Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Why Carb Cycling Isn't Necessary and the Importance of Finishing What You Begin

Episode Date: December 23, 2014

In this podcast, I talk about the (currently) popular diet method of "carb cycling" and why it's completely overrated and unnecessary, and a little "life challenge" I have for you that can make a huge difference in your ability to achieve your goals (30:20). ARTICLES RELATED TO THIS PODCAST: The Definitive Guide to Why Low-Carb Dieting Sucks: http://www.muscleforlife.com/low-carb-diet/ Why "Clean Eating" Isn't the Key to Weight Loss or Muscle Growth: http://www.muscleforlife.com/clean-eating-and-weight-loss/ 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 I just want to say thanks for checking out my podcast. I hope you like what I have to say. And if you do like what I have to say in the podcast, then I guarantee you're going to like my books. 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. I mean, these books, they're basically going to 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 live

in the gym grinding through workouts that you hate. Now, you can find these books everywhere. You can buy them online, you know, Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you're into audio books like me, you can actually get one of them for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash audiobooks and you can see how to do that there. I make my living primarily as a writer, so as you can imagine, every book sold helps. So please do check out my books if you haven't already. Now also, if you like my work in general, then I think you're going to really like what I'm doing with my supplement company, Legion. As you may know, I'm really not a fan of the supplement industry. I've wasted who knows how much money over the

years on worthless junk supplements and have always had trouble finding products that I actually liked and felt were worth buying. And that's why I finally decided to just make my own. Now, a few of the things that make my supplements unique are, one, they're 100% naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because we explain why we've chosen each ingredient and we cite all supporting studies on our website,

which means you can dive in and go validate everything that we say. Three, all ingredients are also included at clinically effective dosages, which are the exact dosages used in the studies proving their effectiveness. And four, there are no proprietary blends, which means that you know exactly what you're buying. Our formulations are 100% transparent. So if that sounds interesting to you, then head over to legionathletics.com. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics.com. And you can learn a bit more about the supplements that I have as well as my mission for the company, because I want to accomplish more than just sell supplements. I really want to try to make a change for the better in the supplement industry because I think it's long

overdue. And ultimately, if you like what you see and you want to buy something, then you can use the coupon code podcast, P-O-D-C-A-S-T, and you'll save 10% on your first order. So thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get Muscle for Life lot of people think it's kind of a secret to getting super lean or that it's necessary to get really lean. And then I want to talk about, uh, you know, working something a little non-fitness related, which has some overlap, but also can apply some other areas of life. And that's kind of something I just wrote about on my blog, which is the importance of finishing what you begin. So first let's talk about carb cycling. So in case you're not familiar with carb cycling, basically it's a style of dieting that has you rotate through high carb days and low carb days. And the low carb days,

some protocols have no carb days. So basically, you know, zero or under 30 carbohydrates, almost like a ketogenic type diet on certain days. And this is kind of like intermittent fasting where it, um, has, uh, we've seen a dramatic rise in popularity over the last probably year or two. And, you know, it's gotten more and more, uh, coverage in magazines and on websites and stuff. Um, and many guys, especially it's particularly popular in the bodybuilding world, like People that compete, you know, bodybuilding physique and stuff. And a lot of these guys will, you know, tell you how great carb cycling is and how it helps them get really shredded for shows and maintain muscle and maintain training intensity and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, if you listen to some of these guys, you'd think this is like the holy grail of dieting, right? listen to some of these guys, you'd think this is like the holy grail of dieting, right?

And you also find various forms of carb cycling in, you know, different information products that are sold, usually more sensationalized type, like, you know, shitty clickbait, clickbait products and stuff that make these wild promises in terms of building muscle and losing fat and, you know, dramatically recomping your body and blah, blah, blah. And a lot of that is because carb cycling, I mean, I mean, it's just human nature, but the more complex or the more intricate and more moving parts something has, the more, uh, we, you know, our perceptions can be altered in terms of thinking that it must work or there must be something to it because just straight calorie deficit on you know balanced macronutrients oh that's so you know that's so 19 or 2000 or whatever now we're all about you know having to rework your macros you know four times a week and

in in a lot of when when you're being sold on carb cycling there's usually a lot of references a lot of scientific references and as we'll get into that you'll see a lot of, when you're being sold on carb cycling, there's usually a lot of references, a lot of scientific references. And as we'll get into that, you'll see a lot of it is not valid. And it's kind of a misuse or, you know, a mis, incorrect explanations for things. But it's kind of given a pseudoscientific type of, you know, veneer. So, as you can tell already, I'm not a big fan of carb cycling. Uh, it is not necessary. I'll just say right out, right. It is not necessary to get really lean. And I'm speaking from personal experience here. Um, you know, right now I weigh about 186 pounds.

