Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How Thinner Leaner Stronger Helped the “Minny Hustlers” Get Their Fitness on Track

Episode Date: June 23, 2021

In this episode, I interview Ann and Lo (also known as the Minny Hustlers on Instagram), who read Thinner Leaner Stronger and used what they learned to dramatically change their physiques and lives. Before finding TLS, Ann and Lo focused on what many women do--lots of cardio and lifting light weights. While they managed to prevent weight gain (the dreaded “freshman 15”...or 20...or 30), they didn’t know how to build the bodies they really wanted with toned arms and glorious glutes. Ever since they read the book in 2015 and learned what really moves the needle in terms of body composition, they’ve totally transformed their physiques, adding muscle in all the right places while stripping away fat, and building their strength to levels they had never seen before. And the best part is by working together, Ann and Lo were able to keep each other accountable and motivate one another to push through the tough times. They also used what they learned in the book to become Legion Athletes and launch their own Instagram page, which they use to educate and motivate other women to finally get their dream bodies and improve their own lives. In this interview, we talk about . . . The struggles of bulking Dealing with body image issues Tips that helped them transition to cutting while staying satisfied How flexible dieting changed the game for them How gyms shutting down affected their cut And more . . . So if you’re looking for a jolt of inspiration and like motivational stories, definitely listen to this episode. Timestamps: 5:01 - What does your before and after look like? 6:13 - What results did you get from mostly cardio and low intensity weightlifting? 12:47 - What has changed in the past couple years? Where are you currently in your fitness journey? 14:48 - What were the bulking struggles that you experienced? 17:16 - How did you deal with body image and bulking? 25:51 - How did your first cut go? 32:35 - Where do you want to go from here? 37:10 - Any advice on supplements? Mentioned on the Show: Minny Hustlers Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/minnyhustlers/ Shop Legion Supplements Here: https://buylegion.com/mike Want free workout and meal plans? Download my science-based diet and training templates for men and women: https://legionathletics.com/text-sign-up/

Hello, my lovelies. Welcome to another episode of Moss for Life. I'm Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today to hear a thinner, leaner, stronger success story. I love hearing thinner, leaner, stronger success stories. In this episode, I interview Ann and Lo, who are also known as the mini hustlers on Instagram. And they read my book, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger Instagram and they read my book, thinner, leaner, stronger, and they used what they learned to get into great shape themselves. And then they wanted to pay it forward and help other people get into great shape. And they wanted to share what was working for them because they knew that it would work for other people. And now they are the mini hustlers. That's their Instagram handle. And they have a growing following. They share a lot of

great information and they do it in a very upbeat, fun way because that is their personalities. And so in this interview, you're going to meet Anne Lowe and you're going to learn about what they were doing before they found me and my work. They were doing what many women do, lots of cardio and lots of light weightlifting. And that helped them not gain weight, which was what they wanted to do initially. They didn't want the dreaded freshman 15 or 20 or 30 or whatever, but they didn't know how to get the bodies that they really wanted. They wanted muscle definition. They wanted muscle mass in the right places without looking bulky or blocky. And they came across thinner than you're stronger back in 2015. And they learned a lot about how to improve their body composition, eating foods that they like and

doing workouts that they enjoy. And they were able to get what they wanted out of fitness, get the physique that they wanted. And they worked together and they had fun together. They kept each other accountable. And now they are fitness influencers in their own right. They're helping other people follow in their footsteps. And they also work with my sports nutrition company, Legion. They are sponsored athletes, which is pretty cool.

And so in this interview, I talked to Ann and Lo about the struggles of bulking and particularly with women because women generally respond differently to even the word bulking than men. They talk about body image issues that they've had to deal with. They share some tips that have helped them cut while staying satisfied. So less hunger, fewer cravings and more. Also, if you like what I am doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my sports nutrition company, Legion, which thanks to the support of many people like you is the leading brand of all natural sports supplements in the world. And we're on top because every ingredient and dose in every product is backed by peer-reviewed scientific research.

Every formulation is 100% transparent. There are no proprietary blends, for example. And everything is naturally sweetened and flavored. So that means no artificial sweeteners, no artificial food dyes, and flavored. So that means no artificial sweeteners, no artificial food dyes, which may not be as dangerous as some people would have you believe, but there is good evidence to suggest that having many servings of artificial sweeteners in particular every day for long periods of time may not be the best for your health. So while you don't need pills, powders, and potions to get into great shape, and frankly, most of them are virtually useless, there are natural ingredients that can help you lose fat, build muscle, and get healthy faster. And you will find the best of them in Legion's products.

To check out everything we have to offer, including protein powders and bars, pre-workout and post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint supportders and bars, pre-workout and post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more. Head over to buylegion.com slash Mike. That's B-U-Y-L-E-G-I-O-N dot com slash Mike. And just to show you how much I appreciate my podcast, peeps, use the coupon code MFL at checkout and you will save 20% on your entire first order. Hey, Anne. Hey, Lo. Hey. Well, this is fun. This is the first three-way success. That sounds wrong, but the first success interview I've done with two people instead of one.

