Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Jason Phillips on the Horrors of "Extreme" Metabolic Adaptation

Episode Date: January 17, 2018

In this episode I interview Jason Phillips from iN3 Nutrition, who runs a thriving coaching business that is particularly popular among Crossfitters. Accordingly, Jason has worked with many Crossfit athletes, and many high-level Crossfit athletes, and has seen firsthand what a lot of extreme exercise and dieting can do to the body, and to the metabolism in particular. In short, if you push the envelope too hard for too long, you can find yourself in a situation where your energy levels and mood are chronically depressed, it’s very hard to lose weight despite eating in what SHOULD be a calorie deficit, every workout is way more of a slog than it should be, your libido is gone, your sleep is disrupted, and your life is generally a lot less enjoyable than it used to be. In this interview, Jason shares with us a bit of the Crossfit insanity that leads to severe symptoms of overtraining, as well as how he has helped people out of that rut, and we also discuss how to avoid falling into it in the first place. 8:16 - When Crossfit athletes push themselves too hard, how do you make them healthy again?10:14 - Why are some Crossfit athletes suffering from hormonal issues?11:57 - What makes you certain that your clients’ food logs are accurate?13:12 - How do the health complications of Crossfit athletes impact their body composition? 14:14 - What does the path to sanity and health look like?15:24 - How do your experiences with these athletes jive with the implications of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment?17:18 - What shape are your athletes usually in?23:08 - Why would a Crossfit athlete ever want to go on a lower carb diet?24:10 - Is the Paleo diet still popular in the Crossfit world?30:37 - Do you have any advice for normal, everyday people who are looking to get fit? 34:52 - Are there any general mistakes that everyday people can avoid? 36:42 - For the average person, what have you found has been the most effective when it comes to training and nutrition? 37:19 - Have you seen positive results with reverse dieting? 41:21 - What has your experience with an eating disorder been like? 51:10 - What keeps you going? 56:33 - Where can people find your work and reach out? 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/

I'm actually more worried about the people that have not in any way had any sort of overfeeding because they've literally been living a thousand calories to 1200 calories for so long that it's it's nearly impossible to get them a to trust the fact that they need more food but be their body just literally has not had food now we're seeing GI issues now we're seeing hormonal issues just the inability metabolically speaking and physically speaking, to tolerate more food intake. Welcome, welcome to another episode of the Muscle for Life podcast. This is Mike Matthews. And in this episode, I interview Jason Phillips from IN3 Nutrition, and Jason is a cool dude who the

Mind Pump guys introduced me to, and he runs a thriving coaching business that is particularly popular among CrossFitters. So accordingly, Jason has worked with many people who do CrossFit, including many CrossFit athletes and many high-level CrossFit athletes. And he has seen firsthand what a lot of extreme exercise and extreme dieting can do to the body and to the metabolism in particular. In short, if you push the envelope too hard for too long, which many CrossFitters do, and especially many competitive CrossFitters, you can find yourself in a situation where it's very hard to lose weight despite eating what should be a calorie deficit, where every workout is way more of a slog than it should be, where your energy levels and your mood

are basically chronically depressed and your libido is gone, your sleep is disrupted, and your life in general is just a lot less enjoyable than it used to be. And in this interview, Jason is going to share with us a bit of what he has seen along these lines, a bit of the CrossFit insanity that is out there that leads to severe symptoms of overtraining. He's also going to share with us how he has helped many people out of that rut. And we're also going to discuss how everyday people like you and me can avoid falling into it in the first place. This is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills, but I'm not big on

promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm just going to quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my 100% natural whey protein powder whey plus. Now this is a naturally sweetened and flavored whey isolate protein powder made from exceptionally high quality milk from small dairy farms in Ireland. Whey Plus also contains no GMOs, hormones, antibiotics, artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. And if I may say so myself, it also tastes delicious and mixes great. And all that is why Whey Plus has over 1,400 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average and another 600 on my website with a five star average. So if you want a clean, all natural and great tasting whey protein

supplement, that's low in calories, carbs, and fat, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of way plus today. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps use the coupon code podcast at checkout, and you will save 10% on your entire order. And lastly, you should also know that I have a very simple 100% money back guarantee that works like this. You either love my stuff or you get your money back, period. You don't have to return the products. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to jump through any other hoops or go through any other shenanigans. So you really can't lose here. Head over to www.legionathletics.com now, place your order and see for yourself why my supplements

have thousands of rave reviews all over the internet. And if for whatever reason, they're just not for you, contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot. Alrighty, that is enough shameless plugging for now at least. Let's get to the show. Jason, thanks for coming on the show, man. I'm excited to have you. Dude, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm excited to be here. Yeah. Props to Sal from Mind Pump for connecting us. He's a good dude, man. I had a great time out in San Jose with them. Yeah. They're fun, right?

Yeah, absolutely, dude. All right. So I wanted to get you on the show because of what we were talking about in our last discussion. And so metabolic damage is something I get asked about fairly frequently. And people that know a bit more ask about metabolic adaptation. So I actually wrote an article recently on metabolic damage. It also has some search value to educate people that metabolic damage is kind of just fake news. You can't just permanently damage your metabolism, but metabolic adaptation, of course, is a real thing. However, it's not nearly harmful or as detrimental to weight loss as many people think. So, I don't

know exactly what your experience has been, but in terms of the people that I've worked with and I've worked with thousands of people simply because, I mean, my email inbox probably has, I'd have to look, it probably has 60,000 emails at this point. Not unread, of course, but like back and forth. So, you know, I've kept tabs on quite a few people for quite some time. And there are people that have emails going back to the beginning. I mean, four or five years ago when I published my first book. And so the majority of the people that I've worked with and just stayed in touch with are just everyday normal people. For the most part, fitness is not their life. They don't live to be fit, but they just, you know, they want to have a good body. And if they can do that, spending a few hours per week in the gym and

watching what they eat, then that's perfect for them. And so, in a lot of those cases, people will write in that are not losing weight or weight loss kind of inexplicably stops. And if they've heard about metabolic adaptation or damage, they immediately think like, oh, that must be it. In the worst case scenario, they think, oh, my metabolism is fucked now because I've been in a deficit for eight weeks and all of a sudden I'm not losing weight. That must be it. And of course, in those cases, it's basically never that. It's more just human error, which most often comes down to eating too much accidentally, basically. accidentally, basically not even, not even necessarily trolling on their, on their food reporting, but like they don't realize, for example, when they're weighing and measuring foods,

