July 18, 2024 • 47 mins
Are you aiming for a healthier lifestyle while avoiding the pitfalls of obsessive dieting? Our latest Fitness Fiasco Podcast episode promises to reveal the secrets behind a successful weight cut. Join us on a new format we are calling "What Worked for Me".
Rob interviews Mike to share the highs and lows of a nine-week journey where he managed to shed over seven pounds and reduced his body fat by 2%, all while maintaining muscle mass. Learn how setting personal and professional goals can keep you motivated, and discover the importance of gamification in nutrition and training to stay engaged and enthusiastic.
Expect to uncover practical strategies for macronutrient cycling and intuitive eating. We break down the science behind consistent protein intake and the art of recognizing portion sizes without feeling overwhelmed. Understand the meticulous process of determining your maintenance calories and the role nutrient-dense foods play in achieving your fitness goals. This episode offers insights on how athletes can balance their diets, providing you with tools to perfect your own dietary plans.
Dive into the emotional and psychological aspects of fitness, where we discuss the impact of low body fat on appearance and mental health. Hear about the balance required to maintain a physique that pleases both yourself and others, while avoiding the dangers of unhealthy obsessions. With the help of modern tools like MyFitnessPal and support from external accountability, you'll learn to set and achieve attainable goals. Wrapping up with an inspiring chat with Michael, we celebrate real-life success stories and express our gratitude for your continued support. Don't miss this episode packed with motivational tips and practical advice!
Send us a voice note, check out show notes and more at our site: https://www.fitnessfiasco.com/
Host Mike - https://www.instagram.com/mikeosunafitness/
Host Erik - https://www.instagram.com/erikbustillo/
Host Rob - https://twitter.com/RobStrength
The Fitness Fiasco Podcast provides general information on health, wellness, and fitness and should not be regarded as professional medical advice, treatment, or diagnosis. No doctor/patient relationship is established through this podcast. Listeners are responsible for their use of any information or resources shared in this podcast or associated materials. This podcast's content should not supplant consultations with qualified health care professionals concerning any existing medical conditions. It is crucial for listeners to avoid disregarding or delaying professional medical advice based on the information provided in the podcast. Remember to consult your health care provider for personalized guidance on your health and wellness journey.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mike, good morning, good morning, Good to see you
again.
Happy Sunday morning, likewiseas always.
As always, and today I'm kindof interested because we're
going to be talking about youand we're going to be talking
about your experiences on arecent weight cut that you did
and, if I recall your posts well, you lost.
What was it about?
Nine?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
pounds-ish Seven, seven pounds.
Yeah, just a little bit overseven pounds.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Which you're also.
You know you're coming inpretty lean, so that was cool to
see.
And how much body fat, was itone?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
it was about two percent and I appreciate you
using the word lean and notskinny, because for an
ex-football player, skinny islike the biggest insult you
could give us.
Yeah, unless you're in an oldoffensive tackle.
They lost, you know, 100 pounds, but yeah, so lean is the way
to go with this to keep my egointact.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
So seven pounds, which might not sound like a lot
to people who haven't reallytried to lose weight, but that's
huge, especially again forsomeone that is muscular build
coming in and 2% body fat.
I mean that's more important tosee that drop in the percent
body fat.
So that's really cool to see.
And how long was it?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
It was a nine week cut.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Nine weeks.
So that's where I was gettingthe nine from.
So basically it was almost apound a week, you know, rounded
up to a pound a week.
So that's, that's.
That's pretty cool.
Like that's right in range withwhat exercise physiology says
is a good target.
So that's cool to see whatmotivated you to start this.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
So I like to apply the things to my clients that I
do myself.
Also, I wanted to see how leanI could get for our summer break
, right?
So everybody goes into thesummer with the agenda of
hitting a beach, hittingsomewhere where they're going to
be lightly clothed.
So I tried to figure out mimicthat protocol for my clients.
(01:43):
And hey, I'm going to put youguys on a cut, those of you that
are trying to lean down, I'mgoing to lean down with you.
So we kind of went through thatjourney together.
Touching on one of the pointsthat you said, it is very
difficult when you're alreadylean, already thin, to continue
to lose body fat whilemaintaining muscle mass.
And that's the most importantthing to me is, especially at my
age I just turned 49, to keepas much muscle mass as possible
(02:06):
because, as we know, it'sincredibly difficult to build it
at this age.
So the motivation was SiestaKey I wanted to be super lean
for.
Siesta Key, which I have alittle story to go later on I'll
share it.
It's about my wife and my cut,but that was the ultimate goal.
(02:45):
Also, I knew I was going to bewith a bunch of people and from
there you know when you're afitness instructor, influencer
and what they've done in thefield.
But when you're somebody of mycaliber, when you're walking
around and coaching people inperson, you have an online
presence.
You kind of want to look yourbest.
So, going there was a littlebit of ulterior motive.
Going into that vacation.
I knew that we were going to bewith a bunch of people and I
knew that hopefully my physiquewould sell.
(03:06):
And sure enough, I came outwith two clients out of that
experience.
So, um, a bunch of littlemotivations.
Also, I'm kind of just a freak.
I want to just.
You know I get bored.
So I gamified my nutrition andmy training protocol just to see
what the outcome would be.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Nice.
That reminds me I mean the, thereminds me of of something I
believe it was Louie Simmonssaid, or at least I heard it
from him first was almost allgreat coaches have been injured
and it's that recovery frominjury that's really motivated
them to do better, because theywalk the walk with it.
Now, obviously, the idea is notto get injured, but when you've
been doing this as long as youand I have, as Louie Simmons did
(03:39):
before he died, you get hurtand learning how to do those
steps yourself makes you abetter coach, and that's true.
Like, every time I got hurt, itsucked.
I learned what I did to gethurt and to avoid that, but then
also, really importantly, Ilearned how to I get, how do I
get back to my, you know, primecondition from this injury.
And those lessons are good andthat's what you did in terms of
(04:00):
I need to learn how to do thisweight cut, because it's going
to help me more with my clientslet alone the aesthetic side of
things.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, and you could empathize for them.
And when they give you theiranecdotal experience, you could
understand oh yeah, this is whenI started getting hungry and
this is when I started havingdifficulty sleeping and this is
when my performance lacked.
I've done cuts before, butnever as data driven as this one
, and it does allow me to.
Oh.
When they get to the fifth week, oh yeah, I understand where
(04:28):
you are now, because this iswhen I started getting hunger
pains around 3 pm.
And not to say that, you know,I'm generalizing here, but you
could empathize through eitherinjury and recovery or through
dieting down or cutting down, Ishould say.
So they feel a little bit moreat ease knowing that, okay,
you've put yourself through thisor you've done this yourself.
Here are the results you know.
Hopefully the results could,you know, come over to me as
(04:49):
well.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Now, was there any?
Were there any health relatedmotivations for this or this was
strictly?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
aesthetics, strictly just shallow aesthetics, if you
will.
Nothing wrong with that.
I mean, that's motivation ismotivation.
It makes you healthier, makesyou better.
Good with that.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
What were you doing nutrition-wise before and maybe
training-wise?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
as well before.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And then, how did you manipulate that?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, so for.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Not just calories.
We'll talk about the caloriesin, calories out, but were there
specific nutritional strategiesthat you were doing before and
after, related to foods andnutrient timing?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So when it comes to I cycle on and off of macro
nutrient, when I say kind ofmacros, I'm just let's just use
it as a catch-all phrase forcounting macros, weighing and
measuring food and inputting itinto my fitness power, into the
app that I use in order toeither maintain gain or lose
which macros?
Speaker 1 (05:39):
most people know that , but that's protein,
carbohydrates and fat correctmacronutrients those where you
get the three sources ofcalories besides alcohol.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
And I'm using it in a fashion where I'm actually
weighing and measuring my food,so I'm getting an accurate
amount of protein, carbohydratesand fats that is recommended in
order to gain weight or gainmuscle, maintain or lose weight.
So that's when I use the termmacros.
It's like using the word paleodiet or keto diet weight right.
So that's when I use the termmacros.
It's like using the word paleodiet or keto diet, right.
(06:06):
So I cycle on and off of mymacros because not to sound
cliche here, but that which ismeasured is managed, so I'm able
to really dive deep into.
I want to gain five pounds, andthen I could write out a
timeline and say these are theamount of calories that I need
to eat and this is the amount ofprotein that I need to eat in
order to gain that weight.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, when you say cycle on and off your macros,
can you just kind of big picturewhat you mean?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
by that Does that mean on a daily basis, or are
you saying oh, on a weekly,monthly basis?
Okay, based on your overallgoal.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
So your goal for this period was to lose weight, so
you're going to adjust yourmacros for this period and
that's what you mean now is ifyour goal is to gain weight,
you're going to say so.
You're not talking about likeon a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Right, no, no, no, no , yeah, that's a very good point
.
So, on a uh, on a goal basis,right?
So, um, there's times that Ijust let's call it freelancing,
that I'm just going to eatintuitively.
Now stick, intuitively,sticking to the principles that
I understand nutritionally areneeded in order to keep muscle
on and lose fat, and I coulddive deep into that here for a
(07:07):
second.
So I understand that with everymeal I need to have minimum 25
grams of protein in order toinduce MPS, muscle protein
synthesis.
But I typically have 50, closeto 50 grams of protein in order
to meet my overall daily goal,which is roughly one gram of
protein per body weight.
(07:27):
My goal is to maintain so itwould be around 210, 215.
That means that I got to have ahandful of protein for each
meal.
Typically I eat four meals,around 50 grams.
Boom, at the end of the day I'mat 50 grams.
So when I intuitively eat, Iintuitively eat with intention.
It's not just I just wake upand eat whatever I feel like it
because intuitively I'm cravinga cookie or I'm craving a
(07:48):
protein shake or a steak.
It's with intention to meet mywhat would be macros general
ballpark.
I've counted macros way tomeasure food so often that I
could look at a plate of foodand typically we have, and Eric
is the one that teaches us andEric's not here with us today.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
We should know.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Eric is the one that teaches us.
You know that, that you want tobe able to.
You're going to eat about 10 to12 of the same meals Most of
the time.
You know there's exceptionsbirthday parties, go, taking
your wife out to dinner andwhatnot but most of the time
you're going to eat 10 to 12meals so you'll be able to
recognize this is enough chicken, this is enough rice, this is
(08:31):
enough avocado.
Right, if you do it enough, youknow that you're in a range.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So I intuitively on that note, we did talk about on
our other podcast on weighingand measuring your food, the
importance of it and doing beingstrict for a certain period of
time so you can learn this skill.
This is a learned skill.
I know a lot of peoplelistening like there's no way
I'm going to ever be able tolook at a meal and know the
macro components of it.
Now if you go back and listento that other episode where we
talk about weighing andmeasuring food and eric does a
(08:55):
really good job laying it outfor you if you do that strict
for a month or two, what mike'stalking about will be second
nature to you, yeah, 100, ahundred percent.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
And the first month I usually, you know, call it the
shit show because there's alearning curve.
There's a huge learning curve,um, instructionally on how to
weigh and measure your food andthen how to input it, and
there's some variables thatcould go wrong along the process
there.
But a month or two, you know,four weeks, six weeks, eight
weeks, you're going to be ableto look at a plate and say, wow,
I've been under eating protein.
You know, instead of one egg inthe morning with a piece of
(09:23):
toast, I should be having foureggs in the morning with, you
know, a piece of toast and maybesome blueberries, because I've
also been under eatingcarbohydrates.
So when you've been doing it forso long and that's what I mean
by cycling on and off is when Icycle on I could really really
nail down as closely as possiblemy macronutrients in order to
hit my goal and see the progress, the way that I wanted to
(09:43):
progress, when I, intuitively, Ipretty much sit around the same
weight with the same body fat,which doesn't change much.
