August 18, 2025 • 24 mins
That extreme weight loss transformation you saw on The Biggest Loser? It wasn't sustainable—and Drew Maness knew it from the start. Fresh from his 40th high school reunion and recent birthday celebrations, Drew finds himself examining why dramatic weight loss approaches almost always fail long-term.
When news broke that Danny Cahill—the contestant who lost the most weight in Biggest Loser history—had regained everything, it confirmed what Drew had experienced firsthand through decades of yo-yo dieting. Contestants working out 6-8 hours daily while eating barely 800 calories weren't creating sustainable habits; they were setting themselves up for the devastating rebound that 13 out of 14 winners experienced.
Drew pulls back the curtain on his own sustainable approach that's allowed him to lose 320 pounds over three years. Rather than extreme measures, he embraces a cyclical framework: fasting early in the week, transitioning to moderate keto mid-week, and allowing more flexibility on weekends. This rotation prevents his body from fighting back with the hormonal and metabolic weapons it deploys against crash diets.
The proof? Even after three weeks vacationing in Portugal and Spain plus reunion festivities, Drew maintained his weight—something impossible during his previous diet attempts. The key difference is building a system that works with your biology rather than against it, creating habits that become second nature rather than exhausting your willpower.
Real weight loss isn't about punishment or shame—it's about progress and kindness to yourself. It's about creating a lifestyle that fits YOU, not one that makes for dramatic television. Ready to change your approach to weight loss? This episode will shift your perspective on what actually works for long-term success.
What weight loss methods have you tried that worked—or didn't—for keeping the pounds off? Share your experience and join the conversation about sustainable approaches to health.
Discover daily tips and updates on the Hacking Fat Man journey. Follow on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for transformation deep dives and more insights.
Link to download the Hacking The Fat Man Diet, Schedule and Supplements
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey folks, welcome back to Hacking the Fat man.
This is episode 7.
I'm Drew Maness, your host, akathe Fat man, so in podcast 6, I
had left you.
I was heading down to myhometown of Costa Mesa,
california, for my 40th highschool reunion, spent a great
week down there with friends,longtime ex-swimmates,
(00:22):
ex-teammates and people Iliterally haven't seen probably
in 30 or 40 years.
I was actually fairly goodduring the week, at least the
earlier part of the week, as westarted getting towards the
festivities.
I did let go a little bit, Idid have quite a bit of alcohol,
which never leads to gooddecisions, but overall I'm
(00:42):
fairly pleased.
I mean, over the last month anda half I've had three weeks of
vacation in Portugal and Spain.
I then went down and spent aweek in my hometown and for the
most part I stayed sort of onthe diet, but I really wasn't
trying, and the good news is I'mstill in the high 230s, not the
(01:05):
233 I was back in early June,but I'm relatively pleased with
it.
The strange thing though, thislast week, just to give everyone
an update, I've been in kind ofa funk.
My wife doesn't like me usingthe term bad thoughts because
(01:26):
she thinks it means somethingelse.
So I'll use negative thoughts.
There's still some negativethought process going on with me
and, funny enough, it came fromhow many people from my
hometown that have actuallylistened to this podcast.
It kind of rattled me a littlebit in the sense of oh my God,
(01:48):
drew, what makes you think thatyou have any right talking to
people about this?
You're not a dietician, you'renot a this, you're not a that,
and I have to keep remindingmyself that again, I'm putting
this out there if, if, if, thishelps you.
Um, but I'm really doing it formyself, to record, um, what I'm
doing, what I'm struggling with, and right now I'm struggling
(02:12):
with a bit of self-sabotage.
Um, and I don't know why I'm inthat mindset.
Um, I think I kind of knockedmyself out of it this morning.
Up until about 48 hours ago, Iwasn't even sure I would be
doing this podcast.
I didn't have a topic.
Hey, it's true, I'm stillpretty much the same weight I am
(02:32):
.
What a great podcast.
Please listen to me more.
These are the thoughts that aregoing on in my head, and
originally I was going to talk alittle bit about self-sabotage,
but I think I have more workpersonally to do with this kind
of understanding, what, where,where this all is coming from.
Excuse me, I don't know whyI've got a cough, but I do.
I'll try to keep it to aminimum because I know that's
(02:55):
annoying.
But yeah, I, I I'm not reallysure where this, this
self-sabotage thought is, iscoming from.
But so my birthday this lastThursday and no, it's not coming
from the fact that I hit 58.
I'm perfectly fine with my ageand getting old, and at least I
think I am, but no, it wasn'tthe birthday, wasn't that?
(03:18):
I really do think it was alittle bit of that shock of how
many people have actuallystarted listening to it, how
many of my friends have startedlistening to it.
I knew my family would, or atleast the first couple episodes,
but they were like recitingthings from it.
