Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Interview With Author and Trainer Mike Vacanti From OnTheRegimen.Com

Episode Date: June 7, 2016

This book will show you how to build muscle, lose fat, and get strong: http://goo.gl/lKNKWK In this podcast, I interview fellow writer, trainer, and, well, Mike, Mike Vacanti and we talk about how to get fit when you travel and are just insanely busy, how things change when you're very overweight, and why you shouldn't sweat the "little things" and use the bigger picture to stay on track. 5:27 - How to stick to a diet when you are busy. 25:49 - How to exercise when you are busy. 35:22 - How to diet and exercise when you are obese. 53:05 - Not worrying about the minutia. ARTICLES RELATED TO THIS PODCAST: The 3-Step Skinny Fat Solution: http://www.muscleforlife.com/skinny-fat-solution/ How to Make Meal Plans That Work For Any Diet: https://legionathletics.com/diet-meal-plans/ How Many Calories You Should Eat (with a Calculator): https://legionathletics.com/how-many-calories-should-i-eat/ How Many Grams of Fat Should You Eat Per Day? http://www.muscleforlife.com/how-many-grams-of-fat-per-day/ How Much Protein You Should Eat to Build Muscle: http://www.muscleforlife.com/how-much-protein-build-muscle/ Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, it's Mike, and this podcast is brought to you by my books. Seriously, though, it actually is. I make my living as a writer, so as long as I keep selling books, I can keep writing articles over at Muscle for Life and Legion and recording podcasts and videos like this and all that fun stuff. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger if you're a guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger if you're a girl. Now, these books, they basically teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build

muscle, lose fat, and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or grind away in the gym every day doing workouts that you hate. Now you can find my books everywhere. You can buy books online like Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you're into audiobooks like me, you can actually get one of my books for free, one of my audiobooks for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to muscleforlife.com forward slash audiobooks. That's www.muscleforlife.com forward slash audiobooks. And you can see how to do this. Now also, if you like my work in general, then I really think you're going to like what I'm doing with my supplement company, Legion.

Now, as you probably know, I'm not a fan of the supplement industry. I mean, I've wasted who knows how many thousands of dollars over the years on worthless supplements that really do nothing. And I've always had trouble finding products that I actually thought were worth buying and recommending. And well, basically I had been complaining about this for years and I decided to finally do something about it and start making my own products. And not just any products, but really the exact products that I myself have always wanted. So a few of the things that make my supplements unique are one, they're a hundred percent naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because

on our website, we explain why we've chosen each ingredient and we also cite all supporting studies so you can go dive in and check it out for yourself. Three, all ingredients are also included at clinically effective dosages, which are the exact dosages used in the studies proving their effectiveness. This is important, of course, because while something like creatine is proven to help improve strength and help you build muscle faster, if you don't take enough, then you're not going to see the benefits that are seen in scientific research. And four, there are no proprietary blends, which means that you know exactly what you're buying. All our formulations are 100% transparent, both with the ingredients and the dosages. So you can learn more

about my supplements at www.legionathletics.com. And if you like what you see and you want to buy something, use the coupon code podcast, P O D C A S T, and you'll save 10% on your order. All right. Thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get to the show. Hey, this is Mike and welcome to another episode of the podcast. In this podcast, I interview a friend of mine and fellow writer and online trainer and all-around good guy, Mike Vacanti from OnTheRegimen.com. And in this interview, we talk about how to stay fit when you're super busy, which Mike knows quite a bit about because he has been training a guy named Gary Vaynerchuk for the last year or so. And Gary's a big online entrepreneur, speaker investor type of dude. And he has a pretty crazy lifestyle, crazy work schedule. He travels all over the country and

all over the world. And it has been Mike's job to get him in shape in the middle of all that. So as you can imagine, Mike has learned a few things about meal planning and training when you're super busy. We also talk about how a few things about meal planning and training when you're super busy. We also talk about how things change in terms of diet and training when you're very overweight and how to get the best results. And lastly, we have a little discussion about why it's important to not sweat all the minutia when it comes to getting in shape and not lose perspective and an appreciation for the bigger picture of what we're really going for.

So I hope you like the interview. Let's get to it. Hey, Mike, thanks for coming on the podcast. It's about time that I had you on the podcast. I've actually been emailing randomly for however many months now. For a long time. Yeah, I know. I'm excited to be on here. Thank you. Yeah, definitely. So, all right. So what we're going to talk about is we'll talk about just for the listeners to know what are they getting into. So we're going to talk about how to modify your training and your diet when you're super busy, which will be great, not just for people that are super busy,

but then when you have periods where you have to travel or if things are a bit crazy. I hear from new parents fairly frequently that now they go from having all this time and they can run their life exactly as they want to realizing now that's just all gone now. Um, and we'll talk about, uh, changing, how you change things for people that are very overweight, which is another good subject that I've written a bit about, but, um, haven't really gone in depth and talked much about. So that, that'll be good. And then, uh, talk about, uh, uh, stop obsessing about the minutiae and how to not, you know, how to stay fit without like

turning into a neurotic basically. Even though I guess we all kind of, you, we have to, we all, we all, there are little, little bits of neuroses that come with it, but how to, how to at least minimize that. Yeah. Move a little further away on the spectrum. Yeah, exactly. And then whatever else we get into. So those are going to be the main topics. Sounds good. I'm excited. Yeah, man. All right. So let's just start with with the first which is modifying how to how to stay fit when you're super busy. And, you know, maybe you can tell a little about your story, not just not just your experience with this personally, but also, you know, how you have had to deal with your with Gary and how you've made it work. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So I train Gary Vaynerchuk, a client who I'm with every single day in the gym, and he has the busiest schedule I've ever seen. Monday through Friday, just literally packed 6 a.m. to midnight with meetings and everything. And he made a decision back almost two years ago now that he wanted to go all in on health and fitness. And so he hired me as his full- Why did he decide to do that? Given how busy he is, a lot of people, they don't. I mean, that's the part. I know quite a few people that maybe are not that busy, but are successful business people. And they just are like, that's the one area that they're just like, well, whatever. Hopefully I don't get cancer and die.

That was actually it. It wasn't like there wasn't a scare moment. There wasn't like a heart attack. There wasn't any, there wasn't a family member dying that put him over the edge. It was, he's actually told me the story. He was sitting on a plane. He was 38 or 39 years old and just realized, I really treat my body like shit. I don't pay attention to this at all. I'm not serious about working out. He would go through spurts where he would train six times over the course of two months and then take a year off.

