How He Lost 340 Pounds with Lifting, Walking (No Cardio), & GLP-1 (Jamie Selzler) | Ep 376 - Wits & Weights | Fat Loss, Nutrition, & Strength Training for Lifters

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:01):
If you think massive weight loss requires
extreme measures, surgery orgiving up your favorite foods
forever, this episode willchallenge everything you believe
about sustainabletransformation.
My guest today lost over 340pounds, and he did it without
bariatric surgery.
Instead, he combined threesimple tools that are now
available to many but often usedincorrectly GLP-1 medication,

(00:25):
walking and lifting weights.
But weight loss was just thebeginning.
You're going to discover whyhis shift in mindset might be
more important than the 340pounds he lost.
You'll learn the four rulesthat kept him consistent when
motivation failed and whylifting weights became his
secret weapon for keeping theweight off.
Whether you have 20 pounds or200 pounds to lose, stick around

(00:48):
and learn why transformationrequires a different approach
than you might think.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host, philip Pape, andtoday we're going to talk about

(01:08):
one of the most remarkabletransformations that I've ever
seen.
My guest is Jamie Selsler, whostruggled with obesity since
childhood.
He reached over 650 poundsbefore starting on a journey
that would see him lose 340 ofthose pounds maybe more by now.
We'll get into it through acombination of helpful tools,

(01:29):
sustainable practices and adeeply meaningful shift in his
mindset no surgery, no extremediets and, in fact, no cardio.
Instead, jamie built anapproach based on his four rules
for sustainable change.
Today, you'll learn how Jamiewent from feeling like his body
was a prison to developinggreater self-respect, automatic
discipline and a better life,plus the exact next steps you

(01:52):
can apply, regardless of whereyou're starting or how far you
have to go.
Jamie, I'm glad we can makethis happen.
Welcome to Wits and Weights.

Jamie Selzler (02:00):
Huge honor to be here.
Philip.
Love your show, love yourcontent.
It's really helped me a lotalong this process.
So kind of can't believe I'mhere.
It's especially weird hearingyou do the introduction like
live and in person.
I'm so used to hearing it onthe podcast.
But it's awesome.

Oh man, that's humbling to me.
That really makes my day,because I know you reach out to
me and you're like I'm a fan ofthe show.
I'm like I'm't have the show,no, and I loved it.
You mentioned that you were onMind Pump there's.
For anybody listening whofollows that show, which a lot
of you do go check out his videoin the episode there.
It's phenomenal.
And what we're going to dotoday is try to dig even deeper
into the journey so that thelistener can come away saying

(02:36):
look, it's not that, there's noexcuse I hate to use that like
fit bro.
There's no excuses, bro, it'smore of no matter what situation
you are in on this planet,there is a way to move forward,
and I think that's what we wantto come out here.
So if you went back in time,you have the version of you that
I think reached 652 pounds.

Yeah.

And they could just talk to the you now right, not
just the physical but the mentalyou, because I suspect that's
far more of a change than thephysical.
What would he be most surprisedabout?

I think that me, at 652 pounds, would be most
surprised that I look forreasons to move my body as
opposed to look for reasons notto move my body.
I mean, that would be that'sbeen the biggest change.
I mean, other than the mentalaspect, but something like you
know my heavier weights I'mcertainly my heaviest weight.
Even walking 20 or 30 feet wasdifficult and now if I can walk

(03:31):
an extra 30 feet, I do it.
I mean, whatever the reason is,I mean I'll go to the law, I'll
take the few extra steps totake a different door if it
means a few extra steps.
So that's the thing that Iwould probably be the most
surprised about.
That I've done.

It's apropos that you said that, because I
literally got off of a groupcall in somebody else's group
and it was a Q&A and everybodywas really excited to talk about
lifting weights and buildingmuscle and there was one person
I can tell she probably wouldn'thave been in my group because
there's a certain filter youhave, like listening to the
podcast coming in, you'reexcited, and she didn't quite
get, like why should you evenlift weights?
Like, and she used terms likeI'm a lazy person and I don't
have much time and and I'mthinking of the framing behind

(04:11):
all of this and how you justsaid like you look for reasons
not to move, and I get thatsense from folks.
So maybe, just jumping off thatpoint, if someone's thinking
like, is it the why that I needto find?
Is it the motivation?
Is it what?
Is it the why that I need tofind?
Is it the motivation?
Is it what is it?
That was the catalyst that gotyou from there to here.

In that respect, yeah, well, I'm, you know I've
been, oh, I've been well over500 pounds.
I'm 47 right now.
That's how you know you're old.
You have to remember what yourage is.
I'm 47 now and I've been wellover 500 pounds since I was 20
or 21 and was bigger before thatas well.
And to be honest, for most ofthat time, well into my late 30s

(04:49):
, my mobility wasn't actually ahuge problem for me.
I was certainly a little slower, a little weaker and I couldn't
do all the things I wanted todo, but it never felt like a
problem to me.
But then, three or four yearsago, when I got to about 43
years old, it's sort of like yougo over a cliff when it comes
to health, and that's why, whenpeople say that you can be
healthy at any weight or anysize, it's like sure, at any

(05:11):
moment in time you may behealthy.
But the reality is, if you arecarrying a lot of extra weight,
it's not a matter of ifsomething bad is going to happen
to you, it is when somethingbad is going to happen to you.
And so, over the course of justa couple of months, I started
experiencing some major changeswhen I got north of 600 or 650.
I suspect I was probably closerto 700, although I stopped

(05:32):
weighing myself for a year at myheaviest, just because I didn't
want to deal with what I saw onthe scale.
But I realized that no one mysize was alive in their 50s.
I have a really good friendwho's in his 70s and had dinner
with him and his wife, and hepulled me aside afterwards and
said Jamie, I want you to go tomy funeral, I don't want to go

(05:53):
to yours.
And here's a guy who's in his70s telling you that he's
probably going to your funeraland you're just barely cracked
40 years old.
It opened my eyes to realizethat no one my size was still
alive in their 50s.
And even worse than that for meis that my mobility became
really a challenge.
I couldn't walk more than 20 or30 feet without being out of

(06:14):
breath.
I needed a walker or a cane toget around my apartment.
It meant that I had so muchpride.
I didn't want anyone to seethat, and so I stopped going out
.
I got stuck on a toilet oncewhere I just couldn't physically
get up, and so there were allthese things that were happening

(06:35):
about the same time, bothexternal people saying things to
me.
Internal could barely move andjust being aware that not only
was I going to be dead early,but the years I had left were
going to be terrible and realizethat the motivation.
I think there's a differencebetween motivation and
inspiration.
I don't still have a lot ofmotivation.
I'm usually not motivated to dothe stuff I do now, when, if I

(06:56):
am motivated, it's awesome, butit's more inspiration.
And what inspired me is that Ididn't want to die.
I didn't want to die young andif I was going to die young, I
didn't want the years I had leftto be terrible.

And it sounds like you almost crossed the Rubicon,
right, I would say, if you thinkof a normal curve in the
population and all of ourexperiences, let's be honest,
most people aren't that fitwalking around right now in
modern life.
But also very few people havepushed to the level you did of
risking your mortality.
You know at a modestly youngage to to be able to see it in

(07:28):
your face and hear it frompeople what might happen, and I
guess anybody listening, even ifyou are not where Jamie was at
that point, you can forecastthat kind of future as some type
of it If you keep going down acertain path.
So I'm totally going off scripthere, jamie, but like what
should people be thinking ofright now that they are or
aren't doing that could leaddown that path, even if it's not

(07:49):
to that extreme, and maybethat's kind of a vague question.
If you know what.

