Order of Man - ETHAN SUPLEE ｜ American Glutton

00:00:00.000 My guest today is Ethan Suplee. You may know him from his acting roles on Remember the Titans,

00:00:04.660 American History X and Without a Paddle. But if you saw him today, you likely wouldn't recognize

00:00:09.420 him. And that's because he's transformed not only his physical appearance, but every element of his

00:00:14.720 life. Today, we talk about his journey to lose over 250 pounds, what it's like to be severely

00:00:21.040 obese in Hollywood and how many people had a vested interest in him being unhealthy. Why,

00:00:26.580 who you listen to is so crucial on your self-development journey, adding meaning to

00:00:31.980 challenging self-work and overcoming a complete sense of powerlessness.

00:00:37.860 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly charge

00:00:42.580 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time you are not

00:00:48.420 easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is

00:00:56.000 who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself

00:01:01.400 a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler. I am the host and the founder of

00:01:06.900 this movement to reclaim and restore masculinity in the society that is increasingly dismissive of it.

00:01:13.100 We do this, obviously, via the podcast and have incredible conversations with men like my guest today,

00:01:18.500 Ethan. But we've had Steve Vernella and Jocko and Tim Kennedy and John Eldridge all come on the podcast

00:01:25.620 and share and impart some of their wisdom. And that's what we're doing here because you know,

00:01:30.160 as well as I do, that society needs strong, righteous, bold, capable men as fathers and

00:01:37.080 husbands and business owners and community leaders. And I want to equip you with all the tools. And I want

00:01:41.680 to learn from myself too. Let's be honest. Sometimes I feel like I'm the greatest recipient of, of the

00:01:47.160 work that we're doing here. So glad you're here. Glad you're tuning in. Make sure if you would just

00:01:52.180 do a very small favor to promote some visibility and get this out to the masses by leaving a rating

00:01:57.660 review or taking a screenshot, wherever you happen to be listening to this and posting it on your,

00:02:02.580 your social media accounts, that goes a very long way. So please do that as well, because this one's

00:02:06.740 good. This one is very, very good. And I've been looking forward to having Ethan on the podcast for

00:02:10.680 some time before I introduce you to Ethan. What I would like to do is just mention my friends

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00:02:51.660 these guys are making everything here in America. It's all sourced and made in America. Good people

00:02:56.540 doing good things. Again, originmain.com use the code order at checkout. All right. Let me introduce

00:03:03.660 you to Ethan. If you need it. He is a Hollywood actor. He's a husband. He's a father. He's also

00:03:08.940 the host of the wildly popular American glutton podcast. His name is Ethan. So plea. Many of you

00:03:15.140 have seen Ethan in movies like the butterfly effect American history X without a paddle. Remember the

00:03:22.840 Titans. There's so many more movies that he's been in. But more recently, he's gained a lot of

00:03:27.340 visibility and attention for embarking on his own health journey by losing over 250 pounds. And

00:03:33.840 frankly, just getting jacked. He's a, he's a very strong, large, capable man. I really enjoyed this

00:03:42.180 podcast because Ethan is such a humble person and he's taken his years and years of struggle

00:03:49.460 and not only used it as fuel for his own life, but fuel for helping others transform themselves

00:03:54.400 primarily through his podcast where he talks about health issues and food and exercise and

00:04:00.980 the mindset and everything that, uh, he's used to become successful on his own health journey.

00:04:06.440 And that, that podcast is called American glutton. Anyways, guys, here's the conversation with Ethan.

00:04:12.600 Ethan, what's up, man. Good to see you. Nice to see you. How you doing? Good. I'm a long time fan. Um,

00:04:18.800 my kids, my, my two oldest boys in particular were pretty excited. I'd be, uh, talking with you today.

00:04:23.560 They wanted, of, of all the quotes that they wanted me to tell you about, it was get up,

00:04:29.060 you stoner dogs. That's the thing they wanted me to, that's the thing they wanted me to remind you

00:04:33.640 of is you, as if you didn't remember that. Yes. I know. I mean, I, I, I, I've done a few things,

00:04:39.680 uh, that had similar voices and that, but that is, I think from, uh, without a paddle,

00:04:46.560 without a paddle. Yeah. Funny movie. Yeah. Yeah. Such a good movie. My boys,

00:04:50.520 uh, my two oldest watched that probably, I don't know, it was a couple of months ago or so,

00:04:54.980 but they loved it and they were pretty excited. I was going to be talking with you today as,

00:04:58.480 as am I, man. I've been looking forward to it as well. Oh, thanks for having me. Yeah. I know

00:05:02.900 you've been doing some amazing things. You know, it's really interesting to see how far you've come

00:05:06.520 on your own personal journey. And I think one of the things that's really inspiring about you

00:05:12.400 is that I think maybe it's, it's easy for people to see others and think that, well, you know,

00:05:19.260 that guy's got good genes or he's always been that way and he's always been fit. And so they,

00:05:24.860 they excuse that, but then they see somebody like you, who's been in the public space for

00:05:28.740 decades, uh, really overcome his own personal obstacles and challenges. And I think that realness

00:05:36.020 makes it a lot more inspiring for people on their own path. Yeah. You know, it's, it's amazing that you

00:05:41.740 bring this up because even me today, um, cause I, I completely agree with what you're saying.

00:05:49.420 And I think, um, I think it, it is, I think it, I think it really does become a matter of perspective

00:05:57.740 and how we're viewing whatever situation or whatever, uh, mission we're on or whatever task

00:06:03.160 we're trying to accomplish. And so it's super easy to just assume that somebody else has it easier

00:06:10.520 and therefore it will be impossible for me. And even with what you acknowledge with like

00:06:17.100 the, the drastic change that I made, I still get a little bit of pushback of like, well,

00:06:24.000 you're a Hollywood guy. So you have the money and resources to do this. And you have a personal

00:06:29.420 trainer. And I'm like, look, I'm in the gym by myself every day. I don't have, there's nobody

00:06:35.760 working out with me. You know what I mean? I don't even really go to failure on the bench press

00:06:39.840 because I'm alone and I don't want to be the guy at the gym with the bar stuck on my chest.

00:06:44.680 Kill yourself. Sure. Yeah. The days I go to failure, I'm on the Smith machine. Cause it's a

00:06:48.720 little bit safer. Um, but, and, and as far as like nutrition and stuff goes there, there is for sure

00:06:57.560 an entry into just eating in America. Um, and if you make it there, you can make it to eating less,

00:07:07.940 you know what I mean? So like, obviously it requires some money, but like the idea is no matter

00:07:16.680 where you're at, it requires actually less money than whatever you're spending to get yourself into

00:07:22.840 a situation where you need to address it. So I think that's a good point to make. And, and I do

00:07:29.780 try to, um, I don't want to create gateways for people, you know, and certainly I don't have

00:07:38.280 genetics on my side. Um, I have no kind of innate mental discipline on my side because left to my most

00:07:48.720 base devices, we all saw where I got, um, you know, so there's like, there are certain thresholds

00:07:56.780 of effort, um, and discipline and structure that I think are required. Um, but I, but I like the

00:08:05.200 point you're making where it's like, you know, look, I really do believe if I can do this, if I can make

00:08:11.760 this change that anybody can, I was having much more factually, statistically much more money thrown

00:08:20.060 at me when I was overweight to continue being overweight than I am now. Yeah. So, so let me,

00:08:28.180 so I've been thinking about this conversation over the weekend that, that I knew we were going to have

00:08:31.860 this and, and I wanted to ask you a question and I was thinking about, all right, man, how am I going

00:08:35.640 to say this in like the most tactful way possible? So I'm just going to come out and say it in the only

00:08:40.140 way I know how, which may not, may not be as tactful as possible, but you're, you're touching on

00:08:45.080 something money thrown at you to be how you were like, how did it hit you? And how did you deal with

00:08:51.120 being cast as you know, the fat guy? Yeah. You know, I, I, I was, I was overweight my whole life. So

00:09:04.460 there was nothing. I was overweight my whole life, but I was very sensitive about, about that word fat

00:09:14.280 or being looked at because I was fat. So I made a lot of intentional choices with acting to not have

00:09:25.920 fatness as the punchline to a joke. So the character might be written for a fat guy,

00:09:34.100 but what's occurring isn't about him being fat. Does that make sense?