And he said that he realized eventually this was going to catch up to him in his late forties or maybe mid fifties or whenever it was like his body wasn't going to be that good to him in the bodybuilding world. We would call like he was skinny fat at the time, five, eight, 185 pounds, but like no muscle basically., his physique didn't look that bad. It just looked like kind of a normal dude. Yeah, exactly. But, but he realized that longterm, this isn't going to be good for me. I need to make a change. I've tried hiring trainers in the past. I've tried doing it myself and it's never worked before. Let me try this as like a, a new crazy idea. And how do you find his way to you? Um, so I interned for his previous trainer, John Romanello. And how do you find his way to you? So I interned for his previous trainer,

John Romanello. And when Roman moved to Los Angeles, Gary needed someone new to work with in LA or in New York, sorry. And Roman made that intro. That's how we linked up. Nice. Cool. Okay. So sorry to interrupt there. So, all right. So now you're with him, you're training him. And then how has that worked? Really well. Like it, it has just worked. I'm around 24 seven. I travel with him. I go on his family vacations. I like his business trips. I'm with him. And so I'm keeping him on track with food. Um, I'm, we're getting workouts in every day, like whether it's just some low intensity cardio or whether it's a

stretching day, because he wants to do something seven days a week. Like that momentum is part of his mindset. Um, but yeah, he he's made amazing progress. He's down probably 35 pounds of fat and up 10 ish pounds of muscle in almost two years. That's great. He's done really well. Yeah. So logistically, how has that worked now? So, okay. So we have somebody That's great. He's done really well. Yeah. So logistically, how has that worked now? So, okay. So we have somebody that's listening. Maybe they don't, I mean, I I'm busy. I'm not, I can't say, I can't say Monday to Friday. I get up at six, but then I'm in the gym. I can't say Monday to Friday, six to midnight. Some days is like that, but so, so logistically, how do you make that work for him? We can talk about food training from a, there's the day to day. And then

there's also the bigger picture of week to week where I'm sure training from a, there's the day to day. And then there's also the bigger picture of week to week where I'm sure you have to, especially with the, I mean, food is easier to control, but with workouts, I'm sure you have to kind of, some things you have to change on the fly. Like today you were going to do this and now all of a sudden that's not going to work because of some fire that he has to go put out or whatever. Yep. Yep. First, it's completely different for most people, meaning that the solution, if you're really busy, isn't hire a full-time trainer to take care of you. It's not practical. It's expensive. And then if you can do that, you might as well hire the chef and then...

Yeah. Yeah. Just go the whole nine yards. But through training him and through just working with busy people online and talking with busy people, the modifications that I have found most effective are, one is training frequency. So if you are someone who wants to get the most out of your workout, strength train for 45 to 60 minutes, three to maybe four days a week. 45 to 60 minutes, three to maybe four days a week. Do as little as possible while still hitting your compound moves, the rest of the overload, like things you talk about on this podcast that your listeners know to do. I actually think that there are a lot of nutrition modifications specifically around meal timing and the types of foods you're eating. For example, very busy people often have a lot of lunch meetings, a lot of dinner meetings, a lot of like fancy restaurants. And as you know,

fancy restaurant is code butter, oil, like just sugar. Yeah. All of the dietary fats and carbs and just, just everything. Um, so play with meal timing. If you know that three, four, five days a week, you're eating out and that's just where you're going to be, factor in 50 or 60 grams of fat. And for lunch, maybe just have a protein shake. Maybe have a bowl of veggies with some chicken or some salmon or some turkey. Yeah, just keep it lean and light during the day, knowing that in the evening, that's when you're going to use up more of your calories. Yeah. I mean, I do that. I do that. I've just been on kind of on a maintain for quite some time now, just because I'm generally happy with where I'm at with my physique. And I like to stay within maybe four to six weeks of being really lean if I need to do something for, if I

have some reason to be really lean. But I mean, I'll do that just if I'm going to go out to dinner just with my wife or whatever. I mean, I'm just like, well, if I'm going to go out to dinner, If I'm going to go out to dinner just with my wife or whatever, I mean, I'm just like, well, if I'm going to go out to dinner, I like to kind of just eat what I want to eat. And I can eat a lot of food. So I'm looking at probably 2,000 to 3,000 calories for dinner to really enjoy myself. So I'll just eat my protein and save all my carbs and fats essentially for the dinner. Yeah. And it's not an all or nothing thing. You don't have to pick the strategy and that's what you're doing for the rest of your life. Yeah. Day-to-day

changes, especially when you're busy day-to-day is going to change. So making those modifications to most realistically get close on, on calories and protein for the day. Yeah, exactly. And so let's talk about food choices then. So he has to go out to a restaurant. Do you, do you, have you talked to me any about that? Or is he just kind of eat whatever he feels like eating or is he know like, all right, these are the types of foods that you, you, I mean, it's okay if you want to eat them, but if you really want to prevent damage, stay away from this or that, or try to order these types of things or try to limit alcohol consumption or

whatever. He's gotten an idea of good and bad, like quote unquote good and bad. Cause it's all contextual. Yeah. Just, just because we've been doing this for so long, but no,

I literally, I go on the restaurant website and check out their menu and I make estimates early on. I would call and be like, Hey, is like, how do you prepare this salmon? Or what is this type of sauce?

Just so I had a better idea. We've loosened up a little bit since those first hardcore few months. Food choices at nice restaurants, what he's usually doing is he's usually having fish. Even vegetables, dude, at nice restaurants. The Brussels sprouts are good. They're so good. They're delicious because there's so much butter and oil in them. I know.

But it's not so bad. You get to eat all these delicious vegetables and maybe you're getting, what, a couple tablespoons of oil or butter? Like, whatever. Who cares? That's not 200 grams of fat. That's where the problem is. That's where, like, when you're going for the fattiest appetizers and then a fatty entree and then the macaroni and cheese and then the pie and then the ice cream and then... Yeah, that's when it all adds up. However, I will say this, people don't know

that the sauce on the salmon has an extra 18 grams of fat and the Brussels sprouts have an extra 34 grams of fat. The 12 oysters they had as an appetizer that they thought were a pretty decent choice actually had another, whatever, 28 grams of fat. And you're doing that consistently. That's going to add up. Yeah. But you can do it by modifying meal timing during the day. And then, yeah, I mean, in that case, again, I mean, obviously we're not, we're just railing against fat. They shouldn't be eating fat. But the point of why we're, why we keep on talking about fat is because it's so calorie dense. That's, that's the thing.

