What Is MetFix? Emily Kaplan on Her New Project With Greg Glassman

Greg Glassman’s new venture, MetFix, has generated monster buzz across the fitness industry, and current and former CrossFit affiliate owners are particularly interested.

So what exactly is MetFix, and how does it compare to Glassman's other major creation, CrossFit?

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain Business founder Chris Cooper sits down with Glassman’s partner in MetFix, Emily Kaplan, to find out.

Emily provides the project's background and lays out MetFix's focus on combatting chronic disease through diet and exercise.

She explains why the program is designed to complement CrossFit rather than compete with it and offers her perspective on the broader health and fitness landscape.

Chris and Emily also discuss how MetFix approaches coaching and education, and they dig into its affiliate model, which many gym owners want to know more about.

If you are curious about MetFix, tune in to hear insights directly from one of its founders. 

To learn more, visit the MetFix site via the link below. 

Links

MetFix

Gym Owners United

Book a Call  

00:52 - What is MetFix?

17:04 - MetFix certification & affiliates

26:08 - Adherence to nutrition plans

36:47 - Goal of the affiliate program

56:54 - Support for MetFix affiliates

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
What is Met Fixx?
Greg Glassman's new initiativehas a lot of people asking
questions and they'reinterested but they're not sure
how it's different fromCrossFit. Greg's partner in Met
Fixx is Emily Kaplan andEmily's joining me today on Run
a Profitable Gym because wewant to talk about what is Met
Fixx. And instead of justresponding with what I've heard

(00:24):
or what other people haveheard, or from other met Fixx
affiliates, I thought I'd justgo straight to the source.
We'll be talking about thisinterview and met Fixx and
answering questions about [e-mail]. You
can join that group. It's free. There's 10,000 other G owners
in there and we have reallygreat meaningful conversations
about this stuff all the timein a private supportive
atmosphere. Emily, welcome torun a profitable gym . So

(00:48):
awesome to have you.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, this is gonna be awesome. So let's start with
what is Met Fixx there? Thereare definitely listeners out
there who are very aware ofwhat the brand is and and very
interested and fired up forthis already, but for the rest
of them , you know, can youjust describe it for me?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, I mean I think it's really two things. I think
it's a community of people whoare really like-minded in the
sense of that what theeducation piece is that we'll
be offering, which is reallythis understanding that through
diet and exercise you can bothprevent and reverse chronic
disease. So I think, you know,Greg likes to say we will be
the hub of people who get thatand wanna deploy that message

(01:28):
through diet and exerciseprotocols.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Okay. So, so obviously Greg is Greg
Glassman. I think mostlisteners to this podcast would
understand who Greg is. Whydon't you tell us a little bit
about who you are, Emily, andwhat your background is and um,
what's your role in Netflix ?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Sure. So I've sort of oscillated between
journalism. So I was aninvestigative reporter. I've
written for newspapers,magazines, I had columns. I was
a producer at 2020 in primetimecovering health, mostly murder.
But I did some complex healthpieces for them. And then I've
launched and run startupcompanies. So a lot of people
think that's sort of a weird,like how does that work? And I

(02:04):
think people who have reallybeen in the trenches of
investigative reporting andentrepreneurship, there's a ton
of crossover, right? You haveto be like sort of gritty. You
have to know what yourmarketplace is. You have to get
in and get information with notvery many resources usually
and like put it alltogether in a way that you're
explaining something of publicinterest and you're delivering

(02:24):
it in a way that the , themarket or the audience can, you
know, understand it andhopefully have it be useful to
them in some capacity that itallows the business to make
money or for the story to havean impact. And so I've sort of
done those two things for thelast, I don't know I wanna date
myself, but a couple decades.
And so Greg and I got to knoweach other because of this sort

(02:44):
of mutual interest in chronicdisease and corruption in
health. So I'd been looking at,you know, sort of problems in
nutrition from a both likepolitical standpoint and also
just sort of physiologicallylike why, why are we getting
fatter if what thisrecommendation is is right? And
so I went back and reallyretrace the dietary guidelines
and was actually, I think thelast person I've been told and

(03:05):
the last person to haveinterviewed Mark Hegsted , who
was the architect of the foodpyramid. Wow . He was on oxygen
in a nursing home and I kind oflike tracked him down. It was a
very powerful interview, whichI think we'll probably use for
something with metrics 'causeI've never run it. It was sort
of an independent projectbecause my husband was getting
a master's in exercisephysiology at UNLV and I was

(03:26):
covering business and growthand development and he was
like, you know, if you reallywant a good investigative
story, like you should look atthese dietary guidelines. And
this is like, what, 2005? So along time ago and he knew Gary
TAs who hadn't ridden goodcalories, bad calories yet, but
was working on it. And so Iwent and interviewed him and I
always joke, Gary's alwayslike, oh my God, you're gonna

(03:47):
bring up my cats like everytime you mentioned me. But it
was a really funny interview.
Gary's in his apartment in NewYork. I mean he hadn't even
moved to California yet andhe's got like cats crawling all
over him and he sort of seemslike this crazy guy who's like
debunking everything thateverybody assumes is right. You
know? So I've been looking at alot of that stuff. And then I
was working on a story aboutcancer as a metabolic disease

(04:07):
and Tom Siegfried who sort of,you know, has been leading that
charge with his nucleartransfer experiments. And I
don't know how much you lookedinto any of that, but he's at
Boston College. So I went andinterviewed him and you know,
we were mostly talking about,you know, cell biology and
like, is it in the nucleus? Isit in the mitochondria? Like
how have we gotten this wrong?
This would really upend all ofour kind of primary

(04:27):
foundational understanding ofcancer. And he, I said to you
him like, what's gonna take,you know, what's gonna solve
for this? Like, how much moneydo you need? Or, you know, this
seems like really some of hisexperiments are so beautifully
simple and compelling that Icouldn't believe that it hadn't
gotten caught on in some way.
You know, I mean, he's sort ofunder the radar teaching
undergraduate students whilerunning this really cool like

(04:50):
renegade lab that's havingprofound impacts on cancer
research. And he said to me,you know, what's interesting is
that like it's not, I don'tthink it's gonna be money
driven . I think it's gonna becommunity driven , which is why
I'm super excited that this guyGreg Glassman gave me some
money because I think he's nowawake to it and he has this
massive community of people.
And I was like, whoa, whoa,whoa. And I, you know, did

(05:11):
CrossFit and I was like, wellthat Greg Glassman, the
CrossFit dude, like what doeshe have? What, what, why is he
interested in cancer? You know,I hadn't made the connection at
all that Greg was really tryingto look hard at how CrossFit
could solve for these problems.
And so I sent an email to likeinfo or [e-mail] and

(05:32):
like 30 seconds later got aresponse from Greg saying,
here's my cell phone number,please call me. I'd love to
talk to you about Tom's work.
So, you know, it's funny, Ihave that call recorded 'cause
it was an interview and it'slike us just comparing notes
like, oh, do you know this?
Have you looked at this study?
What do you think of this? Didyou know that these people
funded that? And so it wassuper fun and he just happened

(05:53):
to be coming to Boston a fewweeks later, so he was like,
I'd love to meet you. We'regonna go visit all these
hospitals and talk to themabout how they have it wrong.
And I was like, oh , I'd loveto come do that. And so we
really developed a friendship,I would say, over this common
interest that we'd been lookingat, you know, very similarly
and, and also very differently.
I mean, I think from hisperspective, he sued the CDC,

(06:13):
he was taking on the NSCA, Ididn't really know anything
about his work in thatcapacity, you know, even as a
CrossFitter I had no idea thathe was doing that. You know,
sort of really like, sort ofjustice warrior type stuff. And
so then, you know, just thesort of trajectory of things,
like, I think when he wascanceled, I was working on a
big story about the NSCA case.

