The Art of Manliness - Fat Loss Made Simple

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00:00:50.740 Hey, this is Brett.

00:00:51.680 We're taking a break this week from new episodes, but here's a rebroadcast of episode number 767, Fat Loss Made Simple with Dan John.

00:00:58.960 If one of your goals is to lose weight this year, Dan's got some great advice for you in this episode.

00:01:03.240 And the reason why his advice is so great is Dan is all about making things as simple as possible.

00:01:08.500 Because when the things you do are simple, the more likely you are to follow through on them and do them.

00:01:13.240 Hope you enjoy it.

00:01:14.200 We'll see you next week with a brand new episode.

00:01:24.060 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:01:27.340 And when it comes to losing weight, you can find plenty of complicated programs that involve long, intense workouts and strict calorie counting diet plans.

00:01:34.760 But my guest today takes an approach to fat loss that's awesomely simple and even more effective because of that fact.

00:01:40.160 His name is Dan John.

00:01:41.120 He's a strength coach, a competitive thrower and weightlifter, and the author of many books about health and fitness, including Fat Loss Starts on Monday.

00:01:47.480 Today on the show, Dan talks about the importance of not only picking a specific number of where you want your weight to be,

00:01:52.000 but enriching that goal so that it lights up multiple parts of your brain.

00:01:55.100 We then discuss how and how often to measure your weight, how to deal with the setbacks as you shed the pounds, and Dan's uncomplicated approach to eating.

00:02:01.920 Dan also explains why he recommends drinking hot water with lemon, practicing intermittent fasting, and working out in a fasted state.

00:02:08.440 We then go over the easy strength exercise program he suggests for fat loss and why these short weightlifting sessions always are followed by a walk.

00:02:15.180 And we enter a conversation with how to break through a weight loss plateau by doing something called reverse rucking.

00:02:19.880 After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash fat loss.

00:02:37.040 All right, Dan John, welcome back to the show.

00:02:40.200 Hey, well, thanks so much.

00:02:41.260 I, you know, like I've told you before, I love your site.

00:02:44.400 My friend, Gabriel Colasmo, uses your site with his students because he thinks that there's some gaps in modern education, which I agree with.

00:02:54.880 And man, I watched this drop some things out of teaching.

00:02:58.440 It was like, okay, great.

00:03:00.100 I get, we're reacting, but there were some things or some fundamentals I still think we need to deal with.

00:03:07.400 Well, I'm glad.

00:03:08.120 Thanks so much.

00:03:08.580 I'm glad that the site's been useful for you and for folks you know.

00:03:11.900 I wanted to bring you back on the podcast.

00:03:13.980 It's always a pleasure to talk to you.

00:03:15.200 We had you on last year to talk about benchmarks, physical benchmarks every man should strive for.

00:03:21.120 Wanted to bring you back because it's a new year and I know a lot of men who are listening are setting goals.

00:03:26.000 And one of the goals some of these guys are probably setting is to lose some weight this year.

00:03:30.200 And a lot of these guys who are making this goal have likely had this goal in years past, but they've failed.

00:03:35.540 I'm curious, in your experience as a coach and working with people trying to, with body composition, body fat, losing body fat, what's the thing that holds people back from losing weight?

00:03:48.180 What have you seen the most common roadblocks?

00:03:51.180 Well, first off, I have to take a shout out to both Earl Nightingale and Derek Sivers for this little tool I use.

00:03:58.200 It's called the two-number goal sheet.

00:04:03.140 And the idea is very simple, is you find two numbers that are important to you.

00:04:08.180 Now, let's just focus on what you're asking.

00:04:12.060 Now, I use a physical goal, which is for this year will be body weight, and like a financial goal.

00:04:18.620 But it can be, I mean, it could be anything.

00:04:21.040 I think a number helps because it's so clear cut.

00:04:24.560 Like, if you have this vague, if I was to say to you, hey, you know, I want to lose a few pounds, well, that just floats off.

00:04:33.500 Of course I can say that.

00:04:34.760 I pushed air past my vocal cords.

00:04:37.340 I didn't say anything, you know.

00:04:39.860 So I have a goal this year.

00:04:41.240 In fact, it's coming up.

00:04:42.320 The date that it's due is going to be February 12th.

00:04:45.340 I want to get down to 211 pounds, which is 96 kilos.

00:04:49.320 So at the start of last year, I weighed 251, so it's going to be a 40-pound body weight loss in a year and a month.

00:04:58.880 Well, why?

00:04:59.960 Well, because this will be the 65th time that I have gone around the sun, okay?

00:05:06.700 And when you turn 65 as a weightlifter, you move into the 65 to 69-year-old weight class and division.

00:05:16.560 So what does 211 mean to me?

00:05:19.400 It doesn't mean anything except it's 96 kilos, and that's the class.

00:05:24.780 I have to weigh under that.

00:05:26.080 Okay, good.

00:05:26.500 We'll just stop with that for a second.

00:05:27.880 Well, let's think about that.

00:05:30.300 Am I healthier?

00:05:31.660 Health is, I use Maffetone's definition, the optimal, you know, interplay of the human organs.

00:05:39.260 Will I be healthier at 211 versus 251?

00:05:43.660 Is that 40 pounds at age 65?

00:05:46.820 Will that loss make me healthier?

00:05:49.360 Well, I know from blood tests and, well, blood tests and blood pressure and all the other stuff, I am healthier.

00:05:58.260 Right now, I weigh about 221.

00:05:59.600 I am healthier at 221 than I am at 251.

00:06:04.000 I have a new grandson this year, Leo.

00:06:07.940 People in my family don't live very long.

00:06:10.820 So will my longevity improve at 211 versus 251?

00:06:17.120 Well, I can think, well, yeah, logically, I think so.

00:06:20.060 I don't smoke.

00:06:21.140 I wear seatbelts.

00:06:22.500 I see the doctor every year.

00:06:24.500 You know, I do the stuff you're supposed to do.

00:06:26.600 So I think weighing 211 will help with my staying around for Leo and my other grandchildren, Danny and Josephine.

00:06:36.580 Well, will I be fitter at 211 versus 251?

00:06:41.880 Well, fitness is ability to do a task.

00:06:44.720 So, you know, everyone still asks me to move couches and refrigerators.

00:06:50.580 But I think I'll be fitter at 211.

00:06:54.880 And then finally, when it comes to performance, I think I have a better chance of being an American record holder and maybe a world record holder at 96 kilos versus heavier than that.

00:07:06.060 And then the final thing, and you can take this however you want to take it.

00:07:10.700 Art Devaney a few years ago said that vanity after a certain years is a great reason to work out.

00:07:18.300 Now, vanity comes from the old Latin, you know, means empty.

00:07:22.260 But actually, at my age, 65, vanity is probably not a bad fifth reason to do something.

00:07:30.660 Please listen to what I tried to say then.

00:07:32.320 But it's not just stepping on a scale and weighing 211, which is great.

00:07:37.500 But there's meat behind that goal for me.

00:07:40.780 There's my grandchildren showed up in this conversation.

00:07:43.540 My overall health showed up.

00:07:45.600 My weightlifting showed up.

00:07:47.020 I look better.

00:07:48.660 To me, that's what you need when you look at a fitness goal.

00:07:53.520 It needs to have, Brett, it needs to have, it has to be full.

00:08:00.980 It has to be ripe.

00:08:02.340 It has to be...

00:08:03.060 Rich.

00:08:03.400 It has to be rich.

00:08:04.260 Juicy, rich.

00:08:05.040 Yeah, you're with me.

00:08:07.220 You know, if you're going to have a dessert, say like you're trying to lose weight, and

00:08:11.720 someone says, do you want a bowl of vanilla ice cream?

00:08:15.140 Well, okay, that's a lot better than a, you know, I don't know, something, you know, would

00:08:19.700 you like a mint?

00:08:21.160 Okay, nah, nah, I'm on a diet.

00:08:23.180 Bowl of vanilla ice cream?

00:08:24.500 Nah.

00:08:25.460 I spent, this is my grandmother's recipe.

00:08:27.560 I spent six weeks putting this together, and I'm just going to light the match and flame

00:08:32.900 it off.

00:08:33.920 And would you like some of that dessert?

00:08:36.100 Well, yeah, that's a little bit richer of a story than a bowl of vanilla.

00:08:42.780 So, for me, I think what happens with most people's goals, is that they have very vanilla

00:08:48.960 goals.

