SOLVED with Mark Manson - How I Lost 60 Pounds and Started Giving A F*ck About My Health

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

Over the past 5 years, I’ve completely changed my relationship to my health. Prior to that, I was overweight, pre-diabetic, and having chest pains in my mid-30s. I thought maybe eating a salad once a week and going for a run every now then would take care of it. I was wrong. Since then, I’ve lost 60 pounds (~30kg). I now enjoy exercising regularly and I eat healthy and nutritious foods. My daily life is much more physically active and I get way better sleep. I’m happy with my health now—but it took a long time to get here. I’m not going to share a bunch of workout routines or complicated diets. What worked for me might not work for you. But I can share what I went through to get here in the hopes that you, too, might change how you think about your health and take it more seriously. Because at the end of the day, your health is definitely something you should give a f*ck about. Use the code IDGAF to get 20% off your first one-time purchase of supplements at livemomentous.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, before we get into it, if you listen to the show, you probably consume a lot of personal growth content. The books, the podcasts, YouTube videos, all of it. And you've probably noticed the gap between knowing what to do and then actually going out and doing it. You've got the insights, but what you don't have is something that connects them to your actual life. That's why I built purpose. It's a personal development AI that learns you, your patterns, your blind spots, all the stuff that you keep circling back to over and over again. Instead of handing you another framework, it gives you specific personalized direction. So check it out. You can try it for free for seven days. Go to purpose.app. That is purpose.com. So as you know, Drew, we've gotten a lot of

comments over to last year about how skinny I am. We have. That's such a weird way to start an episode. Have you all noticed how skinny I am? Do I look good in these jeans? No, but seriously. So over the past year, dozens and dozens of people have commented and asked about the health journey I've been on. For those of you who have been longtime fans who've been around for many years, you know that I used to be a little chunky, a little bit of a fat fuck for being honest. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I did plenty of sugarcoat in prior years. I have lost almost 60 pounds in the last four to five years. That's 30 kilos for non-Americans.

I went from over 40% body fat, which is like very like you're in the red zone in terms of body composition health-wise to under 20% body fat. My biomarkers are the best they've ever been in my life. I've been on a very long and intense health journey over the last five years. A lot of readers and viewers and listeners have noticed. A lot of people have asked about it. I want to preface this episode by saying, I'm not a. fitness guru. I'm not a nutrition expert. I'm just a guy who was horribly unhealthy for most of his adult life. I fought tooth and nail to get my shit together over many, many years. I tried a lot of

things. Most of them didn't work. And so I just wanted to take an episode to talk through the psychological process that I went through as well as the things that I did. There's going to be no, There's no diet here. There's no exercise routine. There's no hot fad secret process that did anything. Like this was a long, arduous process. People keep asking me like, oh my God, you look amazing. What did you do?

And my answer is like, I did 25 different things over four and a half years and half of them didn't work. So I don't know how to answer that question. So this episode is my attempt to answer that question to be very open and honest about this side of my life and the things that I've learned and hopefully give the listeners some psychological tools to approaching their own health and fitness in their own life and just have more practical success with it. So that's what we're doing here. Cool. Yeah. I think a really good place to start this, Mark, is if you would kind of give us a background on how you got so

unhealthy to begin with. Like where did that start? How did that happen? What were some of the processes that went into that? Oh, well, first of all, I'd like to apologize my mom and dad for what I'm about to say. This whole podcast is one big apology. Yeah, I'm sorry, mom. I mean, look, I grew up in Texas in the 80s. Like, I think my mom thought fruity pebbles and cocoa puffs was healthy. Like, that's what you're supposed to give your kid.

And Domino's Pizza was like a normal dinner. You know, they call it the sad diet, standard American diet. I grew up with zero nutritional knowledge, eating tons of processed crap, you know, pretty much my entire childhood, I was a little bit overweight or out of shape. I was never athletic. And then once I got into my adolescent years and my 20s, I started drinking a lot, partying a lot, traveling a lot, working a lot, never took care of my sleep, never paid attention to what I was eating, drank all the time, and just I basically exercised just enough to like keep myself thin enough to remain attractive to the girls I was dating. And that was the, that was the

entirety of it. I had no strategy. I had no long-term goals. I had no fitness regimen or long-term plan. It was just like, oh, I gained a few pounds. Let's go run a bunch so I can keep drinking and going out. And you were able to, that that worked for you? For, for. I mean, in my 20s, yes. Yeah. So I had enough of a metabolism that that that worked until it didn't. And common story. Yeah. So this funny thing happens is you age. And as you age, your body starts telling you, no, you can't do that anymore. So once I got into my 30s, the metabolism slowed down, the wear and tear that it developed on my hormones, on my organs, on my metabolism, like it all started to come to a head.