And also from a, from a nutrient like partitioning type of, I guess, as it would be, that would be the term, like what your body does with nutrients. The nice thing about protein and carbs, and Mike, you know this, I'm just kind of saying for listeners, nice thing about protein and carbs that your body has other things that it can do with them other than just store them as body fat. Whereas that's basically what happens with dietary fat. And that's one of its primary purposes is to help maintain our fat stores because we need to have body fat, stay alive. And, you know, fat oxidation, the energy cost is very low to when, when you eat fat, it doesn't cost much energy to store it as body fat. So, you know,

that's why we keep on talking about fat because the calories get out of control. And so like, if you go eat a 200, a meal with 200 grams of fat, which is not that hard to do if in a restaurant, if you can eat quite a bit of food like me, and if you choose the wrong,

wrong types of foods. So you do that plus alcohol. I mean, think of a pound weighs, what is it, 453 grams or so. So if, I mean, it is very possible to gain up, I think upwards of probably a quarter to a half a pound of fat in one meal. If you really overdo it and you drink, that can be done. And then multiple nights a week. Yeah. And then all of a sudden now, you're wondering how did you gain two pounds of fat in

a week or two? Yeah. Building off that, one thing, another tip, call it whatever you want, for busy people is don't feel the need to be obsessive about hitting specific macronutrient targets and like being very dialed. Um, because it's just going to lead to a mindset of, okay, I'm trying to be perfect. I'm trying to hit these numbers. And if I don't, then, you know, it's, it's a logical fallacy, but it's like, Oh, I'm 10 grams over. Screw it. I may as well eat X, Y, Z thing. Keep calories in a range for your goal. And what range do you try to like, okay, so if they're cutting, how close to the targets? I mean, also, of course, energy expenditure is really, we're talking about an estimation of energy expenditure. And we don't really know what our TD really is. And it's a

moving target as well. But you know, when you're working off of a number, what do you like to see? I like to say plus or minus 100 is a good range. If you're in there, you're going to see real progress over time. The difference between 2,000 and 2,100 calories is not a lot. Yeah, exactly. And then with the specific macronutrients, I just, because I have an article that SEOs very well about counting macros, I get a lot of those types of questions and like very obsessive types of questions about it. But as long as you're getting adequate protein and your calories are pretty close, like your carb to fat ratio, whether you're consuming a bit more fats and a bit fewer carbs or vice versa

on a day-to-day basis, that's not going to hurt progress. That's not going to make or break you. Yeah. Yeah. And also, I mean, just to jump in on that, it's also, I get those type of questions too, where people are either worried from just, is it going to mess up my weight loss or am I going to gain weight from that viewpoint? But then also the viewpoint of health and because high fat dieting is kind of trendy right now. And a lot of people think that your body needs a lot more fat than it actually does to do what it needs to do. So I would say, I would just add to that, that get your, especially that's especially true if you're getting your omega-3 fatty acids in, which can be tough to do with your diet. I mean,

if you eat a lot of fatty fish, like sounds like Gary does, then maybe he doesn't need to supplement. But then again, the better sources of omega-3s, the fatty fish that are the better sources are also tend to be very high in pollutants and you're not supposed to eat them all that frequently. So you kind of have a catch 22 there. But if you, if you, I just supplement because it's easy, you know, four grams of fish oil a day done. So yeah, exactly. I take it in the morning. Um, so, so if you're getting your omega threes in and your saturated fat isn't out the roof, you know, um, I, I, I recommend that people follow just still the, the general guidelines of, um, 10% or less of your calories. And then, so you want to get the majority of your calories from unsaturated fat, from oils and nuts

and things and avocado and blah, blah, blah. So if you have just your basics in, then, you know, your, your fat can be, uh, it could be 50 grams one day and 25 grams the next day. And if you just flip flop, it doesn't, it's not going to negatively affect your health. Yeah. Yeah. And I wasn't, the only reason I'm railing on fats is because when I want Gary being at about 50 grams and he's at 150 grams because he's at a restaurant, it's just going to prevent fat loss progress. Yep. Or, or, you know, you get into that where if then if you have to cut your carbs too much, you just don't really have the energy that you, that you're used to and your training sucks. And yep. Yeah. Okay, cool. So then anything else on the nutrition side? So,

so people are, what about, what about on the go? What about like, okay, it's not necessarily fancy restaurants, but what about for someone like, I'm sure Gary Pryor runs in this, right? Where he's going to be on planes and he's going to be in meetings and he doesn't even have, there's no time to stop even to eat at a restaurant. I think dropping meal frequency is what makes sense there. Or taking the little bit of time. And I don't know if it's 20 minutes on Sunday night, or whenever you can squeeze a little time in, to plan. Even if it's just three days at a time or a week at a time and say, okay, this two days is pretty crazy busy.

I'm not in love with protein bars, but I'm going to buy a couple or I have them stocked up because when I'm traveling, this is a convenient, albeit not perfect, solution to get me from here to here. And there are other convenient food sources, non-perishables. You can bring many types of fruit. You can bring nuts. You can bring snacks. If you think that being on an airplane and binging on plain food or buying something that you shouldn't buy is going to be an issue, then you should absolutely try to bring a snack that's going to hold you over that's going to prevent that from happening. Yeah, totally agree. There's also, I mean, just on that, if there's a little bit of simple meal prep that you can do, I mean, the simplest would be like you were saying, put some fruit in a bag or a container or put some nuts or whatever. But there are quite a few little recipes out there where you can whip things together

that it's fine if it's not in the fridge for six hours and you can eat it and enjoy it, whether it be simple salads or cottage cheese. Low-fat cottage cheese I personally like. It's just a really easy, quick, simple source of protein that you can doctor up in different ways to make it taste good. So if, you know, with just a little bit of time and creativity, uh, and, and forethought, I think it's fairly easy to prevent where you're stuck now and you haven't eaten anything and you're starving and then there's the fast food joint or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And if that the fast food joint at the airport, when you're boarding in 11 minutes and you don't have time to sit down, but you do have time to get Wendy's, you can make adjustments.

You can get the salad with grilled chicken or whatever, or you can have protein powder in your bag. And that's a 90-second solution that you drop a little Ziploc baggie of two scoops of Legion Whey Plus into your... I mean, that's what I use, so I'm just... Yeah, plug. And shake it up, chug it, rinse it out in the bathroom, and two minutes later, you literally have 50 grams of protein, have a banana, and you're on your way, hold you over three, four, five hours until you can have that real meal.