I'm getting at.
Yeah, I mean, the truth is no,no one chooses to be my size.
No one, I mean no one choosesto be 300 or 400 or five or 600
plus pounds.
And I think sometimes when yousee people like that, you think
why would they do that tothemselves?
And the reality is no one wakesup and says, you know, I should
say, hopefully people don'twake up one day and say I want

(08:15):
to be 650 pounds one day.
What happens over the course oftime it's that 10 pounds a year
, five pounds a year, 20 poundsa year that sort of adds on and
builds on itself over and over.
It's a lot of.
You know, I'll start Monday andyou have a great Monday and
then by Tuesday you've fallenoff your new plan and so that's

(08:36):
how you get to be that big.
And so part of why I'm doingthis and talking about my story
is, while it's unlikely thatmost people are going to get to
my size, I am genetically gifted, probably genetically ungifted
as well.
I'm genetically gifted in that Ihave not had any significant

(08:57):
health issues along the way.
I think many people would havehad a heart attack or a stroke
before they got my size, and sothat's the wake up call for them
.
I'm very grateful I never hadthat wake up call, but my
message is that you should startnow, and if they're listening
to your podcast, they havestarted, or maybe it's certainly
possible that someone foundthis episode because they saw my

(09:19):
story and like they've neverconsidered it before, and I
guess my message is you shouldstart now.
Do not wait until you get to bemy size or anywhere even close
to my size, because it is.
I have empathy for people whogot to lose 20 or 30 pounds.
That's hard to do.
Losing two or 300 or 400 poundsis beyond description difficult

(09:41):
, and it's better to fix yourproblem now before it gets worse
.

Yeah, I can imagine that would feel overwhelming,
and that's, I guess, the otherside of the coin is hey, you did
it, and so of course it'spossible.
And now let's get into some ofthe ways that it was possible,
because that's the optimism biasin me coming out always is like
what can you do about it?
That's in your control.
So you've talked about that.
You've said you're a confidentguy, but you didn't really

(10:08):
respect yourself until youstarted keeping the promises.
What is that difference betweenconfidence and self-respect?

Yeah, I mean confidence.
To me, confidence feels like Ican be in a room and command the
room if I need to ensure thatmy opinion is heard.
That's what confidence is to me.
Confidence is that if I attemptto do something, I'm confident
that I'll be able to accomplishit.
That's different thanself-respect and I don't think I

(10:35):
was respecting myself with thatsize and I put self-respect in
there with self-love and I'vealways thought that I've loved
myself.
I always thought that Irespected myself.
But ensuring that your bodybecomes a tool for you that
allows you to accomplish allyour goals, that is a very high

(10:56):
form of self-respect and it is amiracle that I have been able
to do anything that I've done inmy life professionally or
whatnot, being at the size thatI was, life professionally or
whatnot, being at the size thatI was, exhibiting that little
amount of self-respect.
Now I want to be clear Everyoneis worthy of respect at
whatever their size is.
I constantly say you are worthyof love and respect and empathy

(11:17):
and compassion, regardless ofthe size of your body.
My obesity, I truly believe, isa disease.
I needed to treat that diseasemedically in conjunction with
lifestyle change and mindsetchange.
But self-respect also meansthat you acknowledge if you are
powerless over something andneed help along the way, whether
that be the help of a doctor ora dietician or a coach like

(11:38):
yourself or someone.
Asking for help is also a goodway to show respect for yourself
, and I was not asking for helpfor many, many years.

Yeah, I can see that, and the idea that
self-respect is equivalent toself love is interesting,
because if you didn't have for awhile self-respect what you
said ensuring your body becomesa tool for you to achieve your
goals we're going to that's mydrop moment, right there.
That's, that's, that's reallythe epitome of it.
Did you does that mean youdidn't have self love, or did

(12:11):
you always have have a love foryourself that wasn't manifested
through your actions, orsomething like that?

Yeah, when I joke , you know, as sexy as hell at
652 pounds, I can't imagine abetter looking 652 pound man out
there.
Granted, there are not thatmany of us so I can say that.
But no, like I think the.
I think I've always lovedmyself and I view the love as
thinking that I'm worthy of lovefrom others.

(12:34):
I've always felt that I'mworthy of that and I'm grateful,
you know, for having parentsthat have kind of instilled that
in me when I was young.
I never have hated myself, but,you know, doing what I do now.
Now I talk to a lot of peoplewho are often are at the start
of their weight loss journey andthere's a lot of self-hatred
there where they they feel likebecause of the size of their

(12:54):
body, they're not worth lovingthemselves, they're not worth
anyone else loving them and notworthy of loving themselves, and
so this whole thing's a process.
You know, none of this is justa switch.
That's why mindset change is soimportant.
My self-love improved, myself-respect improved over the
course of time and, honestly,part of it starts with just sort
of forgiving yourself forwhatever condition or shape

(13:16):
you're in now, wherever you arein life, it's okay to and not
even okay, you really shouldforgive yourself and say I've
done the best that I could withwhat I had, with the knowledge I
had, and it got me here.
I've had lots of failures.
I'm going to choose to youroptimism mindset.
I'm going to choose to beoptimistic and say every single
failure I had was just it taughtme what doesn't work.

(13:37):
Well, that's great.
Over the course of years, I wasable to whittle down all the
stuff that didn't work for meuntil eventually I found
something that did, and that'spart of loving and respecting
yourself.
And giving yourself forgivenessis acknowledging the value of
what got you to where you are.

So forgiving your past self then, where you've had
this decades of, I guess, shameand things that have failed.
Like you said, there arelessons and if it's not a switch
, then where's the catalyst forthat?
Is it a concrete?
We know affirmations go wayback when and they get kind of
poo-pooed right, but they couldbe powerful.

(14:13):
What can somebody do right now?
Who's like it's never workedfor me, nothing's worked for me.
I feel shame, I'm disgustedwith myself.
All of that.
You're kind of saying what canthey do right now as an exercise
, potentially to change that?

Make one promise to yourself that you know you
can absolutely keep.
Great, and I think about thisoften If you love someone in
your life, you don't demonstrateI mean you can say you love
them, but you demonstrate yourlove to someone by keeping your
word to them.
We call them vows in marriage.
You make a promise to someoneand you keep it, and that's how

(14:50):
you prove you love someone.
If you continually break yourpromises to somebody, you're
just saying I don't love you.
Well, if you are breaking yourpromises to yourself, you're
sending that exact same messageto yourself.
And so you know, I look backand have created this new
mindset for myself.
It's not like I started at thisprocess at six, six, 50 and said
I'm going to start keeping allmy promises to myself, like I
didn't start that way.
At some point I looked back tothink like all right, I've had

(15:12):
some success.
What's changed in my life?
That's how I came up with mymindset.
And but the biggest thing wasthat anyone can start today is
make a promise to yourself, andit could be something as basic
and simple as like what I doevery time I'm sitting down.
Every time I get up, I take adrink of water, not a whole
glass necessarily, unless I can,but I just take a drink of
water that allows me to keep myhydration levels really high,

(15:34):
like that's a I just gave you.
If you're listening, I justgave you a promise you can make
to yourself that you know youcan keep.
The promises you make toyourself should be achievable.
They shouldn't be easynecessarily, like I don't want
to make a promise to myself, I'mgoing to drink one glass of
water a day.
That's not a challenge for mostpeople.
But make a promise to yourselfthat you know you can keep and

(15:54):
just do that for a while.
You don't have to make a wholebunch of them.
Just prove to yourself that youcan actually keep a promise to
yourself and then do another andanother, and another.
All of us including myself,including you, philip, including
you listening have probably youcan probably count two or three
promises that you've broken toyourself just in the last week,

(16:14):
maybe even today, and so it'snot like it's possible to just
never break a promise toyourself, but just decide which
promises are truly important andjust and keep those promises.
That really changed everythingfor me.
I mean literally everythingchanged once I started doing
that.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, especially when
it's broken down to the microlevel.
Right, I was thinking, okay, Irecently installed an app on my
phone that reminds me every halfan hour to get up, you know
this is me, the fitness guy wholifts weights, who walks, and
still I'm sitting in front of acomputer for hours at a time and
the promise to myself is you'regoing to get off your butt and
the reminder comes up.
And what do I do?

(16:52):
Sometimes, remind me later,right?

Max (16:54):
Like it happens.

So you break your promises sometimes, but if it's
achievable, at least it givesyou the best chance of doing it,
especially when combined, likeyou said, with habit stacking or
with tools and help.
And so that's a good segue intothe things that you did have to
overcome, some of whichrequired tools and help.
And why don't we just dive intothe food side, because that's
obviously very important to thisdiscussion.