Probably over 50 pounds, from like 30 to 35, I gained over 50 pounds. I was already technically overweight. and then you just add another 50 pounds of body weight, probably all fat on top of that. So by the time I was in my mid-30s, I was, by a clinical definition, obese and in bad health. Yeah, and that was due to lifestyle for the most part you think. I know you were working a lot, you were traveling a lot. Was it mostly lifestyle stuff at that point? Do you feel like, was there any indication that it was something bigger at that point?

So that's what triggered all of this. In 2018, I was working on two books at the same time. Don't recommend that. I was probably 235 pounds, something like that, stressed out of my mind, drinking three, four red bowls a day, eating burritos and pizzas for every meal. And I started having chest pains. And I have a history. My family has a history of heart disease. And so I freaked out.

I went to a doctor. Got all the heart scans, chest scans, all the stuff that they do. And everything came back clear. But doctor sat me down. And he was like, by any chance, have you been stressed lately? I was like, oh, God. He was like, how's your sleep been? I'm like, oh, God.

I remember that, Mark. You were like, your eyes were, yeah, I remember. I used to do interviews and videos back then. Like, if you go back and look at videos of me in 2018, people used to comment saying, like, are you okay? Dude, you need to sleep. Like, I had these big black circles under my eyes. You were going hard.

Anyway, the doctor told me. me pretty bluntly, you know, and we didn't know a whole lot about my genetics and stuff at that point. But like, he told me, he's like, look, you're overweight, you're unhealthy, you're stressed out of your mind, you're not sleeping, and you have a family history of this stuff. He said, you're a ticking time bomb. Like, you should probably figure this stuff out. And so that kind of scared me straight a little bit. And I'm not going to lie. There was a little bit of vanity to it as well. I finished my book, Everything is Ficked, a book about Hope, end of 2018. It was coming out in spring of 2019, the publisher and CAA booked a world speaking tour for me. I was going to go to

27 speaking events in like seven different countries. So I knew I was going to be on stage in front of thousands of people. And I was like, oh, fuck, like, I need to lose some weight. I, like, I'm a mess right now. I'm a total mess. So it was a combination of the vanity and like, I don't want to have a heart attack and die at 42, that I started trying to lose some weight. And initially, as we go through this story, it's like this story happens in a series of, there's like a burst of progress, and then there's a plateau that goes for like six or eight months,

and then change a bunch of things, burst of progress, and then another plateau. Burst of progress, another plateau. And it's kind of like four different phases. And in each case, the thing that works in the beginning stops working at a certain point,

and then you have to like go a level deeper. And so this first level is just like the classic, okay, stop eating desserts, drink a little bit less and go for runs and start exercising again. And that's what I did. And that got like the first 15 or 20 pounds off. And that got me through the speaking tour and it got me, you know, through that whole book launch and everything.

But the lifestyle didn't change. The workload didn't change. Ultimately, like my habits didn't really change. And so I hit a plateau, you know, I 15, 20 pounds and then I was just stuck. And I'm like, still overweight. still feeling like shit, still not sleeping well. That plateau lasted for probably like six or eight months. I want to step back just a little bit though too.

So this was 2018, 2019. Yeah. Right. So you're 34, 35 at that time, right? 35, yeah. Yeah, okay. But you were saying you were getting a lot of weight from 30 to 35. Yes.

The subtle art came out when you were 31 or two, if I remember, you were 32. Two, yeah. You've mentioned before that they're, you know, you've written about these things. Yeah. And like, there is this whole thing. We know what we should do. and we still don't do it, right? Of course.

What's the connection there with, you know, the book, the success that you had? You've talked about kind of the aimless nature or the aimless kind of wandering you did in that period, too. Was there any connection to your physical health with all that? So I think this actually gets into like probably the first really salient psychological point of this, which is that I was delusional. And I think most people who are unhealthy are delusional. Like, I knew I wasn't in shape. And I knew I was overweight, but I didn't understand the extent of it and how bad it was.