00:09:40.180 Yeah, for sure. I think about that with, uh, remember the Titans, you know, you see this guy

00:09:44.000 who's, you know, just, just positive and happy go lucky and wants to unite people. And, and that was

00:09:50.280 the character rather than the weight. Right. Yeah, exactly. And he's, he's written as an overweight

00:09:56.960 guy, but that's not the punchline of the joke. It's not, he's not doing goofy stuff because he's

00:10:04.480 fat, you know? Um, whereas, uh, there was another movie, which I thought was also a very good movie.

00:10:11.140 Um, I'm blanking on the name of it, maybe varsity blues where the, where the overweight character in that

00:10:18.700 that was kind of the point over and over, like he's eating all the time and he's got the pig as his

00:10:27.580 pet and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So it was like that kind of thing that I was not super

00:10:32.900 interested in doing and made active choices to stay away from that. Um, but at the same time,

00:10:42.940 you know, there weren't many, I mean, maybe a couple instances where it was just a character

00:10:51.700 that wasn't written as a big guy or a fat guy or whatever. And, and I went after it and got it

00:10:59.000 because they were like, Oh, this is an interesting way to view this. I mean, there certainly were

00:11:03.660 instances of that, like mall rats. Um, the very first movie I did that, that wasn't written for a fat

00:11:10.260 guy that, that was actually, that wasn't even really being considered for another actor. The

00:11:16.120 producer played the, that character in the first movie they did. And so they weren't really looking

00:11:21.560 at it. And then I came in and I was like, I really want to play this guy, not even really putting it

00:11:26.860 together that it was a character that had already been established. I just read the script and was

00:11:31.100 like, Oh, that's interesting. I could do something with that. And then they said, yeah, great. You're it.

00:11:35.200 Um, so that was my intention. But, um, you know, having done that for 25 years at that weight,

00:11:47.300 I'd known I'm, I'm not known really in acting as what I look like now. And so it is definitely,

00:11:57.840 you know, hindering to some degree, but the, but the reality is, um, I just wasn't,

00:12:04.780 I wasn't really happy. And, and there was a huge period of time in my life where there,

00:12:11.860 there was just, um, you know, again, I think it's perspective. I think, uh,

00:12:18.800 I think if you believe yourself to be powerless, then you're powerless. And if you believe yourself to

00:12:25.100 be causative, then you're causative and, and it's just the way you choose to look at the situation.

00:12:32.700 Yeah. I like that. I, I, I've, I've thought about that in the past and my wife and even,

00:12:37.280 even her and I were talking about this last night, knowing we were going to have this conversation.

00:12:41.580 And that's a, that's a very interesting way to look at it. And I can even appreciate

00:12:45.220 that you went after roles where that wasn't the punchline that makes a ton of sense to me. It's like,

00:12:51.860 let's make it more about this other feature or characteristic or whatever than, than my way.

00:12:58.960 But it sounds like also, I've heard you say things in the past where, you know, you use that

00:13:03.940 acting as, as an escape from your real life. So that, did that allow you to overlook things that

00:13:11.500 you felt about yourself? Yeah. I mean, you know, there, there was from,

00:13:18.260 from the time, from the time I was very young, I didn't like attention because the majority of

00:13:27.600 the attention I got was about the wrongness in my body. And so I was actively disinterested in

00:13:40.160 attention because it all kind of, uh, uh, resulted or wound up as let's put attention on him. And then,

00:13:49.860 oh, this leads us to, well, why aren't you doing something about this weight problem?

00:13:55.120 Right. Sure. And I, I didn't understand that in those terms. I understood that there was something

00:14:04.660 wrong with me that I, that I, that I didn't feel at any point that I could fix. And so I just would

00:14:13.160 rather avoid attention. As I grew up, it became obvious that there were different things I could

00:14:21.200 do that were distractions. So if I created, um, if I became an, when I became an actor, it was a huge

00:14:29.440 distraction to me because it was this other thing that really in, in reality had nothing to do with

00:14:36.740 me. You know what I mean? Like, right. Um, you look at a carpenter and if everybody looks at a guy and

00:14:42.640 goes, oh, he's a carpenter. Do we ever get to know who he is? No, you write it off. Yeah. It becomes

00:14:49.740 like this thing, this go-to. And so, you know, I wasn't like a superstar or anything like that, but I

00:14:57.620 became, I became well known enough that in a crowd of people that would become the overwhelming

00:15:06.300 thing I was looked at for versus just being morbidly obese. Hmm. Did you, is, and when you

00:15:13.500 got into acting, I know both of your parents are actors, right? They, they were in the sixties and

00:15:19.360 seventies in New York. Uh, they were theater actors, but the, by the time I was born, they,

00:15:24.860 they decided it was not an appropriate, uh, business to raise children in and kind of got

00:15:31.580 out of it. Yeah. So it wasn't, so what did they, did they push on that a little bit or was that your

00:15:37.040 own desire to get into this field? Um, there was a, I did a, I did a, a school play and it was kind

00:15:45.060 of this mandatory thing. Like everybody in the, in the grade has to participate. Participate. Sure.

00:15:50.240 Yeah. And so I did this and I got, it was one of the first times that I got, um, approval from

00:16:00.660 adults and other classmates, like, man, you were really good in that. And then that didn't devolve

00:16:07.300 into why aren't you doing something about your weight? You know, meetings with teachers generally

00:16:13.140 were like, let's talk about your grades. You're doing really well in math and all of this stuff.

00:16:18.120 Now, what about this? You know, why aren't you concentrating on this or talking to my parents

00:16:22.980 about stuff? It would tend to devolve into weight. And this thing, I did this school play and it kind

00:16:30.820 of just would stop there. You were great in that play and we have nothing else to say to you about

00:16:35.480 yourself other than that. And so I was like, Hey, that's really interesting. And it was in Los

00:16:44.020 Angeles. And there was another kid in my school who was an actor. And I noticed right away that

00:16:50.980 nobody ever talked to him about anything he was interested in as a person or, um, who he was.

00:17:01.040 It was all just like this other thing. Let's all, you were on the wonder years. We're going to talk to

00:17:07.660 you about that. This is amazing. I don't, nobody really cared about him. It was all this distraction

00:17:14.740 and that was really alluring to me. Yeah. I can see how that would when, when you, so when you had

00:17:21.700 teachers and parents and people that cared about you talk about your weight issues, I imagine that

00:17:28.720 it came from a place of, we want what's best for you, right? Like we, we want you to get this stuff

00:17:34.260 under control, but how as a child and even into adulthood, did you, you probably didn't interpret

00:17:40.340 it that way. Right. I mean, how did you interpret those, those messages? It just made me uncomfortable.

00:17:46.980 The first conversation that was ever had with me about my weight, I was five. And when I look at

00:17:56.280 pictures of myself now at that age, I don't, there's nothing. It's not a kid you would need to have that

00:18:02.840 conversation with at all. What do you mean by that? I mean, like I've seen my kids put on a little

00:18:13.180 chub and then grow tall. And then there's this kind of thing and there's like, you know, me at five,

00:18:21.620 I was not an obese five-year-old. I had chubby cheeks, but I was very active. And I wasn't just

00:18:27.860 like, there were no video games when I was five. It was like, you know what I mean? I wasn't a

00:18:34.340 sedentary. I was an active five-year-old kid who liked to eat and had chubby cheeks and like,

00:18:40.720 but no gut or anything like that. And so I, I don't know. I would never look at a kid like that and

00:18:52.880 go like, we got to get this kid under control. That would not be my instinct. Um, my grandparents

00:18:59.300 did. And so my first memory of kind of self-awareness was this self-awareness that there

00:19:09.660 was something wrong with me. And so it just, it just made me uncomfortable because I didn't

00:19:16.000 understand it. It was just like, Oh, my body is bad. Right. There's, there's something off with me.