I'm six foot two, um, about 7% body fat. And I didn't, I haven't done a low day, low carb day. I don't do that ever. Basically. I don't, I'm not a fan of low carb dieting at all. Um, and you know, I eat right now my, I've never, I've been cutting for about seven weeks now. I lost a week, uh, or so. Cause I was sick for a few days. So I just kind of like it was stagnant that week, but, um, my, I never went below 200 carbs a day. So far, on my training days, I'm eating a bit more calories. I'm eating about 250 carbs. And on my rest days, I'm eating a little bit less calories

just because I'm not burning as many calories. And I also found that while calorie cycling, it sounds kind of, you know, that alone sounds kind of trendy or whatever. It actually, I found that it does help when I'm under 10% and I'm wanting to get really lean eating a bit more on my training days. So my deficit is smaller on my training days, but it gives me a bit more carbs to help maintain training intensity. And then my deficit is a little bit larger on my rest days when I'm not training. Um, and I can get away with fewer calories. I find that helps getting into that

really lean type category, whereas it's not necessary. Again, I've done it both ways, just same intake every day, and I've done it this way. I feel this way is a little bit better. My training basically is because my workouts are a little bit better because I get a little bit more carbs on my training days. So for what it's worth, and that's also though when you're wanting to get really lean is when you have to really start, that's when your workouts can really start suffering. If you're looking to go from 15% to 10%, you know, you can just calculate your average TDD, your average total daily energy expenditure, you know, drop 20% of that, eat that every day, and you're going to do great. You're going to feel great. Your workouts are going to be fine.

You're not going to run into any issues. But when you start getting down into the 8-9% range and you want to get down even further, 7-6%, if you do it incorrectly, you can start burning up quite a bit of muscle, your workouts are really going to suck, you're not going to have any energy, and your muscle endurance is going to be really bad. So anyways, I talk about this quite a bit more in my upcoming book. I'm going to be launching about a week. I've said that like four times, but I've run into a lot of random, you know, the typesetter was just incompetent, had to find somebody else and the sales letters taking longer, blah, blah, blah. But it's almost done. So the book itself is done, but you know, the whole thing is almost done. I want to do a whole book launch.

I'm not just going to, you know, throw it out there and say, hey, I'm going to do a whole fun thing. Back to carb cycling. That's basically how it works. You cycle through high carb, low carb, and then sometimes no carb days. The reasons for doing this, what you're often told, is that your high carb days replenish glycogen stores in the muscles, which helps maintain your training intensity. Yes, that's true. That's a known thing.

Also, of course, when you're eating a lot of carbs, your insulin levels are going to be quite higher than if you were not eating so many carbs. And to the contrary of the mainstream kind of crusade against insulin and carbohydrates right now, insulin, when you're an active person, especially as a weight, when you're a weightlifter, insulin is your friend. Insulin is, it's not, it's not anabolic in the way of testosterone, for instance. It doesn't directly induce protein synthesis, but it is anti-catabolic, meaning that higher insulin levels means that there's less protein breakdown occurring over the course of the day. So those

are usually the two things of like the selling points in the high carb day. Also, of course, it's enjoyable. I mean, especially when you're going low carb several days and you eat a bunch of carbs, you feel really good. And, you know, ironically, this is how some competitors deal with food cravings. I know I talked about cravings in the last one, but I came across this and I forgot to include in the last one. But it is that if you

are having trouble with food cravings in your dieting, go keto for a week, meaning eat less than 30 grams of carbohydrates a day, you know, and you don't have to be in a massive calorie deficit. You can rework your macros, high protein, very, very low carb, high fat, do that for a week and see how you feel. And then go back to what you're doing before, where you're maybe getting 40% or 30% of your daily calories from carbohydrates and your perceptions are going to be changed a bit. If you want to know what real cravings are and what real misery is, just go keto for a week and then you'll see.

Try to work out too. It's almost like different competitors and coaches will have their guys do this just to show them basically like, shut up, stop whining. You don't know what real cravings are. I think it's a funny, and it's a simple, I'm sure it works. I mean, there's quite a few people that quite a few coaches that are good coaches that do that. And then their guys just have, you know, they reevaluate things and they go, okay, well, I guess my 180 grams of carbs per day, like now those carbs are all of a sudden satisfactory and they're not okay, well, I guess my 180 grams of carbs per day, like now those carbs are

all of a sudden satisfactory and they're not dreaming about eating apple pies and stuff. So that's the high carb sales pitch. There's truth in it. Nothing wrong with that. But where the low, where the carb cycling sales pitch kind of falls apart is when is the whole reasoning behind the low carb days or the no carb days. And this is where the pitch is that you're going to, uh, lose more fat on those days. And usually it's, you know, there are different, the common reasons given are all your insulin levels are going to be lower and insulin causes fast storage. And that means lower insulin causes more fat loss. And there's that, but some people don't even go that far.