00:08:49.820 They have these vague numbers out there.

00:08:52.860 They have this, here, yeah, I want to lose a few pounds.

00:08:58.220 You know, I'd like to spend more time with my kids.

00:09:00.680 My kids, I'd like to, you know, do you see how blah that all was?

00:09:08.400 But when I talk about stepping on the scale, the weightlifting meet, under 211 pounds, under

00:09:14.100 96K, and then stepping on the platform not long after that, and snatching it, and cleaning

00:09:19.040 the jerk, and that just, that just kind of makes me excited.

00:09:22.700 And that's, I think, the key. 0.99

00:09:25.080 Okay, so yeah, a lot of people just give up on their goals because there's really nothing

00:09:27.640 there to it.

00:09:28.480 You know, if it's just a number, that's not going to be too motivating.

00:09:32.560 Yeah, you need to have, every goal you set has to enrich kind of several areas of your

00:09:39.260 life, has to light up your brain in different places.

00:09:43.700 You know, I got to tell you, you know, if I was a performer, one of the things I would

00:09:48.600 try to do is, for example, maybe sprinkle the audience, this time of year, I put those

00:09:54.960 cinnamon pine cones in front of a, I have this electric fan heater in the house, and

00:10:00.500 I like to put those cinnamon pine cones downstream of the heater blower, you know, so it makes

00:10:07.320 the whole house smell like cinnamon.

00:10:10.200 And if I was a performer, I would always be blowing cinnamon into my audience, you know?

00:10:16.300 Besides just me being on stage with my guitar singing, you know, love ballads from the 1950s,

00:10:22.120 I would try to have something else going on.

00:10:25.260 I would try to, in light, light up every sense I can, light up every part of the brain that

00:10:32.700 I could.

00:10:33.800 Well, I feel the same way about goal setting.

00:10:35.740 You got to make it, you got to be able to taste it, smell it, see it, hear it.

00:10:40.940 Does that make sense?

00:10:41.800 That makes sense.

00:10:42.620 And so when you're measuring this, so you set this goal, you want to lose body fat, the

00:10:46.680 scale is going to play a role.

00:10:48.060 But do you have any other ways you measure fat loss that you like to use?

00:10:52.460 Yeah.

00:10:52.720 Right here on my desk, as I'm sitting here, I have two things called tape measures.

00:10:57.580 I suggest you measure, now it's difficult because your waistline, anybody's ever measured

00:11:03.120 their waistline will tell you.

00:11:04.660 Your waistline, not the measurement, but where you put your tape changes a little bit every

00:11:10.660 day.

00:11:11.300 I think measuring your waistline every day is a really good little thing.

00:11:14.880 And if it, and the other thing I'd recommend, Brett, is this, use a centimeter ruler.

00:11:22.080 And the reason is, if you go from 39 and 15 sixteenths down to 39 and, I don't know, three

00:11:30.980 eighths, that doesn't mean much.

00:11:32.780 But if you go from 104 centimeters to 99, that's just, we humans, for whatever reason, that's

00:11:41.800 like, wow, that's a big change.

00:11:45.080 And if you can go, so I'm a big fan of measuring your waistline in centimeters.

00:11:50.080 Gotcha.

00:11:50.280 All right.

00:11:50.500 So measuring, we're going to use a scale.

00:11:52.260 We're going to use measuring tape.

00:11:53.780 I like myotape.

00:11:54.640 That's the one that I use.

00:11:55.380 It's like five bucks on Amazon.

00:11:57.220 Really easy to use.

00:11:58.060 And if, Brett, if I can add one more, we used to call them movement buddies or bragging

00:12:02.680 buddies.

00:12:03.020 If you have somebody in your life that you can trust, I would move outside of people in

00:12:09.320 your home, but somebody that'll give you a feedback on how you look and how you're doing.

00:12:16.220 A bragging buddy, someone you could talk to on a weekly basis.

00:12:20.480 These are the good things going on in my life.

00:12:22.540 And it's more than a therapist.

00:12:25.260 It's, in fact, in the old Irish, the word is Anam Cora.

00:12:29.300 Isn't that a beautiful word?

00:12:30.080 A soul friend, someone you can just say, who will look at you and say, you look good.

00:12:36.400 You look happy, you know, and be, oh, thank you so much.

00:12:40.580 And the thing about a soul friend is you both, you have to listen to each other, which is

00:12:44.940 a difficult thing sometimes.

00:12:46.580 Yeah.

00:12:46.940 How frequently do you recommend people measuring themselves for the, when they're gauging their

00:12:51.200 fat loss?

00:12:53.740 Well, you know, guys like Clarence Bass say every day you should weigh in and do the, the,

00:12:59.360 the tape measure.

00:13:01.020 If you already keep a journal, if you already have a notebook that you keep the information

00:13:07.180 in, I would say daily.

00:13:08.880 If you're new to it, maybe you might want to have an event, you know, like, and boy,

00:13:15.720 some people disagree with me here, but the Monday morning weigh in, you know, every Monday

00:13:21.000 morning you make, if you don't have to, it could be Saturday, but it doesn't matter.

00:13:25.360 But one day a week you pick to do the weigh in and the measurement and sort of make it

00:13:30.880 a big deal to yourself.

00:13:33.160 Gotcha.

00:13:33.580 I, I perfectly, I like the once a week.

00:13:35.400 I do mine on Friday morning.

00:13:37.100 Okay.

00:13:37.560 Cause I feel like the, the Monday morning, the problem I've had there is that I'll have

00:13:41.320 like a big Sunday night dinner at my in-laws place.

00:13:44.340 And that just throws everything off.

00:13:45.980 Cause you know, I'm, I'm kind of bloated.

00:13:47.660 I'm retaining water cause I, you know, some rolls and some cheesecake or whatever.

00:13:51.620 And so I'm just going to be heavier.

00:13:54.000 I'm going to look heavier.

00:13:54.640 I'm going to weigh heavier.

00:13:55.480 But then like the next day, if I weighed myself on Tuesday, I would be back to normal.

00:14:00.780 So I, I, that, I timed my weigh ins on when I'm thinking like, this is like a normal day.

00:14:04.840 It's not like right after I had a big meal and that seemed to work for me.

00:14:08.360 Yeah.

00:14:08.800 And if, you know, if, if you are someone who lifts weights three days a week, maybe Monday,

00:14:13.720 Wednesday, Friday, Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, if you want to do something like that,

00:14:17.780 where you have just a day where it's quiet and you, so your workout for that day would

00:14:24.940 be the weigh in and the tape measure.

00:14:28.360 Let's talk about this.

00:14:29.240 What's like a reasonable VAT loss goal for people?

00:14:31.700 Like, so you, you've lost almost 40 pounds in 13 months, 14 months for a lot of people.

00:14:37.800 What do you think is a reasonable goal?

00:14:39.200 If there's someone who's losing, who needs to lose 25 to 50 pounds, how long should they

00:14:43.300 expect that to take?

00:14:44.460 Yeah, see, boy, here we run into it, don't we?

00:14:47.960 I mean, seriously, this is where we run into it.

00:14:50.140 When I work with people, one of the things that comes up a lot, Brett, is that it took

00:14:55.920 the person 40 years to put this weight on, but they want to lose that weight in two weeks.

00:15:01.100 And that's just not like reasonable.

00:15:04.760 When I'm in Europe, most of the people that I trust will tell me about a kilo a month,

00:15:09.420 which is only 2.2 pounds, that's only half a pound a week.

00:15:14.420 And that's not very noticeable.

00:15:16.660 And most people, if I put you on a weight loss program, a fat loss program, and you lost

00:15:22.720 two pounds a month, I got to tell you, next New Year's, it's going to be very noticeable

00:15:30.620 for you.

00:15:31.860 But what happens is, is people don't want that.

00:15:34.320 When I, when I, my first month now with a fat loss client, and I kind of insist on being

00:15:41.260 paid up front, is the first month is that, the first month, you have to drink two glasses

00:15:48.080 of water a day.

00:15:49.700 And that's it.

00:15:50.400 And of course, I become your accountability buddy.

00:15:53.800 And at nine o'clock or eight o'clock, whatever time I call you up, and the joke is always

00:15:57.920 this, I call you up and the phone goes ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, because

00:16:03.780 that's when you're drinking that second glass of water.

00:16:06.720 And month two, we just find a parking space that's as far away from your office or whatever

00:16:11.700 that we can find.