(06:34):
Oh wow . And he called , hecalled me. And I mean, that's a
, an unbelievable case and anunbelievable story of
scientific mis, you know,misconduct and corruption and
fraud and all the, you know,these elements. And Greg was, I
would say, unlike anybody elseI've ever covered in the sense
that he was willing to not takea payout in order for the world

(06:55):
to know what they had done toCrossFit affiliates and how the
reputation had been ruined. Imean that's really, it's, it ,
it's not just rare. Like I'vecovered a lot of court cases. I
, it's nearly impossible forsomebody to be offered a huge
chunk of money and be toldlike, you know what? Like all
these legal troubles will goaway. You can walk away with

(07:16):
all this money, you know, whichhe could have redistributed
however he wanted or whatever.
And he was like, absolutelynot. The currency of victory is
light . I want the world toknow how you turned this
affiliate health center conceptinto something that you claimed
caused injuries when it wasdoing the opposite. And um ,
you know, that was like one ofthe first things the new owners

(07:37):
did was to settle that case andagree to never speak of it. So
I was in the midst of coveringall of that, whatever. And then
he, you know, was called aracist. And I was like, what?
And I had also spent time athis house in Santa Cruz at this
point with some people fromCompton who were trying to roll
out free boxes in Comptonbecause Greg had recognized
that they had the highestdiabetes rates in the country
and that Coke and Pepsi weredriving around handing out free

(07:59):
soda. And that he reallybelieved he would have more of
an impact with a free CrossFitbox in Compton on the diabetes
rates than any other governmentor other intervention. He was
super stoked about that. Andwas, you know, meeting with
church leader, he'd sort offigured out that if he could
get people from the churchcommunity, like ministers or
pastors to send people to theCrossFit box that he wanted to

(08:23):
build, that the whole communitywould start buying into it. So
he'd really, he'd been workingon it for a long time. It was,
I don't know if he ever reallymade any of that public, but I
was like, this guy's notracist, right? Like, this
doesn't really make any sense.
Like, I mean, I had known him,well, not wasn't part of the
like inner circle or you know,any of that, but I just sort of
was like, this, something's offhere, right? Mm-hmm
. And so he hadcalled me and was sort of

(08:45):
asking for advice and I waskind of conflicted. I mean, he
was my friend, but I was alsoworking on the story about him.
So I said to my editor, youknow, why don't I write a story
about how he's not a racist andthat actually he's done all
this stuff for marginalizedcommunities that , but he's
never had a publicist, right?
Like he's never, he, he's nevergonna stand up at a podium and
say like, Hey look, I built allthese schools in Africa and I'm

(09:06):
working on this thing inCompton . Like Greg will never
do that. Right? Right. And shesaid to me, you know , you
could write that story and itwould be interesting, but then
you won't get, we can't runyour NSCA case 'cause it'll
look like you have an agenda.
Right. And I was like, and withthe NSCA case, she was like,
and I think you need to putsomething in there about how
people are accusing him ofracism. And I was just like, oh
my. And there was so muchhappening in the journalism

(09:27):
world that was far from how ithad been when I got into it. I
had been sort of feeling like,this isn't really the same.
We're not really telling truthto power. Nobody really wants
to take any risks. The budgetsare so tight. I mean, there was
a lot of stuff that was justfelt , uh, even as a
freelancer, like massive shiftswere happening. And then I
think when he was accused oftoxic workplace and sexual

(09:49):
harassment and his, the PR firmthat he hired told him to
basically just go out there andsay like, I'm really sorry, you
know, whatever. And I said tohim, you know, if somebody
accused me of killing mychildren, and I just said like,
guys, I'm really sorry if Iheard anybody's feelings. Like
I'm not actually doing, I'm notanswering the question. I'm not
satiating anything. And so Ireally tried to advise him on,

(10:13):
but I was like, I'm not apublicist . Like I have no
idea, you know, this isn't mywheelhouse, but I know that
like as a journalist or aresearcher, you only know
what's in front of you. Right?
And so if you're not giving anyexplanation of what you meant
by fluid 19, or frankly thequote that was accompanying
that tweet, which was reallylooking at quarantine as a tool
of segregation, saying like,this is what you guys have just

(10:34):
done with your modeling, whichI don't know if you wanna get
into all of this, but it'sfascinating that nobody
bothered to put that in Googleand realize that like this was
a peer reviewed, you know ,medical journal article talking
about quarantine as a tool ofracism. That's what he was
coming attention to, right? Andthat was completely missed. But
at that point I sort of feltlike a , an obligation morally

(10:54):
to both help him. And also Ifelt like all these reporters
are getting this wrong and themedia is like tanking in terms
of credibility. There's allthese other , and , and I think
the fourth estate is incrediblyimportant to our democracy and
our Republican. So I was sortof like, are they, like, is
nobody explaining this stuff tothem? So I decided that I would
sort of resign from journalismat that point and really jump

(11:15):
in and help him manage thatcrisis after it had really gone
off the rails. And I think thatreally sort of fortified our
friendship in a way because Iwas like, you know, you, you're
gonna need to give meeverything. Like, I'm not gonna
go out on a limb or anythinguntil I have access. And to his
credit, he did, he gave meaccess to his email, to his
credit cards, to anything Iasked for. And I mean, I think

(11:36):
that's a testament to the factthat he was pretty sure that,
you know, he was on the rightside of things and so he didn't
feel like he had anything tohide. And then, you know, I
think we really had thisprivileged opportunity of him
not working and being free fromthis sort of day-to-day stress
and burden of running this, youknow, multinational big
corporation. And he was able toreally spend a lot of time

(12:00):
focusing in on what we both hadrealized was like, this isn't
just about money, right? It'snot just about corruption. Like
there has to have been somebreak, some opportunity was
created whereby the corruptioncould come in and succeed. And
so we spent a couple of yearsreally just reading philosophy
and philosophy of science andlike trying to figure out like

(12:20):
where did these things, wheredid the split happen? And so
that's sort of where Brokenscience came from as a, you
know, sort of the parentcompany to met Fix is this
notion of like, this isactually, science is broken.
And until people start torealize that what we call
probability, it's inprobability theory, it's
predictive value, which isreally a Bayesian kind of
concept that like you're gonnatake prior information and

(12:43):
you're gonna put it intoformula essentially, or even
just critical thinking ingeneral. And you're gonna come
out with a better outcome thatyou're gonna be able to
predict. It's never gonna beabsolutely right or absolutely
certain, but the goal is tosort of take all of the
information you have, waydifferent things, and then come
to a conclusion. And that thatwhen Carl Popper denies
induction as sort of the breakin , in the historical timeline

(13:06):
where we start to see thingsgoing in what we call a IV
path. And that's really whereyou get into like ones and
zeros. Yes. No, this sort ofbinary way. And in medicine
it's really where you get intothese statistical tools driving
research. So you're, you'reable to use math, which does
have proofs and does havecertainty to try to make claims

(13:27):
about something that reallydoesn't, that should be
explained on a spectrum, right?
So like, do mammograms helpprevent breast cancer deaths?
Well all cause mortality wouldsay no, they don't, right?
They're actually like a hugepredictor, I mean a horrible
predictor. But like themainstream says yes. How do we
have that? Like how does thathappen? It's this sort of

(13:49):
undercurrent of statisticalmanipulation and using P values
, which, you know, Greg and Iwill drone on and on about
nobody wants to talk about. Butit's really fascinating that we
have the statistical test youhave to have in order to get
published. Pretty much. I meanthere's a couple exceptions,
but pretty much in any majormedical journal that tells you
nothing about whether yourresearch can be validated or

(14:09):
replicated or the things youreally wanna know, right? Yeah
. So I think, you know, toconnect all the dots, med Fix
is really, I mean, Greg saysthis more eloquently than I
will , but he feels reallystrongly that it's the
continuation of the work thathe started with CrossFit Health
and when he took over thewebsite in, you know, January

(14:30):
1st, 2018, he kind of command ,he says he commandeered the
website and got rid of all thegame stuff and then really
returned to this notion ofCrossFit is the cure to the
world's most vaccine problem.
And I think he feels likethat's been lost and that
there's a lot of affiliates whoknow that to be true in
practice. So, you know, we havea medical society, I've been
going around doing this talkaround the country to medical
groups and , and members of ourmedical society have hosted us.