Really exciting. Yeah. We're happy to be here. Yeah, yeah. I appreciate you taking the time. So how I like to start these discussions is with a snapshot of kind of a before and after, before you found me and my work and what was going on at that time, and then kind of a quick fast forward to now. And if you want to share any relevant numbers, it could be body composition stuff. It could be performance stuff. It could be both. And then as well as any kind of qualitative things as well, because as you well know, getting fit impacts many areas of

your life. It's not just about losing fat and gaining muscle and looking the way you want to look. There are a lot of other and sometimes not so obvious benefits, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm curious to just hear the overview of where you were at, where you're at now, and then we'll rewind and begin before you had found me. And I'd love to hear what you were doing at that time and what was working, what was not, and then just kind of roll forward to present. Cool. I'm trying to think before we even started following you, because that was all the way back in 2015. Yeah. So prior to that, this is Anne and I was doing, I did sports all my life and we

would do weightlifting for my sports, but nothing like I do now, nothing with progressive overloading. And it was a lot more cardio I would do. And then low before. Yeah, I was in sports as well, but before we found you and honestly your book, more or less, a lot of cardio. We were heading into freshman year in college together and all I did truly and honestly was run. I didn't want to gain the freshman 15. So every day I would go to the gym and run and do maybe light weights and still lower reps. And like just core probably. Core. Yeah. Because that's what I thought was right. And if I could just jump in quickly, I'm curious. So when you were doing just mostly cardio and I guess you could call it, it sounds like kind of low intensity weightlifting. What results was that producing or not producing?

Were you struggling with any, were you trying to lose fat at that time or what were you trying to do? Or were you just focusing on your performance? No, not performance at all. It was strictly, I didn't like going every college kid, right? You don't want to gain the freshman 15 is what they call it. So I didn't really notice anything. That's the thing. I wasn't gaining weight, right? Cause I was still like, I mean, I was still doing cardio. I was

still eating well, but there was no intention behind it. I wasn't, I wanted to look good and I wanted to continue to fit into my pants and not gain that 15. But at the same time, I wasn't gaining muscle in areas now that I know I would want, like for example, glutes or toned arms, things like that. I was just kind of thin and well, thin is beautiful. It's not even the body image that I wanted to go for, but then I was doing it all wrong. Yeah. And even back then we wanted the muscles, we wanted to look lean, but we didn't know how to achieve that before your book. We thought we were doing it right. Yeah. It's kind of ironic then that the book is called Thinner, Leaner, Stronger. That's not even

what you were going for, which I've gotten a little bit of static over the years from some women about that. Ironically, I actually wanted to call the book fitter, leaner, stronger, but I surveyed at that time, I already had a lot of female followers and readers of my other stuff. So I surveyed a few, I had thinner and fitter and maybe one or two others. And I surveyed just a simple like Likert scale. I believe it's called a one to five, one, I hate it, five, I love it, which is useful for just gauging people's first reactions to things. And that matters a lot, especially with books and thinner, leaner, stronger one by two. Yeah. It wasn't even close. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was probably something between, it was probably something like fitter averaged a two and a half, which is pretty meh,

no more than a three and thinner averaged at least a four, if not higher, which is very hard to do with those types of surveys, which just means that a lot of women, they were saying they loved or really liked thinner. And a lot of those women were saying, eh, nah, it's okay. Like fitters. And I guess I'm not entirely surprised because a lot of women who get into fitness, at least in my experience, want to lose weight initially, want to lose fat initially. And you do have, of course, outliers and women. Exactly. So anyway, I always have to explain that when I'll get emails sometimes where women, they think that I'm trying to push my idea of women should just be thinner. Not at all. I actually, if I didn't do that survey, I would

have went with fitter, but it would have resulted probably in fewer book sales because if we're talking online, it's the title, it's the cover and it's the reviews. That's what sells a book. So for sure. Yeah. And I think that the book and just to like go off of where we started after reading it and following it and why we're here today is because of the book. And now we preach your book to thousands of people. Like we call it our fitness Bible because we truly do follow it to a T and have seen honestly, almost perfect results from it. So I think that shows where we've come, you know, where we were, where we went, and then now holding, we can get into the story,

but we held each other accountable through the book. And now we are where we are today. We're able to share this book with thousands of people to change their lives the way it changed ours. Yeah. I love that. I love that about books is they're just so accessible because they're inexpensive. And I've also, because it's a self-published book, I've been able to update it several times over the years. I'm actually working on another round of updates based on a lot of work that I did for what is going to be my next book, which is called Muscle for Life coming out next year, specifically for the 40, you can even probably say 30 plus, because a lot of 30 plus people think of themselves as middle-aged, but regardless. I was waiting for this. Well, you said this a long time ago. I told my parents, You can even probably say 30 plus because a lot of 30 plus people think of themselves as middle-aged, but regardless.

I'm waiting for this. Well, you said this a long time ago. I told my parents, honestly, I feel like you talked about it three years ago. I know. And my parents, I'm like, wait for this book. You're going to read this book and you're going to love it. So we're ready for that. Yeah, yeah. I'm excited for it as well. with the work I did on that book, I liked some of the, and this, and I can give credit to the

editors, two women I worked with who were great, who had some good ideas about organizing the information a little bit differently and explaining things in slightly different ways. And so I was like, Ooh, I think it would make sense actually to go back through bigger, leaner, stronger, and thinner, leaner, stronger, and kind of look at it through the same prism, so to speak. And so the core information is not going to change and the core programming is probably not going to change, but I think I can now organize it a little bit better. And I'm also a better writer. I continue to write, I continue to read, I continue to work on that. So every so often, I think it makes sense to upgrade the books. And that's fun for me to be able to do because with a traditionally published book, it doesn't work like that. I mean, if a book does really well and it's been some time, then you can get a deal for a second edition, but it's a process. It's essentially treated like a new book deal. Whereas with a self-published book, I can do whatever I want. And, you know, I like being able to do that because I'm kind of a perfectionist and it actually bothers me. Like once I realized that

I can make enough meaningful changes to make a book of mine significantly better, not doing it, it just bothers me a lot. And so anyway, I'm excited to get that out. And again, I really appreciate you spreading the word about the book. I've always liked books and reading, and I came to really like writing, but books are pretty cool just for the reason you just gave is if it's good and it contains enough good information, it just makes for such easy word of mouth. And it helps. I've heard from a lot of people over the years who get asked a lot of questions. It's useful for them too, to be like, just read this book. Trust me. Like it'll answer all these questions. Yeah. That's what we do when they have questions. We say, can you just get this book? That's really what we say to people. Even if they don't have the book, never read it or miss our posts on it. I don't know

how they could, but even if they do, they are, if they're following our programs and our posts, they're following a thinner, leaner, stronger program. And without even knowing it, because that's what we live by. And that's what we typically come across as. But yeah, I don't want to hijack your conversation. So we can just get back to, I'm curious though, before we kind of go back to the beginning. So in terms of your after, what has changed now over the last couple of years, where are you currently at in your fitness? And again, that could be the more quantitative stuff. It could be the qualitative both. Yeah. So we are currently in our second cut following all your calculations.