(17:15):
One thing that I know affects ahuge majority of people who've
struggled over the years is thefood noise.
We blame people for theiractions of eating too much, and
I always say that calories in,calories out is the end chain of
a long chain of root causes,and then when you go back in
that chain, it's like a fishbonewhere there's like 50 different

(17:38):
possible causes going on.
You've got to figure out theone that makes sense for you.
Causes going on You've got tofigure out the one that makes
sense for you.
You've talked about food noise,glp-1s and how that, I think,
became part of all the emotionsyou had, right, positive and
negative emotions, celebrations,sadness, boredom.
So tell us about that journeyand then how you got it quieted

(17:59):
down, and then we can talk aboutlike okay then, what did you
fill that in with?

Because I know that's the next challenge and
then we can talk about like okaythen, what did you fill that in
with?
Because I know that's the nextchallenge.
So food noise.
I didn't know what food noisewas.
In my case, food noise was, andI have not had it for a few
years now but food noise wasthinking about food all the time
, and so a few examples I cangive you is let's say I'm eating
lunch on a Tuesday, I'mthinking about ordering pizza on

(18:28):
Friday, because that's onething I always did, and so all
the time as I'm eating, I'mthinking about that.
I'm thinking about what my nextmeal is going to be.
Before I even am done with mycurrent meal, I am constantly
plotting.
My mind is thinking all thetime about where will I get food
next, and it's sort of anoverwhelming feeling and an

(18:48):
analogy that I use for folks.
If you're out there and don'texperience this, if you just go
throughout your life and you'renot really thinking about food
unless you're actually hungry,imagine that you have a kid and
you go to the grocery storelet's call him Timmy and Timmy's
your son and you bring Timmy tothe grocery store and you're
picking up stuff for dinner thatnight and Timmy sees a candy

(19:10):
bar and wants the candy bar askids do you know, timmy?
So Timmy says can I have this?
And you say, no, timmy, youcan't.
We're going to have dinner soon.
And Timmy starts throwing atemper tantrum.
The kid is screaming, he'scrying.
We've all experienced this as aparent, or we've seen it in a
grocery store.
The kid is having a tantrum andyou as a parent have a choice

(19:31):
Give him the candy bar, eventhough you know it's wrong.
You know it's encouragingbehavior.
But unless you do it you can'tget anything else done.
That's what food noise is.
Food noise is Timmy screamingin your ear constantly till you
just give in, even though youknow it's not right, and then
you can go about your day andget your stuff done.
And you may think that it'spossible to just ignore Timmy,

(19:56):
because sometimes you do in thegrocery store.
But imagine if Timmy is doingthat all of the time on the car
ride home, at night, when you'retrying to sleep, when you're
waking up.
That's food noise.
And in my case, the only thingthat has ever solved the food
noise is starting a GLP-1.
And I used to joke that a GLP-1is like giving Timmy up for

(20:17):
adoption, but I realize nowthat's kind of a dark thing to
say, so in this case it's justleaving Timmy at home when you
go to the grocery store.
And GLP-1 medication completelychanged my life.
It really has taught me thatobesity is a disease.
When that food noise went awayand it didn't at first, it took
a few months on a GLP-1 for itto work for me.
When it went away and I realizedthat I wasn't going about my

(20:39):
life thinking about foodconstantly, it was really
eye-opening.
I didn't know that what Ithought, that what I was
experiencing was different.
I thought everyone, I thoughtthat was everyone all the time
and I just figured the peoplewho were thinner than me were
just better at it.
They just had more willpower orwhatever.
But it's an actual thing and Iam a case study for what happens

(21:06):
.
One, the food noise exists andtwo, what can happen once it
goes away.
And so it's perfect.
And I've used willpower anddiscipline and all that stuff to
do this.
I would not have done thiswithout a GLP-1.
I know I wouldn't have becauseI've tried it hundreds of times.

And do you have you done any genetic testing, like
do you know if they're?
Because I'm really curious nowwith all the research going on
with these and the dual agonistsand now we have triple agonists
coming out of who's impactedthe most and do they have any
genetic differences?
Like Stephen was on the show,you know, he talks about
brain-related genes that affectappetite.
We also know there'sepigenetics right by living a

(21:50):
certain lifestyle for longenough, it could potentially
exacerbate things like foodnoise.
So have you done any testing?

like that or I have not, but I would love to
you know the DNA testing I'vedone is, like you know, through
the the, you know the familystuff that you can look at kind
of where you're, where you'refrom.

I would love to do some genetic testing though
there's a few companies and I'vehad a couple on my show too I
wonder.
I just wonder if they look atthose genes or if we even know
what they are.
You know what I mean.

The thing is, I'm always happy to be a test
subject for anything.
At this point, sure, sure, no,it's fascinating Because I'm
just, I'm happy, I want,hopefully, I just want people to
learn from in the process, andso that's what I'm trying to do
for others.

Well, I'll say that the thinking in the fitness
industry on JLP1s, which is avery nascent field other than
the Ozempic you know people whoworked with folks with diabetes.
Obviously that's been aroundfor I don't know, 15, maybe even
20 years.
I had a client with on Ozempicbefore I even knew nobody.
Anybody knew what it was.
But there's definitely schoolsof thought and I had to come

(22:46):
through my own journey ofthinking and I think of
epistemology, right, which isthe science of knowing, or the
philosophy of knowing, how, atany one era in time, humans
think they know everything andit's obvious and then all of a
sudden something shatters ourbeliefs and you have to rejigger
your brain to that.
And I try to be open-minded.
You know that's the goal inthis industry because things
always change.

(23:06):
And you know my first thoughts,like many fitness people, were
the willpower versus the obesity, versus the food noise thing,
like, is this just a shortcut,right?
You hear this narrative, ofcourse, and I've come around to
realize how powerful andpositive a tool can be.
I think I even did an episodeor two about it.
Powerful and positive a toolcan be.
I think I even did an episodeor two about it and the food

(23:31):
noise thing.
Regarding GLP-1s, I don't thinkI have it.
So when you mentioned you knowif you have it or not did it
start from a young age?
That's my first question.

Yeah, I mean, I think I first started gaining
weight when I was nine or 10years old, went to my
grandparents' place overChristmas break and they had a
refrigerator full of soda andthey're like.
We never really drank soda as akid.
We were there for two or threeweeks and they're like anytime
you want something, go, and Ibecame a sugar drink fiend in
the course of a couple of weeksand so prior to that, I used to

(23:56):
get my allowance money and I'dbuy baseball cards and then
after that, I'd use my allowancemoney to buy Mountain Dew,
which became candy bars, andthat's when my weight I really
started to gain weight as ateenager and beyond, and so it
had always been there, and so Idon't know.
That's why I'm curious aboutthis.

(24:16):
I don't know if the food noisebegan because I had gained
weight or whatever, and realityis at this point I don't know
that.
It matters a whole lot.
When it comes to when it comesto coaches out there and I'm
guessing you have a lot offitness professionals who listen
to your podcast I see this allthe time on.
So I am.
I'm now on social media muchmore often, on a Tik TOK or

(24:36):
Instagram, and there are a largenumber of coaches out there who
and and I remember hearing thison your there are podcasts that
I love, that like yours, whereI will hear a message at some
point, where it's the host ofthe podcast just basically say,
well, it's the easy way out, orI don't believe in them, or
they're bad, and I will juststop and I'm like, well, I guess

(24:58):
this person not that someoneout there has to be a huge fan
of these things.
But if you were a fitnessprofessional out there, any tool
that someone uses that allowsthem to get healthy is a good
tool.
For some it may be a bariatricsurgery, for some it may be a
GLP-1 medication.
For others it may be a veryspecific way of eating or a

(25:23):
certain diet.
Whatever, whatever methodsomeone uses, as long as it's a
healthy method that they workwith their doctor on, that's a
good thing.
Method that they work withtheir doctor on, that's a good
thing.
And when you are a fitnessprofessional trashing GLP-1, one
, you are a really bad businessperson because people I think
there was this perception outthere among fitness

(25:43):
professionals that, oh, peopleare just going to use the GLP-1
and then they're not going toneed a coach anymore.
They're not going to go to thegym anymore, and I think it's
the opposite.
I think GLP-1 is opening up amarket, potentially millions of
people who never would have goneto a gym or who never would
have hired an online coach ornever would have done any of
this stuff.
And so to just ignore or, evenworse, trash GLP-1 makes no

(26:07):
sense to me.
Obesity is a disease.
Glp-1 treats that disease,which allows a person to make
changes in their life.
Is everyone doing that?
Probably not.
Are there some people who areusing it as just an appetite
suppressant?
Probably, but there are manypeople who actually want to make
lifestyle changes and have notbeen able to until now.