(14:53):
And um, one of the things I sayto them repeatedly is like, you
guys have clinicalsignificance. You, you
prescribe something, you see ifit works or not, like trust
that that's been robbed fromyou. And we've been told to
sort of defer to this higherpower, which is these peer
reviewed high impact journals.
But if you're doing somethingand you're not seeing it's

(15:15):
having a positive impact inyour clinic or your practice or
your hospital, like we aspatients are trusting you to
know that this is efficacious.
And I would say it's the samething, right? Like we know that
Met Fix is efficacious in thatthe diet and the exercise work,
people can get off of their,you know, diabetes medication,
they can reverse diabetes. Anddiabetes is, you know, sort of,

(15:37):
I, this is probably not nice tosay, it's sort of like a
gateway drug to all the otherchronic diseases. So we talk
about like, you know, cardiacdisease being the number one,
you know, killer in America.
Well what, what's the biggestrisk factor for cardiac
disease? It's type twodiabetes. Sure . So it's like
these things are all veryconnected. And I think , you
know, what has happened is thatbroken science has figured out

(15:59):
when this happened and how it'sa philosophical divide and
break. The medical society ischarged up to, basically it's
about 50% patients, 50% doctorsright now to get good
information to build these hubsof people who want to have
better treatment. And doctorsthat wanna do it different
than, you know, the standardhospital medical facilities

(16:20):
incentivizing them and workingaround. And Medix is really
like the foot soldiers. Likethey're on the ground doing the
work every day that frankly,doctors even in the best case
scenario, do not have time todo so. Like they can say, go
lose 20 pounds and then they'llsee you in a year. Right? Your
MedX coaches seeing you three,five times a week. They can
really implement those changes.

(16:41):
And so, you know, there's sortof like a hierarchy or a, you
know, vertical integration youcould say in the way that these
different , um, initiativeswork together, but the flow is
the same and the current is allthe same, which is predictive
value. We know when you eatthis way and you move this way,
you are more likely to behealthy for longer when you
don't, we know you're morelikely to be sick earlier. So

(17:02):
there's a choice people canmake.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
So you referred to meth fixx coaches. Are you
certifying coaches to deliverthe meth fixx ? Yes. Okay. Yeah
. And there's also an affiliateprogram, is that right? Is that
the gym that houses thecoaches?

Speaker 2 (17:18):
Yes. And I mean, the coaches will be beyond the
affiliate, I would imagine.
Like a lot of our doctors wannatake the, the cert .

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Oh , okay. Yeah.
We'll come back to that toobecause , um, you know, what
you explained to me the otherday is that it's, it's a
complimentary program forCrossFit affiliates or for
non-affiliates too. So it's notlike a competitive affiliation
for CrossFit or something likethat. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah , certainly. I mean, I think, like I was
talking to some , we, I justpaid for somebody to take their
L one. I think that there'slike a lot of people who wanna
like stir this up in a muchbigger way than at least like
Greg or I feel it really needsto be, like, if somebody told
me like, Hey Emma , I loveworking out. I really wanna be
a trainer. I would say Go takeyour all one . I wouldn't say
take the class, like this is amuch higher level, like we get

(18:03):
into like cell biology andreally the course is looking at
how the body processes energy.
So how is the food that you eatconverted to energy or stored
as fat? And when you move, howdo you burn energy and what are
those a TP cycles and how isfat oxidation super important
for athletes and for health?
And how do those two thingswork together? It's a much

(18:24):
deeper class. I mean, I thinkit's the kind of class
everybody, every senior in highschool should take because it
really explains to you the fun, the basic functions of your
body. I mean, you know, healthis really hormonally driven and
insulin is the dominant hormonedriving health. Most people
don't have any idea whatinsulin does right. Or how it
reacts. So I think there's ahuge need. I mean, I would love

(18:47):
to roll this out in schools. Ithink that's like definitely
not off the docket for wherethis education is applicable.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
Very cool. So I've got a lot of questions from our
audience here, and I think I'vekind of arranged them in a bit
of an arc, but we can go offtopic at any time. So the first
came from a CrossFit affiliatein Atlanta, and he said the big
question for me is, who is thisfor? Uh, in the end, the
trainer, the coach needs toimpact society, but how do they

(19:15):
do that? How do they create amessage about Met Fix ? Who are
they trying to reach in theirlocal community?

Speaker 2 (19:21):
You know, I mean, I think the , the most
straightforward answer is it'sfor any coach that really wants
to have a high impact, right?
So if if somebody's teaching aclass of 50 people, this will
be hard. It's probably not forthem, right ? If somebody is
running a gym where they wantto, you know, they do
whiteboard talks and they wannaexplain things, or they're

(19:41):
having trouble getting peopleto adhere to a low carb diet,
this is for them it's backup,right? It's, it's gonna be
regular. I mean, for theaffiliates, they're gonna get
regular continuing education.
Right now, we , I mean we havethese webinars that they can
attend or they can view intheir resource library that are
also for the medical society.
And I mean, like we've had TomSiegfried talk, we've had Zoe

(20:03):
Comb talk, we have IverCummings this afternoon. Like
these are world experts. GaryTabbs did one, like mm-hmm
. So there , youknow , you can get in there,
you can ask questions, but it'salso for me. So I also owned
three gyms. And one of thethings that I, at my gyms were
all women and they were mostlymiddle aged women who had about
20 pounds to lose. Some of themhadn't worked out for a long

(20:24):
time. And one of the thingsthat I realized was, you know,
sort of, and this is thejournalist combined with the,
you know, startup brain wasthat there was so much that
women didn't know about theirown health, right? So like, you
could talk about, like, womenwould be like, oh, I'm dizzy
today. I'm like, not sure Ishould work out . And I'd be
like, have you had a DEXA scan?
And because, you know, vertigoand dizziness is often one of

(20:47):
the early indications that youhave osteoporosis. Mm-hmm
. So there wereall people were like, what? I
didn't know that. And so Ideveloped a curriculum that was
basically a 12 month plan everymonth we focused on a different
topic of health that wasreinforced with a low carb diet
and, you know, high intensityfunctional exercise, which is
essentially what we were doing.
We did not have barbells, womenwere really scared of CrossFit.
But I would send people, whenthey had sort of gotten to a

(21:09):
point where I felt like theywanted to be challenged more,
I'd send them to CrossFit NewEngland for like , I was sort
of feed her program very cool feed her program. Um ,
but you know, what wasinteresting was like that
taught me like there's so muchthat we can do to validate the
work that's happening in thegym through research and by
connecting this to a , a deeperunderstanding of like medical

(21:30):
health. And I think that's alot of what Met is already
doing. And will, you know, aswe continue to grow, like staff
up more around, because I thinkit does two things. I think it
makes the , the customer basevery loyal to you. They come to
think of you as an expert,which really goes back to
Greg's original mission ofprofessionalizing the personal
trainer. I mean, we see the ,we see our coaches as

(21:53):
healthcare providers there arefar more teaching you how to,
you know, like watching as youdo a squat . Like that's not,
they're , they're talking aboutthe whole thing all the time
because they know you're notgonna get, you're not gonna
reverse chronic disease throughexercise. It's just not gonna
happen. Right. You need thediet piece. And it's hard to
get people to adhere to that,especially when you're

(22:14):
recommending something they'vebeen told their whole life,
don't eat fat. So you have tohave the education and the, the
backbone and the confidence inthat education, I think in
order to both deliver it andhold them accountable for it.
So, you know, just again, likein my experience, I feel like
once women understand that likewhen your insulin is high,
lipolysis shuts off. So it'ssort of like a, a door, right?

(22:36):
And if the door to insulin ishigh, you can't access your fat
stores. So every meal you eatthat's got carbs in it that's
spiking your insulin isliterally storing the fat and
you can't access that fat, soyou're gonna be hungry again.
Mm-hmm . We have this thingthat I, you know, like to say
whenever I get the opportunity,which is like , it's absolutely
heartbreaking the way that wetreat obese people where we say
like, oh, she could afford toskip a meal. That person is

(22:59):
internally starving. They arehungry all the time because
they can't access any of thefat on their body as energy.
It's interesting. So oncepeople learn that, and I mean,
in my experience, like once Ieducated clients on that at the
very , it doesn't mean thatthey're gonna be like carnivore
tomorrow, but it means likewhen they go and they decide am
I gonna eat eggs or am I gonnahave a bagel? They're educated

(23:20):
on what is this doing to mybody? Is it moving me towards
my goal or not? And like,that's, for me, that's the
whole thing. If you don't know,I mean, again, like knowing
everything I know about how thebody processes, food is energy,
and also how the governmenthas, you know, sort of been
captured in this regard. It'salso heartbreaking because you
see the people who have, youknow, 80% of the country has

(23:42):
chronic disease now they're alldoing, they were told to do,
right? So when people are like,you're telling us to take out a
whole food group, like youthink we shouldn't eat carbs?
Like, that's ridiculous. Youknow what? We did that with
fat. We told people don't eatfat and they took it all out of
their diet. It's not thatpeople aren't compliant, I
think it's that they'reconfused. And I think, you

(24:04):
know, it can't just be like,oh, I know this works. And I
mean, honestly, like I'veworked out in a lot of CrossFit
boxes, a lot of them areselling stuff that are like
sugar slurpee, whatever, afteryour workout. You can't, you
can't do that.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah, I get that.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
And it's confusing to people and it undermines
your message. And frankly, ifsomeone's in ketosis and they,
and they're in a flow andthey're accessing all the fat
on their body, and then theyhave one of those, it's gonna
be another week before they getback into it. If they're
metabolically damaged, you aresetting them way back. But if
you don't have the education,you can't be blatant . Nobody
know . You don't know anybetter. I think that we really
have a stake in the groundabout that. And I think, you

(24:38):
know, we have this call withall of our, or a lot of our
affiliates on Monday, and Gregwas sort of saying like, it's
scary. It's scary to take onsugar, it's scary to take on
pharma. It's scary to say like,you guys, you don't need this.
But like, we're not scared todo it because we know that we
have the evidence behind us.
And I think that's, that's oneof the differentiating factors.