Yeah, I do the same thing when I travel. Just throw X number of scoops in a bag and just have it. it's also nice because when I'm traveling, I don't travel much, but I don't like to spend much time eating. If I'm going somewhere, it's usually, I don't travel much for work. So if I am going to go anywhere, it's going to be for something personal. And for personally, like, I don't, I mean, eating is fine, but I don't like having to, you know, lose a few hours a day just to eat random, just have to stop to eat random food. You know what I mean? Like I personally would probably rather just eat a protein shake and eat some fruit than have to take the time to go sit down and eat somewhere that it's not like particularly good. It's just you need to eat.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And more like expensive too which matters true yeah oh okay so let's see is there anything else on the nutrition side that uh that pops into your head that you've modifications you've made for gary eating foods that you enjoy like english peas for him have been this crazy thing where they take time to eat so they're a little bit of work which which he kind of likes. On the

weekends when he's not working, he tends to snack and being around with wife and kids. And like the kids are eating, he'll pick at their plate. But if he has something, and it took us a while to figure out what that is, but like English peas or pomegranates, things that take work, that have some fiber, so keep you a little bit more full, and are low calorie density. That's one like hack, if you want to call it that, that has helped a lot. Finding foods that you enjoy that are healthy or reasonably healthy. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Because snacking, I mean, I'm not a big snacker personally, but a lot of people don't realize how much, how quickly that can add up. If it's, you know, again, just picking from people's food or just eating little things here

and there, you can easily eat an extra thousand calories a day and snacks without really feeling like you ate all that much. For sure. And, and this isn't relevant to the busy people, but when, when someone tells me that they're hungry 247 or that they can't stop snacking, the first place my mind goes are, well, what are you doing? Like in life, what are you doing when you get hungry? And generally, it's nothing. It's downtime. It's relaxation. It's if you can have, and I'm not saying work, work, work is the right way to go, but if you can at least have something like an activity that you're intentionally doing, go for a walk.

Read a book that you really want to be reading. Just avoiding the mindless waste of time because that extra mental capacity or boredom is one reason a lot of people end up snacking. That's very true. It's just a psychological trigger. It reminds me of what smokers run into where there's certain situations where they've always smoked or it just makes them want to smoke. So even after they've quit, they have a hard time resisting it. So same type of deal. There are just circumstances that make you want to eat. And that's a good point and that that's just that's with some self-awareness then somebody can reflect on that we're asking that question so what

what instead of just chalking it up to genetics or i'm just always hungry or whatever what am i doing that uh makes me want to eat food not because i'm'm hungry, really. Because there's that overlap between the physiological and the psychological when it comes to hunger. And what is it really? Is your stomach growling and it's painful? That's real physiological hunger? Or are we talking about a psychological desire to eat, which then we classify as hunger? You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. For me, when I'm back at my parents' house in Minnesota, I will go for the carb cupboard every single time. Cereal. Yeah, like cereal, granola bars. There used to be Pop-Tarts in there sometimes. That's crackers. That's just where, and even now, even on a rest

day when I'm a little bit lower carb, if I'm hanging out at home with my family, I find myself opening the cupboard door. I'm like, why am I doing this behavior when I'm not hungry right now? It's funny. Yeah, totally. Okay, cool. And now let's talk about the exercise and training side of things. So what kind of modifications and how do you make it work for Gary with how insanely busy he is? I don't know that he is the best example. I guess there's something. If he's coming off of a red eye and on the training program, we're starting with four sets of heavy bench press in the three to four rep range. And then after that, we're doing three sets of incline. If we have a big day scheduled, I'm backing off with weight.

I might move that workout to the next day and do something else, lower intensity in its place. I might just do a lighter weight, lower volume workout, depending on the context of the entire schedule. But not getting married to just increasing weight on the bar every single session, regardless of what's going on in your life. Because what's going on in your life matters a lot. Stress matters a lot. Sleep matters a lot. I ran into that myself just recently where I wasn't sleeping. Well, randomly, I've even read about this and apparently there's no real validity to it, but for whatever reason, I sleep maybe about six hours. That's my average. And that's totally fine if I don't wake up multiple times, if I can just go to sleep and wake up, that's, that's naturally about what I, what it takes for

me to feel rested. But if I go to bed, so I was, I was like, I was working late and then I would read and I would read until maybe like 1215, usually not later than 1215, my alarms at 615. Um, and I, for whatever reason, if I, if I stop reading and I just like, okay, time to go to sleep at 1145, I don't wake up. I sleep better throughout the night. And I mean, I tried changing caffeine intake. I don't, I don't have that much caffeine, maybe four or 500 milligrams a day on average and not, not either, either one to 200 or none on the weekends. But for whatever reason, what time I actually start going to sleep, because I fall asleep within maybe five minutes. That's the only thing I could find that was correlated at all. And I like did it multiple times where I would try to go to bed later. And even if I'm this placebo affecting

myself, I don't know, at this point, though, I just have to accept that if I go to sleep before 12, I just tend to sleep better. And so I was running into that in my training where I was waking up, you know, with I wake up wake up to, I'd wake up at like, it was really annoying actually. So I'd go to sleep, let's say 1230, I'm asleep or 1220 or whatever, depending on when I stop reading. And I would wake up at like, I'd wake up and I'd be like, oh, it's time to get up, but I'd feel like tired. And I'd look and it's like 230. I'm like, okay. And then go back to sleep and wake up again. Like, okay, now it's definitely time to wake up. And it'd be like five 30. And then now it was only a 45 minutes. So that was, that was like over the course of a month. And in my training, it was just, it was getting hard. Not only it was like mentally,

it was hard to push myself through my workouts. And then physically I actually started to feel like a bit run down. I mean, not that that's a big surprise to anybody, but I'm just saying that's the first time it's ever really where I was like, so this is what it feels like. And so what did you do? Like, did you back off on things? Did you? Yeah, I had to, I just started going, I started going higher rep. Yep. I started just doing like, which ironically, like 10 rep deadlifting, if it's real 10 rep, that's not easy. Like it's different. It's different than the heavy stuff that I more prefer, but it was exhausting. But yeah, so I had to, I had to just cut down on the volume. I tried the higher rep, you know, with deadlifting. I did that for a little bit and then even just cut back that volume a little bit where

I was using a weight that maybe would be my 10 rep max, but I was only doing sets of six. And that was only for the last couple of weeks. And then, or, well, I guess the last couple of weeks I've actually been okay. Cause I finally fixed my sleep, but that was for like two weeks where then I just was like, okay, I got to figure out, you know, so I just tried going to bed a little bit earlier because I remembered quite some time ago, I was going to bed a little bit earlier and it was better to match that pattern when you were in a good groove. Yeah. I don't know. And that was it. So now I, I stopped reading at 1145 and I sleep totally fine now. I don't know what that means, but Hey, I'll take it. And even without like researching and being able to figure out, Oh yeah, it's this,

like you figured out what works for you and whether that's in here or not. Like it, it's whatever. I'll take it. I mean, I don't have anything else at this point. So anyway, sorry to interrupt there, but I just want to say, I, I, I've experienced that where you want to go heavy. I want to keep pushing. I, you know, this, this is, I, even in some cases, like this is the week I wanted to go for a one rep max because I haven't done it in about a month, but I was just like, it's going to suck. I just already know it's going to suck. So I'm just not going to do it this week. Yeah. Yeah. It's, there's actually another entrepreneur, Alex Hillman, who I work with online had a. We had a conversation where he was going three days a week, and maybe I bumped him up to four. And they were solid 60-plus minute workouts.