Anyway, there's more for me topull on that, but I'm just not
(03:39):
quite sure what that's all about.
But I did so.
My birthday was Thursday wentout to a nice steak dinner.
My son's a chef at a restaurant, the Old Oaks Steakhouse in
Thousand Oaks.
It's a fantastic place.
I'm not getting any endorsementfrom him, except my son works
there, but no, I had a reallygood time there.
(03:59):
He introduced us to the chefand all his coworkers and they
made the fantastic.
Introduced us to the chef andand all his co-workers, and they
made the fantastic.
I had a wagyu steak.
That was pretty good.
But, yeah, like I said, up untilfriday I wasn't sure I was
actually doing a podcast andthen I saw this article it came
across my news feed about one ofthe the biggest losers, the the
(04:20):
.
I think danny cahill is hisname.
He was the gentleman that lostthe most weight in Biggest Loser
history and I watched BiggestLoser from the first moment it
aired.
I watched almost every episode.
I think some of the lastseasons I kind of stopped
watching it.
He had gained all his weightback, and so it was kind of a
gut punch for me when I read thearticle, because here I am kind
(04:43):
of wallowing and I'm tellingyou for a fact right now I will
not be going back to a higherweight.
So, anyway, I want to talk aboutthis a little bit, about the
Biggest Loser.
Now, if you don't know what theBiggest Loser was, it was a
(05:04):
reality TV show back in theearly 2010s.
I think it ran for like 15, 16seasons.
They bring in these contestantssweating through brutal
workouts, dropping huge numberson the scale every week, and
they had these bigconfetti-filled final finales.
And it was inspiring on thesurface.
(05:25):
But, as the docuseries showsand and I'm going to be honest,
even while I was watching this,I I could see some of this
happening.
While it may have beeninspiring on the surface, it
shows us that the reality ofwhat they were doing, um, wasn't
pretty.
And in fact, the punchline isthat I think they talked to 14
(05:47):
former contestants, or 14 formerwinners, and all but one had
gained their weight back or more.
I'll tell you right up front thefirst time I saw the Biggest
Loser years ago, I already knewmost of these contestants were
going to gain their weight back,and I knew it because I had
lived it right.
I had done it right.
I had done the crash diet, I'ddone the starvation diet, the
(06:08):
micro fast or the fasting thatturned into sumo diets.
I had lost over a thousandpounds but then gained 1200 or,
yeah, 1200.
So when I saw them being pushedthat hard and eating so little
and burning so much, I thoughtthat hard and eating so little
and burning so much, I thought,yeah, this isn't going to last
(06:32):
and sadly, I was right, buthere's what this Fit for TV.
The reality of the biggest loserkind of showed is the
contestants were working out sixto eight hours a day and that's
not a typo eight hours a dayand they were eating
ridiculously low calories.
Some were talking you know,actually not too far from me um,
1200 to 800 calories.
The only difference is I do itfor a couple of days.
They were doing it for weeks onend and I actually suspect some
(06:57):
of them were way under 800calories that they, they were
literally doing the same thing Ihad done is I can go two weeks
without food, um, and I thinksome of them to win, we're
actually doing that tothemselves.
And the other thing and this issomething I never really liked
about it actually being a formerwater polo player and swimmer
(07:17):
Um, while I love Jillian and Bob, um, um, they use shame like a
weapon.
If you couldn't keep up, youwere lazy and weak and unworthy.
And I've already talked aboutmy subconscious.
I don't need some.
I didn't need someone from theoutside telling me this.
My subconscious was alreadytelling me the same things, and
I got it from my coaches, fromthe other people that I worked
(07:39):
out with, because that's whatwe're taught If you wanted to be
an athlete.
But here's the thing I was anathlete.
I had worked up.
I didn't start off in eighthgrade doing 68 hours a day.
Some of these people never hadworked out a day in their life
and yet they were being yelledat and forced to do it and they
would go and throw up.
(08:00):
They needed that scene ofsomeone throwing up off the
treadmill, or or Jillian wouldget to someone who you know
would.
She'd break them down so muchthat they would start crying and
thinking about leaving, andthen she would bring them back
in it.
It all looked good, but wedon't really need.
I already knew that that wasn'tgoing to work right.
(08:22):
And when the show ended up forthese contestants, surprise,
surprise, most of them regainedtheir weight.
Some the show ended up forthese contestants surprise,
surprise, most of them regainedtheir weight.
Some even ended up heavier thanbefore, not because they were
weak and not because they didn'twant it enough, but because the
human body just doesn't likebeing starved and tortured.
It will fight back with everybiological weapons it's got
hormones, craving and metabolicslowdown.
(08:44):
So by forcing yourself to dothis, your body is going to
fight against it.