Yeah, you hit it on the head and offline you can
tell me if I've ever had thewrong message, because early on
I did have a conversation.
It was like the dark side ofGOP once, and then later on it's
like I'm talking about how dowe preserve muscle on these
things?
How do we improve our lifestyle?
How do we?

you want to come off of them.
Your advice is too good for meto just stop.
Okay, okay.

But hopefully more recently it's changed because I
feel like I have also evolvedwith that and I leave all my old
episodes up because why not?
You know that's your truth, sothat's interesting.
I listened to a recent I thinkit was a news podcast, I don't
know what it may be on Vox orsomething they're covering, like
exercise more now, and theywere talking about GOP ones, and
this gentleman said look, hehad an addictive personality.

(27:09):
He was addicted to substances,you know, narcotics and alcohol
and food, and for him it shutoff all of that as well.
We're seeing research that goesbeyond food, which is powerful.
Like you said, it's a tool, andthen it raises not raises the
question.
It almost proves the idea thatthere is something else going on
.
That behavior alone doesn'tseem to be able to be enough,

(27:30):
which is awesome.
So I'm all for tools.
When the food noise quieteddown and you started taking
these, like, did you feel avacuum of some sort that you
missed, or was it just likehunky-dory?

No, I definitely did.
I wasn't aware.
I mean, it's hard to explain Iwas not aware how important food
was in all of my emotions in myday-to-day life, like I,
because it was just ingrained inmy, my personality for so long.

(28:02):
But you know, if I ever had agreat day at work or I had good
news, like food was the firstthing I'd think about.
Like what am I going to getsome donuts or whatever ice
cream to celebrate as a reward?
If I was having a bad day, likeI would use food, you know, to
deal with that or more.
And if I was bored or lonely orfood was just, my initial

(28:22):
reaction was the emotion.
And then the immediatefollow-up reaction is like what
can I do to celebrate or mournor whatever with food?
So when the food noise wentaway, that also went away.
And now I realize that how do Ireward myself now, because my
rewards were all food related.
If I'm dealing with some roughemotions from sadness or boredom

(28:46):
or whatever, what do I fillthat with?
If I'm not and it really inmany ways is like losing a
friend and I've been talkingabout this more lately and it's
resonating with people wherethey especially those on GLP-1,
they realize, oh wow, there's agap there that used to be there.
And in my case I've you know, Isort of have filled it with,
you know, fitness stuff.
So listening to podcasts andreading and studying and

(29:12):
creating my own content.
Now that's what I've filledthat with, and I am just as
addicted to the fitness stuffnow as I was to food before, but
this is a much, much healthierone to do.
I get.

I get that completely.
So now I'm wondering you knowso, on your journey now, are you
still trying to lose weight?

Yes, sort of.
I tell people I don't have.
We'll talk about input versusoutput goals later.
I don't really have a goalweight Today.
I'm 304 pounds and I laughabout it because many people
think 300 pounds is huge and I'mlike, oh my God, 300 pounds is
skinny.
It's all relative, man, I mean Ilook at myself here in the
camera and I'm like I amlegitimately getting way too

(29:53):
skinny and so I am going to losemore.
I need to have skin removalsurgery.
I have a lot of loose skin.
You can't see it so much herebecause my face and neck and all
this stuff are okay, but like,especially around my stomach and
my thighs, I would have jackedarms if I didn't have all the
skin hanging off of them.
So I have to have that and soI'll probably lose another I

(30:17):
don't know 30 pounds maybe, andwithout the skin removal.
But I don't want to be small,like being the biggest guy.
You know I'm six over.
I have to say six two now usedto be six three, but as I've
lost weight I'm also shrinkingin height and so I'm six two.
I've always been the biggestperson all the time and it is a

(30:38):
weird sort of mental shift tonot be the biggest person
anymore, cause they're veryoften that I'm not and and so I
don't ever want to be like thin.
Yeah, so I don't have like agoal weight Like I want to get
to a certain weight.
If I'm below 250, I won't behappy.

So it's funny you say too, but you say 250, cause,
like in the strength world,right, guys who are six, two,
six, three, like that's theirgoals to 25 to 50, you know they
, if they're one, 90, they'resmall and weak.
You know they want to get upthere.
So it's interesting You're kindof converging on that sweet
spot.
And that raises the otherquestion like how much do you
pay attention to bodycomposition?
Do you know your lean massindex which was my last episode

(31:16):
fat-free mass index, like howmuscular you are under the fat
that you're still trying to lose, Like what's?

going on there.
Yeah, right now I'm at 27% bodyfat, which is actually kind of
low considering I'm at theweight that I am, which means
you're pretty muscular, thenyeah.

I lift, plus there could be the skin and the meat.
The skin, yeah, I mean.

I lift four days a week and so I've been lifting
four days a week now for twoyears and pretty like serious
amount of weightlifting that I'mdoing.
And then I walk a lot.
At this point I walk 12,000 to15,000 steps every day and so I
am pretty strong.
Now I'm getting weaker, quoteunquote weaker, like I'm still

(31:55):
at a major calorie deficit.
I've had my metabolism tested.
I made a still a huge caloriedeficit and so I've kept my
muscle.
It's actually a small miracle.
I still will do a Dexaoccasionally or I'll do InBody
every six weeks and I'm stilladding muscle, even a pound a
month at this point.
And I'm I cannot believe andI'm still adding muscle even a
pound a month at this point, andI cannot believe that I'm still
adding muscle at this much of acalorie deficit.

If you and I met two years ago, you'd believe it
if we had a conversation.
And I say that not to bearrogant, but it's a niche of
people that I like to reframewith guys who are bigger or
ladies or north of 300.
And I'm like you have a hugeadvantage right now.
It's called excess stored bodyfat that your body will perceive
just like eating food, and youdon't have to eat the food

(32:40):
because you have it already andyou have so much of it that the
signaling is such that your bodyis like, yeah, we can give this
up in spades, no problem, andtherefore you can go into
deficit but actually be in aperceived surplus from your
muscle machinery.
It's working, it's crazy.

For those who are watching the camera, I'm going
to show something here.
I'm showing a pound of muscleand a pound of fat.
I show these all the time topeople online and I talk about
how, when your body needs energy, it's going to eat your muscle
first, so you have to eat yourprotein.
You have to be using it, so itprotects that.
Let's say, I need to lose twopounds, it's going to either
take one or two pounds of muscle, but no, I use it, so it takes

(33:17):
the fat and it blows people'sminds when they realize that you
can actually recop your body.
I just didn't think I would berecopying at this far.
It is kind of a deficit.

Yeah, I hear you and.

I've had my with my doctor.
I've had my metabolism testedtwice over the course of a month
just to make sure it's accurate, with the indirect messing up
their calorimeter or whateverit's like where you sit and you
breathe into this thing for 10minutes.
I encourage people to talk totheir doctor about it, to do it.
It's very interesting and itgives you what your resting
metabolic rate is, and mine is3,900 calories a day.

As my rest it's insane.

So your TD is far above that.
My TD is probably 5,000 if Ilook at my movement in there,
and so you know, and I'm eating25 to 2,800 a day.
So I'm still in a massivedeficit and I'm sure it's
probably decreased recently.

But how does that feel to you right now?
You're still.
You're on GOP1 still.
Yeah.

On semaglutide.
I'm on terisepatite ortrisepatite now.

So does it feel like a deficit or does it feel
kind of like normal?
I guess I should say almostlike a maintenance.