We were in a maintaining stage beforehand where our first cut was actually after a bulking. And those are the before and after pictures that we sent you. Oh, good. Okay. I like it. You had the nerve to bulk early. A lot of women I've spoken with over the years, which I understand they're reluctant to go into a surplus because they get to a certain body fat level and they really like being that way and they like how their clothes fit and they don't want to give that up even if they know that they can get back to it fairly easily. I mean, to be honest, it took us five years to officially say we're doing this. To get the courage. It was really hard. I would never have done it. And that's why Anne and I are so good together is because I would have never

bulked on my own. The fact that we had each other and the fact that we could go through, well, another pair of jeans don't fit me, but we're lifting heavier and you know, and Oh, I guess we're not doing this or, Oh oh my gosh I'm eating till I'm sick full but we need the macros. I'm so full but you got to do it you got to get all your protein in or carbs in and knowing that we had that cut at the end was also really exciting to see how our bodies could change because at that point we hadn't done much of a change technically our first cut was I mean technically when we started reading thinner leaner stronger back in 2015 and then we kind of maintained and just lived the lifestyle um and then once 2019 came yeah um was when we did the

bulk and that was hard that was really hard I honestly think that was almost harder for me than cutting, to be honest. They're both so hard. And why? What were the bulking struggles? I'm sure it's the same stuff that a lot of guys are used to hearing. But again, a lot of women I've spoken with over the years, they are either not interested in bulking at all because they're still cutting or they're maintaining and they're thinking about bulking. Yeah. I think our biggest struggles with bulking came from one, life is busy and there's things and we're young. So we have weddings and we have bachelorette parties and gaining weight. Well, people see it as gaining weight, right? We knew we were gaining

muscle and doing it for the right reason. That's hard, right? We knew we were gaining muscle and doing it for the right reason. That's hard, right? Because you're going to all these events and you're like, I'm not my most fit self. So I think that was a struggle. Number two was honestly feeling uncomfortable. We are so used to being so active and doing at least hit like 20 minutes of sprints two times a week. And we really did reduce that. And that was almost hard for I would say that was really hard. Taking that away and like what we've always done in the past five years, I guess, and just being okay with reducing and doing a little bit more lists, if any lower intensity. So I think that was weird. And then then lastly it was probably I would say eating was hard

so it was kind of sad it wasn't almost fun like I love eating a lot yeah and again I think it goes back to that busy lifestyle for on going from thing to thing it's like we had to prepare which we do for a cut too but you have to bring all that stuff to make sure that you're not having to do it all at night when you get home yeah to make sure that you're not having to do it all at night when you get home to make sure that you're getting your macros in. We have normal work office jobs. So I would seriously bring like a cooler to work and have to eat all day. My coworkers were like, yeah, they're probably just confused. Like what is going on right now? You're like eating more than half of the guys in the office. No, we we truly were and it was interesting to see how much our bodies actually gained when we tell

people we were into 15 pounds above our normal they're like you're kidding you're five three you're five three how but then all of a sudden they saw us cut and then all of a sudden they saw us cut. And then all of a sudden we were so muscular yet dropped weight. They were like, wait a second, something you're doing is right. And we're like, well, yeah, that's what I'm telling you guys. So we just had to prove it. But it's mysterious though. It's like alchemy or something. It is. How did you deal with the body image stuff? Because again, just thinking back to a lot of the conversations I've had with

women over the years, that is a major point of why they are reluctant to bulk. Even women who want to gain more muscle in certain places, and they do understand that after their first year, year and a half or so, the recomp days are over. And if you stay in maintenance, you're not going to, and you train hard, you will make progress, but you're going to make a lot faster progress doing what you're doing. And I know though, that one of the big obstacles, one of the big hurdles that many of these women were just not able to force themselves over was just that they didn't want to go to social functions. And yeah, cause you know, at this point, they fitness has become part of their identity. And a lot of people now have seen,

oh, wow, you know, especially when they go through an initial round of cutting where they lose a bunch of fat and they gain some muscle. And I mean, some of these women, they haven't seen people in a while who come up literally say, I didn't even recognize you. Oh, my God, what are you doing? And then the next time it's like, oh, did you, are you still doing the, like, they'll get asked, like, are you, oh, are you still working out? And people don't mean it. They're not trying to allude to anything really. They're actually genuinely like, whoa, wait a minute. When I saw you last time, you were like, you know, super fit and now you're, you're not. going on yeah i think the mindset really helped us going into it knowing our goal and having each other throughout the way was really helpful also the