And I deluded myself into believing that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. So when I look back at that whole period, like, yes, what the subtle order not giving a fuck would say is like, look, you need to give a fuck about a few things and care about them very deeply. And those things should be like very personal and important. They should pay off in the long run. Health is obviously one of those things. It affects everything else in your life. your body is you get one body like if you fuck it up that's it I should have been giving a lot more fucks about my health than I was but I didn't because because I was essentially just lying to

myself and telling myself it wasn't that bad now part of this too is like coming from like how bad of a health background I came from the fact that I ate a salad like twice a week yeah I'm like well I'm healthier and I was five years ago you know like the fact that I actually went to a gym occasionally with some friends. I'm like, well, I'm exercising. Like, I didn't do that 10 years ago. So in my head, I'm actually, I'm being healthy because my bar was so low and my expectations were so low. So part of it is just like a complete ignorance of what a healthy lifestyle actually looks like. And then part of it is delusion. It's just lying to yourself and being like, it's not that bad. I can have another burger. Yeah. Now, I was shocked. Like when I was doing

some research for this too and you go on YouTube or whatever and people are giving their transformation stories, weight loss stories and everything and they'll be severely overweight. Pre-diabetic or diabetic, all sorts of health problems. And a lot of them say, you know, I'm not that unhealthy. It's insane. It's insane to think about. But I get it. Like when you're in that, of course you're not going to sit there and think about yourself as being somebody who's that unhealthy, right? Well, and I mean, we'll get into this more later. But the bar is so low, especially in the United States, that like I went to doctors later who ran blood panels and they're like, well, I've seen worse.

Right. And it's like actually if you look, if you like look at like what a healthy person should be at, a healthy person in his 30s should be at, you know, my panels were terrible. They're like atrocious. So, but we'll get to that in a minute. Okay. When you first started out, was there anything that you thought this, this is, definitely going to work and it didn't or vice versa too like what early on in those early stages what

what did you find was most successful for you the one thing that is good about me is that i i am able to endure a lot of pain and so some friends of mine got in the crossfit and i joined a crossfit gym because i was like well if i'm going to work out i might as well do the hardest workout possible and i still had this kind of naive notion that the if you work out extra hard the results are proportional to how hard you push yourself, which is not true at all. So I started going to this CrossFit gym and just like murdering myself multiple times a week, just destroying my body. And then of course going out and having like a four-course meal and drinking a bottle of wine

and going to an after party and drinking cocktails and fucking sleeping until noon. So like undoing all of the positive work that I was doing at the CrossFit gym. So I think that's a very common newbie mistake that people make is is Is they're like oh if I want progress faster I just have to suffer more Quickly and it's it no it's a consistency thing it's a comp it's a compounding thing over a long period of time No, yeah yeah I've been doing CrossFit too and that definitely like when I'll Intentionally like reduce my weight that I do or reduce the intensity of the workout because I just I know like it's more about the consistency just show up that's what I found yes definitely for sure Yeah, for sure.

Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flame thrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like Habinier, yes.

Save the everyday with Amazon. Yeah, okay. So that was kind of the first phase. What was the second phase you kind of got into? What was the next phase that you found? So we get to like into 2019. I've been trying to lose weight for over a year. I lost 15 pounds in like the first four months and then nothing for the eight months after that. And I was stuck for so long and so frustrated that I finally I was like, I finally had the humility to say I clearly don't know what I'm doing. And the things that worked in my 20s are not. working anymore. So I hired a coach. And shout out to Dan Go. He's become a big influencer on the inner webs. Dan changed my perspective on a lot of things. The first thing was the consistency thing. He was actually the first person who told me, he's like, you shouldn't be sore after workout. Because if you're sore, that means you don't have energy to work out the next day. Like, it's better to have like light workouts consistently, then they go fucking kill yourself and then just be dead for 48 hours afterwards.

But the big thing that Dan did for me is he got me on tracking. It seemed like such a minor, obnoxious thing. I was like, okay, I hired this guy. He's going to make me, like, he's going to make me do all these apps and shit. Like, it's just, I guess he wants to just make sure I'm doing the thing. I had no fucking clue how big of a deal tracking is. It's a complete game changer. And this is why.

The first reason is that it actually allows you to spot your own bullshit. So there were so many times in the past that I would like go to a restaurant or something. I'd order a salad. And in my head, I'm like, well, it's a salad. So it's healthy. I didn't think about the ingredients. I didn't think about how it was made. I didn't think about what the dressing, what was in the dressing.

I was just like, well, it's a salad. It's grilled chicken. Like, it's healthy. When you actually have to sit down and start tracking every ingredient, you start realizing like, oh, well, that dressing has a shitload of sugar in it. And, well, yeah, there's about two cup, there's like a cup of bacon thrown on top. There's two ounces of cheese thrown on top.