um, that that cup of oatmeal is actually 20% bigger than the cup you recorded. If you were to measure it in grams and rinse, repeat that with like five different meals. And there you go. There's your, that, that nice little deficit that you had is basically gone now. So as that kind of just laying the groundwork for our discussion here, I want to hear your experiences because some of the stuff you're telling me is very interesting that you've had working with, again, these are going to be people obviously that are more in the... The average person listening to this podcast is not going to relate to, or not going to have gone through probably the stuff you're going to be talking about. But I do think that the stories are going to be interesting, if nothing else,

as cautionary tales of what can happen if you take things too far. Because of course, there is a lot of that out there in varying degrees. Even if it's just like the cardio bunny type girl that is doing an hour or two of cardio per day, plus weightlifting, plus trying to eat 1,100 calories a day. Yeah, there's a point where that catches up with you. And so that's where I think we should start this discussion. And maybe you could start in with what you've seen with high-level CrossFit athletes that beat the shit out of themselves and eat very little and where that has led them and then how they come to you and what kind of shape and what do you do from there? Yeah, I think it's, you know, you make the analogy of the bikini competitor, you know, somebody kind of coming along, doing a ton of cardio, eating 1100 calories, weight training, you know, and then you look and they have like a ridiculous amount of like life stress and, uh, and that's all well and good. And you look at their training environment and they're doing like butt circuits, right? Cause

that's like the popular thing right now. But if you take that same environment and you apply it to, uh, let's say it, I think that's going to be like, by the way, the new body dysmorphia for women is this whole button boobs thing. Like get. Like get huge fake boobs and a huge butt. It almost – it's becoming like some of these women, they look like caricatures to me, like weird kind of anime fantasy. I completely agree. I completely agree. But that's – I guess that's a different discussion. It's definitely going to happen though.

But if you take that same avatar and you take out the butt circuits and you add in CrossFit, which is arguably one of the highest intensity training modalities, if not the highest intensity training modality that's present today, the stress that's being applied to the body is on a completely different level, right? And so now you're taking the metabolic adaptation that you kind of spoke about that I would agree is largely recoverable from, but you're taking it to a place where now it's really going past metabolic adaptation, right? We're starting to see HPA dysfunction. We're starting to see, you know, sex hormone imbalances. We're starting to see you know sex hormone uh imbalances we're starting to see thyroid hormone uh reduction and and so i would say sadly 70 to 80 percent of crossfitters that are coming to me

are bordering on getting to that level why is that i'm sure people are wondering because it's not just crossfit that's to blame well it's a lot of it honestly is just the really shitty information that's been out there for a very long time. Right. So you've got you've got people following general fat loss protocols. You know, there's I don't know, for every person with abs, there's 10 million e-books. Right. And so you're following these protocols, which are largely I don't want to say starvation based, but they're definitely low calorie based, right? And so somebody undertakes CrossFit, not really understanding the demands of CrossFit, and they're looking at a fat loss type diet, completely immune to the fact that they were probably under eating in the first place, which is why they weren't necessarily losing fat. You know, I find that in CrossFit, it's a little different than the analogy that you gave, right? The person that's overeating the oats, because you got to remember in circa 2007, Rob Wolf came into play and was like, Hey, paleo is the CrossFit diet. So you, you really don't have people over consuming

a lot of starch on the front end of CrossFit. Well, sure. But it could be fat. So it doesn't, I'm just saying calories. I mean, when it comes down to an energy balance where the person thinks like, Hey, I don't know, I'm only eating 1400 calories a day and I'm not losing weight. And then when you really get down to it, like, Oh no, no, you've been eating, you know, 1700 calories a day. And that's why your weight loss is negligible. I would argue that I, and it's weird because I've worked with gen pop people and I would agree you're a hundred percent right. The large majority of food logs I saw then were almost exactly what you described in CrossFit. I see reasonably high quality food, but I'm seeing like, I literally am seeing 1200

calories, five out of every seven food logs. And this is something that when we spoke, I wanted to get into with you and not to challenge you, but I'm actually curious. So how, what makes you certain that their intake was actually that low and how consistently, like if you look at over the course of weeks or months, because when you're factoring in their workouts now, you're probably looking at like thousand calorie deficits or 700 to thousand calorie deficits at least, you know, five, six days a week because they're just crossfitting the shit out of themselves. But is that accounting for the inevitable binges that come because in my experience they always come that's that's the first thing i ask them is because i tend to believe that their

their recovery from this state will be much easier and this is going to sound really counterintuitive if the binges were present because you know any subsequent underlying hormonal decline will be offset by those caloric spikes, right? I'm actually more worried about the people that have not in any way had any sort of overfeeding because they've literally been living 1,000 calories to 1,200 calories for so long that it's nearly impossible to get them,

A, to trust the fact that they need more food, but B, their body just literally has not had food. Now we're seeing GI issues, like I said, the hormonal issues and just the inability metabolically speaking and physically speaking to tolerate more food. How has that impacted their body composition? Like what have you, what have you generally seen where, uh, inability to lose fat primarily is, is the biggest thing, right? And so it's,'s it is it's ironically where i try to take these clients is to an environment where they're doing less crossfit and more general strength training and really like the biggest thing we're seeing is the hormonal implications man like the

hormonal implications that you know what would you expect of a male or a female with a really fucked up hormone profile right you would expect it to be very difficult to lose body fat you would expect it to um you expect it to be difficult for them, right? You would expect it to be very difficult to lose body fat. You would expect it to, um, you expect it to be difficult for them to sleep well. You would expect it to be difficult for them to have energy throughout the day, to focus clearly, you know, to have a high sex drive, all of those things you think would be compromised. That's really what we're seeing. And so, you know, I have, uh, on my staff, I have a hormone specialist and I can get lab work done. And every time we run lab work, we're seeing irregularities in the DHA to cortisol ratios. We're seeing low testosterone, you know, essentially we're seeing lots of HPA dysfunction.