And he's like, Mike, I'm so busy. I don't know some of these exercises, so looking them up takes time. Sometimes I'm in the gym and I have to watch a video and then try to do it. Like, like, is there anything else we can do here? Um, and we had talked about the, like check the box mentality. You get a streak of green checks, like day one, day two, day three, day four, you don't want to break the chain right now. We're literally just doing 25 minute workouts, 20 to 25 minute workouts that are much more simple, but every day. And he's knocking them out every day. Um, so, and that momentum philosophy is something that

Gary uses as well, which is, I don't have to lift every day. I don't have to do intense cardio every day, but I want to do something every day because that's what I do now. And I'm going to mold myself into following this behavior and I'm going to make it a habit. Yeah. That's, that's a important point. It's also, I mean, it's important not just in working out, but it's important in, I think, life and business and everything is, you know, especially when you have a lot of different things going. So you have your different work projects and you have your self projects of working out or reading or whatever that even if you can't get in the amount of time you wanted on something just doing some of it has a psychological effect i mean i've experienced

that myself especially just having a lot of things going where i would have liked my plan was maybe to put an hour in on that project but that's just not going to happen it was 20 minutes instead but there's value in that in that check that box mentality we mentality where it's still in my mind now. And it staves off the temptation to quit. Yeah, seriously. What else with training? So busy people, I associate with having worse posture, more sitting, more leaning over screens often. I'm generalizing, more in your

phone, in email, just more upper back rounding. So something I've added actually just in the last six months to Gary's training is a lot of upper back volume, like three to four times a week, we'll hit face pulls, we'll hit rear delts, we'll hit some lighter horizontal pulling motions, just strengthening his upper back, which is helping his posture, which, which is reducing shoulder pain, which is just kind of helping, um, the way his upper body feels. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you'll see that. I mean, a lot of, a lot of people that busy or not busy, a lot of weightlifters have the problem of way too much pressing and very little pulling. And, you know, so you'll, you'll see all that. You'll see this all the time in the gym.

Yeah. Pulling's not sexy. Yeah. Having a big bench is, but you only, when you look in the mirror, all you see is chat, you don't ever see your back.

So yeah, yeah, exactly. It doesn't exist. If you don't actually doesn't exist. Um, so that's, that's been a good switch for,

what about, what about when, so you guys are, are, um, not in New York where you can go to your gym and stuff. So how have you made it work when you're in other places in the world? Take the equipment we have and do our best with it. The most common situation is we're at a hotel.

They have dumbbells that go up to 50 and a couple of treadmills and an elliptical, and that's it. Let's get the best workout we can and a bench. I have found that for most hotels, and he stays at some nicer hotels, so some of them have pretty legit gyms. But a lot of hotels, it's dumbbells and it's a few cardio machines. So dropping rest times, first, it's the mentality of you don't have to be perfect. Oh, this gym sucks. I'm not going to work out this week on this business trip. If you're on vacation and you want to take the week off, like cool. But on, on a trip, you travel frequently, um, do what you can with the equipment that's in there. And so that means reduce rest times.

That means increase reps. That could mean increased total volume, increased sets and reps. It could mean we're doubling up on like maybe, you know, you're going to do an upper lower. Maybe you wouldn't normally do upper lower, but you're just gonna do it that way or even do a whole body because of, you know, if you're only going to be in there a couple of days or whatever. Yeah. Making the modifications to use it as effectively as you can and combining two workouts into one like you just mentioned switching the moves you're doing if something doesn't make sense

with lighter weight too one in the last few days we we had a flat dumbbell bench press and instead the dumbbells only went up to 50s and he can do a lot of volume with that weight so we we started with some push-ups and weighted push-ups and then moved to a single arm bench press, which was actually pretty challenging for him with a 50 pound dumbbell. But the biggest thing is just like doing it. Like even though you're not in your perfect home gym with the bar you like and the chalk over it, like still doing it. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's move on to the next topic here, which is how do things change for people that are very overweight? I think there's a mental change that I can't even fully wrap my have to lose 80 pounds or 100 pounds or you want to lose that much weight to come from an obese range to a not even overweight body weight range. One question I get a lot is I use this equation for setting up my calories and my macros that's on my site. And it has me eating what feels like so much protein. Do I really have to eat that much? If you take a woman who is 225 pounds at five foot six, she's not going to eat 225 grams of protein in a day. Like the one gram per pound recommendation does not apply to everyone and she doesn't need that much protein.

So that's, that's one modification right off the bat. I mean, to be fair, if it wouldn't, if she liked eating that much protein, I would say that like, well, then it's not bad.

I mean, it's, it's not that it's terrible, but yeah, for most women, they're not used to eating maybe even a third of that amount. Right. Right.

And that's just like, I've heard complaints of like stomach pain and just, I physically can't get this much in. There's nothing wrong with it at all. It's just when you make something very difficult for an individual, it's going to drop adherence, which is going to lead to F this plan. Yeah. I mean, that's like the old, you know, the best diet is one you can stick to. There's, there's truth in that for sure. For sure. So how do you, what's the, what's the modification there? I start around a gram, like 0.8 to a gram per pound of lean mass and a lot like men and women, but women particularly who are overbeat or who are obese, sorry, underestimate body fat percentage

when like, if you have to plug it into an equation that's going to spit out calories or macronutrients. And for good reason, like it doesn't feel good. It might be a little bit embarrassing like to see a big number, but 50 or 55% body fat isn't uncommon for an obese woman. Yeah, definitely. I mean, another, I think another easy way for people that can think with, uh, 40, about 40% of their calories, the old 40, 40, 20 type. Yeah. Uh, because, you know, let's say in that case, that woman, let's say she starts around, I mean, I would say, I don't know if you, uh, go about it in the same way, but like with obese people that obviously when they're at that point where they're like, I just want to lose this weight. I'm sick of this. What do I need to do? Big deficit. Yes.