00:19:21.800 And, and there, there didn't come a point where I felt like, Oh, there's something in life that's so

00:19:35.000 important to me that I'm going to actually confront this thing, take a real look at it,

00:19:40.300 take a look at what I'm doing to contribute to it or cause it versus just this feeling of shame and

00:19:47.060 badness that is so overwhelming that I can't even examine it. Does that make sense?

00:19:54.540 Well, I think it's, yeah, it makes total sense. I think even at five, you know, there's certainly at

00:19:59.920 five, but how could you do that? How could you evaluate what you're interpreting from people that

00:20:04.760 you look up to, that you count on, that you admire and respect to again, are probably coming from a good

00:20:10.540 place. Right. Sure. But how do you interpret that as a five-year-old as, Oh, that means they love me.

00:20:18.640 There's no way to interpret that way. Not even for a five-year-old, let alone at, you know, a 20-year-old

00:20:23.440 or a 40-year-old that's, that's hard to interpret that way. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, it's a, it's the,

00:20:29.620 it's kind of the trickiest thing I've had to think about. And I have no,

00:20:34.360 I have no solution. Like I have no the only, the only thing that I think is kind of the morally

00:20:45.560 righteous thing to do is like set a good example and, and provide healthy situations for your kids.

00:20:55.000 Like that's, that's the best I can do. But I don't think for a second that any of the people that had

00:21:04.140 those conversations were ill-willed or evil or bad, of course, it was all concern and people

00:21:11.500 doing what they thought to be the right thing. Right. Yeah. I've even thought that my oldest son,

00:21:16.900 you have four kids, right? Yeah. Yeah. I've got four as well. My oldest is he'll be 13 here in the

00:21:23.280 next several weeks. And he did exactly what you talked about where it's kind of that accordion effect

00:21:28.260 with it, with children, you know, they put on a little weight and then they get tall and they lean out and

00:21:33.000 then they put the weight back on and it's that accordion effect. And he was dealing with that a

00:21:38.180 little bit and he was feeling some embarrassment for, for his weight. And over the past six months

00:21:45.160 has just been on a terror of just getting in shape and being motivated and people are like, Oh, how do

00:21:51.100 you do it? And I'm like, man, like, I wish I could tell you I had the formula. And this is what you're

00:21:57.220 saying is like, all that I've done is we have the right food in our house and we live an active

00:22:02.740 lifestyle as parents. My, my wife takes him to CrossFit, uh, four days a week. I take him to

00:22:09.180 jujitsu three days a week. Like that's, there's no formula. We're just trying to live healthy

00:22:15.800 ourselves. And I think that just is then inherent in our kids and they learn and they don't have any

00:22:21.600 their kids. Like we're not going to McDonald's. So you don't get McDonald's. Cause this is what's for

00:22:25.880 dinner. You know, like this is all there is. So it's almost like, um, you, you, you, you do the

00:22:32.920 right things out of just, this is what's in front of you and there's no other options.

00:22:37.400 Yeah. I really do believe that's the, the most correct solution or the, the way to do it. Um,

00:22:47.700 that wasn't my experience as a kid. And, uh, and, and I've even failed at that as a, as a parent,

00:22:55.160 you know, um, but I, but I, but I, but I strive for that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So what, what was

00:23:03.520 the moment for you? Was there a moment or was it just, you know, one little thing after another?

00:23:08.580 And, and eventually there was a straw that broke the camel's back or, you know, I've had friends

00:23:14.020 where one friend in particular, I'm thinking of who was, uh, living. He, he wasn't lit. I'll say it

00:23:21.080 this way out of respect for him. He wasn't living the life that he knew he wanted to live.

00:23:24.240 And he had a very cathartic moment in time. And it was like a light switch for him and everything

00:23:30.680 transformed literally overnight. But what was that for you? What was that experience for you?

00:23:36.460 Yeah. That for me was, um, getting together with the girl who is now my wife. Uh, and, and it was

00:23:44.100 really the first, you know, the first time I thought about, uh, future in terms of the potential to,

00:23:56.040 to have something I really, really wanted that was maybe more important to me than anything I'd had

00:24:03.420 before and also like to lose it. And, and it became this really kind of psychologically tricky,

00:24:11.860 abstract scenario that I don't even know that I have efficient language to describe what the feeling

00:24:19.100 was, but it was this situation that is utterly objective. You can see it. There's no hiding the

00:24:26.640 fact that I'm 500 pounds, morbidly obese, a girl who loves me, who, who I'm ashamed to like hold her

00:24:37.160 hand in public because I don't want my shame to bleed over into her. Um, and yet I know that most of the

00:24:48.120 way she lives her life and the way she, and the things she wants to do with me also, I can't really

00:24:55.680 participate in, or I won't be able to long-term. Um, and, and it was like, oh, if I want this to work, I have

00:25:07.760 to, I have to make a change. And, and if I want to make a change, I have to admit to her that there's this

00:25:15.480 problem, which she seems totally oblivious to because she's never brought it up to me. Um,

00:25:22.320 how could, you know, so how do I tell her about this, ask her for help? You know, um, I'm also sober

00:25:30.300 person and there's this idea and, and I know some people get kind of weird about the idea of

00:25:37.620 powerlessness, but I think in a situation that you are not being responsible for that, if you look at

00:25:48.360 it and you go to your teammates or your partners, you go like, Hey, I need help. I'm not, I'm not

00:25:55.240 winning this battle. What can you do to, what do I do? I need help because I'm going to lose. Um,

00:26:02.780 that's what I take in the same sense of like admitting that you're powerless, you know,

00:26:08.540 it's a big step from pretending that you're going to win and losing, you know, um, it's kind of like

00:26:16.060 a reckoning. And so I had to go to her and say, like, I need your help. I don't know what to do.

00:26:23.040 I want to make a change. And she was like, great, let's do it. And, and it, and we just kind of never

00:26:29.140 looks back. It's interesting that you say admitting powerlessness when you reached out for

00:26:35.440 help with her or your partner. And I've heard you use partner, not as your romantic partner

00:26:40.480 necessarily, but it could be your children or a colleague or a friend as a partner. I've heard

00:26:44.500 you use that term in the past that when you actually admit, like you said, that you're powerless,

00:26:51.460 you actually are giving yourself power to do something about it by enlisting people to help you on that

00:26:57.980 path. It's you're, you're dead on because it's actually the most empowering thing. You're right.

00:27:05.220 You're totally confronting reality and going like, I'm going to lose this fight on my own.

00:27:12.260 Let me take somebody. Let me, let me just, even just, if you don't even elicit help from somebody,

00:27:19.100 just stating that the minute you realize like on this treadmill, on this hamster wheel,

00:27:25.600 whatever I'm doing is a losing formula. But often I found myself that if that thought even

00:27:35.100 approached, I would brush it away and just continue doing what I'm doing into failure. And so it's that

00:27:42.940 moment of recognizing, I think I'm losing. I got to change tactics. I got to recognize that my instinct

00:27:52.560 right now is not getting me to the solution. I want to get it to. And sometimes just realizing

00:27:59.140 that you haven't even thought of a solution that you're not even looking for a formula to win

00:28:03.620 is the moment. And yeah, I totally agree with your, so the wording, you know, I, I, I also don't love

00:28:12.800 words that lead us into a trap of powerlessness. And so I get the, the idea of powerlessness as a

00:28:21.880 negative, but at the same time, it makes sense to me because it's also me going, what I'm doing is

00:28:29.320 failing and I need to, I need to get off this track and I need to do something else.

