybe went down to three 15. I was like, eh, I'm just gonna, you know, I'm sure it's gonna be a bit harder.

And I didn't even get one rep. I had to just bail on the first rep of the first set. And if I remember correctly, I had to go down to, I want to say 185 for sets of probably eight or so proper form. So just people keep that in mind when you see guys or gals throwing around a lot of weight with poor form, it might look kind of cool to some people. I mean, literally it would have been someone next to me. So let's say it would have been me, right? The old me with 405 doing little half reps and, oh, that looks kind of cool. The bar's bending and stuff. And then you have someone next to me squatting just 225 with good form. That person is doing a more effective workout. And that person factually is

actually stronger than I would be despite all the weight on my back. Yeah. I mean, and actually to tell you the truth, so Harry's got me at 190 for my squat. Yesterday I got to the gym, put 190 on after my warmup. And if I was really being honest with myself, I was not getting great depth. So I took 10 pounds off and 180 worked much nicer. I felt more comfortable. I bumped it up to 185. And so you just have to keep your ego in check and it works much better that way, I think. Yeah, absolutely agree. So that's great. So I mean, that's a snapshot of where you're at now. So let's go back to where you're at previously. And what had you, you had mentioned you'd done a lot of cardio.

Had you tried any sort of resistance training or weightlifting before? What were you doing even over the years prior to that? What had worked? What didn't work? Yeah, I mean, I guess this whole, my whole struggle, you know, if I can go back even 10 years, like 10 years ago, I have one sibling, a younger brother, we lost him, unfortunately. Kind of buried myself in food. That's how I dealt with my grief. Found myself, I was about 240 pounds about three, four years later. So then decided that I got to

do something. So rode a bike like crazy for hundreds of miles a week. And that brought the weight off. But what you find is, you know, physically, you don't look good. Guys on Tour de France have giant legs, but otherwise they have kind of skeletal upper body. I just was not happy with how I looked. And also during that time frame, if you're doing a hundred, And also during that time frame, if you're doing hundreds and hundreds of miles of cardio a week, you eat a lot and you tend to take up a lot of calorie consumption afterwards. And so you're maybe defeating the fact. I had looked at your book probably two, three years ago. I had read through BLS and I wasn't sure at first.

I was like, I don't know if I buy this. I don't know if an hour per day and maybe 30 to 60 minutes of cardio is really going to do it for a guy like me. And so at that point I knew diet was going to be 70% of the battle. And so I approached a company that kind of helped me with, they were phenomenal in terms of I learned how to meal prep. I learned about my macro consumption and how I should break that down. And so that was very educational for me. But physically during that, I still was doing a lot of cardio. And so even though I continued to lose weight, I wasn't happy with how I was looking in the mirror. Yeah, there's a little bit of a vanity perspective for guys, I guess, when they're doing things like BLS. And so I listened to your book plan. But in my business, I'm an oral and maxillofacial surgeon. And I hire people who help me with things that I don't know about.

So I'm not an attorney. I'm not an accountant. I hire people who know about me and my business. And I'm like, why can't I apply that outside of my professional life to hire a person who knows about nutrition, but also can help point me in the right direction in the gym? And so I gave your guys' organization a call, and it's been a great experience. I couldn't recommend it more. That's awesome. And tell us a bit about how that played out.

So in the beginning, so I mean, you obviously, I'm assuming you work a lot. You had mentioned that there were definitely some obstacles to overcome. What did that look like? That could be dietary things. That could be, you know, training things, both, whatever. Sure. Initially, what I was kind of surprised about was the company I'd worked with previously were super strict in terms of what they would allow you to eat.