Be as aggressive as, as possible with deficit without just being, I mean, I don't want to talk about 500 calories a day, but yeah, I mean, they're not going to lose muscle, especially if now they're doing any sort of resistance training whatsoever. Uh, even if it's just body weight, I don't care if they just start with body weight squats and the simplest push-up regression you can do. You need a little simple things, but they're not going to lose muscle. So maybe it's 1,500 calories. So 40% of those calories came from protein. Okay, cool. Yeah, 100%. And that's actually the next thing I wanted to talk about was following a 15% deficit and trying to lose 0.75 to one pound per week doesn't make sense when you have to lose a lot of weight. Even from a psychological point of view, looking at it and saying, I'm going to lose how much and I have to-

Say it's going to take me two years. What? Exactly. The other side of that equation is in a lot of situations, you want to be upfront with people about how long results are going to take. And for the dude who wants to get jacked out of his mind, it's like, no, you're not going to do that in three months. It probably is going to take two years or longer depending on how he wants to look or she wants to look. But yeah, just making progress because progress is motivating. And there are tons of non-scale versions of progress. You feel stronger,

your clothes fit better, you have more energy, you can move around. Mentally clear and people are going to compliment you. They're going to notice changes. Yep. Yep. Which are all huge. But scale progress, as much as the scale is imperfect in the short run, scale progress reflects fat loss in the long run. And seeing two or even three pounds a week fall off for those first four, six, eight, 10 weeks is super motivating. To be down 35 pounds in three months or to be down 11 pounds in three months that that determines it sets your trajectory it sets your where you're at mentally with the rest of that journey yeah yeah totally agree um okay so we're talking about high protein talking about a larger deficit uh and in terms of how do

you quantify that in in terms of deficit well we can even say relative to BMR because that's something that anyone can calculate. It doesn't matter how overweight they are. They can go find out what their BMR is. So where do you generally set it in terms of caloric intake? It depends on the person and it depends on what I think their ability to psychologically and physically stomach a big deficit is, like mental strength, lifestyle, how busy they are. There are a lot of factors. Probably starting just above BMR, 100 calories above BMR.

Yeah. When we make meal plans, we do a lot of meal plans for people. And that's generally someone's very overweight and they're like let's do this then we're starting them around somewhere around bmr and then they don't have to really i mean they don't really have to reduce like here you go do this we're gonna do this for for six months and then you're gonna be very happy yeah and monitoring progress along the way too like yeah if if start someone, if you start a little bit less aggressively with the deficit, so a smaller deficit, say several hundred calories above BMR, and they feel pretty full, the more vegetables and higher protein that they're eating has them feeling good.

They think they can eat fewer calories. They want to make faster progress. Great. Drop calories by another 300. Right. Have you run into, I run into people that are actually like lean wanting to get really lean and they go down that road, which then I don't recommend. I tell them like, no, you, you need to, you need to, let's not start, you know, let's say it's a girl at 20% body fat and let's, let's not start you at your BMR. Let's not start you under BMR. Come on. We want her, that girl to eat as much food as she can while still making progress. Right. Yeah. Because then you have nowhere to, you don't have anywhere to adjust down if you start her at BMR. Yeah. And then, and it's also that, that large

deficit, that's a very different experience when someone's at a very high body fat percentage to a very low body fat percentage. And sometimes sometimes people they haven't experienced that and they experience that for the first time and they experience what the the you know the the decline in energy and then if if in the case of guys you're going to see you're going to see a decline in in anabolic you know your libido is going to go down anyways so training performance like yeah that i've had people write me because then that turns them off. They didn't realize they were just trying to be too aggressive with their deficit, but they incorrectly ascribe the problems to,

oh, well, it must be that being under X percent body fat is just unhealthy. It's not, you know what I mean? But no, that's not true. I mean, as a girl, you can maintain 17, 18 percent body fat for your entire life and be perfectly healthy. Like it's not, you know what I mean? But no, that's not true. I mean, you can, as a girl, you can maintain 17, 18% body fat for your entire life and be perfectly healthy as a guy, I would say 8% or so is, is maintainable for, for everybody. I mean, the people, I don't know, I don't know about in your experience, but the people I've run into with guys in particular that can, can stay very lean. I mean, there's obviously drugs, but if you exclude drugs, then there are just some people that genetically they've always been super lean and you know, they don't have a problem maintaining

six or 7%, which is a real like six or 7% shredded ab veins, everything. And they're just like, yeah, I don't know. I eat like 3000 calories a day, whatever you suck. I don't know. I'm having it right now. I'm trying to add mass and I'm eating around 4,000 a day and the scale isn't moving. And so I'm like a high NEAT responder. Probably we talked about this before, but, but it's just more volume, more, more food, more volume. I know that's, that's what I need to do. That's what I'm doing. Yep. Anything else with working with very overweight people? I think from a training perspective, finding something that you enjoy. And obviously we want it to be strength training because maintaining and building some

lean mass is going to help you. It's going to help keep your metabolic rate higher. It's going to help you in life. I think you might've actually linked to this study is where I saw it, but the, the correlation between, uh, it was either the leg strength or lean mass in the lower body, um, compared to death or life expectancy, like, you know, cause mortality. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's just, it's just good to strength train, but your body just works better when it's strong and that's, that's functionally and physiologically, but you don't necessarily have to walk into Gold's and go in the squat rack with bodybuilders and lift there, right? You can do dumbbell workouts. You can do bodyweight workouts, especially if you're obese, doing things that you can that feel good. I mean, some people I've started with, I recommend they'll read one of my books and then say, Hey, should I just start here? Very overweight. And I'll just tell them,

you know what, why don't we start with, uh, let's start with a diet. Let's get a meal plan in place here. Here's an article, set it up. And then let's just start with walking. Just go, go for a 45 minute walk every day and let's get that. And you know, let's, let's, let's get that. Let's do a month of that until you're very comfortable with that. And then let's look at maybe then some resistance training two or three times a week. Yeah, that's the throwing too much at someone at once. It can be overwhelming trying to change 16 things versus two or three or four. But yeah, find something that you somewhat enjoy and that you can do and you can stick to. And in that vein, like talking about, so say this person loses 12, loses, you know, some of that's going to be water weight, but say

they lose three pounds, four pounds of fat in those first three, four weeks. Um, and they do move on to strength training. Understand. I get a lot of, I'm embarrassed to go in the free weight section. I feel like I'm being judged. Yeah, I get that too. The big jack dudes are generally very insecure. And I'm not, I'm not ragging on them at all because like we all have our own issues. I have my issues, but like to be embarrassed that, that like you're a beginner and that you're training in the same vicinity as someone who's really big, like they are not thinking badly of you. 99.9% of the time. Yeah. It's, this is awesome. You're in here, you're doing your thing. I'm doing my thing. Like we're trying to get better. Let's go, let's do this. So, yeah. And a lot,