00:28:36.440 I, you, I'm a firm believer in the power of words. I mean, you're using the, you've said

00:28:40.000 the term failing a couple of times and it's amazing. I was having a conversation with a

00:28:44.280 friend earlier today, how afraid we are of painting a realistic picture of life. Like

00:28:50.420 how many people will avoid using that word failure? They just won't even say it. They'll,

00:28:55.800 they'll make up little things like there there's, there's winning or there's learning and they'll

00:29:00.340 try to avoid saying they fail because they're so afraid of actually saying that word. But it

00:29:05.160 sounds like you're saying it and giving it a healthy context so that you could actually improve

00:29:11.620 your life, but it's gotta be founded in reality, which is I'm not doing what I'm failing. I'm not

00:29:17.100 doing what I need to be doing right now. Yeah. I think it's a great way to learn. And I'm also not

00:29:22.800 afraid to fail anymore because I think if, as long as I'm making improvements, you know,

00:29:31.300 if I can admit to myself that I don't understand something or know anything about it and that I'm

00:29:38.740 going to go headfirst into it to learn with an open mind going, I don't know anything about this.

00:29:45.020 I can't expect to be, you know, but again, I understand how words get in there and you could

00:29:50.620 go like, no, I'm constantly winning because I'm, you know, improving myself. I get that.

00:29:58.140 But if I have an idea that I'm going to be really good at something, eventually, if that's what I'm

00:30:04.220 working towards, then it's okay to fail along the way and to improve based on that, you know?

00:30:10.960 Yeah. That's my take. I do. I do think today we are somewhat overly significant with language,

00:30:20.040 but I also think like, it's a really powerful tool, you know,

00:30:23.460 if you're conscious about it. And I, and I think a lot of people aren't, they just use the words that

00:30:28.800 their parents used or that their friends are using. And they don't think about how that tone or the

00:30:35.300 actual verbiage is affecting them positively and negatively. They just, they aren't as intentional

00:30:41.080 as they could be about the words and the power of the tool that they're using.

00:30:44.660 Yeah. When, so you talked about your wife, one of the things you said is,

00:30:49.840 I don't know if she was oblivious to it or, or it didn't bother her. I mean, I'm sure you guys have

00:30:55.560 had conversations about this because she clearly, she would have known that you were overweight and

00:31:02.140 right. So like, so was that, so did she look past that? Was that an issue? Was she genuinely not

00:31:08.540 concerned? Like what, what was, where was she coming from at the time? She just really enjoyed my company,

00:31:17.020 you know, and I, you know, and our conversations and it was kind of, you know, growing up as a kid

00:31:25.220 before I had acting to distract people. It was everything I kind of imagined should be attractive

00:31:35.400 about me. You know, interest in a topic, ability to communicate about it, thoughts, wit, like all

00:31:44.980 of these things. I was like, that's all I've got. I've got nothing else. I don't have anything else to

00:31:49.800 attract anybody. So if, if I'm going to make friends, this is what I've got in my toolbox. And,

00:31:55.240 and those kinds of things won her over. And, and so, yeah, I mean, she's, she's now got a high

00:32:07.800 investment in my health. You know, we've been together 20 years now and we have four children

00:32:13.800 and kids are in college and like, and, and she's like, listen, you better, you better stick around

00:32:20.520 for a long time. These things when we were teenagers didn't really, were not thoughts that

00:32:28.420 we were having because we weren't thinking that long-term into the future. I think when we got

00:32:35.160 together, it was just like, I was entertaining to her and, and, and sweet and comforting and all of

00:32:42.520 these things. And I think the minute I was showing that I was interested in something in, into the

00:32:50.380 future, it was even more of like, Oh, okay. Yeah. I hadn't really, let's, let's really investigate

00:32:55.980 this. What can we do? And, you know, I was going to ask if it was a, it's almost a weird thing to

00:33:02.320 think, but, but I, but I believe this happens for people, even when they know they aren't on the path

00:33:07.080 or they see other people that they care about, like their fiance or boyfriend or husband or whatever

00:33:12.500 that are doing things that are not good for them. There's still an element of risk in changing,

00:33:18.880 even if it's for the better, did she experience any of that? And was she concerned as you decided

00:33:24.340 that you wanted to go on this path to improving yourself physically? And of course the mental

00:33:28.440 growth that comes from it too? No, she, I mean, she's gotten annoyed with me throughout our history

00:33:37.260 with like pursuits that have wound up taking up a lot of my time. Sure. Yeah. You know, I got super

00:33:46.020 interested in chess for a long time and she was like, Oh, you're playing chess again. Okay. Or,

00:33:51.800 you know, there was a five year period where I was just like insanely interested in cooking. And I

00:33:59.500 would take her and the kids around the world to like eat at restaurants. Meanwhile, I'm dieting can't

00:34:05.640 eat there. So I'm just like watching them eat it and like asking them to describe how it tastes. And

00:34:10.920 she was just finally fed up with this. She was like, this is crazy. I'm not doing this anymore.

00:34:16.700 So she's definitely gotten annoyed with that. But the, the actual act of improving myself,

00:34:22.860 I've never in my life had somebody be more supportive of me. You know, I'll now sometimes

00:34:30.880 show her pictures of dudes on social media and go like, I'm going to look like that one day. And she's

00:34:36.980 like, no, you're not dude. I'm not into that. That's not happening. Um, uh, so there's, there's

00:34:43.760 that kind of thing, but like, if it's healthy and like, and healthy, I mean like both mentally and

00:34:50.900 physically healthy, she's, she's been nothing but supportive. That's good. Yeah. You gotta have,

00:34:57.560 I mean, you gotta have a partner like that. How has it impacted her? I don't know anything about

00:35:02.600 your wife, but how has your personal journey impacted her and have you been able to increase

00:35:09.520 your, I guess your level of influence and, and, and how has your transition impacted her throughout

00:35:14.420 her life? Yeah. I mean, she did, she did make a, she has joked a few times that every time, um,

00:35:24.400 my diet gets really, really strict, her and the kids gain weight because suddenly I'm cooking

00:35:30.980 all the things I can't eat and feeding it to them and like doing some psychological sublimation from

00:35:38.080 like, well, I can't eat this food, but I'm going to cook it and I'm going to watch you eat it. And

00:35:42.100 I'm going to experience it that way. And so there's been a little bit of that, but mostly, um,

00:35:49.580 you know, I think mostly it's a lot of the active stuff that, that when we first got together,

00:35:56.120 she was super interested in that I was not super interested in that now I'm so interested. Like

00:36:03.960 she's always liked hiking. That's just something she really enjoys doing. And I got to be honest for,

00:36:12.480 for years, it was just something that I would be like, well, I'm not, I'm not doing that. Um,

00:36:17.820 with you, you can hike, you know, and I'll do something else. Um, I think the only thing she

00:36:25.860 wishes I had more interest in was skiing and I've tried it a couple of times and that's the one thing

00:36:32.180 I can't do, but there's like not another physical activity that she could ever suggest that I would

00:36:37.460 be out on. Man, let me just hit the pause button on our conversation very quickly. Obviously today

00:36:43.460 we're talking about making radical changes in our lives. And personally, what I found to be one of

00:36:48.020 the greatest tools in doing that is having strong, capable, successful men in your corner. And that's

00:36:54.740 exactly what you're going to get when you band with us inside the iron council. Uh, you're going to

00:36:59.100 immediately, immediately connect with over 800 men who want to win. They want you to win. And they're

00:37:05.100 actually doing something about it. Now I will admit that when you join, it's a bit like drinking from a

00:37:10.780 fire hose, but we've got everything that you need to help you improve your health,

00:37:14.940 rekindle relationships, build your business, grow your wealth and anything and everything else that

00:37:20.740 you may want to accomplish in your life. So when this conversation is over, I would encourage you

00:37:25.980 to go check it out, learn more about what we're doing in the iron council and band with us. You can do

00:37:31.080 that at order of man.com slash iron council. Again, that's order of man.com slash iron council.