Some people just kind of ride the current trend right now because everybody knows that low-carb dieting and why it sucks and why you don't lose fat faster. And there's good research showing this. If you're eating a standard high-protein diet and your fat loss is not going to change, if the calorie deficit is set correctly, high-carb, low-carb, it doesn't matter. Only in very rare cases where if you have a real problem with insulin response or insensitivity, like if you were very overweight and you're sedentary, then maybe a lower carb approach would actually be a little bit better for you.

But even then, it's not that big of an issue really. So this is where carb cycling sucks because you do these low carbcarb and no-carb days, and you feel miserable. Your workouts suck. Some people will tell me they feel great on low-carb dieting, and that's after your body gets adapted to it. Like if you were to do a full ketogenic diet where you were eating less than 30 grams of carbs a day, 30, 40, for your first 7 to 10 days, you're going to feel terrible. You're going to have no energy.

And then your body starts to become what they call fat adapted where it needs to get energy from somewhere. So it's going to start oxidizing, of course, not just body fat, but you're going to be eating more dietary fats in it. It basically just, it learns to, it sees that it's not going to be getting a bunch of carbohydrates, which are easy sources of energy, and then it changes metabolically how it's working to oxidize fats more because it has to. And then it creates ketones for the brain. I'll probably actually end up writing an article about the ketogenic diet because it sucks as well. But it's similar to the low-carb, but it's an extreme version of the low-carb. So in the carb cycling, you do these low-carb days where you think that you're supposed to lose more fat.

And the only way that you would is if, and sometimes some low-carb or some carb cycling protocols actually do this, they don't, on your low-carb days, you not only go low-carb, you go very low calorie. And that is even more sucky because when you start messing with calorie deficits too much, you start putting yourself in too much of a calorie deficit and you're not on anabolics. And I'll get to that in a second because this is where carb cycling is very popular and it's probably not a bad idea. But when you're not on anabolics and you're, you're messing with, you know, start inducing the, like you start using a 30 plus percent, 25 plus percent calorie deficit, you're going to start running into muscle loss issues. Even if you eat a bunch

of protein, you can mitigate it somewhat with high protein intake. But it's not just going to be energy problems. Then it starts to become muscle loss problems. And the worst, what you don't want to have happen when you're cutting is basically you just don't want to lose muscle. I mean, you're going to lose some. It's inevitable. But you want it to be as little as possible. You want to preserve as much lean mass as you can and lose as much just fat as you can. Fat and water and glycogen, that's really what you want to see coming out.

And you can do that naturally if you know what you're doing. And a big part of that is just a moderate calorie deficit and remaining patient. As boring as that sounds and unsexy and whatever that is the truth of it. Um, so you have these low carb days, which are often low calorie days. And you, of course, if it's low calorie, you're going to lose. If your calorie deficit is a thousand on a low carb day, you're going to lose more fat than a 500 calorie or a 300 calorie deficit on a high carb day, of course. Um, but there's no, there's nothing else that you

could just go low calorie and you know, it could just be a high protein. We have moderate carb, low fat day. It would be the same thing. Uh, but it's more, that's not carb cycling. Carb cycling is that you, you know, you drop your, you keep your protein high, you drop your carbs to nothing and you compensate with your fats. So you rotate through these days. You know, sometimes it's like low-carb day, low-carb day, no-carb day, high-carb day, and you just rotate through that. It really depends on the protocol. And the bottom line, though, is, and once again, I'll link an article to low-carb dieting so you can see that that element or that aspect of carb cycling just doesn't give you anything special.

And I'll also link our road on carb cycling if you want to look into a bit more of the research as well that just shows there's really nothing special about this. So you go through, basically, there are going to be a few days a week you're going to be irritable, you're going to have low energy your workouts are going to suck when you carb cycle and then you have your high carb day, you're going to feel great and your workout that day is going to be much better, your workout the next day

is going to be better and then at that point your glycogen stores are going to be significantly depleted. And then you go back to the low carb, no carb misery. And in the end for nothing, you're not going to lose fat faster. Um, and if it, if, if the protocol that you're following also involves very low calorie days, you may also lose more muscle doing it that way. I say may, because it kind of depends on your genetics and depends on the protocol. If you were to do just like one very low calorie day per week, um, with high protein, you probably would be okay. Um, but you know, it really depends from body to body. Some people, I mean, I've known guys that, uh, very ectomorphic body types,

naturally very skinny and very lean trouble, you know, well, I wouldn't say trouble. It just, they had to be very spot on with their diet to build muscle, uh, effectively where, I mean, my brother-in-law's is like this and he used to, so he'd work out like when he was bulking, he would, uh, you know, gain, he could gain about a pound in a week. He had to eat a lot of food for it, but he could do it, you know, probably about 4,000 calories a day. He only weighed 155 pounds, but he could do it, gain about a pound in the week. And then the weekend he wouldn't eat enough. And then he would lose that pound over the weekend, just Saturday, Sunday, just by not eating enough. Like, I mean, I would try to tell him his weekend diet was so it made no sense.