And so when I first started with Muscle for Life and I talked to Harry and I kind of laid out my likes and dislikes and, you know, he came back and he lets me have a little bit of chocolate every day. That's my quote unquote vice of choice, too. We can't even say it's a vice, but, you know, whatever. That's my quote unquote vice of choice too. We can't even say it's a vice, but you know, whatever. Or, I mean, he gave me a brownie recipe that on, you know, one day a week, my wife makes these phenomenal dark chocolate brownies. And so there's more flexibility within the diet than I ever thought possible. How did that experience compare to the more restrictive style of dieting that you had

done previously? Oh, you're a happier person. No doubt. Because I don't know if I'm weird in terms of, I can eat the same thing every single day and be happy with it, particularly when it comes to knowing what you're... I don't have to pick up my fitness pal every single day and figure out what my macro intake is. Because if I get up and I know I work out because I usually work out fasted. So I know what my breakfast and lunch and dinner are going to be every day. And for some people that would drive them insane. But with Harry, I let him know that, hey, on a rest day, how about a little variety? And so that's when he threw in a little,

I get to have some brownies on a rest day and I get to change things up. Yeah. I mean, that's a point that's worth punching up. It's obviously a common denominator of most people who achieve the types of results that you've achieved is less variety in the diet. And there's even a bit of research on it simply because it makes the margin for error smaller. However, what is also common though, is that many people find that even people who come into that style of dieting suspicious because they like variety, that so long as they can eat stuff that they like, they find that it actually is, it takes a while before you really get sick of something when you like it. And especially when there's no psychological, there's no moral value assigned

one way or the other to the foods that you're eating. Yes, it's smart to get the majority of your calories from nutritious foods, and it's smart to minimize your intake of added sugars and the basic things that people really have been, we've been hearing for many, many years. But beyond that, there are no quote unquote good and bad foods. And when you know that you can change your meal plan or your diet anytime, you can take any meal and change it at any time. And you can eat the stuff you like within reason. You know, if all you like is pizza and hot dogs, then I think it's time to widen your culinary horizons. But so long as you like food that isn't complete trash, you can pretty much eat whatever you want. You just have to regulate the amounts. People find that it gives them kind of a peace

of mind. And I've just, I've interacted with many people over the years who were surprised to have the same experience that you just described. Whereas previously, you know, they were very much into what am I, they didn't even realize necessarily how much they thought about how much, what are they going to be eating? What's going to be their next meal? What's going to be dinner? What about tomorrow? And so it was nice for them to know like, oh, this is what I'm eating now. And they found that because they were just sticking to foods that they were inclined to eat anyway, it took a long time for them to actually get to the point where they're like, you know what, I'm ready for a different dinner now. And if anything also, I mean, I think working with this initial company

and then working with you guys, it's changed my relationship to food. A lot of people view food as, it's a reward system, you know? And I've definitely changed how I view, you know, if it's been a hard day at the office, I no longer have this mindset, well, when I get home,

I'm going to have a whole pizza to myself and that's going to make me feel better. If anything, now, if I go out and, you know, there's been a couple of occasions, I'm human, where you overeat and you just, you know, feel good. So that change in relationship has been good. And also changing in, you can still enjoy birthdays. You can still, I mean, Christmas and the holidays just went past. You just need to know how to manage yourself around that timeframe. So kind of a revolutionary thing to me when I talked to Harry about an upcoming anniversary dinner my wife and I had coming, he's like, well, I want you to eat your protein during the day. Don't have any carbs. Save it for that bigger meal in the evening. And so there are little things you can do throughout

the day where if you know that you've got something coming up social, you don't have to withhold yourself completely from not going out and enjoying life at the same time. just, I do this myself. If, uh, even if it's just kind of a weekly meal that I'm going to go have like a date night type of thing, because there's no reason not to, there's no reason to just, it doesn't bother me at all. Uh, eat, just eat the protein that you're going to eat your day's protein, go into that dinner, let's say having your protein more or less done. And then you have all of your carbs or the majority of your carbs and your fats for that meal, just to get to your target for the day. If you're like most people, once you start getting around that 1,500, 2,000 calorie mark, you're ready to tap out anyway. It's at least for me, it's hard to really go over the top. It requires physical pain.