00:16:13.080 And I tell everybody that you work with, if you're not, if you've, if you don't park

00:16:18.260 there, you're to call me and I'm going to fire you as a client. 0.87

00:16:21.840 Now, people say, no, that makes no sense.

00:16:24.540 No, no, it does.

00:16:25.560 Because one of the things we need to establish first in a fat loss protocol is building up

00:16:33.600 the practice of habits.

00:16:36.120 And I'm a, I really liked the work of BJ Fogg.

00:16:39.380 So the letter B, the letter J, F-O-G-G, he's a Stanford psychologist, and he believes in

00:16:46.460 something called tiny habits.

00:16:48.660 So you actually make, when you're trying to do a life change, you don't say, I'm going

00:16:53.340 to, this year, I'm going to lose 100 pounds.

00:16:55.680 I'm going to get a doctorate in two different fields and I'm going to fly to the moon.

00:16:59.920 No, you say, I'm going to floss one tooth every day for the first month.

00:17:06.300 Well, one tooth.

00:17:07.500 Well, that's, that's actually a standard start because it's so small and so believable.

00:17:13.840 I mean, there's more to it than this, this, that you start to have this, this, the snowball

00:17:20.520 effect.

00:17:21.140 This little habit builds to a bigger one, to a bigger one, to a bigger one.

00:17:25.180 My best client I've ever had, we did the one year thing.

00:17:29.000 And the first month was the glass of water thing at the end.

00:17:33.120 Now this is, this is unusual.

00:17:34.320 This is off the charts at the end of the year, he had lost 100 pounds of body weight

00:17:38.380 and ran a half marathon, 100 pounds.

00:17:43.940 Let me say that again.

00:17:44.940 He lost a hundred pounds in a year.

00:17:46.720 But what happened was, was once he got the momentum of the habits, everything just started

00:17:52.960 to come into play.

00:17:54.000 And he was shocked at, he began to look at some of the things he was doing in his life

00:17:58.260 and it was like, there were just so many obvious things for him.

00:18:01.860 But once he got into the habit of doing things, he really started getting momentum.

00:18:06.720 To me, fat loss is just like an athletic career.

00:18:09.800 Or maybe you're going in different directions, but once you get the momentum, things just

00:18:15.680 start to almost appear to you.

00:18:17.760 Like if, if I was to train you as Brett, as a discus thrower, you might say, I've never

00:18:22.880 even heard of what the discus is, but all of a sudden you'll be online.

00:18:26.580 And all of a sudden these things will just, you'll be open a book and you'll see a discus

00:18:30.680 thrower in there.

00:18:31.580 For example, when I read the Odyssey, Ulysses is a discus thrower.

00:18:34.940 There's a very famous story in the Odyssey where he wins the discus competition, where

00:18:39.740 I see that because I'm a discus thrower.

00:18:42.320 So when you're trying to lose fat and you start to get those habits, the snowball begins

00:18:48.320 to grow.

00:18:49.400 All of a sudden you see these little things in your life that you used to do.

00:18:54.000 Remember, you are the sum of your habits as you sit in this chair as we speak.

00:19:00.480 Like what you look like, what you have as income, what you have as in your social and

00:19:06.400 your family life.

00:19:08.120 It's all the accumulation of the habits you've had since really you started having your own

00:19:13.880 free will, basically when you started walking for yourself.

00:19:17.800 Okay.

00:19:17.860 So it sounds like rather than just focusing on the number you want to get to, just focus

00:19:22.160 on the process and focus on those habits.

00:19:24.120 And as you do that, things are going to start to gel.

00:19:26.900 Things are going to start to click for you.

00:19:28.320 Um, yeah, well, see, one of my habits is to weigh in every day, but I don't even, I

00:19:35.340 don't even think about it like that anymore, to be honest with you.

00:19:38.400 I don't think about it as, isn't that interesting?

00:19:43.160 So I, I weigh, I do the waistline every day now and I do the weigh in every day, but I didn't

00:19:48.620 for a long time.

00:19:49.620 But once I started seeing that body weight accelerate down, boy, I got to tell you from

00:19:55.460 251 to 231, it wasn't very exciting.

00:19:59.500 But when I got to 224, which is the 102 kilo weight class, and I lifted in three meets as

00:20:05.260 102, four meets.

00:20:06.920 And then all of a sudden I was down to 218.

00:20:09.260 It was like, man, let's just drop down to 211.

00:20:12.140 And I started weighing in every day because it was kind of exciting.

00:20:16.080 So you've had, you've had some serious momentum this year with your own fat loss.

00:20:20.620 Have, did you ever meet any like plateaus or roadblocks along the way where you're like,

00:20:25.440 ah, man, it's not budging anymore.

00:20:28.240 Yeah.

00:20:28.780 Here in Utah, it's called the winter, winter, winter's tough.

00:20:33.220 You know, all of a sudden you just, last night at 11 o'clock I was, I was shoveling and this

00:20:39.380 morning at six o'clock I was shoveling.

00:20:41.040 And when I went outside to work out at 930 today, I didn't want to go back out in the

00:20:45.180 cold.

00:20:46.120 And I just wanted to, I really just wanted to put a blanket on and, you know, eat something

00:20:51.260 that wouldn't make me happy.

00:20:52.340 And, you know, yeah.

00:20:53.820 So yeah.

00:20:54.360 So the big, the big roadblocks for me tend to be winter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the

00:21:02.320 same roadblocks all of us have, I don't know how much of your audience is American, but

00:21:06.100 basically once bowl season comes around, I tend to sit around a lot and watch college

00:21:13.820 football.

00:21:14.340 And then when I'm sitting around my choices for, my choices for beverages go South, my

00:21:20.900 choices for, you know, all of a sudden I find myself eating, the other day I was eating

00:21:26.240 pretzels.

00:21:27.000 Well, and I kind of just caught myself like, why am I eating pretzels?

00:21:30.980 You know, I just, it's not a food I eat and yet I was eating it.

00:21:36.200 And I think, I hope you're following along here, Brett, because we all have the same

00:21:41.680 ebbs and flows.

00:21:43.820 What's nice about where I'm at now is the next day I actually spent some time.

00:21:50.380 We're only doing audio here, but right now I'm picking up this little, it's a little notebook

00:21:55.240 I have, it's called Memo Book 60 Sheets.

00:21:59.520 And every day I write in a few ideas about how I can get my body weight down to 211.

00:22:06.360 Well, after this college football bowl game incident, I decided that next week I'm going

00:22:13.180 to start doing, I'm going to do once again, Rusty Morris Fat Loss Boost.

00:22:16.720 I've done it once before, it's just two weeks, but basically it's chicken and vegetables every

00:22:25.380 day.

00:22:25.780 That's what you eat for two weeks.

00:22:27.600 Now, I eat vegetable soups, I eat big salads.

00:22:31.200 This isn't for everybody, but I decided that, because I really want to weigh 211 on this weight

00:22:36.880 lifting me, that when we get back from the Rose Bowl, I am going to, you know, take care

00:22:42.620 of business in two weeks, which nice is it, it's almost, it'll be what, almost a full month

00:22:50.760 after the pretzel incident.

00:22:53.520 Okay.

00:22:54.320 I hope you're following here.

00:22:55.580 I gave myself permission to make a mistake and then I came up with a plan.

00:23:01.220 And I think that's important.

00:23:02.980 You can't just say, oh, I'm eating pretzels and drinking this thing I shouldn't be drinking.

00:23:08.460 Oh, forget it.

00:23:09.880 I'm just going to, you know, I'm going to wait until the next decade to get in shape.

00:23:14.700 You know, address the issue, look at it, come up with a positive plan and reboot.

00:23:22.540 Okay.

00:23:23.200 All right.

00:23:23.800 So, yeah, I like that.

00:23:24.940 So first thing, make your goals rich, measure yourself daily or weekly.

00:23:29.820 And then if you have set, like plan for setbacks, there's probably going to be setbacks along

00:23:33.600 the way because we're human beings.

00:23:34.860 No, there are setbacks.

00:23:36.360 Yeah, there are setbacks.

00:23:37.060 There's weddings, there's anniversaries, there's birthdays, there's all kinds of things.

00:23:41.320 Here's one interesting thing I have noticed, though.

00:23:43.780 I started telling people, so some of the people I work with go to these all-inclusive vacations

00:23:48.420 now.

00:23:49.200 And one of the things I tell them now is, here's the weirdest thing.

