In Moderation
Providing health, nutrition and fitness advice in moderate amounts to help you live your best life.
Rob: Co-host of the podcast "In Moderation" and fitness enthusiast. Rob has a background in exercise science and is passionate about helping others achieve their health and fitness goals. He brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the show, providing valuable insights on topics such as calories, metabolism, and weight loss.
Liam: Co-host of the podcast "In Moderation" and new father. Liam has a background in nutrition and is dedicated to promoting a balanced and sustainable approach to health and wellness. With his witty and sarcastic style, Liam adds a unique flavor to the show, making it both informative and entertaining.
In Moderation
Scotty's Journey: Fitness, Family, and Social Media Stardom
Ever wondered why some TV shows never got the love they deserved? In this episode, we're taking you on a nostalgic journey through the highs and lows of iconic TV series like "Lost" and "Firefly." Together with our special guest, Scotty—a firefighter, paramedic student, father, and fitness influencer—we dissect how network demands can make or break a show. Scotty shares his rise from a modest following to social media stardom, driven by his humorous take on fitness and his advocacy for autism and LGBTQ+ inclusivity.
Scotty and I also get real about our fitness journeys, recounting the battles with weight, depression, and the extreme diets we tried along the way. From binge-eating chili dogs to discovering credible fitness influencers like Greg Doucette and Will Tennyson, we share the raw and relatable highs and lows of achieving lasting health and fitness. We also offer practical advice on balancing demanding careers, family, and fitness goals, emphasizing the importance of supportive gym relationships and the transformative power of authentic social media content.
To wrap up, we dive into the power of authenticity in the fitness world and the highs and lows of managing a social media presence. From the surreal moments of being recognized by followers to handling negative comments, we explore the importance of staying true to oneself. We also debunk fitness myths, share tips for navigating social media trolls, and discuss the absurdity of certain fitness trends. This episode is packed with humorous anecdotes, heartfelt moments, and practical advice, making it a must-listen for anyone passionate about fitness and personal growth.
You can find Scotty
https://www.tiktok.com/@scotty.k.fitness
https://www.instagram.com/scottykfitness/?hl=en
You can find us on social media here:
Rob Tiktok
Rob Instagram
Liam Tiktok
Liam Instagram
Welcome to episode 40, 69, 1, 23. I, liam's got me lost now.
Speaker 2:So for 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, I think I still remember the lost numbers. I mean I got into that show so hard. After season two it's really all downhill but, like the first two seasons are solid.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was heartbroken after after what happened on loss. Yeah, apparently they only had like two or three seasons on this conversation.
Speaker 1:You're lost and lost.
Speaker 2:I get it um so and they had like two or three seasons planned and then the network's like it's doing really well, we need seven. And they were like, uh, we don't have material for that and they're like too bad, it's making money. So they had to make seven seasons and it was kind of a shit show after that.
Speaker 3:But first two seasons phenomenal love, yeah see, is exact opposite of what happened to firefly.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, my heart goes for firefly people tell me that you haven't seen it, I, only I because I hate getting into a show.
Speaker 2:that's only one season and then it's over and I'm sad and I don't want to set myself up for failure.
Speaker 1:At least you got to make the movie.
Speaker 3:Yeah, go to the movie. Go in with the expectation that it's going to break your heart and you'll be just fine. It's worth it, it's space.
Speaker 2:I don't like that. That makes me feel sad. Already Now I'm sad and I haven't even watched it yet.
Speaker 1:It's space cowboys who speak chinese. It's fucking perfect. I can't believe it got canceled. It was such a good show.
Speaker 2:It was awesome. Anyway, speaking of shows, we need to get into things, but first you should probably introduce yourself, scotty, we got the man, the myth, the mustache.
Speaker 1:The thumbnail for this episode is just gonna be his mustache, not just the mustache, I'm down.
Speaker 3:So yeah, guys, uh, thanks for having me on. I'm scotty, um man, I am just some asshole with a cell phone in a kitchen and um who got kind of kind of bored and figured out that I can yell at people about counting their calories. And it resonates with some people.
Speaker 2:And I just start yelling about something and you'll find your audience.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that's what happened is I? I found my way to fitness the wrong way for a long time, my way to fitness the wrong way for a long time, and, um I, I finally kind of stumbled into where I belong. And I want to help people get to where they belong in fitness, because everybody has a place in fitness except v shred fuck that guy oh yeah, I was starting off wrong with the.
Speaker 1:V Shred. Hey, I like it.
Speaker 2:And people were like what's wrong with V Shred? I'm like, oh, you don't even want to get people like us started on that. I'm telling you.
Speaker 3:I Googled his real name and I went through for probably an hour scrolling images of Vince Sant until I found all of the photos that could be seen in a negative light because he has scrubbed the Internet of them. I have them screenshot in a file in my phone for thumbnails perfect yeah, dedication yeah, but um, but yeah about me, if I can. I am a full-time firefighter. Uh, I'm currently in paramedic school full time. I am a father as well. I have four daughters.
Speaker 2:I can't. I have one and I'm struggling like fours Go ahead. It's crazy.
Speaker 3:I've also got cats. We had three. One went missing so we got another one, and then my wife got a raccoon she works with wildlife conservations and rescues and then ended up that cat came home just before I hopped on the call. So we now have four cats and a raccoon. Oh perfect, yeah, so I'm also a combat veteran. I spent 11 years in the Army. I'm a former law enforcement and EM, emt as well, advocate for autism, um and a huge supporter of um. You know, people with eating disorders, lgbtq, plus everybody's included yeah, yeah, everybody's welcome here.
Speaker 2:Everybody's welcome, there we go yeah, I mean, I talked to you a little before. It just seemed like you're just jumping from thing to thing and then eventually you're like social media sounds like a fucking trip. Why not go for that?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, um, my, my therapist will tell you that I I enjoy spinning plates is what she calls it, um professional juggler at this point. So so yeah, yeah, it's been a wild ride. I was telling Rob that I've gone from 700 followers to many, many more in a very short period of time and it's like a fever dream. I am absolutely elated and kind of floored by the amount of attention and positivity that's come from it.
Speaker 1:It's been that your staff has got specifically the mustache.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got, I got tagged in your video 800 times one day, ok, and I could tell right off the bat. I was like, oh, this is going to work on social media. This is going to work extremely well, I can tell. So for anybody who hasn't watched this video, it's obviously do it. But like it's, it's, it's just this great mixture of here's some educational like make this recipe, sort of thing, and also like what the fuck did I just watch, which is everyone's favorite thing, because it's kind of makes you sit there and kind of question just like what, what is going on? And I definitely try to add a little bit of that into my videos just say something off-handling. People go what are you talking about? And all the comments become about that. It's great, so like he'll be like cooking and then he'll just be like up on his fridge, just like sitting there lying down before or just anywhere else, or just something's flying like anything that makes you go huh what?
Speaker 2:and that really, I think, cracks the social media game. You need to start off with something that maybe has absolutely nothing to do with the recipe, it doesn't matter and then just jump right into it.
Speaker 3:It's fantastic my, my, I think, my, I found my. My opening is uh, if it's going to be a food video where I'm recreating some type of recipe, I want to find something that's similar to it, not as a call out, uh, but with the cookie video, right, like I want to. You know, crumble cookie.
Speaker 2:I was trespassed from crumble cookie today for counting all of their fucking calories like and I don't really want to get into like too much of like the social media cracking it, but that's already perfect. When you say like trespassed, like what is people already like? What the hell does that? I mean? I guess I know what that means, but that's such a weird way. Oh, and then crumble and then what is this now? And now you're throwing, throwing something Boom Already, like hooked in, it's great, and then just having little pieces of that throughout the video. It keeps people's attention. It really does Doing a deadlift in the kitchen.
Speaker 2:Perfect, just throwing that shirt off, like, why not?
Speaker 1:Like fuck it Whatever.
Speaker 2:You know, just do some wild shit I'm telling you Hulk.
Speaker 1:Hogan style with the ripping Well.
Speaker 3:I can't.
Speaker 1:These shirts are very expensive I don't Well give it a couple more months, You'll be making as much money as you need. Yeah, maybe.
Speaker 2:For anyone who's watched your videos, they know you have just an absurd amount of fallout gear and that's also like another great thing. People see that they like the game. It's a popular game. You're like oh yes, I'm, I'm, I'm totally in on this. So here's the most important thing of everything we're talking about. So listen, four is good, fallout four is good. But you know, three, new Vegas just has this great storyline in it that I just thoroughly, and you know you've got like Caesar's Legion and like or Kaiser I guess they call them, you know it's it's just you got this.
Speaker 2:You're just, I feel, enveloped in the game where four it's, some of it's just felt so underwhelming like the underground railroad. I felt like there could have been more things there. I just feel a little. It was just like better graphics, a hundred percent. So if you're getting into it for the first time, play four.
Speaker 1:But you know, try go back and play three so, and you always got to do the one intellect run on the original fallouts I've never played one or two I've never even attempted with one intellect, your conversations are literally like uh oh yeah, it's awesome my favorite, try that my favorite is four, because that's what I started on, but only for the graphics.
Speaker 3:I am well aware that New Vegas is a better storyline, so if you can play it and modify it to where it has better graphics, that's mint. My favorite thing about Fallout one. However, now that Rob's brought it up, is the TARDIS popping up in Fallout one. That was awesome. It's there and as you approach it it does the TARDIS noise and it fucks off West. It's awesome. It's like my favorite Easter egg.
Speaker 2:Oh man, yeah, fallout's just a great game. If you haven't played it, what are you doing? Check it out, yes.
Speaker 1:Let's finish listening to this podcast first. Yeah, we need the listens.
Speaker 2:All right, but I guess we could go on to like stuff we actually do and food things and whatnot. So yeah, I mean you were talking about how, like you kind of started off on the wrong side of things and slowly kind of made your way more towards a healthier situation. So you know, talk to me, tell us a little bit about that, like at the beginning.
Speaker 3:So you know, talk to me, tell us a little bit about that, like at the beginning. So I I'm from the middle of America, which is just notoriously undereducated, and I didn't. I was a 20 something year old kid. I didn't know what a calorie was, and much less a macro, and I I was gaining weight, I wasn't working out, I didn't know anything about the fitness world at all, led led to an incredible bout of depression, and I wanted to lose the weight. I wanted to feel good about who I was. I felt like I had this person inside of me, that that I should be, but I didn't know how to do it. And so I realized, after a very, very long stint of uh, just a lot of fucking mistakes, what I tell a lot of people is the catalyst that started my decision-making processes to change was I would wake up in the middle of the night on a specific circumstance where I was so hungry that my body woke up and I was starving myself, and it was three o'clock in the morning. I went downstairs of my home.
Speaker 2:So when you started that I guess it's just to kind of like fill in, like I just want to see, like so did you were just like I'm just going to eat less, and that's kind of what led to that. You were just like did you have a plan at all, or was it just?
Speaker 3:So I got online and I looked up, you know, fitness advice, how to lose weight.