Yeah, I mean one of the this entire process from
day one.
I mean that's one thing I talkabout, like my mindset developed
over time, but from day one Ionly do things that I can do
forever.
I never do any sort of eatingor movement or anything that I
know I won't be able to doforever.
The closest thing I ever do toa temporary diet is I will

(34:40):
occasionally, for two or threedays, do a protein sparing
modified fast if I feel like Ihave some bloat going on or
whatever, and I figure I can doone of these every three times a
year for a few days.
So I only do things that I cando forever and that includes my
eating and so my 25 to 2,800calories a day is what I've done

(35:02):
the entire time.
I have not decreased orincreased my calories this
entire process because I think Ican eat 2,500 a day forever.
That's doable for me and Ithink a lot of people, when they
lose weight they get to whatthey call.
People say, what are you gonnado when you get to maintenance?
And honestly, I've been inmaintenance from the first day.

(35:23):
I don't have a separatemaintenance phase.
I view maintenance not asmaintaining a body weight but
maintaining a lifestyle, andI've maintained my lifestyle
since the first day.

That is a great way to put it.
Obviously, everybody'sexperiences are different.
Like my maintenance right nowis 2,600, just like what you're
eating.
But that's my maintenance right.
So for me to lose I have to beeating 1,800, 1,900.
But also there's the GLP-1sright, which then raises the
next question is do you have anoff-ramp?
Do you have a long-term goal onthat?
What is your goal with themedication?

I intend on taking it forever.
I think that, especially overthe next couple of years, we're
going to find, I think, there'sa consensus among many medical
professionals that obesity is adisease.
I think that we'll just seemore evidence of that.
Genetic testing and what youmentioned.
The only thing that's evertreated that for me is a GLP-1.
So I intend on taking a GLP-1forever.

(36:14):
I am planning on losing accessat some point, and so by
intending, I mean that I willalways seek out a doctor that
supports me on it.
I have a fantastic doctor and Iwill.
At some point I could seedecreasing the dose because I'm
at the max dose.
I've been at the max dose foralmost two years.
It still works great.
People say it stops working.

(36:34):
I don't know.
It still works fine.
It works as well for me now asI did at the beginning.
So maybe I'll lower the dose orI'll spread it out so I don't
do it every week.
Maybe I do it every 10 days orwhatever.
I could see doing somethingbefore that and then when I have
my skin removal surgery earlynext year, I'm going to have to

(36:56):
stop for a few weeks.
Then they require you to stopthe GLP before you have surgery.
So that'll be a little testcase for me to see if the food
noise comes roaring back orwhatever.
But although I intend on using aGLP-1 forever, I'm planning to
not.
We never know what happens.
I don't know if at some pointmy insurance won't cover or I
won't have the financial meansto pay for it, or it gets taken

(37:18):
off the market, because you justnever know when it comes.
I think these are pretty solid,but you never know with a
medication, and so I feelterrible.
I see people online do this,where they take a GLP-1, they
don't change anything abouttheir lifestyle, they just eat
less and hey, they're happybecause the scale is moving,
even though they're killingtheir muscle and metabolism in

(37:38):
the process.
But then it stops because theirinsurance stops covering it and
they can't afford it, and theygo into full terror mode because
that's the moment they realizethey have not changed anything.
And so while I intend on takingit, I plan to not.
So I've completely changed mylifestyle in every single way,
in a way that's manageable forme, that I can do forever.

(37:59):
None of it feels temporary.
So if I ever do stop, I think Ihave a fighting chance.
I think I would regain.
I don't think I would get to650 again by any means, but I
think I'd certainly start togain the weight again if I stop.

Yeah, Honestly, nobody knows right.
We don't have the research yetto know wholesale at the
population level, a bunch ofpeople getting off these drugs,
who regains, who doesn't, andwhy.
And it could come back togenetics and, like you said, if
it's been working just aseffectively and yet the it stops
working, Maybe he had less of aneed for it.
Let's just put it that way,Right, Genetically or something.

(38:35):
Who knows?
I don't know it's, it'sfascinating.
And then there's microdosingand there's now research on like
.
Could this be a beneficialthing for any, every human to
take Kind of like?
Everybody should take creatine,you know cause, there's no harm
and there's all these possiblebenefits.
But you did mention so.
Okay, so that's a GOP one side.

I want to throw this out there, the people that
say that it stops working forand I talk to.
I mean, I go on, I do livestreams on TikTok, I love doing
them and I'm answering.
I'll sit and I'll answerhundreds of questions in a
couple of hours over and over,multiple times a week, and for
the people that stops working,they will start saying things
like do I have to startexercising now?
And what I am convinced pureanecdote is that what happens is

(39:19):
people lose their weight,they're losing their muscle,
their metabolism's tanking andeventually, even with GLP, your
body gets hungry and they beginto confuse hunger of your body
desperately needing to eat andthey say it stopped working.
The food noise is back.

You got it.

No one who's lifting weights and keeping
their muscle is coming outsaying these stopped working for
them.
I.
There is a direct correlationbetween your muscle and how
effective these medications arein the long run.

I'm sure, there you go.
No, that that actually makesperfect sense and me, of all
people, I don't know why I'deven consider that, you know,
but you, but you answer thesequestions all the time.
That makes complete sensebecause, like, hyperphagia kicks
in right, like the massive lossof muscle mass triggers other
appetite signals and they're notall the same signal being
addressed by the drug you'retaking, necessarily, right,
because that's one hormone.
Of course, they're getting moreand more advanced.

(40:06):
The new ones can affect yourglucagon.
Now it's insane.
But you did mention a few timesalready and maybe it's time to
talk about your four rules.
But we've been talking aboutsustainability.
You've talked about how youjust train.
You're the guy who trains, theguy who walks, you just do it.
You don't need or havemotivation.
But when you do have motivationit's just even easier, but you
don't need it.
So what are the four rules?

(40:26):
Are about sustainability, right?

Yeah.
So number one that I've and Isort of I got to the end of this
a few months back I'm like,what have I been doing this
whole time?
And I realized these are thefour things that I rely on.
So, obviously, making promises.
You're keeping promises thatyou make to yourself as one, you
know, not counting onmotivation and being consistent
and having discipline is numbertwo, and you know we talked at
the beginning about habitstacking.
The number one thing I tellpeople who are not motivated to
move their body and I don't knowif I got that maybe I don't

(40:55):
want to say I came up with thismyself.
I probably stole it fromsomeone, maybe you, I don't know
but I set a timer and I've donethis the whole time.
I set a timer on my phone fortwo minutes and when I have zero
motivation to move, I set atimer.
I say I'm just going to get upand move for two minutes.
That can mean walking or doingthe dishes or physical movement,
and at the end of the timer, ifI'm still feeling like I don't

(41:18):
want to be doing this, then I'llsit back down.
But if at the end of the twominutes or three or whatever you
set it for I'm like yep, I'mokay, I'm up now, so I'm not
motivated to move, but I set atimer and I move for two minutes
and that's just discipline,right there.
That's such a critical thing.

(41:39):
You know, I joke with peoplelike I am motivated.
I mean I've turned my TV ontwice, I think, in the last
three months.
I'm still motivated to sit and,you know, watch TV all the time
, like I used to.
I'm still motivated to just vegout on the couch.
But I should say this I'm notas motivated as I used to be to
do that, but I'm not motivatedevery day to go for a seven-mile

(42:00):
walk or a nine-mile walk.

No, I hear you.
There's always like in the backof your head.
There's things that are likethat little devil inside telling
you to do this thing, but itstarts to get quieter and
quieter over time.
I was thinking how you said,you get up and then for two
minutes and if you still want todo it you do, otherwise you
don't.
I think that's great because Ithink that gives you you're
giving yourself permission tolike hey, I did the thing, you
know, I took the action and themomentum's not there right now,

(42:25):
so what?
On the other hand, it can leadto just massive accumulative
results right Day after dayafter day, of doing that.
If I have to go and work onpreparing for a podcast episode
and I haven't done it yet, andit's dinner time and I'm hungry
but my wife's making dinner andI'm like I'm just going to sit
at the computer for a minute andthink about it and start typing

(42:47):
something and sure enough,you're like well, I'm here and
you just keep going and half anhour goes by and you're done.