00:23:53.160 Most people come back from all-inclusive vacations lighter.

00:23:57.580 When they step on the scale after an all-inclusive vacation, they're lighter.

00:24:02.200 And they'll look at me like I'm crazy and go, no.

00:24:05.040 First off, you sleep more finely.

00:24:07.600 You play on the beach.

00:24:08.880 Great.

00:24:09.700 When you go to the buffet and it's all you can eat, for whatever reason, people, when

00:24:13.980 they're given all you can eat, they relax, they de-stress, and they come back lighter.

00:24:19.960 So, even when you decide sometimes, if you actively decide, I'm going to go on this vacation, I'm

00:24:28.460 going to go on this vacation in June, and I'm going to have a great time, and I'm not going

00:24:32.040 to worry about my body weight.

00:24:33.700 Very often, people come back lighter on the scale.

00:24:36.800 So, I think we humans have to just acknowledge that there are times to plant and times to

00:24:44.180 sow.

00:24:45.520 There's a time for everything under the sun.

00:24:49.060 And I think the mistake is just saying, I am overweight.

00:24:54.580 I'm going to exercise and not eat.

00:24:57.640 That's just not a good plan.

00:24:59.920 Okay.

00:25:00.200 So, you've got, let's talk about the how of how to lose fat.

00:25:04.240 Sure.

00:25:04.380 So, you've got this really surprisingly simple outline for fat loss that you've based on

00:25:09.300 your easy strength program.

00:25:10.720 And we'll talk about each of the components of your approach, but it all starts with food.

00:25:14.240 You co-authored a book with Josh Hillis, and you guys suggested when it comes to food, people

00:25:19.200 should focus on three things, quantity, quality, and ratio.

00:25:23.220 Can you walk us through those three components?

00:25:25.820 We'll make it even simpler for you.

00:25:27.420 This is what I was told at the Olympic Training Center by the dietician.

00:25:31.280 I don't know what the big deal is.

00:25:33.120 Eat protein, eat veggies, drink water.

00:25:37.320 And I remember looking at her going, I'm in the wrong career field, man.

00:25:40.980 But it comes down to, honestly, my good friend, Pat Flynn, he talks about this first.

00:25:47.560 If you focus on getting enough protein in your diet, I'm going to up my protein.

00:25:53.640 Because protein has this ability to make you feel full, all the other things seem to work

00:25:59.100 themselves out.

00:25:59.980 I like that kind of approach.

00:26:02.740 My personal approach is, I try to eat eight different vegetables every day.

00:26:08.400 This is my personal approach.

00:26:10.040 And what you need to do is just have, I worry about, because this is more Josh's field than

00:26:15.800 I'm just a, you know, I'm just, I just kneel at his feet.

00:26:18.720 But I think the key is this, pick something like Pat says, I'm going to make sure I get

00:26:24.820 my protein every day.

00:26:25.980 Pat's a big believer in starting the day with a protein shake.

00:26:28.740 I believe in fasting until I work out.

00:26:31.740 We're not disagreeing.

00:26:33.540 It's not an either or, it's a both and.

00:26:37.100 For me, if I, because I, it's easy for me to get my protein in.

00:26:40.820 It's always been easy because I grew up in the 60s with Strength and Health magazine and

00:26:45.300 protein was like a god, okay?

00:26:48.480 But for me, the vegetables has always been the issue.

00:26:51.200 So for me, by focusing on getting the vegetables in, I take care of the protein just naturally

00:26:57.000 and drink a lot of water.

00:26:58.580 So when it comes to things like quantity, if you have vegetable soup and a big salad at

00:27:06.920 every meal and a protein source, after you have that big bowl of, the vegetable soup that

00:27:13.260 I have, big bowl, is 120 calories.

00:27:16.720 The salad that I make probably is negative calories.

00:27:20.280 I don't, I don't, I really, and then there's this, this protein.

00:27:23.620 And after you eat that, then feel free to eat anything else to fill you up because here's

00:27:29.800 the thing, you're satiated, you're full.

00:27:33.540 Anything you eat after that is something you want to do to make your taste buds happy and

00:27:38.420 make that, you know, that infant part of your brain happy.

00:27:42.520 When it comes to quality, you know, I used to make this joke about this diet I had invented

00:27:49.340 where you had to eat every day, two pounds of salmon, a dozen eggs, a container of cottage

00:27:55.540 cheese, a carton of blueberries.

00:27:57.940 It was, it was a list that they had in men's health magazine.

00:28:00.520 And I said, after you eat all that, feel free to eat anything else you want.

00:28:04.200 Well, of course, if you can push down two pounds of salmon and 12 eggs every day, you're

00:28:10.140 not going to be very hungry.

00:28:11.840 So that's where the quality side of things comes in.

00:28:14.560 You probably can eat a lot more fried chicken than you, than you can bake salmon.

00:28:21.280 Would you agree with that?

00:28:22.920 Yeah, I would agree with that.

00:28:24.300 Or even like you can eat more potato chips than you can just like a baked potato.

00:28:29.780 You can eat more calories and potato chips easily than you could bake potatoes.

00:28:34.300 Right, right.

00:28:35.480 To me, those are the cliche time.

00:28:37.760 Those are the big rocks of nutrition in my world.

00:28:40.360 If you're not used to eating a lot of protein, focus on protein sources.

00:28:45.820 If you're like me and you struggle on the vegetable side, get your vegetables in.

00:28:49.820 And really, I don't even know why we even talk about this anymore, but, you know, drink

00:28:54.880 water.

00:28:55.480 And I'm fine with any, any calorie free drink you decide to do.

00:29:00.100 Somebody not long ago said something to me because I, when I go out, I tend to drink diet

00:29:05.580 sodas and they said, aren't they bad for you?

00:29:07.760 And I'm like, okay, yeah, okay.

00:29:10.220 Yeah, really?

00:29:11.520 It's the diet soda.

00:29:13.320 It's the, I'm, I'm, you know, on a Friday night, I'm having a diet soda.

00:29:18.780 Yeah.

00:29:19.220 That's the problem in this with my body is that.

00:29:22.240 Yeah.

00:29:22.660 So stop.

00:29:24.800 We've got to draw the line.

00:29:26.220 Sometimes, someplace, everything's bad for you.

00:29:29.000 It's going to make a very difficult for you to move ahead on your fitness and longevity

00:29:33.460 goals.

00:29:34.640 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:29:38.360 And now back to the show.

00:29:40.080 Well, so for those who are just starting out, you know, for you, you've been doing this

00:29:42.780 for how many, 40 odd years, 50 years, maybe.

00:29:46.000 I've been lifting weights since 1965.

00:29:48.300 Okay.

00:29:49.240 So you have a good idea of like, okay, this is, this has this amount of proteins probably

00:29:53.660 gets, I'm getting my proteins.

00:29:55.020 For those who are just starting out, would it, would it be useful to measure things out

00:29:59.000 and kind of look at a, like a buddy, fitness buddy or whatever, fitness pal?

00:30:02.200 Well, oh, that would be really good.

00:30:04.720 If you have, if you have the ability to do that and keep doing it, that's money.

00:30:10.220 For most of us, we just use the, I'm looking at the palm of my hand.

00:30:14.180 Make sure you have a palm sized protein in every meal.

00:30:19.240 And then I would say, and then make it the most, everything else on the plate is as colorful

00:30:24.180 as can be.

00:30:24.900 As many vegetables as appropriate.

00:30:27.000 One thing I have in trying, a friend of mine mentioned this, is eat fruit separately.

00:30:33.660 And so now my snack is an apple.

00:30:37.820 And I'm not a lunatic, gentle listener.

00:30:40.340 I'm just saying that this one person said to me, make fruit your snacks.

00:30:45.920 And I don't really snack very often.

00:30:47.840 I basically eat about two meals a day.

00:30:50.060 But if I do snack, I try to snack on fruit.

00:30:54.220 So you eat two meals a day.

00:30:54.980 How much protein do you think you're getting those two meals?

00:30:57.980 A lot.

00:30:59.800 Yeah.

00:31:00.320 Because I mean, like, I think what's the measurement they give you?

00:31:02.240 It's like one, I mean, 0.8 grams per pound of body weight.

00:31:06.380 So if you're, I mean, if you, I mean, or you can just round it up to like one gram.

00:31:09.480 So, I mean, if you're a 200 pound male, you're looking at, you know, close to 200 grams per

00:31:14.000 Yeah.

