The Smarter Sculpted Physique: Training | Nutrition | Muscle Gain | Fat Loss

How do you build work ethic? Why do some people have tremendous work ethic when it comes to one aspect of their life (e.g., career) but struggle with others? (e.g., fitness). In this episode we debate the nature of work ethic. ♦ WORK ETHIC ♦ Scott wanted to share stories about work ethic and the development of it. Scott remembers when he wanted to play hockey as a kid, his father say okay, but then — since Scott was a goalie — he had to go outside and practice with his father and brother every evening to make sure he kept sharp. Kevin remembered that doing your chores as a kid was something you just always had to do; there was no sense of “If you do X, you get reward Y.” It was simply that… there are some things that need to get done — go do them! Mike was ambivalent about the development of his work ethic, because he’s had good work ethic in various domains of his life, while being totally lazy in others, so pinning it down “work ethic” as this one consistent “thing” you have more of or less of doesn’t make sense to him. For example, Scott wondered if Mike being lazy in school had “consequences,” i.e. the fact that he was extremely overweight. Mike’s answer: no, definitely not, because that was one area where he was trying his darndest to lose weight (not intelligently, mind you, but trying nonetheless). An important part of this is self-efficacy and agency. With dieting etc., he felt lost and a lack of agency. But overcoming that — while it didn’t necessarily build “work ethic” — did build a sense of agency and self-efficacy, and that might be more important. Scott remembers working in a factory doing hard manual labor and at first being horrified of the idea of doing that for the rest of his life, but then reveling in it, though partly this is because he was working precisely for the reason that he was working his way out of that life. Everyone agreed that having a parent who believes in them is important; there’s an important thin line between “never good enough” and knowing deep down that a parent believes you are capable of much, much more. Scott views work ethic as much more of a continuum. Some clients come to him and clearly just have no background or experience in hard work. Other clients, by contrast, have amazing work ethics, out of the box. Based on the ways in which his own work ethic has manifested — first in one domain, then all of a sudden carried over into another domain where previously he’d had none at all — Mike thinks that a lot of people actually have something like hidden reserves of work ethic — they just need a switch flipped, in terms of agency, choice, intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, beliefs, and that sort of thing. ♦ LINKS & RESOURCES ♦ • Carol Dweck’s Mindset • Geoff Colvin’s Talent is Overrated

How do you take time off in a healthy manner? Without guilt? The holidays are finally wrapping up. In this episode we talked about some of what *we* actually did, in terms of taking time off (or not), as well as some of the really unhealthy things we’ve seen prescribed to people. ♦ KEVIN ♦ Kevin just completed a huge move, so his schedule for the past month and a bit has been extremely hectic. In terms of diet, Kev mostly kept to his same schedule, but he did take some time of training. He did enjoy some treats for Christmas, but his eating schedule was *mostly* on point. He made do when he had to. Since he’s getting ready for a powerlifting comp, Kevin is much more “weight” focused (i.e. what weight class he’ll be in) than he is worried about his actually physique. ♦ SCOTT ♦ Every year Scott gets a lot of emails from clients who are surprised that they didn’t lose all their gains when they took time off. Part of this, granted, is eating well and having an optimized metabolism (i.e. not yo yo dieting and messing it up) Scott also saw a lot of nonsense prescribed to non-clients, like coaches say, “Oh, you can have Christmas dinner with family, but you need to do no carbs and cardio in January.” This is… mentally unhealthy. Scott did a parody video about this: The Twelve Days of Christmas ♦ MIKE ♦ Mike went to a few dinners with his family. Mike actually prefers to mostly stay exercising in some form. Honestly, he just feels better.For example, if he knows he won’t workout much (because he’s, for example, at the cottage), he might go for an extra long walk with his dog, for example, helps with digestion, energy, and his thinking and stress. ♦ WHAT IF YOU DON’T HAVE AN “OPTIMIZED METABOLISM”? ♦ Scott: “Choose the behavior, choose the consequences.” There are consequences for everything. If you have dinner with family, yes, you might gain weight. That’s a consequence. But if you don’t do it, you might feel mentally deprived, and you’ll miss out on Christmas dinner. That’s also a consequence. Sometimes… you just have to choose. A small step back doesn’t mean “give in” for all of January. What if, instead, it meant you’re ready to get back to things refreshed and ready? (There is a huge difference between “ready and refreshed” and “desperate with guilt to lose weight.”) ♦ OTHER NOTES ♦ You don’t need food police. Don’t hire a coach to be that! Mike noted that it’s “okay” to make some sacrifices now in order to reap rewards later; this doesn’t make you a mindless gym lackey who always needs to be “hardcore”…. BUT, at the same time, you need to be careful: do you find that you’re constantly making sacrifices “just for now” for rewards that never seem to come? If so, that’s a problem. ♦ LINKS & RESOURCES ♦ • Scott’s 12 Days of Christmas Parody • Alba’s tranformation • Check out Andy Sinclair’s Website for pics of him.