Yeah, no, I think I mean it's the same thing
applies to the gym.
Like I'm not always motivatedto work out in the gym, even
though I love it.
I've never had a session whereI've lifted, where I didn't walk
away feeling great about myself, but the, for me, the hardest
part about the gym isn't workingout at the gym or getting ready
to go to the gym, or it's thesitting in the car parked that

(43:13):
moment before I have to get outof my car and go into the gym.
That is still a challenge forme.
And so when it comes toconsistent discipline is like,
even if I'm not feeling it thatday, even if I do not want to
work out that day, I will gointo the gym and I say I will be
in there for five minutes.
And I honestly feel if afterfive minutes I'm like this is

(43:33):
not it today, I will leave.
I've never that's never happened.
I've never actually left thefive minutes.
But I give myself permissionand if at some point I do, I'm
not going to feel bad about it.
I will feel okay that I leftafter five minutes and I've
given myself that permission andforgiveness ahead of time for
it.
I haven't needed to do it yet.
But because I've done that, itallows me to deal with the most

(43:57):
difficult aspect of working out,which is physically getting out
of the car into the gym,Because it feels so good to sit
in your car and listen to witsand weights and not actually get
up and walk into the gym thatday.

Well, I listen to my podcast while I'm lifting.
So not my own podcast, but Ilisten to podcasts.
Of course, I have a home gym,so that's a different situation.

So that's number two, right?
Well, Phillip, if you'relistening right now, keep
getting after it.
You're killing it, buddy.

You're doing a great job.
That's what you got to do, yeah, one extra rep right now, one,
okay.

So that's the two rules so far.
Right, promises to yourself,not counting on motivation.
And then, third is to celebrateevery win, or celebrate every
success, and this is actually, Imean, they're all equally
important, but this one's reallycritical.
And when I say celebrate everywinner success, I mean you have
to actually speak it andverbalize it that you've had
something good happen, and itdoes not matter how small it is.
Beyond that, I encourage peopleto write it down.

(44:54):
I have a notebook.
It's right in front of me here.
I have a notebook that hasprobably about a thousand things
now, just the lines, and.
And at the beginning there werevery basic stuff, like I walked
50 feet.
Or I remember the time where mynew building that I had moved
to, I walked from my car in theparking ramp to my apartment.
It's 500 steps exactly, whichis very convenient if I need

(45:16):
extra steps at the end of theday, I know exactly how many
steps it is.
When I first moved here threeyears ago, I had to.
During those 500 steps I had tostop two or three times till I
catch my breath, and I veryclearly remember the first time
I did that walk and I neverstopped, from my car to my door,
never stopped.
It was a huge win for me and Iwrote it down in my notebook.

(45:40):
My biggest non-scale victoryI've had yet this whole time is
actually when I was 550 pounds.
It was at a much heavier weightwas my non-scale victory.
I went hiking with a friend andI had not been walking a whole
lot at this point and I walkedup a hill I joke it's the third
tallest point in Minnesota,which isn't saying a whole lot
because Minnesota is a very flatstate, but you know it's about

(46:01):
a mile relatively.
You know decent incline andmost people it takes 20 minutes
to walk it.
I think I took 45 or 50 to getup there and I got to the top,
thought I was on the verge ofdeath but the immense pride that
I had that I knew in the I likedoing things that no one in
history has ever done I like tothink of that exists and I

(46:22):
thought no one who's 550 poundshas ever climbed up this hill.
I'm the biggest human beingwho's ever been on this hill
that gets hiked all the time andit felt sort of good knowing
that at least it's unlikelysomeone bigger than me had ever
climbed up that hill, and so mypoint is this whether it's the
small wind like hey, I didn'tstop to catch my breath on this

(46:43):
walk, or I just climbed up I'mthe biggest person that's ever
climbed this hill and everythingin between, write it down in a
notebook.
And there is something thathappens to your brain when you
start writing down all of thosewins, even if they're tiny,
sitting in a booth, whatever.
I speak it out loud At thispoint.
My friends, people in my life,are just used to it.

(47:04):
I mean, I was at an event a fewweeks ago and I sat down.
It was like a banquet table.
I remember I sat down at thetable and there's plenty of room
around me and I had to just say, hey, everyone, a few years ago
, if I would have sat at thistable, I would have been crowded
in with everybody and I had tospeak it out loud.
And people are like, oh, that'sawesome, like I don't think
they actually care a whole lot.

I feel you, it's for you more than anyone.

When I speak those wins and I write them down
, you imprint in your mind thatyou are a winner and you begin
going through life seeking outwins for your book.
It has a addition and if no onedoes anything else other, if no
one takes anything away fromthis interview today other than
that, I think that's fine.
Start writing down your wins,especially if you're trying to

(47:50):
lose weight, because when you'reon a weight loss journey I hate
that word but I use it all thetime when you're on a weight
loss journey, there are many badmoments.
I kind of talk to people, lookat my before and after and I'm
like wow, how exciting, whatever.
And I'm like sure, but it'smostly really boring.
It's it's day after day afterday of the same thing and it

(48:14):
gets really boring and you haveto come to peace with the fact
that it's going to take a longtime and it's going to be boring
.
And one of the ways that youcome to peace with that is
having your book of wins,because if you have weeks where
you're on a stall or you'rehaving problems, going back and
looking at especially thebeginning of that book and
seeing, wow, the stuff that Ijust take for granted.

(48:34):
Now was a big win at first.
That sort of tells you thatyou've come a long way and helps
you get through those roughmoments and just makes you feel
good to go back and read them.

Max (48:44):
Shout out to Ph Peck.
I know Philip for a long time.
I know how passionate he isabout healthy eating and body
strength, and that's why Ichoose him to be my coach.
I was no stranger to dietingand body training, but I always
struggled to do it sustainably.
Philip helped me prioritize mygoals with evidence-based
recommendations while notoverstressing my body and not

(49:06):
feeling like I'm starving.
In six months, I lost 45 poundswithout drastically changing
the foods I enjoy, but now Ihave a more balanced diet.
I weight train consistently but, most importantly, I do it
sustainably.
If a scientifically sound,healthy diet and a lean, strong
body is what you're looking for,philip Pape is your guy.

Yeah, because it makes me think of the idea that
when we have habits and we havebehaviors right, it's a some
sort of step change that ittakes to get to that, but then
it becomes fairly automatic,fairly boring, like you said.
You just do it day after day.
Eventually you don't thinkabout it and if you're writing
that down, you look back and say, oh, that guy was hardly doing
anything.
You know, look at me now.
And yet there's, the hill isalways up for the rest of your

(49:51):
life, and I see that as apositive.
Some people see that asoverwhelming, you know, like
Sisyphus or something pushingthe boulder uphill, but I think
it's incredible because it meansthere's unlimited potential and
some people have differentpersonalities when it comes to
that.
I know this right Coachingpeople.
There are some people that justlove to just they're positive
about everything, even when Ithink, oh man, like you had a
tough week, but you're stillcoming here saying you did this,

(50:14):
you did this, you did this andI'm just going to work on these
other things.
Others, you have to pull teeth.
You know it's like okay, I knowyou want to tell me all your
problems right now.
Tell me a win, like give me awin and they just want to jump
into the bad stuff.
Give me a win, okay, all right,all right.
And sometimes I have to helpthem with the win.
So for somebody who has thatpersonality, let's just say, of
a little bit more pessimism typebias, what's a good way to?

do that?
Yeah, exactly.
And when I tell people write itdown, I mean that literally,
yeah, literally, pen and paper,not in a notes app.
I mean that's better thannothing, of course, but there's
something special about writingit down that tells you that
you're putting pen to paperbecause something's important to
you and it makes a difference.