You know, when I get into thenumbers here in a second, my
in-body goes back to 2021.
There's when you look at allthe times that I did an in-body
and I would say it's probablyabout 12 recordings.
There's not much deviationthere.
(10:04):
There are minor deviations butaesthetically you could see the
difference just in these lastnine weeks.
So when it comes tomacronutrients and to get back
to your question, I cycle on andoff of it depending on what my
goal is.
So if my goal now is to bulk up, I want to be 220 by December.
If my goal, like my goal now,is to bulk up, I want to be 220
by December.
So I need to now reverse dietand I need to focus on these new
(10:27):
macronutrients that I'mimplementing for myself in order
to get to 220 with the leastamount of body fat, which we
could talk about that here in alittle bit closer to December
and hopefully hit that goal.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Awesome, yeah.
So the main thing is you have alot of experience.
You didn't just go into thiscut as your first nutritional
experience, which I think isimportant to know is that you,
you you have a big background ofof understanding what works for
you before you're going intosomething as strict as as this
weight cut.
So you know people who arelooking to get healthier.
This would be a step down theroad, probably not your first
(10:59):
adventure in.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, and I think you made a good point there.
Um, it's what works for you,and everybody has a different
little bit of a protocol thereand I think the protocol ranges
right.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And you know what works for you better than 99.9%
of people.
That's it yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
And there's also the practical portion of it.
If I'm just not a big carb guybecause I don't enjoy that food,
then I know that I couldreplace a lot of those calories
with fats, and if the goal isweight loss, it really doesn't
matter with those twomacronutrients.
So once you've done it for somany times, you've been
successful and you failed, thatyou recognize okay, this is what
(11:37):
I can't do.
This is what I can do in orderfor my body to respond the way
that I want it to respond.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Awesome, nice so then , what changes did you make once
you started?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
so I started off with a baseline.
So I wanted to figure out whenI did my metabolic cart which,
for those of you that areknowing you, probably have a
little bit more background onthis Rob metabolic cart you're
basically just sitting there,there's a machine attached to
you, you're breathing into atube and it's going to give you
a very accurate BMR basalmetabolic rate, resting
metabolic rate and that'sbasically the which we have
(12:07):
another podcast explaining allof these I was going to say we
need to put links for all thisstuff here so we don't have to
like just talk about it overagain.
But basically it's, it's uh, theenergy used to keep the lights
on right and your total dailyenergy expenditure.
That formula comes from threeother components that you tie
into you.
You do, uh, you, you sum it allup and then you get a number.
So my number through mymetabolic cart was in the 4,000s
(12:29):
.
So it was a range of if Iremember correct I'll have to
look it up it was between like4,200 to 4,400 calories a day.
Just to stay at the weight thatI was at.
That's a lot.
Yeah, practically speaking, itis a crap ton of food,
especially if you're eatingwhole foods and I know that
that's just a general term.
But when I say whole foods, Imean more like nutrient-dense,
(12:53):
low-calorie foods.
So you're thinking likevegetables, broccoli I'm just
throwing some examples out there, blueberries, your pieces of
steak, your pieces of tuna.
Out there, blueberries, um,your pieces of steak, your
pieces of, uh, tuna.
So when you, as opposed tomcdonald's and pizza and chicken
wings, which are very highcalorie, low nutrient foods,
(13:13):
right, so when you're trying tohit 4 000 calories with nutrient
dense foods.
It's incredibly difficult.
You're you.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
It's basically becomes a job and in a and a
boring, excruciating job becauseyou just got to eat so much, so
you'd have to supplement withsome protein powders which,
going back in history, is one ofthe reasons why paleo that kind
of fell out of favor with thetop CrossFit athletes is because
it was too tough.
Is it healthy?
Yes, could it be the healthiestway to eat?
Potentially, is it good forperformance?
That's very hard.
It's very hard.
(13:45):
It's very hard for those youknow, individuals myself
included back then to get infive, six thousand calories a
day when you're eating.
Yeah, paleo foods, absolutelyrich froning eating a jar of
peanut butter and jelly mixedtogether every single day for
his calories yeah, exactlyeveryone's like what, yeah that?
Sugar.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
It's like no right, he needs it because he's burning
it off.
Yeah, so I I figured that 4 000calories was too much, so I
started off around 3,000calories.
I said let me try to find abaseline here.
I think it's been two yearssince I did the metabolic card.
I'm at a different station so Idon't run as many calls right,
because activity level is one ofthe variables in that
formulation.
So I decided to start offroughly around 3,000 calories
(14:19):
and let's do this for two weeksand let's see how my body
responds to 3,000 calories.
If I jump on 3,000 calories andI start to lose weight, then I
know that I'm already puttingmyself in a hypocaloric state.
Gain weight, then I know thatI'm in a hyper, so I'm eating
more calories than I'm expending.
And if I maintain that, I knowthat I'm within the range again,
again, a lot of variables thatcould go wrong here, but I'm
(14:40):
within the range of okay, thisis the right amount of calories.
And that's what played out.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I ended up eating, roughly to be specific, uh,
3,088 calories for two weeks andI maintained a 214 pounds of
body weight which another thinghere is is notice how Mike
consistently put himself intoand I'm going to try this and
I'm going to get feedback frommyself.
Right, Mike did not.
Mike knows his body better thanmost people know their body.
(15:04):
He's a seasoned exerciseprofessional on top of being a
firefighter, right Top ofplaying football.
He's been doing fitness andnutrition for a long time and he
still does not know exactlywhat he needs.
So he was doing a one or twoweek experiment and sourcing
feedback.
When you know, when we have newclients, starting with you,
starting with me and they wantnutritional goals met, there
needs to be feedback and we'renot going to know right away
(15:26):
we're going to have guidelinesto feed you, not to feed you.
We're going to have guidelinesto give you and we're going to,
you know, to have you reach yourgoals, you're going to need to
provide feedback based on, basedon how that works, for us to
really fine tune it.
So this stuff's not going towork right away and you're a
prime example of, hey, thereneeds to be some, you know, a
tune-up period before you canreally start to go in.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, there's a formula going back to the
activity level when you look atthe Mifflin-Singh-Jor and Eric
says it better than I do.
But the equation, the activitylevel, is a multiplier.
Estimate your activity level,which I don't know the studies
of this I'd have to ask Eric,but I'm assuming that some
(16:08):
people do, because they don'twant to seem lazy, or the
description of moderately activekind of plays into their
activity level.
Then they choose that.
What, what they might notunderstand that they're choosing
is an actual variable.
So it could be 1.55 or 1.75.
So this is multiplied into your, into your BMR, which could
(16:29):
raise your calories to three,four, 500 calories, and now
you're overeating.
So answering that question aloneis very, very important to try
to find your maintenancecalories.
So this is why I tried and Iand I push people to do this is
Try to find your maintenancefirst, to find out if that is
truly your maintenance, meaningyou're going to eat at those
(16:50):
calories roughly one to twoweeks.
Some people get a littleimpatient so you could do one
week, but let's just use twoweeks like I used.
I set it at that for two weeksand then I recognized okay, I
haven't budged from 214, plus orminus a couple pounds, but
let's just say 214, becausethat's exactly what I was at for
two weeks.
Then I could say, okay, this isroughly my maintenance.
(17:16):
Now I'm going to start my cut,because the cutting part is you
know where the magic happens andum, and then going through the
nine weeks of not rushing theprocess because, again, I don't
want to lose muscle mass or loseas little as muscle mass as
possible.
That's what's important when itcomes to the component and the
variables.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah, so that's a really you mentioned earlier.
You don't want to lose musclemass.
It's very tough to gain musclemass the older you get,
especially without anysupplementation, whatever
supplementation.
How did you ensure that yourhealth was not impacted during
this weight cut Right Cause youwere healthy coming in that.
You know it's aestheticpurposes, whether it's muscle
mass or otherwise.
What were you doing to maintainhealth?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So you know I didn't take any.
Uh, it's just so happens that Idid do my annual physical in
May, during the actual cut, butthat wasn't part of the
procedure where I'm going to doblood work prior and blood work
after.
I was not going to put myselfin a deficit where I would
jeopardize my health, if youwould Right.
So I'm not trying to um, I meannot to tuck in the house side,
because I'm more of a, I'm aweight guy, you know,
supplementing with all themultivitamins that I take and
(18:12):
although we're not sponsored byAG1, the dropping AG1 once a day
, and just I mean I'll put itout there.
I use Thorne products for allmy supplementations on the
actual pill forms, but then I douse AG1 just in case that I'm
not getting enough vitamins andminerals.
I use AG1 plus then.
(18:34):
Or eating, trying to eat wholefoods, so single ingredient
foods, you know, the proteins,the steaks, the fish, the
chicken, that type of stuff, andthen shopping on the outside of
market the whole night.
So the health didn't come intoplay really, because I don't
have any conditions, if you will.
So there was nothing that wasreally concerning me, but also
it was going to be a shortcutand I wasn't going to put myself
(18:54):
in that much of a deficit onlybecause and I'll tell you the
you know what I alluded toearlier about my wife is at six
three, 207 pounds.
You're skinny, like.
You look thin and at my agemaybe it's the white hair or
whatnot, but my wife, when I gotdown to like the 208s, 209s,
(19:17):
she told me, listen, you just,yeah, great, so you have a vein
in your abs, that's fantastic,but you look old, you look
skinny.
You know it's very difficult tospot, reduce.
So when you lose body fat fromyour abs and from your arms or
from your legs or from yourglutes, you're going to lose fat
from your face and it's thatfat from your face that makes
you look thin and old and frail.
(19:38):
I mean, you could see it with alot and not to call out a
demographic of people here, butyou could see it a lot with very
, very thin runners that don'tweight train to have very low
body fat.
They just look older than whatthey actually are because they
don't weight train.
That have very low body fat.
They just look older than whatthey actually are because they
don't have a lot of fat on theirface.
So they're the skull, the, thebones stick out more, the
cheekbones, the eye sockets.
(19:59):
They look a little bit sunk in.
So I think you could understandthe type of person that we're
we're discussing here is, if youdon't have a lot of body fat on
you, you're not going to havein your face, so you're to look
old.
So to my point is I wasn'tgoing to put myself in a huge
deficit because I wasn't goingto step on stage.
This was just me being me, thatI wanted to keep a little bit
of fat on me and I wanted tomake sure that I was keeping as
(20:21):
much muscle mass on me so that Ididn't look aesthetically
unpleasing to my wife, if thatmakes sense, the unpleasing to
my wife, if that makes sense,the mental toughness required to
have a happy wife Of course,happy marriage.
And I want my wife to look at meand think, oh, he's sexy, not.
Oh, he's 204 pounds.
Everybody thinks he's shredded,but God, he looks old and
(20:42):
skinny and it's just the natureof the beast.
I'm turning 50 soon.
So I got to make sure that Icheck that box as well.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah, all right.
Next, what is it Seis de Mayo.
Next year, it's the 50thbirthday.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yeah, seis de Mayo, so Cinco de Mayo, and followed
by Seis de Mayo, nice, nice.
A friend of mine, christy,dubbed that, which is fucking
fantastic, it's great.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Every year, I hear it mentally challenging, was it?
Did you need to, you know, putyourself back in that old
football player mindset of youknow, nose to the grindstone and
and, and you know, focus on mygoals and stick to it, or did it
come naturally for you?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
It came more naturally for me.
You know, this is, this is ourlivelihood, rob.
This is what we do for a livingput food on the plate.
You know, no pun intended.
So there's not like an on andoff switch.
I don't need motivation orinspiration or some sort of like
overarching goal in order forme to be able to switch on and
(21:38):
off.
Um, it's, it just comes sonatural.
And then with modern technology, my fitness pal recognizes the
foods that I eat you know the 10to 12 foods that I eat.