Scott and Mike discuss balancing aesthetic goals with health goals for those folks in the Physique After 50 club. Sometimes fitness and so on isn’t about “health.” Sometimes you just want to look good naked. But obviously there is a balance. So: how do you achieve it? How does age come into play? The discussion was prompted partly by listener questions and partly by Scott’s new book The Aging Proposition, which is now on Amazon, and is about changes in mindset after 50. (That said, the first book Physique After 50, was probably more relevant to this podcast.) ♦ AGE AND AESTHETIC FITNESS GOALS ♦ Question 1. How relevant is age to obtaining aesthetic goals? Question 2. Does age have as much impact on reaching aesthetic goals versus general health and fitness goals? One way to avoid the problem of sacrificing health for looks is avoiding the “calorie burning” mindset. It’s not about burning X cals per hour. It’s about maintaining an optimized metabolism, which is in turn about maintaining muscle. Scott thinks bodypart resistance training is much, much better for joint health. Strength training can be good (especially for sports goals), but after 50 your joints need to be considered. ♦HOW IMPORTANT IS TRAINING HISTORY?♦ Question 3. How realistic are aesthetic goals for the “beginner” club member vs. the one that is starting with a fair amount of muscle and experience built over a lifetime? You need to be realistic of course, but there are always, always positive changes someone can make. Just because stepping on stage for the Olympia isn’t in the cards doesn’t mean you should just not go to the gym. The “Compare, Contrast, Compete” game is an exercise Scott really likes a graduation speech often referred to as “Wear Sunscreen.” (Links in Show Notes.) ♦WHAT’S MORE “IMPORTANT”? AGE OR GENDER?♦ All things considered, men tend to have a metabolic advantage. It’s easier for them to put on muscle, maintain a healthy metabolism, things like that. That said, it depends what your goals are and how you define your terms: sure, a woman has “more trouble” putting on muscle. Typically speaking, though, a woman doesn’t want to put on as much muscle as a man. There are TONNES of factors at play in trying to make a (useful) generalization here. Mike: “Whatever your stubborn spots are at age 25, are going to be your ‘even more stubborn’ spots at 55.” ♦“PRECISION” IS THE SOLUTION…♦ For Scott, precision is about not having the person fit the program, but having the program fit the person. He cited a popular sign up for an online challenge or something that was 100% the same for people age 25 to 55. That’s not precision. Get a program customized to you and your needs, lifestyle, goals, challenges, body type (etc etc ad infinitum). This is more important after age 50, with its changes in hormones, metabolism, and everything. For example, in his mid-fifties, Scott has to be very careful. He has a VERY developed work capacity. This means he is very “capable” of driving his body into the ground, because his recovery capacity has diminished much, much more than his work capacity has. By contrast, a total beginner at age 50 still needs to protect their joints and so on, but it’s really not the same situation. ♦ METABOLISM AND AGE ♦ At the same time, stick to the basics. Nothing “-arian.” (Thanks James!). Or Michael Pollan’s advice: “Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plans.” Avoid trying to short-circuit your appetite with “craving crusher” whatever. Eat real food. What about someone whose metabolism is not totally messed up, has never had a weight problem,

Scott's wanted to talk about two recent studies on the perils or "hidden costs" of personal quantification for awhile now. This includes things like calorie trackers and calorie monitors, step trackers, heart-rate monitors, gadgets, fitness apps, and more. ♦Jordan Etkin, "The Hidden Cost of Personal Quantification"♦ This is from the Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 42, 2016. It was also reported on in The Atlantic. Etkin did six experiments on tracking and quantification, all of which manipulated the subjects in terms of whether they had access to some kinds of tracking or were measured in some way. So when subjects got feedback about how fast they were coloring, they did it faster, but enjoyed it less, and showed less creativity. From the research article's intro: “This research examines unintended negative consequences of personal quantification. I propose that while measuring output can increase how much of an activity consumers do (e.g., the number of steps they take over a day), such measurement can simultaneously undermine intrinsic motivation” (p. 967) In an experiment on reading, Etkin re-framed the act of reading as either “work” or “fun.” For the people who were manipulated such that the reading was framed as fun, when you added in measurement on top of that, it decreased enjoyment. But for the subjects who thought of reading as work, adding in the measurement didn’t decrease motivation or anything. This basically jives with the idea that one of the problems with measurement is it turns a fun activity into work. As Scott pointed out, it can be even worse if it turns a fun activity not just into work, but into a form of critical, negative self-judgment. Etkin also makes a point that measurement doesn’t affect enjoyment if it is integral to the activity. E.g., a video game where you have HP points or you’re going for a high score or whatever. Or gambling. Or a sports game. Danger for personal trainers: “Likewise, personal trainers are increasingly using personal quantification devices to track clients’ calorie consumption and energy expenditures. If doing so reduces how much healthy behaviors are enjoyed, this practice may hamper long-term clientele” (p. 981) ♦ "Effect of Wearable Technology Combined With a Lifestyle Intervention on Long-term Weight Loss" ♦ Published in Journal of the American Medical Association, Sep 20, 2016. It was also reported on in NPR. From the abstract: "Objective: To test the hypothesis that, compared with a standard behavioral weight loss intervention (standard intervention), a technology-enhanced weight loss intervention (enhanced intervention) would result in greater weight loss." From the abstract: "Conclusions and Relevance: Among young adults with a BMI between 25 and less than 40, the addition of a wearable technology device to a standard behavioral intervention resulted in less weight loss over 24 months." From NPR article: “Ultimately, Patel says, these devices are most effective when the people using them are already dedicated to tracking their fitness.” If you’re a nerd who’s into fitness (like Mike) and you go out and buy a fitbit, it won’t kill all your motivation. ♦ Avoiding the Danger ♦ Mike's question: How does it happen? Scott talked a lot about how clients go from a "honeymoon" period to feeling imprisoned, as though they "have" to track this, or track that, and if not, their world will fall. but how does that happen? You avoid it by being real: you won't gain fat "just because" you stop tracking this or that. You can still have some control of your intake without an app or a tracker. You can still know how your exercise is going without a pedometer. Seek out the benefits: go outside and enjoy the meditative aspect of a...