fact we did it in a minnesota winter yeah we had um those weddings it's a good call yeah no it is it was that like we always are wearing jackets in multiple layers it sounds silly but i think that helped lot compared to doing it. If we ever did it in the summertime or when did you do the same thing in the gym? Did you just keep your baggy stuff on? No. Yeah, we did. Oh yeah. We never, I mean, no, we never would wear sports bras or anything like that in the gym ever. No. And that makes sense. I mean, I think that's totally reasonable. And when I hear that, I don't think that's a weird, I mean, that's one of those simple little things you can do that helps if you don't have to see yourself in the mirror. Not that that's a bad, but if you don't have to, like, again, there is a point I understand when you get toward the end of the bulk, you actually feel just

kind of gross and you don't look gross. You just feel gross because you are force feeding yourself. You are overfeeding. And after months of it, you do not want to eat food anymore. And you don't obviously look the way you want to look. And it's not a big deal. I think it depends on the person, but if seeing your rounder, uh, quote unquote, fluffy yourself in the mirror all the time at the gym, if it's just going to make you not feel good, then it makes sense. Like keep the sweater on who cares. And like you said, you know, what you're working toward, you know, you can get there. Yeah. We always hype each other up. And so our confidence is also really high having one another being like, but look at how much you lifted this morning and stuff like that to each other's cheerleaders also is surrounding yourself around people who are going to lift you up through it.

I feel like it's actually a bigger deal than people make it. Right. So if you're doing it alone, I get that's hard. Well, it sounds dumb, but surround yourself with follow people on Instagram that are going through a bulk, you know, follow things that are like, Oh, other people are doing this when you're doing it. So alone that gets hard and we're lucky to have each other, but there are other ways that you can surround yourself around people that can keep you accountable and happy with your progress, even though it may look different than society's progress. Totally. And if somebody has the budget and the inclination, getting a coach can also be a big

help because that person can do that. And then they also can, of course, hold you accountable just to do the work. And it gives that extra certainty that you have things set up correctly. Things are moving in the right direction. You have an expert you can go to who's on call to answer any questions and so forth. Yeah. I feel like the biggest that we hear from people about bulking is they're like, well, what if I can't lose the weight once I gain it? And for us, we just cleared our mindset

of that. We're like, we're going to lose it. It's kind of like a no excuses. And so I think people getting over that hump is really hard. It's like, okay, you could gain all that weight, but will I have the motivation at the end to lose it all? Or will I just stay this big? And I think that's really the hump we've heard people come to us about. And it just like clear your mind of can't like you're going to do it. So, and like you said, at the end of it, you just feel so sick. I was going to say that you already said anybody who has gone through it knows that it's bad by the end of a bulk. You couldn't continue. It's almost like you couldn't, you could, if you had

to, but you are so done that you look forward to cutting. Oh, we were so excited. And not strictly because I want to lose the fat. Like, no, just the idea of cutting your calories in half is so appealing. Yeah. And we've, so now we've gone from bulking to cutting and now we've gone from maintenance to cutting and we're noticing, honestly, truly going from bulking to cutting. Like I'm not going to sugarcoat it. That was really hard. I think I cried. I mean, I was like, this is hard, but going from maintaining now to cutting a lot easier. I mean, I thought I was like, here we go buckle up, but I'm okay. I'm like, I'm pretty, I'm still full. I'm okay. I mean, yeah. And we were prepared after going through it once already with the cut that I think it just helped. It was so hard for us the first time that

our mindset was like, okay, this is gonna be so tough, where now it's, it's not as bad as we thought it would be. Thanks to your meal plan. Mike, you did that. Yeah, we did that on the first one, the first one to like, figure out how to do a cut was very helpful on ways like the amount of veggies and serving sizes was so helpful. And with the fruits, you know, making sure the more carb fruits we don't have as much where we weren't too familiar with serving sizes on that was a ton really helpful. Yeah. That's a, that's a great tip just for anybody listening. If you're not thinking with those factors when cutting, which is really just

trying to get as much volume in your meals for as few calories as you can. And what's cool about that is very nutritious foods. That is the best way to do it. So you also then, you know, get in enough micronutrients as well, which can be more difficult when your calories are restricted, if you're not paying attention. Yeah, you have to, and you don't realize that people, I think people are always like, okay, so you're just eating less. And it's like, no, we're actually more watching what, like how we're getting the right macro nutrients in our bodies versus like blueberries versus strawberries, like things like that, that your program really helped us like, wow, we can have a lot more strawberries than we can blueberries. You only

can have five of those. Yeah. Yeah i love strawberries yeah they're delicious and they're big and you can eat a lot for a small number of calories they're great yeah yeah so thank you for the help on that and that's a good one we always direct people to that too yeah we're like if you need help go to this meal plan versus trying on your own because it can be a little overwhelming yeah it's challenging for us and we've done it for years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I understand. Something else. I don't remember which of one of you, but one of you mentioned when bulking is also paying attention to performance and okay. So body comp isn't exactly what we want and we know why we're doing it. It's not a big deal. That's fine. But if you're doing your lean bulk correctly, you're probably having a lot of really good

workouts. I mean, I remember I haven't done it in a while, but I remember consistently finishing pretty hard workouts with, I mean, where I felt I could do all of that. Energy. Yeah. You have way more energy. Yep. More energy. And then again, one of you had mentioned performance and just patting yourself on the back and taking a moment to just recognize like, oh, look at that. I'm, you know, over the last month or so I've put five pounds on the bar, 10 pounds on the bar, and I'm consistently gaining reps, consistently gaining strength and acknowledging that that means that you're also gaining muscle. Once your newbie

gains are over, the correlation between strength and muscle building becomes very close in that it's very hard to continue gaining muscle if you are not continually gaining strength, regardless of what other types of techniques you're trying. If progressive overload isn't in there, you're probably just going to get stuck in muscle building. So that's also just a good tip when lean bulking is taking just the focus off the body comp and putting it more on some of these other factors. Tell me then how that first cut went and how did that compare to maybe things you had tried in the past? Had you ever tried to lose fat in the past? Yeah, no, we definitely tried to lose fat. I mean, you go half a bulk was very different. Yeah. Because when I, like I said, when I first read the book in 2015, that was when we were doing like our low weight lifting and mostly cardio. So we weren't how we were on the bulk back in the day. But when I read your book, then I started