So it makes it so easy just forme to grab my food, throw it on
a plate, hit the clear button,weigh it, throw the other
ingredient on it, clear it andthen punch it into the app that
(22:01):
it makes that process easy.
So it's not like a grind.
I could see how somebody newcoming into macros, counting
macros, flexible dieting,whatever you want to call it,
weighing and measuring food.
Like I said, the learning curve.
They just have to understandthat that learning curve is
going to subside.
They just need to get used tothe habit and the pattern in
order to do it.
You know Eric talks a lot abouteating disorders and getting
(22:22):
some people obsessed.
That is a very real situationthat somebody needs to find,
where you kind of take theapproach of gamifying it.
You know, all you're trying todo is here's a number, here's a
target number.
Try to get as close to thatnumber as possible and don't get
too hung up on the outcome.
If you go over calories orunder calories, don't worry
(22:42):
about it.
Tomorrow's the next day, typeof thing.
And that psychology issomething that we, you know, got
to instill in folks is, ifyou're trying to do a month or
two of macronutrients, just tounderstand whether you're
overeating or not eating, that'sthe reason for your weight gain
or weight loss.
If you'd follow this for abouteight weeks and just take it as
(23:07):
a game more than anything else,then you'll be able to reach
your goals and then adjust yournutrition, your diet, the way
that you see fit.
So, in order for me to getprepared for this, all I did was
you know, I'll upload all thetools again that I needed, that
I hadn't been using in a while,which is the, the, my fitness
pal, and and bring my scale withme.
I have a scale at the firehouse, I have a scale at the house,
and then I don't get overlycomplicated with it If Jess and
I go out to dinner.
Um, I'll either, in advancethat we discussed the restaurant
(23:30):
that we're going to use I'lleither jump onto the menu and
say, okay, I'm going to have theeight ounce, you know, ribeye
with a sweet potato and somebroccolini and I'll punch it
into the app.
I could do it, you know, postdinner.
I get to dinner there, I don'tsweat it.
I look at the menu.
I guesstimate what it is,literally justesstimate, like it
doesn't even matter if it's thesame restaurant, because I know
I'm going to be within range.
(23:52):
Again, this is more recreational, if anything.
I'm not a physique model.
I'm not looking to do a photoshoot, this is just hey, let me
do a little cut, see how lean Icould get.
So I don't try to split hairsand I don't make it an obsession
with my life.
So, um, naturally it just comessecond nature, because I've
done it so often.
The motivation is there afterthe second or third week I would
(24:15):
say more the third week when Istarted the cut.
That's when I started seeingthe results and typically, if
you could get that locomotivemoving once it gets full speed.
Now, the motivation continuesto be there because myself, the
client keeps seeing the resultson a weekly, bi-weekly basis,
and that within itself ismotivation.
(24:35):
People that jump onto a dietand don't see results quickly
and I think that people are theyjump off the bandwagon a little
bit too soon when they don'tsee those results quickly.
They get impatient and theythink, oh, this isn't going to
work for me, so I'm quittingthis or I'm trying something
else.
So it takes a little bit inorder to see results.
But once you see the results,that within itself is motivation
(24:57):
.
So, you know, in the mornings Iwake up, I don't sleep with a
shirt on, so I look in themirror and I'm like, okay, here
we go into months and then, byyou know, month number two okay,
I can see my obliques here.
So once you start seeing here'sa couple more veins Once you
start seeing that, now you'rereally vested into it and like,
(25:17):
oh shit, I, if I this is working, if I continue this process,
I'm going to get even leanertype of thing.
So, um, I don't think it's thatthat challenging.
But I'm only speaking formyself, because this is the
world that I live in.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Yeah, and I mean you.
Even before you were in thisworld, you, you know, were a
high school athlete, a collegeathlete and a semi.
I guess professional athlete toto that extent where you know
it was you.
You've always been surroundedby that high performance mindset
.
You know it wasn't, you knowit's not a a wall street
executive, but you weresimilarly a high performance
individual in your craft.
(25:49):
And it's easy to apply that fromyour craft to something such as
this, and I think a lot ofpeople that aren't fitness
professionals or have beenengrossed in fitness, like we
have, take that same passionthat you have for something else
and you can apply it to thisand you'll be a lot more
successful.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, that mindset and, as you tell me, you throw
me back to my college days.
I took a health class and thisis when I first got introduced
and we're talking 30 years agothis is when I first got
introduced to macronutrients,counting calories, and at that
time I was a college footballplayer and I was calculated.
This could be right or wrong,but I was eating around 7,000
(26:27):
calories a day.
We know we did a three-day foodaudit.
We were this business back then, a pencil and paper type deal
where you, you know, you writedown everything that you eat,
you weigh, you measure it andthen you get a food log and it
tells you you know, this is thecorrelating numbers that go
along with it.
And you figure it out and boom,I'm roughly around 7,000
calories.
(26:52):
At 7,000 calories, I could notbudge from 235.
I was sitting at 235 pounds,coaches wanted me to get up to
245, I was playing defensive endand I couldn't budge from it.
So at that time I decided, okay, I need extra calories.
However, I could get in, andI'm not recommending this to
anybody this is just what I didand I would set my alarm for 3
o'clock in the morning.
Sometimes in college you'restill awake at 3 o'clock in the
(27:12):
morning, but I'll set my alarmfor 3 o'clock in the morning.
Sometimes in college you'restill awake at 3 o'clock in the
morning, but I'll set my alarmfor 3 o'clock in the morning.
I would wake up.
I had a cup of Flanagan's thebig, large green cups full of
whole milk sitting in therefrigerator for me, and then a
whole strip of Oreo cookies andI would wake up in the middle of
night.
I would have that, use thebathroom, go to sleep and that's
how would it put additionalcalories into my diet?
Because I could not figure outwhere do I squeeze in more
calories throughout the day?
Because we were such.
(27:32):
You know, you're playingcollege ball, you're always
active.
You know weight room stuff,field stuff, multiple field
stuff, and then all the otheractivities that you're doing
that I just couldn't pack onweight.
So that mindset of like I havea job to do, this is what it
takes in order for it to getdone.
Just deploy it and make ithappen.
So I guess that you carry thatalong with you for the rest of
(27:53):
your life, you know.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Yeah, no, definitely You're able to figure out what
solutions there were for you,right.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
You know, in that case it is a definitely out of
left field solution in terms ofwaking up in the middle of the
night and having oreos and wholemilk, but it got the job.
Got the job done.
Let me just say this, and andI've posted this picture before,
and just she gives me the lookwhen I because now it's the
opposite of skinny mike, I wasmy body composition was
horrendous.
I got up to 245 pounds, but Iwas full belly, love handles.
I didn't even care.
I walked around without at-shirt with as much pride
because I was squatting 500pounds.
I could run through a wall LikeI was functional.
(28:35):
I was a football player, I wasin a fitness model.
So, no, it didn't bode wellaesthetically to have all those
calories, because I was startingto put on predominantly more
fat than I was muscle.
But again, it got the job done.
I needed to be heavier so Idon't get blown off the ball,
and that's what I had to do inorder to get there.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah, no that's a fun story.
Similar stories from wrestlingweight, cutting the stuff that
you do to cut weight Right.
(29:13):
And you learn those tricks thatstay with you for a long time.
I always know how I can cut afew pounds, a few pounds in a
day or two, or get really leanjust because of those lessons
learned from is like hey, I havethis job I have to do.
I have to lose five pounds bythe end of the week, which I was
never the biggest weight cutterbut you still learn exactly how
your body responds and what youneed to do.
You know how to get an extraworkout in, how to sweat out an
extra eight ounces, how to youknow how to spit more so that
you can lose weight.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah, how much weight's in in in your spitting?
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
you pee, it's always going to be heavy.
It's going to be more weightloss than when you take a crap.
That's for sure you know peoplethink that a crap was heavier,
nah it's the water weighs more,for sure um, but besides that,
that stuff, my last question foryou before we go through, go
through the numbers.
Yeah, you are active, veryactive on social media.
Instagram, you have a pretty,you know, a familial following.
You're following are people you, you have a pretty, you know, a
(29:50):
familial following you'refollowing are people you've
known for a long time.
You know people that I've knownfor a long time and you're
close and you talk to a lot ofthem and you interact with them
both in person and on Instagramand you post about this both
ahead of time, during it andafter did.
What level of accountabilitydid you feel to go through with
this because of that?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, so there's a great book by the author James
Clear.
It's called Atomic Habits and Iread it a couple years ago and
sometimes I throw the audio bookjust to refresh my memory.
But one of the things that hetalks about is I'm going to
butcher it here, but having anaccountability partner.
I'm gonna butcher it here, buthaving an accountability partner
(30:31):
and when you tell people andthere's there's a little,
there's a counter argument tothis is when you tell people
your goal, you have a dopaminedump, so then you don't pursue
your goal.
But that's neither here northere.
But in James clears, basicallysaying you grab an
accountability partner, whichcould be social media, and you
say this is what I'm gonna do,because I could tell myself and
this happens all the time right,I could tell myself internally
(30:52):
oh, I'm going to, you know, I'mgoing to work out five times
this week, but then if I missone or two days, it's not a big
deal, because I only tell myself.
But if I tell my wife and thelast person I want to disappoint
or make her think that I'm afailure is my wife so if I tell
my wife I'm working out fivetimes this week, it's just extra
motivation in order for me towork out five times.
(31:13):
So when I post about, okay, I'mgoing to do a cut, it keeps me
more focused that I can't I mean, just to be frank look like a
shit talker on social media.
I got to make sure that whatI'm telling my following and
clients and potential clients isI'm going to follow through
with this stuff Because if Ican't do it and again, this is
(31:34):
my industry how do I expect anaccountant to do it or a mother
of three to do it?
I have to be able to followthrough with this.
So that accountability aspect ofit puts I wouldn't say pressure
challenge.
I can't look like a shit talker, I don't want to look like a
fraud on social media, so I'mgoing to follow through with
(31:56):
this aspect of it to make sure.
So I do recommend that if thereis a goal that you're trying to
reach and obviously anattainable goal is, tell
somebody, tell your spouse, tellsomebody that you respect, that
you don't want to disappoint.
Maybe it's your kids.
Hey, mommy's going to lose 20pounds.
This is the mission that I'm on, one that support is imperative
(32:16):
when it comes to success,especially if your spouse or
your partner is not on that samejourney, but two.
It gives you a little bit moreresponsibility to follow through
.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Yeah, definitely, and you know it sounds like in your
, in your instance, it wasn'tnecessary, it wasn't.
You know it didn't need tomotivate you to get it done, but
it certainly helped, yeah, andit certainly made it.
So you did not fail.
Yeah, of course you would havedone this either way, but this
was, was the added push.
And yeah, no, having tellingsomeone, having whether it's a
group chat, chat, whether it'syour spouse, and just telling
him what your goal is, writingyour goal down.
(32:45):
I mean that's huge too ishaving a journal or just having
a piece of paper write, writedown your goal, and you know, if
you're working with a coach,having you know, showing your
coach, and having your coachgive you, maybe modify, that
goal.
So it's a little bit moreobtainable, because a lot of
people like to set unobtainablegoals for themselves.
I mean, I get, look ateverything that you did in nine
weeks and it was seven pounds,right?
(33:05):
People are gonna be like that'sit, like I'm not doing all that
work for seven pounds.
Like I would expect to lose 30pounds in a week.
But as I said earlier, likephysiology dictates that a one
to two pound per week weightloss is ideal.
Anything more than that andthey tend to bounce back and put
the weight back on and I sayyou know, two pounds is a lot,
yeah, a lot.