Getting back on topic, we started with EPOC and exercise, but moved into a kind of “case study” of how to read biofeedback when you’re dieting for a wedding or some other specific date. Using an average female dieter (average age, height, weight, athletic background, etc.) as a kind of “case study” we talked about how much lethargy and hunger and so on is “safe” and how do you read that kind of thing safely? This is an interesting question, because the Coaches can talk about “sustainable dieting” all they want, but if someone has a super important date coming up that they’re preparing for — and if it’s a wedding, then it’s one of the most important dates of many people’s lives — in the real-world people just are going to risk some metabolic compensation to look good. That’s totally reasonable, assuming you’re intelligent and you don’t go all out with an extreme very low calorie diet for your wedding, and instead you rationally balance your desire to lose weight and look good with an acknowledgment that your body needs to be treated well, and there will be more or less metabolic compensation down the road, depending on how you diet. ♦ MEASURING FAT LOSS & WEIGHT LOSS PROGRESS ♦ How will I know I’m making progress in getting lighter if I don’t have an objective measurement? Scott actually pasted this in to our list of questions at the last minute from an email — he wanted to emphasize again that many people need to forget the scale. As an indicator it’s often not as reliable as many people think. Other things that matter more: having a reasonable amount of hunger but good energy, how do your clothes fit, how the mirror looks, etc. Also, the danger of the scale is that it turns into a tool of self-judgment. It’s no longer being used rationally to lose fat. ♦ EPOC, OR EXCESS POST-EXERCISE OXYGEN CONSUMPTION ♦ “Is EPOC [excess post oxygen consumption] really a significant factor of an exercise program?” How much does EPOC really matter? Not that much. Kevin: If you really want a yes/no answer, the short answer is basically, “No, EPOC is ‘not’ a significant factor.” The longer answer has to do with “well, what’s the program? What are the trainee’s goals?” and is much more focused on long-term metabolic optimization than it is on counting the number of calories burned during some arbitrary number of hours after the workout. A huge factor is the trainee: a young high-performance athlete with all their hormones revving is going to experience a different “bump” than someone who’s training to lost a bit of excess fat, by going to the gym for 40 minutes three times a week. This isn’t just “well the high performance athlete trained more intensely so they got a bigger bump.” No. It’s a total look at their athletic background, age, their hormone levels, their entire lifestyle and approach to diet. These things matter. Reducing your calorie burning to a single number, once you think of it this way, is absurd. “EPOC” is often a longer-term thing. ♦SITUATIONAL HYPER-METABOLISM♦ There is such a thing as situational hyper metabolic environment, but often people discount the fact that, yeah, you’ll get this, but you’ll also see an increase in hunger. As a coach you can’t let hunger run rampant, either, because that will lead to a rebound of some sort. (Coax the body and it responds… etc.) A sign of this would be the client starting also to dream about food, or losing sleep over their hunger, or losing energy and having issues with hormones (i.e. lack of sex drive). A good sign of hunger being too high is that there is no sense of satisfaction even immediately after eating. Mike’s question, though, is what if someone is staying in that hyper-metabolic state?

This one went straight off topic. It started out as a rant but quickly became a debate about things as far ranging as the minimum wage, personal responsibility, and what Scott calls a culture of entitlement. ♦Minimum Wage ♦ Scott's position was that raising the minimum wage when people currently aren't doing their job wasn't going to solve anything. Mike's position was that the role of a minimum wage isn't to support people who don't need it; it's to ensure that those who do need it (because they need to support themselves, and potentially a child, and potentially they need to do so in an area with a high cost of living) aren't left out. Mike acknowledged that small businesses do find it hard to pay workers above a certain threshold, but to him that's about there being a lack of infrastructure and a lack of help for smaller businesses who are just getting started, while larger corporations benefit insanely from economies of scale, yet tend to pay disproportionately fewer taxes. Kevin agrees that the minimum wage should be raised. ♦Mike's Liberal Mindset ♦ Scott wanted to "challenge Mike on his liberal mindset." Mike acknowledged he is totally a bleeding heart liberal. Mike doesn't think all corporations are by definition evil, but the problem is that, currently, society is such that they're allowed to be evil. Scott thinks we have an entitlement culture, based on his experiences with service industries. Mike's response was, sure, plenty of people are terrible at their jobs... but that happens at all levels of society, and it is not an argument against dealing with the insane amounts of wealth inequality in North America.