And what I've been trying toshow and what I've done losing
my 320 pounds over three years,not 60 days or 80 days, whatever
it was for them was I'm tryingto get my body to help me lose
the weight.
(09:04):
I'm trying to be a partner withit and not just force it to do
something.
And I'll tell you, as I waswatching, part of me was nodding
and thinking, yep, I've seenthat, done that, got that.
I got the gap flare up as I waslistening to these contestants
talk about their experience.
I had already lived that.
(09:25):
So let's break it down a littlebit.
Why do these extreme approachesfail?
You can drop the weight Likeright now.
Literally I'm at the high 230s.
My goal is to get under 200 bythe end of the year.
I know for a fact I could goand drop 30 pounds in the next
30 days.
A pound a day, seven pounds aweek, maybe even faster.
(09:49):
The reason I'm not doing thatis because it will just bounce
back and it may even come backeven worse, and it's just not.
It's not good for my and that'snot what I want.
My goal is I want to wake up inthe morning.
I want to be happy.
I want to go do what I do, eatwhat I eat and be 170 morning.
I want to be happy.
I want to go do what I do, eatwhat I eat and be 170 pounds.
I want my life to enable me andI've said this before my life
(10:11):
to enable me to be 170 pounds.
When you try to force yourselfto lose that weight, your body
will, as I mentioned before,your body will start to fight
you against it.
Your metabolism will slow down,your cravings will go up, the
psychological effects, andthat's the problem.
Number two is the mental toll.
(10:33):
Right, is taking that, thatextreme approach to you?
Know, that's all willpower andyou can not out willpower your
diet, right?
Well, this shows it, I'veshowed, I've said it, and, and
you can't and, and and how am Igoing to describe the, the
(10:54):
depression that comes with it,right?
So you drop the weight down andyou go yeah, I'm a stud, I've
dropped 30, 60, 120 pounds, 320pounds, um, and then, when that
scale starts to tick up, thedepression starts to sit in.
And they talked about this.
How they were embarrassedbecause, hey, I won, biggest
(11:16):
loser, and now they're heavierthan they were.
And I had lived that mindsetfor decades.
Every failed diet wasn't just afailed experiment.
It was another reason for mysubconscious to tell me I was
lazy and pathetic.
And then the physical damage.
I've made it a point so far inthis diet to not do a single
(11:40):
workout or add exercise to mydiet.
That doesn't mean I'm notmoving.
It means when I am moving, likescuba diving, I'm doing it for
joy.
That's not a workout for thesake of working out.
And when you overtrain, myknees are shot, my shoulders are
shot from overtraining over theyears.
(12:00):
But yet I'll get up and go dogardening, I'll go do things
that I like.
But when you're extreme,fasting and your hormones and
your starving starts to get intoyour mind, it will take a toll
on your body and again your bodywill literally start fighting
(12:23):
you again for survival mode.
It's just it's doing what itknows to do.
And so we've got to.
We've got to work together withour bodies, with our mind.
It's all everything comingtogether to enable these diets.
And again, I'm talking a lot tomyself right now to get myself
out of the funk when I'm goingover some of these things.
(12:45):
So, as I mentioned before, whenI watched the Biggest Loser.
Even before this Netflixdocuseries came out, I knew how
it would play out.
You can't bully your body intolong-term health and you can't
white knuckle it for a season,or you could white knuckle it
for a short period of time, buteventually your biology and
mindset catches up with you.
And I remember telling myselfif the cameras weren't rolling,
(13:09):
if the trainers weren'tscreaming, these folks would do
what I always did they go home,they'd order their two double
quarter powders with cheese orwhatever their meals were, and
they'd regain.
They'd hate themselves evenmore for it.
And that's exactly what thisdocuseries showed about the
contestants, because while theygave them there are good things
(13:30):
that I've learned from theBiggest Loser but they never
really gave them the tools toactually lose the weight and
keep it off by tying your wholeself-worth to a scale number and
then that number creeps back up.
I know that feeling they'relosers.
They feel horrible and I canonly I mean I wasn't a biggest
(13:52):
loser winner.
I can only imagine hey, you won$250,000 and now you're back up
to 300, 400 pounds.
That feeling, I have sympathythere for them on that.
Let's talk about thealternative.
What's the opposite of biggestloser?
And for me it was building aframework again.
(14:13):
That needs to be as easy asbreathing.
It needs to be second nature.
I don't want to willpower it,I'm not going to outwork it and
I'm not going to binge in my wayor purge my way out of it as
well.
So I developed this cycle tohelp combat things that I saw
(14:35):
right so early in the week I golower calories.
Mondays are fasting, tuesdaysmaybe a micro fast.
Wednesdays I start getting in.
Wednesdays and Thursdays Istart getting into keto, but I
still keep the calories about1200-1300.
