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Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Maria highlights stories of people that have been the "less than 1% chance" and have come out of their situations thriving and seeing life as happening FOR them and not TO them! Inspiring and empowering stories that will show you that against all odds you can make it through anything!
Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
He Nearly Gave Up, Then A Hug to His Newborn Changed Everything with Mike Smith
A promising career, a growing business, and a baby on the way—then everything crashed. Mike shares how dehydration led to a severe concussion, relentless stress triggered chest pain from pneumomediastinum, and sleepless nights pushed him to the edge. One last kiss to his newborn daughter pulled him back. He started with a loop around the apartment, holding his baby, and rebuilt from there—first steps, then rucking, then losing 80 pounds and completing 37.5 miles with a 100-pound backpack to spotlight suicide prevention.
We go deep on why most diets fail and what actually sustains change. Mike unpacks the physiology of regain—leptin and ghrelin shifts, metabolic adaptation—and why tracking alone often backfires. He lays out an intuitive system based on “cues and skews,” teaching you to recognize true deficit and surplus, slow down hyper-palatable foods, and front-load calories when your body handles carbs best. We talk real-world flexibility: dosing treats without spirals, adjusting intake to daily activity, and designing an intentional 10–15 pound regain after major loss to prevent the avalanche.
This conversation also challenges extremes that dominate social media. We explore how to find a sane middle ground that respects body size, culture, and context without denying health risks. Mike shares how motivations evolve—from pride and fear to family and purpose—and why your best progress happens when you improve your worst day by 1%. Whether you’re coming back from burnout, starting from scratch, or trying to hold on to what you’ve earned, you’ll get practical tools you can use today.
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with someone who needs a boost, and leave a quick review so more people can find these stories. Your next small win starts now.
Connect with Mike:
Instagram: @union.health.and.fitness/
Facebook: @mike.smith.770077
YouTube: @unionhealthandfitness
TikTok: @unionfitness
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Welcome back to the Against All Odds, the Less than 1% Chance podcast with your host, Maria Aponte, where we will hear stories of incredible people surviving against all odds. And my hope is that we can all see how life is always happening for us, even when we are the less than 1% chance.
SPEAKER_03:Hey, hey, welcome back to Against All Odds, the Less than 1% Chance podcast with your host, Maria Aponte. Thank you so much for joining us today. I am so excited to hear our guest Mike's story. So I'm just gonna quickly introduce him and then we can get to having this conversation and hearing his transformative journey. So today's guest has a story of survival and transformation. In 2021, he went from a promising future, a growing business, grad school, and a baby on the way, to a battle with financial strain, severe injury, failing health, and a moment where he almost ended his life. What pulled him back was the love for his newborn daughter, starting with short walks while carrying her. He discovered rucking. I love to hear more about that. Lost 80 pounds and rebuilt his health one step at a time. Then in October 2025, he became one of the first people to run a 37.5 mile ultra marathon with a hundred-pound backpack, raising awareness for suicide prevention. Please welcome Mike Smith.
SPEAKER_01:Hey guys.
SPEAKER_03:I'm so excited to have you. So give us a little bit of background. That's obviously there was a lot going on. What happened back then, or how did you get there? And then what has brought you to where you are today?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so as you said, it was actually everything started off really, really good. So I had started into grad school. I was doing nutritional science, and I was thinking about just a few theories that I wanted to test out. I had a background in math from some other schooling that I had done and came with an algorithm that kind of helped measure caloric adaptation and some of those problems better. And while I was in school, I thought, hey, like I'll test this out on some of my friends. I was helping my brother with it, and he lost like a hundred pounds.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00:And so then like things started going really well and started using it on multiple people, and a lot of people started losing a lot of weight using kind of this formula I come up with. And so the business really started to grow, and that that was awesome, and things were going pretty good. And so that that was all going pretty great. It started turning the other direction. Obviously, at this time I was working, and then I was also doing grad school, so just really busy. Me and my wife were expecting our first child, and the first thing that kind of went wrong was in kind of mid-summer. My wife was a medical assistant at the time, and her manager lied to her and said that she had like a paid maternity leave, and she didn't.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00:And it was really bad timing because we were gonna have the baby right at the beginning of basically like right in September, so the beginning of a semester.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so it was right when I would stop working during the summer. And yeah. And so then all of a sudden, like, okay, like I have no, we'll have no money basically for eight weeks.
SPEAKER_03:And oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00:So I was like, okay, this will be fine up until that point when I was before I had started the company, I was doing our like I was an arborist, so I just helped my brother cut down trees and stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so I just called him that day when I found out, hey, I'll just come work with you. So I basically would work with him all day, and then I'd go home and stay up all night and do my company and write my thesis. I mean my prospectus for my master's. And it was honestly not too bad. Like I had gone through periods of life like that before, and I just thought this will be fine. I'll do this for like three months, and I'll save up enough money to offset the eight to 12 weeks that she won't be she won't be working. And then one morning, all I remember was waking up and going to the bathroom, and then basically looking up my wife after she had like revived me. And what happened was I woke up and apparently was just dehydrated and was put my body under too much stress.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so I passed out and I hit my head on like the tub faucet where the and then fell into the bathtub and I fell head first, and so I was suffocating. Oh, and so it was it was actually a miracle that my wife was there. I ended up switching the day I worked that week, and uh so she was actually home because normally we would line it up that I'd work when she would work, and so then that way we'd always have a little bit more time together. Yeah, but she happened to have a day off. So from her perspective, what happened was she heard like this loud thump and then called my name. She didn't hear any response.
SPEAKER_03:Silence.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, just silence, and then went in crazy miracle. She was eight months pregnant at the time. I'm not a small person, so at that time I was 6'3 at like 280, 290 pounds.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00:And she lifted me up out of the bathtub. Luckily, she had medical experience, so she did CPR and like got me revived and brought me back. But yeah, so that was kind of the first thing that went wrong. So we went to the hospital obviously after, and they said there was no real lasting damage, but the one thing that was really bad is I had a severe concussion. I hit really hard. So we were in an old college dorm, right? So like the metal in the shower had it set like limestone in it. I hit hard enough that I broke that off and it was stuck in like the side of my head.
SPEAKER_01:So I hit Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I uh before my life had done MMA and boxing, so like I'm fairly used to it, and I it was uh by far like the hardest I'd been hit before. So they said I had a severe concussion, and they were like, hey, you just have to rest. And I was like, that's not really an option right now. And I went back to work the next day and just started the cycle over right, so I'd go to work all day doing uh like the trees, and then I'd come home and work on my company or work on my master's project, and that continued on for about another month, two months, and I could really start to tell I was pushing it a little too hard, but things it was just I didn't really feel like I had an option. Yeah, and so I just kept going. And then what ended up happening is I started getting it started out as just like a dull ache, and then we'd get really, really sharp chest pains. And so at first I thought at first I just ignored it because I was like, it'll just go away. Um that was actually the first and I was like, I don't really have time to like let's not listen to the body. Yeah, I don't have time to think about this. So I was just like, I'll just ignore it and I'll go away and everything will be fine eventually. And then after about a week, it started to get really bad, and anytime I like stood up, I'd have really bad stabbing chest pains, or if I was trying to walk upstairs and then I couldn't breathe. So I thought I was having like heart attack symptoms.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I went to the hospital and they're like, hey, no heart attack, that's good. But I had a condition called pneumomediastom, which is basically what happens is you stress your body out so much that it pushes the air out of your blood into the sack around your heart. Oh, and so that sac is there to basically lubricate your heart. So every time it beats, it doesn't rub against the stuff around it. And so once you fill it up with air, you basically feel like every heartbeat, and every time you breathe, it hurt it hurts.