This was going to be an episode about exercise questions, but it went in a totally different direction. We talked about diet psychology, culture, and the social influences on our food choices and how we think about food. Why do people feel “guilt” about Thanksgiving, while others embrace it? Where do these influences come from, and how is it relevant to dieting? ♦ REVIEW: ♦ “Such a fantastic show. The amount of knowledge & insight these 3 men have provided in such a relaxed, realistic, respectful manner makes a really entertaining, yet such an informative podcast. I really look forward to opening the email each week, regardless of the topic. I have learnt so much & have become much more relaxed about my approach to my training & realistic about diet. It’s such an eye opener to the insanity that can come into this industry. Keep the shows coming.” ♦ NUTRITION AND DIET PSYCHOLOGY ♦ Scott began by ranting about nutrition courses that don’t delve into the psychology of food and diet at all. “Diet Psychology” is not “willpower” or something like that. It’s about the entire context of influences that dictate how and what we think about food, why people can think about food in terms of “good” foods and “bad” foods, why some people feel differently about meat products, why one generation thinks about food differently than another. Mike brought up a book he’s reading (and really likes): Acquired Tastes, which actually interviews Canadian families about precisely these things. From the description: “Magazine articles and self-improvement books tell us that our food choices serve as bold statements about who we are as individuals. Acquired Tastes reveals that they say more about where we come from and who we would like to be. Interviews with Canadian families in both rural and urban settings reveal that age, gender, social class, ethnicity, health concerns, food availability, and political and moral concerns shape the meanings that families attach to food.” We all know these things, but the trick is digging into our own beliefs, and how they were formed. Scott really likes Anthony Bourdain’s television show, Parts Unknown, because Bourdain travels the world and really gets into the culture and explores how food relates to that culture. Scott notes that Bourdain fully embraces food, but he’s not overweight, and has no weight problems. Mike mentioned a well-known joke: Two fish are swimming along, when another fish passes by, saying, “Hey fellas, how’s the water?” The fish smile and pass on by. A moment later, one fish says to the other, “Wait… what the heck is ‘water’?” For everyone in the world, there is a huge part of our life that’s just… water. Stuff we don’t notice or see, stuff that is so ingrained into our day to day life we don’t notice. Kevin discussed actually growing up on a farm. This involved taking care of livestock, and preparing it for meals, and yeah, that meant being involved in the slaughtering of animals like chickens. This wasn’t about “eat local.” It was just… life. It was his water. By contrast to Kevin, Mike notes there are those who “eat local” in a surprisingly self-indulgent way, where it’s no longer about doing good, but about patting yourself on the back for doing so. (To be fair, this is probably true of just about everything.) As an exercise, Scott recommends as a journalling exercise asking yourself what your upbringing taught you about food and how to think about food? (How did your parents talk about food? How did your friends? What was served at school?) Also: as an experiment, we’re having a Thanksgiving Survey to try and get stories and insights about how people feel about food over the holidays. It’s totally anonymous (if you want to leave your name, though, you can),

We again structured this episode around a few specific questions, but focused on metabolism, cheat days and refeeds, and then balancing those with real life and one's fitness goals. If you have a social event coming up, how do you handle that? Should you just use "moderation"? What is or is not a healthy mindset? How does one balance "vigilance" with "not being totally and insanely obsessed"? ♦ "METABOLIC RESILIENCE" ♦ Metabolic resilience is something someone does or doesn't have. What kinds of things your metabolism can "withstand" is going to be partly genetic. So because someone says "Oh I went on a starvation diet and it was no big deal," doesn't mean that will hold true for everyone, or even for them, if they were to do it again. The problem is that going on a 21-day or 12-week challenge or whatever can be exactly the kind of thing that is not good for your metabolism. Adding in strict timelines like that is an example of forcing the body, not coaxing it. Sometimes it's far, far better to lose weight slowly. Sure, it's sexy to lose 7 lbs. in a week. That doesn't mean it's good for you, sustainable, or worth doing. What can you do? Mostly it's not screw it up. But, that aside, what can be done? Generally, it's the big picture stuff: looking at lifestyle and larger context, eating whole foods at roughly the same times each day, protein plus a protein-sparing nutrient... and doing all these things long enough for there to be a change. The hard part is sticking to these things for a long enough time period for positive metabolic effects to take hold. This is hard, because you won't see the change on the scale. You should feel better before you see changes on the scale. It's not you just do all these things, and then oh, eight weeks later you're allowed to start losing weight now. Biofeedback to look for: You should (1) start feeling better overall, (2) perhaps sleeping better, (3) perhaps be more in touch with hunger, and (4) have more energy. [There are probably more indicators; those were just the ones mentioned that I could pick out. - M] ♦ QUESTION 1. SOCIAL EVENTS AND AESTHETIC GOALS ♦ • • • I’m interested in “How to have your cake and eat it too.” How do I balance social events with aesthetic goals on a weekly basis. • • • Depends on the person. For example, imagine two extremes: the person who uses social events as an excuse to immediately go off their diet, and, on the other end, people who will dread social events because they are so focused on diet that they cannot deal with the mental turmoil of the "temptation" (and are afraid of binging, either at the event or later one). These two extremes are obvious, but you can imagine how they'd require different approaches! One strategy is to use those as a target. So if Thanksgiving or Christmas is coming up, yeah, have a cheat meal, and use it as a target to be committed to the process until then. Don't binge on that day, but see it as something to shoot for. (At the same time, every Saturday != a once-per-year holiday). When it comes to weekly cheat meals (big ones) the fact is, metabolism has to be trained. That means, again, healthy whole foods, a relative caloric deficit, a protein and a protein-sparing nutrient (carb or fat) at each meal. Sometimes the answer is, no, you can't go to as many social events as you have been going to, not count calories, and maintain 7% bodyfat. That is a high-level aesthetic goal, and depending on genetics, age, etc., it's a higher level goal for some than others. There's no way around that it takes a bit of vigilance to get there and stay there. **NOTE:** This doesn't mean you can't go to social events. It just means you go without indulging. Does that mean you don't eat it all?