Like some people might lose thatin the beginning because
(33:26):
they've been so out of shape,but really, if you're at a pound
a week and even a little bitunder, that is ideal for a
long-term weight loss, becauseotherwise it's not going to be
sustainable.
For sure, very good point.
So there's a lot of work for alot of results.
That just doesn't seem like itto the lay person.
So don't you know, don't be putoff by that.
Losing seven pounds in twomonths, in three months, is a
significant goal and if youobtain it, pat yourself on the
(33:50):
back because it's awesome andkeep going.
For sure, a hundred percent.
So walk us through your numbershere.
That's where I kind of want tofinish this off and we'll talk
lessons learned afterwards, ifthere's anything new that you
picked up.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I'll throw my readers on so I can really show my age
here.
So just to reiterate what thegoal was.
The goal was not necessarilyweight loss, because I would
have loved to stay at 214.
The goal was to try to getbelow double digits body fat.
Now you know full disclosure.
I'm using the InBody 270, theone that we have here in the
office.
The pre and post in body wastaken early on a weekend morning
(34:26):
with completely fasted, not asip of water, nothing.
So I tried to keep as manyvariables in my underwears.
So try to keep those variablesas consistent as possible.
So there's no inaccurate data,if you will.
But there is a, and this issomething that I should have
researched.
I will research and we couldpost this.
There's a.
There's um, what's the word I'mlooking for A deviation, if you
(34:52):
will, with these devices,meaning they're not dead on
accurate.
There's a range, if you will,and I'll find out what that,
what that deviation is when itcomes to this particular device.
But, um, if, even, if you use,even if your device, if it's at
an at home scale, uh, thatmeasures your body fat, even if
it's an error, if it'scalibrated correctly, that error
is going to be consistentlyinconsistent, right.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Ideally.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Ideally right.
It's something that you want togo off of, so this is the tool
that I used in order to measuremy body fat percentage.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
It's called validity and reliability.
There you go Right.
Validity means that it's goingto be close to what it truly is
Right, which it is.
It's close enough.
Reliability means it's going tobe consistently within that
range.
So if it's 2% off, it's alwaysaround 2% off, and that would be
valid and reliable.
Now, if it's 2%, if it's plus2%, then minus 2%, then plus 2%.
(35:44):
There's a little bit ofvalidity there in the fact that
it's close to it, but it's notreliable in telling you if it is
always over or always under.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Very, very well put, rob, and this is the.
You know, when I have localclients, local online clients, I
welcome them to come here touse our tool.
It's a little bit more hightech than what they're.
It's a lot more high tech thanwhat they're using at home, but,
um, I try to have them.
They could now come and weighand measure themselves here and
then run back home withouthaving another drop of water and
(36:15):
, in you know, cross check itwith what we showed so that they
could always understand thevalidity and the reliability of
that correct.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah, no, I always recommend it to personal
trainers when I'm eitherteaching around the country or
or um introducing to new newclients.
Is, you know, once once a year,once every six months or every
three months, whatever you canafford.
Get your dexa scan, do thatsuper accurate stuff, but
correlate it to your scale rightaway.
Right, correlate it and thenyou have that correlation and
can work from there.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Of course, course, 100% Okay.
So that's the tool.
The goal was to lose, get intosingle digit body fats without
losing muscle mass or asignificant amount of muscle
mass.
So this is just what I did,what worked for me.
There's many differentprotocols that you could use,
but basically you're puttingyourself in a hypocaloric state,
you're putting yourself in adeficit, if you will, in order
(37:04):
to lose body fat, and thenyou're putting yourself in a
deficit, if you will, in orderto lose body fat, and then
you're eating enough protein inorder to sustain mps and then
making sure that your weighttraining as well in order to
maintain muscle.
I hate to use or build muscle,because that's not actually what
happened here, but maintain asmuch muscle mass as possible.
Also, strength is important tome, as one of the variables when
(37:24):
it comes to the performancequestion of it is did I lose any
strength during this cut?
Speaker 1 (37:31):
So that's put a little physiology twist on that.
That's called the proteinsparing mechanism, right?
When you go to lose, when youtry to lose weight, your body
might start eating its ownprotein.
You know, breaking down yourmuscles and using that for fuel.
And one way to spare yourprotein is to continue to lift
weights and eat enough protein,right?
So that's protein sparingmechanism.
When you go to lose weight,lift weights, eat protein and
(37:53):
you'll keep as much muscle massas possible?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Yeah for sure.
So here's like I said earlier,here's how I did it.
I'm going to throw the readerson.
So I started off at 3000calories, 3088 calories.
I did that for two weeks.
My protein was just above 1.1gram per body weight because at
the time I was 214.
My protein was 223.
I'm not going to bore you guyswith these, I'm just going to
ran them off real quick and thenkind of give you the
(38:15):
overarching principle of what Idid.
I did that for two weeks.
Sure enough, I stayed at 214.
The scale did not budge.
214.
The scale did not budge.
Then I put myself in a slightdeficit which I dropped it down
below the 3000 calories and Iwent to.
Three weeks later I went to2720.
(38:37):
So that's a roughly a 300calorie deficit, if you will.
I upped my protein.
So when I was reducing caloriesthrough carbs and fats, I upped
my protein to roughly 1.2 timesbody weight.
So I was in the 250 280 range.
Again, I'm using a range here,not a specific.
(38:58):
There is a specific number, butI give myself like a 10 to 20
percent range here.
I stayed at that for a week.
Then I dropped it down to 2,600, just dropped a hundred.
The reason I'm going so slowlyhere is because I'm watching the
scale and a subjective look atmy abs, right Like that's exact.
(39:19):
That's the, the, the, the bodypart that I want to reduce,
cause that's really where Istore my body fat is in my abs
and my love handle.
So I'm subjectively looking atmy abs in the mirror same
lighting, same picture, samecamera, all that but then I'm
also weighing myself.
So those are the two metrics,if you will, that I'm using in
order to see if I'm havingprogress or not.
Before I, you know, move thebus type.
(39:41):
Moment when I jump on the scalenine weeks later.
Moment when I jump on the scalenine weeks later.
So 3,270, I'm sorry, 3,2,700,2,600.
A month later I was at 2,400.
So 2,414.
And I was at 2,680.
This is where the hunger started.
This is primarily.
(40:09):
The hunger started around 3 pm,so I would eat lunch roughly
between 12 and 1 around 3 pm.
That's when the hunger pangsstarted.
Um, my mood, I was a little bitirritable just because of the
hunger, but nothing dramatic,nothing that should even be
noted.
I wasn't depressed, I wasn'tsad, I wasn't you angry at the
world.
It was just like oh, I'm alittle bit hungry.
Damn, I wish I had something toeat and I would.
(40:29):
I would feed myself.
Whether it was one of these ketocookies or whether it was one
scoop of whey protein, it fit mymacro.
So why not throw it in there?
Just have a smaller dinner ifyou will, so it's not to say
that I have to.
Oh no, I cannot eat because I'mnot allowed to know.
Why suffer through that hungerpain?
If it fits your macros right,just go ahead and eat something
and just Take it off the backend, which is gonna be your next
(40:49):
meal, your dinner meal?
Most of the time at the station,we dinner around 6, 6, 6, 30.
At home, jess and I eat dinneraround 8, and it was more than
enough to keep me satisfied Intosleep.
During this cut.
I never had any problems withsleep other than the ordinary,
you know, at the firehouse andthen sometimes at home if Jess
or the babies wake me up, butthere's nothing.
(41:10):
There's no signs of insomnia,anything I don't.
The cut wasn't that significantin order for me to get into
that, so, and then I finishedoff with just another roughly
looks like 70 more calories, soI dropped it down to 2353.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Now how many how far into it was this, so this is
week this is week eight, weekeight, nine.
And where were you?
Pound loss, wise and body fat.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
So now, so at this point I am uh six pounds lost
this last week going into thislast week, when I dropped it
down to 2300 calories, uh, sixpounds lost.
I didn't know my body fatpercentage because I you just
did it to start at the end startat the end, so that.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
So you're.
So, yes, you've done.
You've lost six pounds in thefirst seven weeks and over the
last two weeks you lose onepound.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
So it's that you know it's slowing down gradually.
Yeah, the weight loss isslowing down.
Slowing down, right.
My body started to go likeyo-yo.
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (42:00):
here.
Yeah, like bro, where's the 7000 calories from college 100?
Speaker 2 (42:04):
but you could see it aesthetically like, my abs were
not shredded.
I'm not bodybuilder shreddedbut they were clearly defined
and I don't think I have verygood abdominal muscles like
large abdominal muscles, becausethat also plays into effect on
how good your abs look um, butyou could see the veins in the
top of my abs.
You could see the veins in mylower pelvis area.
So I was super, super lean,along with skinny.
(42:25):
You know, fat being driven offof it and then that last week I
lost that one more pound cominginto.
I actually ended up losing on myscale at the firehouse.
I actually ended up losing onemore pound before I went on
vacation.
So, uh, I went 207, 206 at thefirehouse.
This registered me.
Registered me here at 207,neither here nor there.
(42:46):
When I went to siesta, I waswhere I wanted to be, which was.
You could see that, oh, this isa fitness guy you know you don't
see many 50 year olds walkingaround with and I know this
sounds shallow and narcissisticand stuff, but you don't see
many 50 year old men walkingaround with abs.
So I was where I wanted to beveins on my shoulders, that type
(43:07):
of thing.
I had checked the box.
Here comes siesta.
My fitness pal was deleted offmy phone because now I'm
enjoying life, and this is thebalance that a lot of people
need to understand is we are not.
I'm not here.
I'm not training physiquemodels.
Okay, I'm training averageJoe's and Jillills that are
looking to just lose some fat,look sexy, vibrant and live a
(43:30):
productive you know, healthy,fun, enjoyable life.
By the way that they feel aboutthemselves and look in the
mirror, right.
So the weight loss is the keywith this.
So here comes siesta.
My fitness pod gets deleted.
But I go back to my principles.
Like am I having protein with ameal?
I'm not having a big breakfastbecause I know that it's gonna
be a little sketchy to eat atthe beach.
So let me get my big breakfasthere, let me get my big dinner
and there's my my two bigboluses of protein, if you will.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
That would be a good topic with Eric to talk about.
It's like what do we do when wedon't?
Have a Just to wrap it up, thefinal numbers 214 weight to 207,
.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
110 pounds of lean body mass to 109.
So I lost one pound of musclemass and 10.2% body fat to 8.4%
body fat.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
That's awesome.
Yeah, that's awesome.
So give me one big takeaway.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
The biggest takeaway that I could say is it's
important to be patient andslowly put yourself in a deficit
, right?
What a lot of these fad and I'mjust using the term fad because
everybody understands keto,paleo, mediterranean, whatnot
these diets is they put you in.
They could potentially put youinto a huge deficit.
(44:43):
So, yes, you're going to see ahuge weight loss.
Like what you said earlier,that's not the most productive.
And then also, you'rejeopardizing muscle mass loss,
which my age and when I say myage, you're talking 30s, mid-30s
, 40s it's very difficult to putmuscle mass back on.
So damn it Shit, I'm in 30s now,yeah, you got to protect as
much of it as possible, right?
And so um beep, I know it'scliche, is, but the biggest
(45:07):
takeaway is you gotta be patientwith this weight loss and, and
and and trust the numbers andand just stick to the protocol.
Whether you do it, there's somuch information online that
somebody could do this on theirown.
They don't need coaching.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Some a lot of people hire people like us forely
aspect of it.
But, um, yeah, I'm, I'm veryhappy with the results and now
I'm reverse dieting.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
So now, now we're going the reverse dieting muscle
mass.
That's another you knowconversation.
But basically now I'm reversingeverything I did 2300 calories,
2500 calories, 2700 caloriesover the courses of two weeks to
get me back up to my 303500calories by november, so that
december hopefully.