00:37:37.600 Join us here band with like-minded men and get on your own path. All right, guys do that after the

00:37:44.140 conversation for now. Let's get back to it with Ethan. It's got to feel good to know that even

00:37:50.040 like for a skiing, for example, you may not enjoy it, but the fact that you could go out and do it

00:37:55.000 and, and be okay and be there for her. Like there's got to be an immense sense of pride and satisfaction

00:38:00.620 in doing that, knowing that at one point you just physically could not do that.

00:38:05.820 Yes. I don't think we could ever call what I did on skis doing it, but I tried. I did try.

00:38:13.360 Fair enough. You got out there, you did the thing. Yeah, absolutely.

00:38:16.460 I put the uncomfortable shoes on. I fell down over and over. I did that.

00:38:20.960 The one time I went skiing in my life, my stepfather took me and my sister for the first time

00:38:26.840 and I got about halfway down the hill and I did what can only be described as

00:38:31.920 like an inverted helicopter spin and peg my head into the ground. And, and I went to the ski shop

00:38:40.260 and I traded it for a snowboard and I never looked back, man. I'm like, I'm never doing that again

00:38:44.720 ever. Yeah. So I, I hear you on the skiering, the skiing thing. Um, on your, so you decided to make

00:38:53.000 this change, you were dating your wife. Did you take it to the extreme? Did you do it gradually?

00:39:00.700 I know sometimes when people want to make changes in their life, whether it's dieting or trying a new

00:39:05.900 hobby or interest, they just, they just go balls to the wall and then they burn out. Did you experience

00:39:11.400 any of that? For sure. Yeah, I did. I think for the first like 15 years, it was this, uh, kind of

00:39:20.240 ping pong of, um, and I will say that having been as big as I was for as long as I was, I'm pretty

00:39:32.480 good at suffering. Like I can take discomfort and pain to, uh, to, uh, to, uh, really to the end.

00:39:44.980 Like I can wring the, the, the towel of, of all of it. I can, I can white knuckle stuff.

00:39:52.680 I'm not the pain you were experiencing associated with your weight and health.

00:39:56.280 I mean, yeah, it's bizarre to even think about it now because I don't really experience, um,

00:40:02.700 pain and discomfort now that I'm not actively producing in my own body.

00:40:06.740 You're, you're, you're manufacturing that on your own.

00:40:08.920 Right. But like the, the amount of constant, just discomfort and, and pain that I was in

00:40:18.120 when I was 500 plus pounds, knees, feet, ankles, lower back, um, constantly out of breath,

00:40:26.500 you know, walking up a flight of stairs was like, you know, carrying, uh, literally 300 pounds

00:40:33.500 more than I am now. It was a lot. Um, and, uh, and so, you know, you tell me like, okay,

00:40:43.460 this diet is, you know, 500 calories a day and you're going to do it for 60 days. I'm like,

00:40:49.080 okay, no problem. You get to 60 days. It can't be forever because I go crazy at some point. You die

00:40:58.240 if you do that forever, but you give me some kind of a deadline to hit. I'll even hit 60 days and go

00:41:03.280 a couple extra just because, um, but then I haven't fixed. I haven't, I haven't resolved any

00:41:13.160 of the habits that got me to where I was. I haven't, I haven't looked at any of that stuff.

00:41:17.720 I haven't actually handled anything. I kept expecting the diets to be solutions. Diets aren't

00:41:24.300 solutions to anything. The, the, the real thing I think that, that has helped me and, and, and look,

00:41:32.940 I speak from my perspective. I'm not a medical practitioner. I'm not a nutritionist. I, I,

00:41:41.300 I don't say this to negate anybody else's experience. If somebody had experience doing

00:41:46.920 a diet, then great. That's good. I wouldn't deny that. I wouldn't say, no, that's not true.

00:41:51.240 From my perspective, the kind of step one to figuring out my life was confronting and looking

00:42:02.900 at the, the habits and the, and the activities that got me to where I am and trying to unravel

00:42:12.160 them and to lay in new habits. And, and it's a lot to try to take in at once. It took 15 years for me

00:42:21.140 to stop looking at a diet to fix me with the idea that once you do it, you don't, you're done and

00:42:29.940 you're, and you're solved. You know, once you take, once I take off 50 pounds, then I'm, I'm done. I

00:42:35.480 don't have to do anything else. Not true. Cause we haven't thought at all about the activities we

00:42:40.960 were doing to get us there. And if the diet's done, do we just go back to them? Nothing solved with

00:42:47.040 the diet in my opinion. So really I learned this. And, and the other thing is like you talk about

00:42:54.540 extremes. I've also done adding an extreme exercises in an effort to combat weight or weight regain or

00:43:07.160 whatever, whatever, whatever it is I'm dealing with at the time. And I've done, you know, CrossFit,

00:43:14.420 I've done insane amounts of cardio. I was doing 40 hours on a, on a bicycle for a couple of years at

00:43:23.220 one point. I've done full marathons on Erg rowing machines. Like that's excessive, you know,

00:43:32.100 I get it for once, but if I'm doing like, you know, minimum 10,000 meters a day on a rowing

00:43:38.400 machine, that's a lot of cardio. Like it's an unnecessary amount of cardio. Um, a thousand

00:43:43.980 kettlebell swings a day at one point. Um, just because I wanted abs and I read somewhere that

00:43:49.720 kettlebell swings would get me abs. Didn't do it. I got crazy hamstrings, but not abs. Um,

00:43:56.360 but all of this stuff was just laying in, uh, things on top of all my bad habits. And none of

00:44:09.320 it was actually trying to get rid of my bad habits. It was just like, let's put a new habit on top of a

00:44:15.360 bad habit and have them both. Like, can I eat whatever I want if I'm exercise it off? Yeah,

00:44:21.980 exactly. Yeah, sure. Uh, and all of it crashed and burned. And so I've finally been for the past few

00:44:29.760 years, really working on like, what can I do for the rest of my life? How can I eat for the rest of

00:44:36.120 my life? What kind of exercise routine can I do for the rest of my life? That's not going to get in the

00:44:43.640 way of, or take time away from work or spending time with my kids or my wife or, um, you,

00:44:51.980 you know, it's not going to become this obsessive thing that then dies. Uh, and, and, and for me,

00:45:00.840 all of it is moderation. It's like, I can go to the gym for an hour a day forever. That is something

00:45:08.440 we can do forever. Um, you know, I live in a town where they've, they've been closing the gyms down.

00:45:15.280 I can go into my home gym for an hour a day and, and work out. If that, if, if, if we get an

00:45:23.220 earthquake and my home gym is shut down too, I can walk up an hour a day. Yes. I can dedicate an hour a

00:45:31.680 day to exercise every day for the rest of my life. Um, again, it can't be an amount of exercise that

00:45:42.700 ruins the rest of the day because I've done that a whole lot too. You know, if I swing a kettlebell

00:45:48.400 for an hour straight, I'm done. The day is over, right? I need the, the exercise to compliment my

00:45:56.480 day. How can I eat? Um, okay. If most of my food is protein, if that, if I'm front-loading meals with

00:46:06.560 protein and, and that is the thing I'm hyper concentrated on, I can have some carbs and

00:46:12.260 some fat and it's okay. Um, and like this took a lot of math to begin with because I had stampeded

00:46:22.640 over any kind of sensation of any, um, kind of, uh, announcements that my body would make about

00:46:33.400 being full. I couldn't recognize them at all. So I really had to spend some time figuring out what

00:46:39.860 that was. And then it was like, okay, what else is getting in the way? Well, I, I watched too much TV

00:46:46.120 so I can limit that I eat while I'm watching TV. I can get rid of that. Um, you know, I sometimes will

00:46:56.040 go to make food when I'm really overly hungry and then I'm making bad decisions. Sometimes I'll go to

00:47:01.980 the grocery store when I'm over hungry and I'm checking out and I'm like, why did I buy all this

00:47:06.740 stuff? I, I didn't want to buy all this stuff. And so like trying to combat the bad habits I had

00:47:14.860 installed has been a, has been a big deal. And I never really understood, you know, there's a lot of

00:47:21.080 words in the diet industry that I find to be, um, pretty off-putting like lifestyle change and

00:47:30.420 mindfulness and intuitive, all of this stuff. It's all garbage. However, they are all also usable

00:47:38.660 tools. Like for a long time, I would sit and, and compile a meal and I would measure everything.