There's like three eggs in it. Like, oh my God, that salad is fucking 1,200 calories. It's just, it is pure calories. And the eye-opening way that, you know, between understanding what's in the food and then also understanding situations where, you know, in the past I would lie to myself and be like, you know,

I ate like today. I could have a snack or I can go have a dessert or I can go out with some friends and have a couple of drinks. You know, you open that app and you're like, oh, no, I can't. I can't have a snack and I can't go have some drinks. That sounds torturous to some people, I imagine. Some people hate it. Yeah. Like my wife hate it with the tracking with you that you like so much.

I don't like it. But if I were to like list and order the things that had the greatest impact, it was one of the most impactful things for me. just because I am really good at lying to myself. That is something I discovered through this whole process. I am an excellent bullshit artist to myself. Like, I can convince myself of fucking anything. And when that tracker doesn't lie, it just stares you back in the face. And it's like, nope, two chocolate brownies are still two chocolate brownies.

Like, it doesn't matter for gluten-free, dude. Like, you're eating a shitload of sugar. It's not, it's one of those things that's not pleasant. but it is necessary and honest. And it's also, it's a good practice because in the process of doing it, it forces you to learn about food. You learn how many calories each type of food has.

You learn how much protein is in each, in each cut of meat. You learn which vegetables are super starchy and which ones are not. You start learning like what has sugar in it, what doesn't, which dressings are good, which ones are not. These are all things I know clue,

absolutely zero clue, but just through the process of tracking for multiple years, it forced me to. The second thing about tracking is that it, for somebody who's like very competitive or likes games like me, it helps, it gives you something to try to accomplish or a goal. It's gamified kind of, yeah. It's a score you're trying to beat, right? See, I think you like it.

I think that's why you like it. It's a game to you and I think you actually like it. With the workouts for sure, dude. Yeah. Like I fucking love, like one of my favorite things is to go into the gym. I did it this morning. Go to the gym. Look at what I squatted last week and be like.

like, I'm going to do one more rep than that. It gets me fired up. It really gets me fired up. But again, if you don't track your workouts, you can't really, you can't have that experience. You like, you just kind of wander into the gym. You're like, well, I squatted last week. I guess I'll squat this week again, too. You know, you don't, there's no framework that you're working within or clear goal that

you're chasing after. So tracking was huge, and that had an immediate impact. It unlocked kind of the next. the next jump in progress. I probably lost another 15 or 20 pounds that year. The pandemic made it easier. It removed a lot of the lifestyle obstacles. But then, you know, jump about six or eight months after that, I kind of got down to

a healthy weight for the first time in probably seven or eight years. And Dan said, okay, this is great. Like, why don't we focus on adding some muscle? and not cut the calories so low. Like, you know, eat at maintenance or maybe a slight surplus. And that switchover combined with the pandemic, you know, everything opening up from the pandemic,

the lifestyle coming back, the travel coming back, going out, seeing friends, all this stuff. I ended up putting on, putting most of that weight back on. And you were living in New York at that time? Yes. I was still in New York. And that weight came back fast too. Like that, I think I gained like 16 or 17.

pounds in like three months or something like it was that's got to be just demoralizing it sucks yeah i've never had to deal with that i've been fortunate i think genetically or whatever yeah just never never had big swings in my weight but especially after you've worked so hard to put that that and that's a very common thing that people see too absolutely it's like it's i believe if you look at the data behind the average diet it's actually negative progress because even people who lose weight they put more back on afterwards it was demoralized it sucked it really sucks it really but it was it forced me to confront a couple like really necessary questions the the first and biggest one being lifestyle I had to have some like really hard

questions with myself of like you can't keep going out as much as you're going out you can't you can't drink as much as you're drinking you can't eat whatever the hell you want like even if it quote fits your macros right like I started to notice at this point I've been tracking long enough that I know that like sugar fucks me up. Like even if I'm not eating an excess of calories, eating a bunch of sugar, I wake up and I weigh more the next day. It like undoes five days worth of progress

if I go out and eat a bunch of sugar. Same thing with alcohol. You know, even though my calories are within the right range, I put on weight that week. And so I started to like just notice some like really basic things about my metabolism, which is that not every calories created equal. Like some stuff affects it. There's like it creates knock on effects or chain reactions within your body and that you have to be aware of that stuff.

Like you have to pay attention to it. So that coincided with the move to L.A. And I've talked quite a bit about how having a healthier lifestyle out here is just so much easier and how much of a game changer that's been not going out all the time, not drinking all the time. Had a gym at home, which was amazing. Now I have no excuse to not work out. The lifestyle stuff had to get kind of fixed in that period. Does having a home gym, is that? Bro.