Speaker 1:And you found V Shred. And that's how I found V Shred, right.
Speaker 3:Yep, and so V Shred's dumb ass gets on my screen and he's like I've got a pizza and I've got a salad.
Speaker 2:Which one do you think I need oh?
Speaker 3:and so, like I did the whole thing man, I jumped through his hoops and I paid the dollars and I took his somatotype test.
Speaker 2:Great yes.
Speaker 3:It's on site, so I did all of that. And then in the videos he gives you, it's like move more, eat less, drink, drink lemon water, you know, uh, all the classic stuff all the tea extracts, you know all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but did he go for?
Speaker 3:coffee enemas on the coffee enemas yeah, not yet he's not that desperate, but give it time.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so we were just kind of like you were, just like I'm just gonna eat less food. Like, is that kind of?
Speaker 3:and so I would. I would eat less, and then, of course, that led to what I know now is the hunger hormones just spiking in the middle of the night and I would get so hungry. Uh, in this specific scenario, I went downstairs to my kitchen and I cooked in the middle of the night and I made a chili dogs, right it's, and I ate 18 chili dogs to make a bun or just like with the bun, to make things worse, just make sure I got sick after number 12 and went back for more.
Speaker 3:And then then I and again this is four o'clock in the morning Now I went on a run. I was like, oh, I did, I'm bad now.
Speaker 2:You hit that. Oh, I fucked up.
Speaker 3:Let me fix it. And so I went on a run, and when running at a stark 300 pounds, I was in pain the whole time, and so I would run and run and run until I got sick again, and then I didn't eat for a few more days, and that's when I realized, oh, I have a problem. Um, so I started trying to find people that I could trust in the fitness world, and, um, then I became a police officer, which was wild, uh, because I was overweight.
Speaker 2:I went from cable guy to cop and um, so first you were in the army and then you went, and after that, yeah, yeah, so a little bit all over the place.
Speaker 3:Okay, uh, yeah. Again, my therapist would tell you that I've chased trauma, I've been on, I've been on my own since I was 14 years old, so I've had a lot of jobs.
Speaker 1:Um I can tell you you chased trauma just because you went on social media.
Speaker 3:Fast. Yeah, I'm a glutton for punishment. So, yeah, I became a police officer, and then I was that fat cop, right, okay. And so there's guys in the departments that are in great shape and I try to take advice from them. But again, I still didn't know what a calorie was, and so I'm going to the gym for three hours at a time. I'm breaking my body down. I'm going to the gym for three hours at a time, I'm breaking my body down, I'm trying to sprint miles, and then I'm going to Whataburger and having a pound and a half worth of cheeseburgers and then going home, and so I was just doing so much damage to my body. And then, eventually, I came across Greg Doucette and Will Tennyson.
Speaker 2:Oh right, I think we all had that time where you find yeah, you'd find greg is screaming at you yeah, you gotta train harder than last time.
Speaker 3:Um, and so I, you know, a lot of that stuff resonated with me. And then I, uh, I left law enforcement and I moved down to texas and I'm losing weight. At this point something is working right. And then I started taking fat burners. Right, I got caught up on that trend. And so you're still losing weight. At this point, something is working Right. And then I started taking fat burners. Right, I got caught up on that trend.
Speaker 2:And so you're still losing weight, even though you're like kind of, your diet was still kind of, let's say, a little hectic.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's what I tell a lot of people is you can do the wrong shit for a long time and still get some progress, right. Yeah. And when people ask me, how long did it take you to lose that weight, it took me a long time because I did it wrong, you know. It took me seven years. You can still do it in in you know a shorter amount of time if you do it the right way, and it'll still take you a long fucking time. So I got to get seven years, though.
Speaker 3:Um and so when I was in Texas, I I became a bounty hunter, and so I'm in a little bit better shape at this point. I can run a mile in like 12 minutes. I'm doing okay. And then I got poached to go to Afghanistan as a private military contractor, and so I'm like, okay, that sounds like great money. What do I need to do to do that? And they have expectations for your fitness levels, and so, for obvious reasons expectations for your fitness levels and so, uh, for obvious reasons, and so I trained so hard to make that happen, I downloaded an app called zombies run, which plays like oh yeah, that got me running right, and so I'm running miles every single day.
Speaker 3:And then I'm eating, uh. And then of course, greg doucette's like lower your fat content, right, eat your fucking carbs. And so I'm eating, uh. Then of course greg doucette's like lower your fat content, right, eat your fucking carbs. And so I'm starting to implement these things I I still haven't weighed out my food and all these things uh, so I do that, I start losing the weight and I I get on contract to go to afghanistan and you have to go through a training, uh kind of train up program for that, and I barely made weight, I mean barely because they went off of bmi and I barely made it. And so I get on contract, but I'm the fat guy on contract, right. And so I'm like 260 and um, we end up mobilizing, we get through Fort Bliss, we get through Kuwait, we go into Kabul, and I couldn't do a pull up, you know. And so I mean 260,.
Speaker 2:You know that's a lot of weight to be carrying. That's still a lot of weight to be carrying around.
Speaker 3:But now I'm surrounded by these freaking operators. Man, these guys are smart and they're tough, they're working out five days a week, they're eating four meals a day and they're jacked Right. And so I'm like, I want to be like these guys.
Speaker 3:So you start asking them, you start trying to get some advice from them. I had a lot of great friends that gave me a lot of amazing advice and helped me with my food choices. I had one guy who was in the hooch next to mine that every time it was time for a meal he'd come and like slap me awake and be like let's go eat.
Speaker 2:And then I'd go to reach for something that's a friend. Oh, he was great.
Speaker 3:He was great. It was really funny because I did this thing where, if we had a couple of days off because I was a contractor, I did this thing where I would I call it time travel I would take like four sleeping pills and see how long I can like zonk, and my roommate would come in and he'd shake me awake. Like Scotty, you're going to miss your meals.
Speaker 1:You need to get your protein in, and so these guys taught me hey, these are some of the healthier habits. Yeah, Teaching about calories In moderation.
Speaker 3:They were like hey man every food, everything you ingest, has calories.
Speaker 3:These calories are made of macronutrients, and one of them tried to break it down for me and I started keeping a log while I was in Afghanistan of my food every day. I would just write down like I had four spring rolls with, you know, tilapia or whatever, and, uh, didn't have a food scale, didn't really have access to those types of things over there. And so when I came home from Afghanistan, um, I was at the height of COVID had just hit right when I got off the plane practically and so I took a job as an armed security officer in a local hospital and wait, wait, wait, wait wait.
Speaker 1:Armed security officer in a hospital.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a few. There's a few Americanisms in here that I think might need to explain this to the Canadian.
Speaker 3:So in a metro like a metropolitan area, big city, most of the hospitals that have an emergency department have on site security personnel and so I didn't have like a vest on or whatever, but I did have the gun and the taser and all the you know.
Speaker 1:You had a gun and a taser in a hospital.
Speaker 3:Oh, and it was well warranted. You know, there's a, there's more than more than one hospital in our city that has armed guards and more than one of them have had shootings, and it's it's America, violently American. And so I mean, I took, I took that job and I liked that job. I really did, because the hours were good, the pay was fantastic and uh. So I stayed at that job until I became a full-time father, uh, by myself, um and so, once that happens, I had to switch jobs.
Speaker 3:But during that time I had a gym membership. At the gym that was connected to the hospital, and there was this. There was this guy there who was built like a fucking silverback gorilla, right, and this guy was scary looking. And, uh, I'm, I'm just some a-hole that's working out in, uh, an oversized t-shirt. And again, greg Doucette, will Tennyson, I'm falling down the rabbit hole. I'm, I'm, I'm trying everything these guys are talking about. And so this guy, jake, he comes up to me and he was. He was like, hey, we need to talk. I was like, oh God, this is going to go great. Ok, man, what's up? And he was like, he just stared at me for a second and I swear to God, he's like be here tomorrow at two o'clock and I was like okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:All right, and I thought he was going to murder me because it turned out I got into a fight on the playground Right. I found out after that conversation that his fiance worked at the front desk and I had flirted with her once and I was like, oh, he's going to kill me.
Speaker 3:So I showed up. I showed up the next day at two and he, he tossed me some weight straps, you know, some lifting straps, and he was like it's going to work out in. And I was like awesome man. And we were gym partners for a year, you know, and he taught me so much, he was so strong, and I asked him pretty early on I was like Jake man, what do you do for work? He's like I'm an IT.
Speaker 2:I was like I always love that. It's always great for no reason.
Speaker 3:You just type in like a motherfucker huh, I've broken seven keyboards to replace them.
Speaker 3:Right and so. But at that time I was like, all right, now I'm getting a grasp on these things. I started meal prepping, now I'm getting a grasp on these things. I started meal prepping and I still struggled at that point in my journey with binge eating, and I would be on the wagon for the longest time. I would feel the progress, and then I would make a mistake, I would do something that did not get me closer to my goals.
Speaker 3:Um, and being a full-time single dad was really hard as well, and so I left that job, I left that gym, and I moved to a suburb uh, out here and ended up becoming a police officer again. Um, and that that sucked. Being a cop sucks, and that that sucked being a cop sucks. And. But what that did is you know, now I've got a little bit more money coming in and I can afford to prep my meals. I am under no misconception that being able to stay on track with fitness Is in the same boat as financial freedom, right? Um? And so I got to a point where I could afford meal prep containers and afford to buy chicken in bulk, and so, again, I'm not weighing anything.
Speaker 3:Yet I'm just, I'm. I'm literally making a bunch of chicken and I'm splitting it up to portion sizes right.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you have just like the standard things like your chicken, some type of vegetable, some type of whole grain, whatever it is, you know you can't, you don't necessarily need to weigh everything for that, because you know if you don't get that, what are you going to get? Instead, you're going to go to probably like fast food or something like that local. Um, I get people at work asking me about you know things like weight loss and whatnot. I'm like one of the easiest things it's just prepping your food, even if you're not weighing things out, even if you're not like tracking everything, just making it at home, because a lot of them will come in and I'm not judging, although like order some like big cheese steak type, like 12 inch, like foot long thing, and I'm just like you know, hey, that's, don't get me wrong, but like that's a lot of calories.
Speaker 3:And so that was what I found, moving forward with stuff. And then I started finding things like Liam, like Coach Adam right, who are telling you know, it's OK to start small, it's OK to prep one meal, it's OK to do meal prep, and so that's when I started changing some of my viewpoints on these things. And, um, not to say that I don't struggle with binge eating still, I still go to therapy for it. But once I started tracking these calories, once I figured out what the fuck is a BMR or a, a TDE right, and then I started, you know, I started absorbing this information and then I got obsessive about it.
Speaker 2:That can definitely happen.
Speaker 3:It was a slippery slope very quickly, and what I haven't talked about on my channel yet, when I intend to, is the social fallout from becoming so just dialed in on these things where, meticulously, you're upsetting people, right, when you go to your friend's birthday dinner and you bring your own food, or you go to a cookout with your family and you bring your own food, it hurts people's feelings. Food it. It hurts people's feelings um and and so you feel vindicated in the moment, but it doesn't help relationships which are more important than calories.
Speaker 2:It's really tough to walk that line, because you kind of go from this place of like, oh maybe I don't care, I'll just do whatever. And then you find something that works and you're just like, okay, I have to do this this perfectly. And you it's easy to get obsessive about it you see that progress and you keep what you wanted, to keep going. So you're just like I can't get off track ever and my that's my.
Speaker 3:My training changed so many times as well. You know, I went from being obsessed with being strong Right, I wanted to be the strongest person that I could be and then I went to OK, that's over, I want to be as skinny as possible, I want to feel good with my shirt off. I don't. Well, you know I. And so when I started restricting those calories, I'm like, ok, I'm doing the research and I'm sitting in front of my computer and it's telling me caloric deficit, caloric deficit, okay. So I look up that, what is a caloric deficit? And it's like it's literally the only way you're going to lose weight. And I'm like, okay, so count, count your fucking calories. That's where that started, was right there. And so I started weighing my food and I realized the portion sizes, the serving sizes of things are asinine.
Speaker 2:So according I looked this up according to the in America here, because it's in other countries it's like those serving sizes will be per like 100 grams, which makes sense, but here it's supposedly, according to the FDA, supposed to be what an average person would eat in one sitting, which is kind of absurd because you know it was. I think they just changed ice cream. It used to be like a third of a cup was a serving, which I'm like. Who?
Speaker 1:what just use metric already?
Speaker 2:but even if we use metric, we still we would still have serving sizes as two cookies, like I'm telling you we still do like it is.
Speaker 3:When you start looking at serving size, yeah, I can get a little sad yeah, and, and so when I started doing that, I I started looking at like one of my favorite foods, oreos right, low oreos. But then I start looking at like, okay, oreos are like 53 to 55 calories a piece, holy cow right, there's no shot, I'm not eating a whole sleeve of oreos. Um. And then then again I'm coming across stuff with you in it, man, that's talking about like, okay, we don't restrict, we replace, we don't take away, we add two. And so that's when I started doing that.
Speaker 3:Um, and then, uh, you know, you run into life problems and you end up kind of stumbling into where you're supposed to be my youngest daughter, to be my youngest daughter. She's five now, but when she was three she had a seizure out of nowhere, right, and freaked me out. I was not medically inclined at the time. She almost passed away due to this medical event and it turns out that she's got tumors in all of her vital organs and her brain and her heart and all these things that cause these problems. And so at that point in time I was like, okay, here's the catalyst for change. I need to be as fit as possible, I need to be as smart as possible to keep my kid alive for long Cause if I can, if I'm, if I'm around and I'm smarter and I'm healthier, I can move quicker, uh, then I can do this, right.
Speaker 3:And so I started actually weighing the food out, I started actually tracking the deficit and, uh, you know, understanding what my body is capable of and changing my training and doing more cardiovascular training just for the purposes of being able to move my body, not to burn the calories, instead of being so in in depth about what I looked like it was what I could do, and that changed so much for me. It helped my mindset so much and this is also in conjunction with therapy, you know, um, so it's, it's been a wild ride, but all of that, uh, to be said, that's with that type of training and that consistency came with the physique. I chased the physique for so long that and I never got it. It was when I changed my mindset as to what, what I was training for, right, and so I ended up going to EMT school and I didn't grow up chasing fire trucks, um at all. And my, uh, my now fiance I call her my wife Uh, you know, her dad is a fireman, just a fantastic mustache, and we were on a family.
Speaker 1:We're on a family vacation. That's the number one qualification for firemen is fantastic mustaches have to have it.
Speaker 3:We, uh, we were on a family vacation and he turned to me and I think he had maybe said like six words to me at this point in our relationship and he's a very gristled man, salt of the earth type, and he turns to me. He's like you look like you can carry a couple of people that up a burning building. And I was like maybe he was like, why don't you apply? And I was like, sure, and I did, and I accidentally got hired that's the way I put it and I made it through the academy. I tore my shoulder, I tore my knee. I just came off of a knee surgery about 12 weeks ago.
Speaker 3:Because of it, and so, but because of the training right, because of the, the nutritional choices that I made, my body was able to able to do that as well. And so now I have this awesome opportunity to not only give back to the, the community that built me Right, which is the personal trainers and things in this city. I can also be that paramedic or that EMT, that fireman that showed up on my daughter's call and saved her, that guy ate his fucking wheaties that morning, right. And so I now have an opportunity to do that too. And so now, with the social media space, I have an opportunity to be that bridge that gets you over the v shred thing Right, and into people like Liam, like Rob, like TNF, and over all the bullshittery Right. And that's why, like I hate the paywall thing Right With the V shred like, I'll give you this information Just jump through my 30 second quiz.
Speaker 3:For seventy five dollars at nineteen, ninety, nine a month. Eat a dick, so. But that's that's where a lot of the hatred comes from, and it's uh. That's why I did that. That Monday video that I posted of like this is boring, right, to be consistent and successfully consistent. It is boring, right. I didn't talk in that video. The only thing I said was it goes in the bowl, and that was on purpose, because I wanted people to see. This shit is boring, like I'm eating lunch by myself, I'm eating snacks by myself, I'm going on runs by myself.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's lonely it doesn't have to be, but sometimes the decisions you make are going to be hard, right going to be hard, right, I would say, I think being being healthy, you know, and just eating overall it's so tough because, like you're talking about, like v shred, these people they have a lot of money. Like v shred it's not just him, like it's a whole company.
Speaker 2:Like behind him and all these people. It's. It's pretty much the same way. Where they have a lot of money and they have a, they I'm sure the analytics they have have to be ridiculous in terms of like targeting people who are new. They have a lot of money and they have they. I'm sure the analytics they have have to be ridiculous in terms of like targeting people who are new.
Speaker 1:They have an amazing marketing team they really do.
Speaker 2:They're like liquid death. They got great marketing, they, they know who to target and it's. It's really unfortunate because you know, for those people that are new, it you want something exciting, right, like, don't you want something that's like new and like you're like you want something, you hear something that's like revolutionary that will change your, your, your thought process.
Speaker 2:You're like that's the one, the one thing you were missing the, the one yeah, yeah and I get a lot of people ask me that in comments on like dms, like I have, this isn't like what's the thing I can do. I'm like can't. It's. It's tough because it's kind of just overall, like similar shit. It's just like yeah, that's why I say like add more of this and that you know, limit these things, don't eliminate them or drive yourself crazy. It's. It's kind of boring, like I understand.
Speaker 3:I get that it's kind of boring, and that's why the broad generalization of count your fucking calories and that like that. Right, there is the baseline. If we understand what a calorie is right, we understand that one gram of protein is four calories and we understand that carbs, the big bad carbs, are also four gram or four calories for one gram. They're not so scary, right it? You know? And when people, when people hear that the reason why keto works so quickly is that you lose water weight, because you know it makes sense, but they don't want to, you know, accept that because they've heard from hundreds of people that they've lost 30 pounds.
Speaker 2:Yes, we've gone over this before, where testimonials are far more powerful than anything else. Like you see, and that's the, that's the V shred stuff Like, look at this person, they lost all this weight. That you have an image in it, right, an image says a thousand words. Right, like you, you see something like, oh, that I want that. And so I tell people yeah, like you know, we'll cutting out an entire macronutrient help you lose weight. Probably, I mean, if you cut out all fat, you'd probably lose weight too. Like you know, are you going to do that for the rest of your life? It's not, it's not so much fun. So, yeah, you were saying those. And then you know fat has nine calories per gram. So there's, you know, and that's why, know what's low fat.
Speaker 2:You want to make sure you have enough fat to you know for proper hormone functioning obviously that's important, but you know your liver doesn't fall into your ass yeah, like there's bodybuilders, you know they go on full, full on prep mode and they've got like 30, 20, 30 grams of fat in their whole day and like, yeah, that long term isn't going to be, isn't going to be ideal for your health, but like you know. So counting your calories, I'd say it's, it's very helpful for some people and I think, um, it's especially can be really helpful at the beginning. I think it's the most helpful at the beginning when you start counting calories, because that gives you an idea. Like you were saying, when you started off, you didn't even know it. You're just like, oh, food, like I don't know, I'll just eat this. But having counting your calories for just like a week, because most of us eat the same shit like every day.
Speaker 2:I don't know about you guys, but I eat like the same things over and over. So like you track that, you're like oh okay, so I know generally how many calories are in this and so you know, I don't know counting your calories for the rest of your life. Some people might enjoy that, but it can be very tedious.
Speaker 3:So, for me, I have a lot of food anxieties because of my eating disorder, right, and so if I don't know how much is in there, I will tell myself lies, and I'll be like you know. I'll tell myself, oh, that was way too much. You know, you need to back off. And then I kind of on accident, restrict too too heavily. So, okay, when I, when I count my calories, I'm allowing myself the freedom to eat, right? So unless and instead of being restrictive, it's permissive for me, um, and that's again. I found that out through therapy. I I gave up calorie counting for a little bit and I found that I had so much anxiety around food that it was almost debilitating it's so interesting because everyone's so different.
Speaker 2:There are many people that see calorie counting and they start to kind of get what, they start to get worried. They start I see people you know, like you do the thing where you like, save all your calories. What is it? What is it? Uh calorie, uh banking? Or banking your calories where you're just like I'm only gonna eat one meal at the end of the day and I can pig the fuck out and I'm like, okay, like you, yeah, no, that will work long term long term.
Speaker 2:Are you gonna? That doesn't sound you. So you're starving most of the day, and then you're stuffed beyond belief at the end of the day.
Speaker 3:So you're probably shit, yeah, you're pissed off all day and you're cranky and then you end up with you know uh, pain. You're just in pain afterwards and I've done that right. So, like one of my favorite things, uh, before I I got really heavily into therapy, is every year for my birthday I would go to an all-you-can-eat brazilian steakhouse.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't eat all day, right, yeah, right, you save it up and I'd save it up and I would eat until I was in pain, um, but, and I I almost made it like a game for myself too, or I'd be like I wonder how much weight I'm gonna gain from this, and so I would weigh myself before and I'd weigh myself after in my like you know and so, and but that right there, that that helped me as well, because I was like, okay, I gained nine pounds because I ate nothing but fucking steak. Now, tomorrow I'm going to weigh six pounds more than I did before I ate, and then it's going to go away after that because it's not real, right.
Speaker 3:And so that helped me immensely, and that let me buy the scale can fuck you, and that by the scale can fuck you. That's something I brought up in one of my my videos is that I used to weigh myself every single day for over two years and that that ruined me. I would wake up when you had a bad day Right.
Speaker 2:You're just like fuck. Well, this sucks, and it was the first thing in the morning too, because again I heard this from you. You want to make sure you ruin the rest of your day as early as possible.
Speaker 3:Immediately. Again, I heard this from you want to make sure you ruin the rest of your day as early as possible, immediately, and so I would. I would weigh myself first thing in the morning and I would stand in front of the mirror while I did it. So with my clients. Now, if we have a bad body image, we're not allowed to do that. You know. You do not stand in front of a mirror because if you look down and you see a number that you have an expectation for and it's not there, and you look and you're upset about it, you have an emotion about it. You look up, you're gonna project that emotion onto that mirror and we're not gonna do that, and so that's. I did that for a long time. Um, now I haven't weighed myself since I won that fitness competition, uh, and I don't think that the scale matters. I don't. I. I don't have a metric that I have to live by. I don't have an expectation that I hand myself.
Speaker 2:I just have to say like, not worry about I haven't weighed myself in like months and there was a time I went through.
Speaker 1:Oh I weighed myself every single fucking day.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I had the little graph and you know my app on the phone and as you see it going up or down and you're just like checking it all the time. I just check it throughout the day. Has it changed? No, I haven't weighed myself.
Speaker 3:I don't know why I'm checking it um, zoom out to make sure it's going down. Let me double check.
Speaker 2:But, like you know, just letting that go and just you know it's very. It's just like life is for me. It's too short to be worrying about like all these little things so I'm worried it makes life shorter, yeah you just stress yourself out.
Speaker 2:So, like I mean just implementing these. Like you know, add, not restrict. Just like add some, you know, more nutritious foods into your diet. Have an idea of calories. I think that's a good idea. As far as people ask me all the time like, oh, how many calories do I need? Like, how do I know exactly? You said bmr earlier, which is your basal metabolic rate. So that's how many calories you burn, existing, like if you were just laying in bed and not do anything and then you have all these other ones. So, like your, your totally daily energy expenditure is all of those things. So it includes, like, the food you're digesting and how much moving around you're doing designated exercise, non-designated exercise, everything. How much you're shouting at people on the internet ah, and it can be very just like stressful.
Speaker 2:Try and figure all that out, and you? There's online calculators that you can plug your numbers into and they'll give you an idea Super generic very generic idea, Like I looked it up and it was like you need twenty eight hundred. I'm like I eat thirty five hundred to maintain my weight, Like that's just a lot of different.
Speaker 3:What I you said something earlier about, you know, counting calories when you begin, right, and that is what most people need for like a week or two. Yeah, exactly. And that's exactly where I want to be is I want to be the gate that pulls people into this and I give them that beginning knowledge and I fucking shoot them that way, right, Because, and most, and I think that I was with americans and everything being shooting, everything, I think you all should know that by now.
Speaker 3:I feel like yeah my, my big thing is I think I'm there because the majority of the comments that I get are, like you know, in the bowl, but also um fall out in the bowl.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how you know? How do I find out what my calories are? Or what is a? What is a macronutrient right? What do you think about keto? And so being able to take these immediate uh practices and and flip them on their head and be like here's what actually works, even if they don't hold on or sustained to counting your calories. Counting your calories is the best way to start. So you have that general idea like you were talking about. So because, again, I didn't open my eyes to any of this until I had a grasp on and so that's where this whole idea came from was like how should I have started? How can I get people to start?
Speaker 1:so when you don't try to do algebra, before you try, before you know how to add, yes, exactly so like when you work with clients, then like what do you have them?
Speaker 2:kind of like, where do you have them?
Speaker 3:kind of start, do you have them just track calories for like a little while 100 yeah, so I when since my whole brand is count your calories when, when I have a client come in, uh, and we have a talk, I'm like, okay, run me through first of all, I do a video call or a face-to-face like tell me about you, because you're not just a number on a screen or a line in the email.
Speaker 3:You're a person, and so I get to know these people and then I'm like all right, so tell me what your goal is. And almost all the time it's my goal is you know, I want to be 185. Okay, well, why 185? Well, I feel like that's when I looked my best. Okay, let's cut out the middleman. You don't want to look, you don't want to be 185. You want to look your best, right? So let's, let's focus on that. Um, these people like I want to feel good in the shirts that I have that I can't fit. Yeah, I want to look, I want to look good in nice clothes. Okay, great, let's fucking work on that. And so I'll ask them at that point Okay, so what does a normal week of eating look like for you, Right? And then they're like well, I don't really know.
Speaker 2:Okay, a lot of people haven't really thought about it yet.
Speaker 3:Like, okay, well, why don't we? Why don't we talk about it? Why don't you go through this next week, okay, and try to get some some steps in, okay, and uh, if you go to the gym, here's some ideas. Just over the next week, I want you to keep track of some of the foods you're eating for me, right. And if you, if you weigh out your food and you track your calories, bring them to me for this week, right. So, uh, and then at the, at the next check-in for the week, we talk about it, because I don't have to shove these people into a gym, I don't have to shove these people onto a food scale, because if we can start slow, then we go longer, right, um.
Speaker 3:And so a lot of my clients get to a point where they're like, okay, well, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I had three of those. I'm like, okay, great, how much peanut butter? I don't know. Okay, let's try to figure that out. And so, uh, a lot of them end up counting their calories because it is a consistent way to lose weight. Um, and I, I also have people who don't want to count their calories, right, and that that is totally fine. I I tell them uh, okay, let's work on one meal a day. Right, not eating one meal a day, but let's focus on one meal a day. Right, not eating one meal a day, but let's focus on one meal a day, and it's only steak meat.
Speaker 2:That's it Now. You'll lose weight. See you later. That's 100%. That's $100.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Carnivore diet yeah, god man. But that's how we usually start, and I was telling Rob earlier, I've gotten just this wide variety of clients. Now where it's? You know, I've got some people that want to lose weight. I have some people that want to max out their army combat fitness test and go to ranger school and all this awesome stuff that I now get to be involved in, and so the training varies widely and sort of the, the, the calorie needs, and so one of my biggest things about, uh, meeting with these clients is I also asked them at the end of the call Um, that's one of my favorite things to do, because it it allows me to learn about these people and and it gives me an insight to who they are, and it also gets them thinking about who they are.
Speaker 3:So at the end of the call, I say, hey, give me three things that you love about yourself. And they always get to. They fucking never get three Right. And so, um, when they get to that third one and they're like, oh man, you really put me on the spot here, I'm really stumped. Yeah, I know, all right, next week you better have that number three Right. And so by the time we get to number three. You know that next week. Ok, great, now let's focus on that one right there, because you found that this week, and so I get a chance to to not only help these people find their fitness goal right, their level of of fitness that they strive for, but I also get to help them with their mental health.
Speaker 3:So one of the things we do on check-ins like hey, what was going on with your stress levels this week? You know you got something weighing on you and you need to get out right. Or what's going on at work? You know, um, is there something that's keeping you from your sleep? Is there anything you need to air out? And I find a lot of the time that that confidential conversation alone in their bedroom with the guy that they're probably never going to actually meet in person, that they can just spew it and they, I can be their punching bag and I can take it and I can shut my laptop and that's the end of it, right. And I needed that when I started. I needed somewhere to be like I fucking sucked this week and I hate myself and I needed somebody to tell me that I was wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you were talking about before, like you know, going to therapy. It's, it's helpful. It's just to be able to just fucking release. And just because you get we all in life man fucking beats you up, you need to be able to just fucking release. And just because you get we all in life man fucking beats you up, you need to be able to just release some stress.
Speaker 3:yeah, sometimes and, and you know, uh, I, by design, I make myself busy. You know, I, I enjoy being productive. Uh, they, they say there's two types of men in this world, of men who have a legacy to live up to and men who have a legacy to build. I feel like I am both the latter, so, so I am, I'm constantly doing something, man, um, but I, I have an amazing support system. Now, you know, I was burning the candle at both ends and I was spinning out, um, but now I have this amazing wife and I've got awesome friends and I have a great community around me that has allowed me to kind of be as successful as I currently am. And, uh, and it's awesome man, I and I've, I've really appreciated where I'm at, especially this past week. I'm telling you it's been crazy, hey look this is my support system right here.
Speaker 1:Well, you got to introduce the cat now. This is Pippin. He's leaving. Oh, he's climbing on my shoulder.
Speaker 3:Anyway, that's awesome we, uh, we have a. We have a raccoon, a baby raccoon right now and her name is Nora um, from the fallout for wife, who got shot in the head, um, but uh, yeah, man, uh's. That's pretty much kind of where I found myself now is I want to be that gateway into fitness for people to be like I want to replace V-shrimp, but the right way.
Speaker 2:The part of the support system. I mean, we've talked many times on this podcast about how how important it is to have some people around you that are supported.
Speaker 3:Because if you have constantly people trying to tear you down, it's gonna be a fucking rough time. Oh god, yeah, it's hard, you know. And and even still, um, just getting into the fitness space on tiktok and those first few posts right where you're really trying to find your footing, and people like man, those guys, those guys fucking cringy, you know, or the people in your life that know you personally, who watch your videos, will poke fun, right, and they're like you're not, you're not that guy, you're not that important. Why do you think people should listen to you? And and that stuff can weigh on you, you know, but the thing is having that, that support system in the background. You don't just have to have those external voices that are telling you you suck, you got the internal one as well. You know, in my most recent, one of my most recent videos, I said that you know, hesitation or insecurities can be a catalyst for change or for hesitation. Right, and what I meant by that is poking at somebody's insecurities can motivate them. It can be a fantastic motivation.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say like it's great to have motivation behind you, but also you can use hate for fuel.
Speaker 3:You really can yeah? I mean, it worked for me. I got divorced. Now look at me.
Speaker 2:I've been divorced as well. This is my wife now. You know we were both, we were and went through a divorce. And then you know, I started social media and oh, I've gotten so much hate. People fucking hate my guts and I love it so much.
Speaker 3:I rock a soul patch just because people hate it and the hate fuels me, I enjoy it yeah, my uh, I uh, I don't know I, I promised myself I was never gonna get married again. You know, uh, I was like it's gonna take a mythical creature, man, um, and then, and then I I matched on a dating website with a lesbian because she was looking for a workout partner and I was. I was not, um, and it worked out and she's, she's the best thing that's ever happened to me. Um, so that's why, like, I get, I get a lot of comments obviously on the videos about the physique, right, and uh, she's, she's very supportive of that. She likes having something she can dangle in front of people, like look what I have.
Speaker 3:But no, when I say that you know, my journey through fitness was rough, but I think it was necessary, I think that all of those nights, or those moments alone, were like it's negative talk and it's it's detrimental.
Speaker 3:And I'm doing the hours of cardio to pay for the binge that I had, you know, uh, I think that those were necessary because the the fractures that that caused and who I was built, who I am, uh, and now, you know, going from a place of learning from, that I can now teach from, and so that's that's what I'm trying to do with social media and I, I fucking love it because I've had so many awesome creators reach out. I've had so many awesome just messages. My message request box is full on Instagram and Tik TOK, um, and I try to get to them. I really do, but I'm so busy and it's like, hey man, I want you to know, like one guy he's a, he's a veteran told me that, uh, he had gotten out of the army and then he had moved, uh, to be closer to some of his friends, but he still felt alone. And uh, he, he wanted me to know that my videos are making some people laugh, but they're keeping some people alive.
Speaker 2:And I fucking cried when I read that, um, and so, like that stuff hits you in the chest and that absolutely people like send you messages like you're the first person that has told me like it's okay for this, like it's okay to do this, like I've always been told this and you know, I'm just like I'm I'm happy for them, but I'm also so sad that this is like a video like that's the first time that you were told this is OK. Isn't on TikTok, that's?
Speaker 3:why at the end of every one of my videos now, I try to have something right, something that resonates with me, that I can give to other people, and sometimes it comes off as a little heavy handed and sometimes I feel a little weird standing in my kitchen giving a motivational speech to myself.
Speaker 2:If you're not feeling a little weird on social media, you're not doing it right though.
Speaker 3:But, I fair, I think I know that it's going to land with somebody right, right, exactly, and that's what matters. I have a, I have a very close friend of mine who I hadn't spoken to in probably six years of military, so I can say close friend, but close friend removed. And so he reached out to me and his his name is dakota, and we served together and he was very heavy, I was very heavy, we were the fat guys, right, and so, um, he, he moved up north and I hadn't heard from him in years. But through me making a, uh, fitness tiktok or a fitness instagram page at the time, uh, which was made on a very weird date, um, I ended up, um, I got a message from him years after I made that page and he was like hey man, I want you to know that I've lost 85 pounds and it's because you posted this and you started making your meal preps and I started making them, and so this guy was shadowing me for a year and a half, two years, and I, I had no idea, right, and so that that right there kept me going, right, and so I, I still got a lot of hate, right, I still got a lot of people like hey man, why are you posting this stuff?
Speaker 3:You, you seem like you're going to get shit for it. You need to stop. And uh and I, I made the decision very quickly that if I stopped because of the the people who wanted me to, that they were going to win. Fuck that. Um, I mean that's. That's the bottom line.
Speaker 2:Those that can't build themselves up, tear others down, Like that's the bottom line. Those that can't build themselves up, tear others down. That's what they do. I'm like, hey, that's fine If you want to make your life about that awesome. I don't really give a shit.
Speaker 3:And the people who made fun of me early on, the people who were like hey, you're just a fat guy, why are you going to the gym? Hey, why are you posting this stuff? You don't know what you're talking about. Those those people, very quickly and very recently, have reached out and asked for advice and and it's it's those moments where I really find out what I'm made of, because there is a moment where I'm like you know what, mother, absolutely, because, because everybody has a place in fitness, absolutely I'll help. Um, and it's it's a humbling experience to to know that I've proven to myself that I can do it and that I'm that guy and that I wasn't wrong. You know, I wasn't wrong about who I was.
Speaker 2:I mean absolutely. I mean we all get that when you start social media, like I was like man, I'm posting some stuff. This is just. This is weird, I don't know. Like people it's probably not going to land at all, but fuck it, I'll just throw it out there. And the success I've had on social media like far beyond anything I would ever expect. But like I was just like I'm just going to do my thing and fucking enjoy it like it's my, my wife is currently in college for, uh, social media marketing, for sports specifically.
Speaker 3:Um, her, her dream job is to work with the yankees, uh, but she's a huge derrick jeter fan, um. But so whenever I got traction on that first video that you stitched, um, she was like, oh my god, this is gonna blow up. And she was like, oh my God, this is going to blow up. And I was like, no, it's not, it's not, it's not a huge. She was looking at the analytics. She's like it's going to blow up. And then, I'm not going to lie, whenever you saved those videos about the pizza, I fangirled first of all, and then I fucking panicked because I was like I hope he knows that the first video is satire, right, the chicken video. I was like I hope he understands that. So I sent you a message. It's like hey, the chicken thing's a satire thing. Um, I was like, fuck, I hope he sees that.
Speaker 1:If, if, if Liam knows anything it's satire.
Speaker 3:So I was working at a baseball game. As an EMT for my fire department, I was working at an event and I actually got recognized twice. Two kids separately ran up to me and one was like are you Scotty K Fitness? I was like, yes. He's like, what are you? What are you doing? The other one came up and just lats, spread it at me, which was fucking awesome, that's great.
Speaker 3:But I didn't understand what was going on. And it's because you had stitched those videos and I didn't have service on my phone because I was at a baseball game, you know. And so my wife was like, hey, she was like texting me and I hadn't gotten my phone back up on the network yet. And so it was really funny because the medic I was working with was also a bodybuilder and, uh, she was sitting in the designated area we were supposed to be in and she saw this happen back to back Right, and so I had walked over there and she's like what the fuck was that? And I was like I was like, uh, I, I honestly I don't know, let me find out. And so that's when I found out you'd stitch my videos and then it wasn't loading. Oh dude, the amount of like pit in my stomach. I was like, no, but it worked out. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3:I was grinning ear to ear when that happened and since then I've had so many really awesome creators like follow me and reach out and like offer advice and offer, you know, their support to the channel and stuff. And uh, I, I again, kylie, my wife. She was like hey, you're probably going to clear a hundred K this week. And I'm like that's never going to happen. That's not going to happen. And she's, it happened. And she was like hey, you're going to hit 150 before you. And I was like no, now we're at 190 and I'm about to shit my pants.
Speaker 2:Listen, I could. I've been, you know, I don't know like I spent like two years or something. I've been kind of just messing around with social media just trying to figure out, like you know as much as I can. I still don't know. One fully understands that you know. You just kind of throw shit out there, but you know, trying to figure out what works. And I mean I'll tell you right from the start. I saw your video. I was like, oh no, that's going to work, that's 100 percent going to work. There's no, there's no ifs, ands or buts about it. It's, it's weird, it's out there. It's people want it's yelling encouragement. Yelling encouragement helps a lot, because people kind of I don't know if I want to say they want to get yelled at, but they've been yelled at in a negative way for so long. Getting yelled at in a positive way is kind of this just reverse, bizarro world thing that is enjoyable. And so when you just.
Speaker 1:Is that an American thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm tempted to say yes. And so a lot of these fitness people are just kind of like dicks, like a lot of people in the fitness industry are just kind of assholes, and so you know to have someone who's actually you know is is is promoting positivity and and try and and also being weird and wacky and like fun, like, like it's, it's, it's a hundred percent.
Speaker 3:I wanted to have. I wanted to have the contrast of character as well, right? So, like this serious mustache guy who's yelling about calories and myths and you know, pay attention, and the knife and the knife and lands well with the military. Uh, you know a portion of Tik, tok and um, and so that brings people in and I try to time the pay attention to about the time that people try to scroll, and so you get this stark contrast of the mustache man. Right, the fucking. I'm mad about something, but then then it cuts to me being absolutely ridiculous, which is how I am most of the time. Right, if you watch the uh, my wife posts the behind the scenes footage. I was watching some of that. Yeah, uh, that's how I am constantly in the kitchen. I am ridiculous. And so the uh, the jumping from cut to cut and being on top of the fridge and being on top of the counters and stuff, that stuff that I do sometimes, um, but, it's just adding into that.
Speaker 3:So you get that contrast where it's like man, this guy's really what the fuck is going on and, um, it's, it's what you were talking about. Is that subverting the expectation? Um, I'm getting yelled at, but the guy's being nice to me and there's also this weird shit going on.
Speaker 2:It's entertaining, that's. I mean this, this is social media. I see a lot of people I'm like, hey, your information is great, but it's a little slow, it's a little stale. It's a little like people are just they're going to keep going, like you can give good information. Good information and entertaining information are not the same thing. And it's tough to kind of walk that line and I still like try and figure that out, like I want to do something. That's funny. But also people walk away with something like oh, I didn't know that and that will help me going forward. And how did that's? It's tough.
Speaker 3:People. People don't want to learn, they want to be entertained, and so, if you can, mix the two, you have to mix it.
Speaker 2:Like you know, there's this you look at, like the. So, like you know, john Green, like oh yeah. What's their what's their show called? I show there's like size, so tangents, that's like their podcast and they have a bunch of other stuff. I forget the name of it, but like it's entertaining and it's fun and that's where people, I think, learn the most. And finding that area is is fucking tough.
Speaker 3:I think I found it again it wasn't an idea that I had where I was like I'm gonna go yell at my camera, I. I was like I'm gonna make a chicken crust pizza, right, right. And I'm going to do something satirical where I'm going to say, as a skinny guy, right, and I've posted on my, my, my page before about my weight loss, transformation, all these things, uh, I'm going to post that. You know I want pizza but I don't want to get fat, and that is going to catch some attention, right, right. And um, that's going to it's, it's going to cause a divide, right. And so then, while I'm making it, I started getting angry about all this shit that I heard when I started fitness and that's why I was angry in that video and so then that landed and I was like, oh okay, so maybe maybe now I can, I can do something else.
Speaker 3:Uh, that's, that's kind of centric around that and it's it's, it's evolved into what it is now and I I look forward to it. I wake up in in the morning and I'm like that and I put it in my phone, right. Or I'm going on a jog and I come up with an opening line to to something, um, I called a restaurant earlier. Line to to something I called a restaurant earlier, three, four restaurants earlier and asked for a hat for from their restaurant for a video. I'm picking one up tomorrow morning. I love it. I get so excited about this stuff because I get a chance to to be ridiculous and be myself and then take that and then add it to the fitness.
Speaker 2:And I will tell you that, right, there is what it is. It's just like throwing yourself out there and just being honest with with who you are, because there's so much fucking fake shit out there. The V shreds like we talk about so much. That is a character that that is put out there and that people are just like. I just want somebody who's just like fucking real and like I'm you know you see me, I make like recipes all the time.
Speaker 3:I'm like this did not turn out well, like I just I did what. And people like I appreciate that because I tried this shit and it doesn't work. And so I made protein bars right and I started the video with, like we're gonna make low calorie, high protein bars, right, and then they ended up not being low calorie or high protein and they were horrible. And so I was like these, the macros kind of suck on these, four out of ten. I would not. They're still in the freezer. I haven't thrown them away or eaten them. They, they're still there.
Speaker 3:Um, well, now you have food for the raccoon yeah, food for the raccoon. And then, like I'm doing the, the reviews on products, right, which I don't necessarily enjoy doing, um, but I wanted to try my hand at it. And so I got these creatine gummies in the mail, right? Um, I'm not even going to feature them on the camera, they're right here, though. Um. So I got these creatine gummies in the mail and I was like all right, I'm going to make a very fast video, right, because you don't have to make them long, and I. So I wanted to keep it along with my original content. And so I was like hey, some TikTok company sent me some free shit in the mail.
Speaker 2:And so.
Speaker 3:I threw it, you know, and so let's see if it sucks. And it sucked, and so I told everybody don't buy this. And then I ended the video, right. And then I made another video subsequently. Immediately it was like hey, I just made a product video for this. I have to leave it up for three days or they're gonna charge me for this product and I'm not paying for this garbage. Don't fucking buy it. And so that that video there got more views. It was like a 12 second clip that got more views than the original product video did.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm sure the really dumb thing is that people still bought that product from my showcase and I'm like I literally told you not to this morning. This morning, my wife my wife sent me a screenshot of that company's showcase and the video that I made is at the top of their page and they're featuring it. They haven't watched it, but they featured it due to how much money it's made them. Um, which hurts my heart a little bit, but it is a stupid thing, and so, um, that's what I'm trying to do in my product videos as well, is be over the top and genuine and honest, um, and I would love it for a chance to work with echo vision, right, because I love their products, and so when I'm sure you'll get there like.
Speaker 3:You'll absolutely be able to get the option when I worked with echo vision on their t-shirt. They sent me a t-shirt and I was was like I'm in the middle of a workout right now, but another company sent me some free shit, right. And so I rip open the bag and I'm like let's check the quality. And I'm like biting it and like all kinds of stuff. And then I threw it on and I genuinely enjoyed that shirt. I wore it to the date night that night. Uh, that wife and I had. It was a great shirt. It had a bite mark in it, but it was um and so like. It's just trying to be as genuine as I can, because the the consistency of character I think comes across to a lot of people. Um, and that that's my main thing is is, whenever I was starting out again coming through that gateway into fitness, you find all the fake people, you find all the contradictory information, like Jeff Cavalier, athleanx. This is what's killing your gains. Eat a dick.
Speaker 2:Jeff Cavalier. I find a lot of his information is kind of grounded and not terrible, but since he's got this huge following and he has all these people, he has to pay because he's got a huge team.
Speaker 3:he has to make these, these videos that are like this is the worst, blah, blah, blah you know, like it's clickbaity stuff, like you know they have to do in order to get their views and make their money. Well, and the thing is, I'm not, I'm not much of a salesman, right, that's, that's all I don't know. I think that's where I'm going to run into. My biggest problem with social media is I do not push a product, I do not like sales, and so I hate it.
Speaker 2:I hate it so much.
Speaker 3:Working with a company like Echo Vision, you're never going to find me like putting putting a product on something that spins in the middle of my camera, Like hey, guys check this out, it's 20 percent off. I can.
Speaker 2:I can't force myself to say the word use code, liam, to save temporary, like I. Just I hate all of that. I hate even saying it as like a joke.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can't, I can't, and like I would make fun of it, like making like on lives, I would make fun of that, or I'd be like all right guys, welcome back to the stream.
Speaker 3:Like you know, just being that character, because that person, person, that character has been overplayed and remodeled millions of times and so that's why, when someone comes along and they're like this product is shit, people like I like you because you're honest, it landed with a lot of people and so I that's who I want to be, and so I get like on average right now it's like dozens or maybe a hundred like product, like showcase, where it's like hey, try this bra.
Speaker 3:Like, did you actually all sorts of shit, yeah, and so like, but sometimes I'll come across one where I'm like I might use that, but I don't need it, so I'm not going to get that product and then try to tell people to buy that shit. Um, so like I, I I grabbed a food scale off of the Tik TOK shop, right, and that came in the mail and I tried to use it for, uh, making lunch one day and it was ass, like it sucked. Um, and it was uh it, it weighed out my chicken at like 7.8 grams or something to that point, or ounces. And um, then I I put it on my handy dandy food scale that I've used for years, and that one was like, uh, no, it's actually 6.9. And I was like, okay, well, that's never steered me wrong, fuck this thing.
Speaker 3:And so, uh, I took it out of my showcase and I told, I told everybody, don buy this product. And so that's what I want to do if I do any type of showcase stuff. I can't be a salesman, but I know that companies like Echo, vision or like Rise or all these other companies, they need you to perform at a specific monetary level, because obviously it's a business, right, why wouldn't they need that? But I'm not. I don't think I'm going to do that. I don't think that that's something that's in my repertoire.
Speaker 2:No, it's okay, French word.
Speaker 1:It's okay, We'll send you some shirts to fight through.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, man Social media is just a crazy place.
Speaker 3:It's been really cool too. You know, know, I've gotten, like I said, I've got some really cool, cool traction, and being able to speak with some of my favorite creators, like you guys, is absolutely insane Because, like I said, like you guys were part of the trajectory for me, right, and your authenticity fed into my authenticity, right and I think that's the goal as a creator is just be like yeah, we just keep going over the same thing, beating a dead horse.
Speaker 2:But, like man, I'm just gonna be real with you and fuck it like, if you like it, awesome, if not, that's totally cool. Have a good day, peace out. Yes, I'm promoting fucking seed oils and red 40. Have a good one, yep.
Speaker 3:That's why I started. I started linking some of the research in my bio for the fitness myths that I threw out. Right, because you get the, you get the liver kings. They're like. Actually your body runs on lipids, uh, and fats and triglycerides.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, buddy um yeah and you're gonna get a lot of that going forward. So I think you know either either ignore it or use it for more content. That is the way don't like. What I found is like spending a bunch of time, my own time, arguing these people. Fuck that. I'm not gonna do that, but I will take their uh comment and read it for another video. Hey, you're gonna give me free content and you're gonna, you know, boost the algorithm like that's fucking phenomenal. Thanks, bud.
Speaker 3:Please keep watching and hating yeah, that's awesome, uh, and we, so we also made merch, which was cool, right, the country calories merch and and I got a little uh, I got a little uh, vault boy with a mustache, right.
Speaker 1:And the hat that I wear.
Speaker 3:And that's done really well. I had somebody buy a 5X shirt which tells me that somebody started their fucking journey. And I was like yes, dude, I love that. I mean, I'm smiling more because of these things than I have in a long time and I think that that's where I'm at and I'm I'm elated is the best way.
Speaker 2:I can create that place of positivity and just fuck and enjoy it. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think the only divisive thing I've done is the uh, that first video with the cupcake, right? Uh, you know happy pride month and the whole thing in my mouth, oh that. The.
Speaker 2:you know happy pride month and the whole thing in my mouth, oh, that made people mad that'll do it that I've built up enough of a following where it's pretty much just support and I can like do shit like that, but like when you're where you're at where you're, you know you've got a good. Your following's growing, but still early on enough that you're gonna get a lot of fucking hate for that sort of shit.
Speaker 3:I haven't done anything like that since right, because I want the algorithm to continue, but I do support LGBTQ plus communities and the trans communities and all these things In that video. I posted it and it started gaining traction and it started going and going and going and then I found myself for hours in the comment sections.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:And not arguing with anybody, because I, god knows I don't have time for that I was just deleting the hate messages that made it through the filter, and so because if somebody went into that comment section and they felt excluded in that moment and not defended, I would have felt horrible, and so I spent hours until all of them were gone and I didn't get anymore. I was awake for way too long that night and um, and so then, once they were all gone, dude, that video took off and I gained a client from that. That that, uh, I've got. I've got an LGBTQ plus client who, who reached out to me because she felt included because of that video and and so that made it worth it for me and uh, so, more than often, you know, I didn't delete all of them. If there was one guy that was like, uh, you lost me at the end there there, or you lost me with the have, I would just send a bunch of rainbows.
Speaker 2:Uh, oh, yeah, that's what I send kissy faces and rainbows typically but what I will do. What I found is I just say, like before the video ends oh, if you're gonna say something about this, get fucked. And then if somebody comments that I just write get fucked. And people like I can't believe you took this to the comment section and they're just like you know, they just get flamed so and I'm like I enjoy this.
Speaker 1:This is fun, fuck this I just got tired of dealing with the comments all together, so I just got the flag and it's just a blatant statement right there in every video so I, uh, I actually did one of those things that you just talked about where it was like setting, setting the.
Speaker 3:Uh, the expectation for the comment section was the chemicals, oh yeah I included that.
Speaker 2:Oh don't worry, I included that in my video that I will be posting on I, I, I.
Speaker 2:I have to just start off with that, because I know you're gonna say some bullshit about I don't know a food dye of, of artificial sweetener or whatever. It is like I got a bunch of good con, good hate comments from one video where I was just like, hey, hey, mountain Dew, code Red's cool, and people like I can't believe you're promoting Mountain Dew. Oh, my God, all the dyes and this. I was like, oh, thank you, I'll take that one, I'll take this one, I'll take all these. It's great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I did realize that when I started talking about mac, diabetes or celiac or things like that, and so in my, in those videos where I'm talking about those things, I try to remember to end those videos with hey, medical exemptions apply, right, right that's good, um, my, I have a fitness myths three that I have written out that I need to film, but the the second video of Fitness Myths I ended with it's not that complicated. You're not special, your body's not different. Medical exemptions apply.
Speaker 2:And so.
Speaker 3:I had a lot of comments out of that, when there was like thank you for saying medical exemptions apply, or thank you for telling me that I'm not special because my body still works under thermodynamics Exactly, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's tough to walk that line where you talk to people where you're like yes, absolutely like these medical conditions, insulin resistance, all of these things can make weight loss so much more difficult, but at the end of the day, it is still, you know, energy balance if you burn more energy, you're gonna your body has to lose fat or you'll die like. Those are the two options your body burns fat or you die. These are the two options your body burns fat or you die these are the two options it's going to take.
Speaker 3:I I'm I'm trying so hard to come up with a video concept that's not incredibly long or incredibly wordy, that explains why carbohydrates are required for adenosine, triphosphate, right, um and, and why that has to happen in the Krebs cycle with oxygen, and why these things are needed. But I can't figure out how to do it without sounding like a Hank Green video without the product, without the production value behind me.
Speaker 2:But I will tell you that's that's a tough thing, though I will tell you that's going to be difficult because I find on social media the more specific you get, the less views it'll generally get, because you know people, the more general a lot of my videos are very general, just because it reaches a larger audience. If I go into, like here's everything about iron, it's not gonna really hit very well, you know.
Speaker 3:yeah and there's there's there's something to be said about it, like if it's something that is a marketable product. I've seen a lot of guys go through magnesium, uh, l-3 or whatever and that's great, but that's not something that I'm gonna do. I want that broad generalization of like, hey, this applies to everybody, but it is very specific information that's hard to push.
Speaker 3:That's why like I think I think the fallout thing is working really well for me because there's a ton of people that fucking love fallout and I've got look, hey, that t-shirt from the crumble cookie video is a one-of-a-kind t-shirt. You will not find that anywhere else. That is a one for one, and so I I am happy to say that I've bought more fallout shit that is going to be featured in videos soon. Um, I'm working with a videographer here locally to actually do like a uh, an actual like fallout esque fault vibe thing Nice.
Speaker 3:I've got so many ideas, man Um, that I'm I'm really excited about, and a lot of them are food based. If you told me, like two years ago, I was going to gain any type of popularity on social media because of cooking, I'd have laughed at you. Um cause, when the wife and I got together, I was eating like boiled chicken and broccoli and salt and pepper on everything but um you know you use salt and pepper, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well now I mean, that's why, in a lot of my videos as well, when I'm cooking, I'm like season your fucking food. Um like, one of my rules for myself is, if it takes, if it only takes one trip to take my seasonings back to the pantry, I fucking did it wrong. I like, so like, and you know, good food doesn't have to be boring, doesn't have to be expensive. That's something that I really loved about your channel early on was like oh, I've got to buy all this organic, you know the grass.
Speaker 2:I don't care, I'm just going to eat whatever's cheap you know, the grass bed faster raise bullshit, yes, man.
Speaker 3:I don't care, I'm just gonna eat whatever's cheap that's exactly it, and so somebody on my live a couple of nights ago asked for a cheap man's protein haul, and I'm like, yes, I wrote that down on my mirror in the garage. I'm gonna do that video. I'm gonna run into a dollar tree or a dollar general, I'm gonna find some stuff that is gonna cost 25 cents to make a meal for a family.
Speaker 2:Because I get the comments like it would be cheaper at Walmart, it would be cheaper if you got it here and you're like, listen, fucker, I'm trying to help out.
Speaker 3:You don't have to be a dick about it. Yeah, I have found myself in going grocery shopping much more recently, which has been awesome. So, yeah, man, that's. That's kind of I'm sorry to go off on a tangent, but uh, that's the stuff that's the podcast.
Speaker 2:In a nutshell, that's literally just our podcast is just chatting about fucking nonsense and whatever upsets us or makes us feel better okay.
Speaker 3:Well then, let me get this out. I went to GNC to pick up some protein for a recipe to bake with last week and there's some doucher at the counter, right, and I walk in. He's like what's up, boss? I'm like, okay, he's one of those guys. And so I'm walking through the protein bars because Barebell has some new protein bars in there and I don't like going to GNC because I always try to upcharge you. But again, I'm not a salesman, I don't like salesmen.
Speaker 3:So I'm walking towards the protein bars and I overhear him talking to a woman at the counter and she is very clearly a soccer mom. She's wearing athletic gear and she's wanting to get healthier. She's like how do I lose weight? And he goes oh, do you like water? I'm like what the fuck did you just say? And he was like okay.
Speaker 3:So if you take a lemon, okay, and you squeeze it into the water, okay, and you drink that all day I'm talking all day You're going to blast 12 pounds off your body. Do you like cucumber added in there for flavor? The fuck did you just say. And I wanted to come across the counter and knock him upside his head, but I was in uh, my working form, so I so I couldn't do that. Um, and then I wanted to follow this lady outside and shake her like no, but he followed her outside. So I couldn't do that either and I was like it broke my heart because I was like this lady is gonna go drink a bunch of unsweetened lemonade cucumber water and then piss a whole bunch and then wonder why she's not losing weight and then when she comes back, he's gonna upsell her on creatine for women.
Speaker 3:Yep, oh wait until I get my hands on that. My wife wants me to do a product review on creatine for women.
Speaker 2:That's so stupid.
Speaker 3:It's so stupid. But then the guy comes back in and he's like what are you looking for, boss? And I was like I got it, man. And he walks up and he's like OK, and he walked off. So I had a very Ron Swanson moment in a Home Depot. I was very, very proud of that. But yeah, that that. I was like how can I make that into a video? But I feel like it needs to be kind of centric to what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of times these things. They might actually work, because maybe someone is drinking calories and they swap that out, you know, for like water, and then they start losing weight and like, oh, it's the lemon water that worked this whole time.
Speaker 3:And you're just like, oh fuck yeah, if somebody could just explain in a much, in a much finer detail that, hey, it's not the lemon water, it's the fact that you didn't. You didn't slam a 12 pack of Dr Pepper today.
Speaker 2:Instead of that big juice, you had some water.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so whenever I get a chance to to talk to people about this, I end up going on these rants. Like in the army, I taught a lot of classes. I would teach like land navigation, I would teach like tactical combat, casualty care, like life-saving care, and then I would turn around like I'd be in the middle of that class, like all right, so if you get a gunshot wound to your arm, and this is what we're going to do and like, three hours later I'm like and that's why we count our calories, because it's important like, and so I would, I'd go down these rabbit. It was always land back here.
Speaker 1:Um, because so many people are ignorant to this stuff and it was also like the sixth reference to shooting this episode.
Speaker 2:You.
Speaker 1:Americans.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, also, we got a guy that was the military and then police and then security, and then that's fair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:It was. It was very, very middle middle of my life for a long time. When I got on the fire department, they were like you spent your entire life, uh in a badge and uh in a gun belt, why fire? And I was like, uh, solid question. Uh, maybe I'm tired of doing it.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, no, so I'm gonna do social media instead and lie on the floor. It'll work, don't worry. Trust me, it'll work.
Speaker 3:It'll work, trust, um, but no, doing both has been been crazy, um. And then I'm trying to get you know some, some content filmed while I'm doing this stuff, which is why I did that Monday video again, like, hey, you can do fitness, you can do this the right way, and it's really boring and you have to fit it into your life. What I tell a lot of my clients is not to make your life revolve around fitness, but fitness fit into your life, right, exactly.
Speaker 3:And so I, I, I enjoy running because it's something that I was never good at and now I'm kind of good at it, and so, on my lunch breaks, I like to go on a run, or or I walk to help with digestion, or whatever, and so doing that is good for my mental health, but I'm not sprinting, I'm just getting in a couple of miles, and so, uh, you know, I try to, I try to showcase that as well, um, through through those types of videos. And then, of course, like I'm going to coach and I'm cleaning up the gym and I'm making my meal for the next day, and God, it's boring, it takes monotony, it really does. Alright, you guys are going to have to just give me a second here. I'm about to piss my pants.
Speaker 2:We'll finish that.
Speaker 1:I'm keeping that in.
Speaker 2:It's funny.
Speaker 3:If you guys ever need somebody to fucking ramble, I'm your guy.
Speaker 2:That's why our episode I'm'm here, that's why our episodes are already pretty long now you leave him in a room.
Speaker 3:It'll just go on forever let's talk about probably shit that pisses us off oh, yeah, I get I get riled up man and like, uh, it's, it's really common, uh, in like the fire department as well. As you get these guys that are like in their early 40s, that are like I want to get back to what I was high school, and they do. They do the restrictive, like calorie count, like not restricting calories, but they restrict meals and they restrict points right, like, oh, I can have, I can have, one piece of chocolate and that's four points. What the fuck are you talking?
Speaker 2:oh yeah. No, that's like Weight Watchers stuff. I think like Weight Watchers stuff. I think Like Weight Watchers, they basically replace calories with points. People ask me at Weight Watchers I'm like, if you don't like calories and you like points instead, hey, that's the same shit. It's the same shit.
Speaker 3:It's just extra steps, it's extra math and I'm bad at math. I have a calculator on my phone for weights. I can't do math in the gym. It's called plate calculator.
Speaker 2:uh legit, it's got pictures of the weights 45, so I just put it on there, that's um, I don't track anything, I just go in there like I lift, I make sure I push myself hard enough so that you know maybe one rep and reserve, maybe zero, and then just keep just fucking rinse or beat that shit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've. I've been on the same split for four years now and that's something else that I tell a lot of people is like hey, if you find something that works, you know, changing your exercise selection all of the time is a horrible idea, you know uh.
Speaker 2:I've been on the same split. You got to confuse the muscle. You gotta confuse the muscle.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, I'll go to do squats and then I'll do fucking. I'll curl in the squat rack instead.
Speaker 1:Confuse the muscle and piss off the rest of the gym. That's how you do it, right, right.
Speaker 3:No, I've been on a four-day split for almost four years now. It gives me adequate rest. I push myself really hard years now.
Speaker 2:Um, it gives me adequate rest. I push myself really hard. So, um, and again, it's boring. You just find the boring shit that works. I'm like, I do like push, pull legs, and I do the same things, like over and over, and I don't go crazy and it's simple, fucking one of my favorite.
Speaker 3:One of my favorite quotes is uh 90 of success is doing the obvious thing for an extraordinary amount of time yeah, yeah, I 100, I 100, agree with that there you go, yeah yeah thanks for the uh. Thanks for the rating, by the way, on the video you did of my mustache and my split I was like how can I rate, how can I like?
Speaker 2:because I was like the pizza is like that's fine, but like how can I rate other shit? That's stupid and makes people you know whenever.
Speaker 3:I started making the videos I was like what am I good at that I can like not. A lot of other people are like OK, now I'm kind of good at cooking and I'm really good at counting calories and macronutrients and I am good at yelling and I can do the splits in jeans.
Speaker 1:I found jeans that can withstand the splits so you're exceptionally good at growing a mustache the mustache is a relatively new feature as well.
Speaker 3:whenever I decided to get into oh yeah, I didn't always have a mustache it's been like maybe a year now. But um the, I had a full beard when I was a contractor in Afghanistan, but I'll send you a picture of that. It's ridiculous. I look like a different person, but the mustache is new to me in the past year and now I'll never be able to get rid of. It is what my neighbor told me he's like. It's part of the brand. Now you got to keep it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You can cry if you shave it.
Speaker 2:Bob Ross did. Bob Ross did Once he had the perm. He didn't even Did you know he hated the perm. He did that because he was broke and that was the cheapest thing and then, after he started making videos, he wanted to get rid of it. And they're like no, no, no, that's you. You have to keep that.
Speaker 3:It's kind of like your soul patch.
Speaker 2:It makes people angry, though, so I will always keep it.
Speaker 3:Well, somebody, somebody, in one of my comments said that the mustache looks like a silhouette of my shoulders, and now I can't unsee it. That's great, that's great, that's great, that's beautiful that into a video.
Speaker 3:Do something like that, Like OK, yeah, I'm going to work in some of my my imitations, or my my, yeah, my imitations of people into my, my videos, because I do a good trump and I do a good uh, hank hill, um, oh yeah no, I'm telling you, the trump one, do the whole, a whole video like trump, just like, oh, the whole video.
Speaker 2:Do the whole, fucking. I'm telling you it would do. Well, I get listen, I've been doing social media for a little while now. I, I, I promise you, and you don't have to make it super, like political, like this or that.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, it would be just over the top, it would just be.
Speaker 1:Okay, give us a sample of Trump telling Liam how to lose weight.
Speaker 3:Okay, Some people are saying that you only eat one time a day.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's probably true, but I know a lot of fat people, beautiful fat people. Um, I'm telling you, do a whole video like that, start it off. With that I mean a million views by the end of the day dude the uh the crumble cookie video hit a million in 25 hours.
Speaker 3:I was. I was blown away by that and everybody kept tagging the trend twins. I had to look up who those people were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I have not watched any of their stuff.
Speaker 2:I recognize. Why were they tagging them? Did you make a reference, or something?
Speaker 3:Nope, not even on accident. Apparently, they are in love with crumble cookie and they are on a cut currently collectively, and so they cannot have crumble cookie.
Speaker 2:Okay, that makes sense, that makes sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, um, but yeah, that video did insanely well. I got a lot of good ideas out of it. Um, and then I've got another video, like I said, planned for this weekend. One of the content creators that followed me and reached out and gave me a bunch of advice was really cool. I do I do volume eating as well, like the guys at the fire station will take over under bets as to how much I'm going to eat, because I eat very quickly and I eat a lot of food. So I've done a couple of food challenges and I'm going to do one. I actually have it up on my story right now on Tik TOK People are voting on and I'm not calling it a cheat meal, cause I don't like that I don't like that term, not a huge fan, we're.
Speaker 3:I, we're calling, have an off plan meal. Am I having a fuck ton of McDonald's or a fuck ton of cookies? And everybody so far is voting.
Speaker 2:McDonald's, mcdonald's, I would have thought cookies. That's funny. I guess, yeah, I would have guessed cookies, though Still, that's interesting.
Speaker 3:So um, and that was that was one of the recommendations from this guy. Uh, that reached out to me because he did a similar video. Um, and he was like do you think you can beat my time? I ate this, all this food? And probably like 15 minutes. And I was like, oh for fucking sure, um, my, uh, my, like.
Speaker 3:I said my firehouse whenever we one of my first times eating out there. Uh, cause, firemen, you know, you cook three times a day or two times a day. Usually people have their breakfast. They come in, you go to the store together, you get stuff for lunch and dinner. There's like this unwritten rule in the fire service that every man has to have a pound and a half worth of food on their plate, which is wild. Um, but, and you know, nobody counts calories. If you do, they're like why are you being a liberal? Um, so we made. Uh, one guy was like hey, let's make tuna salad sandwiches or tuna sandwiches, and they're like great, well, tuna sandwiches for me do not require chewing. Um, so if I take a bite, that's sliding down the gullet, especially.
Speaker 3:Add a little extra mayo, you're good, solid good, that's the same thing as peanut butter jelly sandwiches. If I'm intentionally trying to pack on fat, I'm shoving like five of those. But I had, uh, the tuna sandwiches. I had like seven or nine um tuna sandwiches and they were like holy crap. Now they're trying to get me to do coney's um how many hot dogs can you?
Speaker 2:I mean the record right now for Joey Chestnut, I think 70, you could probably.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, rivaled easily. No, uh, one of my favorite things to do when I was in Afghanistan. I was trying to lose weight. I would have a cheat meal, right, and I called it a cheat meal. Then I had this negative perspective on food and why I had to have it. And, uh, I would. I would get every Thursday they had in the American dining facility, they had hot wings, and I would just go get a clamshell fucking full of hot wings and, um, I would go back to the uh, the machine gun tower or the nest we were in and I'd sit there and I'd prop my phone up and I would watch my 600 pound life. Or or I would watch, uh, I'd watch, uh, eric the electric right, and I'm like, look, if he can do it, I can do it. Or I'd watch my 600 pound life and be like, look, I'm not, I'm not that you know, and it was just this negative it was just a negative thing that I did, but, um, but yeah.
Speaker 3:So when I was in EMT school, I did something similar, cause I was, I was going to EMT school like four nights a week and it was like an hour drive both ways, um, and so I would get home and I would have 35 hot wings four nights a week. Um, because I can do it, I can eat, uh, so I'm going to start doing some of that content, um, and obviously fitting it into my calories, to my calories and, uh, you know, not banking my calories per se, but not doing that as often as some people do while they're doing like ultra marathons, right? So, um, but it's going to be fun, it's going to be cool, uh, just to be able to show people, hey, you can, you can eat food and still have the physique that you want.
Speaker 2:You can, you know, or the body, the body type I mean, I even get that with so many things I got like I get people like saying that about potatoes a lot like wait, I can eat potatoes and lose. I'm of all things like potatoes are like the least. Yeah, so that's what I.
Speaker 3:I go on a rant every time somebody was like carbs are bad for you. I'm like okay, great, let's talk about this you got polysaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, right, and so we go through it and you know some people are like, well, I, I try to have something that's very protein for it before I go to the gym.
Speaker 2:Like great, you're gonna have a stomach cramp like yeah people think protein is fuel and I have to be like well, okay, so protein is good for, like repairing. Okay, you know, fat is fuel, but that's gonna be more long term, whereas carbs are like right now I need it, so like I'm gonna have a banana or a rice krispie treat before I go to the gym because you have to have the simple sugars that release quickly, right, that are absorbed quickly.
Speaker 3:I say release, absorbed quickly, right. And so, like, the way that I tell my clients is like, have a pop tart, right, or drink some milk or something, but don't eat a potato, um, but yeah, and a lot of people you know they don't know that stuff but, um, and I appreciate you guys having me on the podcast, somebody else who can rant for a long time too because normally I'm the only one doing it so yeah, fuck.
Speaker 2:So fuck the shred. You know counting calories, if you, and if you, if you like it, if not, just focus on a whole, fuck a whole nutrient-dense food, so that generally doesn't trick, you know as well. Just keep it simple and do them and do the mundane shit. I know it's boring, but kind of has to be done yeah, there's no one one piece you're missing.
Speaker 3:There is no one trick that somebody can sell you. It is the scientifically backed method of thermodynamics. You are not going to change it.
Speaker 2:It's not this I was going to say. It's not this. What's V Schmitt saying? Harvard found a loophole, a fat loophole.
Speaker 1:I think a fat loss loophole.
Speaker 2:After the pizza versus the salad video. That's probably my favorite. And then the pizza salad video where it's like Harvard found this fat loss loophole and that's going to revolutionize everything. And also we're selling it in a bottle.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Those are my favorite. Oh shit, Rob, you look like you had something.
Speaker 1:What's that I was going to say? And America, how about we turn down the guns a little bit?
Speaker 3:Oh man.
Speaker 2:As a Canadian saying, that you're going to ruffle feathers. Let me just shoot that idea down a little bit. Scott, I'm looking for you man?
Speaker 3:yeah, you guys can find me on TikTok as Scotty K Fitness, as well as Instagram and on X or Twitter, as it were. That's a relatively new account.
Speaker 3:I don't understand Twitter but, trying to get as much information out there as I can about these things to help people start. So, scotty K Fitness, on all those platforms you can also follow my Strava and see. You know, I get a lot of people ask uh, how often do you do cardio, how hard are you running where your heart zones? Um, so you know, and uh, and why? So follow me there? Um, if you guys end up on my link tree, there's a lot of cool stuff on there for research-based uh, you know, myth busting, as well as a video that explains as to why V Shred is a giant piece of shit. So watch that.
Speaker 1:And yeah, 50% of this was V Shred sucks which is perfect.
Speaker 2:It's very warranted. I mean it says a lot that he's like the biggest name in the fitness industry.
Speaker 3:Sadly, sadly. One of my favorite things about the comment section on some of my videos is like what doesn't go in the bowl? I'm like you should just not belong in the bowl. I did not think that the the coin phrase that that I was gonna run into was in the bowl either.
Speaker 2:Um, you find, oh, you find just random shit that works, like. I remember I said, uh, what was it? Like you know, for all the people who talk about chemicals, I was like here's a banana, calm the fuck down. And people were like I love that, I need that on my shirt. And I was like, really, here's a banana, calm the fuck down I used.
Speaker 3:I used one of your sayings in the fitness myths video number three that I haven't filmed yet, and it's about detoxifying. Right, if you want to detoxify your body, try having a fucking liver and kidneys, try having a liver and kidneys there you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah like the fucking detoxes, that's a different, that's almost kind of a different side. Yeah, Like the fucking all the detoxes, that's a different. That's almost kind of a different side of social media. That's not like the fitness side. There's a lot of like the detox is kind of I don't know Like there's. Well, there's the parasite detox, which is kind of maybe a little bit more specific, but detoxes are just kind of their own thing.
Speaker 3:I agree, and there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff out there that is easy to debunk, but it's not easy to get people to hear it. You know that's, that's the shit that I run into, because you got that and you've got. You've got the sitting in a sauna for hours, or or therapy now is a big thing.
Speaker 2:you know, I saw what somebody posted about one of those, one of those plates, those power plates that just vibrate. Oh yeah, that's one of my favorite things because it reminds me of, like, the old time. You like shake the fat off. Those things are just like and I'm like I'd love that idea because if you know nothing about like calories or fitness or anything like the idea like oh, anything like the idea like oh, you just shake it and it kind of goes away.
Speaker 3:Yeah sure, you get people to believe that yeah, yeah, uh, one of the things that I I really have been enjoying about like, uh, the, the keto diets, right when I, when I try to explain to people like, hey, your body has to utilize these things, and that's when I get really wordy with the content where I'm like, or my responses where I'm like, hey, so the process of creating glucose from non-glucose sources has a byproduct, that is, an acid that, over time, is very damaging to your system and it can cause all these problems and you can become acidotic metabolically and will affect your respiratory system. It can lead to injury or death and necrosis of your liver, and people are like I, like your funny words, magic man, and uh, you know it doesn't land with anybody, so you know it turns into keto. Bad, you know.
Speaker 2:I mean honestly, though I mean you got to keep it just simple, like the more, the more in depth I go the, the less views it'll get, the less traction it gets.
Speaker 1:So, like I, just like you know, keep that shit basic man all right, I'll put on a caveman outfit and get on a club and just keto bad. Honestly, like we're going back to being stupid what about all these people?
Speaker 2:you know you got liver, kings and stuff eating, bull testicles and shit like you know, you're just keeping that shit, they keep it as simple as possible, so raw even.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but man, um, seriously, I, it was a, it was an immediate bucket list thing to be on this podcast. I, I, I was gonna tell you guys I've listened to this podcast since I found it and I've you know, and I listened. I have listened to it while running, I have listened to it while cooking, I have listened to it while eating or working out, and I've listened on good days and bad days, and now you'll get to listen to it while listening to yourself.
Speaker 2:I'm just happy that people are listening to it, because I'm like I don't really know if people listen. Man, it's it's.
Speaker 3:I'm just happy if people are listening to it, because I'm like I don't really know if people listen. Oh man, it's been great. One of your things that you said recently in one of your episodes was if you're worried about 10 calories, I got a real good friend named Ed. I want you to meet.
Speaker 1:And. I was like fuck yeah, man, okay, okay, and that helped me.
Speaker 3:That helped me, because there's times where I get OCD, I get neurotic about those things.
Speaker 2:I remember like, oh yeah, my times where I'm like wait hold on these zero calories screeners don't actually have zero calories, so let me try and find out how much they actually have and count that in Like fuck that shit.
Speaker 3:There was. There was a time where people were like, hey, do you want a piece of gum? I'm like it doesn't fit my macros Five calories.
Speaker 2:That's five calories, man, I know how many calories you're going to stick a gum. That shit fucking. That was not, it's not fun.
Speaker 3:It's going to throw me off my goals. Man, five calories, and so listening to you guys' podcast, it's definitely been something that's helped my success.
Speaker 2:So being able to come out here and just I'm telling you listen, keep doing your fucking content that you've been doing it. Keep it weird. Keep it strange right off the bat and it'll grow like it's it's going to. It's only one way it's going to go?
Speaker 3:yeah, I will keep the stash.