Like he would eat 60 grams of protein and, you know, an overall calorie intake of maybe 2000 calories max. So it'd be like basically no protein, a bunch of carbs, like a big pancake breakfast basically. And, and then go all the way to dinner, maybe a little bit of protein and like some pasta or something. And that's it. So just like terrible macronutrient ratios, very low calorie on the weekend considering his body. And he would lose the pound just in two

days that he, you know, gained. And of course he didn't gain a pound of muscle in the week. You know, if, when, when you're bulking, if you're gaining for the weight that you're gaining, if it's one part muscle, one part fat, that's pretty standard. If it's like anywhere above that, if it's 1.5 part muscle, one part fat or two part muscle, then that's like, you're getting very good. You have, I mean, you're doing everything right and you have good genetics basically. So, um, he, he looking at his body, he probably actually gained a bit more muscle than fat. His body just didn't put on fat very easily. So let's say he's gaining like, I don't know, um, a seventh of a pound of muscle or something like that. Uh, and he lost it though, right over the weekend he was back and his weight

would just constantly, that was it. And that was until, I mean, finally he learned cause I told him a million times, like, what are you doing? You're just spinning your wheels, man. Why are you putting all this work in the gym and then undoing it with just silly over, like just overeat on the weekends that would be better for him. Um, so the, uh, that's like, you know, in terms of coming back to, coming back to, to carb cycling, then those very low calorie days, depending on your body type can really actually mess you up. Um, and you know, you know, so if that's kind of carb cycling, I guess there's actually one other point I want to touch on, which is this re-comp point. It's a lot of, it's a big selling point.

You have carb cycling. It's also a big selling point of intermittent fasting. In many cases, like these products that just try to capitalize on the latest, greatest fads in terms of workouts and diet, they'll combine intermittent fasting and, uh, carb cycling, which sounds, you know, super advanced where, you know, intermittent fasting where you're fasting every 24 hours, let's say that you are fasting for 16 of eight hours to eat all your food. And then in those eight hours, you're also cycling your carbs on days. You know, they, that get really gets there. It's,

it's strange. There's a certain subset of people in this space, in this fitness space that that's what they're drawn to. I don't know if it's like the biohacking crowd or whatever, but they're looking traditional dieting. It's like, it's just, I don't know. It doesn't appeal to them. They're looking for, they, they think that there must be some better way. Like, you know, we've known about calorie deficits since for decades. Now we've known about traditional dieting for decades now, even flexible dieting, right? If it fits your macros kind of thing, which I don't like the, it fits your, if it fits your macros, rebranding, flexible dieting, much more about that, you know,

even just calling it that, which means that you work within certain numbers, you have balanced macronutrients, you get the majority of your calories from healthy foods, but you eat foods you like, and you also can include a bit of, you know, junk or whatever here and there, fit it in, work it in if you want. You can have, you know, sugar. You can have whatever.

I mean, the junk food, however junky you're willing to go is kind of up to you. I'm not a fan of fast food, for instance. It's just not worth it to me. I'm not interested in that. But there are other things like, you know, I really like chocolate, so I'll work in chocolate. Or maybe I'll work in some, you know, gelato or something like that. Or, you know, stuff like dessert type things that at least are semi, at least I can read the ingredients and I know what those things are. It's not just, you know, a long list of chemicals where I know what I'm eating. Um,

so there's, there seems to be these people that are just drawn to something like the, the more complex or the more, uh, out of the ordinary, uh, an approach is the more they're drawn to it. ordinary an approach is, the more they're drawn to it. And I guess I can understand that to some degree, but that's just, that's not me whenever I get into something, whether it be fitness or I'm learning golf, whatever it is that I'm learning, I'm looking for, and I've found that the people that can explain things simply are usually the ones that actually know what they're talking about. When they, the people that try to take subjects and make them very complex or try to pitch you on something that's very intricate or has a lot of, uh, different moving parts to it.

And if they're saying this is the revolutionary new, this, that, whatever, they probably are just full of shit. Um, and I, I look for people that teach simple, basic fundamentals that make sense and that I can put into use and see, into use and see it working for myself. I'm against the more sensationalized marketing is, you know, kind of really in any area, the more skeptical I am, basically. So that's, I think, one of the big draws of carb cycling, really, is it just sounds fancy. And that immediately makes people think there one of the big draws of carb cycling really is it just sounds fancy. And that immediately makes people think there must be something special to it.