following macros. And so I'd say I did my first cut then in 2015 and learning all of that routine, but it wasn't much of a change from that bulk to cut. Yeah. That was the bulk to cut. It's like, holy crap. When we went from like, oh, we read your book and started, we technically said we cut back in the day, but I mean, it wasn't as big of a change to now. And I think the biggest thing that we learned on our cut is that, and this is my favorite of the book is diets are fake. We love flexible dieting and we still eat candy on our cut. Like we still eat candy because we can fit it in. So I think that is so important for people to understand is that flexible dieting, like we will probably go to eat and have ice

cream tomorrow, but we'll fit it in and work backwards. So I think that was, that's a really fun, like, I love your book and how it talks about flexible dieting, because I think that's so important for burnout. Totally. I mean, it's just necessary for sustainability because unless you're, maybe it'd have to be money, right? Like unless you're getting paid a lot of money to be completely neurotic about your diet, it's just not worth it.

I mean, food is a source of pleasure and enjoyment as well. And that matters even to those of us who aren't very hedonistic by nature. It's still nice to eat foods you like, and it's not nice to not be able to eat stuff that you enjoy. It's not nice to follow boring, bland bodybuilder diets when you wish you could just have some candy, or you wish you could just have some ice cream. And of course, there's no reason to not at all,

but there are people out there who obviously, I think of some professional athletes I've come by who have just gotten weird advice from weird people and who think that they can't have certain foods because it's going to cause inflammation and that's going to cause problems in their joints or it's going to cause performance problems or body comp problems. And in their cases, of course, their entire livelihood revolves around their ability to perform. So they're very reluctant to do anything that might imperil that, but it can, they don't enjoy that. It's just, they feel like they don't have any other choice because if they can't continue in their career, what are they going to do? That's all they know how to do is play the sport well. You know what I mean? Right. But something to note on our cut after the bulk, we started our cut January of 2020. So three months into our cut in January,

2020, three months into our cut was COVID and gym shutdown. Yeah, that's an interesting one. So we had to figure out how do we do this at home and how do we progressive overload at home with only 12 pound weights. Yeah, that was in our bodies, of course, but we just did more reps than normal and progressively overloaded with reps over time compound movement, Which was very different than what we were used to and what we were planning on. So it was a little defeating at first, of course, realizing, oh no, we're three months in and having to kind of change that plan. For the last part. Yeah. And how did that go? Because that is just a comment. That is one way to progress, of course. It's just generally not as effective as being able to increase load. But I mean, you can make it work.

Yeah. And I think we're just overall moving our bodies more to getting out of the house, going on walks. Incorporating a list. I feel like that's one of our things that we learned in your book is, and we really took into account when we started our cut. We incorporated lists and we challenged ourselves to like, okay, this part of our cut, we're doing 10 K steps. And the last part we're doing 12 K steps a day. And I think

that's a missed key for a lot of people in our age. It's like older people go on walks and it's like, no, we should all be going on walks, doing low intensity on top of whatever you're doing here and there moving your body. So we did that a lot during our cut. And I feel like that was a really big key for us. Yes. And that was the first time we had ever done it ever. So that was a big change. It'll be interesting to see right now on our cut with the gym and all the access to all these different weights of how we'll look at the end of it compared to the last cut. Yeah. We'll be very interesting. Yeah. That's a great point. Walking in particular, I've written, I've spoken about walking. It's, I think it's very underrated because you can burn a fair amount of calories and it puts no stress

or strain on the body. So it doesn't cut into recovery at all. And it's nice to go outside, especially during COVID. And if you can get outside in nature, it's even nicer if there's just even like a park you can go walk through. If you want to make it even harder, an easy thing is you can turn it into rucking. You could like put stuff in a backpack, add weight and walk around. Or if you want to be fancy, like get an actual rucksack with the weight plates, but you can dramatically increase the calorie burning and just the difficulty of it. And for people who are fitter, they often like to do that just because why not? It doesn't get so hard that you are now grinding through it or that you can't do your phone call, for example, which is something that

I've talked about is I did the same thing during COVID because I was no longer driving to the office, to the gym. And I was like, I have some extra time, I guess. I have an upright bike here in my basement. I'll hop on that. I was normally doing like an hour, hour and a half per week. And I was like, I'll do 30 minutes of just kind of moderate intensity every day. And I'll just not change my calories. And so I lost like eight pounds over COVID. It was just like a very simple cut, basically. I've kept that in. And I often will plan for if I have calls that I have to do, then I just hop on the bike. And so I'm not even taking away from my day, so to speak, because I have to be on the phone anyway.