Interesting. And so you have somebody there now, what does the path look like back to sanity and health? So there's obviously you mentioned dialing down the CrossFit and getting back to more traditional strength training, but is it just a simple process of having them eat more? Probably not. There's probably a little bit more. I think in an ideal world, it would be great to say, hey, do less, eat more, but put yourself in that person's shoes, right? So here you are consuming 1,200 calories, legitimately consuming 1,200 calories, right? Not the first avatar that you spoke about, but legitimately under consuming consuming food legitimately working your butt off five to six days a week

and thinking that you're doing all the things right now somebody comes along and basically says well the reason you're not losing fat is because you're working too hard and because you're not consuming enough food so what i need you to do is go counterculture what every diet book under the sun will tell you and i need you to work out less or with less intensity. So effectively burn less calories. And I need you to consume more calories. We need to erase your recovery debt. So it's a completely like complete mindfuck for your client. And so really the hardest part of the whole process is getting them on board with compliance. Yeah. Because I mean, how does that jive with, for example, what you have seen in the, in the Minnesota starvation experiment where you had

people for six months, um, eating about half of their, you know, total daily energy expenditure, doing hard labor, um, and going from, for the most part, normal looking dudes to, you know, skin and bones, POW status. Obviously, that's what they were recreating. How is this? So, I don't think that, I mean, I guess you could probably fill me in on like all the variables of the study. Like how much sleep were they getting? What were the sources of like the calories they were getting? And then define hard labor to me.

Because I've heard of the study several times over. I personally haven't read it top to bottom. You know, so I look define hard labor to me. Because I've heard of the study several times over. I personally haven't read it top to bottom. So I look at hard labor. I don't really think hard labor is analogous to CrossFit. I don't think that the central nervous system demands are the same. I don't necessarily think that the amount of cortisol that you're producing in those things is the same. And then I would look at stress profile away from that. So we remove some of that and we look at Western culture and we look at people that are over caffeinating, barely sleeping, you know, stress at work, all the other life stressors that are going with it. That's what I really think is driving the hormonal issues. I think that the Minnesota starvation study that has been referenced so much,

and again, I haven't looked into it. I don't, to my knowledge, and no one's talked about like hormonal implications. Where I tend to live most with CrossFitters and what I think the issue that's driving dietary issues is really the underlying hormonal effects of what they've been doing. Obviously, there's going to be some deviations, but bring to me like a reasonably healthy hormone profile. I think that virtually anything is going to work dietary wise if you put them oh, why can't I be super shredded? Or are these people that are not, you know what I mean? Like where are they at in terms of their physiques by the time they come to you and they're all broken? So I get a mixture of both. So I get some of the higher level athletes that are pretty lean and they're relatively resilient individuals. You know what I mean? I think that just being a genetically elite athlete that's able to perform, let's call it a CrossFit Games athlete, you know, being able to perform at that top level, you have some genetic resiliency anyway. And so they'll come to me and they're reasonably lean, and they just can't figure it out. And then I've got some people that are mildly overweight, that you look at them and you're like all right like you know for years

you've just beaten the shit out of your body the one question i ask in my intake forms i always say what diets have you tried with or without success and i know immediately when i look at the the intake form from somebody that's mildly overweight that's exhibiting all of these symptoms and i see a laundry list of diets like i've tried the isogenics cleanse and i've tried a paleo diet and i've tried you know whatever whatever else that's when i know that i'm looking at somebody potentially with hormone uh issues or i know somebody that's lying a shitload about what they're telling me right because at the end of the day i mean listen if you're doing an isogenics cleanse i think that they prescribe something like 500 calories i'm not saying i agree with

what they do in any way but you feasibly should lose weight. Yeah. I mean, either that or, you know, you're going to die. Yeah. Like at that point, like you feasibly should lose weight. And I have people that come to me and they're like, well, I did one cleanse and then I tried it again six months later and I lost no weight. And I'm like, the fact that you lost zero pounds, that's my biggest concern. Like we'll address the whole mindset issue of cleanses over and over later in our work together. But the fact that you lost zero pounds, that's a biggest concern like we'll address the whole mindset issue of cleanses over and over later in our work together but the fact that you lost zero pounds that's a fucking issue yeah and you know to your point that you were uh bring up earlier on the on the starvation experiment i mean those are absolutely good points because uh you know if i remember correctly they

were like walking they had to walk a few miles they They had to do chores, you know, kitchen stuff. They had to chop wood. And in terms of food, it was pretty basic stuff. Some meat, some, you know, bread, some butter. And they slept, I think, about eight hours a night. So, no, that's not – it would be interesting to do. It would never get approved. But it would be interesting to have a CrossFit starvation experiment. We're going to run a study where people are intentionally running to the ground and then we can subsequently study like the the hormonal effects right like the

the cortisol effects the hpa the sex hormone profile the thyroid profile and and i think the closest thing we can get is all the lab data that we as a company are collecting on crossfitters and so this coming year before so we're getting like as a crossfit community right they're getting ready to go into their season in end of february and so all my athletes like i'm offering up free lab work prior to and then free lab work post because i really want to study like the effects of that time of year on you know the lab values that we're able to test and i think that the higher level of the athlete i think we're going to see negative things, but then we'll look at like resiliency. And so for, for functionality at this level, that's actually why, why I designed what I call nutritional periodization, um, which actually starts to take these things into account

because, you know, prior to this, like nutrition around fueling athletic endeavors never really took into account different seasons. And that was, I think that I was one of the first ones to start talking about that. Uh, and so that's kind of been a cool thing that I am working on with more intense athletes. And you want to break that down real quick. What does that entail? So the way I look at, the way I look at a properly structured CrossFit season is from about end of February, you know, through the end of March, you're looking at the open, you know, and then you've got the regionals in May, and then you've got the CrossFit games in June or July. If you're a CrossFit games athlete, the Open is a joke to you.

You're going to walk through it. You've been there several times. So you're not peaking at that point. You're realistically peaking between May and let's call it end of June because that's when the Games is. So that's your quote-unquote season. We know that there's implications that come with beating your body up three times a day, five days out of the week at the CrossFit Games. Nobody walks away from that week healthy. Nobody walks away from that week not sore. We know inherently if we're looking at longevity of an individual, that is not a smart thing.