I need to do that.
I'm going to do that because Ido everything digitally and
you're right, you kind of get it.
It's funny I'm reading aStephen King book fair.
My, my daughters actually foundit for me because I generally
don't get them, because I wear,I watch, I read kindle books,
yeah, and they're like, daddy,we found you this.
Have you read this yet?
It's like needful things from1991.
I'm like no, I haven't readthat.
But it's this huge tome of aphysical book and I'm so used to

(51:18):
reading kindle and I'mrediscovering some of the joys
of physical book, also some ofthe hassles, but mostly the joys
, right, yeah.
So yeah, there's somethingprimal and visceral about that.

There's something special about when you're
reading a book, turning the pagelike what's on the next page.

And then even be able to go back and be like okay
, three pages ago, back andforth and such.

We're just in a world of endless streaming and
scrolling.
But that's why I encouragepeople to write stuff down
because it makes it special andunique from everything else when
you write it down.

Yeah.
So that's celebrating everysuccess.
I'm all on board with that.
What's rule number four?

It's the hardest one which is input goals versus
output goals.
Let's talk about it, and youknow this is one that I
certainly in my business careerI got pretty good at, but I
never really applied this intomy personal life or my certainly
not my health process.
And so, essentially, inputgoals versus output goals, an
output goal or metric isbasically it's something you

(52:13):
don't have direct control over.
So I tell people I I don't havea goal weight.
I've never had a goal weight.
Whenever I've lost weight inthe past and I have a few times
in various programs, usuallywith some form of restrictive
eating diet, I always had a agoal weight or a goal specific,
and I have not had a goal thistime.
When I first started, myhighest was 650 pounds.

(52:33):
I lost the first 50 pounds withno GLP.
It took me a year and this isgreat.
I mean, it's the first time Ihad lost weight in a long time
but it was a struggle, to saythe least.
I was, I was fighting my bodyconstantly and I knew I wouldn't
be able to keep it off.
So I started with my doctor ona GLP at 600 and he asked me if

(52:54):
I had a goal weight and I saidno, and I even knew early on I
didn't want to have a goalweight because I didn't want to
set myself up for failure again.
He's like well, what way wouldyou be like happy at what would
be be like okay for you?
I remember saying, as a stretchgoal, 400 pounds and like if I
got to 400, that'd be prettyamazing because at that point
when you're 650 or 600 pounds,at that moment 400 is a, that's

(53:18):
a lot.
I mean, that's a lot to lose.
But, as I've gone, I don't havea goal weight.
I cannot and I don't care whatanyone says.
You cannot control the scale.
You are not AI.
You cannot get in your scaleand program a number.
So I don't set goals about thescale.
I don't set goals about ifpeople notice I've lost weight

(53:38):
or how I look.
I don't have goals aboutclothing size or anything like
that, and I don't have dates foranything either.
Instead, all my goals arethings I directly can control.
So my goals are things like whatam I eating?
How much am I eating?
That includes things likeprotein.
How much sleep am I getting?
Water, movement, my walking, amI in the gym?

(54:00):
Whatever we joked at thebeginning, I don't do cardio, I
mean I walk a lot.
I don't consider it cardio, butI don't like get on a treadmill
.
I don't get on a stair climberor whatever.
If someone's out there, thatdoes it more power to them.
But if you think that an houron the treadmill beats an hour
lifting weights, then you aresetting yourself up for some not
fun things in life.
But my goals are about thatstuff because I can actually

(54:22):
control that my weight's goingto be whatever my weight's going
to be actually control that myweight's going to be whatever my
weight's going to be.
People are going to saywhatever they're going to say.
My clothes are going to fit,however they're going to fit.
But if I am setting achievablegoals that are sustainable
around everything else, I knowthat I'll have success on the
scale I have.
I have, so I weigh myself everyday.

(54:43):
I have for the last three years.
I stay the same or gain weight80% of the time.
So eight out of 10 days it'squote unquote unhappy news on
the scale that I do not careabout.
There's only been one day inthe last three years where the
scale upset me.
It was actually two weeks ago.
There's only been one day wherethe scale bothered me and it's

(55:06):
just data to me, and I'veencouraged people not to put too
much emotion in the data.
Um bothered me and it's justdata to me, and I've encouraged
people not to put too muchemotion in the data and the
reason it bothered me a fewweeks ago after all this time
was because my I'm dialed in oneverything.
I weigh, measure and trackeverything.
I I'm probably 90 accurate onmy calorie intake, the other 10
or if I'm like going out to eator whatever, and you can only

(55:26):
estimate.
But I mean I weigh, I like,measure how much pepper I'm
using, just so I know what mypotassium intake is.
I'm hardcore and I wish Ididn't have to do that.
I need to do that.
I didn't lose anything the firstthree months on a GLP-1.
I had to be at a higher dosage,but I also started weighing,
measuring, tracking around thatsame time.
Anyway, there was a day a fewweeks ago where I gained three

(55:50):
pounds and I know my body sowell now that I can pretty much
predict my weight the next daybased on what I eat or drink and
my weight went up and I couldnot figure it out.
I'm like this makes no sense tome.
And then I realized I got somenew little protein snack, like
protein ramen noodles, whateverthat I tried out and it had like

(56:12):
a ton of sodium and I forgotthat I I mean, I tracked it, but
I forgot the next day I'd eatenit and so, of course, the
weight drop.
But anyway, the point is thisif you set goals for things you
can control, the outputs willtake care of themselves.
And that doesn't apply justwhen it comes to weight loss,
that applies to everything inyour life.

We are 100% aligned on that.
I think you know that that'sliterally what I talk about all
the time in the show is tracking, measuring, micro goals process
, the whole stoic philosophy ofthere's so much noise in the
world that you can't do anythingabout, so why even worry about
it and control what you can?
It world that you can't doanything about, so why even
worry about it and control whatyou can?
It's interesting you mentionedhow you need to do the tracking,
and I think it's a good way tolook at it, because people

(56:52):
always ask like do I have totrack my food, or how long do I
have to do it?
So first of all, step one, justdo it and see what comes of it
before you start to judgewhether you're going to like it
or not, Cause I think a lot ofpeople have misaligned histories
when it comes to tracking andit depends on the method and the
friction level.
But then secondly is you canvary the precision level of this
stuff and you are trying to geta goal to happen as efficiently

(57:15):
and I'll say quickly, but notquickly as in you're like
desperate to lose weight.
It's more of you want to beefficient about it and make it
meaningful and have momentumbehind it.

If I'm going to do this stuff, I'm going to make
it count.
I mean, if time'm going to dothis stuff, I'm going to make it
count.

I mean, if time's going to pass, I might as well
do my best during that time.
Just like you know, I alwaysuse the budget analogy.
It's like if you're going tosave for that big Europe
vacation that's going to cost 20grand, you're going to have to
find that money somewhere andsock it away and track it and
like know you have it before youhave to use a credit card.
So where GLP-1 is a tool,tracking is a tool, the scale is
a tool and it's all just data,right?

(57:47):
It's funny you mentioned theweight going up and down,
because that's one of thebiggest hangups for so many
people and the dirty littlesecret for people I'll say
evidence-based coaches who aretrying to help people with
sustainability is you're almostnever going to hit the goal
weight if you set a goal weight.
That's the problem.
In other words, coaches thatlike come up with an exact

(58:08):
weight and then you hit it inthe exact amount of time.
I'd have to look at how thathappened.
But there's something extremethat happened in there.
There's some some restrictivething that happened is, at the
end of the day, I would say,half my clients, they might have
, they might have a goal.
We'll say, okay, let's, let'sput that in there.
But let me tell you there'sother things that are more
important and hopefully, withintwo or three weeks, they come
back to me saying, yeah, youknow what?

(58:29):
That really isn't as important.
I'm feeling strong, you know,I'm lifting more weights, I have
more energy, I'm sleepingbetter.
Those kinds of things are, likedeeply meaningful.
So, from your perspective,doing all of these practices
which we didn't even get to likewhat does your lifting look
like?
What does your walking looklike?
That's fine.
What are some of the practicesthat people can take away other
than the obvious, in other words, other than okay, everybody

(58:50):
knows they need to lift weightson this show and they need to
walk and maybe get some goodsleep.
Is there anything that sticksout as a surprise or big secret
that Jamie has that he wants toshare?