You really like that? Dude. Because I've tried that before too. And I've just, it's like I needed to leave for some reason to work out for some reason. It is. Oh my God. It's a game changer.

Because, A, you have no excuse. You zero excuse. It's like staring. Those ways are staring at you. You know, like, it's a busy day. You're sitting around. It's like 7 p.m. after dinner. You're like, ah, I didn't work out today.

But I don't want to get in the car and drive down there and all this stuff. Like, you can kind of talk to yourself out of it. When you have a home gym, there's no excuse. Yeah. It's like, dude, it's right there. Like, get your shit together. I do notice that. If I don't get my work at it in like by midday, it's a real struggle.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, go pick up the weight. Okay. You know. Okay. I also like it too because it's sometimes I'll just like walk by and I'm like, I wonder how many pull-ups I can do.

Just do, just pop out a couple of quick curls. Yeah. Totally. I totally do that. I totally do that. I don't know. Like, I'll just like, I'll literally be walking through my house and I'm like, let's do some goblet squats.

Let's just see how many. Let's see if I can do 15. Okay. Okay. So environmental setup. That's like a really big one. That's a big one for everyone. Environment matters so fucking much.

And this, like, we talk about this a lot, you know, in the pod and in the books and everything. Like, we like to think that it's about willpower. It's about discipline. It's about what's staying fucking heart. Dude, environment, it's such a huge factor. Yeah. The place you put yourself in, the things that are in your house, the people you surround yourself with, it has as big of an effect as anything else you do.

Honestly, getting out of New York was like just, I think it was crucial for me because so much of my personality is just, I want to do the things, right? And when you put me in an environment where the things to do or involves consuming stuff, I'm going to go consume the stuff, right? Whereas like here I'm in an environment where the things to do are all very physical and healthy and outdoorsy and, you know, the people you're hanging out with are super healthy. And it's the peer pressure is positive. Does the environment change the motivation too? Now, you said when you started out, the motivation was really kind of your vanity. I want to look away. I want to look better. That kind of thing. How has your motivation

changed over those periods? Does the environment influence that a lot too? Do you think? Have you found less superficial motivation, I guess? And how much does that matter for you? I think the environment has made it more fun. I tend to associate exercise today more with just being enjoyable. And I think part of that is just doing it long enough to like see benefits and get the satisfaction and know how good my body feels when I do it. But part of it is like I'm in an environment where like, Dude, like, half my friends out here, the thing we do for fun is hike, surf, or go to the gym. Go for a run. Like, those are like the things you do with your friends here.

Saanas and all that. Yeah. Saunas, cold plunges, all that shit. And it's, so yeah, I mean, it's the old fire together, wire together. Like, you start associating physically strenuous activities with fun, like socially rewarding, entertaining, enjoyable things. At this stage, it was just very much like, physically, I know. starting to feel better than I felt in a long, long time.

You know, I was still overweight. I was still technically kind of weak and out of shape. But like at least I wasn't obese. I wasn't just like this, this exhausted fat kid that I had been for the previous few years. And so, yeah, the lifestyle stuff was a game changer. But it's funny because that really, you know, that undid some of the weight gain. But at this point, you know, we're probably what, early 2022. I've been working with Dan for like two years.

You'd just moved to L.A. Moved to L.A. Like six months. I mean, and I, at this point, I've been doing everything. I'd cut way back on alcohol. I didn't quit entirely yet, but cut way back on alcohol. I'm eating right. I'm tracking everything.

I'm exercising like four or five times a week. I'm sleeping really well. I'm not working like a crazy person anymore. And technically, I'm still kind of in the same spot I was a year, year and a half before. And it just, it started to feel like, it just, it felt like I constantly had a headwind. And by this point, too, I had had other friends who lost a bunch of weight or tried to get in shape. And you watch it, them do it, they do in like six months.

Right. And you're like, well, what the fuck? Like, why is it so easy for him? Like, how did that, you know, Dan starts posting other clients of his. Like, oh, so-and-so lost 40 pounds in eight months and like so proud of it. I'm like, well, fuck that person. Like, what am I doing wrong? I'm doing everything.

I'm literally doing everything. And it was at that point that he was like, hey, man, you should go, you should go get like real blood work done. Like, not this bullshit, you know, basic labs at a doctor. They'll just look at it and be like, well, you're not diabetic and you're not dying. So you're fine. Like, go find somebody really good. And so at that point, I went and found a functional medicine doctor. And for the people who don't know, functional medicine is like it's more, it's more integrative, it's more holistic.