And Fridays and weekends Iallow myself to eat a little bit
more, but no more than 1800calories, and so that gives my
(14:57):
body time to adapt and, uh, justjust stay with me, with it and
not stay with me, but just ithelps the body work with me.
That's what I'm trying to say,and this rotation helped my body
from adapting and it alsostopped me from hating food,
(15:20):
because I started learning howand what to eat.
Again, you know I've talkedabout the food I eat needs to
bring me joy and by doing thiscyclical diet we don't work out
the same way.
Why do we try to diet the sameway?
It's enabled me to lose theweight that I've lost so far.
And then you know, I actuallydon't remember biggest loser
(15:44):
ever once talking about vitaminsor supplements.
Again, it's been the betterpart of a decade and a half, two
decades, since I've watched anyof them.
But I also don't remember.
I do remember them talkingabout water and getting water in
there.
But you know, when I started,you know I went specifically out
(16:05):
of pain in my life, pain in mybody, inflammation.
I had bad gout and I broughtthings in the supplements that
helped with the diet and helpedme start to lose the weight.
And then, when I started takingZetbound, that actually helped
complete the cycle.
(16:26):
So I had my body, I got my bodyto start working with me, stop
fighting the diet.
It was something I could dowithout really thinking much
about it.
And then with the ZetBound, ittaught me to forgive myself,
right, because I realized, youknow, I had that first feeling
of being satisfied after eatingand and that right there just
(16:47):
sealed the deal of that it hadnothing to do with willpower, it
was all about the diet and itwas all about the hormones and
the changes in my body and thatI didn't need to white knuckle
it to lose weight, because ifyou're white knuckling it to
lose weight, if you'reexercising, something's going to
happen that's going to set yousideways If you bake it into
(17:09):
your life and you bake it intoyour natural DNA, much like this
.
Last month and a half I haven'treally thought about the diet
that much.
A little bit.
Here and there.
I did, like I said last week.
I got in a couple of good fastdays, but that had been the
first fast days for a month.
I did not get any fast days onmy vacation.
So while I do have a little bitof this self-sabotage and I
(17:33):
think it's just the fact that Ihaven't really lost a lot of
weight recently and so I thinkI'm getting hungry pun intended
to lose weight a little bit more, lose weight a little bit more,
but yeah, having it baked inand not gaining a single pound.
(17:53):
When I stopped trying to loseweight in the past, I would have
gained over that month and ahalf easily 30 to 50 pounds, and
not to have the scale not go up, that's a win.
So I don't really know why mysubconscious is beating me right
now, cause I know it's.
It's a win.
So I don't really know why mysubconscious is beating me right
now, because I know it's a winand it's showing me that the
system is actually still workingfor me, even when I didn't have
(18:14):
my foot on the pedal.
So, yeah, I forgive myself, I'mnot blaming myself, it's all
good.
So here's the big takeaway fromthe Netflix docuseries right?
Biggest Loser actually taughtus what doesn't work.
Shame doesn't work, barvationdoesn't work.
Eight hours in the gym doesn'twork.
The systems I have built afteragain, I have lived through
(18:40):
everything Biggest Loser hasdone and I knew it wouldn't work
.
Wouldn't work.
But building a system thatallows me to adapt or adapt with
you adapt with me, rotating thediets instead of cleaning just
to one.
I've got to just eat this 300calories and that's it.
And then going after painwhat's giving you pain but also
(19:03):
making joy non-negotiable.
It's the whole package, right.
So it's the mental, it's thephysical and it's the habitual
right, and that works.
I've lost my 320 pounds overthree years.
I didn't do it over 60 or 90days, because doing it over that
short time period just doesn'twork.
If you watched the Biggest Loserback then and thought, man, I'm
(19:26):
such a failure because I can'tdrop 15 pounds in a week, please
hear me it wasn't real, it wastelevision.
They asked Bob about theyelling and the screaming.
Well, yeah, anyone can come inand lose weight, but the drama
of that makes for goodtelevision.
They were there to make goodtelevision and I think that's
(19:47):
the most honest thing that I'veheard, because Biggest Loser was
just television.
Again, there were some goodthings that came out of it.
They had this episode on thefish, and if you want to find
the healthiest thing in arestaurant, it's always the fish
.
Always go for the fish.
If you don't like fish, go forthe soup.
That's the second healthiest,usually the second healthiest
thing in a restaurant, it'salways the fish.
(20:08):
Always go for the fish.
If you don't like fish, go forthe soup.
That's the second healthiest,usually the second healthiest.
The worst things that lookhealthy are salads.
Stay away from salads becausethose are usually like 3,000
calories.
So, yeah, real life is aboutthe small choices, repeated with
kindness to yourself.
It's about progress and notpunishment.