(24:59):
Like I don't think that we'rein competition with CrossFit. I
think we're here to help kindof. Right? I mean, I think
CrossFit is limited because oftheir ownership in the risks
that they're willing to take.
We're not Right. True . And soit can be a complimentary
thing. And I think that , youknow, just to sort of clear up
some of that confusion too, Iwould say, I don't wanna say a
hundred percent, but I think99% of our first 100 met Fixx

(25:20):
affiliates are all eitherCrossFit affiliates currently
or were Right. So there's no,you know, I don't like, for us
internally, there's no, noconflict.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
Right. Okay. I just wanna ask one question about
nutrition coaching before we, Ireally wanna talk about the
CrossFit affiliation stuff too.
I think, you know, Greg'sgenius has always been the
ability to make the complicatedvery simple and actionable. And
I can remember actually GregAhmanson telling me this story
about he was doing, trying tolearn the zone diet back in

(25:52):
2002 or 2003. And Greg, howmuch protein do I actually eat?
And Greg had him bring in aTupperware and he just like
drew a line with a black tip,you know, marker, eat this
much, Greg. And, you know,that's, that's really, I think
his genius, the challenge isgonna be or has been so far
that at least according to ourdata, that retention for

(26:13):
nutrition coaching clients isseldom very good. It's, you
know, usually about threemonths you can keep somebody's
attention working 'em through anutrition plan. And while some
gyms do well with nutrition,it's a very tough slog. It , I
mean, it's hard to get peopleto workout , but it's way
easier to get somebody to do aworkout than to stick to the
nutrition program. So how doesMet Fixx address that problem?

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Well, I guess I want clarification a little bit on
like, is that problem afinancial thing? Like you're
charging for a nutrition classand, and or a nutrition
consultation and then peopledrop off after three months or
people are dropping off theirdiet after three months?

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yeah, that's, that's a really great question, Emily.
So it's, it , it's yes to both.
It's basically what affiliate ,what gym owners were saying is
when we teach this as part ofthe workout, nobody listens
because they're not invested.
So they don't make changes.
They're like, okay, how manythrusters do I do today when we
charge extra for it? Theircompliance is better, their

(27:10):
adherence is actually better,but not for long. And so after
three months, maybe it is afinancial issue, they're no
longer paying for it orwhatever, but they tend to drop
off and it , you know, there'ssome novelty mixed in there,
all that stuff. So I guess kindof like what is the recipe for,
for getting people to stickwith a nutrition plan or to

(27:30):
build a habit that lasts?

Speaker 2 (27:33):
I mean, like, so from my perspective, I'm like
really focused on the, thehealth outcomes. Yeah. So I, I
think I need to like couch thisanswer in that regard , which
is that like, hopefully you getsomebody who, you know, starts
doing the diet, starts seeingthe results, and they can't
shut up about it. You know, andthey like are telling all their
friends that like they can eatfat again. And this is so cool.

(27:53):
And like French cooking, itactually turns out to be really
delicious. Right? Like newthings . I, you know, from that
perspective, one of thestruggles I had was I had
people who lost weight andwould come to me and be like,
I, like, I need, I'm so bored.
Like, I'm not interested withfood anymore. Like I don't, I'm
not even hungry. Oh, good one .
And you'd have to say like,that's okay. Find a new hobby.

(28:13):
Right? It's, it's because youhave enough energy, your body
is burning the fat on yourbody, so you are , you really
aren't hungry and you'veprobably been living for the
last 10, 15, 20 years in acondition of starvation. So you
need to completely switch yourmindset that like, you don't
need to eat all the time. Youprobably don't need three meals
a day. Right. I mean, I usuallyeat like one big meal a day.

(28:35):
Hmm . Fine. You know, and Ithink it's interesting because
I think we have, you know,there's environmental things at
play, right? There's a socialcomponent to like, when you eat
and how you eat. I mean,anybody who's done any kind of
like extended fast knows howlike upsetting it is to
everybody. Like, you may befine, okay ? Everybody around
you is like, Emily, come on.
Like, we're supposed to go todinner, you're gonna sit at

(28:55):
dinner and not eat anything.
And I'm like, I'm fine. I'm nothungry. Yeah. But it's, it's
bothersome. So like, there's alot of stuff like that that I
think is actually really funfor coaches to kind of coach
people through some of that.
And it definitely connects youto your client. So, I mean, I
would say like in an idealworld at a Netflix box, when
you do your onboarding, right,you're teaching them the
movement patterns. You're alsoteaching them this nutrition

(29:16):
piece mm-hmm .
And then if they need help,like, like they need some level
of accountability that you'renot providing to them, then you
offer, you know, one-on-onenutrition kind of thing where
we, we weigh you, we, you know,probably hopefully are doing
some body fat, blood pressureis a big one I would love. And
you know, this is somethingthat we're gonna highly
recommend , um, and that wedid, which was like, you know,

(29:38):
getting blood tests is supereasy now. It's so easy and you
pain your finger and like, Imean, my husband and I have had
like competitions like who canget into deeper ketosis and it
gets like pretty wild. So Ithink like you can make these
things challenges just the sameway you would with workouts.
They're all, it's measurablegoals and there's lots of
different measurements that youcan target. So like, there's

(30:00):
challenges that can happen inthe gym. I mean, I think
there's a lot of fun ways tobring people into this. I also
quite frankly think that like,some of the education will be
around, I mean like, and thisis a lot of what we're already
doing through broken sciencearound the corruption piece,
because I think we all have aninherent sense of justice,
right? Like right and wrongreally sticks with people. And

(30:21):
when people know, they start tounderstand how they have been
lied to and who's benefitedfrom that. They wake up and
they think like, I'm not gonnabe a fool anymore. Right? Like
the , the , these foods, likethe number one food we consume
in this country is sugarcereal. Mm-hmm .
That's, I mean, we're, a lot ofus are in an echo chamber. We
don't know anybody who eatscereal. Those are the people

(30:43):
that we can target and we canhelp and have in very short
order, profound impact on. Nowdoes that translate into huge
financial success? I think it,I I don't think there's any
shortage , if we have80% of the country Yeah.
Suffering from a chronicdisease, like this is a market,
massive market and it comeswith the benefit of actually

(31:04):
saving lives and having a senseof purpose, which a lot of
other markets do not have.
Right. So I think, you know, asfar as getting people to adhere
to the diet, I, I think , Ibelieve strongly and have had
some personal success with,once you explain the mechanisms
of action and you explain likeregistered dieticians aren't
taught this, but senior biologyclasses in high AP biology is,

(31:25):
so, like I say, our , themetrics curriculum is gonna be
hugely controversial becauseit's not what registered
dieticians are taught becausethey are legally obligated to
push the dietary guidelines.
But it , there is nocontroversy in the science
behind what we're teaching youabout how the body processes
food as energy that is verywell founded . So I don't know
if that answers your questionentirely. I think of like, in

(31:46):
terms of making money, I just,I guess I would think like you
get enough people in theprogram getting success, they
go out and, you know, they'velost a hundred pounds. Like
everyone's gonna say, how didyou do that? Yeah . That
becomes an incrediblegenerator. I mean, I didn't
have any problem with peoplereferring people. We actually
did this kind of fun thingwhere we, we did photo shoots.