I know it's a lot and I knowI'm going to gain fat, but I'm
going to be close to the 220range again and I'll continue
(45:50):
that until like next march andthen I'll do another cut awesome
yeah, man, awesome, that's agood talk.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
I enjoyed this one, yeah for sure.
Thanks, perfect.
Thank you, michael, for all ofthat.
That was great experience andand anyone listening let this be
motivation too and let it, youknow, be a voice of reason for
what you see from a lot of othersources out there on what can
be done.
Yes, sir, like this is us doingit.
Yeah, absolutely Good stuff.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of the Fitness Fiasco
(46:15):
Podcast.
You can find more informationabout the topics covered today
and in any other episode on ourwebsite, fitnessfiascocom
fiascocom.
If you're looking to connectwith our hosts, you can reach
Eric on Instagram at EricBustillo, that's
E-R-I-K-B-U-S-T-I-L-L-O.
Mike on Instagram at Mike OsunaFitness, that's
M-I-K-E-O-S-U-N-A-F-I-T-N-E-S-S,and Rob on Twitter at Rob
(46:40):
Strength.
Mike, good morning, good morning, Good to see you
again.
Happy Sunday morning, likewiseas always.
As always, and today I'm kindof interested because we're
going to be talking about youand we're going to be talking
about your experiences on arecent weight cut that you did
and, if I recall your posts well, you lost.
What was it about?
Nine?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
pounds-ish Seven, seven pounds.
Yeah, just a little bit overseven pounds.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Which you're also.
You know you're coming inpretty lean, so that was cool to
see.
And how much body fat, was itone?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
it was about two percent and I appreciate you
using the word lean and notskinny, because for an
ex-football player, skinny islike the biggest insult you
could give us.
Yeah, unless you're in an oldoffensive tackle.
They lost, you know, 100 pounds, but yeah, so lean is the way
to go with this to keep my egointact.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
So seven pounds, which might not sound like a lot
to people who haven't reallytried to lose weight, but that's
huge, especially again forsomeone that is muscular build
coming in and 2% body fat.
I mean that's more important tosee that drop in the percent
body fat.
So that's really cool to see.
And how long was it?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
It was a nine week cut.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Nine weeks.
So that's where I was gettingthe nine from.
So basically it was almost apound a week, you know, rounded
up to a pound a week.
So that's, that's.
That's pretty cool.
Like that's right in range withwhat exercise physiology says
is a good target.
So that's cool to see whatmotivated you to start this.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
So I like to apply the things to my clients that I
do myself.
Also, I wanted to see how leanI could get for our summer break
, right?
So everybody goes into thesummer with the agenda of
hitting a beach, hittingsomewhere where they're going to
be lightly clothed.
So I tried to figure out mimicthat protocol for my clients.
(01:43):
And hey, I'm going to put youguys on a cut, those of you that
are trying to lean down, I'mgoing to lean down with you.
So we kind of went through thatjourney together.
Touching on one of the pointsthat you said, it is very
difficult when you're alreadylean, already thin, to continue
to lose body fat whilemaintaining muscle mass.
And that's the most importantthing to me is, especially at my
age I just turned 49, to keepas much muscle mass as possible
(02:06):
because, as we know, it'sincredibly difficult to build it
at this age.
So the motivation was SiestaKey I wanted to be super lean
for.
Siesta Key, which I have alittle story to go later on I'll
share it.
It's about my wife and my cut,but that was the ultimate goal.
(02:45):
Also, I knew I was going to bewith a bunch of people and from
there you know when you're afitness instructor, influencer
and what they've done in thefield.
But when you're somebody of mycaliber, when you're walking
around and coaching people inperson, you have an online
presence.
You kind of want to look yourbest.
So, going there was a littlebit of ulterior motive.
Going into that vacation.
I knew that we were going to bewith a bunch of people and I
knew that hopefully my physiquewould sell.
(03:06):
And sure enough, I came outwith two clients out of that
experience.
So, um, a bunch of littlemotivations.
Also, I'm kind of just a freak.
I want to just.
You know I get bored.
So I gamified my nutrition andmy training protocol just to see
what the outcome would be.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Nice.
That reminds me I mean the, thereminds me of of something I
believe it was Louie Simmonssaid, or at least I heard it
from him first was almost allgreat coaches have been injured
and it's that recovery frominjury that's really motivated
them to do better, because theywalk the walk with it.
Now, obviously, the idea is notto get injured, but when you've
been doing this as long as youand I have, as Louie Simmons did
(03:39):
before he died, you get hurtand learning how to do those
steps yourself makes you abetter coach, and that's true.
Like, every time I got hurt, itsucked.
I learned what I did to gethurt and to avoid that, but then
also, really importantly, Ilearned how to I get, how do I
get back to my, you know, primecondition from this injury.
And those lessons are good andthat's what you did in terms of
(04:00):
I need to learn how to do thisweight cut, because it's going
to help me more with my clientslet alone the aesthetic side of
things.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, and you could empathize for them.
And when they give you theiranecdotal experience, you could
understand oh yeah, this is whenI started getting hungry and
this is when I started havingdifficulty sleeping and this is
when my performance lacked.
I've done cuts before, butnever as data driven as this one
, and it does allow me to.
Oh.
When they get to the fifth week, oh yeah, I understand where
(04:28):
you are now, because this iswhen I started getting hunger
pains around 3 pm.
And not to say that, you know,I'm generalizing here, but you
could empathize through eitherinjury and recovery or through
dieting down or cutting down, Ishould say.
So they feel a little bit moreat ease knowing that, okay,
you've put yourself through thisor you've done this yourself.
Here are the results you know.
Hopefully the results could,you know, come over to me as
(04:49):
well.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Now, was there any?
Were there any health relatedmotivations for this or this was
strictly?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
aesthetics, strictly just shallow aesthetics, if you
will.
Nothing wrong with that.
I mean, that's motivation ismotivation.
It makes you healthier, makesyou better.
Good with that.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
What were you doing nutrition-wise before and maybe
training-wise?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
as well before.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And then, how did you manipulate that?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, so for.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Not just calories.
We'll talk about the caloriesin, calories out, but were there
specific nutritional strategiesthat you were doing before and
after, related to foods andnutrient timing?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So when it comes to I cycle on and off of macro
nutrient, when I say kind ofmacros, I'm just let's just use
it as a catch-all phrase forcounting macros, weighing and
measuring food and inputting itinto my fitness power, into the
app that I use in order toeither maintain gain or lose
which macros?
Speaker 1 (05:39):
most people know that , but that's protein,
carbohydrates and fat correctmacronutrients those where you
get the three sources ofcalories besides alcohol.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
And I'm using it in a fashion where I'm actually
weighing and measuring my food,so I'm getting an accurate
amount of protein, carbohydratesand fats that is recommended in
order to gain weight or gainmuscle, maintain or lose weight.
So that's when I use the termmacros.
It's like using the word paleodiet or keto diet weight right.
So that's when I use the termmacros.
It's like using the word paleodiet or keto diet, right.
(06:06):
So I cycle on and off of mymacros because not to sound
cliche here, but that which ismeasured is managed, so I'm able
to really dive deep into.
I want to gain five pounds, andthen I could write out a
timeline and say these are theamount of calories that I need
to eat and this is the amount ofprotein that I need to eat in
order to gain that weight.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, when you say cycle on and off your macros,
can you just kind of big picturewhat you mean?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
by that Does that mean on a daily basis, or are
you saying oh, on a weekly,monthly basis?
Okay, based on your overallgoal.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
So your goal for this period was to lose weight, so
you're going to adjust yourmacros for this period and
that's what you mean now is ifyour goal is to gain weight,
you're going to say so.
You're not talking about likeon a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Right, no, no, no, no , yeah, that's a very good point
.
So, on a uh, on a goal basis,right?
So, um, there's times that Ijust let's call it freelancing,
that I'm just going to eatintuitively.
Now stick, intuitively,sticking to the principles that
I understand nutritionally areneeded in order to keep muscle
on and lose fat, and I coulddive deep into that here for a
(07:07):
second.
So I understand that with everymeal I need to have minimum 25
grams of protein in order toinduce MPS, muscle protein
synthesis.
But I typically have 50, closeto 50 grams of protein in order
to meet my overall daily goal,which is roughly one gram of
protein per body weight.
(07:27):
My goal is to maintain so itwould be around 210, 215.
That means that I got to have ahandful of protein for each
meal.
Typically I eat four meals,around 50 grams.
Boom, at the end of the day I'mat 50 grams.
So when I intuitively eat, Iintuitively eat with intention.
It's not just I just wake upand eat whatever I feel like it
because intuitively I'm cravinga cookie or I'm craving a
(07:48):
protein shake or a steak.
It's with intention to meet mywhat would be macros general
ballpark.
I've counted macros way tomeasure food so often that I
could look at a plate of foodand typically we have, and Eric
is the one that teaches us andEric's not here with us today.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
We should know.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Eric is the one that teaches us.
You know that, that you want tobe able to.
You're going to eat about 10 to12 of the same meals Most of
the time.
You know there's exceptionsbirthday parties, go, taking
your wife out to dinner andwhatnot but most of the time
you're going to eat 10 to 12meals so you'll be able to
recognize this is enough chicken, this is enough rice, this is
(08:31):
enough avocado.
Right, if you do it enough, youknow that you're in a range.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So I intuitively on that note, we did talk about on
our other podcast on weighingand measuring your food, the
importance of it and doing beingstrict for a certain period of
time so you can learn this skill.
This is a learned skill.
I know a lot of peoplelistening like there's no way
I'm going to ever be able tolook at a meal and know the
macro components of it.
Now if you go back and listento that other episode where we
talk about weighing andmeasuring food and eric does a
(08:55):
really good job laying it outfor you if you do that strict
for a month or two, what mike'stalking about will be second
nature to you, yeah, 100, ahundred percent.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
And the first month I usually, you know, call it the
shit show because there's alearning curve.
There's a huge learning curve,um, instructionally on how to
weigh and measure your food andthen how to input it, and
there's some variables thatcould go wrong along the process
there.
But a month or two, you know,four weeks, six weeks, eight
weeks, you're going to be ableto look at a plate and say, wow,
I've been under eating protein.
You know, instead of one egg inthe morning with a piece of
(09:23):
toast, I should be having foureggs in the morning with, you
know, a piece of toast and maybesome blueberries, because I've
also been under eatingcarbohydrates.
So when you've been doing it forso long and that's what I mean
by cycling on and off is when Icycle on I could really really
nail down as closely as possiblemy macronutrients in order to
hit my goal and see the progress, the way that I wanted to
(09:43):
progress, when I, intuitively, Ipretty much sit around the same
weight with the same body fat,which doesn't change much.
You know, when I get into thenumbers here in a second, my
in-body goes back to 2021.
There's when you look at allthe times that I did an in-body
and I would say it's probablyabout 12 recordings.
There's not much deviationthere.
(10:04):
There are minor deviations butaesthetically you could see the
difference just in these lastnine weeks.
So when it comes tomacronutrients and to get back
to your question, I cycle on andoff of it depending on what my
goal is.
So if my goal now is to bulk up, I want to be 220 by December.
If my goal, like my goal now,is to bulk up, I want to be 220
by December.
So I need to now reverse dietand I need to focus on these new
(10:27):
macronutrients that I'mimplementing for myself in order
to get to 220 with the leastamount of body fat, which we
could talk about that here in alittle bit closer to December
and hopefully hit that goal.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Awesome, yeah.
So the main thing is you have alot of experience.
You didn't just go into thiscut as your first nutritional
experience, which I think isimportant to know is that you,
you you have a big background ofof understanding what works for
you before you're going intosomething as strict as as this
weight cut.
So you know people who arelooking to get healthier.