It's about creating a lifestylethat fits you, not good
(20:29):
television.
So, anyway, that was thisweek's Hacking the Fat man.
Next week I will start.
I'll do a little bit more onthe self-sabotage because I'm
now interested in it and why Iam in a funk, even though
technically I'm still doing well, but I'll figure it out, it'll
(20:50):
come around.
To my older brother, whostarted listening again keep up
at it.
To my ex-coworker, steven, whoasked about plateauing just keep
at it, man.
Let your body reset.
Keep doing what you're doing.
You're going to plateau.
Your body is just going.
It just happens.
And so, anyway, to everyoneelse that's listening I wish you
(21:13):
the best of luck this week andkeep at it.
Bring joy into your life.
Do not beat yourself up, justlike I need to tell myself that.
Stop beating myself up.
And we got this.
We'll figure it out.
Anyway, you guys have a great,great week and I'll see you next
week.
Cheers, bye.
Hey folks, welcome back to Hacking the Fat man.
This is episode 7.
I'm Drew Maness, your host, akathe Fat man, so in podcast 6, I
had left you.
I was heading down to myhometown of Costa Mesa,
california, for my 40th highschool reunion, spent a great
week down there with friends,longtime ex-swimmates,
(00:22):
ex-teammates and people Iliterally haven't seen probably
in 30 or 40 years.
I was actually fairly goodduring the week, at least the
earlier part of the week, as westarted getting towards the
festivities.
I did let go a little bit, Idid have quite a bit of alcohol,
which never leads to gooddecisions, but overall I'm
(00:42):
fairly pleased.
I mean, over the last month anda half I've had three weeks of
vacation in Portugal and Spain.
I then went down and spent aweek in my hometown and for the
most part I stayed sort of onthe diet, but I really wasn't
trying, and the good news is I'mstill in the high 230s, not the
(01:05):
233 I was back in early June,but I'm relatively pleased with
it.
The strange thing though, thislast week, just to give everyone
an update, I've been in kind ofa funk.
My wife doesn't like me usingthe term bad thoughts because
(01:26):
she thinks it means somethingelse.
So I'll use negative thoughts.
There's still some negativethought process going on with me
and, funny enough, it came fromhow many people from my
hometown that have actuallylistened to this podcast.
It kind of rattled me a littlebit in the sense of oh my God,
(01:48):
drew, what makes you think thatyou have any right talking to
people about this?
You're not a dietician, you'renot a this, you're not a that,
and I have to keep remindingmyself that again, I'm putting
this out there if, if, if, thishelps you.
Um, but I'm really doing it formyself, to record, um, what I'm
doing, what I'm struggling with, and right now I'm struggling
(02:12):
with a bit of self-sabotage.
Um, and I don't know why I'm inthat mindset.
Um, I think I kind of knockedmyself out of it this morning.
Up until about 48 hours ago, Iwasn't even sure I would be
doing this podcast.
I didn't have a topic.
Hey, it's true, I'm stillpretty much the same weight I am
(02:32):
.
What a great podcast.
Please listen to me more.
These are the thoughts that aregoing on in my head, and
originally I was going to talk alittle bit about self-sabotage,
but I think I have more workpersonally to do with this kind
of understanding, what, where,where this all is coming from.
Excuse me, I don't know whyI've got a cough, but I do.
I'll try to keep it to aminimum because I know that's
(02:55):
annoying.
But yeah, I, I I'm not reallysure where this, this
self-sabotage thought is, iscoming from.
But so my birthday this lastThursday and no, it's not coming
from the fact that I hit 58.
I'm perfectly fine with my ageand getting old, and at least I
think I am, but no, it wasn'tthe birthday, wasn't that?
(03:18):
I really do think it was alittle bit of that shock of how
many people have actuallystarted listening to it, how
many of my friends have startedlistening to it.
I knew my family would, or atleast the first couple episodes,
but they were like recitingthings from it.
Anyway, there's more for me topull on that, but I'm just not
(03:39):
quite sure what that's all about.
But I did so.
My birthday was Thursday wentout to a nice steak dinner.
My son's a chef at a restaurant, the Old Oaks Steakhouse in
Thousand Oaks.
It's a fantastic place.
I'm not getting any endorsementfrom him, except my son works
there, but no, I had a reallygood time there.
(03:59):
He introduced us to the chefand all his coworkers and they
made the fantastic.
Introduced us to the chef andand all his co-workers, and they
made the fantastic.
I had a wagyu steak.
That was pretty good.
But, yeah, like I said, up untilfriday I wasn't sure I was
actually doing a podcast andthen I saw this article it came
across my news feed about one ofthe the biggest losers, the the
(04:20):
.
I think danny cahill is hisname.
He was the gentleman that lostthe most weight in Biggest Loser
history and I watched BiggestLoser from the first moment it
aired.