(32:07):
So at the beginning you'd takea before picture and then like
after you'd met some goal,you'd , we'd have a makeup
artist and a hair. I mean, itwas all women too. So it was
like kind of easier to do thisstuff, come in and do like a
bit , you know, a professionalphotographer come in and do
photo shoots and those photoswe could use in local
marketing. So it wasn't likeyou saw somebody who you didn't
know, it's like, oh, here's thehead of the PTA and she's lost

(32:29):
50 pounds and like , this iswhere she did it. You know? So
it was very localized. But Ithink like, you know,
transformation, everybody,everybody's looking for it.
Nobody believes it. If you canmake it authentic and you can
explain why it works, and itmeans actually, to be honest,
like the same thing we wouldcall people who had left. So,
you know, people would be like,I don't need, it was expensive.
It was, you know, four women ata time. Um, so like small group

(32:51):
training. And so people wouldleave and they'd say like, oh,
I can go to Lifetime . Like Ican do this on my own now I
don't need to be here. And wewould like follow up with them
after they had left, like threemonths after they left, six
months after they left. Andusually the follow up call was
made by the trainer or themanager who knew them really
well and was like, Hey, I'mlike, just wanna make sure
like, you're still doing great.

(33:12):
And nine outta 10 times theperson was like, I'm not, I've
totally fallen off. I need tocome back. So the
accountability is a huge pieceof this. And I think like
that's where you have a touchpoint with your client where
you're driving real impact .
They're gonna , they're gonnaexperience that differently
than they have with other, youknow, diet, exercise things. I
think,

Speaker 1 (33:30):
I'm glad that you highlighted doing this in small
group training. Um, this is oneof the biggest, you know,
things that get me accused ofheresy in the CrossFit
community is, what do you meanCrossFit is big group classes?
And when I explain that's notwhat Greg did, people doubt it,
but one of the smartest thingsGreg ever said to me, or one of
the things that I repeat mostoften is explain it to the

(33:51):
smart kids and they'll explainit to everybody else. And I
think as more metricsaffiliates come on board ,
you'll see more storytellingthat sticks with, you know,
average people too. Maybe justalong those lines, sorry,

Speaker 2 (34:04):
First , sorry to interrupt you. The first 100, I
mean, like, part of the reasonwe picked them is because
they're mostly all 10, 15 yearaffiliates. I mean, they are
bringing a lot of experience tothe table and I think they're a
great sounding board, not justfor each other, but as we open
this up. So, you know, weopened up last week and
basically said anybody can nowapply. And the applications

(34:25):
involved. I mean, again, thisis like not for people who
don't wanna be part ofsomething bigger. And so
there's five essay questions.
There's a video submission,which we'll then use for
marketing for them and for us.
But what's interesting is thatI also am really excited about
how the first 100 are soservice driven and that's why
we picked them. Mm-hmm . They want to
share what they know, right? Solike they wanna talk about how

(34:47):
they're working with people inrecovery or they're working
with people in prison orthey're, you know, working with
elderly populations or adaptiveathletes. I mean like that ,
that those cohorts were ident Iidentified those about a year
ago as like, these are ourreally important people to
support and I want them to belike captains where they then
go out and they teach otherpeople. So our back end of our

(35:09):
website is really, well, I meanour tech team is amazing and
they have spent a lot of timeand effort building da what we
call the dashboard, which hasyour video that you submitted
when you applied that any otheraffiliate owner can watch. Oh ,
cool . And then they contactyou and they can say like, Hey,
I understand you do businesscoaching. I think I need some
help. It's an internal referralthing, but we've also really

(35:30):
optimized the SEO so that it'lldrive traffic to their
affiliate on the outside. So itha it serves these like, sort
of twofold purposes, but likewe have forums. I mean, on this
call we had with Greg, peoplewere bringing up that they,
some people have one person wastalking about building a
kitchen in their box. Verycool. And two other people were
like, oh, we've just done that.
And I'm like, great, we'll forma forum that's people who have

(35:53):
kitchens or want kitchens,right? Yeah . And then it's
like just best practices likeright there, you know, in real
time on any subject that youwant that you think would be
helpful. And we don't have tobe involved. We don't know as
much as somebody who's run abox for 15 years. Sure . Let
them teach, right?

Speaker 1 (36:08):
Yeah. Okay. Well , um, what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna segue our conversationinto kind of the affiliate
model because most of thelisteners to this podcast are
gym owners and that's whatthey're most curious about. But
first of all, I want to , Ijust wanna address something
and that's, that's Greg'sinvolvement. So when I
published an article last weekcalled How to Save CrossFit, a
lot of kind of tangentialquestions came up and one of

(36:30):
them was What's Met Now, if Iwere a good journalist, I
would've called you and said,what's Matt F ? But instead I
repeated what I had been toldby people who are close to Greg
and that's that he's hands offthat he is arms length and all
that stuff. So I'm just, youknow, maybe you can set the
record straight on that. Likehow involved is Greg in Matt
Fix and Yeah, let's startthere. Let's start there.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Well, so I mean, I think there's a couple of
things. One is I, the questionslike that make me uncomfortable
because I don't know how toquantify them, right? So I
don't like what is theexpectation? Um, so I just,
I'll give you some facts,right? So like, Greg owns Met
Fixx , Greg is funding Met Fixx, right? Like Greg is met, Fixx
is part of Broken Science. Gregspeaks at Met Fixx events. Greg

(37:15):
just had a call exclusively forour first 100 affiliates where
he spoke for an hour and a halfabout how excited he is for
this project. I think, youknow, as it turned day-to-day
operations, Greg is not superinvolved. I mean, like, we have
a team of people who areworking around the clock to
build these tools and thesesystems and Greg knows that's
going on, but he's not reallyweighing in on like what the

(37:36):
dashboard should look like or,you know , any of that. I mean,
I wanna be totally honest'cause I don't know if people
think it's like, you know ,Greg's sitting at a computer
somewhere. And I mean, the samething goes for like, I don't
think Greg is interested intalking about bur Bures and
Thrusters anymore. Like, Idon't know that he has for 15
plus years, right? Um , I thinkhe's super like motivated and

(37:56):
interested in what Sugar doesand how sugar is a toxin. And I
think he feels strongly thatlike he made nutrition the base
of the pyramid, but then didn'treally give it enough
attention. And it became allabout movement. And that he,
you know, when he took over thewebsite and with CrossFit
Health, it was supposed to be asort of return to that mission.
And he has this sort of greatanalogy he said on the call,

(38:17):
which was, you know, whenyou're watching a movie with
friends and everybody's hungry,so like you get up, you take a
break, you have a burger orpizza or whatnot , pizza,
something to eat or somethingto drink, and you go and you
sit back down again and peopleare like, oh, we should start
the movie from the beginning.
He's like, no, we're notstarting the movie from the
beginning. Like, we're gonnastart from where we left off.

(38:38):
Got it. And he feels reallystrongly that CrossFit Health
was really gaining momentum andlike, you know, a lot of people
were coming to those events andI think he felt like it was
really in service of the, what, the work that the affiliates
were doing to have all thesedoctors hubbing with each other
and being able to referpatients to boxes. And I think
that didn't get complete. Like,you know , that that's not

(38:59):
solved. That's, that's still anarea of both opportunity and
need. And so I think that'ssort of where he sees this
emphasis fitting into thelarger picture. And then, you
know, I mean, I don't know whatif there's, but I also, you
know, the , the other caveat Ilike to give is that like, I
think, you know, there arepeople who are pretty invested
in CrossFit still that may notget met Fixx entirely. And so

(39:22):
they may, Greg may not talk tothem about Met Fixx. Hmm . And
that may be a point of, Idon't, I mean, I don't know
what he says when he's not withme, right? So like, I don't
wanna make any claims about anyof that, but I just think like
there is this tension and Ithink we've tried hard to
alleviate it in the sense oflike, we're not, you know, we
still think the L one is great,we're not doing an L one,

(39:44):
right? This is , this isdifferent. It should be of
service to the affiliates, butit's, it's not the same. And
so, but I think, you know, withthe CrossFit for sale and all
these other, like, I thinkthere's just a lot of str
tension in the ecosystem. Andso, you know, I don't, I like,
you know, I think when peoplesay like, oh, Greg should come
back and buy CrossFit, likethey're missing the point,

(40:04):
right . Of what he wants to bedoing now. And I think that ,
you know, the, the philosophystuff has been intellectually
incredibly stimulating to him.
And I don't think he wants toleave that. I mean, he's not
leaving that to go do Mat Fixx. I think he's gonna , you
know, sort of be involved inall things as he needs to be
and as he's interested. And Ithink that can ebb and flow. I
don't think, you know ,frankly, I don't think he, I