But they walk away from that week beat up. We know there's hormonal implications. So the next phase of their diet revolves purely around recovery. And I tell my athletes, I really don't care about your body comp at this point. I need to ensure that we're putting you in a position where you're not doing as much work. You're creating an environment of recovery and I'm giving you sufficient calories to ensure that you've recovered physically and like physiologically at your hormone profile. Now we're not always doing lab work, but we're going off of like physiological reporting data. So, you know, ability to sleep, sex drive, mood, all of those things, right? When we think that we've kind of created a sufficient recovery, then we go into what I call off season. And for a CrossFitter, we've deemed

that strength and skill acquisition. And so they either need to get stronger, they either need more gymnastics skills, but no matter what they're doing, they're always keeping their aerobic base. So this is, you know, obviously we're fueling whatever adaptation they're trying to do. Then come like the end of the year, around January, you start to see them start training and more traditional CrossFit. And more traditional CrossFit is obviously very glycolytic in nature. So we're transitioning more carbohydrate into their diet, either be it with more calories, or if they were somebody in the off season that used a less carb approach, I won't say low carb, because people will mistake

that but a less carb approach, then we're transitioning them a little bit less fats, more carbohydrate to fuel their sport. And then we're back into season where in season, everything that we're looking at is purely fuel and recovery. And then we just, you know, we rinse and repeat and we do that every single year. And ideally, you know, at that point we're fueling at the right times of year, we're recovering the hormone profile and they're healthy every single year. And why would a CrossFit athlete ever want to go low ish carb? Like why would that ever make sense? So like we'll use somebody that happens to naturally be gifted aerobically, but they struggle with gymnastics. Let's say that the adaptation they need to make in the off season

is to become better at gymnastics and need better pulling density and their relative body strength, right? Because essentially that's what we're looking at. How much power can you create relative to your body weight? If we need to bring their body weight down actively, then potentially that would be a reason for them to have less carbohydrate. And that's why I said less carb, not low carb, right? So just to reduce water retention and glycogen. Correct. That makes sense. Yeah. They got to get you,

they got to get used to being at like a lower body weight. And some of the, you know, some people that are, you know, naturally overweight. And again, I don't necessarily think that you have to go low carb in any way to lose weight, but some of them just can't tolerate the, uh, the levels of carbohydrate that we would be feeding them. Let's say in season to when they're doing maybe a half of the activity. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So it's really relative. It's really relative to the output, right? And then from that point, you're creating weight loss. And what about the paleo diet? Is that still a big thing in the CrossFit world? Sal and I just put out a video on that like two days ago. And I think that the title was

something around if you're doing paleo, you like it's killing your CrossFit gains or something like that. But basically, like it's the single worst diet that you could do if you're a CrossFitter. And ironically, dude, and this is where I have mad amounts of respect for Rob Wolf, because he's the one that really kind of got in bed initially with CrossFit in 2007, and brought the paleo diet to the forefront of CrossFit. You know, they obviously went their separate ways. I'm not really sure what happened. And then, you know, a couple years later, he kind of came out and was like, Hey, I was, I was wrong. Paleo doesn't provide the fuel or recovery for such an intense sport. And you

actually need to be adding a significant amount more starch to your diet if you're doing CrossFit. And so I actually have a lot of respect for him for doing that. Now, I think that the one, the one positive is it actually brought to light food quality and micronutrients. You know, I think it shifted away from people myopically focusing on just really shitty foods, which I also think is, you know, a pandemic in the world today. But I think that, you know, I hope that people are moving past paleo. I was in 37 different gyms last year, and I can tell you it's definitely not fully gone. But I think that people are starting to get a little smarter. Yeah. I mean, I've seen fewer and fewer people mentioning it these days, but more and more

asking about the keto diet. Which might even be worse for CrossFit. Yeah. I would say worse for anybody who's not really overweight and really sedentary or, or I guess anybody who doesn't like it. I don't know what there's like about it, but I, yeah, I'm getting, I'm putting a blog together this weekend and it's like nutritional trend predictions for 2018. And I think that keto is finally going to, to die. It's 10 year annual temporary death because i think that about you know every every eight to ten years we see the keto diet get really popular again and i i think that this one was propagated by the mlm companies right and then all of a sudden it quote unquote blew up again i

always laugh though when people are like oh like if you tried this keto diet it's amazing and i'm like you act like it hasn't been around for years like this shit was popular again like eight or ten years ago and i remember like when d Dave Colombo was using it with all of his bodybuilders and you know, it had, it's like rise to popularity. And then I always joke, like the next year, George Farah got really popular and he used a high carbohydrate, low fat approach. And, and the, the storyline on the covers of like MD was carbs are back. I'm like, well, where the fuck did they go dude well not just any carbs okay it was this special you know carbohydrate supplement okay that's it

so i was like dude carbs never went anywhere you know i'm gonna have to disagree on keto though dude go to go to google trends right now put in ketogenic diet and you can select it as a topic and pull up the 2004 to present chart. And just look at that real quick. Just pull it up. You're on the computer, right? I am on the computer. Yeah.

Check this graph out. It's disturbing. What am I typing in? Google keto diet? Google trends. Yeah. And you can even, if you want to look at it by, you can look at it globally or you can look at it in terms of United States. It's the exact same graph, but United States is even a bit more outrageous.

That is absolutely absurd. It's fucking ridiculous, right? i think that i'm starting to hear people speak about it a little more intelligently uh and i think that's why you know in my eyes it it won't die out next year but i i'm hoping that people are starting to put it in like the proper frame of mind but yeah it's steadily risen that's for damn sure i mean it is it is like just meteoric right now and if you want just for comparison sakes uh put in paleo and then you'll be able to select paleolithic diet. And you can see it had its run from like 2010. It really started to take off and it really peaked in 2014. And then it's just been steadily declining ever since. Yeah. The first graph that comes up for me is

2016 to this year, like the last year. Did you select 2004 to present? Yes. Just in terms of email and social media traffic, that's exactly been my experience. Fewer and fewer people asking about paleo and so many people asking about keto. I'm not sure why. I don't know. I mean, I guess I'm kind of just like too much just in my cave doing my work to know what are the causal factors here, but it's got to be mainstream for that type of spike. There has to be a lot of mainstream interest. Like, I don't know, maybe Dr. Oz is talking about it or something. They probably did. It's like when, uh, I don't know if you remember when raspberry ketone supplements got popular for like a week and, uh, it was actually at Europa sports,

like when that happened and literally every supplement that had a raspberry ketone in it was completely out of every warehouse that they had because Dr. I think green coffee bean extract went like that, too. And then I think he got in trouble, right? Because it turns out he was I think he was invested in something like that. But yeah, that's that's the weight loss market for you. I love this graph. And I'm not truthfully never looked at this graph.