And so I'll do that sometimes just for fun, like once or twice a year, maybe if it's Thanksgiving and the food's really good or something like that. But if I'm going to go to a restaurant, it's completely not necessary. It's not even, you know, if I can just have an appetizer, an entree, maybe some dessert, I'm happy. 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 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. How did you make it work with your

work? Did you meal prep and then bring lunches to the office? I kind of learned along the ways that I had this great intention initially that every Sunday I'm going to cook all my stuff. And that happened some, and it still happens some, but rotisserie chicken from the grocery store is the greatest invention since sliced bread. So I buy those en masse. I eat a lot of bagged salad. My lunch is typically a bagged salad with some rotisserie chicken and a little bit of vinegar on the salad. You kind of get these little tricks down where what works for you. Will you have time to prep all that food? And can you give enough time? I know a lot of people are, I don't have any kids. I have a busy work life, but I know people on the weekends, they dedicate a lot of time to their kids and children.

So you've got to find what works for you. And that's, for me, I found those little shortcuts to be able to plug in those, the food that works for me without taking up a huge amount of my time prepping it. Yeah, yeah, that's a good tip. I've done that traveling, like, you know, just hitting a local Whole Foods or something. Cause it's always easy to get if you, if you really are looking to control your calories. So how was eating that way?

Cause you mentioned previously food was kind of a reward for you. And it sounds like your relationship was a bit more hedonistic previously with food. So it seems like a pretty drastic change. Oh, yeah, it has been. Yeah. I mean, socially is the toughest, I think, you know, when you're going out with folks who they continue to eat the way they eat. But it's interesting because people now, they don't treat you differently. They just they see that Lyle's just not going to eat this anymore. And so, you know, it's just for me just, uh, for me, the, the easiest way to change that relationship has been what I've seen happen in the mirror and what I've seen happen at the

gym. Those two things are motivating enough to me to not eat that half piece of pie at a meal. And it was, it wasn't kind of a subconscious. It just kind of happened naturally as you saw your body change and as you felt different and you, and it just became like a positive association or was there a conscious connection made there? Yeah. I can identify a specific moment where I'm like, that's it. I can't eat that anymore. Other than, you know, the point at which I decided to start to change my diet. But, um, yeah, it's been a slow process to change that relationship. And now that I'm six months in, again, I've been on a cut for six months.

I'm not about to screw it up at this point. There's too much going into this to get to this point. Yeah, yeah. I think that's something that is motivating for people that are starting out, just because that experience is also something that I have heard from a number of people over the years that one of the cool things was a lot of the positive changes, especially some of the more psychological things seem to kind of happen automatically just by doing the right things and seeing results.

That was enough to make a lot of the positive habits stick. They didn't have to read a bunch of books on habit building or do the daily journaling or daily checklisting, or it was kind of just by doing these basic core key fundamental things correctly in the kitchen and in the gym and then getting results that kind of took care of a lot for them and just made it very easy to develop those positive habits and to completely change the relationship with food or, you know, where they just wake up one day and they realize that they are not just a different physically, but they really feel like they have become a different person in deeper ways. You know, one of the things that's very hard during this is we see ourselves in the mirror

every single day. You don't see a little, the little changes that are ongoing. At the end of my first six months there with Harry, we'd been emailing back and forth and I sent him my most recent photos and he's like, have you ever gone back and looked at yourself? Cause I gave him all my pictures from two years ago when I first started to change my diet. I'm like, no, I really haven't gone back. And so he sent me a comparison, a side-by-side and that just hits home show up to do the little things every day in a two year span, giant change. I mean, I'm a

completely different looking person now. Yeah. That's totally awesome. So tell us a bit about the training side of things. What was your, what, I mean, you're still, you're still going. So how have you been following the same program, basic layout since the beginning, or has it changed? He started me out on a five day split. I'm still on that. As I've lost weight, I've had a few plateaus. And that's the other thing that this has taught me is you can't step on a scale and judge your progress on that every day. There's times when I was kind of, I'd get down on myself a little bit because, you know, it's been four or five days and the scale hasn't moved. But finally, again, when you sit down and actually look at the mathematics,

the arithmetic inside that number, you know, if you take 196 pound guy with 30% body fat and compared to 170 pound guy with 15% body fat, there may only be 16 pound difference there in terms of the physical size of that guy. But inside the amount of fat you've lost is ginormous. And so with a few plateaus along the way, we've had to continually make some adjustments to my diet. One, you know, we've kind of bumped it down a little, not stealing a huge amount of calories, and then added a little bit of cardio throughout the process too. So I started off with two 30-minute HIIT sessions a week, and now I'm doing about four per week plus my five-day split. And now I'm doing about four per week plus my five-day split.