The guys tackle a few specific questions related to fat loss dieting. They discussed diet-pinballing, falling off the wagon, as well as specific questions: Why does Scott think “egg whites and oatmeal” is the best meal to start off the day metabolically? How do you maintain muscle when dieting to lose fat? To what degree is tolerable hunger ok, and is it okay to blunt it? (E.g., with caffeine?) ♦ EMAIL 1. ♦ Diet Pinballing Scott received an email from a client who was losing weight, hunger wasn’t too high, and things were going well… but the client wanted to “switch things up.” Mike pointed out that in a scenario like that, there isn’t much more you can hope for out of a diet. Training’s good. Diet’s good. Hunger’s good. Fat loss is still going… there isn’t much to improve in a scenario like that! This is also why Scott likes to focus on process and process-based goals. ♦ EMAIL 2.♦ Being “on” or “off” the wagon (& metabolism) Scott also received an email about being “on” or “off” the wagon, but more specifically, he wanted to focus on the fact that optimizing metabolism is a long-term process. You can be “off the diet” and — if the metabolism is optimized — not immediately gain a bunch of weight. A better strategy is to optimize metabolism first, and focus on “losing weight” second. Mike mentioned reification, which is taking a concept or idea and concretizing it, imagining it is a thing, when really what’s under discussion is a process, or a set of relationships. So for example, a meal plan is just a list of foods on paper, a set of reminders of what to eat. But people think if they ate “off the plan” that’s worse, even if what they ate is, based on that person’s goals, no better or worse in any way. But because it was “off the plan” they freak out and think their body is going to gain 10 lbs. (Yes, people do eat off the plan in ways that do interrupt progress. Of course they do. That’s not the point here.) One of the strategies Mike uses is to constantly remind himself these things don’t matter. So he buys 0%, 1%, and 2% cottage cheese, and uses them interchangeably, for the sole purpose of reminding himself that these things don’t matter. The mind believes whatever you tell it. If you tell yourself you “need” this or that food, your mind will believe it. So for example, yo udon’t “need” chocolate, but it is very easy to believe you do. You have to unlearn that believe. Sometimes that takes a coach. Sometimes it takes making this an actual focus. ♦ QUESTION. ♦ Why did Scott say several times in episode 22 that egg whites and oatmeal are the best meal to start off the day “metabolically”? Short answer: it ticks a lot of boxes for Scott. It’s healthy whole and unprocessed; the foods have high volume per calorie; the foods rate highly on the satiety index (by themselves, though they are also more satiating together); does it have a good protein element and protein-sparing element? It also has slow intestinal motility to slow digestion, which will keep hunger where it is supposed to be. Kevin brought up that it depends how you define best, or even how you think about “best.” There are other high-quality foods out there. Key point here is that Scott was saying “metabolically.” There are cultural reasons for this: is chicken a “worse” protein source than the egg whites? No, but egg whites tend to go better with oatmeal, and go down easier first thing in the morning. For Scott you still want a protein and a starch, and in a reasonable ratio. Or, at the very least, a protein and a fat. Don’t mix and match or do a fat and a carb. ♦QUESTION.♦ Could you guys discuss “hunger” in detail (e.g. biofeedback, is it OK to use things like coffee, liquids, etc.

Scott and Kevin talk about mistakes new trainees make, but what were some of the mistakes they made early on in their fitness journey? What do they wish they’d known earlier? This episode explored some of the ways the fitness industry has changed over the years, and how Scott and Kevin were influenced by “the magazines” early on (after all… where else could they go for information?). ♦ IF ONLY WE'D KNOWN ♦ Both Scott and Kevin discussed the silliness of some of the routines and ideas they followed, and the myths they bought into, back when they were both first starting out in health, fitness and bodybuilding back in the 80s and 90s, and how shocked they were the more and more they learned. A lot of what people thought was simply… pure conjecture. Just guessing. The main things Kevin says he didn’t “get” early on were what it would really truly take, both in terms of sacrifices and time. Scott, who actually became a ghost writer for some of the very magazines he used to follow, described being disappointed as he learned more and more about the way the business was run. There was also a lot of smoke and mirrors about who was and who was not natural. It’s still like this; it was just even worse, because no one had a barometer for what was or was not a reasonable claim. In one instance, he described the writers putting a little dot of ink on the page (as in, like a period), but then claiming that the dot had a very small dosage of a new special supplement, and you could cut the dot out and swallow it in order to feel its effects. They did this just to see if people would actually do it. Sure enough, they did. (And sure enough, people loved it and could “feel its effects.”) There is an interesting paradox at work in that the magazines would instill a sense that you can accomplish these insane remarkable transformations, but it also tends to lead to a certain kind of myopic view of what’s possible. Scott attributes his success to having a really high aim that went beyond the physical stuff. Scott was reminded of The Legend of Bagger Vance, where your immersion in a sport of any sort doesn’t become about the competition or the end goal, but simply self-connection. Mike somewhat disagreed, in that the end goal (winning vs. losing) can still be important and integral and good. You don’t have to let that go. His example was Midnight Hockey, where guys who loved — loved — the game of hockey played into their 70s, 80s, and 90s. It’s no longer at a high level. And yet, nonetheless, even in a random game where it doesn’t really matter who wins and who loses, it’s a better feeling in the dressing room after a win. And that competition is an important part of the experience. Shooting pucks with friends without keeping score is fun, but there is a degree to which the competition — in which you’re trying, and your opponent is trying — is better, and is still about a true, deep love of the game. The writer of the original book of The Legend of Bagger Vance is Steven Pressfield, who also wrote several books about writing and work that Mike likes. E.g., Do the Work. In the book, writing, doing the things that are important, are about higher awareness, even spirituality… But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy or that you can’t frame it as an obstacle. ♦ LINKS & RESOURCES ♦ ● The Underground Steroid Handbook by Dan Duchaine [Amazon has no copies. It seems to be available online.] ● The Legend of Bagger Vance (movie, but there's a book, too!) ● Midnight Hockey by Bill Gaston (book) ● Shop Class as Soul Craft by Matthew Crawford (book)