But if you like like the spikes in paleo. So going back to December, 2013 to January, 2013 to January, 2014, like huge December, 2014 to January, 2015, huge. And so like there's these massive declines and then one incline, which is always December to January. And that's lovely. Yeah. That's the fitness industry in general.

I mean, you'll see whether regardless of what the trend is, you're going to see Q1 is big. Q2 tends to hold. Q3 is where the decline starts. Q4 is trash. And then it just repeats. Yeah, that's funny, dude. I've never looked at that, but that's really good. Before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at MuscleForLifeFitness, Twitter at MuscleForLife, and Facebook at MuscleForLifeFitness.

Okay. So getting back on track here. So for people listening that are not going to be doing six to 10 CrossFit workouts per week ever, and, you know, trying to eat 1200 calories a day for extended periods of time, do you have any, I wouldn't say warnings, but just any advice for, for everyday people that are looking to go from overweight to one degree or another to fit and do it in a way that I would say minimizes the chances of them running into any issues that are beyond just the normal adaptations that you can't get away from. I've had to explain this to many people that when you are dieting, when you're in a deficit, even if you're doing everything right, it's still mild starvation. That's what you're doing. And, and, you know, and your body has ways to respond to try to return to homeostasis and try to either, you know, decrease energy expenditure, increase intake. And with that, for example, does come some reduction in anabolic hormones. And, you know, there's just

no way around that unless you're just going to be on drugs, which is something also that should probably be taken into account with what you see in CrossFit, where you can have people that, especially guys that are just shredded, huge, strong, and, you know, let's say maybe, maybe on a paleo diet or a keto diet or doing things that don't quite make sense. And then of course, when you factor in tons of anabolic steroids, things start to make more sense. On that note, dude, it's super ironic to note that if you look at the male side, not so much the female side, I can't really pinpoint it. But if you look at the male side, like so Matt Frazier is the guy that's won the last two years. And I would argue that he's probably the least lean male athlete that goes to the CrossFit games every year. But he runs away with it. Nobody has even sniffed first place in the last two years.

He's been so far ahead. And I actually think that when you're asking advice relative to people that are getting into CrossFit, it's one of those things where I don't think CrossFit is the tool to use to get super shredded. Now, if you're looking to just lose some weight, great. Like, I think that it's probably enough of an increase in energy expenditure alone to start moving the needle. But I think that people are trying to take the best of the dietary world. So they're using, like, extreme bodybuilding diets.

And then they're taking as much CrossFit as they can handle. And I don't think that the two match up. I think that's where you're looking at the hormonal implications. Yeah, that makes sense. And I mean, also, again, you're talking about if someone is doing six, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 CrossFit workouts per week, that's quite a bit more than the average person getting into CrossFit. I mean, I'm not speaking from experience here because I haven't penetrated that space at all really, but I would guess the average person is probably doing maybe three or four CrossFit workouts per week. Yeah. I would think on, on a large scale, most people are doing three, four at most five CrossFit workouts a week.

And the workouts are generally short, right? 15, 20 minutes or so. Yeah. They're probably doing like an hour class, right? So most people are going to go to a class and they're going to go do like some strength in the beginning. And then they're going to, you know, do some sort of intensive metcon but so the the difference that i always make it up to is in crossfit you know you and i would agree like an athlete is is in large part they have like their training days then they have their competing days and in the competing days they're they're emptying the tank right so the hormonal implications of competition days are are exponentially more pronounced than let's say a

training day and and so unfortunately in cross, because of the class environment, because of getting your name at the top of the whiteboard or having the best time on the whiteboard, you've now got people literally emptying the tank day in, day out. And so, the recovery demands, in my opinion, are far higher than what they would be for any other training modality. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you were to try to apply that same approach to strength training workouts, you probably wouldn't last as long. You'd fall apart faster. Right? Like that, essentially that's, you know, like Corey Gregory did the whole squat every day, but it was never built to a one RM every day. But think about, you know, there's, there's studies coming out that, you know, deadlifting is a higher stressor on the central nervous system than other lifts. Right? And so think about maxing out your dead every single day. Like you'd be, you'd be fucked. Absolutely. And so then for people that are, whether they're going to be using CrossFit or not, are there any other, are there any other just kind of general mistakes that you've seen?

I'm obviously very low calorie is, is a mistake. Going, going too low carb is a mistake. If you're going to be doing a lot of resistance training workouts. There's just no reason to, and also it is going to impair your recovery. And if you're new to weightlifting, you can gain muscle in the beginning while you're losing fat. But if you're eating very few carbs, it's going to get in the way of that as well. Is there anything else? You mentioned life stress. You've mentioned sleep. Yeah. I think for most, it's understanding what are the implications of stress in your life as a whole without training and without diet. I think that somebody that's running a $500 million company that is sleeping four hours per night and has all sorts of demands, they're not really probably going to be a good candidate to be using CrossFit as their, even as their modality of health improvement exercise. Because I actually believe that the stress from the CrossFit environment, from emptying the tank every day is actually going to put them over the edge,

unless their nutrition is super dialed in. But you don't typically see that in that avatar, right? Like they're probably eating out, they're doing business dinners, whatever, whatever. Drinking a shitload of caffeine. Yeah, drinking a ton of caffeine, drinking a ton of alcohol, right? Whatever it may be. So I think that most people aren't able to take a step back and look at preexisting stress that's in someone's life before they even undertake exercise and nutrition. And so, you know, that's usually something that I'm looking for in a client before I, you know, before I look at how we're going to attack creating the results. Because, you know, you, a lot of times those are fixed variables, right? I can't take someone that's

a CEO of a high powered company and be like, Oh, well, you know, you should go be the janitor. You know, that's, that's not going to work out real well. So, you know, it's, it's understanding that and then starting to build out, all right, how much additional stress can I really give you in the form of a calorie deficit in the form of training, you know, whatever it might be. And what have you found tends to be most effective with, again, not CrossFit athletes, but everyday people in terms of size of deficit? Do you like to go more aggressive, you know, let's say 20, 20, between 20 and 30% or like to go smaller? Also in terms of exercise, maybe hours of exercise per week and what types. I've found that the most effective people. So we're using CrossFit and we're just using somebody that's going to a class every day, like four classes a week seems to be

