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If you want to know how to build muscle, lose fat, and be healthier, happier, and wiser…faster than you ever thought possible…then this podcast is for you. Hosted by the bestselling author and entrepreneur, Mike Matthews, each episode gives you simple, science-based know-how and inspiration that will help you build your best body and life ever.
Find out more at www.legionathletics.com
Copyright: © Mike Matthews
In this interview, I talk with Luke who’s 28 years old and recently completed my 90-day transformation coaching service.
He shares his personal fitness journey, including what he was up to before finding me and my work and how it was going, how things started to change after implementing some of the advice in my books and articles, and how he recently used my coaching service to really accelerate his progress and get into the best shape of his life.
The bigger picture looks like this: When Luke first found Bigger Leaner Stronger about two years ago, he was about 20% body fat at about 185 pounds, and today, he’s about 10% at the same weight and about 280 pounds stronger on his key lifts. As far as natural recomps go, that's about as good as you can get.
Luke’s transformation wasn't without struggles, of course. He ran into a number of roadblocks along the way that most of us can relate to, including issues with workout and meal scheduling, hunger and cravings, dietary temptations, and more. And in our chat, Luke shares what has most helped him navigate these barriers skillfully and prevent them from derailing his progress.
So, if you like hearing motivational stories about how people have changed their bodies and lives, and if you want to pick up a few tips that may help you along in your personal journey, this episode is for you.
5:16 - What were your before and after results?
17:46 - What lessons did you learn during a cut?
19:09 - What tactics did you use to stay on track?
25:13 - Do you think it’s better to track calories or apply intuitive eating?
30:19 - What obstacles did you have while cutting?
36:35 - What are you doing now for training?
37:26 - What obstacles are you encountering while bulking?
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You don’t have to read much of the pain literature to discover that it’s a fairly mysterious thing.
Some people experience regular and excruciating pain for no apparent reason while others experience very little pain despite having severe structural damage.
And this is especially true of back pain, which is can be a truly baffling phenomenon that seems to follow no discernable patterns or rules as far as prognosis and treatment go.
That sucks too because the fact is most everyone will experience back pain at some point in their lives, and sometimes it’ll resolve on its own and sometimes it won’t.
When it doesn’t resolve, many people go see doctors and specialists and do x-rays and MRIs only to find their way back to square one, with no idea why their back hurts so much and what to do about it.
Well, “what to do about it” is what Mark Rippetoe and I talk about in this episode. Whether you’ve been struggling with back pain for years, have only had it a few times in the past, or just want to do whatever you can to avoid it in the future, I think you’re going to enjoy this chat.
In it, Mark and I discuss common questions such as . . .
- What causes low back pain for most people?
- How effective is surgery for reducing back pain?
- Should you keep doing squats and deadlifts if you have back pain?
- How helpful is stretching for back pain?
- How long does it take for low back pain to go away?
The bottom line is by the end of this interview, you’re going to know more about back pain than most people ever will, along with some counterintuitive tips about how to deal with it that you probably haven’t heard elsewhere.
6:57 - Why do people experience back pain?
10:50 - Is back pain seen more in mammals that are walking on their two feet than quadrupeds?
11:30 - What is a Q-angle?
13:07 - Why does the degeneration of a disk result it back pain?
23:02 - What do you do if deadlifting or squatting hurts your back?
29:58 - What do you think of foam rolling, massages, and active release therapy?
35:17 - Does yoga positively affect back pain when training?
38:46 - What are some equipment recommendations to help prevent back pain?
40:38 - Are there any substitutes for the deadlift when experiencing back
pain?
52:19 - Where can people find you and your work?
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What if I told you that by eating nothing but meat and other animal products—no fruits, vegetables, or plant foods of any kind—you could . . .
-Lose fat without counting calories
-Bulletproof yourself against and even cure diabetes
-Prevent blood sugar spikes and crashes
-Increase your testosterone levels, build more muscle, and improve your athletic performance
. . . BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
You may also be able to resolve digestive problems like bloating, gas, and constipation and overcome depression, fatigue, joint pain, and other maladies.
Well, according to a growing number of self-styled health and diet gurus, that’s exactly what happens when you follow the “carnivore diet,” which involves eating only animal products (along with water and salt).
If you poke around online and read people’s experiences with the carnivore diet, you’ll find some compelling success stories.
Men and women of all ages and circumstances are saying that it has cured their arthritis, stomach bloating, headaches, insomnia, anxiety, brain fog, depression, and alcohol and nicotine addictions, as well as helped them build muscle, lose fat, and look and feel healthier than ever before.
