Fitness Fiasco
Fitness Fiasco
012 What Worked for Me: Mike's Balanced Weight Cut for an Ideal Physique
Are you aiming for a healthier lifestyle while avoiding the pitfalls of obsessive dieting? Our latest Fitness Fiasco Podcast episode promises to reveal the secrets behind a successful weight cut. Join us on a new format we are calling "What Worked for Me".
Rob interviews Mike to share the highs and lows of a nine-week journey where he managed to shed over seven pounds and reduced his body fat by 2%, all while maintaining muscle mass. Learn how setting personal and professional goals can keep you motivated, and discover the importance of gamification in nutrition and training to stay engaged and enthusiastic.
Expect to uncover practical strategies for macronutrient cycling and intuitive eating. We break down the science behind consistent protein intake and the art of recognizing portion sizes without feeling overwhelmed. Understand the meticulous process of determining your maintenance calories and the role nutrient-dense foods play in achieving your fitness goals. This episode offers insights on how athletes can balance their diets, providing you with tools to perfect your own dietary plans.
Dive into the emotional and psychological aspects of fitness, where we discuss the impact of low body fat on appearance and mental health. Hear about the balance required to maintain a physique that pleases both yourself and others, while avoiding the dangers of unhealthy obsessions. With the help of modern tools like MyFitnessPal and support from external accountability, you'll learn to set and achieve attainable goals. Wrapping up with an inspiring chat with Michael, we celebrate real-life success stories and express our gratitude for your continued support. Don't miss this episode packed with motivational tips and practical advice!
Send us a voice note, check out show notes and more at our site: https://www.fitnessfiasco.com/
Host Mike - https://www.instagram.com/mikeosunafitness/
Host Erik - https://www.instagram.com/erikbustillo/
Host Rob - https://twitter.com/RobStrength
The Fitness Fiasco Podcast provides general information on health, wellness, and fitness and should not be regarded as professional medical advice, treatment, or diagnosis. No doctor/patient relationship is established through this podcast. Listeners are responsible for their use of any information or resources shared in this podcast or associated materials. This podcast's content should not supplant consultations with qualified health care professionals concerning any existing medical conditions. It is crucial for listeners to avoid disregarding or delaying professional medical advice based on the information provided in the podcast. Remember to consult your health care provider for personalized guidance on your health and wellness journey.
Mike, good morning, good morning, Good to see you again. Happy Sunday morning, likewise as always. As always, and today I'm kind of interested because we're going to be talking about you and we're going to be talking about your experiences on a recent weight cut that you did and, if I recall your posts well, you lost. What was it about? Nine?
Speaker 2:pounds-ish Seven, seven pounds. Yeah, just a little bit over seven pounds.
Speaker 1:Which you're also. You know you're coming in pretty lean, so that was cool to see. And how much body fat, was it one?
Speaker 2:it was about two percent and I appreciate you using the word lean and not skinny, because for an ex-football player, skinny is like the biggest insult you could give us. Yeah, unless you're in an old offensive tackle. They lost, you know, 100 pounds, but yeah, so lean is the way to go with this to keep my ego intact.
Speaker 1:So seven pounds, which might not sound like a lot to people who haven't really tried to lose weight, but that's huge, especially again for someone that is muscular build coming in and 2% body fat. I mean that's more important to see that drop in the percent body fat. So that's really cool to see. And how long was it?
Speaker 2:It was a nine week cut.
Speaker 1:Nine weeks. So that's where I was getting the nine from. So basically it was almost a pound a week, you know, rounded up to a pound a week. So that's, that's. That's pretty cool. Like that's right in range with what exercise physiology says is a good target. So that's cool to see what motivated you to start this.
Speaker 2:So I like to apply the things to my clients that I do myself. Also, I wanted to see how lean I could get for our summer break, right? So everybody goes into the summer with the agenda of hitting a beach, hitting somewhere where they're going to be lightly clothed. So I tried to figure out mimic that protocol for my clients. And hey, I'm going to put you guys on a cut, those of you that are trying to lean down, I'm going to lean down with you. So we kind of went through that journey together. Touching on one of the points that you said, it is very difficult when you're already lean, already thin, to continue to lose body fat while maintaining muscle mass. And that's the most important thing to me is, especially at my age I just turned 49, to keep as much muscle mass as possible because, as we know, it's incredibly difficult to build it at this age. So the motivation was Siesta Key I wanted to be super lean for.
Speaker 2:Siesta Key, which I have a little story to go later on I'll share it. It's about my wife and my cut, but that was the ultimate goal. Also, I knew I was going to be with a bunch of people and from there you know when you're a fitness instructor, influencer and what they've done in the field. But when you're somebody of my caliber, when you're walking around and coaching people in person, you have an online presence. You kind of want to look your best. So, going there was a little bit of ulterior motive. Going into that vacation. I knew that we were going to be with a bunch of people and I knew that hopefully my physique would sell. And sure enough, I came out with two clients out of that experience. So, um, a bunch of little motivations. Also, I'm kind of just a freak. I want to just. You know I get bored. So I gamified my nutrition and my training protocol just to see what the outcome would be.