This would be a step down theroad, probably not your first
(10:59):
adventure in.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, and I think you made a good point there.
Um, it's what works for you,and everybody has a different
little bit of a protocol thereand I think the protocol ranges
right.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And you know what works for you better than 99.9%
of people.
That's it yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
And there's also the practical portion of it.
If I'm just not a big carb guybecause I don't enjoy that food,
then I know that I couldreplace a lot of those calories
with fats, and if the goal isweight loss, it really doesn't
matter with those twomacronutrients.
So once you've done it for somany times, you've been
successful and you failed, thatyou recognize okay, this is what
(11:37):
I can't do.
This is what I can do in orderfor my body to respond the way
that I want it to respond.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Awesome, nice so then , what changes did you make once
you started?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
so I started off with a baseline.
So I wanted to figure out whenI did my metabolic cart which,
for those of you that areknowing you, probably have a
little bit more background onthis Rob metabolic cart you're
basically just sitting there,there's a machine attached to
you, you're breathing into atube and it's going to give you
a very accurate BMR basalmetabolic rate, resting
metabolic rate and that'sbasically the which we have
(12:07):
another podcast explaining allof these I was going to say we
need to put links for all thisstuff here so we don't have to
like just talk about it overagain.
But basically it's, it's uh, theenergy used to keep the lights
on right and your total dailyenergy expenditure.
That formula comes from threeother components that you tie
into you.
You do, uh, you, you sum it allup and then you get a number.
So my number through mymetabolic cart was in the 4,000s
(12:29):
.
So it was a range of if Iremember correct I'll have to
look it up it was between like4,200 to 4,400 calories a day.
Just to stay at the weight thatI was at.
That's a lot.
Yeah, practically speaking, itis a crap ton of food,
especially if you're eatingwhole foods and I know that
that's just a general term.
But when I say whole foods, Imean more like nutrient-dense,
(12:53):
low-calorie foods.
So you're thinking likevegetables, broccoli I'm just
throwing some examples out there, blueberries, your pieces of
steak, your pieces of tuna.
Out there, blueberries, um,your pieces of steak, your
pieces of, uh, tuna.
So when you, as opposed tomcdonald's and pizza and chicken
wings, which are very highcalorie, low nutrient foods,
(13:13):
right, so when you're trying tohit 4 000 calories with nutrient
dense foods.
It's incredibly difficult.
You're you.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
It's basically becomes a job and in a and a
boring, excruciating job becauseyou just got to eat so much, so
you'd have to supplement withsome protein powders which,
going back in history, is one ofthe reasons why paleo that kind
of fell out of favor with thetop CrossFit athletes is because
it was too tough.
Is it healthy?
Yes, could it be the healthiestway to eat?
Potentially, is it good forperformance?
That's very hard.
It's very hard.
(13:45):
It's very hard for those youknow, individuals myself
included back then to get infive, six thousand calories a
day when you're eating.
Yeah, paleo foods, absolutelyrich froning eating a jar of
peanut butter and jelly mixedtogether every single day for
his calories yeah, exactlyeveryone's like what, yeah that?
Sugar.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
It's like no right, he needs it because he's burning
it off.
Yeah, so I I figured that 4 000calories was too much, so I
started off around 3,000calories.
I said let me try to find abaseline here.
I think it's been two yearssince I did the metabolic card.
I'm at a different station so Idon't run as many calls right,
because activity level is one ofthe variables in that
formulation.
So I decided to start offroughly around 3,000 calories
(14:19):
and let's do this for two weeksand let's see how my body
responds to 3,000 calories.
If I jump on 3,000 calories andI start to lose weight, then I
know that I'm already puttingmyself in a hypocaloric state.
Gain weight, then I know thatI'm in a hyper, so I'm eating
more calories than I'm expending.
And if I maintain that, I knowthat I'm within the range again,
again, a lot of variables thatcould go wrong here, but I'm
(14:40):
within the range of okay, thisis the right amount of calories.
And that's what played out.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I ended up eating, roughly to be specific, uh,
3,088 calories for two weeks andI maintained a 214 pounds of
body weight which another thinghere is is notice how Mike
consistently put himself intoand I'm going to try this and
I'm going to get feedback frommyself.
Right, Mike did not.
Mike knows his body better thanmost people know their body.
(15:04):
He's a seasoned exerciseprofessional on top of being a
firefighter, right Top ofplaying football.
He's been doing fitness andnutrition for a long time and he
still does not know exactlywhat he needs.
So he was doing a one or twoweek experiment and sourcing
feedback.
When you know, when we have newclients, starting with you,
starting with me and they wantnutritional goals met, there
needs to be feedback and we'renot going to know right away
(15:26):
we're going to have guidelinesto feed you, not to feed you.
We're going to have guidelinesto give you and we're going to,
you know, to have you reach yourgoals, you're going to need to
provide feedback based on, basedon how that works, for us to
really fine tune it.
So this stuff's not going towork right away and you're a
prime example of, hey, thereneeds to be some, you know, a
tune-up period before you canreally start to go in.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, there's a formula going back to the
activity level when you look atthe Mifflin-Singh-Jor and Eric
says it better than I do.
But the equation, the activitylevel, is a multiplier.
Estimate your activity level,which I don't know the studies
of this I'd have to ask Eric,but I'm assuming that some
(16:08):
people do, because they don'twant to seem lazy, or the
description of moderately activekind of plays into their
activity level.
Then they choose that.
What, what they might notunderstand that they're choosing
is an actual variable.
So it could be 1.55 or 1.75.
So this is multiplied into your, into your BMR, which could
(16:29):
raise your calories to three,four, 500 calories, and now
you're overeating.
So answering that question aloneis very, very important to try
to find your maintenancecalories.
So this is why I tried and Iand I push people to do this is
Try to find your maintenancefirst, to find out if that is
truly your maintenance, meaningyou're going to eat at those
(16:50):
calories roughly one to twoweeks.
Some people get a littleimpatient so you could do one
week, but let's just use twoweeks like I used.
I set it at that for two weeksand then I recognized okay, I
haven't budged from 214, plus orminus a couple pounds, but
let's just say 214, becausethat's exactly what I was at for
two weeks.
Then I could say, okay, this isroughly my maintenance.
(17:16):
Now I'm going to start my cut,because the cutting part is you
know where the magic happens andum, and then going through the
nine weeks of not rushing theprocess because, again, I don't
want to lose muscle mass or loseas little as muscle mass as
possible.
That's what's important when itcomes to the component and the
variables.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah, so that's a really you mentioned earlier.
You don't want to lose musclemass.
It's very tough to gain musclemass the older you get,
especially without anysupplementation, whatever
supplementation.
How did you ensure that yourhealth was not impacted during
this weight cut Right Cause youwere healthy coming in that.
You know it's aestheticpurposes, whether it's muscle
mass or otherwise.
What were you doing to maintainhealth?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So you know I didn't take any.
Uh, it's just so happens that Idid do my annual physical in
May, during the actual cut, butthat wasn't part of the
procedure where I'm going to doblood work prior and blood work
after.
I was not going to put myselfin a deficit where I would
jeopardize my health, if youwould Right.
So I'm not trying to um, I meannot to tuck in the house side,
because I'm more of a, I'm aweight guy, you know,
supplementing with all themultivitamins that I take and
(18:12):
although we're not sponsored byAG1, the dropping AG1 once a day
, and just I mean I'll put itout there.
I use Thorne products for allmy supplementations on the
actual pill forms, but then I douse AG1 just in case that I'm
not getting enough vitamins andminerals.
I use AG1 plus then.
(18:34):
Or eating, trying to eat wholefoods, so single ingredient
foods, you know, the proteins,the steaks, the fish, the
chicken, that type of stuff, andthen shopping on the outside of
market the whole night.
So the health didn't come intoplay really, because I don't
have any conditions, if you will.
So there was nothing that wasreally concerning me, but also
it was going to be a shortcutand I wasn't going to put myself
(18:54):
in that much of a deficit onlybecause and I'll tell you the
you know what I alluded toearlier about my wife is at six
three, 207 pounds.
You're skinny, like.
You look thin and at my agemaybe it's the white hair or
whatnot, but my wife, when I gotdown to like the 208s, 209s,
(19:17):
she told me, listen, you just,yeah, great, so you have a vein
in your abs, that's fantastic,but you look old, you look
skinny.
You know it's very difficult tospot, reduce.
So when you lose body fat fromyour abs and from your arms or
from your legs or from yourglutes, you're going to lose fat
from your face and it's thatfat from your face that makes
you look thin and old and frail.
(19:38):
I mean, you could see it with alot and not to call out a
demographic of people here, butyou could see it a lot with very
, very thin runners that don'tweight train to have very low
body fat.
They just look older than whatthey actually are because they
don't weight train.
That have very low body fat.
They just look older than whatthey actually are because they
don't have a lot of fat on theirface.
So they're the skull, the, thebones stick out more, the
cheekbones, the eye sockets.
(19:59):
They look a little bit sunk in.
So I think you could understandthe type of person that we're
we're discussing here is, if youdon't have a lot of body fat on
you, you're not going to havein your face, so you're to look
old.
So to my point is I wasn'tgoing to put myself in a huge
deficit because I wasn't goingto step on stage.
This was just me being me, thatI wanted to keep a little bit
of fat on me and I wanted tomake sure that I was keeping as
(20:21):
much muscle mass on me so that Ididn't look aesthetically
unpleasing to my wife, if thatmakes sense, the unpleasing to
my wife, if that makes sense,the mental toughness required to
have a happy wife Of course,happy marriage.
And I want my wife to look at meand think, oh, he's sexy, not.
Oh, he's 204 pounds.
Everybody thinks he's shredded,but God, he looks old and
(20:42):
skinny and it's just the natureof the beast.
I'm turning 50 soon.
So I got to make sure that Icheck that box as well.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah, all right.
Next, what is it Seis de Mayo.
Next year, it's the 50thbirthday.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yeah, seis de Mayo, so Cinco de Mayo, and followed
by Seis de Mayo, nice, nice.
A friend of mine, christy,dubbed that, which is fucking
fantastic, it's great.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Every year, I hear it mentally challenging, was it?
Did you need to, you know, putyourself back in that old
football player mindset of youknow, nose to the grindstone and
and, and you know, focus on mygoals and stick to it, or did it
come naturally for you?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
It came more naturally for me.
You know, this is, this is ourlivelihood, rob.
This is what we do for a livingput food on the plate.
You know, no pun intended.
So there's not like an on andoff switch.
I don't need motivation orinspiration or some sort of like
overarching goal in order forme to be able to switch on and
(21:38):
off.
Um, it's, it just comes sonatural.
And then with modern technology, my fitness pal recognizes the
foods that I eat you know the 10to 12 foods that I eat.
So it makes it so easy just forme to grab my food, throw it on
a plate, hit the clear button,weigh it, throw the other
ingredient on it, clear it andthen punch it into the app that
(22:01):
it makes that process easy.
So it's not like a grind.
I could see how somebody newcoming into macros, counting
macros, flexible dieting,whatever you want to call it,
weighing and measuring food.
Like I said, the learning curve.
They just have to understandthat that learning curve is
going to subside.
They just need to get used tothe habit and the pattern in
order to do it.
You know Eric talks a lot abouteating disorders and getting
(22:22):
some people obsessed.
That is a very real situationthat somebody needs to find,
where you kind of take theapproach of gamifying it.
You know, all you're trying todo is here's a number, here's a
target number.
Try to get as close to thatnumber as possible and don't get
too hung up on the outcome.
If you go over calories orunder calories, don't worry
(22:42):
about it.
Tomorrow's the next day, typeof thing.
And that psychology issomething that we, you know, got
to instill in folks is, ifyou're trying to do a month or
two of macronutrients, just tounderstand whether you're
overeating or not eating, that'sthe reason for your weight gain
or weight loss.