(40:25):
don't think the affiliates needhim to do any one thing. I
think he is the voice, he isthe leader. I think he's
obviously proven that he's likevery brave and strong and has
their best interest in mind. Idon't think that there's any
question that that's stillthere. I mean, I think the
affiliate, the decision to haveaffiliates largely came from
the pressure of the affiliatecommunity begging him to do
something. Right. You know? SoI don't think he's shying away

(40:48):
from that in any way. But Ialso think, you know, that
like, I'm involved, I'mdifferent, right? I'm not the
same as it was at CrossFit. Ihave equity in this. I think
like that, you know, he didn'tgive other people equity other
than his ex-wife. So I thinklike we're more partners than
he had before. And that may beupsetting to some people.
Right. Or, or different orsomething. It's, you know , I

(41:09):
can't always tell you whypeople don't like me or
, but I'm sure they have anyway . So , you know
, I , but I think like, it'sexciting . I think we're really
excited about it. And I thinkit's, you know , again, I was,
I've been a senior advisor toBobby Kennedy and it's
interesting to see, and Jay Botis somebody who's become a good
friend who has come to a lot ofour broken science Netflix

(41:31):
events. You know, they're bothin a position to help us really
push met Fixx out at the righttime and a on a larger scale.
And I think there's a lot ofpieces of the puzzle that are
coming together that wouldn'thave come together in 2020, you
know, when he left. And, and Ithink he's really revived and
refreshed and it excited aboutfiguring out some of these
other things and wanting tocommunicate those on a larger

(41:54):
level. And I mean, evenfrankly, like he's
homeschooling his kids and Ithink there's a lot of stuff
we've talked about where, youknow, I , I didn't know this
until probably the last year,but like when he was, when he
had his gym, he figured outthat there were a lot of kids
that could get scholarships ifthey could get their grades up,
but they weren't the bestathletes. Right. But that they
were good enough that theyprobably could get a , a free

(42:16):
ride or some money if theycould do better on the SATs. So
he started a coaching programfor math and SAT prep in the
box or in his gym. And it , youknow what, I don't think that
that like, I could totally seeus doing something like that.
Right. You know ? And so Ithink there's a lot of, there's
a lot of things that he's honedin on in the last few years
that will be very differentthan what was happening at

(42:39):
CrossFit, you know, through the20 years that he was running
it. But I think if you look atthe last few years that he was
there, you're gonna get abetter idea of what we're,
where we're jumping off from.
You know? So that's why I lovethat movie analogy. 'cause I
think it really does like, sortof give you a sense of where
are we going?

Speaker 1 (42:54):
That's great. What is your goal with the affiliate
program over the next decade,let's say? I mean, is there a
number that you want to hit? Isit, yeah, maybe. Maybe you
wanna expand on that?

Speaker 2 (43:06):
Yeah, so I mean, again, I think this is sort of
like, this is more about tryingto help people who are in the
trenches doing the work feelsupported and empowered and
invigorated. So I mean like,again, like with my gyms, like
I realized it was serving apurpose to give them this
health curriculum, the members.
But it actually served a hugepurpose with the coaches
because some of them wereexcellent, but they were kind

(43:27):
of bored, right? Like they'vebeen doing the same thing and
you stimulate them. And wewould have like a monthly
meeting where I'd go throughresearch or you know, like what
the topic was and they wouldget super excited. Then they're
talking about it on the floor.
Then there's this new energybrought in that's all based on
education and common interestand the goals for the members
that I think Met Fixx can do.
And so, you know, I wanted, wehad over three thou , uh, we

(43:50):
like very quietly announced,met Fixx at my house and we had
over 3000 affiliates, you know,fill out this intent form.
Yeah. Which was great . I mean,I did not expect that at all. I
thought there would be interest. I mean like we knew that like
a lot of people had been askinghim to do this, but when , you
know , the rubber hits theroad, are you really gonna do
it? Like, what does that looklike? And so I had been pretty

(44:11):
adamant that I thought ahundred was like what we needed
to start with because like, wedon't have , like, we have to
build the systems . We have toknow, you know, that we're
offering a product that's worthmore than we're charging. Like
there's a lot of litmus teststhat I have, you know, that
are, I've learned from Gregmentoring me over the last five
years are his ideas that Ireally feel charged to
implement as the sort of CEO ofthis, you know, of all of

(44:33):
broken science. But obviouslywe're focusing on Netflix right
now. Yeah. And so, you know,there were a lot of big hitters
in this , in the health spacewho I know who were like, it,
open the floodgates. Like, justlet everybody in. And Greg was
like, why are we doing this100? Like, why don't we open it
up? And I'm like, because maybeI'm not confident enough . Like
I wanna make sure that we'rereally ready. And I, you know,

(44:55):
was a business reporter. I'velaunched startups. I feel like
growth is often what kills thebusiness. People grow way
before they're ready to Yeah .
So I was sort of holding thereins back on everybody and
then last week we were, youknow, we're ready, we're so
ready. And so I think it wasgood timing, but it also was
something that we'd beenplanning. I mean, like, we
didn't just do thatimpulsively. And I think now

(45:16):
it's really interesting to see,like we have, we we'll easily
get to a thousand affiliates ina couple of months if we can
get through all theseapplications. I'm

Speaker 1 (45:24):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Do I wanna grow beyond that? Sure. If we can
meet the demand. But it'sreally this, like if we aren't
giving the education that theyneed to deploy the messaging
properly, the whole thing likefalls apart, right? So I'm not,
there's no like 10 Xing, it'salmost the opposite ,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (45:45):
One 10 vaccine .
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
I would like to go slow and make sure that like,
you know, we're delivering whatwe said we were gonna deliver
really well, and that peopleunderstand it and then they
find a value to it. I thinkthat's, that's the point. The
point is, you know, I joke withDale all the time, like the
point saving lives, like, isthis thing going to help save
lives or not?

Speaker 1 (46:03):
Right? Well, I , we are gonna come back to what an
affiliate looks like, but a lotof the questions that I got, I
think came from CrossFitaffiliates, and it maybe that
was just due to the timing ofCrossFit, putting a for sale
sign on the lawn and then, youknow, the next day or within 48
hours. I know as a previousapplicant, I got an email
saying, okay, now we're gonnaopen up affiliation again. So

(46:24):
the big question that I gotover and over was, can you be
an affiliate in Met Fixx andCrossFit at the same time?

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Yeah, absolutely.
And so, I mean, I again, justto sort of reiterate that
point, I think almost all ofour first 100 are CrossFit
affiliates, or they were, andthey disaffiliated after Greg
left.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
But it's not an either or.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
No, not at all. I mean, I think they should be
complimentary. Yeah . I thinkthe problem will , you know,
just logically will be, we're$2,000, they're 4,500 plus a
$1,000 affiliation fee. So allin, they're , you know, twice,
three times what we are. And itmay be that people don't feel
they can do both. Uh , notsaying pick us, but it may just

(47:08):
be that it's too much. And sothey decide not to be a Met
Fixx affiliate, but to sendtheir coaches to met Fixx
training. Right. I mean, Idon't know how that works. I
think in time that'll sort ofsort itself out, I think, you
know, there's, there's probablyall kinds of ways for people to
figure that out. I mean, Ithink $2,000 is what, like 160
something dollars a month. It'snot like it's that much more

(47:29):
for people. But I also knowlike, that's new member a
month. Like that's not likenecessarily something that's
revenue you wanna give up ifyou don't know that it's really
gonna drive, you know, bothimpact and sales for you moving
forward. I think in time theNetfix brand will become strong
enough that it will helpincentivize people that it's
worth the affiliation fee. Butyou know, I right now, like

(47:52):
it's not a household name atall the way CrossFit is. And so
I think you gotta be realisticabout that too. Like just if I
was advising somebody, I wouldsay, you know, it's important
to be both. And like, you know,I I , and at the same time,
like we definitely have gymsthat are just, that were
CrossFit boxes that deaffiliated because they didn't
feel like they were gettingthat brand, you know, that they
weren't getting the trafficdriven to them that they used

(48:13):
to, and that their members hadbeen there for 10 years and
they didn't really feel likethey needed , you know, it
wasn't, they weren't getting, Imean , I think a lot of the
tools, I don't follow thissuper closely, but what I've
heard is that a lot of thetools that CrossFit provides
are really geared towards newowners. And so the older
affiliates don't feel the senseof like, there's not, like
some, there's a price increase,but there's no value added for

(48:35):
us that we need. And so, Imean, even, you know, a couple
of boxes that are, I'm inBoston and the Boston area that
I never thought would deaffiliate, and they're not
reaff , you know, they're notaffiliating with us. It's not a
e either or, but they've deaffiliated because they don't,
you know, they're not happy forwhatever reason. So

Speaker 1 (48:51):
Yeah , Ben Bergeron was very public with his de
affiliation. Right. And, and Iknow several others around you
too. So this, this question wasI thought, really great and
we're gonna , we're gonna talkabout the value of Met
affiliation here, but before weget there, I, I love this
question and he said, do youfeel that that an affiliate
model is the best way to changehealth and fitness worldwide

(49:13):
since there's no guarantee inwhat the affiliates are putting
out as a product to theirmembers. So in other words,
there's no kind of forcedconsistency or, or baseline
level. What will be differentabout Met Fixx that will make
people gravitate to it overother models? Or , or how will
the Mefi affiliate model workbetter than the CrossFit
affiliate model did forsupporting its owners?