Since Scott has been around the industry a long time, he has seen a lot of shiny new objects come and go. This episode was all about those shiny objects, and how to ignore them, move on, and focus on the principles that really matter. Some examples of “shiny new objects” (i.e. trends) that were discussed: TRX, Bosu Balls, Kettle Bells, Battling Ropes, Reverse Dieting. ♦ SIMPLE FIXES AND LIFESTYLE ♦ The podcast began with Scott noting that the price of success, sometimes, is just plain vigilance, ad sometimes there are no workarounds. The example he gave was sleep — if you don’t get enough sleep, that will be a huge roadblock to fitness success. This doesn’t mean there aren’t very legitimate reasons why you can’t get more, but there isn’t a way “around” this that isn’t just an empty promise trying to sell you something. Scott and Kevin ranted about people’s sense of entitlement. If you’re trying to deal with these lifestyle factors, you need to (1) be real and (2) really think about your priorities. ♦ SHINY OBJECTS ♦ To give some background, Scott considers his work as a capital-C Coach to be a craft. Bt the first rule of being a craftsman is that you don’t fetishize one single tool, nor do you blame your tools: no carpenter ever got certified in the screw driver, the way many trainers get certified in TRX, or kettle bells, battling ropes whatever. Here’s an example of the dangers of this: one of the “in vogue” tools right now is battling ropes. But these are not always a very good tool. If you’re over 50 or have shoulder problems, they are not good for you at all. They’re too hard on the shoulders. A lot of the things that work are just plain boring. They’re not shiny. They’re not new. They’re not that fun to talk about. But they’re the things that move the needle for you. ♦ COMMUNICATION ♦ A lot of the fitness industry sells the sizzle over the steak. At the same time, a program whose explanation is only legible to the coach or trainer is going too far the other way. Is there a happy medium? A lot of the changes in the industry have to do with the fact that weight loss and fitness, as market, is old, sophisticated, and saturated. Consumers are skeptical of this or that strategy, so in-depth “secrets” and overly-complicated explanations are used to justify… nonsense. ♦ LINKS & RESOURCES ♦ ● Scott's article, "The Nonsense of Crossfit" ● Charles Atlas' famous “Hero of the Beach” ads. ● A relevant article at the Smithsonian website about Charles Atlas ● Internet Archive.org has tonnes of old magazines with similar old mail-order ads (going right back to the 19th century!) ● A video on market sophistication: https://youtu.be/W7RV0WHTyLc

You’re sick. Should you go to the gym? How do you work out around an injury? Obviously you want to “do what you can,” but the fact is, our minds play tricks on us, and you have to make sure you’er not just prolonging the sickness/injury or causing more damage in the long run. In this episode Scott, Kevin and Mike tackled these questions from a few different angles. ♦ SICKNESS ‘N FITNESS ♦ Don’t go to the gym if you’re going to infect everyone! Be considerate! A large part of it is knowing your body: what will help, what will just prolong how long it takes to recover? At the same time, don’t use sickness as an excuse. Remember that pain is usually trying to tell you something. Scott noted that it’s amazing how many record-setting performances have been done when someone had a cold, or flu, or some injury that should have prevented them from doing that. Self-fulfilling prophecies can work for you or against you. If you believe you’re too sick to work out, you will be. If you believe you “never get sick” — well, that doesn’t make you invincible, obviously (c’mon, let’s be real) — but it will have an effect. Chills or fever are usually a sign that you are sick. Not just “a stuffy nose” — but truly sick. One of the best things you can do is focus on sleep. ♦ STRESS ♦ The body adapts to the stresses you subject it to. For example, think of high-performing politicians who deal with a tonne of stress, get very little sleep, travel around the globe 80% of the year, and so on. Neither Scott, Kevin, or Mike would do well with that kind of job. But someone like Trevor Timmins makes it work. There were a number of allusions to high performance athletes and politicians. On the one hand, some politicians (e.g. the freaking President) do amazing thing in terms of how they handle time and stress and lack of sleep; on the other, research is clear about things like the importance of sleep, and 95% of people who say, “Oh, I thrive in such-and-such an environment” are actually lying to themselves. At the end of the day, as Kevin said, your job demands what your job demands. Scott brought up the fact that Presidents (to build off that specific example) end up living very long lives. This isn’t just access to healthcare, especially given the nature of their position. It illustrates that how you view the stress, and whther you’ve “chosen” it, has a huge impact. Someone who is running a country likely gets a lot of meaning from their work, and that will mitigate the so-called “negative” effects of stress. (See McGonigal’s new book on stress.) Abelism: You own stress, or stress owns you. ♦ DEALING WITH INJURIES AND WORKOUTS ♦ Don’t fall into the “why bother?” mindset, even if that’s where our brains want to go. It’s more important to do what you can. Kevin had a serious knee injury and did what he could “around” the injury, and went on to win a bunch of powerlifting competitions. You will get better. Just do what you can. Working “around” an injury means listening to you body. So much is dependent on your body, and your muscles, that there is no one-size-fits-all prescription, such as “Oh, you tore your ACL, as soon as you’re able, just do squats this way.” No. Maybe you just need to leave squats out for longer, or you need to do them some other way. It depends, and it’s always different. The only way to figure it out is to experiment (within reason). There is almost always a way to work around different injuries, especially as you get closer and closer to being 100% again. For example, Kevin had a torn meniscus, but simply modifying his foot position (to make his shin more vertical) helped with Nulgarian split squats. At the same time,