And I'm eating about 1,600, 1,650 calories a day with a 40-40-20 split. And I still feel like I have good energy. And so, you know, that's been great working with a coach like Harry because there's been a few times where I really felt like, I don't know if this is really working. I'd send him all my measurements. He's like, listen, you may not have lost much weight, but one, look at your strength. It's still going up. And two, your waist measurement continues to decrease. So that tells me that you're recomping. You're recomping hard, probably.

These are things as a newbie, I've got no reference point in the gym in terms of how well I'm doing on the scale, my size. You know, that's where the coaching portion of this has been so helpful. I think I'm a fairly educated guy, but it's been great to have someone on your side who can kind of pat you on the back and say, listen, you're doing fine. Or sometimes, you know, listen, you need to get your act together. It's all good. Yeah. Yeah.

You bring up some good points. I mean, one thing is that ideal weight thing. I probably hear that more from women than men seem just because I think women in general are bombarded with more messages about weight than men, where it can be very hard starting out. If someone is saying, what weight should I be shooting for? Or if they come into it, and again, this is more women than men, it seems, with an ideal weight number in mind, thinking that, oh, and in many cases with many women that I've heard from, it's a rather low number and often lower than what they will need to weigh to really kind of have the ideal physique that they want.

And the reason being is that point that you brought up is when, especially in the beginning, when your body is hyper responsive to resistance training, you are going to gain muscle. So long as you're doing the major things mostly right, you are going to gain muscle while losing fat at the same time. And it is going to obscure some of the weight loss. And if all you're looking at is the scale, which is of course what most people pay the most attention to, it can become demotivating because you are really sticking to your diet and you're measuring all your food and you're putting the work in the gym. And if that's all you're looking at, and the mirror, as you also brought up, can be kind of deceptive because you see yourself every day and the gradual changes.

I mean, if we're looking at it in terms of fat loss, let's say you lost, I don't know, 50 grams of fat overnight in a 24-hour period. You're not going to see that in the mirror. And when you just look at yourself every day, again, that gradual change can be so small that you don't really see it until it's dramatic, meaning until you're at like toward the end of your cut and you're like, oh, I'm actually pretty lean now. But if you're just shrinking, you are losing fat regardless of what is going on in the scale. And if your waist is expanding steadily over time, then you are gaining fat. And so paying attention to that is, and I have actually a bit more on that in the upcoming third edition. I rewrote my books for men and women from scratch. Same basic principles, just I think better organized, better explained, took some stuff out that doesn't need to be there. Well, stuff that is good information, but maybe not vital and replaced it with stuff that I feel like is more vital based on actual feedback and things that I've also just made my own list of

things that I wanted to improve. And that's one of the things I really kind of punch up is the importance of paying attention to more than just the scale. And another just smart tactic is starting with the lower amount of cardio and kind of ramping that up over time. Because it's pretty cool that you've been able to cut now for six months, you're still losing fat and you still feel good. And so you haven't needed a diet break at all? Well, I mean, I've had a couple. So I'm also a scuba instructor. And so I've had a couple of dive trips where I have taken some time away from the gym. And those are usually in the Caribbean. And, you know, there's rum there, Mike. And it's hard to be 100% strictly on diet while you're there. So I've had a couple of weeks where one has been a little bit of a nice mental break.

If anything, by the end of that week, I was talking to Harry this morning, actually, and I was just like, you know, it's weird because by the end of that week, one, you're itching to get back to the gym. And even though I'm physical, I'm in the water, I'm diving, it's not the same as lifting anymore. Physically, you feel softer at least. So I've had a couple of small breaks in there that have kind of helped keep me going. That's good. It's also a good little tactic is it really depends on the person.