Speaker 2 (49:35):
Yeah, and I mean, again, I think like, you know,
my sort of strategiccommunications brain kicks in
here a little, and I think youkind of have to do a decision
tree type, right? So it's like,rather than saying like, what
are we doing that's better thanlike, what are the
alternatives, right? So like,look at a franchise model,
right? Like you're gonna spend$8,000 a month on marketing and

(49:57):
whatever, you're gonna spend ahundred plus thousand to even
open the door. You are beholdento their, you know, branding,
their messaging, theireverything. Like, we're not
gonna do that. So I think, youknow, I could destroy a
franchise concepts with theaffiliate model. Comparing it
to CrossFit is a littledifferent because I, again,
like I don't see them as acompetition. I think what Greg

(50:18):
created, I mean, I think the ,the price point for CrossFit is
too high. That's my sense. Ithink the Garage gym model is
one of the most brilliantbusiness models that Yeah .
Ever came about. And that hasnot gotten, Greg has not gotten
credit for. I mean, I thinkimagine any other business
where you have next to nooverhead, you are the full-time

(50:41):
employee. The the proof ofconcept is like, if you get
enough people to come that youcan't fit them all there, then
you get to go and decide howmany, like how many are on your
wait list . Now I can go run aspace that satisfies that. I
mean, it's very hard to thinkof any other startup model that
allows you to really pressuretest all of the risk factors

(51:03):
before committing to any c youknow, sort of like thing where
you're gonna be locked into alease or employees. Yeah , I
mean, so I, I think theaffiliate model is something
obviously that's very importantto Greg and I have been blown
away. The more he's explainedto me, like why he came up with
it and how he thought about,you know, the person who takes

(51:25):
the L one is the person whogets the affiliate agreement so
that you don't have the risk ofinvestors coming in and kicking
out the person who's runningthe classes. I mean, he really
was incredibly thoughtful inways that I don't think that ,
you know, most people knowabout why he wanted that model
and it was to protect thetrainer 'cause that was who he
was. And he saw, you know , allthe ways that he'd been taken

(51:48):
advantage of or that it hadn'tworked out for him and he
designed it to insulate thetrainer and protect them from
those risks in the marketplace.
So I don't know that we improveon that. I think like we just
sort of try to replicate it asbest we can and like why people
will come. I mean, I think whatpeople will come hopefully
because the metrics affiliatesare getting great results and

(52:10):
building something reallyspecial that frankly healthcare
can't do. You know, I mean,like you , you go to the doctor
and they're matchmaking yoursymptom to your, to a
prescription. They can writeyou in the 12 minutes and 32
seconds they're spending withyou a year. That is like,
there's no competition for whatyou get when you go into a
Netflix box and they'respending time with you and
they're checking in on you andthey're making sure you're

(52:30):
moving properly and they'reasking you what you're eating
and explaining to you, you know, why that's so essential. And
honestly, I think like the ,those stories like, you know,
bring me to tears, like the pepeople getting off of
medication that they thoughtthey had, like a death sentence
is really pretty overwhelming.
So I think that , that that'snot our power, that's the power
the coaches are bringing tothis. And I don't think we

(52:52):
should take credit for that. Ithink that's the work happening
in the box. It's so magical.
And our job is to support them,right? So making sure they have
the education they need, theyhave the voice they need, they
have the leadership they neednow. And that said, we're doing
a lot of tech stuff on theother side. Like we have SEO
and all this stuff to make surethat they're prioritized. So,
you know, the webpage thatwe're building that have these

(53:13):
videos that you submit when youapply, we have an editor who's
amazing, and she basicallytakes them and turns them into
trailers. Those are all gonnabe pushed out locally, like,
you know, for local marketingpurposes. And likewise with ,
you know, with press. Like it'seasy for me to give people PR
advice. We're gonna have waysto sort of help you understand
how to connect with localreporters, how to tell

(53:33):
transformation stories. I don'tthink we need to be doing that.
I think we need to help peopleknow that the affiliates are
doing that. That's

Speaker 1 (53:41):
A great answer, Emily. Thank you. I think that
those of us who were affiliatesback, you know, 2008 and
earlier, heard a lot of thatmessage. You start in your
garage when people are doingburpees on the sidewalk, then
you rent a space, but you get avery different message. If you
go to the crossfit.com siteright now, the message you're
gonna hear or see is it costs$160,000 to open an affiliate.

(54:04):
You need to sign this long-term, you know, lease and you need
this much space. It's just, myissue is that it's just not the
reality. You know, I don'tthink Greg gets enough credit
for launching or creating30,000 entrepreneurs.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
No, I don't either.
And in the world of likeprivate equity buying up Main
Street, like we would, oureconomy would benefit from more
locally owned businesses.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
But serving a lot of purposes, like I definitely, I
have a talk that somebody askedme if I'd work on this talk
based on something that I hadsaid to them about how I really
think health and freedom arevery connected. And I think
like if you think about likemodern slavery and shackles,
it's really this insulinresistance problem that we can
treat if you know where it'scoming from. But we're not. And
so like, if you're in ahospital bed, like it doesn't,

(54:51):
freedom of speech, doesn'tmatter, freedom of assembly
doesn't matter. All thatmatters is that you're not
healthy. And so I might bedoing this talk in Harlem at
the Apollo, which would be likeso fun and exciting, and I'm
like really looking forward tothat if it comes together this
summer. But the idea was totalk to the African American
community about this. And Ithink, you know, part of that

(55:12):
is this affiliate model, butlike, you can do this in your
neighborhood or next tonothing, right? Like, you don't
even need equipment,

Speaker 1 (55:20):
Right ?

Speaker 2 (55:21):
You can get people moving and frankly, like people
who are type two diabetic andobese and have multiple
comorbidities, they don'treally need equipment. Right?
It's, it's, that's a barrier toentry. I mean, this is, I have
a problem with a lot of the,like, whether it's like
wearable tech or supplements,the average person is eating
sugar cereal as their mainthing. Like they don't need new

(55:42):
sneakers, right? They don'tneed a wearable, they need to
like get up and move.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
Yeah. Right. Very true. Yeah. Like

Speaker 2 (55:48):
If you get to the point where you're like, you
know, really interested inlongevity and you're trying to
like tinker and move these liketeeny tiny little thresholds,
great, go for it. If you don'thave a lot of money and you're
really sick, guess what? Youdon't need any of that. And
people are confusing you bymaking you think that it's,
it's something you gotta gobuy, which is like, I mean, in
my experience in owning my gym,it would be a distraction.

(56:11):
Somebody would be like, oh, youknow, like , I didn't do this
because I forgot my watch andit wasn't gonna count. And I'm
like, you know, really?

Speaker 1 (56:19):
Uh , I think it's one way that people hide too ,
right? I , I can't startworking out because I don't
have the right clothes, I don'tlook the right way, et cetera.
And that's one thing that wereally have to guard against.
And I, I think, you know,unfortunately, CrossFit Media
was doing a great job ofexplaining what forging elite
fitness meant that anybodycould create elite fitness. And

(56:42):
in their absence it becameelite. People do CrossFit
thanks to the games messaging.
But I , I wanna , I wanna readthis question to you verbatim,
Emily, because I got enoughpitchforks thrown at me. So
I'm, I'm just gonna say like,this is a direct quote. So
CrossFit is a phenomenalmethodology for helping people
increase the quality andquantity of their lives. But
the biggest negative toCrossFit Inc. Is their lack of

(57:05):
support in helping affiliatesrun their business and
marketing what CrossFit is tothe public? How will Met Fixx
be different?