I watched almost every episode.
I think some of the lastseasons I kind of stopped
watching it.
He had gained all his weightback, and so it was kind of a
gut punch for me when I read thearticle, because here I am kind
(04:43):
of wallowing and I'm tellingyou for a fact right now I will
not be going back to a higherweight.
So, anyway, I want to talk aboutthis a little bit, about the
Biggest Loser.
Now, if you don't know what theBiggest Loser was, it was a
(05:04):
reality TV show back in theearly 2010s.
I think it ran for like 15, 16seasons.
They bring in these contestantssweating through brutal
workouts, dropping huge numberson the scale every week, and
they had these bigconfetti-filled final finales.
And it was inspiring on thesurface.
(05:25):
But, as the docuseries showsand and I'm going to be honest,
even while I was watching this,I I could see some of this
happening.
While it may have beeninspiring on the surface, it
shows us that the reality ofwhat they were doing, um, wasn't
pretty.
And in fact, the punchline isthat I think they talked to 14
(05:47):
former contestants, or 14 formerwinners, and all but one had
gained their weight back or more.
I'll tell you right up front thefirst time I saw the Biggest
Loser years ago, I already knewmost of these contestants were
going to gain their weight back,and I knew it because I had
lived it right.
I had done it right.
I had done the crash diet, I'ddone the starvation diet, the
(06:08):
micro fast or the fasting thatturned into sumo diets.
I had lost over a thousandpounds but then gained 1200 or,
yeah, 1200.
So when I saw them being pushedthat hard and eating so little
and burning so much, I thoughtthat hard and eating so little
and burning so much, I thought,yeah, this isn't going to last
(06:32):
and sadly, I was right, buthere's what this Fit for TV.
The reality of the biggest loserkind of showed is the
contestants were working out sixto eight hours a day and that's
not a typo eight hours a dayand they were eating
ridiculously low calories.
Some were talking you know,actually not too far from me um,
1200 to 800 calories.
The only difference is I do itfor a couple of days.
They were doing it for weeks onend and I actually suspect some
(06:57):
of them were way under 800calories that they, they were
literally doing the same thing Ihad done is I can go two weeks
without food, um, and I thinksome of them to win, we're
actually doing that tothemselves.
And the other thing and this issomething I never really liked
about it actually being a formerwater polo player and swimmer
(07:17):
Um, while I love Jillian and Bob, um, um, they use shame like a
weapon.
If you couldn't keep up, youwere lazy and weak and unworthy.
And I've already talked aboutmy subconscious.
I don't need some.
I didn't need someone from theoutside telling me this.
My subconscious was alreadytelling me the same things, and
I got it from my coaches, fromthe other people that I worked
(07:39):
out with, because that's whatwe're taught If you wanted to be
an athlete.
But here's the thing I was anathlete.
I had worked up.
I didn't start off in eighthgrade doing 68 hours a day.
Some of these people never hadworked out a day in their life
and yet they were being yelledat and forced to do it and they
would go and throw up.
(08:00):
They needed that scene ofsomeone throwing up off the
treadmill, or or Jillian wouldget to someone who you know
would.
She'd break them down so muchthat they would start crying and
thinking about leaving, andthen she would bring them back
in it.
It all looked good, but wedon't really need.
I already knew that that wasn'tgoing to work right.
(08:22):
And when the show ended up forthese contestants, surprise,
surprise, most of them regainedtheir weight.
Some the show ended up forthese contestants surprise,
surprise, most of them regainedtheir weight.
Some even ended up heavier thanbefore, not because they were
weak and not because they didn'twant it enough, but because the
human body just doesn't likebeing starved and tortured.
It will fight back with everybiological weapons it's got
hormones, craving and metabolicslowdown.
(08:44):
So by forcing yourself to dothis, your body is going to
fight against it.
And what I've been trying toshow and what I've done losing
my 320 pounds over three years,not 60 days or 80 days, whatever
it was for them was I'm tryingto get my body to help me lose
the weight.
(09:04):
I'm trying to be a partner withit and not just force it to do
something.
And I'll tell you, as I waswatching, part of me was nodding
and thinking, yep, I've seenthat, done that, got that.
I got the gap flare up as I waslistening to these contestants
talk about their experience.
I had already lived that.
(09:25):
So let's break it down a littlebit.
Why do these extreme approachesfail?
You can drop the weight Likeright now.
Literally I'm at the high 230s.
My goal is to get under 200 bythe end of the year.
I know for a fact I could goand drop 30 pounds in the next
30 days.
A pound a day, seven pounds aweek, maybe even faster.
(09:49):
The reason I'm not doing thatis because it will just bounce
back and it may even come backeven worse, and it's just not.
It's not good for my and that'snot what I want.