SPEAKER_03:Wow. Yeah, and so I've never even heard of that, but that's I hadn't either.
SPEAKER_00:So apparently it only happened the two most common ways to get it is like severe physical traumas, like a car accident or something like that, or women will get it during childbirth from like the amount of pressure that they have to obviously.
SPEAKER_03:But it's I've heard it's all there's a lot of exertion of pressure of everything. Yes, I think.
SPEAKER_00:And so basically I just pushed my body to the point that it was wow, just mad. And so they're like, hey, just so you know, there's nothing really you can do, like you just have to basically wait for it to dissolve back into your blood, and so you're just gonna be in pain until it decides to go away. There's no treatment, it's not life-threatening, it just hurts.
SPEAKER_03:It just hurts. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00:And so I just kept going and kept going. Same thing, I just kept working, and I'm sure people have been in chronic pain before. It starts to really wear on you when there's just no reprieve. That's the thing that starts to get hard when you start going on months and years with you're always uncomfortable. Yeah, it gets to be pretty, pretty rough. And the biggest thing that was hard is I've never really been great at sleep. So even when I really do well, I usually get about six, seven hours.
SPEAKER_03:Like that's the most, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like I just my body doesn't like to sleep a lot. And at the time I was trying to make it through a master's, and I already had some learning issues, and I was on Adderall, which would also cut back sleep, and then the symptoms of the pneumomia asthma got way worse at night. And I think it would just mix with I have just like normal asthma, nothing crazy, but at night I couldn't breathe, so now I'd start coughing and it would just be a cycle. And so it just got a point where I just like wasn't sleeping almost at all. I'd be very happy if I got a couple hours a night. And then the other thing that was hard was I couldn't really breathe at night and I couldn't get that work. And then all the stuff I was trying to do for my masters, once I got the concussion, it was I was really having a lot of hard time with memory and being able to actually go through that things of things. So everything just was slowing down and taking so much longer, and it just kept dragging on, kept dragging on. And as you it was a weird point in my life, because it was one of the first times of my life where like one, I always just we always joke in my family that it's like if force doesn't work, apply more force, and you just make the world yield, if you will. And it was the first time that like that didn't work, like the harder I would go at things, like the more everything would just fall apart. And I got to a point where I just felt like anything I was doing wasn't helping, and I just couldn't keep going anymore. And as you said in the intro, I did end up in a really bad place with mental health. One night, I was already gonna remember I was it was after two or three nights of just like not sleeping. And I always at that point in time I'd wake up at about four o'clock in the morning, so I could I take my daughter from four until my wife woke up, do the morning shift because she had been born and she probably was about a month to three months old, somewhere in that range. And I remember just like staring at the wall all night, and then it was like 3.59 before my alarm went off. I just turned it off because it was like, I'm already awake.
SPEAKER_03:I'm already awake, yeah. I've been there.
SPEAKER_00:Yep. And at that point, I was just like, I just can't do this anymore. And so I actually had planned to take my life. I got ready and gotten everything I needed, and I went, I kissed my wife goodbye, and then I went to leave. And as I was leaving, I was like, I'm gonna go kiss my daughter goodbye one last time. And I went in there, and when I picked her up, I just like couldn't put her back down, and I was like, okay, like she needs a dad, so I have to figure this out somehow. And so the first thing I knew is my entire life, like exercise and those type of things was a big way. I processed stress and got healthier. That was one of the hardest things is I just couldn't between the concussion and the chest issues, like I couldn't lift weights, I couldn't do boxing, or other things I loved, I just couldn't do at the time. And so I was like, okay, I have to start really, really basic. And I got a lot of strength from my daughter at that time, and so I literally just wake up in the morning and we had a little loop around our apartment complex, and I would just hold her and go for a walk around that loop, and that's what exercise started out as. And it was a really humbling experience to have a I don't know, a tenth of a mile walk be hard. Yeah, that was something that I had never done, like really struggle that much in life before. So that was really, really hard coming from beforehand. I like I said competing in boxing and MMA, I'd also competed in strongman, if you know what that is, where you like, yep. So like going from being really athletic to like not it was just extremely, extremely like humbling. And so every morning I'd wake up and I'd do that, and then slowly just start getting a little bit further and a little bit further, and then I eventually I got her, like, got one of those little baby chest pack things. Yeah, and then I just started going like hikes and stuff with her, and it I started to realize it was a really good process for both the pneumomediastoma because it was just enough exercise I would let my body heal, and same thing I think with the concussion without irritating it. Yeah, not pushing yourself too much, and so I just basically slowly started doing that, and then over time I kept feeling better, and then things with the masters got better, and then I wasn't working quite as much because the company started to grow and those type of things, and everything slowly started to progress. Once I started feeling better, as you said, and as we talked about, rucking is just basically hiking or running with the weighted pack. That's just the term. I was like, I don't know what that yeah, so that's just what the term so I was already doing it, and I had because I was walking with the weight of your daughter, right? Yeah, with the weight of my daughter. And in the past, I had some experience with it. I had a friend who couldn't walk, and me and he had the ability to use his upper body, but not his lower body, and he always wanted to run a Spartan race.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00:And so me and one of our other friends carried him through the Spartan race. So I'd done uh Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, because I've done Spartan races and that yeah, it was pretty crazy.
SPEAKER_00:It was eight miles, he was 180 pounds. It took seven, eight hours. Like it was a it was a pretty crazy that was saying, that was what was so hard. Is like physically I was very, very athletic, and then all of a sudden to go down to like nothing. It was so weird to have like putting on your shoes be an exercise. Yeah, like that was something that I just never thought I would ever have to deal with.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So how did then so you got started with your health journey that way, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yep, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:How did that continue to progress, especially with your company or what you were studying for? It sounds like it all intertwined, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it definitely did, and that's that was one of the biggest parts of it. Is honestly, that was the other part that was so hard, is right, I was a nutrition and exercise coach, right? That's what I was doing for my job full time, and it was like I'm teaching people how to do things, and I have people going competing on the weekends and this type of stuff, and it's like I can't tie my shoes. And so finally, once I got better and life started to even out some, that was when I was like, okay, now I need to get healthy again. I had before this, was actually one of the other things that was so hard is before I got injured, I had lost about 80 pounds. I had got all the way up to 350 when I was competing in strongman.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00:And so like purposely got really big when used to be big for that sport. Even 350 is actually pretty small in that sport.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so I decided I didn't like it as much as I liked grappling. So I was okay, I'm gonna lose about 100 pounds and go back to grappling in MMA because that was what I enjoyed more. And I lost about 80 pounds before I got the concussion and got sick and all that type of stuff. And that was one of the other things I was very disheartening, was I ended up regaining all of the weight after losing it. And so once I got done with the masters and everything was good, I was like, okay, I'm back up to about 330, 340. I want to get healthy again and take get my life back to where it needs to be. And at that point, I was like I said, when I was walking with my daughter, how I progressed it was I just got a heavier and heavier backpack and just slowly added weight. And so I built up to about 100 pounds, and I was like, this will be a fun way to just put in kind of a period on this point of this phase of my life, and so I set the goal to basically lose a hundred pounds and then do an ultra marathon with a hundred pound backpack.