On the other hand, there are decades of research showing that eating fruits, vegetables, and whole grains is healthy, and some evidence that suggests eating high amounts of animal products increases the risk of disease and dysfunction.
Which position has the weight of the evidence on its side?
Well, the short answer is that while it’s possible to be healthy on the carnivore diet (at least for a while), there’s an overwhelming amount of scientific research showing that it’s far from optimal and that there are much better options.
And in this podcast, you’re going to get the whole story, including . . .
-What the carnivore diet is
-Why people follow it
-What the benefits and downsides are
-How safe it is
. . . and more.
Let’s get started.
-8:47 - What is the carnivore diet?
-10:05 - What would a carnivore diet food list look like?
-11:37 - Why do people follow the carnivore diet?
-15:34 - What are the benefits of the carnivore diet?
-21:38 - How does the carnivore diet affect cardiovascular health?
-32:08 - Does the carnivore diet reduce inflammation in the body?
-36:23 - How does the carnivore diet affect testosterone levels?
-42:42 - Do you get the nutrition you need on the carnivore diet?
-45:19 - How do you get enough Vitamin C without eating plants?
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Simply put, if you’re in business either for yourself or working for someone else and want to become a better entrepreneur, businessperson, worker, boss, or even, I would argue, a better person, you want you read this book.
In short, it provides a compelling and comprehensive answer to the question of why some companies excel and others don’t, and it’s the result of a tremendous amount of in-the-field research and scientific analysis, not a single author’s experiences or opinions.
One of the reasons I recommend Good to Great so highly is it deals with the strategic level of business and work, where decisions carry far more weight and influence than those made in the trenches.
In fact, sound strategic thinking is probably the ultimate success “hack” there is because no amount of hard work can transform a lousy strategy into a screaming success, and nothing succeeds like a brilliant strategy executed competently.
I believe that applies not just to business, but to all areas of life. Assuming you can do the types of things most people don’t want to do, the more bright ideas you can generate and implement, the more your life is going to be filled with hope, excitement, and reward.
And this book can help by showing you how to make more good strategic decisions than bad ones.
As you’ll see in my takeaways, Good to Great has heavily influenced my own decision making particularly in my businesses, and to great effect.
As a matter of fact, I’d ascribe much of my success as an author and entrepreneur to the “hedgehog” and “flywheel” concepts alone, which have informed much of the direction of my work and companies for a number of years now.
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I’ve churned through over 100,000 emails, social media comments and messages, and blog comments in the last 6 years.
As you can imagine, some questions pop up more often than others, and I thought it might be helpful to take a little time every month to choose a few and record and share my answers.
So, in this round, I answer the following three questions:
If you have a question you’d like me to answer, leave a comment below or if you want a faster response, send an email to mike@muscleforlife.com.
Recommended reading for this episode:
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This episode is part of a weekly series that I have dubbed “Motivation Monday.”
(Yes, I know, very creative of me. What can I say, I’m a genius…)
Seriously though, the idea here is simple:
Every Monday morning, I’m going to post a short and punchy episode that I hope gets you fired up to tackle the workouts, work, and everything else that you have planned for the week ahead.
As we all know, it’s one thing to know what you want to do, but it’s something else altogether to actually make yourself do it, and I hope that this series gives you a jolt of inspiration, energy, and encouragement to get at it.
So, if you like what you hear, then make sure to check back every Monday morning for the latest and greatest installment.
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Gut health has become something of a buzzword these days and, quite frankly, a bit of a red flag, like “detoxing” or “pH.”
Whenever I hear someone talking about how to improve gut health, my Spidey sense starts to tingle because there’s a fair chance that shenanigans are afoot.
That said, it’s not all quackery.
Gut health is a very real thing and impacts your overall health and wellbeing in a number of different ways, and that’s what Dr. Mike Ruscio and I discuss in today’s episode.
Before I continue, however, I just have to give a sincerely sloppy kiss to my friends Sal, Adam, Justin, and Doug over at Mind Pump Media for inviting me to their #PODCASTHARD event where I met and interviewed Dr. Ruscio.
They have one of the biggest podcasts in the fitness space and are a bunch of cool dudes to boot, so head over their way and if you like what you hear, tell them I sent you.
Okay so back to business. In this episode, you’re going to hear from Dr. Ruscio on a number of hot-button issues, including…
- What is a healthy gut, actually?