My goal is I want to wake up inthe morning.
I want to be happy.
I want to go do what I do, eatwhat I eat and be 170 morning.
I want to be happy.
I want to go do what I do, eatwhat I eat and be 170 pounds.
I want my life to enable me andI've said this before my life
(10:11):
to enable me to be 170 pounds.
When you try to force yourselfto lose that weight, your body
will, as I mentioned before,your body will start to fight
you against it.
Your metabolism will slow down,your cravings will go up, the
psychological effects, andthat's the problem.
Number two is the mental toll.
(10:33):
Right, is taking that, thatextreme approach to you?
Know, that's all willpower andyou can not out willpower your
diet, right?
Well, this shows it, I'veshowed, I've said it, and, and
you can't and, and and how am Igoing to describe the, the
(10:54):
depression that comes with it,right?
So you drop the weight down andyou go yeah, I'm a stud, I've
dropped 30, 60, 120 pounds, 320pounds, um, and then, when that
scale starts to tick up, thedepression starts to sit in.
And they talked about this.
How they were embarrassedbecause, hey, I won, biggest
(11:16):
loser, and now they're heavierthan they were.
And I had lived that mindsetfor decades.
Every failed diet wasn't just afailed experiment.
It was another reason for mysubconscious to tell me I was
lazy and pathetic.
And then the physical damage.
I've made it a point so far inthis diet to not do a single
(11:40):
workout or add exercise to mydiet.
That doesn't mean I'm notmoving.
It means when I am moving, likescuba diving, I'm doing it for
joy.
That's not a workout for thesake of working out.
And when you overtrain, myknees are shot, my shoulders are
shot from overtraining over theyears.
(12:00):
But yet I'll get up and go dogardening, I'll go do things
that I like.
But when you're extreme,fasting and your hormones and
your starving starts to get intoyour mind, it will take a toll
on your body and again your bodywill literally start fighting
(12:23):
you again for survival mode.
It's just it's doing what itknows to do.
And so we've got to.
We've got to work together withour bodies, with our mind.
It's all everything comingtogether to enable these diets.
And again, I'm talking a lot tomyself right now to get myself
out of the funk when I'm goingover some of these things.
(12:45):
So, as I mentioned before, whenI watched the Biggest Loser.
Even before this Netflixdocuseries came out, I knew how
it would play out.
You can't bully your body intolong-term health and you can't
white knuckle it for a season,or you could white knuckle it
for a short period of time, buteventually your biology and
mindset catches up with you.
And I remember telling myselfif the cameras weren't rolling,
(13:09):
if the trainers weren'tscreaming, these folks would do
what I always did they go home,they'd order their two double
quarter powders with cheese orwhatever their meals were, and
they'd regain.
They'd hate themselves evenmore for it.
And that's exactly what thisdocuseries showed about the
contestants, because while theygave them there are good things
(13:30):
that I've learned from theBiggest Loser but they never
really gave them the tools toactually lose the weight and
keep it off by tying your wholeself-worth to a scale number and
then that number creeps back up.
I know that feeling they'relosers.
They feel horrible and I canonly I mean I wasn't a biggest
(13:52):
loser winner.
I can only imagine hey, you won$250,000 and now you're back up
to 300, 400 pounds.
That feeling, I have sympathythere for them on that.
Let's talk about thealternative.
What's the opposite of biggestloser?
And for me it was building aframework again.
(14:13):
That needs to be as easy asbreathing.
It needs to be second nature.
I don't want to willpower it,I'm not going to outwork it and
I'm not going to binge in my wayor purge my way out of it as
well.
So I developed this cycle tohelp combat things that I saw
(14:35):
right so early in the week I golower calories.
Mondays are fasting, tuesdaysmaybe a micro fast.
Wednesdays I start getting in.
Wednesdays and Thursdays Istart getting into keto, but I
still keep the calories about1200-1300.
And Fridays and weekends Iallow myself to eat a little bit
more, but no more than 1800calories, and so that gives my
(14:57):
body time to adapt and, uh, justjust stay with me, with it and
not stay with me, but just ithelps the body work with me.
That's what I'm trying to say,and this rotation helped my body
from adapting and it alsostopped me from hating food,
(15:20):
because I started learning howand what to eat.
Again, you know I've talkedabout the food I eat needs to
bring me joy and by doing thiscyclical diet we don't work out
the same way.
Why do we try to diet the sameway?
It's enabled me to lose theweight that I've lost so far.
And then you know, I actuallydon't remember biggest loser
(15:44):
ever once talking about vitaminsor supplements.
Again, it's been the betterpart of a decade and a half, two
decades, since I've watched anyof them.
But I also don't remember.
I do remember them talkingabout water and getting water in
there.