SPEAKER_03:That sounds fun, yeah, but like it's just such a good, I don't know, metaphor. Like you're losing this, and yeah, you're like choosing then to take it on.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and so that was basically the idea, and I wanted to at the time there was looking at it the world record for like the longest distance traveled with 100 pounds was about 31 miles. And I was like, I had done 24 before, and that was in like six or seven hours. So I was like, I can totally beat that. And so I thought, okay, I'll go basically try to set a world record and I'll partner with some charities and try to raise money for suicide awareness because I didn't realize how quick it becomes a problem, if that makes any sense.
SPEAKER_03:Like what some sleepless nights can do, and yeah, and then everything else going on, yeah, it's it can definitely be.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and so that was where I was like, okay, like let's try to make this all all come together. And so I I set that goal. I ended up losing I this year. I ended up losing about 80 pounds somewhere right in that ballpark. And then, like I said, in October, I did the marathon and ended up going 37 and a half miles.
SPEAKER_03:So that's so cool.
SPEAKER_00:That's that's kind of the story in a nutshell. So everything's gone way better, and life's much, much better now. But it was just sometimes it's just how things stack where it can get pretty dangerous. I think any one of those things, I think you face pretty well, right? Like loss of a job isn't that big a deal, and grad school isn't that big of a deal, and a concussion isn't that bad, and some chest issues aren't that bad, and having a new baby isn't that bad. But when all of them happen in like one month, all of a sudden things get big. You're like, oh, this is pretty rough pretty quick.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, I can definitely understand that when everything decides to like stack in your like, what like what else? I can't handle one more thing, and it's like that borderline, and then it's so beautiful what we can find to just anchor us and ground us. And thank goodness you went back for that one last kiss to your daughter. That's so powerful, and it's what we continue to fight for. Like, yeah, I've been through four cancer scares, and uh the last two, I was a single mom of three kids, and I was like, I have to fight, and that's where I started my own health journey as well. When I was told the third time I went through like a depression, I gained a ton of weight, and then I was just like, I need to snap out of this. Like, I'm in a situation where I'm live living lesson paycheck to paycheck at this point, and with a good career, so I was working my ass off, but I felt so like it was like all just coming together. And I was like, I need to do something. And I started doing at home workouts, and for the first time in my entire life at 32 years old. I was actually like working out, eating right, learned how to eat properly because I come from a Hispanic household. And what are vegetables? We don't know what that is.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for why would you need vegetables?
SPEAKER_03:Why would we need that?
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_03:So it was just like learning how to eat and like drinking water. Oh my God, what a concept. It was just the most simple things. But I started to focus on them on every day I chose to do it. And every day was like that choice. And then it got to a point that once that the fourth time the doctor was like, no, the cancer came back. And he was like, You could do a full hysterectomy. And I was 32 years old. And I was like, Do you mean I'm going into menopause after this? I'm 32 years old. My preteen is coming into her teenage years. And we're both gonna be hormonal raging people. Are we kidding right now? And so it was just all these things that I was like, okay. But I stuck to that journey and before I before my surgery. So that I started my journey in August. The doctor told me in October that cancer had come back. And then in December was my surgery, and I had a goal. I was like, I'm gonna get under 150 pounds by my surgery date. I was like, I had started, I think like 168 pounds, but I'm like five two.
SPEAKER_00:So it just with my little short distribution's different when you're shorter.
SPEAKER_03:Totally different. And so I I had been the heaviest that I had ever been. I don't think I had even gotten there when I was pregnant. So it was a lot.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:And so I was like, all right, my goal is to get to under 150. And the day of my surgery, I was 149.6, and I was like, yes, there you go. All right, let's go. And so I had my surgery, and it's just crazy how when you then start focusing, because I also started listening to like personal growth, and in my ears was always something that was going to be more positive and motivating. And I wasn't letting the crazy dialogue that I would allow to be in my head stay there. I was listening to something that was, I don't know, better and more motivating and that gave me a little bit more hope. And so yeah, we find stuff that anchors us. I had three kids that I had to live for and so forth. And then by the time that I went to my post op a week later, the doctor's like, Maria, there was no signs of cancer. And I was like, What?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So it's those moments that you're like, oh well, look at how like actually focusing and putting my oxygen mask on first can completely change life. And so I totally wholeheartedly believe in that health journey and how empowering it is. I ended up losing like 40 pounds, and unfortunately, that has crept back up because of hormone issues, which I never really had to worry about, but I kept solid 40-pound weight loss for more than seven years, and I was like, oh my gosh, like I didn't even think I could ever do that. And yeah, so it's really cool. So, how can we find balance between the extremes of health portrayed in media?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, first I'm very happy you made it through your your cancer and all those type things. And I I definitely agree with you. I think finding your why is very, very important. Up to that point in my life, I think I just fully acted out of pride where I just like I can do this. Yeah, and then once it was like I don't care enough to do this anymore, then I needed something inside of that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I think finding those balances, what I mean by that is I think it's really hard because with social media, you have to get an emotional response. I'm new to social media by all means, but it was funny because I had like my first reel that actually did good and it made me laugh, so I was just basically making fun of people. Like I put like all this what I thought was like great content about like science-based stuff and like weight loss and hormones and all this type of stuff. And then one day I was just like, I don't know if you remember the old reading rainbow. Yep. So I basically was like, hey, like, I'm a trainer, and there's a really easy way to know if you need to warm up. And I just was like, Do you know what this is? And just played the reading rainbow logo. And like, if you do, you're old and you need to warm up. And like I love it so much. It was hilarious because that got like thousands, like a hundred times more views than any of the other things that I put out there, right? And so it's like people like things on social media, things that get perpetuated are things that make an emotional response, and so it has to be extreme, right? And so what I mean by finding that balance is if you look at kind of both of the extremes, you'll find something in the middle that oftentimes is the healthier option. I'm always just going to be a larger person, I just am. I was 6'2, 240 in ninth grade. So I've just been a big guy my entire life.
SPEAKER_03:We're literally a whole foot above.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like I just I've just been big, right? And so it's funny because it's like I've seen it come full circle where I remember growing up and just being like, these charts are false, right? And just not knowing, now I understand how statistics work. So it was just like, no, you're just a freak of nature. You're not supposed to have a 15-year-old who's bigger than most men. That's not how that works, right? And so it's interesting because growing up, I remember thinking, like, man, all these like really rigid things and like being mild, these are all so wrong. And then also now, I think, and I really empathize with them, like you get like the I don't know if you want to say pro-obesity, but like the people who are saying, like, oh, there's no reason to try to lose weight, like it's completely fine, just accept your body, right? And it's like you can kind of see these two polarizing extremes, right? Where you have the one group saying, Hey, like, there's no room to take in consideration like ethnicity or body type or anything like that. Like, we all just have to fit in this like cookie cutter, which if you don't and you realize genetically you don't, you're like, that doesn't work, but then it's hard because on the other hand, then you have these other people who are like saying things that are fundamentally false where it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_03:It's so damaging.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. So it's like that those are just like one example where it's like finding that middle. That's one of the things I constantly work with my clients on. Is you have to find the pretty much you take like your two options given to you by social media or by the world, and somewhere right in the middle of those is probably where you need to be.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00:Like I need to understand the fact like I'm probably never going to hit the doctor markers just because that's how it is, like it's just not going to happen. But then at the same hand, like I need to have enough care about myself to realize, okay, I'm genetically predispositioned to be a big person. So it's like I can't just ignore that, and I can't just let that run wild and go back to the stuff.