the sweet spot with maybe one additional, either strength training or just purely aerobic piece. And then, you know, size of deficit, I start as small as I possibly can, man. Like, and 10%, 10 to 20% will move the needle for them like you wouldn't believe. And again, it's all going to be different. Why start small? I'm curious. Because a lot of people, again, are coming to me where they've already been in a super large deficit. So I start them at a small deficit and it gives me room to make a bigger and bigger deficit. And again again that's probably

me coming at it with some bias relative to what i see in the intakes day in day out so that that person would have to you could say reverse diet i know that's been that's also a point of contention but the idea is work your calories back up to like at least a reasonable level in terms of your estimated energy expenditure that would be phase one i assume right correct yeah or or i if I, if I look at them and they're not showing any symptoms of, you know, adaptation metabolically or nervous system wise, I might actually start them right back at that perceived maintenance and kind of test it out for a week and see how they respond, and then start creating larger deficits. You know, sometimes I'll go that route as well. That makes sense. And have you seen, uh, I'm just curious on what, what have you seen in terms of the, again, for the lack of a better term, reverse dieting, because obviously

there's the Lane Norton, you know, school thought on it versus, um, you know, there was that debate. It was Eric and Menno and Lane. Where, where, where do you fall on that? So I tend to think that Ericic and meno are are the ones that are right um from a physiology standpoint but i also because i because the way that i coach because of my eating disorder background i also understand that there's a massive emotional component to dieting and so i think that if you're taking somebody and you're trying to restore caloric maintenance as fast as possible and there are some negative repercussions that come with that, not everybody tolerates those very well. And so you really have to understand the individual that you're working with,

where they've been, and what emotional triggers they have around food. So if somebody has a lot of emotional triggers around food and body image, then I may take the lane approach with them. You know, with the explanation that, hey, listen, this is a lot slower than I really want to go. There is a much faster way, in my opinion, to do this, but it may come with other consequences, which one's more comfortable. And a lot of times they're choosing the slower approach because they don't like to see big jumps on the scale. So I think that where what most people aren't talking about in quote unquote, reverse dieting, again, there's a lot of contention there is the emotional component. Yeah. And that's exactly in alignment with what I've experienced as well, where that's kind of what I've explained is that I wouldn't necessarily, we have to assume that your TDE is

not going to be exactly where we would calculate it to be. So maybe we go, let's calculate it and let's just shave off 20% just to be safe. And let's jump up to there and let's see how things go over the next couple of weeks. Expect weight gain. Don't, don't get all weird about it. You're going to, if nothing else, there's going to be water and glycogen, we're adding a, you know, a fair amount of carbs back in and let's see. But I've, I've also found that many people prefer to just go a little bit slower. Like they don't mind taking, let's say two, three, even four weeks to work back up because

I mean, I guess in my experience, hasn't been so much about the scale. It's just, they, they find that it keeps it, it makes it easier for them not to kind of eat way too much and spiral out of control. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's some, there's, there's so many different, you know, rabbit holes that I think that can go down relative to the results that, you know, to the places it takes somebody. And again, I mean, I think that part of the reason I've had so much success as a coach in this space is my own background, man. Like having the empathy that I have for people with their like relationships with food. And I know there's articles published.

You don't have a relationship with food. I get it. Like you don't like technically have a relationship with food. I get it. Like you don't like technically have a relationship with food, but I think for people to say that there's no emotional connection with food in culture in Western culture is extremely mistaken. And you know, somebody that's kind of been there, done that, like I can, I can speak to it firsthand. So, you know, I think that's, that's massively important. And what has that been like for you? Like for me going through it personally or coaching people? Yeah, for you personally.

You know what, man? Like, so my anorexia was 14 years ago. I'm 33 now. It happened when I was 19. And it was, it was a really, really bad place, man. Like I was in a downward spiral. I was depressed. You know, I had really negative self-esteem, body image issues.

you know I had really negative self-esteem body image issues to sit here and say that today at 33 that I don't have any body image issues would probably be mistaken I think that I've learned to manifest them positively you know I think part of the reason I'm so obsessed with just food and food science and nutrition is because every time you create more understanding for an individual they tend to be more compliant and so you know you know, I have a, I own a certification, right? And the three words that we live by and that we teach other nutrition coaches is education drives compliance. I think that if you can educate your clients along the way and they understand why they're doing what they're doing, they become more compliant. So it hasn't been easy, man. It's always, it's reared its head a couple of times in the last 14 years where, you know, there was a point where I was dieting for fitness model things and it really kind of

became an obsession again. Uh, not nearly where it was when I was 19, but it definitely became something that in my opinion was not balanced. And how does that manifest? I'm honestly curious. Um, like I, you lose your, like I lost like social life at that time. I kind of lost like relationships at those times became very selfish. I stopped caring about basically everything except for that. And so like when I look back at when I was anorexia, the things that really, or when I was anorexic, the things that really stick out or I couldn't hold a job because I really didn't have any energy after 2 PM. And, and so you, you really stopped caring about all things, self-worth related, except for your image in the mirror. And so you really stop caring about all things self worth related, except for

your image in the mirror. And so for instance, when I was fitness modeling, I would be tired all the time, my work performance would be suffering, the way I communicate with others would suffer. And obviously, the more you become an adult, that shit matters, especially when you're trying to live the entrepreneurial lifestyle. And so I just I was not in any way working with the quote unquote hustle I should have been working with. And, and it definitely wasn't communicating positively to the people that I was communicating with. And it really, really were times in my life where I suffered. I know a guy who, I mean, I don't know him well enough to know, I mean, it seems like it's eating disorder status where he weighs himself at like three or four in the afternoon every day.

And if he weighs more than a given amount and he's super skinny, like frail, if he, yeah, if he weighs more than a certain amount come like three or 4 PM, he stops eating for the day, regardless of what he has eaten period. Yeah. That's definitely eating disorder. And I mean, you, you know, eating disorders are, and this is like what I've tried to tell a lot of people they're, you know, anorexia nervosa, right? Like that's the clinical term. And so it's implied that it's a nervous system disorder. And so I don't really think that you ever fully overcome the thoughts that will penetrate somebody's mind.