If you'd follow this for abouteight weeks and just take it as
(23:07):
a game more than anything else,then you'll be able to reach
your goals and then adjust yournutrition, your diet, the way
that you see fit.
So, in order for me to getprepared for this, all I did was
you know, I'll upload all thetools again that I needed, that
I hadn't been using in a while,which is the, the, my fitness
pal, and and bring my scale withme.
I have a scale at the firehouse, I have a scale at the house,
and then I don't get overlycomplicated with it If Jess and
I go out to dinner.
Um, I'll either, in advancethat we discussed the restaurant
(23:30):
that we're going to use I'lleither jump onto the menu and
say, okay, I'm going to have theeight ounce, you know, ribeye
with a sweet potato and somebroccolini and I'll punch it
into the app.
I could do it, you know, postdinner.
I get to dinner there, I don'tsweat it.
I look at the menu.
I guesstimate what it is,literally justesstimate, like it
doesn't even matter if it's thesame restaurant, because I know
I'm going to be within range.
(23:52):
Again, this is more recreational, if anything.
I'm not a physique model.
I'm not looking to do a photoshoot, this is just hey, let me
do a little cut, see how lean Icould get.
So I don't try to split hairsand I don't make it an obsession
with my life.
So, um, naturally it just comessecond nature, because I've
done it so often.
The motivation is there afterthe second or third week I would
(24:15):
say more the third week when Istarted the cut.
That's when I started seeingthe results and typically, if
you could get that locomotivemoving once it gets full speed.
Now, the motivation continuesto be there because myself, the
client keeps seeing the resultson a weekly, bi-weekly basis,
and that within itself ismotivation.
(24:35):
People that jump onto a dietand don't see results quickly
and I think that people are theyjump off the bandwagon a little
bit too soon when they don'tsee those results quickly.
They get impatient and theythink, oh, this isn't going to
work for me, so I'm quittingthis or I'm trying something
else.
So it takes a little bit inorder to see results.
But once you see the results,that within itself is motivation
(24:57):
.
So, you know, in the mornings Iwake up, I don't sleep with a
shirt on, so I look in themirror and I'm like, okay, here
we go into months and then, byyou know, month number two okay,
I can see my obliques here.
So once you start seeing here'sa couple more veins Once you
start seeing that, now you'rereally vested into it and like,
(25:17):
oh shit, I, if I this is working, if I continue this process,
I'm going to get even leanertype of thing.
So, um, I don't think it's thatthat challenging.
But I'm only speaking formyself, because this is the
world that I live in.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Yeah, and I mean you.
Even before you were in thisworld, you, you know, were a
high school athlete, a collegeathlete and a semi.
I guess professional athlete toto that extent where you know
it was you.
You've always been surroundedby that high performance mindset
.
You know it wasn't, you knowit's not a a wall street
executive, but you weresimilarly a high performance
individual in your craft.
(25:49):
And it's easy to apply that fromyour craft to something such as
this, and I think a lot ofpeople that aren't fitness
professionals or have beenengrossed in fitness, like we
have, take that same passionthat you have for something else
and you can apply it to thisand you'll be a lot more
successful.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, that mindset and, as you tell me, you throw
me back to my college days.
I took a health class and thisis when I first got introduced
and we're talking 30 years agothis is when I first got
introduced to macronutrients,counting calories, and at that
time I was a college footballplayer and I was calculated.
This could be right or wrong,but I was eating around 7,000
(26:27):
calories a day.
We know we did a three-day foodaudit.
We were this business back then, a pencil and paper type deal
where you, you know, you writedown everything that you eat,
you weigh, you measure it andthen you get a food log and it
tells you you know, this is thecorrelating numbers that go
along with it.
And you figure it out and boom,I'm roughly around 7,000
calories.
(26:52):
At 7,000 calories, I could notbudge from 235.
I was sitting at 235 pounds,coaches wanted me to get up to
245, I was playing defensive endand I couldn't budge from it.
So at that time I decided, okay, I need extra calories.
However, I could get in, andI'm not recommending this to
anybody this is just what I didand I would set my alarm for 3
o'clock in the morning.
Sometimes in college you'restill awake at 3 o'clock in the
(27:12):
morning, but I'll set my alarmfor 3 o'clock in the morning.
Sometimes in college you'restill awake at 3 o'clock in the
morning, but I'll set my alarmfor 3 o'clock in the morning.
I would wake up.
I had a cup of Flanagan's thebig, large green cups full of
whole milk sitting in therefrigerator for me, and then a
whole strip of Oreo cookies andI would wake up in the middle of
night.
I would have that, use thebathroom, go to sleep and that's
how would it put additionalcalories into my diet?
Because I could not figure outwhere do I squeeze in more
calories throughout the day?
Because we were such.
(27:32):
You know, you're playingcollege ball, you're always
active.
You know weight room stuff,field stuff, multiple field
stuff, and then all the otheractivities that you're doing
that I just couldn't pack onweight.
So that mindset of like I havea job to do, this is what it
takes in order for it to getdone.
Just deploy it and make ithappen.
So I guess that you carry thatalong with you for the rest of
(27:53):
your life, you know.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Yeah, no, definitely You're able to figure out what
solutions there were for you,right.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
You know, in that case it is a definitely out of
left field solution in terms ofwaking up in the middle of the
night and having oreos and wholemilk, but it got the job.
Got the job done.
Let me just say this, and andI've posted this picture before,
and just she gives me the lookwhen I because now it's the
opposite of skinny mike, I wasmy body composition was
horrendous.
I got up to 245 pounds, but Iwas full belly, love handles.
I didn't even care.
I walked around without at-shirt with as much pride
because I was squatting 500pounds.
I could run through a wall LikeI was functional.
(28:35):
I was a football player, I wasin a fitness model.
So, no, it didn't bode wellaesthetically to have all those
calories, because I was startingto put on predominantly more
fat than I was muscle.
But again, it got the job done.
I needed to be heavier so Idon't get blown off the ball,
and that's what I had to do inorder to get there.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah, no that's a fun story.
Similar stories from wrestlingweight, cutting the stuff that
you do to cut weight Right.
(29:13):
And you learn those tricks thatstay with you for a long time.
I always know how I can cut afew pounds, a few pounds in a
day or two, or get really leanjust because of those lessons
learned from is like hey, I havethis job I have to do.
I have to lose five pounds bythe end of the week, which I was
never the biggest weight cutterbut you still learn exactly how
your body responds and what youneed to do.
You know how to get an extraworkout in, how to sweat out an
extra eight ounces, how to youknow how to spit more so that
you can lose weight.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah, how much weight's in in in your spitting?
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
you pee, it's always going to be heavy.
It's going to be more weightloss than when you take a crap.
That's for sure you know peoplethink that a crap was heavier,
nah it's the water weighs more,for sure um, but besides that,
that stuff, my last question foryou before we go through, go
through the numbers.
Yeah, you are active, veryactive on social media.
Instagram, you have a pretty,you know, a familial following.
You're following are people you, you have a pretty, you know, a
(29:50):
familial following you'refollowing are people you've
known for a long time.
You know people that I've knownfor a long time and you're
close and you talk to a lot ofthem and you interact with them
both in person and on Instagramand you post about this both
ahead of time, during it andafter did.
What level of accountabilitydid you feel to go through with
this because of that?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, so there's a great book by the author James
Clear.
It's called Atomic Habits and Iread it a couple years ago and
sometimes I throw the audio bookjust to refresh my memory.
But one of the things that hetalks about is I'm going to
butcher it here, but having anaccountability partner.
I'm gonna butcher it here, buthaving an accountability partner
(30:31):
and when you tell people andthere's there's a little,
there's a counter argument tothis is when you tell people
your goal, you have a dopaminedump, so then you don't pursue
your goal.
But that's neither here northere.
But in James clears, basicallysaying you grab an
accountability partner, whichcould be social media, and you
say this is what I'm gonna do,because I could tell myself and
this happens all the time right,I could tell myself internally
(30:52):
oh, I'm going to, you know, I'mgoing to work out five times
this week, but then if I missone or two days, it's not a big
deal, because I only tell myself.
But if I tell my wife and thelast person I want to disappoint
or make her think that I'm afailure is my wife so if I tell
my wife I'm working out fivetimes this week, it's just extra
motivation in order for me towork out five times.
(31:13):
So when I post about, okay, I'mgoing to do a cut, it keeps me
more focused that I can't I mean, just to be frank look like a
shit talker on social media.
I got to make sure that whatI'm telling my following and
clients and potential clients isI'm going to follow through
with this stuff Because if Ican't do it and again, this is
(31:34):
my industry how do I expect anaccountant to do it or a mother
of three to do it?
I have to be able to followthrough with this.
So that accountability aspect ofit puts I wouldn't say pressure
challenge.
I can't look like a shit talker, I don't want to look like a
fraud on social media, so I'mgoing to follow through with
(31:56):
this aspect of it to make sure.
So I do recommend that if thereis a goal that you're trying to
reach and obviously anattainable goal is, tell
somebody, tell your spouse, tellsomebody that you respect, that
you don't want to disappoint.
Maybe it's your kids.
Hey, mommy's going to lose 20pounds.
This is the mission that I'm on, one that support is imperative
(32:16):
when it comes to success,especially if your spouse or
your partner is not on that samejourney, but two.
It gives you a little bit moreresponsibility to follow through
.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Yeah, definitely, and you know it sounds like in your
, in your instance, it wasn'tnecessary, it wasn't.
You know it didn't need tomotivate you to get it done, but
it certainly helped, yeah, andit certainly made it.
So you did not fail.
Yeah, of course you would havedone this either way, but this
was, was the added push.
And yeah, no, having tellingsomeone, having whether it's a
group chat, chat, whether it'syour spouse, and just telling
him what your goal is, writingyour goal down.
(32:45):
I mean that's huge too ishaving a journal or just having
a piece of paper write, writedown your goal, and you know, if
you're working with a coach,having you know, showing your
coach, and having your coachgive you, maybe modify, that
goal.
So it's a little bit moreobtainable, because a lot of
people like to set unobtainablegoals for themselves.
I mean, I get, look ateverything that you did in nine
weeks and it was seven pounds,right?
(33:05):
People are gonna be like that'sit, like I'm not doing all that
work for seven pounds.
Like I would expect to lose 30pounds in a week.
But as I said earlier, likephysiology dictates that a one
to two pound per week weightloss is ideal.
Anything more than that andthey tend to bounce back and put
the weight back on and I sayyou know, two pounds is a lot,
yeah, a lot.
Like some people might lose thatin the beginning because
(33:26):
they've been so out of shape,but really, if you're at a pound
a week and even a little bitunder, that is ideal for a
long-term weight loss, becauseotherwise it's not going to be
sustainable.
For sure, very good point.
So there's a lot of work for alot of results.
That just doesn't seem like itto the lay person.
So don't you know, don't be putoff by that.
Losing seven pounds in twomonths, in three months, is a
significant goal and if youobtain it, pat yourself on the
(33:50):
back because it's awesome andkeep going.
For sure, a hundred percent.
So walk us through your numbershere.
That's where I kind of want tofinish this off and we'll talk
lessons learned afterwards, ifthere's anything new that you
picked up.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I'll throw my readers on so I can really show my age
here.
So just to reiterate what thegoal was.
The goal was not necessarilyweight loss, because I would
have loved to stay at 214.
The goal was to try to getbelow double digits body fat.
Now you know full disclosure.
I'm using the InBody 270, theone that we have here in the
office.
The pre and post in body wastaken early on a weekend morning
(34:26):
with completely fasted, not asip of water, nothing.
So I tried to keep as manyvariables in my underwears.
So try to keep those variablesas consistent as possible.
So there's no inaccurate data,if you will.