Speaker 2 (57:12):
So I wish we could call this person, because
obviously now I have somequestions for them about like,
at what stage of CrossFit, likeever CrossFit's never done
that.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
This is a very long-term affiliate. I mean, I
can link you up with him . Iknow him. He's, he's written a
book about fitness that hepublished last year. Wicked
Wicked smart guy. He retiredfrom his career very successful
and opened up a CrossFit gymout of passion. And so, you
know, one thing that he mightbe commenting on is something
that Tyson Roy said to me yearsago, and that is, we make all

(57:42):
this media for CrossFitaffiliates to use. Why don't
they just copy what we're doingand make their own media? And I
said, well, that's neveroccurred to me. I'm on the
media team and an affiliate.
You know, there's like a , alink missing there. And I think
maybe you already addressedthat a little bit by you
telling people how to do pr,how to write a press release,
how to tell stories.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
Yeah, and I mean, again, I think like in some
ways I'm a purist in the sensethat like, this isn't, I'm
like, you know, this probablyisn't gonna, people aren't
gonna love this answer. But Ithink like there, there is a
bastardization of the affiliatemodel, or of what Greg
designed, which was to takesomebody who is a personal
trainer, give them a professionwhere they're respected in

(58:23):
their community, where they'reable to drive health outcomes
in a very significant way andmake a living mm-hmm
. So they'remaking enough money that they
can, you know, buy a house,maybe send their kids to
college, maybe not anymore, butmaybe, right? But they're,
they're self-sufficient. Thatis different than somebody who
is an entrepreneur and wants toown 20 boxes and is, you know,

(58:43):
they , they start one becausethey're really looking to get
rich. Right. Or like, make alot of money. And so I don't
think this is a way to getrich. Like I don't think you go
into the buying, you know, orstarting a gym. Like that's, I
wouldn't recommend that I'dtell you to like, go work
somewhere else mm-hmm . Right ? If
money is your goal, I think howI see us supporting the

(59:04):
affiliates is really throughthe piece of education. I don't
think we're gonna go around anddo business coaching. I think
there are people like you whodo that, right? I think our
wheelhouse is in this piece oflike getting the right
information to people so thatthey can make changes in their
lives. I'm happy to haveconversations about like, how
do you turn that into a pieceof marketing, like the postcard
idea, right? Or other things.

(59:25):
But I, I think honestly, thatwill come from the community. I
think like even just theconversations that are, you
know, gonna be facilitatedthrough the forums with
affiliate owners. I wouldimagine somebody will post
something like, Hey guys, I gota great ROI on this postcard
idea. You , you know, this isthe kind of thing anybody could
try and replicate. I mean, likeDale King's whole model is

(59:45):
like, how does anybody take hismodel in the small town strong
and help reverse the opioidepidemic? He's not charging for
that. Like, I think, you know,that's like, that's free
advice. He wants the world tohave. I think we have,
especially in this first 100,an incredible cohort of people
who have been successful gymowners 10, 15 years, right? The

(01:00:05):
, you probably know this betterthan I do, but isn't the g the
average gym open for like twoyears and six months or
something? Like, it's a veryshort lifespan.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
Yeah, it's, it's almost exactly three years,
because most gyms sign a threeyear lease when they open
instead of starting in thegarage now. But yeah, it's a
very short lifespan. Um, and I,I actually believe Dale King's
gonna be in Men's Health or, orone of those in the next

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Yeah, that came out.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Okay. So it's out now,

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
But now , but I mean, I like, you know, I think
we're, we'll do PR and likecertainly I have, you know ,
I'm supposed to be in DC in amonth or so meeting with Bobby
and Jay and , and there's a lotof interesting stuff that I
have in the back of my mindabout government involvement.
There's actually quite a lot ofmoney for gym owners through
chronic disease treatmentprograms , through addiction

(01:00:48):
treatment programs that I don'tthink anybody's ever told
CrossFit owners or any ,anybody . I mean, this would be
good for CrossFit too, right?
Like sure. So I think, youknow, we are not gonna do,
we're not gonna like take ourfoot off the pedal of trying to
figure out how to supportaffiliates and help them be
financially successful. But Idon't think we're in the game
of giving business advice. Ithink, you know what I mean?
Like, these are differentthings for me. I think we're

(01:01:09):
gonna give you the curriculumto have like a world class
health program run out of yourgym, which may also be run out
of, I mean, we have three orfour doctors who are met
affiliates who are openingboxes in their healthcare
facilities or have,

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
Yeah, very cool .
Um,

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
So I don't, I think this extends beyond the gym,
but I think being tied to itshould over time , my goal is
that it builds enoughcredibility through the
doctors, through the governmentprograms, through all these
other things that if you're astandalone Netflix box, people
are like, okay, that's whereyou go to get healthy.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Very interesting.
Okay, so Emily , I think that's, that's a great place for us
to leave it today. Where shouldpeople go if they wanna apply
to be AFIX affiliate or just,you know, read more about it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
So you can go to broken science.org and right
there on the homepage is a , alink to the application and a
link to a page. I think it'smaybe just like Broken Science
slash Met is like theinformation page, but it's
like, it's all right there. Imean, we have tons of stuff
too. We have like a type twodiabetes class that's gonna be
online that anybody who haspeople in their boxes who are

(01:02:18):
diabetic or pre-diabetic, likethat's gonna give you all the
back or the history, the, theway the metabolism works, what
you can do about it. Like, youknow, clinical trials where
people have been successfulusing like carb restriction to
reverse chronic disease thatyou can share with people so
that, you know, it's not justyou saying it , it's backed up
by, we see we hate research andthen we use research when it's

(01:02:40):
helpful . And we have amath class that's coming out
that actually is like, youknow, I mean I , I think it's
the kind of math, it'sprobability theory, but it's
the kind of stuff that like, Ithink is really interesting to
anybody who's trying to makebusiness decisions. It's , uh,
like, you know, a lot ofprobability theory is risk
reward. There's a lot ofcritical thinking that I think
people are just not puttingforward in our, you know, sort

(01:03:01):
of zeitgeist that I think thatmath class will help with. I
would also just say that themedical society is a great
entry point, so it's a greatentry point, I would say for
two reasons. You get access toa lot of the resources that the
affiliates will, you know, solike these webinars or that
they're different forums, butyou know, some of that. And it

(01:03:22):
also is a community of people.
And so like, I think one of thethings that will happen in time
is as Met Fixx grows andcoaches have clients who have
really specific questions orthey're like, oh wow, I'd
really love to learn more aboutcancer as metabolic disease.
Which is something that coachescan talk about and touch on,
but they're not gonna beexperts on those specifics.
Those members or coaches canjoin the medical society and

(01:03:44):
then they get direct access tothose events, to those
readings, to all of that, whichshould really like bolster. And
I think we should do somethingwhere like if a coach or an
affiliate refers people to theclasses or the metrics thing ,
like maybe they get someincentive for doing that so
that it really builds thelarger community. So I mean,
again, to like go back to thisidea of like, how involved is
Greg, it's like, see all thesethings are connected. So when

(01:04:07):
people are like, oh, he isdistancing himself from Met , I
mean, the first thing I did wassend him your post and be like,
what is going,

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
What's this right?
.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
But it's also like, I don't know how he could
divorce himself from one andnot all , you know what I like,
it's, yeah . But I , weprobably haven't done a good
enough job of , uh, sort ofcommunicating that connective
tissue and how they all worktogether. So I appreciate you
giving me the opportunity toexplain it really. Yeah ,

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
Yeah . Happy to.
Thanks so much for coming on.
We'll do this again and , um,you know, we're happy to help
spread the word. If you're outthere and you're thinking
about, you know, do I affiliatewith netfix ? Do I apply, I
think you should just go to thesite and start there. Maybe go
to one of the meetups, youknow, and just have
conversations with other MetFixx affiliates. I think this

(01:04:53):
is a decision that's completelyindependent of your CrossFit
affiliation, whether youaffiliate, de affiliate, re
affiliate with CrossFit, it'sworth looking at at Met Fixx
and saying like, is is this thenext step for me? So thanks
Emily . And

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
You're applying, right? We're gonna have you in
the trenches

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
Yeah, for I , Hey, I've applied.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
Awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
Great . Yeah, I don't know . I don't, I'm

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
Gonna say like , how are you giving business advice?
I'm gonna say we're sendingeverybody to Chris. Oh ,

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):
Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah . And , um,
we'll do this again.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Great. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Take care. Bye-Bye .