Some people feel the need to take breaks more often than others, but everybody reaches a point where, especially if it's going to be a longer cut, whether it's because you have a lot of fat that you need to lose to get to, you know, let's say that 10% benchmark or 10-ish whatever for men or 20-ish for women, or if it's in the case of people who are in the bodybuilding scene who start out actually fairly lean, but need to get so lean that it takes six months, just bumping your calories up to somewhere around your, your approximate daily expenditure for a week or so every so often can really help with long-term compliance. You've already experienced some of those benefits and really just kind of, you know, revitalize you, recharge you,

and you get almost a feeling of like a restart, you know? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's made it easier to stick with. You know, I allow myself maybe once every week or two, a refeed meal, one meal. We usually account for those. And so that, you've always got that to look forward to. I don't feel like I've starved myself to get to this point. I don't feel deprived. Yeah, that's great. On the training side of things, have there been any obstacles along the way? Any unforeseen things? Yeah. So I've had a few, I mean, again, I'm 47. I'm not in my twenties anymore. It takes a little bit longer for a guy to recover from certain things. And so I've had just a minor back issue when I first started deadlifting. We let that heal up and Harry kind of switched me to a sumo lift, a deadlift instead. And for me, technique wise was easier. And so that's worked

really well. I've had a couple of shoulder issues that we've had to work around. And again, shoulder issues that we've had to work around. And again, having a coach that can help me modify things. Most recently, in terms of, you know, my barbell curls, I was starting to get some elbow pain and kind of almost like tennis elbow symptoms. And so Harry kind of switched me to doing some more neutral grip work, you know, hammer curls, doing some neutral grip pull-ups. You know, we've made some minor modifications. For the most part, the program has stayed what it is. We just have made some minor modifications along the way based on aches and pains and those kinds of things. Makes sense. That's also very common. And a good takeaway for people listening is if a certain exercise is not working for you for some reason, it is totally okay to find a suitable alternative.

You do not have to be doing conventional deadlifts. You do not have to be doing sumo deadlifts. You don't have to be deadlifting at all, actually. I would recommend it. But in some cases, if it's causing a lot of pain for someone, for example, then no, you don't want to. I mean, I recorded a podcast recently with Mark Ripito on this topic. And also I recorded one that hasn't come out yet with Dr. Stuart McGill, which was a very interesting interview. So if you have, let's say back pain and you go and you do a deadlift and you still have back pain,

it doesn't make it any worse than chances are you're okay. But if doing a deadlift makes the pain worse, or if you don't have back pain and deadlifting gives you back pain, then there's definitely something to be addressed. It's not no pain, no gain. That saying is cute, but it's not literally true at all. So it is totally fine if you can't do a certain exercise that might be the best exercise for your goals. Like, you know, if you're trying to gain muscle and strength, of course, we know that generally speaking, the best exercises are going to be the big compound lifts, and then you work around those. But if you can't do a certain type of squat, like let's say a back squat bothers your knees, A common workaround for

that is to do a front squat or if a back squat bothers your back, a good workaround is a front squat or a safety bar squat. And on the deadlift, it could be a sumo deadlift. It could be a trap bar deadlift. You have options. And sometimes, and I've had this happen over the years where things just get aggravated and I couldn't do a barbell bench press for a month. Like I had some biceps tendonitis in the past and I had to do for probably four to six weeks while I was working with a PT, I had to just do a lot of weird like flies and stuff, really very, very little pressing. And you know, you just work around it.

Did I lose anything in the way of my chest in that period? No. I've had my SI joint on the left side of my body just get aggravated with deadlifting and squatting. And so I've had to not deadlift or squat for several weeks at a time and just find a workaround. Can I still do a leg press? Yeah. Leg press feels totally good. Great. So I can do a leg press. Can I do a split squat? Yeah. The split squat actually felt good. Great. I can do that on the pulling side of things. Can I do like a Romanian deadlift? Actually didn't feel bad, you know? So it's just being flexible and keeping that bigger picture in mind and not getting too worked up over, oh, well, what you're doing, your exercise programming is not quote unquote perfect or as optimal as it quote

unquote should be. And the reason why I'm going on and on about this is just because I have heard from a lot of people, I've worked with a lot of people that they will come down on themselves if they just run into any, it's not even their fault. They're using good form. They're not doing anything stupid and something just. And something just happens and now something hurts and it's totally normal. Think of it in terms of playing a sport. Anybody who grew up playing sports knows that you can expect, I wouldn't go as far as saying injuries, but you can expect things to happen that makes things hurt for a bit. I mean, that's just what it is if you are demanding anything of your body. So that applies to weightlifting, applies to resistance training as well.