a lot of people, uh, like those types of people. And again, we're all narcissistic to one degree or another. They're so into themselves. They, a lot of, they don't types of people and again we're all narcissistic to one degree another they're so into themselves they a lot of they don't even notice you they're staring at themselves look at that tricep yeah they don't even they didn't even realize that you're there and you know uh it's funny because i've had that you know it's whenever you're starting anything new i mean i had that experience so like in the last year to two years i've i've taken up golf and put a lot of time into that. And just being terrible in the beginning, of course, it's awkward. I'm out on the driving range with a lot of cases, a lot of cases, people are actually terrible too, but there are some

really good players and yeah, you look like an idiot, you know, just duffing every shot and thin fat and left, right, or whatever. But everyone has gone through that. Everyone knows what it's like to suck at something and everyone sucked at some point. And you know, every that, or whatever, but everyone has gone through that. Everyone knows what it's like to suck at something and everyone sucked at some point. And you know, every, that, that person, even if there were someone that were, that were being judgmental or kind of like, uh, you know, Oh, ha ha ha. Look at that. Um, that person was, was you at some point and maybe, maybe someone treated them like that. And maybe that's why they're doing that now. But, uh, being on, I think that to actually expose yourself to that discomfort, I think there's actually value to it. Um, even, even in hockey, same thing. So I would take up

to taking up hockey again. I've been skating for a couple months. Initially I was, it was, I was terrible. I couldn't, it was a joke. And of course I look like an idiot, but I think there's, I think there's value in that, in being able to subject yourself to that. And so you don't just kind of stay in your comfortable little bubble of a life and you're not afraid to go do new things because you're going to suck and you're going to look around everybody else that's better. And it's going to make you uncomfortable. You know what I mean? It applies to everything, everything new that we do and, and think like, think of something you're pretty good at. Think back to when you started that thing, like whether, whether it's

in your business, whether it's like being a really good mom or dad and talking to girls or guys, there's not anything a hundred percent. I'm terrible at that, but like, I'm sure. But, uh, just deriving confidence from other areas of your life and knowing that while some things come a bit more naturally and other things are a bit more awkward, you can improve and you can get better, but it's going to take time. It's going to take some reps. It's going to take some discomfort to get to that point to break through. Yeah, totally. And also just remembering that at some point, I mean, especially with working out where a lot of people in the gym, they don't know what they're doing. I don't care even if a guy is big or a girl that has a nice body or good

physique or whatever. A lot of them don't know what they're doing. So when you go in there with a very good idea of what you're doing, regardless of how you look now, let's give it six months. And then let's see how people aren't. It reminds me of the whole rise of Trump, where people were laughing in the beginning. They thought it was a joke. He's a clown. Now they're not laughing so much anymore. So similarly, who cares if someone judges you in the beginning one like and this is and the reason why i'm going on this because i get these questions too and this is like my always my my response is that in my

opinion a lot of people i don't care what they think about me or what they judge me for this that or whatever because they can't even live up to their own standards themselves so you know i mean i don't they whatever kind of standards they are saying i'm not living up to well i would just hold the mirror and be like, yeah, well, you, you got plenty of things. Yeah. Don't you want me to follow you around for a week? And let's, let's start looking at your life kind of thing. So I think that when coming back to that point of insecurity, like what you said, if somebody is the type of person that is very judgmental of others,

that just only reflects badly on them and shows how insecure they are and probably how little they can even, how, how unsatisfied they are with themselves, you know? A hundred percent. And it's like, I guess to kind of close this out, it's caring more about yourself and the people in your life and making

yourself better for whatever reason, then you care about the pain of the judgment or the awkwardness or the bad thoughts that that person is having or that you think that person's having that they're actually not. Care more about making this happen in the next four, six, 12 months than the pain of the other thing. next four, six, 12 months than the pain of the other thing. Absolutely. And there's also, there's a difference between the experience, the experiencing self and then the remembering self. So, you know, there's that, I mean, I read about it. There's, isn't a book called Thinking Fast and Slow, a very good book that, I mean, it's one of best um kind of just be smarter and have a better outlook on life type of books that i've read in a while but let's talk about have you gotten well it's later in the book i don't know if you've gotten there yet but talk about under duration neglect and how

people it's not so much the the duration of how much pain or pleasure that you derive from from something that's not when you're looking back on things that determines your outlook on it. It's the peak. So how at its worst or best, how bad or good was it? And then how did it end? So, but applying that to something like this, that you might go into the gym every day and feel uncomfortable for, for 30 minutes out of your 60 minutes. But if you just keep doing that in, in six months, when you look back on it, it's not going to feel, even though it might be very, it is painful or psychologically painful while you're doing it. If you just get through it,

when you look back on it, it might not, depending on the circumstances, you will not feel the accumulation of all the psychological pain. It's just, it might in the end, because it's going to end on a good note here. We're talking about six months where you look the best you've ever looked. You're actually going to look back on that. And you're going to think, because we're talking about low peak, low intensity cycle. It's not like people are running up to you in the gym and like crowding around you, laughing at you and shaming you. So we're talking about low intensity, you know, whatever, a little bit of discomfort that then ends on a really high note is like, you're going to look back on that. You're going to be like,

I'm so glad I did that. That was a great experience. Yeah. No, no one has ever gone through the process of making themselves stronger and healthier and leaner and feel and look better. And then being like, that wasn't really worth it. Like, yeah. Or, or that, that was a, that's a bad memory. That was a bad period, a bad episode in my life. Right. Right. It's, it's a source of pride. Totally. Totally. Yeah. That's great. I think that's great. All right. So let's touch on this last bit here before we wrap up. And that is, and we've actually kind of talked about it a bit, but to not obsess about the minutia. So we were talking obviously earlier about like, you know, you're not going to hit your calories to the calorie and not that it even matters to do that

anyway. You had mentioned in our emails that like like you probably get this question because I've gotten this question of people, especially shift workers. So like how do I just like roll over these calories? You know, I ate it after midnight. Now is that next day's calories or just things like that where they people are making it a bit. They're overthinking it. Yeah. And it's it's not even one or two. Like I get that question, too.