But the fact is traditional dieting works great. I mean, what else do you want in terms of, you know, for instance, if you can, when you're cutting, if you can lose, if you're quite overweight, you know, you can lose upwards of two pounds of fat a week. If you're somewhere more in a maybe athletic type range, but you just, you know, you're not like really lean as a guy, maybe you're around 15%. So you're not fat, but you're not lean. You're just kind of in the middle as a girl, maybe this isn't in the low twenties or mid twenties or something like that. You can, you know, gain a, you can lose a pound of fat a week. Your workouts are great. Um, you don't have any, any major strength Your workouts are great. You don't have any major strength loss.

You don't have energy problems. You don't have hunger issues. You don't crave a bunch of foods. And you will run into these issues with carb cycling. It's a test of your will for a lot of people because low-carb, no-carb days suck. And traditional dieting, which I I mean, I talk about, I will link, um, I'll link an article that I wrote just if you want to kind of get my take on traditional dieting. I actually wrote it on, on clean eating because clean eating is, um, it's, it's, it's kind of like,

like if it fits your macros and I guess in fasting, it's like this new kind of little trendy thing. Um, I mean, I guess it's not that new, but clean guess in fasting, it's like this new kind of little trendy thing. I mean, I guess it's not that new, but clean eating in general, it seems like over the last, it seems like over the last year or maybe two years, I've just seen it more and more and more in terms of people's social media postings and it mentioned in articles and whatever. And it's not, it's not nearly as important as many people make it out to be. Yes, you should be eating nutritious foods, but getting really lean does not require that you restrict a bunch of foods and you don't eat a bunch of certain types of carbs

and you only eat these carbs and you only eat it these times. I mean, the schedule maybe is not so much related to clean eating. Anyway, I'll link to an article about that so you can see what I'm talking about in terms of traditional dieting, which is, like I said, a moderate calorie deficit, high protein, relatively high carb, and moderately low fat. And that just works great, especially if you're weightlifting, because you're able to maintain workout intensity. And that, in turn, is a major part in being able to maintain your lean mass while you're cutting. If your workouts go to shit and your strength goes to shit when you're, when you're cutting, you're, that's a bad sign. You're probably losing muscle. That's

probably what that means. Um, so, um, I mean, that's, that, that's kind of the, uh, I guess everything that I wanted to, I want to say on carb cycling. Um, Oh, I do want to talk about, uh, I guess everything that I wanted, I want to say on carb cycling. Um, Oh, I do want to talk about, uh, where, where it may be, it may make sense is probably with guys that are competing because when you do cut your carbs down, what you will, uh, you're not gonna lose fat faster, but you do lose subcutaneous water. So I mean, your body holds less water period, because as you reduce carbs, glycogen levels go down and water flushes out. And sub-Q water does flush out to some degree as well, meaning the water under your skin. So when you are, you know, these people that are competing, these guys need to get down to 5% and their skin needs to be paper thin.

their skin needs to be paper thin. Um, I can see, I can see why a low carb approach would make sense for that because I mean, I personally, I don't compete. Um, and I've gotten, I mean, I've gotten to the 6% range. I haven't gotten to the 5% range. Um, and at 6%, I mean, I was eating quite a few carbs a day and I was looking pretty dry and pretty, pretty, my skin was definitely pretty thin. Um, but I don't know if I would have been like stage ready. So that is an area where you'll see carb cycling a lot with people that are competing and it, they're, they're, you know, I can see why that would be, but also what you need to realize with a lot of these people is that they're on drugs, they're on anabolics and it's not just, they're on testosterone, they're on many other drugs. They're on, you know, obviously Tremolone

is like the drug now, the super drug that every, it's just like, you know, low, low, low dose of testosterone, high dose of Tren. And if you're, you know, if you're cutting, you'd be on Clen, you'd be on T3. And there's like the master stack for, you know, just getting retardedly shredded, eating, you know, more food than you should be able to be eating. And that then with kind of a low carb approach to get rid of the water as well, you know, I can see that. And it's very obvious with these guys. I mean, not only can you easily spot them with just how they look, there are certain levels of muscular development you just can't get to without those types of drugs.