Speaker 1:Nice. That reminds me I mean the, the reminds me of of something I believe it was Louie Simmons said, or at least I heard it from him first was almost all great coaches have been injured and it's that recovery from injury that's really motivated them to do better, because they walk the walk with it. Now, obviously, the idea is not to get injured, but when you've been doing this as long as you and I have, as Louie Simmons did before he died, you get hurt and learning how to do those steps yourself makes you a better coach, and that's true.
Speaker 1:Like, every time I got hurt, it sucked. I learned what I did to get hurt and to avoid that, but then also, really importantly, I learned how to I get, how do I get back to my, you know, prime condition from this injury. And those lessons are good and that's what you did in terms of I need to learn how to do this weight cut, because it's going to help me more with my clients let alone the aesthetic side of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you could empathize for them. And when they give you their anecdotal experience, you could understand oh yeah, this is when I started getting hungry and this is when I started having difficulty sleeping and this is when my performance lacked. I've done cuts before, but never as data driven as this one, and it does allow me to. Oh. When they get to the fifth week, oh yeah, I understand where you are now, because this is when I started getting hunger pains around 3 pm. And not to say that, you know, I'm generalizing here, but you could empathize through either injury and recovery or through dieting down or cutting down, I should say. So they feel a little bit more at ease knowing that, okay, you've put yourself through this or you've done this yourself. Here are the results you know. Hopefully the results could, you know, come over to me as well.
Speaker 1:Now, was there any? Were there any health related motivations for this or this was strictly?
Speaker 2:aesthetics, strictly just shallow aesthetics, if you will. Nothing wrong with that. I mean, that's motivation is motivation. It makes you healthier, makes you better. Good with that.
Speaker 1:What were you doing nutrition-wise before and maybe training-wise?
Speaker 2:as well before.
Speaker 1:And then, how did you manipulate that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for.
Speaker 1:Not just calories. We'll talk about the calories in, calories out, but were there specific nutritional strategies that you were doing before and after, related to foods and nutrient timing?
Speaker 2:So when it comes to I cycle on and off of macro nutrient, when I say kind of macros, I'm just let's just use it as a catch-all phrase for counting macros, weighing and measuring food and inputting it into my fitness power, into the app that I use in order to either maintain gain or lose which macros?
Speaker 1:most people know that, but that's protein, carbohydrates and fat correct macronutrients those where you get the three sources of calories besides alcohol.
Speaker 2:And I'm using it in a fashion where I'm actually weighing and measuring my food, so I'm getting an accurate amount of protein, carbohydrates and fats that is recommended in order to gain weight or gain muscle, maintain or lose weight. So that's when I use the term macros. It's like using the word paleo diet or keto diet weight right. So that's when I use the term macros. It's like using the word paleo diet or keto diet, right. So I cycle on and off of my macros because not to sound cliche here, but that which is measured is managed, so I'm able to really dive deep into. I want to gain five pounds, and then I could write out a timeline and say these are the amount of calories that I need to eat and this is the amount of protein that I need to eat in order to gain that weight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you say cycle on and off your macros, can you just kind of big picture what you mean?
Speaker 2:by that Does that mean on a daily basis, or are you saying oh, on a weekly, monthly basis? Okay, based on your overall goal.
Speaker 1:So your goal for this period was to lose weight, so you're going to adjust your macros for this period and that's what you mean now is if your goal is to gain weight, you're going to say so. You're not talking about like on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:Right, no, no, no, no, yeah, that's a very good point. So, on a uh, on a goal basis, right? So, um, there's times that I just let's call it freelancing, that I'm just going to eat intuitively. Now stick, intuitively, sticking to the principles that I understand nutritionally are needed in order to keep muscle on and lose fat, and I could dive deep into that here for a second. So I understand that with every meal I need to have minimum 25 grams of protein in order to induce MPS, muscle protein synthesis.
Speaker 2:But I typically have 50, close to 50 grams of protein in order to meet my overall daily goal, which is roughly one gram of protein per body weight. My goal is to maintain so it would be around 210, 215. That means that I got to have a handful of protein for each meal. Typically I eat four meals, around 50 grams. Boom, at the end of the day I'm at 50 grams. So when I intuitively eat, I intuitively eat with intention. It's not just I just wake up and eat whatever I feel like it because intuitively I'm craving a cookie or I'm craving a protein shake or a steak. It's with intention to meet my what would be macros general ballpark. I've counted macros way to measure food so often that I could look at a plate of food and typically we have, and Eric is the one that teaches us and Eric's not here with us today.
Speaker 1:We should know.