SPEAKER_03:Have to put some stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Find those middle grounds, right? Because I think that's the biggest thing. Like we always you it there's always someone taking it to an extreme, and because extremes are the only things that are viewed on social media, we're going to be overexposed to things that are by definition too far. Because anything that's normal or healthy isn't going to get picked up because it doesn't cause an emotional stir. People are just gonna look at that and go okay, yeah, that person looks normal, and then just keep going.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I'm short, but I'm Hispanic and I have a very curvy body type. And so I will never be a size two, it just it's not like I could be five two, but I will never be a size two in pants because my body is not built that way, right? And so I remember telling my sister when I had started losing weight and I saw that this was actually happening. I was like, Don't you let me lose my curves? If you start seeing that I'm like losing that, then we you have to stop me because I know that we can get into this obsessive like mindset of oh no, but I need to get into this, and it shouldn't be about that. I started it because I wanted to be healthy and I wanted to live, and I didn't want to be sick all the time, and I realized that having so much dis-ease in my body created a disease, and I needed to work on that, yeah, and that was my focus, but I also know that when we get it that weight loss is just one of those things that if you get too obsessed, it could also be not good.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yep, yeah, so it's really important because there is that balance, right? I specialize a lot with large-scale weight loss, right? So I've helped many people lose over 100 pounds. This was out drugs and without that type of stuff. And I I often people ask, when do you stop? And I'm like, You stop when it stops feeling better.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00:That's when you stop. In your case, you said you started around like 160 and got down to like 140, right? There is that right going from 160 to 150. If you feel better, then you keep going, right? And then if you go from 150 to 140, you're like, hey, I feel better, then you keep going. If you get to 140 and you go to 130, I don't feel better, then that's when you know, okay, then I've gone too far, right? Like that needs to be the governing principle. And I think that's what a lot of people miss. I think we are so bombarded with really extreme imaging and content that we forget like that's not health, even because that's what we think it should be, but it's just not that way.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. I think that losing the weight that I did it was about 10 years ago that I started, and being where I'm at now, after I had to like understand that I had to take into consideration that in the last few years my dad passed away and I was his caretaker. And the fact that I already don't produce regular estrogen and I don't produce testosterone and anybody else my age would still have that production. I have none. I had a full hysterectomy. There's no way of mimicking that, and I wasn't taking any hormone replacement therapy at that time either. So the cortisol levels when my dad was sick and going through treatment and I was taking care of him, and all of that was happening were skyrocketed. And I didn't realize how much I had with my own health journey helped my, even though I had a hysterectomy at 32, I had still kept a good balance throughout the time period because I never got overly stressed out. I had stressful moments, but I had also things that would help me calm and regulate. And so when my dad got sick, and that then became my focus, I still worked out and ate right, but there was some other internal stuff that was happening that I couldn't really control. So my cortisol levels started shooting up. Estrogen and testosterone is like nothing. It was nothing. So my body was just going haywire. And so little by little the weight started creeping back on, and I was like so frustrated because I'm like, I'm still doing the things, like and about a year ago, I started hormone replacement therapy because I was almost at that cusp. They said they say that they recommend you starting it within 10 years of any like a surgery, or if you're like perimenopausal or whatever. I was like at that eight or ninth year, and I was like, no, I gotta start somewhere because I was scared. There was so much misinformation about causing other kinds of cancer, and I was like, I'm done.
SPEAKER_00:Like I don't want any more cancer.
SPEAKER_03:Four times is enough.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But I really looked into it and I really started to research, and there's so much more information now. And so I started to do estrogen, and that helped a little bit, a little bit, not very much. And so I'm trying to fight with insurance because they don't approve testosterone for women. Um and I like, but it's also at like nothing. And I know that regardless, my body needs testosterone, and it isn't just a male hormone because I'm already having issues with osteopenia and so forth. I know that the only way to combat that is to start building more muscle, and yeah, it's just so hard.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, it really is.
SPEAKER_03:So I've done research on it, and I'm like, I know what I need. Now, can you please help me get there? And so it's definitely interesting to learn how your body works, and it doesn't have to just be cookie cutter for everybody or for every time of your life because it what I was doing at 32 is definitely not working for me at 42, almost 43 years old. So it's just interesting.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's the two things I think people really struggle with health. I always use two examples. One, health isn't a linear problem, right? So it's not like one plus one equals two. That's what people think. Like they think it's much more like solving a Rubik's Cube, yeah, where you have to understand how the sides interact with each other, or you cannot fix the problem.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I forgot what the researcher's name was, but I really liked their work. They basically they started out, they were obesity research, and they started out thinking like what are the things that could cause obesity? And by the end of the first year of research, they had four or five causes. And at the end of 10 years of research, there's 350 different things, right? And it's very, very complicated. And your weight is a very complicated thing, and your body actually fights you with a lot of it. And I think you bring up a really good point, though, is the fact that it's health's always a moving target.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so that's one of the things that we by definition, what you do to get there will not be the thing you have to do to stay there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I think that's what's so hard for people is people are like, oh, I did something and I got somewhere, and now it's stopped working, and it will. That's how your body functions, right? Your body's going to adapt to it and you're going to have to change it. And that's one of the things that's so discouraging for most people. Obviously, you went through a lot of health complications and you had all those type of things. To be honest, even without those, you had a very high chance of regain.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Pretty much 100%, to tell you the honest truth. I actually, with my clients, tell them to intentionally regain weight after weight loss and to make it a part of the solution. Because if you don't make it a part of the solution, then it will become the entire problem. And so you almost are always guaranteed to regain weight after you lose it. And so you have to make sure you do it in a way that it stops early. And some of those things that you're talking about, right? Putting on lean masks and that type of stuff, because as we lose weight, our bodies don't know we're overweight. And so when you lose weight, it just thinks it's starving to death.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so it actually they're your fat cells. A recent shift in physiology that a lot of people don't realize is your fat cells are actually endocrine hormone cells. So they produce a lot of hormones into our body. Some of the most common compounds in our body are actually the adipocytes, the adipokines, like the hormones that our bodies produce, I mean that our fat cells produce. And a couple of them are called ghrelin and leptin, which basically help you feel full and hungry. And so one of the things that's hard is when you lose body fat, your body stops producing leptin, which is the thing that makes you feel full and produces a lot of ghrelin. So it wants you to eat again. It's going to force you to eat again. And you're going to feel like you're not eating that much, but you actually are eating more because on a hormonal level, your body's driving you to regain the weight. And this is actually, I experienced this problem uh very personally. So I and this isn't my first go-around with losing a large amount of weight. In my early 20s, I actually lost about 130 pounds.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:And then I ended up regaining it. That was the thing that led me to study nutrition. I was actually in the last year of an actual science degree. If you know what an actuary is, they're like they're the people who do the math to make insurance work.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00:So nothing. Nothing to do with nothing to do with insurance, right? And I it was like 2016. I was just about to finish school and I realized I was going to hate that career path, and I was thinking about something else and couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. And I actually found I'm not sure if you just saw like the biggest loser documentary that came out.
SPEAKER_03:No, I have not seen that yet. No.