Mike currently eats a mostly vegetarian diet (he has fish occasionally), and many of Scott and Kevin’s clients have been vegetarian, vegan, or fell somewhere else about the spectrum. We discussed reasons why people should or definitely should not start eating vegetarian. (Over the course of the episode, Scott became a bit obsessed with his favourite textbook, Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease, since it mentions vegetarian dieting and has a bundle of related statistics and points.) ♦ WHY CHOOSE A VEGETARIAN DIET ♦ Mike eats as a vegetarian for ethical reasons; he thinks eating animals just isn’t something we should be doing, if we can help it. A lot of what people do for their diet depends on why they did it. So your average vegetarian dieter who just cuts out meat without having a good basis of what to eat instead ends up turning to convenient “faux” foods (usually based on soy, tofu, etc.). But a hardcore fitness competitor often sticks to “real” foods, but they also cut out starches, legumes, and things like that, and basically eat pounds and pounds of leafy greens, which is… taking things to an extreme. Both Scott and Kevin have seen a lot of “hiding behind the label” of vegan or vegetarian dieting that ended up being an excuse for what is (in reality) disordered eating. Long story short: don’t use a vegetarian diet as an excuse to eat in a disordered way. Try to be brutally honest. Is this about health, or ethics, or is it related to body image? Scott keeps an eye out for people looking to “a diet” as a reason to restrict foods, as opposed to making a series of specific, individual choices. ♦HOW TO EAT A VEGETARIAN OR VEGAN:♦ Scott loves Michael Pollan’s formulation: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” A lot of the benefits comes from turning to real, whole foods, and not eating giant portions of them. Mike mentioned a point Michael Pollan makes [ I think it’s In Defense of Food, but it could be Omnivore’s Dilemma — M ] about looking at the habits of people who take a lot of supplements, but then ignoring the actual supplement part of the equation, since they do so little, if anything. It’s simply that those people are health conscious, so yeah, they tend to be healthier, live longer, be leaner, etc.. They also tend to not smoke, to get more sleep, and things like that. There was a bit of a debate about carbs. Scott and Mike both think carbs are important for satiety, though at the same time, Kevin has eaten low carb for years. But they all certainly agreed that just eliminating foods for the sake of eliminating foods is never a good idea. You have to listen to your body. If you switch to eating a vegetarian diet, don’t eat so many cruciferous veggies that you spend all your time on the toilet. Experiment with foods. See what makes you feel best. (Mike, for example, is still eating more dairy than he’d prefer, but it provides far more satiety for him than does various combinations of rice and legumes and so on.) Don’t get into “Calorie Counting” at the same time as you switch the content of your foods. You should be trying to do both these things at the same time. ♦ General “Wrap Up” Tips: ♦ ● Don’t get into calorie counting at the same time as you switch. ● Don’t also suddenly restrict starches (or go “low carb”) at the same time. ● Eat a variety of foods; be an omnivore. ● Eat stuff that you want to eat. ● None of these things apply to special populations (children, pregnant women, anyone over 50). ● Don’t do it all at once if you’re not comfortable doing so. ● Scott’s final wrapup: consider the health of the planet and the treatment of animals (if for no other reason than it takes diet into another...