Especially, I mean, you'll see it in a lot of the little muscles, the serratus, the obliques, where it's just ridiculously shredded all the way down. You'll see it in shoulders, big shoulders, where it's like as big as my head. Big upper chest, big traps. like as big as my head, uh, big upper chest, big traps. Um, so it also is interesting to see in the legs too that, you know, some of the, some of these guys, they get ridiculous separation and ridiculous development in the legs. So depending on drugs, I mean, I'm not really a drug expert. I just kind of know I'm in this world and I hear about it and I have people email me that are very honest about it. They don't care and we'll talk about it. So it's interesting, but, uh, you know, I'm not,

I couldn't look at somebody and tell you what drugs you're taking, but I just, I know a bit from just speaking with people on what's normal. And of course the drug testing these leads is a joke. So don't, you know, don't think that that means anything. So when you see those types of guys on Instagram saying how great carb cycling is, no, it's not, it's how great their drugs are. It's not how great the carb cycling is. Um, and you know, for people like you and people like me, you know, even if there is a little bit of ability, uh, to carb cycle, if we were wanting to get down to 5% or even 4% and have paper thin skin, I'm not trying to do that. I don't know if you are, I'm happy just to be

six, 7%. Um, and when you start getting that lean, I mean, I'm about that right now, I'm about 7% and you naturally look dry. Like I, you know, I'm eating, like I said, my training day is 250 grams of carbs a day. I just cut it down actually a little bit, 230, but, um, to finishing my cut it to draw my calories a little bit. Uh, and you know, your skin is thin. There's just not much there. A lot of the skin thickness that people think, oh, it's just thickness or water is just fat. You get rid of the fat. You look good. I mean, regardless how many carbs you're eating, even, even if I were to really mess with my sodium and potassium levels and kind of mess up and start holding more water. When you get to a certain

level of leanness, it kind of just doesn't matter anymore. You just look good, period. So that's really the goal. Just get lean and you can do that with traditional dieting. And you don't have to go through any of the misery and any of the upswings and downswings that many people run into with carb cycling. And one last thing I just want to say about just dieting in general, because there are so many different theories out there and so many different approaches, and a lot of them can sound very convincing and they can link all kinds of science. And unless you're really going to dive into all the research yourself and put it all together,

it can, you know, it can seem, Hey, this person must know what they're talking about. And that's, um, just that resist the shiny object syndrome, which is resist the urge to, to jump from program to program to program or diet to diet to diet. Um, because in the end you just end up messing with your results. Really like if you could just stick to traditional dieting, maintain a proper calorie deficit, don't cheat a bunch, don't overeat, don't take five extra bites every meal, just stick to the plan and pounds. So therefore now you're going to try this carb cycling diet because you heard that this is the magic pill for, you know, doubling your, your fat loss or whatever. So then you get on the carb cycling diet and maybe, you know, let's say you still maintain a moderate calorie deficit and do your thing and you lose a pound, a pound and a half over the next couple of weeks. So it's even a little bit slower for whatever reason. And then you get more frustrated. So now you're going to try intermittent fasting and then now you're getting a little bit discouraged. So you're having now some compliance

issues where you're eating a bit more than you should. You're not exactly following your diet the way that you should. And then you jump to, you know, some other type of diet. Maybe you want to try keto or something like that, or you just try to go for a low calorie, and then your weight loss does accelerate, but you feel miserable, and then you end up dramatically overeating. This is a cycle many people fall into, and it's kind of an insidious, dwindling spiral of dieting that just ends with kind of throwing your hands up in frustration

and saying, whatever, I give up. So resist that. I'm telling you, stick to a traditional way of dieting, balanced macronutrients, moderate calorie deficit, use exercise to really drive that fat loss, and be patient, and you'll get to where you want to be. And then once you're there, maintaining is much easier. Maintaining is very, very easy when you do it right, because you're able to slowly bring your calories back up. You get to eat plenty of food, you enjoy yourself and you get to stay lean. And especially like if you're going from a higher body fat percentage, if you're going from 20%, you know, plus or whatever as a guy, let's say, and you, and

you make, you, you stick through it and you make it down to the 10% range and you stay there, you don't ever have to go back up to 20%. Like you can now, let's say even bulking, right? You go, you know, you put yourself in calorie surplus, you get up to the 15% range. Um, and then you come back down to 10. And then when you come back down, it's easier because you have more muscle and you're not, it's not as long of a journey. And you repeat that and repeat that, and over time it becomes easier and easier to get leaner and leaner and stay there. So just kind of resist that shiny object syndrome. Stick to the basics that work and just be patient.

So yeah, that's all for carb cycling. So now I want to shift gears to the other little subject I want to talk about here, shift gears to the other little subject I want to talk about here. And that's just the importance of finishing what you begin. Okay, so what I want to say on this subject is it's almost like a little bit of a challenge that I kind of have for you and a challenge that I try to put, you know, take, take on myself in my, in my pretty much like any area of, of life, especially, I mean, it's obviously especially related to work, but it's also related to really anything else that you're doing. And that's to finish everything that you begin. Meaning if you say you're going to do something, um, and, and you take that first step,

you're now obligated to finish it, to see it through. And I'm talking about anything. It can be something small. It could be, I don't know, learning a hobby. It could be something big. It could be launching a blog or you want to start a business or you want to achieve something in your education or whatever to afford your career. Whatever it is, if you say you're going to do it, you have to achieve something like in your education or whatever, for your career, whatever it is, if you say you're going to do it, you have to do it.