SPEAKER_00:Anyways, a lot of the primary research that they found that people are now making that movie out of, uh, some of the papers actually came out like 2016, almost like 10 years ago. And one of them was this idea that everyone who lost weight regained all the weight. And at that point in my life, I went from like 330 down to 200 pounds, and then I was back up to about 290. And so I was like, this is my life. Like I have to study this. Like I have to. And so that was actually that very problem was the thing that got me into nutrition. And that was the at the beginning of this conversation, I was saying the algorithm that I came up with, it was to help solve that problem. Not necessarily the weight loss problem, but like the weight maintenance problem.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because almost everybody who loses weight, everyone who loses weight will regain some of it. That's just how our bodies work, right? I set off on the journey of let's figure out a set of fighting that regain. Let's figure out to make the regain part of the solution so you don't regain all of the weight. And it's been really successful. I've had clients now who have lost over 100 pounds and we do the structured 10-15 pound regain on purpose, and then they've maintained that for several years now without climbing all the way back up. And part of it is also an intuitive eating system that you have to learn how to figure out how food feels in your body. Because if not, you will regain weight. You only solely go off of like tracking macros and calories, you're going to pretty much always regain all the weight because there's a lot of breakdowns in that system. I don't know how much you want to dive into that, but yeah, it's I'm I love I nerd out on it.
SPEAKER_03:So anything you want to share, I'm here for it.
SPEAKER_00:One of the first things to overcome was understanding that we have to start the fact that everything does come down to calories in, calories out. As crazy as it feels, and as much as it doesn't feel real, that was one of the things that was so frustrating to me is because I was like, there's no way this is real. Right? Like when I started and I was regaining the weight, I felt like I was doing everything right, and I was like, There's no way this is real. And then You look at the physics of it and you're like, this has to be the case. And so then when I started realizing the hard thing with macrowing is you run into a few problems when you start tracking food. One, when we do nutritional science research, like when I was doing my thesis, we did a caloric load up. We basically looked at is it better to eat in the morning or in the evening? Which we can talk about that a little bit. But one of the things that was funny is the second you start measuring how someone's eating, they change how they eat.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so it was funny because like I we we did these things that are called ASA 24-hour recalls, and they're it takes like an hour and a half. There are these really, really tedious things where you go through and you recall everything that you ate throughout the day, and they like make sure they ask you over and over and over again so they get everything. It's like kind of the gold standard for recalls and nutritional science research. And it was funny because like multiple women, when we were doing them, the second time they came in, they were like, Yeah, like last time I put down I had four candy bars and all this stuff, and so I remembered I was gonna have to do that this time, so I didn't eat that way. And so this is the problem is the second you start tracking food, it changes how you eat. Yeah, and so you're not actually working on how you eat, you're working on how you eat when you track food.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But the problem is we don't, we're not going to track food for the rest of our life, right? And so I'm sure with your situation, your dad gets sick, you you're dealing with life, you're dealing with these hormonal problems. Scanning every barcode is the last thing you have time for. And then it's like, oh, now my mom's cooking because I'm at my parents' house. I don't know what mom put in this, right?
SPEAKER_03:You can't you can't fully track it. Like I can't. I tried so much to like meal prep and just take my stuff. And it got to a point where I'm like, I just need to eat whatever's available.
SPEAKER_00:And so this is the problem, right? Is we train ourselves and we only work on food when we're tracking it. So from the very beginning, we're setting ourselves up for failure because how we eat when we track is not how we eat when we don't track. Right. And so then the second we stop tracking, we're going to eat differently. And so then this is one of the things that people run into is they stop tracking and then they start eating how they used to, and they don't realize it. And it's very subtle. And we live in such a crazy food environment where like evolution narrowly, like, we weren't supposed to be able to get 500 calories from a kit cat. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03:We're supposed to have to go like hunt and gather and do these and physically go and these things.
SPEAKER_00:Up to this point in time, like up till 200 years ago, your body was basically designed to get as many calories out of as little as food as possible because those were the people who lived. The people who couldn't get a lot of calories out of the food that we ate, they starved to death, right? And so genetically, people who are predispositioned to put on weight are the ones who made it up to this point, and then all of a sudden the environment changes, and now everything, there's so much food, and our bodies aren't designed to be in this environment. And so you run into the first problem with tracking, is as soon as you start tracking, you change how you eat. So the second you stop tracking, you're going to go back to how you were eating before. The other thing that's really hard with tracking, most people use like MyFitnessPal or a similar app to that, they have a lot of error in them. We actually aren't allowed to use them in nutritional science research. So if we're tracking, we have to use different stuff. Because MyFitnessPal is so much error. I think some studies have shown even up to 40%. Oh my gosh. So you can imagine like you're trying to build something and your tape measure has 40% error, or even I think something's even easier. Imagine your speedometer has a 40% error rate, like how often you hit a ticket, right? Yeah. It just wouldn't work, right? And so those things don't make sense. And so I realized that we need I needed to come up with some way to keep people from tracking that traditional weight, because the second you stop, you're going to regain weight, right? That's what happened to me. And so on the back end, I came with that formula that was a really accurate way to measure the change in someone's weight, which would give me an idea of if they were in a caloric deficit or not. Because that's how we change weight, is if you're losing weight, you're in a caloric deficit, if you're gaining weight, you're in a caloric surplus. So with the algorithm, I was able to get rid of all the noise and actually get a true answer of like, is this going on? So we could tell there. And then I help people develop like an intuitive eating system where instead of tracking, right, we start out with macros so you can get a general idea, like I need this much protein, right? I always tell people, have you ever, I don't know if you ever did the thing when you were a kid where like you would go from like a hot tub to the pool if you ever right? It's very, very noticeable when you go from hot to cold. And so what I always think about is the reason so many people struggle with their health is because they're going from unhealthy to slightly less unhealthy. And so it all feels the same. They're not going from healthy to unhealthy, right? And so what the macroing at the beginning is really just to get you close enough that you understand what good feels like. My body should feel like this, and then when you do something that doesn't feel that way, you notice immediately, yeah. Right? That's the whole process behind it. But then, so you get a general idea of where you should be protein, carbs, and fats. And then I help people come with like an intuitive way of knowing if they have gotten too much food or not enough food, because at the end of the day, the only thing that's going to govern your weight and where you're going is a caloric deficit or a caloric surplus. And people never focus on that. They focus on how many calories they're getting or they focus on how much, but they don't know, right? And so a question that most people can't answer is, and I'll even ask you like, can you tell when you're in a caloric deficit?
SPEAKER_03:When I'm in a caloric deficit, yes, depends on how much of a deficit as well.
SPEAKER_00:Right, yeah. That's a really great question. And then this is the hard thing is if you go too far into one, you end up losing lean mass.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Most people can tell when they're really, really far into a deficit, but not just a little bit. So they can tell when they're losing like tons of weight, right? But they can't tell when they're just enough. And you're shooting for just enough.
SPEAKER_03:And so yeah, I always thought like losing quick weight always scared the crap out of me. And my goal was like one to two pounds a week. If I could do one to two pounds a week, I can maintain that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_03:And what I did for a long time was that one to two pounds a week. And then when I was in my goal, it was okay, now it's just maintaining this, so I have to eat more, and I have to it's so I totally understand what you're saying. I love it.