You see personal training and personal trainers in just about every gym you go to. That’s the model. And many fitness enthusiasts view personal training as a potential career path. But there are some realities to consider before doing so. In this episode we talk about what clients or consumers should look for in personal trainers, what should change in the personal training industry, and what personal trainers themselves should be thinking about in terms of their own career and some of the trends that are going on. ♦The Trade or Craft of Personal Training ♦ To be blunt: Scott thinks a lot of personal trainers are not very good, and that is based partly on how the industry is built. Personal trainers are “certified” by gyms who don’t need “good trainers”; they just need bodies on the floor selling programs. Kevin told an anecdote of a friend’s daughter who signed up to get certified, but she ended up only getting a few days of relevant training… and then several weeks of sales training. Kevin referenced his work with cars, before he became a personal trainer. When he worked there, the system was under an apprenticeship and mentorship model. You didn’t do a 2-day weekend course. First you spent time doing such-and-such a course, then you worked in a shop for year, then you went to school, and then you needed 1,500-2000 hours of experience before you were put under a mentor. This meant you got actual hands-on experience, and it’s not all theory. This is the basic model for a lot of trades. Mike would argue that this is precisely how a lot of personal training certification program position themselves, even though what they are providing is really not the same thing. Part of describing what could or should be improved about “personal training” is defining our terms. What should a personal trainer be involved in? There is a difference between being hired, specifically, to show someone how to do X, Y, and Z exercises, versus being hired to (for example) help someone lose weight… which just happens to involve doing X, Y, and Z exercises. Where does the personal trainer come into play here? Does nutrition come in? What does the consultation involve? What should it involve? For Scott it should always be about the client. Look for trainers who don’t use the pronoun “I,” but instead talk about you, the client, the client’s needs. Pay attention also to word choice. The words “get jacked” will resonate with one client, and not so much with many others! Mike adds, though, that he learns a lot by learning from people who are just open and honest about what works for them. Sometimes you don’t want any “Well, you should do this” kind of advice. It’s very easy for personal trainers to say, “Well, you should do X because of principle Y.” When in reality, a simple, “Oh, for a bicep curl, I do this and that tends to help” might be more useful. (Especially if the person listening can ask a few other people, then make the decision for him or herself.) Scott gives the example of Fred Hatfield who’d basically say “shut up and lift the weight.” From there he could correct you. ♦Personal Training as a Potential Career♦ Kevin built his own business with simple word-of-mouth. He’s won contests and powerlifting championships, and in his opinion, that might have given a bit more credibility, but it’s not the foundation for how how build his reputation and his business. Scott thinks the market is way over-saturated. Scott prides himself on being ahead of the curve, he quotes Wayne Gretzky, who is often quoted as saying he doesn’t go where the puck is, but where it’s going to be. If Scott were just starting out today, he would do things very different because of how saturated it has become. When he started, he was one of the first in his local town to simply… ch...

An “experts” will tell you to listen to them, and tune everyone else out. the only problem is every expert says this, including the ones who disagree. So: how do you deal with this? How do you know who to listen to? How do you learn? (Or… “learn to learn”?) How do you separate out the wheat from the chaff? The wisdom and science from the pseudoscience and nonsense? We addressed this first about personal learning, and then in terms of hiring a coach. ♦ THE WHEAT FROM THE CHAFF ♦ Scott and Kevin both emphasized that things have changed a lot since they were coming up. Online information overload is nothing like it was. This, obviously, has both benefits and drawbacks. There is also a preponderance of online coaches/gurus who have the “look” of expertise (i.e. marketers) but not the education to really back it up. Scott noted that this not the information age, but the “post-information” age. Mike also mentioned how it’s kind of insane how much power is at our finger tips, via things like search engines and so on, and we constantly, constantly don’t take advantage of it. Yes, there are issues with not always getting the best results, but often times it’s not a deep topic — there is a clearcut, definitive answer, and it would take us 10 seconds tops to get it. And yet… we don’t. Scott mentioned the phrase “Conspiracy against the laity,” which is a phrase popularized by Warren Buffett, but comes originally from George Bernard Shaw. (Lookit that. Five seconds on Google.) Mike quoted Oscar Wilde saying “All education is self-education.” That might have been Isaac Asimov (the sci fi author) or Louis L’amour (the Western author). Scott followed up with the quote, “It takes an education before you can become self-taught.” This blog post makes some nice points regarding the idea and play between a “formal” education and a self-taught one. Scott brought up the fact that the fitness industry is mostly lead by marketers. Kevin also brought up the fact that there plenty of “no names” who have lots to contribute but you will never ever hear about them online. But, at the same time — Mike acknowledged — in order to be heard from online, those people need to contribute something in a form that, say, a search engine can understand. Also, most of them don’t care about being found online. They’re too busy. Mike’s opinion of “intelligence” is that it’s 99% hard work, on both a macro level (learning, digging in, following up on who’s writing about what, say, “Hm, I still don’t understand this, I need to read more,” etc.) and on a micro level (holding two competing thoughts in your head, i.e. tolerating ambiguity even though it’s not that pleasant). “Take What is useful, discard everything else.” Aristotle? Bruce Lee? Mike came up with 3 (4?) weirdo personal rules for learning: MIKE’S THREE WEIRDO RULES: 1. Be stupid (i.e., Just open your mind, assume you don’t know, be willing to not know) 2. a. Disrespect those whom you think deserves respect. (This doesn’t mean be a jerk; it means don’t put gurus, authors, or whomever on a special pedestal. Everyone is flawed. Smart people make mistakes.) 2. b. Respect those whom you might think don’t deserve respect. (Stop. Wait. Before you dismiss something, truly entertain the other perspective. Everyone “says” they do this. Then…. they don’t. We don’t argue against the other position. We argue against stupid strawmen version of the other position.) 3. Shut up for a bit. Criticism and questioning is all good. But it’s also very, very useful to be able to simply absorb. Kevin talked about his work before he was a coach, which involved a lot of manual labor. there’s nothing worse than someone who was new to the job,