00:47:46.000 And I would count the calories and count the macros and look at the meal and think about that's a meal.

00:47:53.320 That's, that's not too much. That's not too little. That's the perfect meal. Now I'm going to sit

00:47:58.360 and slowly eat it and try to listen and see, is my body telling me anything? Is it telling me it's

00:48:04.540 full? I don't know. And it took a while to start to recognize, Oh, I think that feeling is my body

00:48:10.900 saying we're good. You know, all of that. Um, but I, I spent years going deep into extremes that were

00:48:20.820 just not sustainable. Are you somebody who, so based on that, you know, those extremes that aren't

00:48:26.240 sustainable, do you feel like you're somebody who is excessive in everything that you do? I mean,

00:48:32.420 I've talked with man at this point, 330 or so, very, very successful men, including yourself.

00:48:38.580 And a lot of these guys are a hundred percent, a hundred miles an hour or zero. That's it.

00:48:45.700 That's all I do. Whether it's positive or negative, it's all in or all out.

00:48:50.520 Yeah. A hundred percent. And, and this is why this has become, this is the tricky thing about,

00:48:59.020 I think food. Um, because like sobriety and I say sobriety, like I don't live in a, in a

00:49:08.260 teetotaler house. My wife has wine and drinks alcohol and it's not a problem for her. For me,

00:49:14.860 it was a problem. I can't, I don't drink or use drugs. That's a hard line and I'm great. So long

00:49:22.760 as I stay on that line, you know, um, when I did, it was a disaster. Um, and it was never not a

00:49:31.380 disaster. So I just make, I can't really do that with food with, when I do that with food,

00:49:37.460 you know, if you're in a state of dieting for, for, for too long, you die, you will die quicker

00:49:46.320 dieting and restricting calories than you will from being overweight. Overweight takes 20 years

00:49:52.860 to kill you. You can die real quick, not eating enough, you know, maybe not real quick, but

00:49:58.040 weeks or months you're dead. Um, I made it, you know, 25 years being massively overweight and it

00:50:08.820 didn't kill me. Um, it would have eventually of course. Uh, but yeah, this, this kind of all or

00:50:16.280 nothing thing, this is what I'm trying to unravel in my life. I, I go into CrossFit and I'm like

00:50:23.800 doing two to three CrossFit wads a day. And then I blow my knee out and it's like, and then it's not

00:50:32.700 just like rehab the knee and get back into it. It's like rehab the knee. Oh, I've also gained 50

00:50:38.300 pounds and, you know, and then I'm like, well, getting on the erg doesn't feel the same anymore.

00:50:44.320 I can't, you know, I can't get 5,000 meters in 13 minutes right now. Why even do this? You know

00:50:51.160 what I mean? Um, so there's, there's a lot of that in my life and I, I want to just, and I've,

00:51:00.560 and I've, you know, I've even proven to myself cause I blew out my bicep tendon and had to have

00:51:05.740 that repaired and still managed to make it to the gym. And so, so I, I think for me, finding

00:51:14.960 moderation is difficult because I am inclined to go super extreme, um, in whatever direction I'm

00:51:22.640 going in. And it's just not sustainable for me. Like, dude, I love David Goggins. I love this guy.

00:51:29.540 He fires me up. I can't do that because that for me is unhealthy, but I, well, he even acknowledges it

00:51:38.080 as being, he, uh, you know, I sat down with him a couple of years ago and, and we had a good

00:51:42.180 conversation and he said, yeah, I mean, this is completely wrecked my body. He, he admits this

00:51:47.440 much. Right. Yeah. And that's what I, I think, you know, he'll wreck his body and keep going and,

00:51:55.380 and somehow managed to do that. The times that I've wrecked my body and it's been a number of times now,

00:52:02.920 I'm just like the, the hole to crawl out of becomes insurmountable at some point. And then it,

00:52:10.000 and it, it just takes, you know, I had a, a really severe bike crash and, and, and was just like

00:52:19.840 so gung ho that I was like thinking I'm going to get back on the bike tomorrow. Meanwhile,

00:52:25.780 I had like a herniated quad. I had no skin on my hands and my shoulders. Like I was, I was wrecked.

00:52:34.080 Um, and when I tried to get back on the bike, it was like, my body just said, no, you cannot

00:52:40.600 physically do this right now. And crawling out of that hole was, I think harder than it would have

00:52:48.120 been if I'd just been riding my bike for an hour a day. The, the challenge I have though, and I don't

00:52:54.140 know if you bump against this at all is, is I tend to be more of that personality to a hundred,

00:52:58.460 hundred miles in a hundred miles out. Like there's no in between. And the challenge I personally have

00:53:03.540 is if I'm not starving myself or on this quote unquote diet or not moving, you know, 20,000 steps

00:53:12.320 a day and working out twice a day, I feel like I'm not doing anything. And then I feel lazy or

00:53:20.140 pathetic, or I'm not actually working towards my goal. Like, I feel like just action is the prudent

00:53:25.700 thing. When I know that it's not always that you have to be moving or in the diet or eating this

00:53:31.760 much food or this limited amount of food, there's value in moderation, but that's hard for me.

00:53:38.160 It's hard for me too, dude. It's hard for me too. I, you know, even the way I work out, um,

00:53:43.940 I started, you know, I would, uh, my beginning of just weightlifting after CrossFit was, uh, you just

00:53:53.400 go to failure every day, every day, failure, whatever muscles you're doing, you go to fail.

00:53:57.880 Do it all. Yeah. And that doesn't get you. That's not where your body doesn't react the way you want

00:54:03.540 it to. It's counterintuitive. You know what I mean? So like I had to read about like, what do I want to

00:54:10.920 get out of my body and how do I get that? And there are formulas for all this stuff, like scientific

00:54:17.220 formulas. You know, if you want to be in a caloric deficit and have, and retain the most muscle mass,

00:54:24.500 you don't go to failure every day. That's just not what you do. Um, so I think that my combat for,

00:54:31.880 because I completely relate to you is setting very specific goals for myself and then laying out

00:54:40.220 the tracks and the paths for how to get there. And, and so I follow those 100%, but I'm not trying

00:54:51.900 to get, if I know my goal is like November, I'm not trying to see that goal in, in, in March because

00:55:00.740 I know it's November. What's my goal for this week? What's my goal for this month? What's my goal for

00:55:06.120 three months? What's my goal? You know, I kind of do that and I have these training and diet blocks

00:55:13.620 and it's like, you know, right now today I'm hypocaloric and like, that's super difficult for

00:55:21.840 me too, because I have a lot of mental baggage associated with like getting on the scale and

00:55:26.700 seeing an increase rather than a decrease. No doubt. And, and like, um, but that's like part of a,

00:55:35.260 a, a nine week plan. And so I'm going to stay the course on this nine week plan and get there.