No matter what happens, no matter how hard it gets, no matter what it means in terms of sacrifice, of time, and of other interests and other things, distractions that might be out there. that might be out there. And if you do that, it is a lot more, it can be a lot more powerful than you might think. It's not just about the logistical benefit of getting more things done just for the sake of getting more things done. It goes beyond just productivity. It really has deeper ramifications, I think. And depending on how you are with this, it can really dramatically change you as a person for the better. And, you know, some of the most unhappy

and just kind of ineffective people that I know are people that can't do this. They jump from thing to thing to thing. They say they're going to do this in any area of life. It's if it's work, it's one month, they're doing this. And though some of them have big, they'll talk very big and how big it's going to be in this and that, and they're doing this and that. And then a couple of months later, they're doing something else. And they seem just as excited about that. Oh, how big it is, blah, blah, blah. And then it's something else. And then it's something else. Um, and, and in a couple of

cases, their, their personal lives are even are very similar. It's, you know, the hobby a now is the thing and all, I'm going to get good at this. I'm going to do that or whatever. And then that lasts for about a month and now it's on the hobby B. They never got good. They never got anywhere. Then they go on to the next thing, go on to the next thing. And, you know, a couple of these people that I know are kind of aware of it. You know, they know that this is a weakness or whatever of theirs, and they think that, you know, they say, oh, they just get bored easily or they need a lot of variety.

But then some have got, like, they're not even, they don't want to be aware of it or whatever. They're in the point of just, got to the point of, I guess, delusion where they're kind of telling themselves that they don't, you know, they don't need that or whatever. It's not a big deal for them. They just like to have fun with things or whatever and they have different ways of explaining it. But I think that, you know, what actually is underlying that is really just a fear of committing to anything. Because committing to something, saying that I'm going to do it and I care about getting there, even if you don't tell anybody, if you just tell yourself that, I want to do this and here's why I want to do this and this matters to me,

and then you fail. That is more painful than just saying, well, being very maybe about it or I'm going to try. Maybe I'll get into this or maybe I'll try that for a little bit and we'll see. And I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that. I mean, for instance, I'm learning golf, right? I played quite a bit of golf when I was younger. I want to get back into something physical that's out of the gym, get outside, get some space, get some air, whatever.

Figured I'll take up golf again. And initially, I was thinking, okay, I don't have a bunch of time to play golf like I used to. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to give it three months. I'm going to get some lessons. I'm going to go there. I'm going to wake up early on the weekends, a time that I'd otherwise normally would just be sleeping. So I'll get up at seven and go to the golf course. And I have the time that I have. And if I can get

to a certain point within three months or so, so like there's certain, if I can fix my swing in a couple of different ways and actually be able to see see that i there's a hope to getting out getting good maybe within the first year and by good i mean i want to get back to shooting where i was at which was like high 70s low 80s if i can get back to that within a year or maybe even six months then i'm interested um and i'll know that within the first three months if three months go by and i'm just it's just not coming back and i'm just sitting out there on the range being frustrated, I'm going to do something else. And so I'm like maybe a month and a half in and it's going well.

So now I'm thinking, okay, well then I've met my conditional if and now I'm thinking, all right, good. So I think I actually can get good. Now I'd like to, you know, maybe the next year I'd like to get good enough where I can play in some local tournaments thinking, all right, good. So I think I actually can get good. Now I'd like to, you know, maybe the next year I'd like to get good enough where I could play in some local tournaments and stuff. Okay, fine. That's just a silly little goal. It's a, it's a hobby. Who cares if I get good enough to play in golf tournaments, but I, I care because it's going to be fun. And, you know, I'm okay with committing to that. Now, of course there are much bigger commitments. If it was like, you know, making, that's not a life-changing commitment, that's just something you do for fun. But if it's something more related to, let's say, my marriage or let's say, you know, something with raising my son or business, making money, putting our future there, more important things.