00:31:14.900 Yeah.

00:31:15.120 90.

00:31:15.940 We, I like the gram to kilos.

00:31:19.120 So if you're a 200 pound male, you're basically 90 kilos, 91.

00:31:23.740 So that's 90 grams a day.

00:31:25.800 The protein shakes that I buy at the store here called, they're 30 grams of protein per

00:31:31.940 container.

00:31:33.280 And oh, okay.

00:31:34.580 So here's another snack I do.

00:31:36.340 I take the cereal called Fiber One and I put it in a bowl.

00:31:39.720 And then I take that, I think it's called, I don't know the brand name, but it's 30 grams

00:31:44.900 of protein.

00:31:45.660 And I pour the protein as milk.

00:31:47.880 Yeah.

00:31:48.220 I've done that before.

00:31:48.700 And that's a nice little snack.

00:31:49.860 And the reason I'll eat something like that is if I'm trying to push hunger off until, say

00:31:55.660 like dinner tonight's at seven, I ate brunch at 11 and dinner's at seven, maybe at three

00:32:00.700 or four, I'll eat that Fiber One protein drink meal and the amount of fiber and the protein 0.65

00:32:06.480 halts it.

00:32:07.180 So it is strange to talk to people about protein because some people like, how do you get enough

00:32:13.320 protein in your, in your diet?

00:32:14.780 And I'll look at them like, how do you not?

00:32:17.360 And then I'll look at what they eat on a typical day.

00:32:20.520 They'll start their day with orange juice, two pieces of toast, a bagel.

00:32:25.520 And then it, and I'm always hungry.

00:32:28.360 Well, yeah, you're hungry because you haven't eaten any protein and you haven't had any.

00:32:32.880 And the problem with toast and bagels and stuff like that is your body really processes

00:32:37.340 them quickly.

00:32:38.640 The glycemic index on them is really high.

00:32:41.140 So you're always kind of in a starvation mode.

00:32:45.100 You know, if you like Pat Flynn's approach of starting your day with 30 grams of protein,

00:32:49.360 some people tell me, yeah, I weirdly get hungrier starting the day with a protein drink.

00:32:55.520 And my thought is, well, you know, why don't you eat, just eat, then three eggs is, you

00:33:00.620 know, about the same, four eggs, you know, whatever it is.

00:33:04.420 So yeah, it, to me, I have a hard time believing you can't get enough protein in your diet until

00:33:08.880 I talk to people about what they eat and then it makes more sense.

00:33:12.540 Okay.

00:33:13.000 It sounds like what's interesting here is like, you're not overthinking this stuff too much,

00:33:16.560 at least the nutrition part, just like get protein and then vegetables and that's it.

00:33:22.980 Like if you're doing that, you're probably doing good.

00:33:27.580 Well, that's what she told me at the Olympic training center, eat protein and vegetables,

00:33:32.460 drink water.

00:33:33.100 And then the great line, I don't know why people make it such a big deal.

00:33:37.920 So on this drinking water, you had this bit I read somewhere.

00:33:41.180 Yeah.

00:33:41.740 You encourage people to drink warm water.

00:33:44.560 What's going on there?

00:33:45.520 Okay.

00:33:46.240 This is, cause it sounds like, well, this sounds like, I don't know.

00:33:49.640 Okay.

00:33:50.320 Okay.

00:33:50.740 Voodoo alert. 0.93

00:33:51.680 Okay.

00:33:52.060 A gentle listener.

00:33:53.180 All right.

00:33:53.720 But it's hot water.

00:33:56.380 And okay.

00:33:56.680 Hot water.

00:33:57.300 Years ago, I was at dinner with the Pavel, you know, Pavel, the kettlebell guy.

00:34:00.980 Yeah.

00:34:01.360 Yeah.

00:34:01.580 Yeah.

00:34:01.700 So we're sitting around and this, we'd, we'd had dinner before and any, in, after dinner,

00:34:08.640 he orders the two of us hot water with lemon and he kind of elbows me and says, it's proved

00:34:15.140 to help your digestion.

00:34:16.780 So after this big dinner, and trust me, when you go out with kettlebell people, your dinner

00:34:21.620 is going to be meat.

00:34:22.720 Okay.

00:34:23.020 It's going to be meat.

00:34:24.320 And, uh, you know, I'm sitting there drinking this hot water with lemon.

00:34:28.300 And I'm like, huh, that's interesting.

00:34:30.820 A couple of years later, my daughter Kelly is telling me about the benefits of drinking

00:34:34.860 hot water.

00:34:35.620 Well, then I had a friend say, well, that's just basic Ayurvedic medicine.

00:34:40.260 So I went out and I purchased as much as like Ayurvedic medicine is the traditional medicine

00:34:46.540 of India.

00:34:48.140 And I read the work of John Dulyard.

00:34:50.460 He's over at Life Spa in Denver and he recommends for fat loss, drinking hot water with lemon.

00:34:57.540 Now, Pavel says it's good for your digestion.

00:35:00.320 Kelly tells me it's good for fat loss.

00:35:02.100 And by, you know, here it is.

00:35:03.720 And this other person says, and so I started doing it in the afternoons.

00:35:07.880 I have a hot pot and then I have those bottles of concentrated lemon juice, you know?

00:35:12.280 Yeah.

00:35:12.980 And I, and I add it.

00:35:14.640 So as I'm working, I drink it.

00:35:17.080 Here's what I like best.

00:35:18.580 And here's what my daughter Kelly told me to.

00:35:21.440 My daughter Kelly is my DNA.

00:35:24.300 She, I mean, she's, she is me.

00:35:26.360 And we both have this condition.

00:35:28.200 Are you ready, Brett?

00:35:31.400 That condition there, which is so annoying.

00:35:34.960 I'm the person at the movie going, once I started drinking hot water with lemon, it stopped.

00:35:43.640 And someone said, well, that's just because it clears out your mucus.

00:35:46.500 And I'm like, hey man, as long as I'm not making noise at the movie, I'm happy with that too.

00:35:51.180 So, okay, whether or not it actually clears out mucus, I don't know.

00:35:57.880 Whether or not that assists with fat loss, I think it might.

00:36:02.560 It is a bit of a diuretic, as I've noticed.

00:36:05.940 My joke is I drink one cup and pee too.

00:36:09.360 But it does seem to do something.

00:36:12.600 And it could be as simple as this.

00:36:14.180 While I'm drinking hot water, I am satisfying my taste buds, my throat, my tummy, and I'm sticking something in my mouth that isn't caloric and isn't adding to my body fat density.

00:36:33.780 Or, and then finally, let's go to the, because you always have to go to the extreme.

00:36:38.260 It's a magical substance that goes into your fat cells and eats them.

00:36:44.760 It's always a possibility.

00:36:46.320 No, I tried it.

00:36:46.940 I was like, after I read that, I was like, oh, I'm going to try this.

00:36:49.220 And something I noticed, like when I was drinking, I got pretty sweaty.

00:36:52.300 Like I was getting hot.

00:36:53.840 Yeah, me too.

00:36:54.500 Just from drinking hot water, which was interesting.

00:36:57.120 But I liked it.

00:36:58.340 It was a way to drink liquids that was different from just drinking lukewarm tap water.

00:37:03.120 Yeah.

00:37:03.420 And it was enjoyable.

00:37:05.100 And at least, it's helping you get more water, which is essential for health.

00:37:10.220 If all it is, is that, okay, for me, I stopped doing the nonsense.

00:37:17.120 It stops it.

00:37:18.980 Maybe it does.

00:37:20.180 Maybe it hydrates us up.

00:37:21.920 Maybe it raises that basal metabolism up a few drops.

00:37:25.860 Okay.

00:37:26.160 Maybe it is, makes the body have to work a little harder to cool that stuff down.

00:37:31.780 I don't know.

00:37:32.540 You know, and now I'm just spitballing.

00:37:34.020 Nice.

00:37:34.340 Or maybe, which is the only correct answer, is that the hot water and the lemon go out

00:37:41.460 and actively kill fat cells, like, you know, kind of like Luke Skywalker and Death Stars.

00:37:47.660 Okay.

00:37:47.960 There you go.

00:37:48.320 It targets it.

00:37:49.300 It's targeted.

00:37:50.000 Yes.

00:37:50.260 It's got, that's the only logical answer.

00:37:51.880 That's the only logical answer.