00:55:41.220 And then I can't wait to be under, you know, and, and go back into the dip, but all of it's planned

00:55:47.840 out, you know, I don't do really well with kind of, um, arbitrary authoritative, uh, structures that

00:55:57.720 are imposed on me. Like I didn't do well with my parents just saying, um, you know, we don't care

00:56:06.040 what you want. Here's what you're going to do. And, and creating these, these kinds of structures

00:56:10.720 for me to exist. And it didn't do well, but if I understand, um, if I have a goal and I understand

00:56:19.020 the, the best path to get me there and I can kind of be involved in saying like, yeah,

00:56:25.060 this structure makes sense and I can stick to it really well. And so I'm a hundred percent

00:56:31.840 foot to the floor with going after my goal, but it's done with a little bit more thought than just,

00:56:41.700 you know, if I feel like I can stand at the end of the day, I failed. That doesn't get me to

00:56:48.200 tomorrow. Tomorrow's not going to be as good as it could, you know?

00:56:51.120 Yeah. I'm glad that you're talking about it on that timescale. Cause what I think most people

00:56:55.280 will do is they'll, you know, we're coming up on the spring and summer now. So people will say,

00:56:58.800 you know, I got 60 days to get the six pack abs and it's like, cool. That's okay. What do you do

00:57:04.920 then? Oh, I don't know. I haven't thought about that. Okay. So this isn't going to be, you'll get

00:57:09.800 the six pack abs. I have no doubt if you do that, but it just is not a sustainable thing. And you're

00:57:14.960 going to have this accordion effect and it's probably going to be less effective. It's definitely

00:57:19.560 going to hurt you mentally. Uh, and it's just not, it's not good for you. One of the things I've,

00:57:24.660 I've done a lot is like, just giving myself permission to do other things. Cause I think,

00:57:28.840 okay, well, if I'm not starving myself or I'm not eating just the right diet or not at the gym,

00:57:32.780 what am I going to be doing? Well, read a book. Like it may not be a physical exercise,

00:57:38.020 but it's still improvement. So give yourself permission to read a book or give yourself permission

00:57:42.480 to maybe want to watch one hour of TV and that's it. Like put a limit on it, but it's okay to do that.

00:57:49.560 You know, or, or one dessert a week or whatever that I've given myself little permissions in here

00:57:55.200 and there that still move the needle in the right way, but aren't all about me trying to get physically

00:58:00.780 fit. Yeah. Yeah. I completely, I think that's, that's the workable path for me. And, and like

00:58:08.200 with, especially with television, we got rid of cable. And so we have, you know, I don't know what

00:58:20.360 the hell we have, but we can watch movies and we can watch TV shows that have already played or

00:58:25.540 something like that. And, and, and but like with television, there was times where I just, you know,

00:58:30.860 I go and sit down and turn the TV on and I'm flipping around and two hours pass and I still

00:58:36.380 haven't watched anything, you know? And so like your point, like if I'm going to watch something,

00:58:41.660 I'm going to make a choice of what I'm going to watch. I'm not going to just randomly turn it on

00:58:46.360 and flip around. And then, you know, because I'm going to try to live with more intention behind my

00:58:52.560 actions. Yes. I read. I think that's a very, very valid way to improve yourself.

00:58:57.920 Um, spend a little time doing that, spend a little time, even writing I've, I've found to be

00:59:04.960 super helpful. Like my thoughts in just talking to you, I might sit down and, and write about this

00:59:11.140 this afternoon and try to try to see if, if, um, if there was anything new or revelatory about what

00:59:18.040 our conversation brought me to, you know, you know what I mean? And I can often dissect that a little

00:59:23.060 bit better in, in writing. Um, so all of these things, uh, exercise, walk, taking my dogs out,

00:59:31.240 taking my kids out, uh, hanging with my wife, um, you know, even to the, to the point where like my

00:59:38.560 food's gotten a little boring. How am I going to shake that up? Maybe I'm going to get into a whole,

00:59:42.820 you know, maybe I'm going to try Indian spices for a week and like look into recipes and how can I do

00:59:48.240 this? Is it, is it still fitting with my meal plan? Yeah, great. Okay. So I need these spices.

00:59:52.680 I'm going to go out and find them. Like, these are the things which have really helped me figure

01:00:00.700 out this word that made my screen skin crawl for so long lifestyle change that, um, why does that

01:00:07.240 bother you? You know, all of these kinds of, um, I think it probably bothered me for a long time.

01:00:13.880 Cause I, I didn't really understand what it meant. I really thought for, for, for a long time,

01:00:20.540 a diet is a lifestyle change. I'm, I'm now changing the way I was living. And so this is a change,

01:00:29.360 but a diet is always temporary because, and you know, obviously two definitions for diet here. One

01:00:36.840 is just how you eat. And the other is a restriction on how you eat. So if we're talking, if we're talking

01:00:43.520 about a restriction, you cannot do that forever. That is not a lifestyle change because the,

01:00:49.460 the result is always death period. Yeah. And then when you course correct and your body's going to

01:00:55.240 tell you to, when you course correct, usually you're going to go off the deep end, but on the

01:00:59.900 other side of the pool, right? Yeah. You're just going to go overboard with your eating. Cause you're

01:01:04.760 like, I got to, your body's telling you to fix it. And then you just go overboard the other way.

01:01:08.520 Right. And, and there's so much to really unpack there too, because even if you, you know, like

01:01:19.020 if you look at like the standard, like basal metal metabolic rate calculator, and you put in your

01:01:24.200 weight and it shoots out a number and you have no like thyroid issues or, or autoimmune that would

01:01:29.480 be factors like the average human body, it tends to be weight plus energy output equals amount of

01:01:37.660 calories to sustain weight, right? That's like the base. If you diet down to a weight, that number is

01:01:46.740 not correct. The number will be lower than that because your body is fighting against weight loss

01:01:53.660 at every moment. It is because your body thinks it's going to die. Right. It's a, it's, it's a,

01:02:01.120 a defense mechanism that we've evolved over tens of thousands of years to get calories and not burn

01:02:06.480 any. That's right. And so if you withhold calories, your body doesn't know you want to weigh 10 pounds

01:02:13.280 less. Your body thinks you're dying. And so your body is going to become way more efficient

01:02:19.100 at burning calories at every moment it's fighting against you. And so when you get to that number,

01:02:26.120 if you've dieted down to that number, it's actually going to be less because your body is now

01:02:31.500 gaming you. And so there's just a lot to think about. You, you do something extreme down.

01:02:39.700 There's almost nothing you could do or put in your mouth that isn't going to cause weight to come back.

01:02:45.780 Like, I mean, unless you still are way under where your calories should be. And so it's kind of like

01:02:52.820 a, it's, it's a very hard game to win. And I know people have, and so I would not say it's impossible,

01:03:00.200 but it's, it's much more complicated. I think then what are the habits that I've been doing? What can,

01:03:10.120 what changes can I make to my life forever? And that's not to say like, you know, people who decide

01:03:19.000 to do like keto or something and go like, well, I'll never eat sugar again. I'll never eat

01:03:23.940 carbohydrates again. Okay. If that's what you want to do fine. But at some point, the amount that you

01:03:31.340 eat is still going to be a factor period. Yeah. Yeah. It's just so multifaceted. And, you know,

01:03:38.240 I look at guys that are healthy and I think, okay, well, this guy's living, you know, this kind

01:03:42.300 of lifestyle where, where he eats healthy and he's got everything dialed in and locked in.

01:03:46.520 And even for that individual, who's doing that thing forever for the rest of their life,

01:03:51.340 they can still do extreme stuff occasionally here and there too. You know, I've got like a friend who

01:03:56.040 he's like, okay, I got a photo shoot. So for the next, you know, six or eight weeks,

01:03:59.860 I've really got to tighten things up. Although he always looks good, right? He's always healthy,

01:04:04.180 but he's like for this six weeks, I really got to be extra healthy. So there's nothing wrong with it.