Um, I, you know, I, with, with, with some of these people that they, they kind of have this, they, they don't set goals almost. It seems like on purpose because, I mean, I guess I can understand if you, if I were them and I had tried many different things and failed. And if I knew that I just wasn't good at following through, why even really go for things? I mean, I guess I could see that. Why even bother? It's better to just kind of be a dilettante and, you know, just dabble in things and not take anything seriously and nothing really matters and I'm just here to enjoy it and whatever, blah, blah, blah. Okay. But yeah, that sounds good, but it's kind of an insidious, I think it's a very slippery slope where you operate like that for too long and it just gets worse and worse and worse to

where setting goals just becomes kind of distasteful basically. And I don't think anybody would really want to live like that. I think everybody has just an inherent urge to want to make things happen. Whatever that means for you, there are things you want to make happen and you want to make things happen. Whatever that means for you, there are things you want to make happen and you want to be able to decide. I mean, really what I'm talking about here is it comes down to intention, just the ability to decide to say,

I'm going to do this, here's why I'm going to do this, and then go do it. Without a bunch of bargaining with yourself or having to reevaluate, is it really worth it? Or maybe this you know, maybe this other thing is better. I think that being able to operate in that kind of straight,

where you just go straight for something, you can say, this is what I'm doing, this is where I'm going, this is why, and just work toward it and get there. Even with little things, being able to do that with little things can really start to build self-confidence and help you prove to yourself that you can do it with bigger things. And, you know, so that's why I think having a habit of finishing what you begin. I mean, there's a quote, and I have a blog article on this, there's a quote from Ovid who says, either don't attempt it or carry it through to the end. And that basically, I mean, that's the message. If you're going to try something, finish it.

And if you kind of accept that not as like, oh, that's cute, that's advice, that's something, you know, like you'd see on a Hallmark card or something like that. But if you accept it as like personal law, like this is how you do things. And yeah, no one's perfect. You know, we're going to break it here and there. But if it's kind of like dieting, if you're on it, 90% of the time you're on those 10% of little slip ups, extra calories here and there, whatever, doesn't matter. Same concept here. If 90% of your, you know, when you

say I'm doing something and you take that first step, if 90% of the time you see it through, you're good. And that will vary. It just changes everything. It changes your view of yourself. It changes your view of your abilities. It changes your self-confidence and, you know, it kind of helps you, it helps you learn to kind of find, I mean, this is, I got this concept from one of Robert Greene's books called The 33 Strategies of War. I'm a big fan of his work. I like history, and it's just his work, him and Steven Pressfield, I really like the stuff they do, but Greene talks about what he calls the joy of attack mode. And this kind of resonated with me where, you know, you get going in a direction, you're going to run into obstacles, things are, you know, not always going to go your way. But you kind of learn that anything

that gets in your way, you can always meet with more aggressive action. And the more aggressively you act, the more things go your way. And you kind of learn the power of momentum and how really when you get enough momentum going in a direction, and that's that 90% of the time you're good and you're rolling. When you do slack a little bit

or when things go a little bit off, that 10% of the time, momentum will carry you through. And really what that means in practical terms is like, even, even in terms of a schedule, I think that's scheduling is like working on a tight schedule where I have to do this because of the amount of things that I'm involved in where this time to this time on this day is what I'm doing. Like my days are, uh, I mean, I'm not, they're pretty regimented. I have to go Mondays. Here's my kind of daily routine. I have to do, I have time for all my little things.

Tuesday is a little bit different. Wednesday is a little bit different. You know, I take Saturdays off. I work Sunday. So it's a, you know, I have every kind of day and that, that gives me momentum because I'm, I'm moving every day. I'm moving in a direction, uh, with muscle for life, with my books, with Legion, with some other projects that I'm working on.

Everything is moving in that direction. So if, you know, if I miss a little bit of time on one day, or if I get caught up in something and I can't work on that project that one day, it doesn't matter. I have enough momentum moving where it doesn't discourage me. It's just like, all right, cool. Tomorrow, you know, I'm back on track So, yeah, I mean, that's pretty much all I really want to say on that. I think it's good advice and something that's really helped me. It's just when you get into something, if you really want to achieve anything, just go all in and really go into it wholeheartedly and finish what you begin. Like, no matter how hard it gets, you have to just, I mean, it's a matter of willpower, I guess,

but it's also a matter of accepting the importance of it and knowing that, because when you start doing this, you also start to evaluate your options a bit more carefully. You won't commit to, like, I'm very careful with the things that I commit to doing, even to myself. I don't just take on, I don't just go, There are a lot of things I would like to do. A lot of other types of books I would like to write. There are a lot of different, even types of businesses that I know, great opportunities. I could get into that, and I could make a ton of money doing that. But I have to, I choose my commitments carefully because I know how much time I have.

I know how much work it takes to make things actually happen. And I finish what I begin. I'm not going to make things actually happen. And, uh, I finished what I began. I'm not going to get into something and be like, Oh yeah, that's a great idea. And then just start going on it. And then halfway there be like, Oh, this is too much work. I'll just go on to something else. That's just not how I work. Um, so yeah, I hope, I hope that is helpful to you. Um, I think, like I said, I think it applies in the gym, uh, but it applies elsewhere. All right. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I think it applies in the gym, uh, but it applies elsewhere. All right. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I'll catch you on the next one.

Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did, uh, go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two, um, 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.