But it's it's all of the questions like that. And for me, I get it from people like shift working is one thing, but someone who thinks, oh, I can borrow a few calories from tomorrow if I eat it after midnight, but then emailing to make sure that's okay. It's like, take a bigger look at the big picture. Take a bigger look at the big picture. If you're doing the four, five, six things, recovering enough, strength training, having your calories in the right place, eating vitamin and mineral rich foods, at least a decent amount of those, and patient time. Good things are going to happen. Things are going to happen, whether or not you hit your macros exactly, or whether or not you aid at 2 a.m. or at 10 a.m. the next day. They just don't matter for your progress. It can help taking the bigger view of, okay, what are we trying to accomplish here? We're

trying to lose 20 pounds. So a pound is approximately 3,500 calories. I know that's not an exact goal. So we're talking about a 70,000 ish cal caloric deficit over a period of time. That's really what we have to do. We have to burn about 75,000 calories worth of energy that, you know, in our, in our, in our body that is stored. So when we're talking about a little like, Oh, well, do I need to shift the calories or can I borrow the calories? I I've, I've explained it that way to people and that helps them take a bigger look at it like, oh, well, okay, yeah, I guess it doesn't really matter because then I can, even if you, okay, fine, you over, how, how, how many, how much has your expenditure exceeded your intake and it's going up, it's going up maybe some weeks it's a little in and other weeks you make a good jump. So I don't know that that frame has, has helped people. Yeah. Be less obsessive and be less worried about the small mistakes in the short run.

Totally. Any other type of... I mean, in case there are any shift workers actually working, I think the, or listening, I think the advice to busy people really applies, which is plan your schedule. Look at the hours you're working and figure out where you can get enough sleep so that you feel pretty good. And then slot your workout in on the days or the time of day where it makes sense and where you're going to have some energy. And then stick to that plan the best you can most of the time. Yep. Yep. And then on the diet, sometimes an intermittent fasting type approach can help or especially if they're going to be up late and they don't really

care to eat breakfast anyway. Okay, good. Let's skip breakfast. And let's, uh, and, and, and fitting, fitting also with, with meal timing, with their preferences. So, you know, some people prefer like these days, I actually like to eat a lot of my calories at night. That's just the way that I like to eat these days. So I accommodate that it's may not be the best for muscle building purposes, but I'm, again, I'm just maintaining and I'm not trying to maximize every little edge, uh, for, for muscle growth. Um, so, so I've, you know, just working with shift workers that has helped. And then also sometimes just knowing that like today is there's no deficit today. Today's going to be maintenance because even when they'll say they're cutting, you know what I mean? Because they're going to have a long day and especially medical professionals

and they don't, they, they need the energy and you know, they, they, they, they can't afford to be working at, you know, 70% capacity. So that has helped too. Or then they realize like, oh, so I can just, I can be in a deficit five days a week and then two days a week, I'm going to just eat around maintenance and okay, I can do that, you know. And I'm going to make progress doing that. Exactly. The same extended day thing can happen with travel. Flying east to west adds three hours to your day. If you're in a deficit, if you're late in a deficit, you've been in it for many weeks or months, and you're very hungry and very irritable, yeah, if you know you're having a longer day, applies to the shift workers too, have more calories on that day. If you have an extra

500 calories one day, in the context of everything that's going on, you're going to be just fine. Totally. Totally. That's great. Okay, good. Well, I think we've covered everything. Is there anything else that has is banging around in your head? I'm just so into Snapchat. You and Snapchat. What is it? What is it about snapchat why do you like this one i'm just so not social media i just i have to force myself to even do anything with instagram i think that i well you're such a beast writing too that like that's what you're doing um so you're saying i'm writing and you're snapchatting i was there one takes a lot of time and thought and skill and the other one's like, what?

Look at me. Yeah. Communicating with my community, both in the format where they can consume the general content I'm putting out, but also these quick one-to-one interactions, which can be accomplished via email. But I've found people really value the face-to-face interaction. There's just something very real, very authentic about it. So how does that work? Does that mean someone messages you and then you reply with you talking? Exactly. And the videos are capped to 10 seconds.

And they can either send a text through the app or they can send a video or a picture through the app. And I get a lot of questions that I can... Oh, that's cool. Yeah, yeah. Point them just, I get a lot of questions that I can. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Point them to, Hey, this article on my site or wherever. And yeah, it's, it's just fun. It's something I've been going hard at for the last five or six months here. Yeah. Yeah. I could see that. I could see, I mean, obviously then that's a service. So at least there's some value there. I thought it was just like, cause I don't, I don't have Snapchat

on my phone. I don't have it personally Personally, I don't have it on my phone. So my wife has it, though. And so whenever I see it, she follows these random model Muppet girls. And I just see them trying to look hot and show how their life is a vacation, basically. You can use any platform to put out the message you want to put out. I'm answering questions about egg yolks versus egg whites. And people learn from vlogging type content if you're putting good information in that format. Yeah.

But no, like do I have any like real ideas? Maybe I'll get on Snapchat. Maybe I'll do it. But then the problem is if I get huffed into that, then it's going to feel like, oh, I'm getting all this work done because I'm answering all these questions. But then everything else is going to pile up. One thing I have found is because you spend a decent amount of time emailing one-on-one with people who have questions for free just because you are. That is something that has come down a little bit in place of Snapchat because on my email newsletter, I kind of say, hey,

for one-on-one communication, let's use this. Yeah. But I'll consider it. All right. That's all I ask. All right. So, so where can people find you? What do you have coming? Like, what's up with you, uh, in, in your work on Snapchat at Mike? Okay. Um, and then I'll give you a website too. So I write at on the regimen.com. Um, if you just Google my name, that'll come up first, but yeah, I'm,

I'm done training Gary. We had a two year contract, so we're done in July and I'm going to be moving somewhere where it's warm 12 months out of the year and just continue to write. And, you might, you might be coming to Florida, right?

I could be coming to Florida. We're going to like miss each other though. It sounds like, um, but you, you would, you would not live in this area. You each other though. It sounds like, um, but you, you would, you would not live in this area. You probably live somewhere.

It's, there's not much going on here. You'd probably want to be somewhere South. Yeah. Likely. If I went there, that would, that would make sense.

But yeah, I just, just, I like creating stuff. So I like making video content. I've been going hard at YouTube recently. I enjoy writing. I should be doing more of that,

but that's my game plan is just, just keep making stuff that helps people. Awesome. Awesome. writing. I should be doing more of that, but that's my game plan is just, just keep making stuff that helps people. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. Well, it was great talking to you, Mike. Thanks for coming on. Um, I, I know everyone's going to like this just because we talked about some stuff that I haven't monologued about already. And I think it's always fun just to have a more conversational type of podcast as opposed to me, just like, all right, here we go. 40 minutes of, I'm going to, I'm going to lecture like I'm a professor. Absolutely. This is fun. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, sure thing. Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did go ahead and

subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also head over to my website at www.muscleforlife.com where you'll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you'll also find a bunch of different articles that I've written. I release a new one almost every day. Actually, I release kind of like four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscleforlife.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.