They, and they look at the body more as like a system, and it's more about optimization of health rather than just like, well, you're not going to die. So, you know, it's normal medicine is preventative. It's like you come in when you are about to have a heart attack, and then that's when they treat you. Whereas like functional medicine, it's more like, let's do the things that will make sure you never have a heart attack in the first place. So I went to a functional medicine doctor, did this massive set of blood work. results come back and the doctor, I remember I sat down in front of her at her desk and she like held up the results and she, it had my birthday in like the top right corner. I remember she covered the birthday and she was like, she was like, how old are you? And I said, I'm 37. And she said, if these results did not have your birthday on it, I would guess that you were 60. Shit.

No subtlety there, huh? No, and I was like, okay. And she was like, your hormone profile is that of like a 60-year-old man, like a healthy 60-year-old man. But you're 37, so this is not healthy. Right. My testosterone was like 290. The free testosterone was like five, five and a half. What should the range has been for you at that point?

The bottom, so like an elderly man should be around three to 400. Okay. And you were below that. I was below that. Yeah. Like a man in his 30 should be like five, six hundred probably. Like double what I was. I was technically pre-diabetic. My A1C was like just over the line. She was like technically you're pre-diabetic. And this is after I'd lost like 20, 30 pounds. Right. And I was exercising and I was eating well. So I was just like, Jesus Christ, man. What like what did I do? What did I do? Come to find out. I mean, I've since found out. There's there's two contributors to this. One. is just the lifetime of eating garbage, horrible lifestyle. The second one is that I have a couple genetic, I just have shit genetics. So I have a thing called hemachromatosis, which means that my blood accumulates a ton of iron. That runs in my family too, actually. Yeah, it's a Scottish

Irish now. Yeah. And if it goes unchecked, like it can cause significant cardiovascular problems. it can cause metabolic problems. So like my iron levels were like two and a half times the upper limit of what you're supposed to have which you basically just think about it

just makes your blood super thick and causes a bunch of issues. I really shouldn't drink with that either too. Oops. And the other thing I have is it's a thing called the double E4 gene which I didn't even know about this.

I read Peter Atia's book Maybe one day he'll come on the pod. Apparently Chris Hemsworth has it. But it was really funny. I was reading Peter Ortiz's book and he was talking about, he was like, you know, there's an E4 gene and it increases the likelihood of Alzheimer's by like 400% and also leads to insulin resistance and you're more likely to be diabetic and prediabetic and accumulate fat and have trouble losing it.

And then he was like, and then there's like a very rare subset of people who have a double e4 gene, which means both their parents have an E4 gene and you just got fucked. in the genetic lottery. And he was like, oh, and these people, like, 600 times more likely to get Alzheimer's in your metabolism. Anyway, long story short,

I have the W-4 gene. And Atia says in his book, he's like, if you have this, you really need to start intervening in your early 40s. Yeah. Like, this is all hands-on-deck type of situation.

So I'm discovering this stuff at like 37-38. So I've got this blood condition, this genetic blood condition that, like, is working. against me. I've got this fucked up gene that's working against me. And I've had an

entire lifetime of awful habits and I have heart disease that runs in the family. So like I'm sitting there and I'm realizing that if I had just kind of continued at my previous trajectory I'd probably be dead at like 50, 55. Like that that was probably if I had just

not changed course at all. So it was first realization. That scared the shit out of me. Second realization was that this is non-negotiable now. Like I'm late 30s, I'm about to hit 40. I've got all these genetics working against me. I've got an entire lifetime of bad lifestyle choices working against me. Like, this is not, there are no options.

Like there's the margin for error. I have a much smaller margin for error than most people do. And so I decided to kind of go all in on the health thing. You know, you keep hitting these plateaus and it seems like each one is a little bit rougher. Yes. than the previous one. And I think that's really hard for people to get through. I think people, they'll give up at one of those or whatever it is. You seem to have pushed through in a number of cases. You also have access, you know, like functional medicine and stuff like that. Although that's becoming more accessible for people to online. You get these online panels done. You know, they send you a tube. You put some blood in it, send it off. But that is, again, it's just demoralizing. I think when you hit those plateaus. And especially in this case where it's like you're working out four or five times a week. You're eating right.

You're still not getting that off. Go into that. How do you... Dude. How do you address that? I mean, there was a lot of periods of like anger, so much frustration. And it gets weird too. You like start getting gas lit by your own body, right?