SPEAKER_00:And it's super hard, right? Because it puts you in this place where you're using these arbitrary terms like, okay, I know I need to eat more, or I know I need to eat less, but what am I aiming for?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that's the thing that gets really hard, and that's the thing people don't understand, right? And so I call it like the cues and skews method, right? And so Q, a cue is something that tells you if you're in a caloric def sare or if you're in a chloric surplus, right? So the one that people always go to first, but it's not actually problematic, is like hunger, right? That's going to be something that can be that way, right? And so if you're feeling hungry or if you're feeling full, right, like that that can be a cue. A skew is something that will manipulate how that feels and make it not feel that way. So an example I always like to give is like if you have like your favorite dessert around, I'm not sure if you ever notice this, but you can eat like until you're completely full. Like I can't take one more bite of steak or chicken, like I can't do it. And then someone's like, Do you want cheesecake? And all of a sudden you're like, I have a second stomach, right? Oh, yeah, does that make sense?
SPEAKER_03:Maybe some ice cream. Right.
SPEAKER_00:And so like hyper palatable food causes a skew.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Or all of a sudden I can eat more than I should be able to. Right? Though those are the type of things. And so, for example, like one of the ones that I always go for is I am a terrible candidate, like I get hangry. I don't know if you get and so one of the things that I think about as I'm going throughout my day is like I realize that my hangriness gets pretty bad right on the edge of kind of my safe caloric deficit zone. So if my daughter's just being my daughter and I'm like, why are you being a child? and I'm like mad, then I'm like, oh, I might be going too far to Into that deficit. Into this deficit, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I have a lot of different things like that. And then you start to break it down by macro, right? Where you know, okay, if I feel I always use the example of like if you feel like tired, like your muscles don't have energy, then you're probably low on carbohydrates.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Where if you feel old, where it's like I have energy, I just don't have that like snappiness in my body, then a lot of times you're low on protein, right? And so knowing all these things based off how you're feeling. And then once you have a bunch of these cues and you can tell where you're at, having a plan throughout the day where I know at any given time of the day how much energy I should have in my system. And then by manipulating that, it doesn't matter if because I'm looking at it in the idea of the deficit of the surplus, it will instantly change if my activity changes, right? So if I have a day where I'm really, really active and you need to eat more food, you're not looking at your caloric intake because that's going to change wildly, right? I'm just thinking about how I'm feeling after I eat. And so then if all of a sudden I'm looking at I have a super, super active day, I'll naturally just eat more because I'm just going for that feeling. And then once I get there, then I stop. And if I have a really, really passive day where I'm not doing anything, I just get to that point much faster. And so then the thing that's so nice about it is you have it for the rest of your life. Once you understand and you've built like an intuitive eating system, you don't have to worry about is my mom cooking versus am I cooking and how many macros are in the because you can tell.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And so you show up and you know how your body's going to react, and you just listen to how your body reacts, and then you don't struggle as much with these regains and all this issue because if you focus too much on the tracking and all that type of stuff, you will stop eventually. That's going to happen. There's no way to change that, if that makes any sense. And so that's basically more the idea, and really how I've been able to help a lot with the regain problem is just moving away from having so much of the stuff being external, and like, hey, like this is I focus on food and I focus on this, and having it all be internal, where it's like, how do I feel when I eat these things?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. And another thing that I think I've learned is that it could be like a healthy option, right? And it might not be a healthy option for me.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:My body may not react the same. I did like a food sensitivity test or whatever, and there was so much like I used to make my breakfast with like coconut milk and coconut oil, or I would use all kinds of coconut in everything. And it's delicious. And come to find out I have a high sensitivity to coconut. I would bloat, I would feel yucky, and I'm like, what? Why? This is good for me. So it's learning also that how to like understand, oh, that just doesn't feel good. And for a long time, I would eat Greek yogurt and I love me some Greek yogurt, and for a while it just didn't feel real good. And I'm like, but that's a good source of protein. And so it was just all of the fighting with like my own body. What is happening with you? Let's go. Another thing was cashews. I loved me some cashews. Give me some good of that healthy fat or whatever. And then I made, I think it was like a cashew something soup or whatever, zucchinian cashew soup, something like that. It was delicious. And I got so bloated. And I'm like, huh. So when I did the food sensitivity test, cashews was like hi. And I'm like, oh, well, that makes so much more sense. Okay. So it was learning that not only I can still be doing all the right things and I still need to listen to my body to tell me, hey, is this gonna make me feel good or not? Do I feel good after eating this or consuming this? Uh and I know that this is super like simple, but alcohol, I choose not to drink because I know that at the day after I have alcohol, even if it's one drink, I feel yucky and I feel like my body just doesn't feel right. And I'm like, okay, I am now old enough to say, no, thanks. I am the exactly the fun person that I am, with or without alcohol. I don't need it. I would rather choose to feel good and not disgusting the next day, even if it's with one drink. And so I think that intuitive eating also um has those kind of little nuances that you start just learning, oh well, that that might be healthy, but it's not healthy for me. And it doesn't make me feel good. So maybe that's not the best option. I can choose something different.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and that process just it always comes back down to the basics, right? If you feel good, things are going to happen, right? Like I've helped tons and tons of people lose weight and feel better, and it's always the same thing, even your story to a certain degree, right? It's like something bad happened, insert death of a father, or stress from work, or this, you know, in my own story, right? Health conditions and stress, and then I gained weight, right? And it's like I felt sick somehow, whether that was psychologically or emotionally or physically. And then the symptom of that was I gained weight and lost control of my health.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so it's like my thing is to start at the root of the problem where it's like if you don't feel good, that's going to be the issue. Yes, losing weight will help you focus. I've lost a hundred pounds multiple times in my life. You feel way better.
SPEAKER_03:Like it's it's not even it's not my legs are not like making all these kind of noises.
SPEAKER_00:Like I tell you, when I was doing the rucking and I'd put on that hundred-pound backpack, like a couple of days in training where I would do like 26 miles and I'd come home and like take it off, and I'd be like, oh, I used to carry that around all day. Yeah, right. Like you feel better. But with that being said, you have to start the thing of what do I feel good or not? Right? Am I feeling healthy or not? Where is this food sensitivity? Is it the what food I'm eating? Is it the amount of food I'm eating? Because everything comes back down to those things, right? Like I've had a lot of success even with treating like hormonal conditions like PCOS and endometriosis and those type of things. And it's interesting because it's like I'm not doing anything that wild or that crazy different than what other people do. It's just teaching people how to talk their body. Yeah, it's much kind of like your body speaks Spanish and you speak English. There's just a language barrier where it's like when you're like, why are you mad at me? And it's mad at you and you don't understand what's going on. And that's really what the game is learning how to speak the language that your body speaks and then reacting to it. Because I don't really believe in willpower. It's like what you said, like you stopped drinking when you're like, I just don't want to. Yeah, I just when you stopped, right? Like, and it wasn't, it's not like you made a conscious thing, like, I'm sober, and you're not like caring around.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I'm not, yeah. That's it. It's just like I just don't do that, right?
SPEAKER_00:And it's like I've never really met people. I people everyone I've ever met wants to be healthy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right? And so the thing is, it's like the hard thing is we try to do these things and we do the healthy option, like you said, and you're not really feeling any better. And so you're like, okay, well, now I'm bloated and I'm not eating cheesecake, so I might as well just be bloated and eat cheesecake. That's and so that's the thing is it's like until you get someone to feel good, they're relying on willpower and they're relying on the decision making. Where it's like it shouldn't be that way. Health shouldn't be that way. It should be, hey, when I avoid cashews and when I avoid Greek yogurt and coconut, I feel better. And so it's like, yes, there's this little bit of a tendency that you might want something that tastes like coconut every once in a while, but it's not like you're using a ton of willpower. You're like, no, because I know I feel sick, so I don't really want it.
SPEAKER_03:Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I mean, and that's the process that people have to learn is you have to base off of does my body feel better, which makes it not a willpower thing. You just don't want to do those other things once you feel good, and that's another way that makes longevity way better, if you will.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I I try to be a good influence on the people in my life. And there's just some that struggle big time with, but I have a sweet tooth, and I'm like, I know, but you feel achy and all the things after the days following, or you drink alcohol and you're complaining about back pain and you're not losing weight, and blah blah blah. And I'm like, have you tried not doing those things for just a little bit and see the difference of how you feel? And it's just it is a struggle, and it's so hard when you like know in your brain that this will help, but okay, you do you, you decide whenever you're ready, and you know that like I had people that I worked with that that were on a health journey and they would listen to those things, but if you choose not to listen, you're kind of like, Oh, I wish you would just listen to me.
SPEAKER_00:Let me fix you.
SPEAKER_03:Let me help fix this.
SPEAKER_00:It's really hard too, right? Like, the thing is a lot of it comes down to like dosing and knowing why you're doing those things.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I had a client who he had a background in like powerlifting, he's a really big guy, and he yeah, just because of the culture he was around, had like the cheat mill philosophy. But it's funny because his cheat meals were just outrageous. I mean, like one of the days his cheat meal was like an entire Costco pumpkin pie, like, right? And this is where these signaling mechanisms and understanding them come back is if you're used to getting the feedback that comes into your body when you eat an entire pumpkin pie, eating an appropriate amount feels like nothing. Yeah, right, because your body's not used to it. And then the other thing you have to realize is it doesn't feel good to eat an entire pumpkin pie. And so, what in your life makes it feel better to feel to have an entire pumpkin pie in your system, right? And so when we were unraveling it, you kind of had to come from both ways. One, the emotional side of it is like why why when it's time to eat something sweet, do you need to binge eat? Do you need Eat so much it's painful. What are you processing or running from, right? The drug aspect of food, because there is very much a drug aspect of food. And then also breaking down and seeing how like teaching him over time what a normal amount of food was. And so one of the things that we did was I was like, okay, you can eat your entire Costco pie. That's fine. If that's really what you need, but what I want you to do is cut it up into, and we did the math, and it was something like 30 grams worth of carbohydrates. So it was like like a bite and a half of pumpkin pie. And I was like, eat that and then wait 30 minutes, or wait about 15, 20 minutes, and then eat it again and pay attention to these cues that we had talked about and these changes in your body. And what happens when like we slowed it down and he was eating and paying attention to how he felt, he realized really quickly, like, oh, I only need two or three of these little cubes, and then all of a sudden I have I'm too like over full.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_00:And so then it was funny. And now he always jokes and he's like, You ruined me because he can't like enjoy food how he used to. Because like he eats two or three bites and he's like, Oh, I don't feel good now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then he stops, right? And it's like that, but it's really taking the time to one, like we obviously we did a lot to address the emotional side of that eating, but then also to be like, hey, like, let's give your body a chance to talk to you, right? Like you're basically just waterboarding it with pumpkin pie and it's screaming, trying to tell you.
SPEAKER_03:You will never hear it.
SPEAKER_00:You need to stop, and all you're getting is it just tastes so good that you're not you're not allowing it, right? And it's like those are the things where building those the structure and actually knowing what you're supposed to feel like and knowing the change in your body really helps because I've been really big and I've struggled with binge eating and like those type of things, and it's like it doesn't make sense to you. Like when you see like a healthy person or you see someone who's not doing it, you're like, no, I don't understand how that is going to be any more happy than I am right now. Because I'm gonna tell you right now, food makes me really happy, right? Like, you don't get to how big I was without some type of emotional tie to food, and like when people are like, I have a sweet tooth or I have this, it's like okay, there's a reason behind why you feel that way, and addressing it and then reteaching your body like the dosing, it's just like anything else, right? Like you you talked about hormone therapy, very can be very, very beneficial, but the dose has to be right, exactly.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So it's like you have to, and so that's the thing is like with food, the dose has to be right, and you need to know what it feels like if it's not, because that's where we get in so much trouble. Is these people did like we eat and the dose has been off our entire life, right? Like everyone in my family, when we move out of my parents' house, we lose like a hundred pounds because like we're just because we have to actually do stuff for well no, I just joke, I just say because of like my family culture is like we're just eaters. It's not like we're like it's not like we're social eaters or anything, like it's just we're just eaters. It was like everything was around food. It was like if you did good, you got food. If you had a bad day, like mom will make you cookies. Does that make sense? And so it's just there is so much culture around everything.
SPEAKER_03:We're celebratory about everything, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like everything came back to food. Does that make sense? And so absolutely when I left it, all of a sudden it was like, oh, now I can't do that, then you lose a bunch of weight because you're like, oh, I guess I don't need to eat seven times a day, and I don't, but in that situation, that's normal. That's what feels normal to you. And so then not doing it feels very foreign. And so when someone's like, Have you ever tried just like not going without sweets for a week? And you're like, have you ever just like tried not going without air for a week? Like, no, I haven't gone without sweets for a week since I've been burned, like since I've been born, I haven't gone more than a day. Like it's hard because you do you want to shake people, hey, just let me fix you, but you don't realize like how much of a change it actually is when you're going through those type of things.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and so my boyfriend will go through like, oh, I'm cutting out sweets, and he's like, Oh, I'm so happy. I've lost like I don't know, five or six pounds, whatever. And I'm like, that's awesome, great job. And then he'll be making cookies, and I'm like, Yup, here we go.
SPEAKER_00:And that's the thing is right, it's knowing it's we have a draw for these things, right? And so it's also knowing, okay, how much of cutting it out is just going to make me eat more later.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that's one of the things like I I'm a huge fan. That's what my research on when I was in my master's was like caloric front loading. So getting more of our calories in the morning, especially our carbohydrates, like our body produces the processes carbohydrates a little better in the morning.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:And so it's like that same client that I was talking about, the guy who he lost like a hundred pounds and was eating entire pumpkin pies and that type of stuff. Like, he the whole time he lost the hundred pounds, like he ate peanut butter cups every morning.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because he just loved peanut butter cups. And I was like, bro, like if you love peanut butter, don't do it at night. Yeah, like he ate a peanut butter cup and then like he would go to work or he'd go to the gym, and I was like, and that's the sweet for the day.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like if you're just eating it for the taste of it, it's okay to just have a taste of it then. Like you it doesn't need to be half of your caloric intake. And it's hard because I think people, once again, it goes back to that, like finding the balance. It's I eat nothing but celery and lean beef, or I just eat whatever I want because that's what the media portrays. And in between those two is probably really where you need to end up. But it's hard for people to find that happy medium, it's very, very difficult.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I agree. Goodness, this has been so stinking good. You're like, because I feel like I understand aspects of what you're saying and just putting it all together. And I love that there's also science stuff behind it, and it helps my nerd brain. Yeah. I I love that things work, but tell me why this works or how this works, and I can stand behind the process so much better.
SPEAKER_00:No, I really believe in that. I it's one of the things I tell my clients. Like, I love the saying of if a man knows as why he can endure anyhow.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And I try to work with people between about a year to 18 months. Usually that's about what it is. And like I always can tell if I did my job because when I talk to them like a year and a half later, they've done better, right? Like they've continued to do more. And I believe in like educating someone, like you should not just give somebody like, hey, this is what you should do. You should tell them this is why it works and this is how to do it, so you understand how to do it moving forward, which is very, yeah. I think you need to it's empowering.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's empowering to be able to, or it's empowering to others that you're giving them this information and you're empowering them to take that control. And I think that as human beings, we just need and want control. And if we can understand why it all works and how it all works and it all puts together, I think that it's easier to transition to, oh, well, let me listen to my body. That oh yeah, that doesn't feel good. I don't feel good, and so maybe I need to just shift something else, I can substitute something to make me feel better. And yeah, I love that. So, what limiting beliefs or roadblocks do you feel you had to overcome in order to get where to where you are today?
SPEAKER_00:One of the big shifts, and it's happened multiple times in life, is learning how to switch between motivating factors. So, for example, at the beginning of this story, I talked about how moving from being just like pride focused, right? I think I just had a really big chip on my shoulder growing up, and I was never really as popular or as liked as I wanted, and then somewhere in like my early 20s, I was like, I'm gonna change that. And I went and did all the things that I was like, I'm gonna go be an MMA fighter, I'm gonna lose 150 pounds, I'm gonna do that. And like so much of it was just pride-driven, where it was just like, I'm gonna go do this because I can wanna prove to everybody that I can do this, right? And then when I hit rock bottom, where it was like, I don't care anymore about I've gotten to the point where I have nothing less to prove and I'm done. Pride had only taken me so far.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and that's a lot of work, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then it was really interesting to see all of a sudden like, hey, now my motivating factor is purely just my family, which was really hard, right? Because I think having a daughter filled a hole of loneliness that I had not realized was there, and so on one hand, it took away that that chip on my shoulder where oh, like I'm enough, like I have like a wife and a family, and this is what I need in life. But then all of a sudden, like now I still have to figure out a way to be motivated when I'm not driven by that, right? Fear of not being accepted is gone. Yeah, so instead of trying to prove to the world that you're good enough to be loved, it's like, oh, I'm loved now. Yeah, but now I need to have the motivation be like, but now I need to be around for them and I need to provide for them, right? And so it's like they gave me the things I could never give myself, so now I need to go out and work and give, right? And that was a really hard mental thing because up to that point it was always if you don't want to, it doesn't matter, like just grind it out. You have to go do this. Yeah, and then it was like so hard to be like, no, I want to stay at home and spend some time with my wife and kids more than anything, but I need to go exercise right now, or I need to not have dinner time be cake and ice cream and that type of thing. And learning how to shift between those motivating factors is very difficult. Another one that's hard is shifting away from fear motivation to like another one, right? Where when I got really big and I was so unhealthy, I couldn't walk up the stairs and that type of stuff, you get reminders all day long where I need to lose weight, I need and you're running from a problem. And then all of a sudden now I'm like 270-ish, and it's so much easier to be like, man, I want some extra food, or I want this because I don't have that fear motivator in my life. I don't feel like I'm gonna get sick and die, right? And so it's like those were the biggest real roadblocks. I like doing stuff, I never don't do things, I just need to be doing the right things, right? Like I never really shut off, I'm always doing something from the second I wake up till I go to bed. And so for me, the hack is always just being motivated to do the right things, and that's always the biggest roadblocks for me when I look back is knowing how to pick the right thing to be motivated by, and then knowing how to shift in them when they dry up. The most motivating factors will dry up eventually, yeah. And so then you have to learn how to, okay, how do I shift to something else? Going from being fear-driven because I feel like I'm gonna have a heart attack and die, to being more passionately driven. Like, I want to see how far I can take my body and how healthy I can actually get it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Goodness, this has been so good. So I guess give me a daily habit or ritual that you feel has helped you get to the level of success that you are now.
SPEAKER_00:The number one thing I tell everybody is focus on your worst day. If your worst day gets better, your best day gets better. I've literally lost clients because they just only wanted to focus on what they were doing when they felt good. And I was like, I don't care. I don't care if you can run a marathon on a day that you feel good. Give me the day when you're depressed and you're binge eating and you hate your life, and let's make that day 1% better.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because if you do that, everything else will always get better, right? And so it's like that to me, that's the thing I'm always looking at is you have highs and you have lows, and I base everything off of my lows. So I say, what was the last low? What was the last time I felt really rotten and really terrible? And then be like, as that is that getting better, or how do I make that better every single day? And it's not comfortable and it's not pretty, right? Because it's not like you can't post online, hey, I was really stressed and I was emotionally eating, but I stopped one scoop of ice cream shorter than I normally do. Yeah, you can't post that on social media.
SPEAKER_03:You could, and really real.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, does that make sense? But it's it's just not quite the same, right?
SPEAKER_03:It doesn't hold the same punch, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Even with what I say, right? It's very easy to be like, hey, I trained super hard and I went out, and sadly I didn't technically break a world record because I didn't realize you had to contact Guinness beforehand. I thought you sent it in after, so I missed the chance to have a world record, but technically it was a world record, no one had done that before, right? And it's like all of the things that yeah, like I had all these great training days and all this stuff, and it's like, but I know my bad days went from I'd wake up and just be an emotional mess and barely get through work and do nothing to my bad days where hey, like I don't have it in me to put on a hundred-pound pack, but I'm still gonna go do the mileage, I'm still gonna go walk the 10 miles I was supposed to go today, even though that's a failure, right? Even though that's not what it's supposed to be.
SPEAKER_03:But definitely failing forward.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, moving your worst day is how you create changes in your life. We focus so much on our best days, and then all that we do is we just make the gap between our best days and our worst days bigger and bigger and bigger, and then we wonder why we can't be consistent and why we regain weight and why we because it's like, well, we're only basing things off of when everything goes perfect, and like this whole podcast is about the fact that very rarely does everything go perfect, like most of the time, like if everything's gonna line up, it's probably gonna line up in a bad way. Yeah, yeah, so that's that's always what I say. Always start with your worst day and build on that.
SPEAKER_03:I love that so much. Yeah, I used to work out seven times a week, yes. 30 minutes a day, whatever. And then it got to a point where I just was like, no, I'm tired, I don't want to do it, I don't have time, blah, blah, blah. I gave myself all the excuses that I used to have. And now I'm like, heck yeah, I did four days this week. And so it isn't the same as I used to do seven days a week, but I'm doing so much better than I was with zero days. So yeah, it's crazy to have been like this up and down journey. And I think that it I've learned a lot, and I've really this just this new season have just shown me personally that it's not gonna look the same. And even if it doesn't look the same, we can have other things in our tool belt to be able to add to that.
SPEAKER_00:So I totally agree.
SPEAKER_03:Um, anyways, I have loved this conversation so much. I'm so excited for everyone to hear. Mike, it was so awesome to chat with you today, listeners. I hope you got as much from today's conversation as I did. I will put all of Mike's information, how to contact him, how to stay in communication or social medias or whatever in the show notes. So thank you so much for watching. Peace out, guys. Love your life. Bye.