So yeah, absolutely. If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my sports nutrition company, Legion, which thanks to the support of many people like you is the leading brand of all natural sports supplements in the world. Where do you want to go from here? We're definitely going to bulk again at some point. And this is the excuse that probably everyone has when bulking. It's like, okay, but we have this wedding that we're in this year. We have this, we have this. Do we really want to be at our top weight in our bridesmaid dress? It's going to, you know,

so it's, it's all about full of excuses. So I think right now we're just talking about like, let's stop with the excuses. I think we'll maintain for a while through summer. I'm guessing. I don't know yet. We want to bulk again. So if you have any recommendations. We'll definitely bulk again. I think that this kind of is going to be shorter than our last just because we're coming off maintaining and not bulking. So hopefully, yeah, like 10 weeks, 10 to 12, then maintaining from there and knowing we'll just figure out, we'll sit down and figure out when would be best for the both of us to do our bulk together because we need each other. I cannot do it alone. That's why we're here. That makes sense. And my comments, that would be thinking with your year and your

social events. And so just working around that makes perfect sense, of course, and picking your period. And then you could also consider trying what I talk about in Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, which I would recommend that you read because the fundamentals, the information applies equally to women as it does to men. It's just, I will create a female version of that book. Again, a lot of the fundamentals are not going to change. I'll give new examples and there will be other alterations that I'll make knowing that I'm speaking to women. But the programming will certainly change because currently the program has more upper body volume than most women would want and less lower body volume than most women

would want simply because for men, it takes them generally a lot more upper body work to get the upper body that they want versus the lower body. But given your experience and what you know, you probably would find it very easy to change up and be like, oh, okay. So instead of like this second upper body workout here, we could actually just turn that into a lower body, or you could turn it into a full body, but like, Hey, we're going to take out two of these upper body exercises and put some more lower body in there. If that's what you wanted to do. And I think given where you're at in your fitness, you'll really enjoy the program. You'll find it challenging, but not overburdening. And I think, again, given the results you've gotten, you'll respond really well to it. Yeah, that's fun. That's another.

Yeah, that could be fun for particularly for the next lean bull. Cool. I honestly thought it was for only men. I know. I know. I mean, obviously the title. And the ties with the men, the bigger, leaner, stronger. I know. I know. And I will create what will obviously be beyond thinner, leaner, stronger. It's just unfortunately, I'm looking forward to it.

It'll be fun. But unfortunately it'll be some time because, so I have this Simon & Schuster book coming out next, I don't think they've chosen a month actually, sometime in the first quarter of next year. And then the agreement is I can't self-publish another book for, I believe it's six months after that. And then I have to wait another six months after that, six, six, and then I'm off the hook and I can do whatever I want. Yeah. So I just have a few manuscripts like in the works or in one case almost done. And I have those four slots I can use basically for self-publishing over the course of the next two years. And I have to decide what to use them on. I suppose if Muscle for Life does very well, I can probably ask Simon and Schuster to make an exception, but that's currently how the agreement stands. And so that's the only caveat is it's- We will be waiting.

Unfortunately, there's going to be a bit of a wait. But in the meantime, if you're inclined, you could check out the men's book and just understand that the fundamentals apply just as much to you as to guys. There just are going to be a lot of male examples. And then the programming is going to be probably too much upper body for your tastes. Okay. We actually prefer upper body. We love upper body. Okay, good. Well, then I made the wrong assumption just only because having spoken and worked with so many women over the years. The girls like the booty. That's what we know. Yeah. I hear so much of it. We love to have strong legs.

We have some sports. So we got we got good maybe good legs good genetics and we've been able to kind of keep up so we don't have to work as hard yeah well then you may like it exactly as it is then actually right we'll get it tonight cool cool well yeah let me know what you think when you check it out oh we will awesome we're looking at it right now actually we have it in front of us we just haven't Oh, cool. Let me know if you have any questions, of course. Well, yeah. Is there anything else that you had on your own outline, so to speak, that we haven't touched on?

It's actually kind of out of left field, but it's your Phoenix supplement. We are hoping to start. And if you have any advice on that, we've never done any fat burner supplements. And if you have any advice, let's hear your spiel. Yeah. I mean, of course it's not necessary like any supplement and it's just supplementary by definition. And I like the new formulation a lot. I can't take credit for it. Curtis, who heads up the research and development, and then we have a scientific advisory board who also weigh in on everything. So of course they get the credit for the creation of it. But I like that it is

almost like quote unquote on the cutting edge in terms of, they're not new ingredients. They're ingredients that now have enough good evidence to warrant their use. Whereas years ago, there were a few of these ingredients like grains of paradise, for example, that looked promising, but it was a bit early to say. And then so enough evidence accumulates to where then Curtis and others go. We can now sell this honestly and be able to promise some benefits that matter as opposed to hedging. Well, maybe it appears that it could possibly, you know, where you can then say, Hey, this is what it looks like. This is what it's going to do in most people. And so obviously primarily what the new formulation is going for is stim free. We do have a stim containing we have. So people now can choose, do you want

caffeine or not? Yeah, we did non-caffeine cause we, we dry scoop your pulse every single morning. So we need to chill on that. Yeah. Yeah. And I understand. And I also always preferred caffeine free because I want to get my caffeine from espresso or pre-workout, but there are people who don't do either. They don't do coffee and they don't do pre-workout and it's real easy for them. They like the convenience of caffeine in the fat burner. So with this fat burner, what we're going for is increasing calorie burning and without stimulants, which is cool and reducing hunger. And then also we could say improving some of the bodies, some elements of the body's kind of fat burning machinery. I know that sounds kind of strange, but without getting too technical,

helping your body better mobilize fat. And there are a couple of ingredients that, again, they're not stimulants, but they have been shown to help with fat loss, like forscolin. And it's not a stimulant, but it appears to increase fat burning to a slight degree. And that's the case with a lot of these ingredients. But when you look at the cumulative effect, I think that it is very reasonable to say that it can help you burn, let's say an extra 150 or so calories per day. It may be a little bit less than some people, a little bit more in other people and reduce hunger. And is that going to completely change the game? No, of course not. But that's fairly significant. I mean, if you're getting an extra 150 to 200 calories burned per day

and you're less hungry and it's a safe product. There are no even gray ingredients in it. There are no, for example, harsh stimulants in it that some people don't do well with. And if that sounds good to you, then that's really the reason to use it. And for people who hear that and they go, eh, I would rather just do a little bit more cardio or just lose fat a little bit slower and not bother with it, then I understand that as well. And of course, that's the case with any supplement with most. I mean, maybe there are a couple of health-related supplements that I would be more adamant about, or I would recommend more strongly because if you're not getting enough vitamin K, for example,

that's not good. If you're a woman and you're not getting enough iron, that's really not good. If you're not getting enough zinc, not good. Whereas not getting enough forscolin or grains of paradise when you're cutting, that's fine. Or Thai ginseng is another one. That's okay. So that's just kind of me rambling about the product. Again, I really like the new formulation and it can certainly help, but it is the remaining kind of, you have the basics, the fundamentals, that 20% that gives you 80%. That's your diet. That's your exercise.