Because it's like, you know, Dan would have me do dexas scans every six months. And then we would set goals, right? It's like, okay, hey, your next dexas scan, we're going to try to lose like, you know, six or seven pounds of fat and maybe put on a pound of muscle or something like that. And I'd go and it's like I would make progress, but it'd be barely any progress. And I was just like, what am I fucking up? And then to come back to lying to yourself thing, am I bullshitting myself? Like, I think I'm doing everything right. Like, am I just fucking, am I still lying? Like three years into this. You did it once. Am I still lying to myself about all this stuff? Like how how is this not

working? How is this not progressing? And I think a lot of people, they hit that plateau, they hit that point, and it gets hard, it gets tiring, they feel defeated. And I imagine, I think at that moment, it's really important, like, what story you tell yourself. And I really think this is, this is where the value of the coach comes in, right? Because if I had been alone, I'd probably be like, well, yeah, I tried. It just didn't work. That didn't work. Maybe I go. try another thing, you know, a year from now. The coach has the perspective to say, like, wait a second, you're doing a lot of the right things. Like, let's look at something else. Like, don't give up yet, right? It things, it's more complicated than this. I was very

fortunate in that fact. I mean, kind of an unspoken thing through all of this, you mentioned it as access, right? Like, none of this stuff is cheap. None of, a gym membership's not cheap. Much less buying healthy food is not cheap. There's all sorts of data on like how, health healthy food costs like three times as much as junk food. Healthy food's not cheap. A trainer or a coach is not cheap. Getting lab work done is not cheap. Especially if your insurance blows like everybody in the US does.

A functional medicine doctor is definitely not cheap. And then even once you figure that shit out and you work with that doctor, like the stuff that that doctor prescribes is not going to be covered by your insurance. you're paying out of pocket. So that's not cheap. I mean, it's like, I'm not going to lie. I probably spent north of, definitely tens of thousands. Yeah.

Easily tens of thousands over the last five years on this. And that's not available to everybody. And that's fucked up. It should be. Right. Right. So I don't know what to say about that, but I do want to be transparent about that. That this is like definitely a big part of this process is privileged.

Well, and there's such a, there's also a, we wage moral, judgments against people a lot, you know, for their weight or whatever it is. And I think the more I learn about this, and I think you would agree with this too, the more I learn about it, the more I realize how much genetics plays a role and how much we just can't. There's a floor and a ceiling to all of this. How do you think about that now? How do you think about approaching something that's, you know, genetically based now? It's definitely giving me a lot more sympathy for people, right? Because it's, you realize not everybody's starting at the same starting line. Definitely. Like there and it's also it works the other way, right?

Like I remember reading stories that, like there was a story about Alan Iverson who like when he went to the NBA, they put him through a physical. This dude didn't practice, never trained notoriously. Yeah. And then like they put him in this in the physical and part of that was like a VO2 max test. They put him on a treadmill with an incline. They speed the treadmill up, see how, see how long he can go. They said that he went for so long that they didn't actually like they ran out of measurements. Like he literally broke the test because he just ran on the treadmill for so long.

And then he came off and like the doctors like asked them. They're like, are you know, do you run marathons or something? And he's like, marathon? He's like, fuck that shit. You know, like literally like just went back to the club, started drinking again. You know, so it's like some guys, you know, the same way some people win the talent lottery. Some people win the intelligence lottery. Some people very physically attractive.

Some people. some people are born with a great metabolism. Very athletic, a lot of natural strength. Other people get completely hosed in terms of like, you know, biological functioning and everything. So it's definitely changed my view on that. I mean, the other thing it's given me sympathy for is that there is like a little bit of a feedback process, right? Like one of the things I learned is that when you become extremely overweight,

like there's a feedback loop that starts. Like as you put on body fat, you gain something called visceral adipose tissue. That squeezes your internal organs. It makes them function less efficiently. That creates like a hormonal cascade. So your hormones get worse. Your organs are less efficient, which then causes you to feel less energetic, causes you to feel hungry more often. So you eat even more food, which causes you to gain more body weight, which causes your

your metabolism and your different organ functions to function even worse after that. And you get caught in this cycle. And like working against that cycle is extremely difficult. So like I discovered that I had something called insulin resistance, which is like my body doesn't produce insulin in the capacity that it needs to. Like if I eat a bunch of sugar or something like that sugar spike will last in my body much longer than it'll last than somebody else's. And it's just because I've eaten so much garbage over so many decades that I like broke that part of my, my metabolism.

And it is unfortunate that we have a tendency to judge skinny or fat people purely based on like it being a flaw of discipline or a flaw of willpower. I would compare it more to an addiction. Like it's 100%. Yeah. It's it's akin to, I don't know if I want to call it akin to alcohol. But yeah, it's more of an addiction. And I've noticed myself, like, I am, I have a lot of compulsive eating habits that, again, I was not aware of until I actually tried to, like, stop, until I tracked everything and tried to stop. I was like, yeah, I only had, I only had six chocolates, right?