And I've spoken with a lot of people that are formerly anorexic. None of them, not a single person. And I would absolutely love, dude, like if anyone's listening to the podcast that has gone through an eating disorder and you fully overcome it to where no negative thoughts enter your mind, like I would love to reach out to you. I would love to talk about what the trigger was to overcome it. But not one person that I've spoken with has ever said that they fully overcome it to where it's never crossed their mind again. And that's a, you know, that shows you, man, like the level of impact that it has in your

life. Yeah, that's intense. And that's something I honestly can't relate to, which is why I'm asking because I've, I guess, been fortunate enough to just never have gone through anything like that. And I don't come across it much in my work or my life. So it's interesting to hear. It's crazy to me that you don't just given the industry that you're in, because I, I actually, when I was like living in California and I knew like a lot of the guys that weren't fitness modeling, I would venture to say, and this is, you know, this is totally conjecture, but 60 to 70% of the guys in the physique industry, I bet you have a past where there was some sort of food issue, maybe not full blown eating disorder, but some sort of body image issue

or some sort of like eating issue in their life. Oh no i'm sure that's true honestly i i'm so not networked at all i don't know anybody that uh i've met a few people that competed and adam from mind pump is one of them so i i'm sure if i actually spent more time in the industry one i'd probably want to kill myself uh But two, I would probably have more experience at least, at least seeing it. But as again, I'm kind of a hermit. I just sit in my cave and bang away on the keyboard and babble into the microphone. So with my limited exposure to the, to the industry, I guess I haven't come across. What I see the most is I see uh i see the the narcissism and

the neurosis on social media but i don't it doesn't it i don't touch it you know what i mean so ironically i would argue and so this is so do you listen to tom bill you at all no but i i know of him okay so tom did a podcast with ty lopez and like you know think what you want to tie douchebag whatever it was a really good interview. No, actually I've, uh, I've spoken to Ty a few times. Cause ironically he read Bigger, Leaner, Stronger and liked it and like recommended it and had some questions. And he, he was a really chill guy. Uh, he, you know, I think it's a bit of what you see on social media is, is a persona. I mean, obviously he likes to live a certain lifestyle and that's

clear, but in my interactions with him have, have been positive again. Like he, he likes to live a certain lifestyle and that's clear. But in my interactions with him have been positive. Again, he didn't come across as arrogant or he just genuinely was interested and genuinely had questions and wanted to hear what I had to say. That's actually what I've heard from every single person that's encountered him. And so the interview that he did with Tom, it definitely, like, I didn't have a perception of the guy and I try to reserve judgment for somebody until I've really spent time with them. So I didn't have a perception, good or bad. It's just, you know, tie is tie and he does what he does. And so, but I listened to the interview with a really open mind and he, he talks about narcissism and what I left the interview with

was the resin, like it resonated with me that the narcissism he spoke about insecurity at its highest level is also a form of narcissism for sure. And so, so like when you're saying that like these guys in the physique industry are narcissistic, in my opinion, with back when they were eating disordered or when they had body image issues, now they're, they're narcissism they're displaying today is just a different manifestation of narcissism, but really it's been underlying in their life the whole time. Yeah. I could see that for sure. It's just, it's now swung to the other extreme, but it's kind of, it kind of has come full circle and it's just like the final form of what they originally were struggling with.

Definitely dude. Yeah. A hundred percent, man. And I think that it was the first time I had put it in that light, but you know, I, uh, I resonated with it because I think that, you know, what, what once took me into, uh, the anorexic downward spiral is also really what allows me to be successful today, you know, in the terms of my commitment to things and just being relentless. And, you know, obviously dude,, like, I hate saying it sounds really good. It sounds really bad. Like, you know, I would never wish being anorexic on a single person, but the discipline I learned in those, you know, in that year, I didn't have in my life prior to that. And, you know, I now possess a great deal of discipline and I'm able to achieve things that

maybe I wouldn't have been able to. Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting means to an end, things that maybe I wouldn't have been able to. Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a, an interesting means to an end, but the end of you had absolutely agree that to achieve, let's say extraordinary success and extraordinary just by the very definition, like what you have done is, is extraordinary. And to do that, you have to be a bit of a masochist. You have to be able to show up every day and suffer for extended periods of time. And that's just the reality. And I've gone through the same thing. And suffer might sound like a harsh word, but I mean, I think, I don't know what your experience has been.

There are points where I would say, yeah, that's probably the word that would most describe the situation. But you just got to keep going and you got to go, eh, whatever, fuck the pain and keep going. Yeah, dude, I would, uh, I would completely agree, man. It's, uh, I think that people like to look at guys like you and me and, and, you know, anybody in, in just in the online space that's found any degree of success. And they think it's super easy. I think that, you know, more light is shining on, on how not easy it is, how potentially difficult it can become. But yeah, there's-

And there's the burden that comes with it. Of course, people go, yeah, I'm sure I know it's hard, but now that you're there. Yeah, but I've had this conversation with just quite a few people that have known me over the years where I've kind of joked with them. You don't want my life. Trust me. Come live with me've kind of joked with them. Like, you don't want my life. Trust me. You want to, if you come, come live with me, you can stay in my basement. I have a nice bedroom down there and just come live my life with me for 30 days. And you will, I don't know, you'll quit after a week. Amen, dude. Completely agree. I mean, people come to our house and

they're like, Jesus, they're like, you just don't stop. And it's not, it's not that anything I do in and of itself myopically is very difficult, right? Like it's for me to get on a phone call with a client is not overly difficult, right? It's 20 minutes. I'm giving them nutrition advice in, in, you know, for all intents and purposes. I really, I get to shoot the shit with some really cool people. But to do that every 30 minutes for the better part of 12 hours, like most people don't have the willpower to do that. And then to do that six days out of the week, and then to be creating content on top of that, then to be handling a staff of 15 people, you know, there's, there's so many pieces. Oh, by the way, I'm married and we have three kids in the house and we're expecting

another one. Like, you know, there's a, if people just don't really fathom what goes into that and it's a grind. It is. And I'd say that probably what, what, what, what keeps you going? Like why? I'm sure you'd ask that. Why do you keep on doing that when you probably don't have to? So I, so there's two reasons for me. if you would have asked me literally a year ago today it would have been one reason and i would have said you know when i was anorexic man like i i that's so ingrained in my life how bad my life was man like i like i turned away relationships because i was so insecure and so it's such a downward spiral and like i dude i turned away my family i turned away everything family. I turned away

everything. And I don't ever want another person to endure anything like that because of a shitty relationship or a shitty implementation of food in their life. And so I just have this, you know, I have this quest that anyone that wants help, I want to give it to them. And I don't want to see people suffer like I did. You know, obviously, since this time last year, you know, I've been fortunate enough to find my wife and be married. And I don't ever want to see her work another day. I don't ever want to see her stress about anything. I don't, you know, I want my kids to have the same opportunities that I did growing up. And so, you know, creating for them is also very important for me.