That's your sleep hygiene. And then that remaining 20%, if you want to go after it, that's where supplementation comes in. Okay. That makes sense. That's interesting. Oh, another question. And maybe we're wrong, but I swear our last cut we used, I think it was, it must've been the first version of thinner, leaner, stronger. I think the macros were different. I thought they were 40, 40, 20. Now is it at 40, 40, 20? Yeah. So in an earlier edition of the book, there was a little bit less fat and actually I'm probably going to change that again in this new update. Tell us, tell us. Yeah. I just want people to know that I want to make it clear if I haven't made it clear that it's okay. If for example, and this is particularly a thing with women simply because they have fewer

calories than men. And sometimes it's quite a few fewer calories, right? And so it can be easier for a guy to get 20% of his calories from fat when he's cutting. In many cases, it's not an imposition at all. He's like, oh, I'll just eat a little bit less of the things I normally eat. That's fine. Whereas depending on the size of the woman, for example, if you have a smaller woman who's going to be cutting and then her calories are even less now. And for her, it can be trickier, not necessarily, there aren't any major health implications because again, this is a temporary thing. I would not recommend 15, 20% of calories from fat forever. But if you're doing it for a short period of time, let's say it's the last month of your cut or it's even a two month cut or whatever.

Yeah, it's going to have some negative short-term completely reversible effects on your hormones, for example, also in men, slight differences, nothing major. And it does allow you to eat more carbs though. And some people, especially when cutting, like that they can have much better workouts with more carbs. So there is a trade-off there. And what I will make it clear though is just that for cutting, I women, particularly to know that there's a range of a big range of carbs and fats that you'll want to get your protein. We want that somewhere around 40% of daily calories or about a gram. We want that, but the carbs and the fats are completely negotiable. And you know, if you're making your meal plan and you're like eh this 35 grams or 40 grams of fat

per day is kind of annoying to me because of how i like to eat i would rather if i could get to 50 or 60 grams a day i could eat a lot of the things that i like to eat that's totally fine yeah that's interesting that makes sense because when we even when we're maintaining obviously it's a lot more flexible but when we hit our protein goal, like kind of carbs and fat or whatever, cause we still eat healthy. But when we hit our protein goal, we see change so much faster. So that's our number one, like every day it's like whatever the carbs and fat it's like the protein, which we learned from you. We did learn from you. Yeah, that's smart. That's exactly. I just want to make sure that is completely clear in the book. And I don't want

women to think that they have to get 20% of their calories from fat. It can't be 30. It can't be 40. Whereas I do think that protein is important enough to ultimately, I mean, people, if they want to eat less protein, that's fine. They're still going to get results, but it deserves the stress and the emphasis. Whereas carb and fat intake do not deserve nearly as much. Again, those are very negotiable. You have a lot of leeway to just figure out what works well for you. And you're just trying to balance the foods you like to eat and performance in the gym really, because what will happen if somebody, and this is again, usually a bigger issue with women because of the absolute amount of food and how it's a lot less than with men. If a woman prefers a high fat diet

simply because the foods she likes to eat the most tend to be fatty, and then she brings her carbs down accordingly. If her carbs get too low, her workouts are, especially if she gets deeper into a cut. And especially if she's deeper into a cut and especially if she's like training early in the morning or fasted, it's not fun. It's not fun. You can do it, but yeah, it's not very motivating. I guess you could say you just kind of, you know, you get in there and you do your chores and you get out and that's how it feels. Whereas if that woman were willing to trade some of those higher fat foods for some higher carb foods. She might prefer that simply because she generally has more energy. She's generally fuller. She generally has better

workouts, even if that means quote unquote, giving up a few of those foods that she likes. And just knowing that, well, I've replaced it with some carb stuff that I like, and that's fine. And when I get back to maintenance, I'll probably switch this up again, you know? For sure. Cool. That was interesting to me because when I was redoing the calculations for our cut, I texted Anne and I'm like, something's off. I was like, this doesn't feel right. I think it's different. I don't know. We've got to ask. So thanks for explaining that. That was interesting. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I was just going to say a couple of things we wanted to share with you regarding how much we look up to you and everything that we've been showing our followers.

A couple of fun things is we've been doing the myth Mondays from Michael Matthews. We tag you and it literally says myth. Yeah, I see them. So that's been really fun in one of our workout programs. We have a core exercise named after you as well. I did not know that. It's called the Michael. It's called the Michael Matthew. Hilarious. Now that we think about it. I think it's funny. That's a core exercise too. Honestly, in transparency, people like we don't really do that much anymore because we do so many comps.