- What is leaky gut and what can you do about it?
- How can you tell what foods are good or bad for your gut?
- Is gluten as bad for your gut as people say?
- How does eating sugar affect your gut health?
- And more.
5:54 - What is gut health?
7:43 - What are inflammatory foods?
8:30 - Why do certain foods trigger an immune response?
11:27 - What is the low-FODMAP diet?
12:27 - What are soluble and insoluble fibers?
15:24 - What is leaky gut?
16:22 - What are symptoms of leaky gut?
17:59- How does gluten affect your gut health?
25:06 - How can we improve our gut health?
27:42 - How does sugar affect our gut health?
30:19 - Why does sugar lead to weight gain?
33:06 - Do artificial sweeteners affect your gut health?
36:44 - How do probiotics help?
43:23 - Are the probiotics at the store shelves already dead?
45:09 - Where can people find your book?
46:07 - Where can people purchase your supplements?
46:28 - Can lifestyle factors improve gut health?
49:16 - Is there a connection with exercise and gut health?
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Doing cardio on an empty stomach doesn’t necessarily help you lose fat faster.
Doing fasted cardio can help you lose fat–and “stubborn” fat in particular–faster, though.
(And it works especially well when combined with several other fat loss strategies, which we’ll talk more about in this podcast.)
This sword cuts both ways, though.
Do your fasted cardio wrong and you won’t lose fat faster. You’ll just lose muscle instead, which is a good way to wind up skinny fat.
We’re going to break it all down in this podcast and learn the simple science of fasted cardio, including…
By the end, you’ll know how to use fasted cardio to speed up fat loss without sacrificing muscle.
So let’s go.
5:52 - What is fasted cardio?
9:10 - How does fasted cardio affect fat loss?
11:37 - What does the science say about burning more fat with fasted cardio?
18:54 - How does fasted cardio affect calorie burning?
21:11 - What is stubborn fat?
26:39 - What is yohimbine?
33:30 - What is synephrine?
36:26 - What type of fasted cardio is best?
42:03 - What about fasted weightlifting?
45:23 - How do you maximize the effectiveness of fasted training?
48:12 - What is HMB?
56:59 - What I take before fasted training?
58:28 - What should you eat after fasted training?
01:02:08 - What's the bottom line on fasted cardio?
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In this episode, I interview my buddy Kurtis Frank, who’s the co-founder and former lead researcher and writer of Examine.com and the current Direct of Research for my supplement company Legion Athletics.
This time around, Kurtis and I dive deep into the science and physiology of appetite, including the body’s primary levers for controlling it, how appetite is influenced by different types of foods and diets, easy ways to reduce your appetite while cutting and increase it while lean bulking, and more.
So, if you’d like to gain a deeper understanding of how your body’s appetite works and how to make it work more the way you’d like, you want to listen to this episode.
4:11 - What is appetite?
6:04 - What are some common factors that screw up natural appetite?
17:58 - How is appetite affected by different types of diets?
19:29 - What do you mean by handling carbohydrates well?
20:48 - What are some signs of insulin sensitivity?
22:41- How does a high fat diet affect appetite?
24:15 - Is it true that your body is better at sensing food volume than caloric
density?
26:17 - Is a high fat low carb diet what it tends to be lower in fiber?
29:07- If you could cut on 2500 calories per day, should you add more carbs?
32:08 - How do you reduce appetite while cutting?
32:40 - Is it true that having water with food increases the satiating effect?
34:04 How much water should you drink per day?
38:30 - What else can people do to reduce their appetite while cutting?
37:47 - Does caffeine suppress appetite?
37:13 - Can you sense caffeine tolerance?
40:12 - What are some tips when increasing appetite while bulking?
46:48- What does the endocannabinoid system affect?
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When you first start lifting weights, getting stronger is simple.
Show up, add weight to the bar, and hit your reps and sets, and go home.
As you inch your way toward your natural muscular potential, however, progress slows.
You’ll start missing or even losing reps, feeling burnt out and overtrained, adding little if any weight to your lifts for months.
Where to go from here?
There are a number of ways to keep progressing in your weightlifting workouts, but one of my favorite models is known as double progression.
It’s a simple method that anyone can put into use right away, and it’s one of the most effective ways to keep making progress after your newbie gains begin to evaporate.
So, in this podcast, you’re going to learn what double progression is, why it works, and how to do it right so you can get the needle moving again.
Ready?
Let’s start at the top.
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