And I like, start counting. I'm like, oh, fuck, I had 14. Oh, God. How did that happen? Like, how the fuck? I literally don't remember eating the other eight chocolates. I appreciate. You put sugar in front of me, and it's gone now, for sure.

What were your triggers for that though? It was like boredom. I know boredom's one for a lot of people. For sure. Yeah. Bortem and anxiety were the big ones. Yeah. I ate when I was bored and I ate when I was uncomfortable.

It was like something that kind of past time. I also drank when I was uncomfortable. Bored or uncomfortable. Yeah. So okay, what are you doing now? What are some of your health goals now? How are you approaching that? How do you see this whole process at this point?

I'm optimizing for longevity. So right now I'm actually trying to. add some strength and muscle. I'm in, I'm officially in my 40s, so I think that's probably going to be the biggest long-term payoff.

But it's also just, you know, so at this point, it's adding a certain amount of muscle while maintaining a healthy body composition. I have no aspirations. I don't want to like, I don't need to have abs.

I don't need to be fucking jacked. You know, not like trying to win a bodybuilding competition or anything. It's just like, I just want to be healthy and active. fit and set up my body in a place that it feels relatively optimal to for the long haul. Yeah, you talked about the kind of the vicious cycle of the other way.

Do you feel like you've kind of entered into a virtuous cycle now where you know, you skip a workout and you feel it and you're like, oh, I really need to get back out there. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You get hooked on the good feelings. It's a different good feeling. But the same way you get hooked on the good feelings of like, I don't know, having a drink or eating, you know, a really good meal, big meal.

You get, you get hooked on the feelings of exercise, being outside, eating super clean. You know, it's like now, now if I go out and have like a burger and fries, I'll enjoy it. But like, like, an hour or two later, I'm like, oh, man, I need, I need some vegetables. Yeah, my body, like, I can feel my body, like craving the nutritional value. So there is another spiral on the other side, but it's hard. like the compulsive thing like you know I still I still run into it I still like like we went to a Brazilian steak house last night man I clutch there's a best so much fucking steak so my fried bananas oh man I was like I was going crazy I was like man I need to chill like I finally hit a point I'm like

cut me off like just don't let me go anymore it requires vigilance still but it's um I don't know I personally, I look back on this period and I just think it's interesting having gone through this process and then like turning around and looking at all the same health and fitness stuff that I saw in the beginning. Like in the beginning, I guess if I were to like summarize how my perspective has changed, it's not about a diet. It's not about a fitness regimen. It's not there's no workout online that's going to solve this shit. It's about habits, lifestyle, environment, and biology. And it's a lot of, a lot of it is understanding your own biology and adapting to your own biology. It's also psychology, understanding your own psychology, understanding that like, yeah,

when I get angry, I soothe myself with ice cream. You know, it's like, break that link, like, sever that tie that you have in your brain. We all, I think most people have some sort of link in their brain between an unhealthy consumption habit in an emotion that they're trying to avoid in some way. And that's, I think that's one good reason why you don't give a whole lot of specific advice around this because it's different for everybody, right? And what you do isn't going to work for everybody. And I found that with myself too. Totally. Like I have very specific things I need to do that probably wouldn't work for anyone else. Absolutely. And honestly,

like, I mean, the actual workouts themselves like almost don't even. Right. Yeah. You know, it's showing up. Just do something. Yeah. Just fucking be active. Like, that's really the the 20 that drives 80% of it, even if it's just going for walks. Like walking was a huge part of. Yeah, I get your steps in. Yeah. Like steps was a huge part of it as well. But, you know, on the food side, yeah, it's about learning yourself.

It's about learning your tendencies and habits, what keeps you saying, what sort of patterns your body falls into, how you respond to certain foods. And you really don't learn that unless you're like tracking, keeping some sort of food journal, setting goals and metrics and, like, tracking them over time. and, you know, measuring yourself. Yeah, yeah. Well, Mark, you're looking good. You've got tons of energy. Thanks, buddy. Yeah, no, it's been really, it's been really fun to watch you, like, go through this.

Yeah. Even when it wasn't fun for you, maybe, I don't know. Yeah. I'm glad you liked it. Yeah, it's been wild, man. It's been a wild ride, so. Wow. That's all I got.

Yep. There it is. Drew Bernie in the flesh, in the studio. So obviously be sure to like and subscribe to the show. We are going to be back next week with a new podcast guest, so stick around.