Because you don't need to. You don't. But when you do and people ask for it every day it's like we do the weighted core and we talk about how like your abs are muscles too you don't do body weight on legs every day so the the workout is like weighted it's three weighted exercises and finish with the burnout of body weight until failure yeah from your book so that's why it's named after you and then we have all in the our free program that we like launched because kind of learning about you and that's when we were encouraged there is a page about literally stronger and you and how you like impacted us and if you want to know more about our journey we recommend following you in this book so we had to tell you that because it's a full

section in our workout guide yeah that's awesome i awesome. I'm flattered. That's great. We just, we have to thank you for it because we always tell, I know, you know, Miles and Jessica from Legion. We always were like, we love, and we call you Michael Matthews because that's what the book is. Yeah. So yeah, Mike, we're like, no, you mean Michael? Yeah. Actually it was like, Hey, what, what i maybe maybe michael sounds more authoritative or authorial or something even though i'm a i'm a very informal person so mike is i would not introduce myself as oh michael i'm michael we always call him michael we're like oh we have a podcast with michael and then we're like, I don't think anyone calls him that, but us. We're going to continue to call you that. I like it. I like it. So thank you.

Yeah. I mean, absolutely. Again, I love these types of interactions just because this to me is, this is the real payoff. And with so much of my work, it's pretty lonely. I just kind of sit in my cave and researching or if I'm writing and I can go days without many social interactions outside of my family and checking in with some people at work. So it's always nice to hear the personal impact of the work. So I appreciate you giving me a chance to help and it's great to see that you're putting in the work and, you know. A lot of our success and in physical and mental from you. So thank you.

Lots more to come to always working on the next thing. So we're ready. So let's quickly just wrap up where people can find you. And if you want to tell them anything about your work, anything new and exciting that you have, or just something that you think they may be interested in. Yeah. So because of thinner, leaner, stronger, we actually launched our, for our Instagram, where we thought it was just our friends and family would want to follow along on our journey. It's called mini hustlers. It's M I N N Y. Cause we're from Minnesota, um, hustlers. It's M-I-N-N-Y because we're from Minnesota. Hustlers. And we really just share kind of our journey through bulking, cutting. And then really what helped us grow was that guide

that we talked to you about. And that's free. So we did a free guide when COVID shut down. And we really, truly thought two people would want it it and it's blown up since November. So that's something that's really interesting. And that's where we talk a lot about you on Instagram. It's many hustlers and we have another guide that is more extensive and then coming soon, we have a gym guide, which is going to be probably our favorite one yet, because it's going to be in the gym which is where we lift heavy and showing people that you don't have to get muscle confusion you don't have to do all this crazy stuff so really learning what we've learned from you truly and putting it into a guide and

it's it's going to be awesome that's great yeah and hoping to get that out there for when gyms and everything is back to normal so people can have that as a resource. Where are gyms at over there? They're not full capacity. I think they're about 50 to 75% and you have to wear a mask, which we still go because we're like, yeah, I mean, I still, I did my first mast workout ever actually, because I was in LA and that was my only option. So I'm like, sure, fine, whatever. You know, I don't like wearing a mask simply because it's obnoxious. I mean, it is just obnoxious. Of course, I'm happy to do it if I need to.

And it's not a big deal. I don't feel, I think, very strongly about it. But if I don't have to, yeah, I don't want to because I don't like it. And particularly with working out, I was like, yeah, I could do without this. But hey, if that's what I had to do, I'd be doing it. And a lot of people say the same thing too, is, and a lot of people are at home right now, which is why we launched two home guides. But when things open up and go back to normal, we're kind of planning ahead to, we hear a mask mandate ends on X, Y, and Z day. We'll launch it

the week before. So people have an opportunity to have something, a program to stick and follow to right when they go back. So fun things for the hustlers. I mean, and something to consider though, is gyms are a lot of gyms around the country, depending on which state and even which county, a lot of gyms are fully open already. I mean, I've seen it in book sales. I've seen it in regions sales, definitely correlated with gyms starting to open back up. Just throwing that out there that it may make sense for you to just move ahead because you have a lot of people now who are getting back in the gym and you have a lot of people who are getting into fitness for the first time or for the first time

in a while because of, yeah, gaining weight during COVID. And then also now with the information we have, I mean, according to a recent study I saw, they had looked at thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. There's a retrospective study of COVID patients. And I believe it was about 78% were overweight or obese. And it was like 27, sorry, 78% to be clear, hospitalizations, ventilations, and deaths. So 70%, 78, and it was about 27% were overweight and a full are overweight or obese. And that has given them the impetus to get serious this, you know, okay, that's it. I do not want to be overweight or obese. I want to get to a healthy body weight, healthy body composition. What do I have to do to do that? Go looking for information, come across my stuff and then they go, okay, so gyms are open. Let's start, let's do this, you know? Yeah. Maybe maybe yeah yeah we should we forget that

we're we have people outside of minnesota that follow us yeah that follow many us there's so good point yeah we're stuck in our bubble we need to expand so thank you for the push yeah go take a trip to florida if you want to see the opposite end of the spectrum yeah we have a couple times actually this year it's been different and. And Arizona too has been very open. Great. Well, thanks again for taking the time to do this. I really appreciate it. Yeah.

Thank you so much for having us. It was honestly a dream come true that we never thought we would ever have the opportunity to talk to you. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, yeah, it was my pleasure and keep up the good work. Definitely keep me posted. We will.

Thanks, Michael. All right. Well, that's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and you don't mind doing me a favor, please do leave a quick review on iTunes or wherever you're listening to me from in whichever app you're listening to me in, because that not only convinces people that they should check out the show, it also increases search visibility. And thus it helps more people find their way to me and learn how to get fitter, stronger, healthier, and happier as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any new stuff. And if you didn't like

something about the show, please do shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com, just muscle F-O-R life.com and share your thoughts on how I can do this better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, even if it is criticism. I'm open to it. And of course, you can email me if you have positive feedback as well, or if you have questions really relating to anything that you think I could help you with. Definitely send me an email. That is the best way to get a hold of me. Mike at Musclefulife.com. And that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.