But there is a, and this issomething that I should have
researched.
I will research and we couldpost this.
There's a.
There's um, what's the word I'mlooking for A deviation, if you
(34:52):
will, with these devices,meaning they're not dead on
accurate.
There's a range, if you will,and I'll find out what that,
what that deviation is when itcomes to this particular device.
But, um, if, even, if you use,even if your device, if it's at
an at home scale, uh, thatmeasures your body fat, even if
it's an error, if it'scalibrated correctly, that error
is going to be consistentlyinconsistent, right.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Ideally.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Ideally right.
It's something that you want togo off of, so this is the tool
that I used in order to measuremy body fat percentage.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
It's called validity and reliability.
There you go Right.
Validity means that it's goingto be close to what it truly is
Right, which it is.
It's close enough.
Reliability means it's going tobe consistently within that
range.
So if it's 2% off, it's alwaysaround 2% off, and that would be
valid and reliable.
Now, if it's 2%, if it's plus2%, then minus 2%, then plus 2%.
(35:44):
There's a little bit ofvalidity there in the fact that
it's close to it, but it's notreliable in telling you if it is
always over or always under.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Very, very well put, rob, and this is the.
You know, when I have localclients, local online clients, I
welcome them to come here touse our tool.
It's a little bit more hightech than what they're.
It's a lot more high tech thanwhat they're using at home, but,
um, I try to have them.
They could now come and weighand measure themselves here and
then run back home withouthaving another drop of water and
(36:15):
, in you know, cross check itwith what we showed so that they
could always understand thevalidity and the reliability of
that correct.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah, no, I always recommend it to personal
trainers when I'm eitherteaching around the country or
or um introducing to new newclients.
Is, you know, once once a year,once every six months or every
three months, whatever you canafford.
Get your dexa scan, do thatsuper accurate stuff, but
correlate it to your scale rightaway.
Right, correlate it and thenyou have that correlation and
can work from there.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Of course, course, 100% Okay.
So that's the tool.
The goal was to lose, get intosingle digit body fats without
losing muscle mass or asignificant amount of muscle
mass.
So this is just what I did,what worked for me.
There's many differentprotocols that you could use,
but basically you're puttingyourself in a hypocaloric state,
you're putting yourself in adeficit, if you will, in order
(37:04):
to lose body fat, and thenyou're putting yourself in a
deficit, if you will, in orderto lose body fat, and then
you're eating enough protein inorder to sustain mps and then
making sure that your weighttraining as well in order to
maintain muscle.
I hate to use or build muscle,because that's not actually what
happened here, but maintain asmuch muscle mass as possible.
Also, strength is important tome, as one of the variables when
(37:24):
it comes to the performancequestion of it is did I lose any
strength during this cut?
Speaker 1 (37:31):
So that's put a little physiology twist on that.
That's called the proteinsparing mechanism, right?
When you go to lose, when youtry to lose weight, your body
might start eating its ownprotein.
You know, breaking down yourmuscles and using that for fuel.
And one way to spare yourprotein is to continue to lift
weights and eat enough protein,right?
So that's protein sparingmechanism.
When you go to lose weight,lift weights, eat protein and
(37:53):
you'll keep as much muscle massas possible?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Yeah for sure.
So here's like I said earlier,here's how I did it.
I'm going to throw the readerson.
So I started off at 3000calories, 3088 calories.
I did that for two weeks.
My protein was just above 1.1gram per body weight because at
the time I was 214.
My protein was 223.
I'm not going to bore you guyswith these, I'm just going to
ran them off real quick and thenkind of give you the
(38:15):
overarching principle of what Idid.
I did that for two weeks.
Sure enough, I stayed at 214.
The scale did not budge.
214.
The scale did not budge.
Then I put myself in a slightdeficit which I dropped it down
below the 3000 calories and Iwent to.
Three weeks later I went to2720.
(38:37):
So that's a roughly a 300calorie deficit, if you will.
I upped my protein.
So when I was reducing caloriesthrough carbs and fats, I upped
my protein to roughly 1.2 timesbody weight.
So I was in the 250 280 range.
Again, I'm using a range here,not a specific.
(38:58):
There is a specific number, butI give myself like a 10 to 20
percent range here.
I stayed at that for a week.
Then I dropped it down to 2,600, just dropped a hundred.
The reason I'm going so slowlyhere is because I'm watching the
scale and a subjective look atmy abs, right Like that's exact.
(39:19):
That's the, the, the, the bodypart that I want to reduce,
cause that's really where Istore my body fat is in my abs
and my love handle.
So I'm subjectively looking atmy abs in the mirror same
lighting, same picture, samecamera, all that but then I'm
also weighing myself.
So those are the two metrics,if you will, that I'm using in
order to see if I'm havingprogress or not.
Before I, you know, move thebus type.
(39:41):
Moment when I jump on the scalenine weeks later.
Moment when I jump on the scalenine weeks later.
So 3,270, I'm sorry, 3,2,700,2,600.
A month later I was at 2,400.
So 2,414.
And I was at 2,680.
This is where the hunger started.
This is primarily.
(40:09):
The hunger started around 3 pm,so I would eat lunch roughly
between 12 and 1 around 3 pm.
That's when the hunger pangsstarted.
Um, my mood, I was a little bitirritable just because of the
hunger, but nothing dramatic,nothing that should even be
noted.
I wasn't depressed, I wasn'tsad, I wasn't you angry at the
world.
It was just like oh, I'm alittle bit hungry.
Damn, I wish I had something toeat and I would.
(40:29):
I would feed myself.
Whether it was one of these ketocookies or whether it was one
scoop of whey protein, it fit mymacro.
So why not throw it in there?
Just have a smaller dinner ifyou will, so it's not to say
that I have to.
Oh no, I cannot eat because I'mnot allowed to know.
Why suffer through that hungerpain?
If it fits your macros right,just go ahead and eat something
and just Take it off the backend, which is gonna be your next
(40:49):
meal, your dinner meal?
Most of the time at the station,we dinner around 6, 6, 6, 30.
At home, jess and I eat dinneraround 8, and it was more than
enough to keep me satisfied Intosleep.
During this cut.
I never had any problems withsleep other than the ordinary,
you know, at the firehouse andthen sometimes at home if Jess
or the babies wake me up, butthere's nothing.
(41:10):
There's no signs of insomnia,anything I don't.
The cut wasn't that significantin order for me to get into
that, so, and then I finishedoff with just another roughly
looks like 70 more calories, soI dropped it down to 2353.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Now how many how far into it was this, so this is
week this is week eight, weekeight, nine.
And where were you?
Pound loss, wise and body fat.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
So now, so at this point I am uh six pounds lost
this last week going into thislast week, when I dropped it
down to 2300 calories, uh, sixpounds lost.
I didn't know my body fatpercentage because I you just
did it to start at the end startat the end, so that.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
So you're.
So, yes, you've done.
You've lost six pounds in thefirst seven weeks and over the
last two weeks you lose onepound.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
So it's that you know it's slowing down gradually.
Yeah, the weight loss isslowing down.
Slowing down, right.
My body started to go likeyo-yo.
What's going on?
Speaker 1 (42:00):
here.
Yeah, like bro, where's the 7000 calories from college 100?
Speaker 2 (42:04):
but you could see it aesthetically like, my abs were
not shredded.
I'm not bodybuilder shreddedbut they were clearly defined
and I don't think I have verygood abdominal muscles like
large abdominal muscles, becausethat also plays into effect on
how good your abs look um, butyou could see the veins in the
top of my abs.
You could see the veins in mylower pelvis area.
So I was super, super lean,along with skinny.
(42:25):
You know, fat being driven offof it and then that last week I
lost that one more pound cominginto.
I actually ended up losing on myscale at the firehouse.
I actually ended up losing onemore pound before I went on
vacation.
So, uh, I went 207, 206 at thefirehouse.
This registered me.
Registered me here at 207,neither here nor there.
(42:46):
When I went to siesta, I waswhere I wanted to be, which was.
You could see that, oh, this isa fitness guy you know you don't
see many 50 year olds walkingaround with and I know this
sounds shallow and narcissisticand stuff, but you don't see
many 50 year old men walkingaround with abs.
So I was where I wanted to beveins on my shoulders, that type
(43:07):
of thing.
I had checked the box.
Here comes siesta.
My fitness pal was deleted offmy phone because now I'm
enjoying life, and this is thebalance that a lot of people
need to understand is we are not.
I'm not here.
I'm not training physiquemodels.
Okay, I'm training averageJoe's and Jillills that are
looking to just lose some fat,look sexy, vibrant and live a
(43:30):
productive you know, healthy,fun, enjoyable life.
By the way that they feel aboutthemselves and look in the
mirror, right.
So the weight loss is the keywith this.
So here comes siesta.
My fitness pod gets deleted.
But I go back to my principles.
Like am I having protein with ameal?
I'm not having a big breakfastbecause I know that it's gonna
be a little sketchy to eat atthe beach.
So let me get my big breakfasthere, let me get my big dinner
and there's my my two bigboluses of protein, if you will.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
That would be a good topic with Eric to talk about.
It's like what do we do when wedon't?
Have a Just to wrap it up, thefinal numbers 214 weight to 207,
.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
110 pounds of lean body mass to 109.
So I lost one pound of musclemass and 10.2% body fat to 8.4%
body fat.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
That's awesome.
Yeah, that's awesome.
So give me one big takeaway.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
The biggest takeaway that I could say is it's
important to be patient andslowly put yourself in a deficit
, right?
What a lot of these fad and I'mjust using the term fad because
everybody understands keto,paleo, mediterranean, whatnot
these diets is they put you in.
They could potentially put youinto a huge deficit.
(44:43):
So, yes, you're going to see ahuge weight loss.
Like what you said earlier,that's not the most productive.
And then also, you'rejeopardizing muscle mass loss,
which my age and when I say myage, you're talking 30s, mid-30s
, 40s it's very difficult to putmuscle mass back on.
So damn it Shit, I'm in 30s now,yeah, you got to protect as
much of it as possible, right?
And so um beep, I know it'scliche, is, but the biggest
(45:07):
takeaway is you gotta be patientwith this weight loss and, and
and and trust the numbers andand just stick to the protocol.
Whether you do it, there's somuch information online that
somebody could do this on theirown.
They don't need coaching.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Some a lot of people hire people like us forely
aspect of it.
But, um, yeah, I'm, I'm veryhappy with the results and now
I'm reverse dieting.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
So now, now we're going the reverse dieting muscle
mass.
That's another you knowconversation.
But basically now I'm reversingeverything I did 2300 calories,
2500 calories, 2700 caloriesover the courses of two weeks to
get me back up to my 303500calories by november, so that
december hopefully.
I know it's a lot and I knowI'm going to gain fat, but I'm
going to be close to the 220range again and I'll continue
(45:50):
that until like next march andthen I'll do another cut awesome
yeah, man, awesome, that's agood talk.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
I enjoyed this one, yeah for sure.
Thanks, perfect.
Thank you, michael, for all ofthat.
That was great experience andand anyone listening let this be
motivation too and let it, youknow, be a voice of reason for
what you see from a lot of othersources out there on what can
be done.
Yes, sir, like this is us doingit.
Yeah, absolutely Good stuff.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of the Fitness Fiasco
(46:15):
Podcast.
You can find more informationabout the topics covered today
and in any other episode on ourwebsite, fitnessfiascocom
fiascocom.
If you're looking to connectwith our hosts, you can reach
Eric on Instagram at EricBustillo, that's
E-R-I-K-B-U-S-T-I-L-L-O.
Mike on Instagram at Mike OsunaFitness, that's
M-I-K-E-O-S-U-N-A-F-I-T-N-E-S-S,and Rob on Twitter at Rob
(46:40):
Strength.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!