But you know, when I started,you know I went specifically out
(16:05):
of pain in my life, pain in mybody, inflammation.
I had bad gout and I broughtthings in the supplements that
helped with the diet and helpedme start to lose the weight.
And then, when I started takingZetbound, that actually helped
complete the cycle.
(16:26):
So I had my body, I got my bodyto start working with me, stop
fighting the diet.
It was something I could dowithout really thinking much
about it.
And then with the ZetBound, ittaught me to forgive myself,
right, because I realized, youknow, I had that first feeling
of being satisfied after eatingand and that right there just
(16:47):
sealed the deal of that it hadnothing to do with willpower, it
was all about the diet and itwas all about the hormones and
the changes in my body and thatI didn't need to white knuckle
it to lose weight, because ifyou're white knuckling it to
lose weight, if you'reexercising, something's going to
happen that's going to set yousideways If you bake it into
(17:09):
your life and you bake it intoyour natural DNA, much like this
.
Last month and a half I haven'treally thought about the diet
that much.
A little bit.
Here and there.
I did, like I said last week.
I got in a couple of good fastdays, but that had been the
first fast days for a month.
I did not get any fast days onmy vacation.
So while I do have a little bitof this self-sabotage and I
(17:33):
think it's just the fact that Ihaven't really lost a lot of
weight recently and so I thinkI'm getting hungry pun intended
to lose weight a little bit more, lose weight a little bit more,
but yeah, having it baked inand not gaining a single pound.
(17:53):
When I stopped trying to loseweight in the past, I would have
gained over that month and ahalf easily 30 to 50 pounds, and
not to have the scale not go up, that's a win.
So I don't really know why mysubconscious is beating me right
now, cause I know it's.
It's a win.
So I don't really know why mysubconscious is beating me right
now, because I know it's a winand it's showing me that the
system is actually still workingfor me, even when I didn't have
(18:14):
my foot on the pedal.
So, yeah, I forgive myself, I'mnot blaming myself, it's all
good.
So here's the big takeaway fromthe Netflix docuseries right?
Biggest Loser actually taughtus what doesn't work.
Shame doesn't work, barvationdoesn't work.
Eight hours in the gym doesn'twork.
The systems I have built afteragain, I have lived through
(18:40):
everything Biggest Loser hasdone and I knew it wouldn't work
.
Wouldn't work.
But building a system thatallows me to adapt or adapt with
you adapt with me, rotating thediets instead of cleaning just
to one.
I've got to just eat this 300calories and that's it.
And then going after painwhat's giving you pain but also
(19:03):
making joy non-negotiable.
It's the whole package, right.
So it's the mental, it's thephysical and it's the habitual
right, and that works.
I've lost my 320 pounds overthree years.
I didn't do it over 60 or 90days, because doing it over that
short time period just doesn'twork.
If you watched the Biggest Loserback then and thought, man, I'm
(19:26):
such a failure because I can'tdrop 15 pounds in a week, please
hear me it wasn't real, it wastelevision.
They asked Bob about theyelling and the screaming.
Well, yeah, anyone can come inand lose weight, but the drama
of that makes for goodtelevision.
They were there to make goodtelevision and I think that's
(19:47):
the most honest thing that I'veheard, because Biggest Loser was
just television.
Again, there were some goodthings that came out of it.
They had this episode on thefish, and if you want to find
the healthiest thing in arestaurant, it's always the fish
.
Always go for the fish.
If you don't like fish, go forthe soup.
That's the second healthiest,usually the second healthiest
thing in a restaurant, it'salways the fish.
(20:08):
Always go for the fish.
If you don't like fish, go forthe soup.
That's the second healthiest,usually the second healthiest.
The worst things that lookhealthy are salads.
Stay away from salads becausethose are usually like 3,000
calories.
So, yeah, real life is aboutthe small choices, repeated with
kindness to yourself.
It's about progress and notpunishment.
It's about creating a lifestylethat fits you, not good
(20:29):
television.
So, anyway, that was thisweek's Hacking the Fat man.
Next week I will start.
I'll do a little bit more onthe self-sabotage because I'm
now interested in it and why Iam in a funk, even though
technically I'm still doing well, but I'll figure it out, it'll
(20:50):
come around.
To my older brother, whostarted listening again keep up
at it.
To my ex-coworker, steven, whoasked about plateauing just keep
at it, man.
Let your body reset.
Keep doing what you're doing.
You're going to plateau.
Your body is just going.
It just happens.
And so, anyway, to everyoneelse that's listening I wish you
(21:13):
the best of luck this week andkeep at it.
Bring joy into your life.
Do not beat yourself up, justlike I need to tell myself that.
Stop beating myself up.
And we got this.
We'll figure it out.
Anyway, you guys have a great,great week and I'll see you next
week.
Cheers, bye.
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