00:37:52.980 Occam's razor.

00:37:53.500 But having said it, though, and this is so hard to say this without kind of going,

00:38:00.820 without shaking my head, which I'm doing, it seems to really work for me.

00:38:05.960 Yeah.

00:38:06.740 And by the way, gentle listener, how much do I make on telling you to drink hot water

00:38:10.580 with a little hint of lemon in it?

00:38:13.360 I don't make a nickel.

00:38:14.640 It's like me telling you to sleep more, drink, you know, sleep more, drink hot water.

00:38:19.020 You know, I'm not going to make a billion dollars on this.

00:38:21.840 Yeah.

00:38:22.160 So I guess give it a shot.

00:38:23.640 It might, might work for you.

00:38:25.600 So like we've talked about the, the nutrition component and it's pretty easy.

00:38:29.880 Nothing to, you don't have to think too hard about it.

00:38:32.100 No.

00:38:32.400 You mentioned you're a big fan of intermittent fasting for fat loss.

00:38:35.400 That's your way to go.

00:38:36.840 Why is that?

00:38:37.580 Why do you think that's working for you?

00:38:39.420 Well, I'm not proud of what I'm about to say, but I got to the point as an athlete

00:38:44.620 that if I didn't, if I wasn't shoveling something down my throat every hour, I felt like I was

00:38:50.040 getting behind the Russians. 0.78

00:38:51.680 Okay.

00:38:52.960 I did.

00:38:54.100 And then, uh, you know, I just, but, and I never really learned to discern the difference

00:39:01.680 between craving, mild hunger and starving.

00:39:08.380 And what I learned, and it's, there's nothing new to it.

00:39:12.060 Every, every faith tradition has fasting as part of it.

00:39:16.580 Everyone, every single faith tradition has it.

00:39:18.600 One day I just kind of, I was listening to all these people talking about this stuff and

00:39:24.260 I'm like, and, and I started to fast and I realized what a gap there was.

00:39:29.680 Now I'm not bragging, Brett, but I, I have tremendous self-discipline except when it came

00:39:36.220 to fasting.

00:39:37.780 And what I did is I realized this team of horses that was food was just pulling me around

00:39:44.660 and I had to tame that a little bit.

00:39:47.160 So for me personally, intermittent fasting did first taught me to deal with what hunger

00:39:53.300 is versus starvation.

00:39:55.060 Okay.

00:39:55.160 That's just me.

00:39:56.200 And then I started noticing something is in those periods where I'm not constantly shoveling

00:40:02.400 food down.

00:40:03.220 It gave my body a chance to digest.

00:40:06.960 I'm a big believer in the gut biome stuff too, you know, having a healthy colony inside

00:40:12.540 the floor and fauna inside of your, your, your gut.

00:40:15.580 But by not constantly shoveling things down there, they had to be a lot more, I enhance

00:40:23.080 them.

00:40:23.980 Fasting enhances the gut biome.

00:40:25.920 And I also began to notice that if I could fast, and so I, I just, I don't just react

00:40:33.520 to food anymore.

00:40:34.260 So I have this, a better skillset to go, Dan, do you want, do you want some banana bread?

00:40:40.580 Well, no, let me do this first.

00:40:42.520 Let me, let me get some, you know, and whatever.

00:40:45.480 Uh, I'm going to eat some kimchi with a, you know, I'm going to have a little salad, a piece

00:40:50.420 of chicken and some kimchi.

00:40:52.120 And then when, then they say, do you want some banana bread?

00:40:55.280 I made it myself.

00:40:56.560 I'll look over and go, you made this yourself.

00:40:58.600 And I'll have a reasonable piece of it.

00:41:01.320 Enjoy it, smile and be done with it.

00:41:04.460 It's given me control over my food.

00:41:06.920 The other thing now I was at a workshop one time and this person who said something I didn't

00:41:10.580 agree with said that fasting cardio has no value at all.

00:41:14.380 And I thought, I think you're missing the point.

00:41:17.260 They were thinking of the body as a machine, which is fine because parts of our body is

00:41:22.460 machine.

00:41:23.100 It's, we are machines in certain places, but I think they missed the point that when you're

00:41:28.860 doing something like fasted cardio, like in my case, fasted workouts, I can work out really

00:41:35.620 hard in the morning now because I'm not also digesting breakfast because I, I don't eat until

00:41:42.780 I've got my work and my workout in.

00:41:46.780 So Pavel said one time that what he likes so much about intermittent fasting is how it

00:41:52.760 made you like a hunter.

00:41:55.040 Okay.

00:41:55.480 There's a word in Hawking, Yarek, Y-A-R-A-K.

00:42:01.380 And it's that eyes that a raptor has when it's looking for food.

00:42:04.680 When I'm, when I'm fasting and I've got to write something, my eye, I mean, I am glued

00:42:13.000 to the screen when I'm fasting and I go work out like today, it was cold and I hadn't had

00:42:18.240 any food and I was shivering and I was doing my workout and man, even right now, as I'm

00:42:23.900 explaining it to you, Brett, my eyes are like all filled like, let's go take, let's go fight

00:42:28.140 this, you know, war and yeah, and so that, that's why I like it so much.

00:42:33.180 I like what it does, my ability to deal with food first.

00:42:37.800 I like what it does for my work as an author.

00:42:41.380 And then I really like what it does for my focus in my workouts.

00:42:46.340 And if intermittent fasting is something you want to do, there's different protocols.

00:42:50.020 I mean, there's different ways to do it.

00:42:51.760 You could certainly, I mean, you could, you know, you could do something as simple as fast

00:42:55.720 modified diets, that's Walter Longo's work where once a month you take a three or four

00:43:01.240 day period and eat 800 calories a day.

00:43:03.480 You could do the five, two where two days a week you fast.

00:43:07.460 Another great one, one day a week you eat dinner and then you don't eat until the next dinner.

00:43:14.160 You know, that's pretty simple, right?

00:43:16.380 Anything you can do to kind of get control of your, don't take this wrong and I'm not against

00:43:25.560 capitalism, but every time I turn on the television set, they are selling me, you know, I was just

00:43:32.540 watching, I don't want to mention the brand, but it's this, this fried greasy chicken sandwich

00:43:39.600 and it's, and it's mouthwatering or something like that.

00:43:42.940 They said, well, I watched that and it'd be like, I can now turn off mentally that commercial

00:43:49.640 my skill, because I fast, I'm, I built up the muscle of turning off, uh, instant gratification.

00:44:00.760 And there's a few listeners who are probably going, I think I know what he means.

00:44:06.120 You know, you'd be able to slow things down when it comes to shoveling things down your throat.

00:44:12.620 What's your protocol right now?

00:44:13.860 Do you, how long do you fast?

00:44:15.560 When do you break, when do you break your fast?

00:44:17.020 Yeah.

00:44:17.920 So I basically almost always eat between five and six o'clock at night at dinner.

00:44:23.040 I get up at about most days, five or six in the morning.

00:44:27.380 I meditate for 15 minutes.

00:44:29.500 That's the first thing.

00:44:30.420 And then I go online and I do all my emails.

00:44:34.200 I write whatever I have to write at about nine o'clock.

00:44:38.120 I get ready to work out at nine 30.

00:44:40.780 All these people come over to train with me.

00:44:42.400 We work out till about 10 30 and basically about 11 I eat.

00:44:47.620 So I don't know.

00:44:49.920 What is that?

00:44:51.000 Um, that's sneaking up on 18 hours, I guess.

00:44:53.580 Yeah.

00:44:54.020 Okay.

00:44:54.360 But for me working out in a fasted state is, uh, to, to use the phrase money, money.

00:45:01.540 It's money, baby.

00:45:02.500 Money.

00:45:03.060 So talk about the exercise program you recommend for fat loss.

00:45:05.420 It's easy strength.

00:45:06.520 Yeah.

00:45:06.920 Give us a big picture overview of the exercise we're focusing on here and like how many times

00:45:10.300 we're training, et cetera.

00:45:12.160 Okay.

00:45:12.520 But there's the, there's the million dollar thing at the end of it.

00:45:14.840 Okay.

00:45:15.600 So if you can, in your perfect world, if you want to, if you want to do the Dan John method

00:45:22.460 of easy fat loss, uh, if you can come into your workout fast, that's well, of course,

00:45:29.580 technically, if you're not shoveling food down your throat right now, you're fasting.

00:45:33.220 I mean, technically, but the idea is this, all you're trying to do is, and this comes from

00:45:38.860 Rusty Moore is get yourself to free up some free fatty acids.

00:45:44.820 The easiest way I know is easy strength.

00:45:48.100 So basically we're going to do a vertical press, an overhead press, dumbbell press, kettlebell

00:45:53.440 press, barbell press, uh, maybe three sets of three, some kind of vertical pull that can

00:45:59.960 be lat pull downs, chin ups, pull ups, get about a total.

00:46:03.560 If it's chin ups or pull ups, maybe two sets of five.

00:46:06.380 If you can do that three sets of three or lat pull downs, you might have to do more, some

00:46:11.180 kind of hinge movement.

00:46:12.420 I love the deadlift family. 1.00

00:46:14.480 I love next, the ab wheel.

00:46:17.260 The ab wheel is one of the most underrated pieces of equipment in the world.

00:46:21.600 One set of 10 is all you need because with this program, you're going to do it three to

00:46:26.300 five times a week.

00:46:27.180 Okay.

00:46:27.760 So one set of 10 daily is pretty good.

00:46:30.900 If you know how to kettlebell swing great, if not, whatever it takes, but if you're going

00:46:37.640 to do kettlebell swings, it'd be about five sets of 15 and you're just trying to get your

00:46:40.680 heart rate up a little, but here's the key.

00:46:43.080 So overhead press, three sets of three pull ups, three sets of three, three sets of three, 0.87

00:46:48.560 three sets of three in the deadlift, one set of 10 in the ab wheel, go out the door and

00:46:54.440 walk for 30 to 45 minutes.

00:46:56.640 As you're walking, your body's just released a whole bunch of stuff.

00:47:01.120 Your heart rate's elevated.

00:47:02.920 Once you start walking, your body now has a chance, according to Rusty Moore, and I think

00:47:07.460 he's right because it's worked so simply for me, is now you freed up the free fatty acids

00:47:13.060 and now as you walk, your body is like a Pac-Man eating those free fatty acids.

00:47:21.540 Here's the thing.

00:47:22.920 Again, it's like drinking the hot water, man.

00:47:25.840 Is it a hundred percent true?

00:47:27.600 I don't know, but it works.

00:47:30.680 So this short workout, we're looking at 10 to 15 minutes of a workout and then the half

00:47:37.180 hour, 45 minute walk has just been the most illuminating change in my career.

00:47:42.200 And again, like the nutrition stuff, this is really easy.

00:47:46.140 I mean, I think a lot of people think they got to spend an hour in the gym.

00:47:49.780 Here it's 15 minutes.

00:47:51.020 You don't even need a gym.

00:47:51.700 You just need a kettlebell and a pull-up bar and you'll be-

00:47:54.700 A dumbbell.

00:47:55.160 Yeah, a dumbbell and you're set.

00:47:57.360 And if you can't find a place to do pull-ups, just do rows or something like that.

00:48:02.840 And no matter what I say, of course, people are going to throw up, you know, what about,

00:48:07.160 I don't have this, I don't, okay.

00:48:08.660 You can make this work.

00:48:10.120 I mean, you can do calisthenics, but the idea, get those calisthenics in, don't kill

00:48:15.260 yourself and then go for the walk.

00:48:17.820 And yes, it is easy.

00:48:19.380 And I think that's why it works so well.

00:48:21.980 I honestly think that most people put themselves in such a state of not just physical exhaustion,

00:48:30.840 but even like, you know, when people think about losing fat, very often they go to the

00:48:38.000 seven deadly sins and they think it's a sloth or sloth and gluttony.

00:48:43.200 And so I'm going to counter that by eating rabbit food and making myself a physical wreck.

00:48:49.180 And the problem is all that does is hurt your joints, makes you lose lean body mass.

00:48:54.040 You'll lose lean body mass, but keep the fat because you're freaking your body out.

00:48:58.160 What I'm trying to do with the easy strength for fat loss protocol is coax your body and 0.86

00:49:04.220 say, hey, things are fine.

00:49:05.940 Things are, yeah, we fasted, we had a workout, but now we have a nice meal.

00:49:10.800 Here's some protein.

00:49:11.780 Here's some vegetables.

00:49:13.380 See, things are fine.

00:49:15.020 And the body looks up to me and says, oh, thank you for being so kind.

00:49:19.120 Let's drop some of those fat cells, shall we? 0.99

00:49:21.900 Yeah, let's do that.

00:49:23.060 And then we send Luke Skywalker in with that hot water with lemon and then shoot, no.

00:49:30.540 Yeah, you're not putting on a hair shirt to lose weight.

00:49:32.880 No, and you're not beating yourself.

00:49:35.160 And here's the funny thing is that this is a thing that we've lost in the fitness industry

00:49:41.660 is nudging yourself into fat loss.

00:49:46.500 Could you imagine, I always use, when I talk about weightlifting, I always use the idea of

00:49:51.020 learning how to type.

00:49:51.920 Could you imagine if you had someone standing next to you as you were learning to type,

00:49:56.080 screaming in your ear, it's all you, you know, hit that A, hit that A, you know, with your

00:50:01.740 pinky, hit that A, come on, man, go, go, go. 0.99

00:50:04.180 What would it look like on the screen if someone was screaming at you where the letters were?

00:50:09.160 It would look terrible.

00:50:11.020 So how you learn how to type is you go in every day and you type and you make a mistake,

00:50:16.220 you correct it, you make a mistake, you correct it.

00:50:18.280 Pretty soon there's less mistakes, pretty soon you flow.

00:50:20.660 And one day you end up like where I'm basically at now, where I can type almost as fast as I can

00:50:26.220 think.

00:50:27.680 And it's not ever because anyone's ever slapped my face or, you know, made me drink an energy

00:50:33.800 drink before I went typing.

00:50:35.460 I just nudged myself daily for a long time to become a better and better and better typer.

00:50:41.140 So if you nudge yourself, if you fast and then you do this gentle, this workout, you push

00:50:49.600 it.

00:50:49.800 There's nothing wrong with going heavy and getting those loads up.

00:50:53.060 And then you go for a walk and then you come home and you have protein, veggies and you

00:50:57.420 drink some water.

00:50:58.520 And then later on you have more protein, more veggies and drink some water.

00:51:01.560 Maybe later on that day you have more protein, more veggies and drink some water.

00:51:05.020 Your body is not going to go into this, oh no.

00:51:08.920 And if someone does offer you some kind of delightful delight that they worked hard on

00:51:14.940 doing, enjoy it.

00:51:16.560 Just don't go to the machine and throw some cash in or use your card and get some, you

00:51:21.580 know, 500 calorie candy bar, you know, pick and choose, be an adult.

00:51:27.700 I want to talk more about this walking.

00:51:28.800 You're a big proponent of walking.

00:51:29.860 So you're going to do your 15 minute workout in the gym and then you're going to go for

00:51:32.860 a 30 to 45 minute walk.

00:51:34.460 But you've also thrown in some ways you can make the walk a bit more strenuous.

00:51:39.260 You have this idea of reverse rucking.

00:51:41.020 What's that?

00:51:42.300 Okay.

00:51:42.900 Reverse rucking.

00:51:43.880 Okay.

00:51:44.180 Yeah.

00:51:44.400 You read my work.

00:51:46.040 You read my work.

00:51:47.560 That's a great line from the movie Patton.

00:51:49.720 Yeah.

00:51:50.360 It's something I came up with a couple of years ago.

00:51:52.820 So I'd had a lot of success with some clients who were in the mid 300s body weight work with

00:51:59.300 me.

00:52:00.120 And honestly, all I tried to do, well, it would be the simple thing.

00:52:04.160 You know, first we'd start off with the two glasses of water and then, you know, but once

00:52:07.940 we got them walking, you know, like the one client I had weighed 350 and boy within, I mean,

00:52:14.640 it seemed like a blink of an eye.

00:52:15.940 He was down to 320 and I'm thinking, man, I'm good, you know?

00:52:20.080 And then he got to about 290 and everything stalled.

00:52:23.400 And then I had noticed that this had happened to somebody else years ago.

00:52:26.860 And then it kind of hit me.

00:52:28.900 If you go for a 20 minute walk weighing 350, you are doing a loaded carry and your body

00:52:36.680 is getting hit hard.

00:52:38.840 But here's the problem is as you lose weight, okay, as you get lighter and lighter, you become

00:52:45.280 the curse of what fat loss exercise is all about.

00:52:49.780 Fat loss exercise is about being as inefficient as you can be.

00:52:55.120 So if you're an outstanding dancer and we take a dance class together, I'm going to be dying

00:53:02.800 next to you while you just go step ball change, step ball change.

00:53:06.480 So as this person went walking at 350, 340, 335, that added load of their own body mass made

00:53:14.980 walking very inefficient.

00:53:17.160 Once they slid to about 290, they began to become more and more efficient as a walker.

00:53:22.800 So what we began to do then was add a very simple, a school backpack is just fine.

00:53:29.320 And at first, it doesn't have to be very much weight.

00:53:31.460 You can throw in a single five pound weight or a single 10 pound weight.

00:53:35.640 Now you got to be careful here because most people are going to overdo what I'm about

00:53:38.700 to say.

00:53:39.740 And as they drop now to 280, maybe you want to increase that to 15 pounds, 270, 260, maybe

00:53:46.800 get up to about 30.

00:53:48.380 Once you get around 30 to 35 pounds, 15 kilos, there is not a lot of value in adding weight

00:53:55.060 to the backpack anymore.

00:53:56.760 Now you're going to get people on your show who are military and they'll say, well, I carried

00:54:01.520 a 5,000 pound backpack.

00:54:04.280 Okay, good for you.

00:54:05.860 But for fat loss, when you get to around 30 pounds, you kind of peak out with the ruck or

00:54:12.460 the backpacking.

00:54:13.920 So it's called reverse rucking because you're adding weight as the person.

00:54:19.340 So I'm making an X with my hand.

00:54:22.140 You add weight as the body mass goes down.

00:54:25.580 Once you get to a certain weight, then I would put on ankle weights.

00:54:28.800 Ankle weights are great for anybody with all kinds of issues.

00:54:31.960 The ankle weight makes you improve your gait without even thinking about it.

00:54:35.680 And then after, and I wouldn't go much over five pound ankle weights.

00:54:38.640 And then I like to put heavy hands, weights in the hands.

00:54:42.540 And I've discovered that honestly, three pounds per hand, you get those little dumbbells at

00:54:48.320 Ross, dress for less, that weigh three pounds. 1.00

00:54:50.940 Those are perfect for walking.

00:54:52.700 They are pink, but they're still perfect for walking.

00:54:55.760 So now you always tell one of my clients, because you see them walking down the street

00:54:59.900 with a backpack, with a plate in the back, with bright green ankle weights and pink heavy

00:55:06.740 hands.

00:55:07.100 So I thought, you know, you got a Dan John person right there.

00:55:10.240 Yeah.

00:55:10.300 That's a Dan John.

00:55:11.520 So yeah, the goal here, you're just trying to make the walk a little bit more efficient

00:55:14.380 so that you can burn more calories.

00:55:16.920 Exactly.

00:55:17.900 Exactly.

00:55:18.520 And here's the thing.

00:55:19.860 You're still about that 30 to 45 minute range.

00:55:23.640 The problem we have when you work with building into running, and you can, this isn't my phrase,

00:55:28.960 but it's called the fat jogger syndrome, where the person runs more and more and more

00:55:33.700 and becomes increasingly fatter as they run.

00:55:37.180 It's not universal, but it does happen with some people because they become very efficient

00:55:43.040 at running and they start doing what the runners call garbage miles.

00:55:46.980 I'm a former track coach, so I can use the phrase.

00:55:49.680 It's just called garbage miles where you just get out there and it doesn't really help for

00:55:54.400 body composition.

00:55:56.340 Well, Dan, this has been a great conversation.

00:55:58.100 I mean, we talked about a lot and it's pretty simple.

00:56:00.840 I mean, recap, make sure your goals are rich, that your weight loss or fat loss goal is rich.

00:56:05.300 Measure yourself regularly.

00:56:06.360 When you eat, get protein, vegetables, maybe intermittent fast, maybe drink some hot water

00:56:12.860 to get the Luke Skywalker effect.

00:56:15.240 And then the exercise is not hard.

00:56:16.580 15 minutes in the gym and then walk.

00:56:18.180 And then at some point, maybe make your walk a bit more inefficient by adding some weight.

00:56:22.120 Is that it?

00:56:23.180 Yeah.

00:56:25.000 Well, we've been doing this for a while and I wish I could go back in time.

00:56:30.180 And I wish when I first started coaching in 1979, I was having my people do this because

00:56:35.500 it's so much better for fat loss and people are happier.

00:56:41.140 The nice thing is you're not exhausted from the workout, so you make better choices on

00:56:47.880 your meals.

00:56:49.540 It is, if I beat you to death, if I just beat you down on the workout, Brett, you're going

00:56:56.100 to want to eat stuff that makes you happy.

00:56:58.300 And I want you to eat, you know, chicken thighs and a salad and vegetable soup.

00:57:03.980 Well, Dan John, where can people go and learn more about your work?

00:57:06.720 Yeah, well, oh, and by the way, I talked to Brian.

00:57:09.360 He's extended that discount to your listeners again, okay?

00:57:12.260 And make sure if you could put that in the notes, it'd mean a lot to me.

00:57:14.700 Yeah, well done.

00:57:15.900 DanJohnUniversity.com.

00:57:17.400 And if you put one word, art of man, make art of man one word, you get this massive discount.

00:57:25.160 And a whole bunch of your listeners used it last time, and we've opened it up again for

00:57:29.940 you.

00:57:30.720 So DanJohnUniversity.com.

00:57:33.180 And there's just, I've got, I mean, there's probably thousands of pages of downloadable,

00:57:42.160 you know, actually books in some cases.

00:57:44.600 Lots of articles in one of the best forums on the internet.

00:57:48.480 Very good people, very friendly.

00:57:50.140 And also, too, there's a thing on there called the workout generator, where you can just plug

00:57:55.360 in what equipment you have, how many days a week you want to work out.

00:57:58.900 You press a button, and it gives you your workouts, really, for the rest of your life.

00:58:03.440 It's, it's, I just, it's what I wish I would have had when I first went online in 1998.

00:58:10.500 Brett, it's just, it's just as incredible how it takes, it's the inside of my mind, but

00:58:16.060 it's working with what you're telling us you can do.

00:58:20.120 It's just, it's, it's, this to me was the promise of the internet.

00:58:25.480 Well, DanJohn, thanks for your time.

00:58:26.720 It's always a pleasure.

00:58:28.040 Oh, and I love your site.

00:58:29.880 I love what you do.

00:58:30.660 You make a difference.

00:58:31.760 And that's really, you know, it's the highest praise I can give somebody.

00:58:35.180 Well, thank you, sir.

00:58:35.880 I appreciate it.

00:58:36.760 Thank you.

00:58:37.780 My guest name is DanJohn.

00:58:38.940 He's the author of several books on health and fitness, including Fat Loss Starts on Monday.

00:58:42.460 Make sure to check out his website, danjohnuniversity.com and use code ARTOFMAN for a discount on his programs.

00:58:48.500 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash fat loss.

00:58:51.760 And also check out our website.

00:58:52.620 We've got lots of articles on habit formation.

00:58:54.860 We did a podcast with BJ Fogg.

00:58:56.380 You can check out there.

00:58:57.400 We have some more articles there on fat loss, weight loss, getting healthy in the new year.

00:59:01.500 So check it out, artofmanliness.com.

00:59:03.440 Show notes, aom.is slash fat loss.

00:59:12.460 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.

00:59:15.480 Make sure to check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives,

00:59:19.100 as well as thousands of articles written over the years about pretty much anything you think of.

00:59:22.140 And if you'd like to enjoy ad-free episodes of the AOM Podcast, you can do so on Stitcher Premium.

00:59:26.060 Head over to stitcherpremium.com, sign up, use code MANLIUS at checkout for a free month trial.

00:59:30.240 Once you're signed up, download the Stitcher app on Android or iOS,

00:59:32.900 and you can start enjoying ad-free episodes of the AOM Podcast.

00:59:35.200 And if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.

00:59:39.200 It helps out a lot.

00:59:40.000 If you've done that already, thank you.

00:59:41.240 Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think would get something out of it.

00:59:45.000 As always, thank you for the continued support.

00:59:46.680 Until next time, it's Brett McKay.

00:59:48.000 Remind you to not listen to the AOM Podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - January 03, 2022

Fat Loss Made Simple

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