You know I touched on it earlier, but about
this kind of being boringsometimes, I think the hardest
thing for me to accept,especially early on, was that
and it's actually goes to whatyou were just talking about with
goals it true change in yourlife sustainable, lasting change
will take you years, even ifyou're starting at a much lower

(59:24):
weight than I was.
Whatever changes that you'remaking, it's going to take years
to get them to the point whenthey become second nature.
And early on, even though Imean I didn't lose anything
right away Then I started losingrelatively quickly.
Once I, once I started you knowsome of these steps I realized,
wow, this is going to be afive-year process for me.
This is going to be a five-yearprocess to get to whatever the

(59:48):
end looks like, that I'll haveto sustain at that point, and
for me that includes losingweight, like in my case.
I didn't start weightliftinguntil I got to 550 pounds.
I had to lose 100 pounds tophysically be able to get into a
gym.
Now I did stuff from home usingbody weight and resistance
bands.
I didn't start walking a lotuntil I got to 475 pounds before

(01:00:08):
I started really ramping up thewalking, and so I had to accept
this is going to take a longtime.
Losing weight was going to takeyears.
I knew then I was going toprobably have to have skin
removal, which was going to takea couple of years of surgery
and recovery.
And once you accept that thechanges you're making are not to
get to a certain number by acertain date, there's a freedom

(01:00:30):
in that, there's a freedom inyou're taking the pressure off
yourself.
And so if I were to have anylittle tip or trick that is not
obvious to the start, at thestart for folks, it's that the
fact that it takes a little bitof time or, in some cases, a
long time, is actually a benefitmore than anything.

(01:00:50):
And I used to think, I reallyused to think that all the stuff
that we do, the lifting and thewalking and the eating and the
mindset and the lifestyle andeverything we've talked about
today I used to think that thatstuff at the beginning I thought
that stuff was like the chore,like you have to do all of that
to get to whatever the end goalis, where you're going to be

(01:01:13):
healthier and happier, and Ireally have come to believe that
all of that stuff like you know, the journey is a destination
kind of thing.
It really is.
The fact that I can just get upright now and walk to my car
and go to a park and walk and goto the grocery store and just
go hours without sitting down,Like that's better than any

(01:01:36):
number on the scale, that'sbetter than any perceived result
of this.
So why would you put yourhappiness on hold?
Why would you say my happinessis determined by an outcome
instead?
Except that happiness can comefrom the things that your body's
allowing you to do now that itdidn't allow you to do a week

(01:01:57):
ago or a month ago or a year agowhich is like 99.9% of your
time on this planet.

Philip Pape (01:02:03):
Yeah Right, if you think of it that way, an outcome
is fleeting.

Jamie Selzler (01:02:08):
Yeah, yeah, that's so true to be happy, and
and that doesn't mean that youdelay your happiness your
happiness can come from findingjoy in the things you're doing
right now.
Yeah, and I find joy ineverything.
I find joy in talking to youright now.
I find I find joy in allaspects of my life because I
feel like I cheated death.
I mean, I really I cheateddeath.

(01:02:30):
And for those of you out therelistening, like you know, our
time comes for all of us andit's so much better to live a
healthier, healthier life nowthan to push it off until later,
cause you don't know when lateris ever going to come.

A hundred percent, a hundred percent, and so we
could end on that very poignantnote.
But I want to end on a kind ofa silly question here.
I don't know if it's silly ornot.
Would you ever bulk in thefuture?
Do you ever foresee a time whenyou go after like strength
numbers and bulking and buildingmuscle by gaining weight?

I've thought about that actually more
recently, more in the lastcouple of months than because I
thought.
I thought if I have continued,if I've kept my muscle and
gained muscle.
I know people say when you'rereally big, you have a lot of
muscle.
I think that's probablysomewhat true.
Certainly my triceps are strongas hell because of pushing
myself up all the time, but andprobably my calves and legs.
But I thought about that likeif I have built muscle on a huge

(01:03:23):
calorie deficit, what will itbe like at a point when I'm not
in a calorie deficit and how amI going to be just a total
monster at that point?
And I'm not on?
My testosterone number levelsare fine, but at some point you
know, I'm almost 50 at somepoint I will likely have to do
testosterone replacement therapyif my numbers ever go down, and
of course that will have aneffect in the gym as well.

(01:03:45):
Yeah, I think the short answeris yeah, I could absolutely see
doing some balking at some point, which is kind of wild to even
think about.
But it's a healthy way to lookat it, because some people lose
weight and are terrified aboutregain.
I mean, if I got to 225 or 200,then you know, start packing in
the protein, yeah, for sure.

(01:04:05):
And the carbs, yeah, yeah, youmentioned.
Yeah, you know start packing inthe protein.

It's both, yeah for sure, and the carbs, yeah, yeah
, you mentioned, yeah, youmentioned lifting.
I wonder.
I have an episode coming outabout Ed Cohn, you know,
probably the greatest powerlifter of all time he had, I
think to this date.
He has the biggest strength toweight ratio.
Um, he totaled what was it?
2,400 pounds at at two.

18 or something like insane strength.
So I wonder you know what?

your numbers would look like, even though, even
though you're in your fifties, Iknow we're not talking about a,
you know, 20 year old, almost,almost almost.
And you mentioned TRT too.
That's interesting not to godown a whole tangent, but has
that?
Have you been tracking?
That has actually gone up byany chance, cause you've lost
fat.

Yeah, I don't remember the number off the top
of my head, but I do it every Iget.
I get all my blood work doneevery six months.
Maybe a little overkill, but Ifigured, because I was at such a
bad weight for so long, thatjust better safe than sorry.
So I'm willing to pay a littleextra for the testing.
And yeah, so the the testDostra numbers have gone up a
little bit.
I mean all my health markershave improved.
I mean everything has gottenbetter.

(01:05:01):
I mean everything has gottenbetter.
So you mentioned carbs.
I do eat carbs too, but peopleare like oh wow, you've lost a
lot of weight, you must not eatcarbs.
I'm like, tell that to like thetwo cups of rice I eat every
day.

Yeah, I'm sure.

Or people are like oh, I just fast or I don't
eat carbs.
I'm like, if I were to fast ornot eat carbs, how on earth
could I lift four days a week orwalk seven to nine miles a day
without carbs?
Exactly, exactly, if you're outthere and you're doing a carb
free life.
That's not for me.

It's not no, not for me and most listeners of the
show.
And if if they've heard meenough and they don't want to
eat carbs, they probably stoppedfollowing.
So all right, so with that aswe wrap up is to get out that we
didn't talk about.

I just want to say thank you for all.
I've learned a ton from you,philip, and I really appreciate
the work that you do.
If you ever wonder out there,philip, if you are having an
impact or not, I know that youprobably feel you have a
community.
People reach out, but you'vemade a big difference for me and
the things I've learned.
I'm sure, as I've talked aboutmy mindset change and my rules,
you probably hear shades of whatyou've talked about in there.

(01:06:05):
I've absorbed a lot of thatstuff through osmosis.
I just want to say thank youfor that and if you're out there
and want to learn more, give mea follow.
I don't do this.
I'm not a coach, I'm not aninfluencer, so to speak.
I don't make any money off this.
I'm really just trying to be anexample for others of one, do
not let yourself get so out ofshape that it becomes almost
impossible to fix.
And two, if you're anywhereclose, you can turn it around.

(01:06:27):
It's not too late.
So give me a follow if you wantto learn more.

Awesome, jamie.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate the kind words.
By the way, it means a lot whenanybody says, hey, this has
changed my life in some way andyou're doing the same, and we're
just trying to exponentiallygrow that impact with everyone
we talk through and to and with.
So thank you so much, jamie,for reaching out initially and
then coming on the show andsharing all this wisdom.
I loved it.
Thank you.

Thank you, thanks for having me, I appreciate it.

All Episodes

How He Lost 340 Pounds with Lifting, Walking (No Cardio), & GLP-1 (Jamie Selzler) | Ep 376

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}How He Lost 340 Pounds with Lifting, Walking (No Cardio), & GLP-1 (Jamie Selzler) | Ep 376