You know, everything that I do today is 100% predicated on, you know, there's there's such a need for quality information out there. And in a world where everyone's trying to make a buck, all I give a shit about is putting out, you know, quality information. And I know and you and I kind of talked about this on our first call where, you know, I feel like we live in a world today where a lot of what is talked about is potentially fixing some of the poor protocols over the last 10 years. And we really haven't put out a solid base of knowledge. I think if we can get our society and our community to a base now where the information that's put out is really high quality, the next generation beyond us can live in a world of maximization. And, you know,

I think if when I'm older and I'm retired and I look around and the world is truly maximizing, I'll know that my contribution was worthwhile. That's fantastic. I love it. So we need more people like you out in the world, man, not just in fitness, but in, in, in every industry, like you in, in politics, can we just replace like everyone with good people? Dude, it would be amazing, man. Like I've been fortunate enough. Like if I were Superman, I would, I would go punch holes in a lot of people. Dude, it would be amazing, man. I've been fortunate enough. If I were Superman, I would go punch holes in a lot of people. That would be my first order of business.

I would just fly around the world punching heads off for a few months straight. That would be a great superpower. Not going to lie, man. I'm not an overly violent person, but that would be really cool because there are definitely some people Not going to lie, man. Like I'm not a, I'm not an overly violent person, but, uh, you know, it's, uh, that would be really cool because there are definitely some people that are on their high horses that not only need their heads knocked off, but need to be knocked off the horse, man. It's, it's pretty bad, but, uh, you know, I've been fortunate enough to connect with like the Gary

V's of the world. And like that guy had a really big impact on me and, you know, here, here's Gary V and he's worth like $600 million. And you never like you never see him talking about like his material or any of that, right. And literally, like, I think that everything he puts out is with a sincerity of impact. And I think that he was one of my earliest influences. And so I think that it, it always kept me moving in that direction, and actually helped me find what I wanted my impact to be. And so, you know, I think that, I think that infinite success is truly possible if you continue living in the world of impact and you, you know, you get out of a tactical world. And that's, you know, that's kind of been my guiding light. Yeah, I like it. And that's something I've also liked about Gary

is exactly that point. I mean, I think his personality, I think he's amusing and a lot of stuff he says, I also just think it's great because a lot of it's also true. Like he just doesn't care. He's like, this is just the way it is. But, but, but I also like that he, he could give a shit about, you know, flaunting wealth. That means nothing to him. Yeah. And it's crazy, man. I mean, you know, I think that, you know, the, the higher up you get, you know, and listen, another person I really respect is Andy Priscilla. And I think that Andy does a good job of showing his material possessions, but channeling it the right way. You know, at the end of the day, we can't dispute that money does make

the world go around money. Money in my life allows me to create a larger impact, right? It gives me the ability to bring on more coaches that I know are qualified to help more people in the world. And so I think that I just did an interview for our member site with a finance expert. And one of the questions she asked is, well, why do you even want to profit? And maybe she didn't think of it on the depth that I thought of it, but I was like, man, that's a really good fucking question because it has so many applications. Because Lambos and Rolexes, duh. Exactly, dude. Yeah. I need, I need every color hurricane, bro. Then I know that I will be truly satisfied. Yeah. So no,

man, I, my material possessions are my wife not having to go into a job and my kids never having to step foot in daycare. That's the single best material possession I could ever own. I totally agree. I that's something that means a lot to me as well. I have two kids and I'm very happy that Sarah is able to spend as much time as needed with them and raise them as opposed to a daycare or whatever, which I understand if you've got to do that, you've got to do that. But from increasing the probability that your, are not going to be a pain in the ass, the more time you can spend with them as the, as the parents and as the biological parents,

the better. Completely agreed, dude. Completely agreed. All right. Well now we've kind of rambled all over the place. Let's wrap up with where people can find you and find your work. And if they want to reach out to you,

if they have questions or, or want to inquire about your coaching services, where do they do all of that? Yeah. So I, so it's in3nutrition.com, in three. And I'll give a quick little background on that. It's basically, we look at nutrition in three distinct facets, in performance, in aesthetics, and in longevity. I think that, you know, that's, that's where most people come to us for. That's where we took our company. So in3nutrition.com.

I also own the Nutritional Coaching Institute. And so, if anyone's interested in learning the craft of becoming a nutritional coach, NCICertifications.com would be the other link. But other than that, man, just social media. It's just my name, Jason Phillips on Facebook. I'm super accessible. Add me as a friend. Send me a message.

I do my best. Just like Gary Vee laid the foundation for me, man. Send me a message. I promise you, I'll get back to you. My assistants don't get into my social media. So I will respond, assuming that I have the free time. So if I don't respond that day, don't freak out, but it will happen at some point. And then on Instagram, it's just at Jason Phillips underscore IN3. Thanks again for taking the time, Jason. I really appreciate it. I think this was an enlightening discussion. I know that my crowd is going to like it. Dude, I appreciate you having me on, man. I learn from you every time we talk. So much appreciated, sir.

Thank you. Thank you. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and wanna help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people

that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better.

I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback. So please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. so instead I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine. Specifically, my 100% natural whey protein powder, Whey Plus. Now, this is a naturally sweetened and flavored whey isolate protein powder made from exceptionally high quality milk from small dairy farms in Ireland. Whey Plus also contains no GMOs, hormones, antibiotics, artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. And if I may say so myself, it also tastes delicious and mixes

great. And all that is why Whey Plus has over 1,400 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average and another 600 on my website with a five star average. So if you want a clean, all natural and great tasting whey protein supplement that's low in calories, carbs and fat, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Whey Plus today. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast at checkout, and you will save 10% on your entire order. And lastly, you should also know that I have a very simple 100% money back guarantee that works like this. You either love my stuff or you get your money back, period.

You don't have to return the products. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to jump through any other hoops or go through any other shenanigans. So you really can't lose here. really can't lose here. Head over to www.lesionathletics.com now, place your order, and see for yourself why my supplements have thousands of rave reviews all over the internet. And if for whatever reason, they're just not for you, contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot.