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
Mike Pridgen's Bravado and Balance: A Comic Approach to Wellness
Ever wondered why the French are forever teased for their strategic retreats while Americans are celebrated for charging into conflicts? Discover the comedic juxtaposition of historical military strategies as we unravel the stereotype of the French and their World War II retreat, contrasting it with the gung-ho American mentality. We even ponder a world where tanks have "tank nuts," a cheeky metaphor for military bravado, before segueing into a discussion that somehow connects military history with unexpected weight loss stories and a playful nod to health and fitness.
Shifting gears, personal tales of health journeys take center stage. Picture a pole vaulter's anatomical misadventures leading to lost victories, or the transient fame of public figures akin to a relationship's love bombing phase. We explore the balance needed in maintaining healthy habits without becoming obsessive, with stories from a move to Texas that led to surprising weight loss. The focus is on harmony between physical health and mental well-being, rather than simply chasing a smaller size—a humorous yet insightful reflection on achieving a genuinely healthier lifestyle.
Food, glorious food! What's the secret behind mindful eating and recognizing when you're truly full? We tackle this complex relationship by acknowledging societal influences, the comedic allure of mukbang videos, and the challenge of emotional eating. Amidst the humor, there's a deeper message about breaking free from comfort zones, embracing the absurdity of viral food trends, and finding happiness in imperfection. Alongside a humorous debate on vasectomies and catchphrases, we invite you to join us in taking action against personal struggles and to embrace the resilience to grow beyond them.
Find more of Mike here
https://www.instagram.com/mikeneedsaplan/?hl=en
https://www.tiktok.com/@mikeneedsaplan
https://www.twitch.tv/mikeneedsaplan
You can find us on social media here:
Rob Tiktok
Rob Instagram
Liam Tiktok
Liam Instagram
Bonjour et bienvenue avec moderation, en français, avec Mike Pridgen. Mike, comment ça va?
Speaker 2:Instructions unclear. I've committed tax fraud in 12 countries. Can.
Speaker 3:I just say I love how the French retreated once in World War II, and now they're known as the, like the, as the people that always retreat, like oh yeah, like if anyone just like backs away from a fight. You know, you just call them french.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everyone knows what you're talking about like one time they made a strategic decision, and now they're geopolitical cucks for the rest of eternity like was?
Speaker 3:their alternative was to go in and die. And they're like how about we don't just die unnecessarily? And everyone's like you fucking bitches like, how dare you not run headfirst towards your own deaths?
Speaker 2:which is is such a an american mindset too it really is like is the rest.
Speaker 3:If you don't like, the, the spartans, you know, come back with your shield, or on it, those are your two. If you don't know, that's what they would say. The, the spartans, you know, come back with your shield, or on it, those are your two. If you don't know, that's what they would say the, the to the, the, the warriors, come back on your shield, with your shield, meaning you're alive, we're on it, dead, and they're bringing your dead body back with you. And that was, that was their mentality and that's, I feel, like kind of the american mentality, not quite that bad, but like if you step down and you know, retreat, like the french did that one time rest of eternity, you're. You're the bitches that won't sacrifice yourselves they've probably hugely accommodated.
Speaker 2:Now I'm sure if you fucked with the french army, they're like we can't have that happen twice I feel like you gotta overcompensate a little bit.
Speaker 3:Right like you go somewhere, like no, we're staying, we're just staying. Like didn't they do that, like because we went to Vietnam, I'm pretty sure, after the French. I'm not like a historian when it comes to military warfare, but I'm pretty sure we went there, like after the French had an occupation there for a while and the French like eventually backed out. They're like fucking French, get out of here. We got this we to take vietnam and and and.
Speaker 2:If you haven't looked into history, it didn't go super well, the us has just been war coattail riders, basically until the middle east, that's it. It's like oh, you guys are already there, cool, hey, hey, we're here, we're here the amount of freedom you need correlates very well with the amount of oil.
Speaker 3:You have right. Oh yeah, you have yeah you need a lot of freedom. Uh, middle east, you're gonna need just the most freedom.
Speaker 2:You need so much freedom. We've never even seen it this amount of freedom and then we get mad.
Speaker 3:We're like we're just totally going into politics, so it's like, right like right off the bat. We get mad, though, and it's just like they hate our freedom, like, uh, I don't think they hate our freedom, I think they hate the fact that we bomb the shit out of their country. That's probably more likely than we influence their governments and yeah, we overthrow their government, like they probably didn't care for that a lot I.
Speaker 2:I think what we can really just surmise from all of this is that this is the reason that the french now have truck nuts on the back of their tanks god, if, if I had a, if I was driving a tank, I would yes, I, but you have to get big ones.
Speaker 3:Though you couldn't have regular size truck nuts on a giant tank, that would look definitely tank nuts you'd have to have tank nuts exactly. You'd need, like at least um horse nuts, if not, like you know, elephant nuts, which elephants don't have their testicles on the outside of their body. So I don't know how big elephant testicles are, but I'm assuming they're very large.
Speaker 1:You just put a sign on the back of the tank. We've got elephant nuts, but they just don't hang. They're inside, they're inside.
Speaker 3:The tanks are the elephants of the warfare.
Speaker 2:Of warfare, it's just on the inside 300 extra pounds of metal alloy just sitting inside.
Speaker 3:There's like designers like can we get rid of the tank nuts? And we're like no, this is the most American thing we can think of. You can't get rid of our tank nuts.
Speaker 2:The back end is way over overweight right now.
Speaker 1:It's causing balance issues.
Speaker 2:Because it's so fucking heavy the turret can't shoot forward. It's shooting up because the end is being hit by a big gun.
Speaker 3:I know they're trying to shoot, they're like fucking tank nuts, but we need them America, and we have like megaphones that blast out, you know, just like the american anthem or whatever.
Speaker 2:I don't know, it's just some shit can't retreat though as long as you don't retreat, we're good it's fine, come back with your nuts, or on your nuts.
Speaker 3:That's what the spartans said on your nuts, back on your nuts, uh, hey, hey, mike, we have you back on. Did you know that?
Speaker 2:Are we recording right now?
Speaker 3:I believe so. I'm not 100% on that, I'm not 100% on anything, but I think so.
Speaker 1:Liam's just along for the ride. Liam will be up in about 12 minutes.
Speaker 2:We're going to wake him up. We've got an alarm ready for him. Yes, hi. Everyone Listening to the In Moderation podcast waiting to hear some health and fitness stuff from us, and I got to hear some fun American history and how we would redesign tanks. I lost 110 pounds, none of those being nuts, and it's one nut, it was just one.
Speaker 2:But I'm most proud of keeping the weight off and I've done so through addressing my mind. I spent a long time just addressing the body and I made myself sick that way, so I've I've had to start focusing up here really make positive change well, I mean, you did in some ways lose a nut I, I've gone nuts, that's for sure. There have been some diets that have made me go a little crazy.
Speaker 2:I know we've got a lot of years referring to your vasectomy, but also that well that you would not believe how many people thought that they got taken out when I went and got my vasectomy. They're like like a neuter. Did it hurt you?
Speaker 3:become a eunuch? Does it just feel kind?
Speaker 2:of strange, like there's nothing in there and I I'm like so here's the thing your voice went up an octave. Usually they don't take the nuts during a vasectomy, but for mine. The doctor looked at him and he said these are the most perfect ones I've ever seen. I have to have one.
Speaker 3:Oh, I have to bronze them, yes.
Speaker 2:But he ran into his closet and there was a silver bell that he banged a hammer on to to let everyone in the vasectomy office know they'd found the most perfect set of testicles they'd ever seen. Interesting.
Speaker 3:I thought you were going to go with. They were so small. We might as well just remove them, because that's what I want, Like everyone's like you want big nuts, I don't want big nuts. Big nuts, make everything else look smaller.
Speaker 2:Why would you want that? It's like an aerodynamic.
Speaker 3:It's a problem like you get hit easier like there's more, there's just problems. You know what I'm saying? You're trying to jump a fence you can get them snagged.
Speaker 2:You know, who knows when you're gonna have to pull vault? Yeah, I'm not, I don't know. That looks awful. Did you see that? That one pole vaulter that like he had the dick print going on.
Speaker 3:We could say dick print he lost because it touched the bar, I think yeah the bar over, yeah yeah, yeah that's, but also like you get, you also kind of get like a hey, the you know I'm that guy, like you know that's. I mean that's a pretty fucking good story. So if it hadn't happened like we wouldn't know who he is, we wouldn't know anything. I saw, I, you know, I think you come out in the positive on that one.
Speaker 1:I'm sure he gets to go on talk shows and talk about how his nuts knocked the bar.
Speaker 3:All that stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm sure an Olympic athlete who's likely been training since he was six years old to do this one stunt at perhaps what may be the end of his career is like. At least everyone knows it's big.
Speaker 3:Right, that is how I mean I. I you're joking. I think that I still go with.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's true, I think why don't we have that guy on next week? Let's talk to him that there we go can we do a whole fucking somebody?
Speaker 1:get me his number only about that.
Speaker 3:Fuck my god. And then we'll get the huck to a girl. You know, we'll just totally sell out this fucking podcast. Oh god, she has her own podcast. Turning that into a podcast is amazing.
Speaker 1:A 10 out of 10 I just I I've only seen bad. I haven't listened to it or anything, but I've only seen bad things about it oh yeah, no, I'm sure it's terrible.
Speaker 3:I haven't listened to it or anything, but I've only seen bad things about it. Oh yeah, no, I'm sure it's terrible. I haven't listened to it, but like she got like um cummings on there, whatever whitney cummings, whatever the comedian, she got like big names on there. I was like that's fucking like that. Turning that, just you know, yeah, it's not good, but still you did something with it.
Speaker 2:Good for you at this point, like I would. She is to fame what love bombing is to a relationship. It's like let's, let's see what happened like we're basically talent bombing her.
Speaker 3:This person who otherwise should not be famous, is just being bombarded with endless amounts of fame that's kind of what we do, though I don't know someone and you get the 15 minutes or whatever. Like you get a lot of attention we're past 15 we.
Speaker 3:She's gotten it a little. She's just creeping more to the half hour hour mark, but still like, I'm sure it will die. That's one of those things that'll die down, but like it's I. I just love how we all just narrow in on something. It's, it's, it's great. Um, but other than like other podcasts, mike, what have you been doing since the last time we talked about you? What have you been up to?
Speaker 2:Well, I can tell you this from a health and wellness perspective. When I talked to you guys, I had just moved here to where I am now. It was my first week living here in Texas, and when I moved here, I decided to put to the test all of the habits that I've been trying to implement over the last several years, because one of my goals was always like I don't want to have to think about food constantly. You guys know how it is. It's exhausting, and you've talked to plenty of people who know how it is. So I'm like what's a better time to see how I handle a shakeup than moving? I'm going to stop tracking. If I gain some weight back, it is what it is. I can lose it. It's not like I'll be stuck big. I know how to take care of it. I know how to track. It'll be fine. It'll be a data point.
Speaker 2:So I decided I would start tracking again when I wanted to do something different with my body, like when I wanted to start bulking. So that was back in September. So there was about a four or five month gap where I wasn't tracking anything, just making mindful decisions, and I lost two pounds, basically by accident. So now I can take the seatbelt off and I'm like I'm kind of going to take the training wheels off. Don't take the seatbelt off. And I'm like I'm kind of going to take the training wheels off, don't take your seatbelt off, anyone Um don't drive like Bobby.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's like that's kind of the thing that I want to let everybody know is like that's what we're working towards. Yeah, Having a smaller body is cool and great and whatnot, but is it a healthy body and is it a healthy mind on top of it?
Speaker 3:because there were a lot of periods of time where I was losing weight but I wasn't healthy yeah, I see that a lot from people when they, after they've lost a significant amount of weight, they're they're worried about getting back and I think that's you mean, that's a legitimate concern, because what most people who lose weight end up gaining it back at some point.
Speaker 3:But eventually it gets to the point where you're just worried all the time and is is that even? Is that better than where you were before? Is that worse? Like I don't know. It's, they're both, neither are great, um. So yeah, like I don't know exactly, like how, um how, you let go of some of that fear and anxiety. What do you think, mike?
Speaker 2:One of the things that helped me was this test. I mean, I I had to let go of the training wheels and see if I succeeded when I wasn't micromanaging. If I can only succeed when I'm micromanaging, am I really successful? So, hands off for a little bit, see what happens. Okay, cool. Nothing too terrible happened, actually. In fact, nothing happened at all. I just stayed exactly the same as I was, so that's allowed me a little bit more freedom and feeling like the weight's going to come, because that's a huge fear for a lot of people.
Speaker 3:And you didn't have to focus on any. So you stopped tracking and whatnot. Did you do anything else? Or was it just like, hey, I'm gonna try and eat like I don't know, generally healthy, and just focus on, maybe, like there's a few things like what you know things do you do when you're like I'm trying to make you know a meal a day? I need to get set something up, like you know.
Speaker 2:Give me, give me a little bit the thing for me is that tracking is not tied to it, like dieting, you know, whereas some people are trying to improve their health through dieting, I just genuinely enjoy the diet that I have. But it also happens to coincide with my goals, which is maintaining my weight or building muscle. So the meals that I was eating when I was tracking are fairly the same meals that I have now. I'm in touch with my hunger signals. I used the food scale as an educational tool rather than an accountability tool, so I'm like okay, this is how much food makes me full and this is about how much protein it has. This is about how much fiber it has.
Speaker 3:So but the meals didn't change between, like when you were losing weight to now. They're like the same, just kind of the general, the same thing.
Speaker 2:There's been a slow evolution, but you know, from the final period of losing weight to the maintenance phase, it stayed the same, just the calories went up.
Speaker 3:Right, but I'm just kind of curious, just for people given, like I always like to give people like ideas and whatnot, like what do you do for a meal? Do you just try and like build it around some form of protein? Do you just try and build it around some form of protein? Do you just have recipes that you go to that you're like oh, I know this one, I know generally how many calories are in it whatever.
Speaker 2:I don't have to actually go in and track everything, but I have an idea of that sort of thing. I'll just start throwing stuff together. Recipes are cool. Sometimes I'll take a recipe and then I'll change things up. I'll change an ingredient here and there until it's completely unrecognizable. Or I'm like well, I've, I like chicken breast and I like pasta, so let's put that together somehow. And then I'll make like a mac and cheese out of it. It's.
Speaker 3:I call them goblin meals because it's not something I feel like I'd serve someone else, but I personally really enjoy them I feel like the meals that you wouldn't that, those exact meals, the ones that you wouldn't tell anyone about unless you're me and you're on social media and you're like, fuck it, I don't care what you think about me. Those but the meals that you still like for whatever reason. Those are the ones that are kind of more sustainable. You're like I like it, I know how to make it, it's easy, like it's not fancy, but who gives a shit? Um, you know, I've been really liking those, like the goodles. Have you guys tried like the goodles mac and cheese?
Speaker 3:no, okay so goodles mac and cheese is, uh, it's like craft mac and cheese but it's higher protein and fiber by a lot um and lots, quite a few. They add a lot of vitamins and minerals, which is super cool, and all this stuff. There's different flavors they. They've got an Alfredo, they've got a cheesy one, like all these things. I've got a bunch of them. I bought them at Sam's Club, like a big pack and like per serving it's like 200 calories, but like the whole box has like well, you know, like three servings or something like that. So you know, I, whatever, I have just something else with it. I like peas. I know people have peas and mac and cheese divisive. I like peas in my mac and cheese people say tuna mac and cheese.
Speaker 1:I like that piece piece. It just rolls off the tongue, it rhymes so obviously it goes together.
Speaker 3:So then I throw in yeah, like peas, or people like to do tuna. Sometimes I'm like tuna mac I'm okay with, I don't hate it, I don't love it, it's fine. But that's just another way to add protein. So, like that's just an easy meal, like that's just something I throw together, or, honestly, like a lot of times what I'll do is take some type of grain, whether I just bought the, the frica, which people got real mad at me on instagram for mispronouncing it.
Speaker 3:Guys, I'm very american. I'm very american like, if there's a word from a different country that originates in a different language, I'm I'm not going to pronounce right, it's not on purpose. People think it's on purpose. I'm just shitty at pronouncing things. I pronounced it, uh, tagine, like the mexican spice tahine. I pronounced it tagine. For years I thought that you were supposed to say the j? I don't fucking know, man, um, so yeah, I just can't. But anyway, I'll take the frica or, or bulgar or, or faro or whatever, and I just put that on with like vegetable broth and while that's cooking I figure out what the hell else I'm doing. So I'll just put that on like okay, I'm to go find things and then just make some kind of like grain bowl and whatever I have Pre-made sauce, make a sauce olive, sometimes just olive oil, lemon juice and seasoning and throw that together and that's just, and I usually like to make a bunch of it. That way I have meals for the next like two, three days.
Speaker 2:One of the questions that tells me whether or not someone's going to be successful is the following what are you having for dinner tonight? Right, and some people will think well, I'm asking that because I want to know what it is that they're having for dinner. Like, is the thing they're eating healthy? No, I don't care about that. You could be ordering door dash. My point is are you planning this? I'm having fava beans and a nice chianti yeah, you could be having fava beans and a nice chianti. Yeah, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:You could have some peas and cheese.
Speaker 3:I don't like fava beans. I'm a bean lover, but I hate fava beans. Those things fucking suck. I'm not a fan either.
Speaker 2:The point is are you planning this ahead or are you deciding in the moment? When you decide in the moment, it's not going to be that great. The reason I'm mentioning this is because when you said, like I'm going to figure out what I'll have next, you've got a plan. You've got a whole bunch of things. I know I can make this. I know I can make this and you're ready to go. You've got all the ingredients there. You know what you can make with them.
Speaker 3:So just having a general idea is like so important, it doesn't. You don't have to know for the next seven days night what I'm eating. If you like meal prepping out like two seven days, that's dope. You know like you can make those fruit, those burritos and just freeze them, you know, and then you can take them out like that's awesome, like I love that. But you don't have to know exactly what you're eating for the next seven days.
Speaker 3:Just have having some sort of idea and like I know it's tough, like you got like trust me, I know you got kids and shit happening. You're like fuck, like I don't want to think about it, I just want a whole bucket of KFC chicken myself. I'm not KFC. I probably go like, uh, cain's is much better. Don't at me with that shit. Like there's a reason that pop, that the Popeyes and the Grayson Cain's line is way bigger than KFC every single single day. Okay, you know kfc's falling off anyway. Um, just having an idea of what to make like, oh, I got the high fiber wraps, I can make burrito, whatever it is like yeah, it'd be very generic if needed oh, generic is my middle name.
Speaker 3:That's actually a pretty good middle name generic.
Speaker 1:I like that well, there you go, you got the middle name for your next child no, it's danger.
Speaker 3:I've already decided that danger is the best middle name what about two middle name? Generic danger.
Speaker 1:No, because I had two last names and that sucked truck nuts like I hated having two fucking last names.
Speaker 3:Man. I dropped one of them because I was like I can't do this. I hate, don't, please, don't hyphenate your kids. Uh, fucking last name, coming from someone who had to deal with that and go to school. And they're like what's your last name? Like fisher, layton. And they're like looking up, I don't see, like uh, layton, I'm like no, fisher isn't my first name, fucking numb nuts. It's. Oh, that's my whole life. I know what you're asking for, fucking. Oh, log into this computer. It's your first initial and your last name. I have 12 questions. Do you want to sit down because we're gonna be here a a while. Fuck that, I hated it. Please just give your kid a last name. I don't give a shit if it's Balls, just give him one last name.
Speaker 2:Liam Balls.
Speaker 3:I will take. I'm not, I promise you, I'm being 100% serious. I would have taken Balls over Fisher-Layton a hundred times over, like just Liam Balls. Liam, generic Balls, I would times over like just generic balls. Ball. I would have taken generic balls. I would have gone by generic balls like.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine if you had a friend? I'm sure a lot of people would take generic balls.
Speaker 3:That's pretty fucking cool. Man like that is cool. Like people know that kid. Everyone knows generic balls in the school that's the kid with a leather jacket.
Speaker 2:It's got the inscription gb and gold letters on it I hope the balls is with a z.
Speaker 3:That's the only thing. At leather jacket. It's got the inscription GB and gold letters on it. I hope the balls is with a Z. That's the only thing at the end. I don't know if it's not DLS, it's with a Z balls. That would be really cool. Or maybe be a WLZ like the energy drink.
Speaker 2:I don't know if any of you guys seen that, but there's a balls energy drink I have seen how it's spelled. Yeah, I, yeah. I'd like it spelled like that, please. And if you guys are fans of social programs, if you name your kid generic balls with a z, you get to meet cps. Cps, come over we're just checking.
Speaker 3:Listen, we're not saying anything's wrong, we're just this. Anytime someone is named generic balls, we have to do a home visit that was about six times a year.
Speaker 2:We gotta go and check on it six times.
Speaker 3:There's six kids a year. Generic balls oh, we got another one, phil, go check out this balls listeners.
Speaker 2:If you ever name your child generic balls, tag us you get 10 off of your next in moderation merch order I think we have enough sway to get someone to name someone's pregnant right now.
Speaker 3:Listening to this, like you know, that doesn't sound like a bad idea call him jen for short.
Speaker 2:If it's a one, if it's a girl, that's not right.
Speaker 3:I guess I get that like. I'd rather just go by balls balls.
Speaker 1:I actually had a j gen balls in my class.
Speaker 3:Gen balls See.
Speaker 1:There was no S on it. Yeah, gen ball.
Speaker 3:But you remember that though right Like, and that's what's important. You know Good name, not like Vince Sant. Fuck that guy.
Speaker 2:Fuck V Shred has anyone ever taken a strong stance on that guy.
Speaker 1:I don't think so we should, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably yeah, guy, I don't think so we should, though. Yeah, probably. Yeah, if that market has not been dominated yet, I'm gonna go shave.
Speaker 3:We should pick our own, just random person that we hate for fucking no reason, like christopher walken, I don't know, like it's just something we just go after I love them. But like we just pick, hey look at that, there we go.
Speaker 3:I didn't even know that. That's great, it's on the mug, but anyway, back to food. I guess Enough of a diversion. There's no rules here and then changing your mindset to where you don't have to track, it is really tough to do. And for you did you just kind of cut it off, just kind of like cold turkey, when you moved. You're like this is just what I'm doing right now.
Speaker 2:Or was there any like kind of transition? I've got this sort of the experimental, scientific mindset. I really had to make it scientific toward the end of my weight loss to get to a point where it's like I don't want to be affected by the numbers, positively or negatively right, because you know negatively obviously we want to avoid that. But in terms of positive too, like you see the scale dropping down, like I did. I was, I'm six, three, I was 155 pounds yeah that's bad, that's real.
Speaker 2:It's real lean yeah, it's, and I've got pictures it's. I'm not looking too healthy there, but I was getting that positive number drop. The number was going down on the scale. So I'm thinking in my head I'm doing well, but you know, I've, I've, I still think I'm fat Cause I'm looking down at my body I'm like, well, I could change that, I can change that. At what point does that kill?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean you can get obsessed with being like super lean. Yeah, One fit, that's really I those. I got to like one 75, 175 I'm about the same height. I got to like 175 and I was real lean at that. Yeah, um, but yeah, it was, and then it was kind of tough to have that number kind of go back up at first.
Speaker 3:But I think I've mentioned on this podcast before I heard somebody say pounds for a purpose and I like that. So I say that like it's pounds for a purpose. I'm putting this on with a goal. There's a reason I'm doing it. I've already lost the weight, so I know how to do. Like it's bounce for a purpose. I'm putting this on with a goal. There's a reason I'm doing it. I've already lost the weight, so I know how to do it. It's not like I'm going to get to the weight and be like, oh shit, I don't know what to do, it's OK, and just trying to let off the gas a little bit.
Speaker 3:Honestly, for like months I haven't weighed myself like I used to weigh myself every single day, track it up and down. I was, you know, bulking, cutting, that sort of thing, and then I was just like you know what? It's just a lot. I'm just gonna take a break from this. I weighed myself for the first time at the went to the doctor just for a general visit and I was down like three, four pounds from what I was before. Didn't even I'd ever tracked food, I just I think it's just mostly just stressful and just like, but I've still been like. You know, it's definitely 6 am and I've got a spoon in a jar full of peanut butter. But I think that's just because I haven't eaten before, because I'm so busy. I'm like, oh, let me just get something high calorie but that's another thing I usually sit around like I.
Speaker 1:Well, while I was at my like geek and stuff, I was sitting like around 170, um, and that was like you know I was. I was cut. I could have been like a couple weeks out from show ready at one point. Nowadays I'm sitting around like 190 and it it feels weird when you look in the mirror and you're like, oh, don't really see the abs anymore. There's a little bit, a little bit of chump there, but but then, like I've my blood work and it is impeccable.
Speaker 3:Right, because that's the thing it's like between for men. Somewhere around anywhere from what? 10% to 20% body fat roughly. It's going to depend on the person, all these things you can't be exact, but somewhere in that range you're not going to be healthier. Going from 16% body fat to 12%, that's not going gonna make you healthier no, most people should not be 12 body fat like it.
Speaker 3:I mean, I agree, for most people. I think generally more than 15 to 20 is just easier to maintain and just not as stressful like some people can maintain like a 10, and those people are few, and far between you know, fuck them.
Speaker 1:But you know, and they make severe life changes to to maintain that like they're cutting out certain things in their life and they're making that choice right, I think.
Speaker 3:I think there are people who can just maintain it without even really thinking, but again, very small percentage of people. For the vast majority of people, you're better off just being you know, just you know, somewhere in that range I was talking about and not just focusing on food all the time that's not fun.
Speaker 2:The difference here, like when you just mentioned that you had a spoon and a jar of peanut butter you stop at a certain point, you stop before it's finished. I didn't do that and it didn't matter how I felt, it didn't matter that I was sick or that my poops the next day would be abysmal. Um, I was gonna eat regardless. It's by the way. You want a good laxative? It's eat an entire jar of biscoff cookie butter um cookie butter yeah, boy, it's, it's great while you're eating.
Speaker 3:There's probably other laxatives I'd go with first, but I'll put I'll keep that on the back burner yeah, it's non-stimulant laxative.
Speaker 2:An entire jar of Biscoff cookie butter, three, four thousand calories, easy.
Speaker 3:Your doctor asks you. Well, I heard it on a podcast. I don't know what you want from me. I heard it on a podcast.
Speaker 2:These guys seem to know what they're talking about. They have followers yeah, so did the manson family, but anyhow, devout followers, yes, incredibly, uh. But yes, like there's a, you're not gonna gain weight back because your hunger's. You're stopping when you feel full. Right, you're not pushing past it, at least all that much that's been. The difference for me is that I'm now stopping when I'm full and I'm overriding the signals of like I want to eat more because I've got the FOMO. Or if I go to sleep now, what if I don't eat this now? Our brains try to trick us into doing all sorts of crazy shit.
Speaker 3:I get asked about that a lot, like I did a video. There's like a Japanese term like Harahachi boo, which is like eat when you're 80% full, so don't get a hundred percent full, don't stuff yourself, which is great advice. But I had a lot of people say like I don't understand my hunger cues, like I don't, I don't, I just eat, I and I'm, you know, and I wish I had great advice for that. I'm just not any sort of expert in that field.
Speaker 1:But that is tough when you just don't know. Frankly, the best advice, in my opinion, is just slow down, right, because it takes time for that signal to actually happen. Yeah, and especially in North America, we just shovel the food in our mouth yep, eating fast.
Speaker 3:You know you eat in front of a tv, a phone, whatever and that just kind of you're not thinking about you know, here's how full you're feeling or anything. You just kind of like I have this much food in front of me so I'm gonna eat that much food and all people talk about like oh, american food is poison. I'm like, listen, everything is family size now. Every bag of everything is just like a family size thing.
Speaker 2:So when you sit down with it, you've got a lot of food in front of you and I was family sized at the time. So yeah, the container was the serving size. Whatever container that came in that was the serving size.
Speaker 2:So one of my goals in trying to learn my hunger signals I guess maybe I didn't quite realize that's what I was doing at the time, but my first mindful thanksgiving, I call it. I'm like I can't bring my food scale with me, my kitchen, or? Um, yeah, my food scale lives in my kitchen. I live everywhere else. That's one of my rules. So even at the very beginning, when I like wanted to track everything, I'm like I can't. I can't do that because otherwise I'm going to become reliant on it. I need to be able to rely on myself. I can stuff here, I can practice here, but I can't. I don't want to be practicing everywhere, which is no shade on anyone who does that, it's it's more so just like work on freeing yourself at some point. If now's not the time, don't worry about it, but eventually. But anyhow, my one goal that thanksgiving was to just not walk away from the table feeling sick. That was it, whatever that was going to take it.
Speaker 2:I didn't matter what I ate, I wasn't focused on it. I'm like I'm going to eat what I want to eat. I just don't want to walk away full. And I did it. And I was one of the things, rob, that I had to do is eat slow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I'll go to one of the Chinese buffets with people. We'll sit down at the same time. People will be on their third plate Well, I'm still on my first plate. And then an hour later after supper, they're all like, oh, I have such a food hangover. And I'm just like, oh, I have such a food hangover. And I'm just like, yeah, I feel great, isn't that?
Speaker 3:funny, though, like I hear that a lot of people blame it on carbs. Like I eat too many carbs and now I'm exhausted. I'm like you just ate like 2000 calories in a meal, Like that's anything.
Speaker 3:I think there's a whole you brought up Thanksgiving the Mythbusters did a whole episode on that where, like, people say the tryptophan in turkey is what makes you sleepy, and they're like okay, so let's try with turkey. And then they gave them the equivalent amount of food like calories, without turkey or anything, and they felt just as tired both ways, because you're just eating a lot of food. So, like, I think when people cut out carbs, they consume fewer calories because they're eating a bunch of protein and fats that help them, you know, feel more full and full. And then they're just like okay, I have more energy.
Speaker 1:I'm like it wasn't the carbs, you're just not you know, and not just that, is that also, you're having this really big meal at around the same time that the sun is setting, because it's winter, and so that melatonin is kicking in as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you have all these things. You're just like I feel tired. Look, you know, just it is, it is. It's such a tough thing though. So you know you try and slow down. Uh, you know it takes about, I think, usually like 15, 20 minutes even for like the the, the food to hit your stomach and then for your body to kind of realize you're full. So if you can slow down, having dinner with people, I think can be just so helpful, like in a lot of other countries.
Speaker 1:That's what they sit down Europeans. That is a huge thing, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, here we just kind of. You know you sit in front of the TV, eat a bunch. Listen, I've been there. I'm not like judging other people, I'm fucking there all the time.
Speaker 2:But, like you know, if you health as well as you know, it's yeah. The reason I mentioned the word not sick or I use that term not sick is because I too did not understand full. Full for me was like if I eat another bite I may hurt myself, and there were. There was one time, specifically, I remember googling the survival rate of a stomach rupture from overeating, because I was genuinely concerned that the food I was currently eating as I was Googling it, would cause my stomach to rupture and possibly kill me. So it's not a matter of being full. It was like if there's room for one more bite, I'm going to eat more, if I'm not concerned that it'll literally take me out. It turns out it's 50 to 70%. By the way, the odds were worth it to me to keep eating that pizza 50, 70%, if you just overfill your stomach.
Speaker 2:If it ruptures and you get it solved in time, oh, okay, yeah, you can survive a 50 to 70% survival rate. So I'm like I'm in the green there, I'm going to keep eating. So like that was, that was my mindset. As funny as that sounds like it. A lot of people who are like I don't understand my hunger or I don't understand my faultness. They understand what it is. They just it's, it's literally an illness. Yeah, like we're not eating to because we're hungry. I think that some of us confuse hunger with just the willingness to eat more that's an interesting one, yeah I wasn't hungry for years, while I was heavy like.
Speaker 2:I don't think I was hungry even once, because I didn't give myself a chance to be hungry.
Speaker 3:Huh.
Speaker 2:But having room, that was a different thing. I could still put another bite of food in my mouth Right.
Speaker 3:I think that's a very good point. It's a very good point. Yeah, I'm just yeah, I'm just not an expert on this topic, but I know it's something so many people struggle with. I've seen other people like I think it's Ryan Nicole on TikTok. I would look her up. If you have issues with binge eating, it's Ryan Nicole. She's like a licensed therapist. She does stuff with that, but she's always talking about kind of the stuff. I talk about the adding things to your plate, other things, adding color, adding, adding you know some source of fiber, vegetables or whatever. All those things to kind of just help.
Speaker 1:Um, so you know, of course, you know always doing that's always a good idea you know what's nice about adding color, in addition to it being just, you know, eating a variety is that it's colorful.
Speaker 3:We and that has a nice mental health effect, like eating some colorful food over eating some dull gray sludge, soylent, green stuff, soylent green Like did you see Ben Carpenter, like he did a video recently talking about the food dye situation and how there was a call a while back to remove food colors and like some companies did and their sales plummeted because their colors weren't as bright and people just didn't like them as much. So whenever people ask, like why do we need food colors, I'm like that's, it's because that's what people will buy. We like colorful food and so like I get it like the artificial colors, that that those things might not be as good for you as like a carrot or you know, a blueberry or whatever, but like that's humans, we like there's a reason that dystopian future movies graywash all the colors and we should make mention here that in blind taste tests people can't tell the difference oh yeah, right, you take the side away from it and now it's.
Speaker 2:You know you have something with red 40 and it's something that doesn't, and it's exactly the same on someone's time, but you see it, and one's brighter and one is you anticipate the brighter thing to taste more vibrant.
Speaker 3:I mean I think that's which makes sense, right? If you're eating some just like gray sludge, right like matrix gruel or whatever, you're expecting it to just be very bland and not tasty, you throw some colors in there. I feel like it should be better than it is.
Speaker 2:Possibly, yeah, I. To anybody out there that's hearing this and thinking it can't be me, I can't do it. It's my habits are too strong, my, you know my, I'm too weak around this food, I just want to say, first off, that I can out-eat you, guaranteed. This is not just a fact, it's a challenge. If you think that, no, I eat too much and I'm the one who I was eating McDonald's three times a day, working on my fourth because my habits were slowly evolving, getting worse and worse, I would order a large meat levers pizza and I'd tell them not to slice it, and then I'd bring it into my car. I'd wait about 10 minutes for the cheese to congeal so that I could roll it up like a burrito and eat it. That way it's 4500 calories. I could down that in about 10 minutes, no problem, I'd get.
Speaker 1:you know what I'm hearing what's that that I'm hearing Mike versus Scotty, in moderation, eat off. Let us know if you guys want to see that we're we're going to get these guys together and we're going to have an eat off.
Speaker 3:I don't want to see that. I think that sounds kind of sad and depressing. If I'm being a hundred percent honest, he's got a lot of the same like depressive mindset about this too.
Speaker 2:Like you know, him and I have had some really good discussions about it and like we come from a lot of the same places in terms of food like it. But we can probably both pack it down if we really wanted to. That's the thing that I don't want to anymore. I used to do two pints of ben and jerry's every night and I'd get two of them because after I finished the first one I'd think to myself well, now I've got nothing to look forward to. Then I get the second one, now I've got something to look. So the whole time I'm eating the first one, I'm thinking about the second one.
Speaker 3:I think I glad you brought that up the, the anticipate. I see a lot of people do this, especially when they start like tracking and everything. You get the idea of banking calories for later in the day, where you just like I'm only gonna eat a little bit at the beginning of the day, I eat a lot later. I did that for a while because you want that anticipation, like I want to be able to just fucking pig out and just eat as much as I want to. So I'm gonna eat like 700 calories until 8 pm and then just whatever I want. And the problem with that, I find, is just you eat so much, you feel like shit and then it's gone and you're sad anyway. So, like, one of the best things I did for me was just adding more calories at the beginning of the day, like at breakfast, and not worry like, oh, I'm eating an 800 calorie breakfast, a thousand calorie breakfast, that's a lot, you know, but I'm much fuller and I'm not as hungry until later and I don't have to eat as much later on.
Speaker 2:There are some beneficial use cases for that, but by and large I really feel like it's just bad habit tourism. At that point we're not really solving the issue that we're trying to solve by just limiting the calories and then still visiting that bad habit that ultimately led to the problem in the first place. So but again, you know, there are times where I know I'm gonna have a big dinner somewhere, so I'm like I'm probably not gonna eat that much, not because I don't want to gain weight, but because I don't want to feel sick when I leave and I know how much food's gonna make me feel sick and I know that every restaurant, like the calories are way higher and way more filling things that I eat. So, like it's, it's just a preventative measure so that I'm not walking out having a pop of um, a belt loop I thought you were saying a tom's package or something.
Speaker 2:Well, that I was hoping you were gonna say pop a wheelie, god I'd fall off.
Speaker 3:I don't have any tank nuts I've with the tank.
Speaker 2:Nuts, you're always you're doing a permanent wheelie, but it was god. I used to have a cloth belt that would like. There were no loops on it.
Speaker 2:It was just like it would adjust, no matter where you loved those when I was younger so when I'd sit down because when you're bigger when you sit down your circumference is just much larger than when you stand up I could sit down and my belt would adjust itself and I wouldn't have to do. I call it. It's like I need a little bit of discomfort. I can't keep making this more comfortable, so I keep growing.
Speaker 3:Okay, all right. So now you're doing better, right. So what's the good tourism habit?
Speaker 2:So, ultimately speaking, you're not trying to limit your calories With my one-on-one clients. You're not trying to limit your calories, like with my one-on-one clients. We don't start tracking when we get together. We work on limiting the amount of food that we will eventually have to track. Because if you just start tracking now, one of two things happens. One, you just track a number that you don't like because the habit hasn't changed we're still eating the exact amount of food or you've just artificially decreased the amount of food that you're taking in to satisfy that number and we haven't done anything to really solidify that. It's just we're doing it for the number, for the record. Let's work on why it is that we're overeating. Let's figure out do we really need that extra snack later on in the day that you just kind of eat because it's 8 o'clock, it's snack time and suddenly 600 calories are gone.
Speaker 1:There's a fair amount of it. That's psychological, it's like the whole thing. People don't really realize that or aren't willing to do any therapy or face it Not even not willing not, they're not aware.
Speaker 2:I really believe that most everything that you need to know biologically about the process of weight loss can be taught to a person in about 10 weeks total like it. Beyond that, it's implementation, it's sustainability, it's figuring out how this applies to your life. It's practice, practice, practice, practice, a lot of practice surrounding yourself with people who are doing these things the way that you're doing it it's, can you?
Speaker 3:it's near, nigh near impossible. I'll say near impossible, if you are trying to make all these changes and habits and and lose weight and all these things and you have a bunch of people around you doing the exact and not doing any of that. You know I, you know that is that I don't, like, I'm not a big fan of like equating like food to drugs. But it's like, imagine trying to be sober, let's say alcohol, like you're trying to be, you know, quit alcohol, and you hang around a bunch of people who are just drinking all the time. Yeah, like that's going to be real fucking difficult, impossible, maybe not.
Speaker 2:There are some people here listening to me right now that you have a friend, a relative, a coworker, somebody that you meet with for lunch several times a week, every day, something like that, and I want you to try to picture a conversation with this person where you don't have a table between you. Does it still happen? This is not me telling you they're a bad person. This isn't telling me that. You're just telling them that you don't want them in your life anymore. But are these people just people that you eat with?
Speaker 2:I had people that I just ate with, and then, when I would start trying to cut my calories down, I'd realize I'm like I'm just sitting at this table and I kind of feel like I'm not a part of the conversation anymore. Interesting, and then I'd start seeing them less. And then, of course, when I gave up on that specific diet, we'd go back and I'm eating with them every day and they're my eating buddies, my food partners in crime. I call them. That's interesting. Some of you have healthy relationships where neither of you would overeat, I think, on your own, but then one person taps the other on the shoulder and says, hey, I'm getting doordash, want something right and you're not particularly hungry, but you can eat right and you start.
Speaker 3:I just watched the whole like thing on doordash, like these, all these like meal delivery things went on. Like you know, it's very, it's pretty, inexpensive to have like food just delivered to your house, like because these companies like they're working on very slim margins or they're even losing money because they just want to get more customers, more people using the app. So it doesn't even cost that much. So you can door dash, you know, a dozen donuts for pretty dang cheap. Yeah, uh, and man, you just have it show up right at your house, you know, for someone who's trying to like sit there and you know, maybe you're trying to eat a little healthier, lose a little weight and they're just got their phone, they're just just like calling to them like, hey, you could have a dozen donuts at your house in like 20 minutes you want to talk about food noise?
Speaker 2:let's talk about door dash notifications. That's literal food noise coming into your phone like it's, it's, it's, that's what it is. It'll buzz, it is, a section of your favorite song will play and suddenly, hey, here's two percent off a two percent off a steakhouse double food noise now you know that's what it really is. It I never tell anyone not to have it. I never tell anyone not to have anything. I always like with my clients. I'll tell you. I'm not telling you not to have this, I'm asking you if you want it.
Speaker 1:I'm not, not, not telling you, I'm not not telling you.
Speaker 2:It's not like if your choice is truly this is what I want to eat, okay, fine, go ahead. But I wouldn't have the amount of followers that I have if we liked emotional eating. I wouldn't have a career doing this right now, albeit not a profitable one, if this was something you and me both yes, you know how it is that if we enjoyed these habits, we wouldn't be looking for solutions for it.
Speaker 2:It wouldn't be a multibillion dollar industry of people trying to solve it. So do you really want this? What's going to be your outcome?
Speaker 3:and that for me, is sometimes I do want to slice a cheesecake because it's damn good oh man, cheesecake, I'm telling you cheesecake and like american key lime pie are like my two up there, like anything like key like, or lemon tarts, like any sort of like citrus fucking uh desserts. They're so good. You get the sour mixed perfectly with the sweet. I could eat a whole fucking key lime pie.
Speaker 2:But, liam, of course you can have key lime pie. You can afford the calories because you're skinny, right?
Speaker 3:Right Meanwhile, you know, I see someone do like a bigger person, do like a what I eat in a day and they're like wait, whoa, how much salad dressing are you putting on there?
Speaker 2:But here's the fun thing about that is like we can't afford the calories. In fact, our bodies will ultimately take on more fat over the period of a day if we, you know, exceed our surplus than you would.
Speaker 3:From that, that's going to get us closer to our surplus than you, if you're someone who's 300 400 pounds, depending man, can I just say like the most wild thing to me, that one of the most wild things I've seen is the videos of like skinnier people doing these like massive mukbang things or whatever. Like they just like what I eat in a day and they eat like fast food seven times a day and they're just and like are they actually eating the food? Probably not, but like you know, whatever, whatever you know, let Whatever they're showing themselves eating it and the people that eat that shit up in the comments just like marry me please. Weird way to propose. We're like what is wrong with us? What is going on?
Speaker 2:I've got friends. I don't get that, and I know you guys have some friends too who are still on their weight loss journeys, some of them particularly still obese by their own metrics Right. You know, and they have great messages. They've lost sometimes several hundred pounds already and their comments are like how do you achieve the lunch lady build, Like that kind of thing? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And I'm like this person has lost you twice and you're going to criticize them for not knowing what they're doing, like that's insane. I've got the same message as them but no one ever comes in my comments and is, like have you ever tried carnivore? You ever tried starving yourself Carnivore? Because I look the way that they think I'm supposed to skinny people can just like I could just do.
Speaker 3:Uh, I I swear, if I did like a big mukbang or something I would get next to no comments about my health, like. I'm just concerned for your health, that's all. I'm just worried that this is unhealthy. You'd be like good cheat day, bro.
Speaker 2:Hit it hard next time their biggest thing would be if there was like red 40 and something they'd be. Like red 40 is actually it's gonna make your skin turn red someone tagged me in a comment recently on a recipe there.
Speaker 3:Somebody said the seasoning was poisonous and I was like, oh good, we can't even season our food. Perfect, that's great, they've been watching non-toxic dad.
Speaker 1:There was a video.
Speaker 2:I saw.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think those I I think a lot of people still don't realize that. Those mukbang people um, there's some that they do eat the food and it's noticeable because they put on weight. But the ones that don't put on weight, there's a reason that there's cuts in between all the bites and stuff.
Speaker 2:They are spitting that shit out or they're throwing it up later, yeah, or they're throwing up, yeah, yeah, which hopefully not, but yeah, that's a reality out there. It's like that one guy. I mean, here's a really good example that would be completely impossible for someone to do that guy who would like have a fish tank full of strawberries oh yeah, that, oh, that guy yeah yeah, I think he's like kind of gone now because people saw through the, you know the ruse, but yeah, he's like it's larger than his body volume.
Speaker 2:He's not eating. That it's not possible.
Speaker 3:I'm going to drink these monster drinks that have like 5,000 grams of caffeine or whatever it is, or 10,000 grams of caffeine.
Speaker 2:It'd be enough to kill, like if there was a truck-sized person, it would be enough to kill them.
Speaker 1:It's like even just with the water toxicity alone would be enough and not to mention the niacin and the niacin oh yeah right, right, you got that too.
Speaker 3:Like oh, but like okay, okay, I just I'm planning on doing a video. I don't know exactly what I'm saying yet, but like, maybe I can you just chat about it here and kind of figure it out. Uh, I follow a buff unicorn. She's fun. I like she's got recipes. She does like fluffy yogurt and whatnot. I like it. Yeah, if I'll look up buff unicorn anybody if you're looking for like recipes and stuff she does good things. She struggled binge eating and whatnot, so she tries to help out with that as well. But anyway, she did a video recently that I really liked.
Speaker 3:I got tagged in where she's like the algorithm only pushes overindulgence or, you know, eating very few calories, like those are the two things that's what the algorithm pushes. And my thing is like yes, but also we are the algorithm, like we say the algorithm, like no, that's what we want. And I'm sure people are going to say that's not what I want. Yeah, it's not what I want either. But collectively, as a large group, we want the extremes. We want someone stuffing their fucking face until they look like they're going to throw up. Like there's the guy that I can't hit my protein. You know, like that guy I've seen that.
Speaker 2:Four rotisserie chickens.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just stuff in his face. You're like, oh, I'm so full, I'm stuffed, and people are like that's hilarious, oh my God, he's going to throw up, and I'm like I don't get that. But millions and millions of views. Or there's the people that I only eat 800 calories and here's how I do it. That's the stuff in general that people want and it sucks. And I feel like if you are promoting moderation, you have to claw your way to views, you have to scratch your way, you have to fight for every single little view where it's like. So the way that I do it basically is just like you know, hey, here's me eating a couple of raw onions. I'm being stupid, bam. I mean, here's some tips on moderation and they're like oh, I'm just going from this and I go wait, wait, wait, wait penis. And they go penis.
Speaker 1:That's funny All right, I'll stick around a little bit longer.
Speaker 3:And that's basically my entire social media presence. It's just like being a clown in order to get you to understand some points about moderation get you to understand some points about moderation, but it's like the way that you do it it doesn't feel cheap like it's.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of the people that come back to you are very like. They know what they're going to get when they come to you. They know that you're a trusted source. So it's not like you're just the clown, you're like there's a lot of education that goes with the entertainment right, like I have to.
Speaker 3:I it did, finding that that balance between the two is really tough, because if you just do education, you're not gonna get the views, you're not gonna get very many views, let me just put it that way. Yeah, and so I have to find this, this weird balance of like oh, here's a crazy ridiculous video. Uh, let me try that. Oh, that didn't work. But while you're here, here is something you could also do. That would be more easier and, you know, just throw that in there and like, the other thing about liam's videos is that they're real.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like they. They are liam, that is.
Speaker 2:That is liam you come in with, like you you burned something and you show that to them like well, I messed up the first one, pretty bad. But you know, this one's kind of okay and it's like a little bit ugly but it still tastes good, like that's a realistic thing that somebody at home would probably go through doing that, because the ones that you see in the recipe videos, they're plated perfectly and it's it's lighted perfectly and everything, and you're just when I started making videos, I was like I gotta try and make it look like that and very quickly I realized it's not gonna look like that and I'm like I am just gonna own it.
Speaker 3:And then people are like I like that and I'm like I got shit stuck in my teeth as I'm eating and whatnot. Like this is fucking, this is you, this is gonna be you.
Speaker 2:If I can do this stuff, I I feel like that might be a little bit of why people resonate with my stuff, cause I'm like very not perfect. I'm sometimes crying very openly or I'm very mad about something and it's like hardly ever Well, never, I should say. Or I'm just posting body checks or whatever you know super edited and you know filters and all that stuff, like you know, and then a picture of like out to the beach or something like that's, that's not most people, I'm just a guy. Yeah, we're all just guys.
Speaker 3:That's what you say like it's all edited, like it's, it's like again I saw another video I'm kind of just playing on. Maybe talking about is a woman who's like this is how influencers kind of fake the hourglass figure and you know, showing like how you do the posing, you suck and you've got to do all these things. And you know a lot of people are like, uh no, a lot of people, people have that you're just ugly, you know that sort of thing and I'm like that's so. Anytime you people try and pull down the, the, the facade, the, the mirage or whatever you know to pull down, you know open the curtain a little bit. People like, no, I put the curtain back up. I wanted, I want the curtain.
Speaker 2:Well, let's talk about the people that do actually have that like, uh, namely recently hugh jackman, uh, who had an interview somewhere where he was talking about how much he hates the conditioning for wolverine. Oh yeah, yeah, like, he does look like that for real, but he hates it, and he only looks like that for filming oh, being be getting to that's got to be incredible.
Speaker 3:And the amount like at his age, the amount of, like I'm sure, other special uh supplements he's gotta have to be taking. Oh, yeah, yeah magic.
Speaker 2:So you guys have had bodybuilders on here, right?
Speaker 3:I'm sure you've had a good few oh yeah, we had you know, doctor, or the zieglers, or zieglers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always forget if the zieglers are sick none of them would ever recommend their show prep as a diet to somebody. No god, no you know, everyone I ever speak to.
Speaker 2:That's, you know, in the bodybuilding space. They're like I I hate it. It's awful. As soon as I'm off stage, I gain all the weight back again because my body's trying not to die and like they don't look like that very long. Yeah, pay attention to the length of someone's hair with your favorite. Yeah, liam already knows. When you see someone at their most cut, most lean, just for a couple of months, pay attention to the length of their hair, or like a cut on the side of their neck or something where, like you can just see it consistently, it's like they took a whole big batch of these to post while they weren't lean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah they're not changing at all.
Speaker 3:Because, yeah, maintaining that fucking sucks. Oh, can I play a little clip for you, like I'm planning on talking about this too. It's so good you got to hear it. Paddy, paddy, something. He's a UFC fighter, ufc fighter, somebody asked him yeah yeah, this video, I love this one.
Speaker 1:Did you ever miss the six pack when you were between fights? I'd rather be fat and happy than ripped. And, like these, people who are ripped all year round are not being asked. I don't care what they say, just like sound. I look great. But I'd rather be fat and happy.
Speaker 3:He's just eating a pizza while he's talking about it.
Speaker 2:It's great and I'm like I fucking totally get it man, you know it, man, you know you get down that lead and you're like I don't want to fucking stay like this miserable I. I think that's one of the reasons that people I filmed a video today that was fairly impassioned and it was just no editing, it's just on my couch and I started by saying I would either be at this point 700 pounds or dead if I didn't stop telling myself that I couldn't lose the weight. And it's because, you know, my habits were only ramping up and getting worse and worse and worse. But I was leaning into those things, not because I was uncontrollable or anything but because everything around me was uncontrollable. I, my job sucked, my friends sucked, my relationship sucked. I had and I was still living at home at that point like I didn't really have a lot of control over many things. But I could certainly pull through the pull through the McDonald's drive-thru and order a whole bunch of food and no one would ask me why I wanted it. It's the only place I could do that.
Speaker 2:So some people, when they're faced with the idea of having to cut some of that control because it is ultimately control a very sad grasp at it in order to lose weight. Well, I can't do that because to do that, I have to give up my happiness. That shouldn't be it. That's what I was contending with the whole time. If I give up this food, I give up the one thing that I've got. I'm not working towards something. I'm working away from this one little safe space that I've got. I'm not working towards something. I'm working away from this one little safe space that I have. So, rather than working towards weight loss, you may need to be working towards having some rough conversations with people in your life. You don't get to go through this without pissing somebody off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it wasn't a weight loss thing for me, it was a mental health thing for me. But and it follows the same thing, like when I was stuck, unable to leave my room that was my safety thing, that was my comfort thing. And people have asked me well, you had really bad social anxiety disorder. How have you overcome that? And first of all, it's it's like no, I haven't overcome it, it's still there, but I've worked on it because I've told myself that I can. I can continue to work on it. I don't have to sit in that comfort zone and just it's like a fake happiness.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and just it's like a fake happiness. Yeah, I, breaking out of where you're comfortable is so tough because it just it's incredibly easy just to fall back into whatever habit you had before yeah well, it's easier to live that way.
Speaker 2:We know how to live that way.
Speaker 3:We don't have to build new beliefs, yeah, I know how to live that way.
Speaker 2:I know how to live as a 265 pound guy. It sucks, but I don't have to think about it and we tend to lean toward the path of least resistance.
Speaker 1:But now I do things I say I can't do, because it's the only way to prove myself wrong right, I if I just sat in that that room and just lived off of like disability or something and just you know, I wouldn't have met people like you, I wouldn't have met all my followers, I wouldn't have been able to go out and experience all these things that I've experienced things that I've experienced.
Speaker 2:If anybody's listening right now and you want to do what the three of us get to do which I don't know about you guys, but I am incredibly grateful to get to do what I do yes, of course, there are rough days and things are difficult and stressful and uncertain, but I would rather have these problems than the problems I've had in the past. And stressful and uncertain, but I would rather have these problems than the problems I've had in the past. I if, if anyone out there is trying to build anything, whether it be this or your own thing, just go ahead and do it. It just do a shitty version of it for real.
Speaker 3:Just do a shitty version of it until it's better you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable and that's tough, but like I feel like I've talked about it before, I enjoy failure. I enjoyed like, oh, fucked up, didn't work. Well, I learned, I'll just, I'll try something else.
Speaker 1:It's fine, it's and the amount of failure that you're comfortable with. You know some you. If you want to jump in the deep end and you enjoy doing that, like liam, then yeah, go do that. But if you want to just take baby steps through the shallow end, you can do that too my videos.
Speaker 2:I decided I'm just going to film a quick video every day where I talk a little bit about weight loss or about my mindset or my journey, something like that. No editing, just I'm going to walk and I'm going to talk and I'm going to post it and it won't be good. But I'll have another opportunity tomorrow and seven opportunities next week exactly.
Speaker 3:And here I am exactly you know, it's like if you know it will fail if you do nothing.
Speaker 2:If you did nothing, you know what's gonna happen, like you might as well try and often we're not doing things and not taking action because we're insulating ourselves from the possibility of failure. And yet not doing it is the greatest way to determine that you will, in anything what's what's the one you, you miss. What's, I don't you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take shots you don't take, yeah wayne gretzky, michael scott is it gretzky?
Speaker 2:there you go for the Office fans out there. I'm sure they'll complete that quote with Michael Scott's name after that, I love the Office yeah.
Speaker 1:A somber moment of silence. I think before Mike tells everybody where to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think before Mike. I think before Mike tells everybody where to, where to find them.
Speaker 2:I think you know I I want to play on that silence there for a second. Sometimes it's okay to just not think about it, just let it go for a second. I'm not telling you to just let all your habits go crazy again or whatever I've. I've got one person that I'm working with who told me that they didn't really want to think about weight loss anymore. This is a person who I've seen incredible strides with, someone who has broken through a lot of really negative self-talk and habits that have been ingrained in them over decades and habits that have been ingrained in them over decades. And so I I know what this person's capable of. I've seen what they're able to do and I've seen the progress they've made.
Speaker 2:So when they told me I don't really know if I want to think about weight loss anymore Like, okay, do you want to return back to the old lifestyle? Is it something like that? And they're like, no, no, no, I just, you know, I want to keep doing the stuff that I'm doing. I want to keep doing my classes and you know I like the foods that I'm eating. I'm like, okay, cool, great.
Speaker 2:So the habits are staying in place. It's not like you just law you hate everything you're doing right now and you're longing for wanting to live as the person you know how to live as you want to live as this person. Let's not think about weight loss anymore. Just do that, and I'm very confident that you know, within a month or so, when we meet up again, this person will have experienced more weight loss, more progress, gotten stronger and, all the while, realize that they don't have to be staring at it really closely to make it move. A watched pot never boils and watched scale never drops. So if it's stressing you out, obviously, yeah, we don't want to return to the kfc bucket because you're trying to get away from that, but if the bad thoughts are something you got to get away from too, let them go do things that feel good it's very similar with a lot of other things like, uh, learning guitar, you know this well.
Speaker 1:Um, and I the the, the speed at which I've been doing it isn't because I'm sitting there doing it for hours a day, it's because I do it for a little bit and then I stop and I just let that sink in in the back and just go about my day. And then the next day I'll pick it up again and I'll play a little bit and I'll have gotten a little bit better I'll tell people sometimes.
Speaker 2:I've been playing guitar now for half my life. Um, I'm not trained or anything. It I'm all by ear, just like you. So I'll tell people just have the guitar in your lap, just sit it down. Oh, there goes my light. I can't help you with light placement.
Speaker 1:Knock over your light.
Speaker 2:But I can help you with a guitar. You don't have to touch it. If you want to go and pick a note or two here and there, you can do that. But just when you're doing other things watching TV just have your guitar there in your lap. Let your brain become acclimated to it being there. Yeah, and then mess with it when you're ready. Yeah, that's all.
Speaker 1:Go slow.
Speaker 2:And that's a lesson for everything. Except for getting out of a burning building. In that point you want to just yell and hopefully get some handsome fireman to sling you over your shoulder. Hustle, hustle.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you guys for having me on yet again. Well, definitely tell people where to find you for more rants from your couch.
Speaker 1:I want more people to find me to keep saying mean stuff.
Speaker 3:You don't want people to find you.
Speaker 2:I don't want people to find me. They keep saying mean things to me. I've awoken the wrong part of the internet the last couple of days. I'll tell you guys off camera. Yeah, you can find me at MikeNeed plan on tick tock and Instagram, as well as Spotify and Apple. I've got my podcast, which, once I could figure out the guest situation, I'd love to get you guys on, like we were talking about what's Liam figure out time situation?
Speaker 2:am I anywhere else. If you want to work with me, you can work with me. Go to any of those pages. You'll be able to find my link and we'll. We'll talk about it.
Speaker 1:I also want to push Mike to to mention his Twitch, which we were talking about just before.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, I have a Twitch Mike needs a plan. I'm very creative with the names, so, yeah, you can give me a Twitter. Youtube I'm at. Mike needs a plan. My Gmail is Mike needs a plan. My business name I'm at Mike needs a plan.
Speaker 1:My Gmail is Mike needs a plan. Uh, my business. I've been telling him legally he goes live and he he just sits there and talks with you guys and it's great, it's like super motivational. And I've been telling him he can play some like chill, uh, sim games or stuff like that, and you guys have something to watch and then occasionally you know bug them about be like Mike in the watch and occasionally you know bug him about be like mike.
Speaker 1:You did that wrong I'll get into the game um I'll have to have you guys and he's also got the whole chat going and it it's a good experience.
Speaker 2:I recommend going checking him out when he's live I'm better talking than playing, but maybe that's why I'll need some, some friends to accompany me. I'm a yapper, not a tapper. All right, everyone. I guess I'll say my famous line that everyone knows me for K-bye, k-bye. I was just about to say I knew that was coming and get a vasectomy. Be kind to yourself everyone. Rob, do you have one?
Speaker 1:I don't, but I also am not in a relationshipomy Be kind to yourself everyone.
Speaker 2:Rob, do you have one? I don't, but I also am not in a relationship, so who cares? Let's workshop it. You don't have to be in a relationship, to have a catchphrase.
Speaker 3:Oh, a catchphrase. He was asking about a vasectomy. I was saying why do you have a vasectomy? Fucking Mike, you don't have to be in a relationship, to have a catchphrase, that's this episode cannot be released. I'll have my people talk to yours, you'll be soon with this part and just put it on like our like you know podcast on TikTok or whatever quick reminder that I have a cat. I don't have a catchphrase, because I'm in a, I'm not in a relationship.
Speaker 1:You idiot.
Speaker 3:My most innocent moment catchphrase because I'm not in a relationship.
Speaker 2:Mike Duh, you idiot. My most innocent moment. If anyone's got a bridge they want to sell me, now's the time.