So I just wanted to interject with a positive message. Yeah, there's going to be aches and pains. And having a guy to talk to about it and making sure that I'm not doing something wrong is all good. Totally. And so what are your goals from here? Well, um, we're going to finish up a cut. And now I, the comments I get from a lot of people are, uh, what's wrong with you? Why are you so skinny? You know, uh, yeah, I want to,

I want to add some mass. I want to, I want to put some muscle back on. Again, I'm a five, eight, 47 year old guy. I don't want to be massive. At my point in life, it's probably not going to happen, but I'd like to learn about reverse dieting, how to do that properly, how to progress through a reverse diet and finally get to maintenance phase. I think once I've done that, maybe it's time for me to stand on my own two feet and go forward from there. But I could definitely see me messing it up in terms of the reverse diet and progressing too quickly. And also I think psychologically, I've been

eating not that much food on a daily basis. And so regaining that weight, make sure that the weight is muscle and not a whole bunch of fat, which I know we're going to gain some be, it's going to be good to have someone help me through that process. Yeah, totally. And you, I'm sure you'll do fine. You now know, because you also, you don't even have to fear fat gain at this point, really, because you know, actually how easy it is to lose. I think that alone just helps people a lot when they are going through the experience that you're going through. And yeah, you'll find that as you work your calories back up, your desire to eat more will probably go up, but you also probably will find it a lot easier to deal with now than

maybe in the past. And you will get a lot more out of the calories as you continue to increase them because of what you're doing in the gym. And also, you have a fair amount more lean mass now than you did. And that also helps protect against fat gain, just gives your body more things to do with the calories that you eat than other than store them as fat. And you'll probably also find that really the long-term payoff, and you'll get a taste of this, is that when you have more or less the physique that you want, so you go through a cycle of a good lean bulk, you really stretch it out. Best advice there is to stick to a meal plan as well so your calories don't get too out of

control. So you're in a kind of controlled surplus. And you'll get to a meal plan as well. So your calories don't get too out of control. So you're in a kind of controlled surplus and you'll get to a point though, where you kind of more or less have the physique you want and then maintaining it is you've put in so much hard work that the payoff is you might still enjoy going to the gym five days a week. Like I do personally, I just like working out. So I still do that. But is it necessary? No. And you might be okay eating. You could get away with for maintenance. And maybe you have to sometimes go down to two days a week. Let's say that's all you have time for.

You can do maybe an upper lower workout in the week. And maybe that's for a month because of work or because of whatever. And you can do that and lose absolutely nothing. You really probably don't even lose any strength, which is pretty cool. And then on the dietary side of things, I'm the same way. I kind of just eat the same stuff. I like what I eat. I change things every here and there when I feel like having a different meal, different dinner, maybe a different lunch or something like that.

But you can eat very intuitively. You don't necessarily have to follow a meal plan strictly. And you can really just go by how you feel, what you see in the mirror. And so that's what you have to look forward to ahead of you. I'm looking forward to it, man. If the results are as good as the past six months, I'm all for it. Lots of more good results to come. I promise. Okay. Well, I mean, that's, uh, that's everything. That's all, that's all the questions. Those are all the questions I had recovered some great stuff and I really

appreciate you taking the time. Like I said, I'm flattered that you guys asked me to come on and talk to you guys. It's been a great experience. Cool, man. Thanks and happy new year. Same to you. Thanks, Mike. If you, dear listener, want to learn more about my coaching service and how we might be able to help you reach your health and fitness goals faster, just head over to muscleforlife.com slash coaching, muscleforlife.com slash coaching, and you can learn all about it and schedule a free consultation call where my director of coaching, Matthew, will get on the phone with you and talk about where you've been, where you want to go, and how we might be able to help you get talk about where you've been, where you want to go and how we

might be able to help you get there faster and more enjoyably, which counts for something. Again, muscleforlife.com slash coaching. Check it out. 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,

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