01:04:08.240 As long as you have that lifestyle built in those, those lifetime habits and activities in place.

01:04:14.920 Yeah, dude, I'm going to go. I got down to 9% body fat next week. 9% body fat is not really

01:04:23.100 in the cards for me long-term. It's not something I need to be at. You know what I mean? Um, right.

01:04:30.520 And this year I'm going to go down and I'm going to tie it down to 8% body fat, but like, this is not,

01:04:36.560 this is not about, um, this is not something where I'm going to get to 8% and be at 8% for the rest of

01:04:45.820 my life. No, this is literally just like, you know, it's, I am better off having a goal,

01:04:51.760 even if it's really long-term than having no goal. So what's my goal for this year? Okay.

01:04:58.660 At by November, I'm going to be 8% body fat. And, and by the way, I'm putting on weight now. So it's

01:05:05.880 kind of like an extra big goal. You know what I mean? Um, I putting on weight, I say, as I'm like

01:05:12.720 12% body fat and like going like, this is a real weird thing to do, but okay.

01:05:18.560 Yeah. Interesting. It sounds like you're experimenting, which I think there's a lot of value in that too.

01:05:23.320 Uh, just trying new things, trying different things, experimenting with what works, what foods

01:05:28.000 work. You know, I've learned over the past couple of years, there are certain food that I love, but

01:05:33.800 I just, I don't want to eat because it just does not go well for me, even though I love the taste.

01:05:39.640 I'm like, I'm not going to do that because it's just not worth it to me, you know, but that

01:05:42.760 implementation for me. Yeah. I've, I've been, I do. I listen, I think about it. I think,

01:05:50.520 I think in all of this stuff with in, in the idea of like, you know, unless we're talking about

01:05:56.120 absolute poisons, like cyanide, which, you know, or strychnine or something like that,

01:06:00.680 even an apple seed has a little bit of poison in it, but like salt, salt. Um,

01:06:08.200 if the body has zero sodium, it's really bad because your, your electrolyte balance is off.

01:06:14.840 You'll dehydrate and die. If you have, if there's no salt in your diet at all. Um,

01:06:20.260 and salt in a massive dose can kill you. So there's an in, there's a, there's a place where,

01:06:28.540 and it's a, it's a fairly large window and most bodies will say like, this is too salty. I don't

01:06:33.680 want to eat this anymore or like, or they'll taste it and they'll go, this is not salty enough. I want

01:06:39.080 a bit more. Like all of this is your body going, we need some, don't give us too much, you know? Um,

01:06:45.040 but the same thing with sugar or gluten or any of these things, when I'm being like perfect on my

01:06:51.540 diet and I can figure out like, okay, I'm going to this kid's birthday party. I know there's going

01:06:58.400 to be ice cream. I'd like to have a scoop of ice cream. How do I fit that into my day? Okay. Well,

01:07:03.020 I'm going to withhold some carbs here and withhold some fat here. And so the ice cream actually fits

01:07:08.380 in. I still feel like crap after I've eaten. Not worth it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, you know,

01:07:15.220 one of the things that you said earlier is, is that this was early on in our conversation about,

01:07:20.540 uh, there was people who were incentivized for you to stay unhealthy the way that you were.

01:07:25.780 Have you noticed, I know you've been on this, this path for a while, but have you noticed

01:07:29.820 opportunities close themselves off? I'm sure, I'm sure that starts to level out and play in your

01:07:36.460 favor over time, but we're opportunities closing for you as you started to make these changes.

01:07:41.880 Yeah, certainly. And, and, you know, having been, um, just in terms of volume thinner than I am now,

01:07:51.560 uh, I was uncomfortable at that point. I didn't, I didn't like the way my body felt or looked.

01:07:59.820 Uh, I didn't feel strong and I've always kind of felt strong and I didn't, I felt weak. I didn't

01:08:06.100 like any of that. Um, but there were definitely times, um, with specific regard to acting that it

01:08:15.920 was like, people would say like, we liked you more or you were more interesting when X and, you know,

01:08:24.140 I look, I don't blame anybody. I spent 20 plus years building a career as, uh, the fat guy now,

01:08:35.280 not being the fat guy, I can't just expect everybody to go, well, you're, you're equally

01:08:40.900 as interesting when they don't even half of the people don't recognize me, you know? So yeah,

01:08:46.200 sure. Good point. There have definitely been some opportunities that are missed and, but I also

01:08:56.660 just like getting to be an old man. I've done a lot of movies. I've done a lot of TV shows. Like,

01:09:03.500 I don't really have to, you know, I don't, you know, I keep telling my wife, like, I'm just going

01:09:11.340 to retire. And she's like, you're 44. You can't retire at 44. Um, you know, and then I'm like,

01:09:17.700 well, not really, but like, I also just like having these conversations. I'm writing a book,

01:09:22.220 like if I never act again, which I still have a movie coming out and, um, that I did at the end

01:09:29.540 of last year, uh, at 9% body fat. So there, so there's that it's not completely that everything

01:09:35.960 shut down to me, but it is, it is different. It is almost like I have to like reestablish myself

01:09:42.520 a little bit like, Hey, I'm here. I don't know if you remember, I've done a bunch of movies, but

01:09:47.560 what have you done? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, Ethan, I appreciate you, man. Like I said,

01:09:54.640 I've been following you for the last little bit now. And of course my family is big fans of,

01:09:58.620 of what you do, but I think what you're doing now in the podcast that you have and,

01:10:02.340 and how you're inspiring people is, well, it's inspirational. It's, it's valuable and it's a

01:10:07.320 much needed part of society. Cause I think just generally we're going the wrong way.

01:10:11.460 And, uh, so you're doing great work, man. I really appreciate you taking some time to join us

01:10:14.840 and talk about it on the podcast today. Absolutely. Ronan. Thanks for having me,

01:10:18.780 man. There you go. Ethan simply. I hope that you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did,

01:10:25.540 and that it gave you some, some, some fire to improve yourself. And Ethan said it before,

01:10:33.260 if he can do it, anybody can do it. He's, he's going to help. He's got the tools. He's got the

01:10:37.880 resources. He's got his podcast. Make sure you're following him on the socials. Cause he's a very

01:10:41.580 inspirational man. Uh, and he's done some very incredible things in his own life that, uh,

01:10:47.340 frankly, he could have had a lot of reasons and excuses, uh, not to get on the path and not to

01:10:52.260 get healthy, but he wanted to make that transformation. And he did. So reach out to

01:10:56.180 Ethan on the socials connect with me at Ryan Mickler, wherever you're doing the social media

01:11:00.620 thing. Let me know what you thought about the podcast. As I said earlier, leave the rating and

01:11:04.900 review, take a screenshot, tag Ethan, tag me, let people know what you're listening to and what

01:11:09.580 advice you're hearing and what's serving you and what's been good for you. I feel like we, as men,

01:11:14.780 if we have information and tools and a skillset that might help, then we have an obligation to be

01:11:21.660 able to share that, share those tools and those resources and the things that we have access to,

01:11:26.840 to improve the lives of other people. And this podcast is certainly one of them. Uh, Ethan's

01:11:31.120 podcast is certainly one of them. So make sure you're sharing and doing that. If you would.

01:11:35.120 All right, guys, we're going to be back tomorrow for our ask me anything. Uh, Kip did a great job

01:11:41.760 last week flying solo, which is actually harder than you would think, but he did a phenomenal job

01:11:46.320 on that. So we're glad to have him as a partner. Uh, but we'll be soliciting questions from you here

01:11:50.900 shortly. And we'll be back, like I said, tomorrow. And of course, Friday for the Friday field notes

01:11:55.240 guys, until then go out there, take action and become a man. You are meant to be.

01:12:00.000 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

01:12:04.600 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - March 30, 2021

ETHAN SUPLEE ｜ American Glutton

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