Speaker 2:Eric is the one that teaches us. You know that, that you want to be able to. You're going to eat about 10 to 12 of the same meals Most of the time. You know there's exceptions birthday parties, go, taking your wife out to dinner and whatnot but most of the time you're going to eat 10 to 12 meals so you'll be able to recognize this is enough chicken, this is enough rice, this is enough avocado. Right, if you do it enough, you know that you're in a range.
Speaker 1:So I intuitively on that note, we did talk about on our other podcast on weighing and measuring your food, the importance of it and doing being strict for a certain period of time so you can learn this skill. This is a learned skill. I know a lot of people listening like there's no way I'm going to ever be able to look at a meal and know the macro components of it. Now if you go back and listen to that other episode where we talk about weighing and measuring food and eric does a really good job laying it out for you if you do that strict for a month or two, what mike's talking about will be second nature to you, yeah, 100, a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:And the first month I usually, you know, call it the shit show because there's a learning curve. There's a huge learning curve, um, instructionally on how to weigh and measure your food and then how to input it, and there's some variables that could go wrong along the process there. But a month or two, you know, four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, you're going to be able to look at a plate and say, wow, I've been under eating protein. You know, instead of one egg in the morning with a piece of toast, I should be having four eggs in the morning with, you know, a piece of toast and maybe some blueberries, because I've also been under eating carbohydrates.
Speaker 2:So when you've been doing it for so long and that's what I mean by cycling on and off is when I cycle on I could really really nail down as closely as possible my macronutrients in order to hit my goal and see the progress, the way that I wanted to progress, when I, intuitively, I pretty much sit around the same weight with the same body fat, which doesn't change much.
Speaker 2:You know, when I get into the numbers here in a second, my in-body goes back to 2021. There's when you look at all the times that I did an in-body and I would say it's probably about 12 recordings. There's not much deviation there. There are minor deviations but aesthetically you could see the difference just in these last nine weeks. So when it comes to macronutrients and to get back to your question, I cycle on and off of it depending on what my goal is. So if my goal now is to bulk up, I want to be 220 by December. If my goal, like my goal now, is to bulk up, I want to be 220 by December. So I need to now reverse diet and I need to focus on these new macronutrients that I'm implementing for myself in order to get to 220 with the least amount of body fat, which we could talk about that here in a little bit closer to December and hopefully hit that goal.
Speaker 1:Awesome, yeah. So the main thing is you have a lot of experience. You didn't just go into this cut as your first nutritional experience, which I think is important to know is that you, you you have a big background of of understanding what works for you before you're going into something as strict as as this weight cut. So you know people who are looking to get healthier. This would be a step down the road, probably not your first adventure in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you made a good point there. Um, it's what works for you, and everybody has a different little bit of a protocol there and I think the protocol ranges right.
Speaker 1:And you know what works for you better than 99.9% of people. That's it yeah.
Speaker 2:And there's also the practical portion of it. If I'm just not a big carb guy because I don't enjoy that food, then I know that I could replace a lot of those calories with fats, and if the goal is weight loss, it really doesn't matter with those two macronutrients. So once you've done it for so many times, you've been successful and you failed, that you recognize okay, this is what I can't do. This is what I can do in order for my body to respond the way that I want it to respond.
Speaker 1:Awesome, nice so then, what changes did you make once you started?
Speaker 2:so I started off with a baseline. So I wanted to figure out when I did my metabolic cart which, for those of you that are knowing you, probably have a little bit more background on this Rob metabolic cart you're basically just sitting there, there's a machine attached to you, you're breathing into a tube and it's going to give you a very accurate BMR basal metabolic rate, resting metabolic rate and that's basically the which we have another podcast explaining all of these I was going to say we need to put links for all this stuff here so we don't have to like just talk about it over again.
Speaker 2:But basically it's, it's uh, the energy used to keep the lights on right and your total daily energy expenditure. That formula comes from three other components that you tie into you. You do, uh, you, you sum it all up and then you get a number. So my number through my metabolic cart was in the 4,000s. So it was a range of if I remember correct I'll have to look it up it was between like 4,200 to 4,400 calories a day. Just to stay at the weight that I was at. That's a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, practically speaking, it is a crap ton of food, especially if you're eating whole foods and I know that that's just a general term. But when I say whole foods, I mean more like nutrient-dense, low-calorie foods. So you're thinking like vegetables, broccoli I'm just throwing some examples out there, blueberries, your pieces of steak, your pieces of tuna. Out there, blueberries, um, your pieces of steak, your pieces of, uh, tuna. So when you, as opposed to mcdonald's and pizza and chicken wings, which are very high calorie, low nutrient foods, right, so when you're trying to hit 4 000 calories with nutrient dense foods. It's incredibly difficult. You're you.
Speaker 1:It's basically becomes a job and in a and a boring, excruciating job because you just got to eat so much, so you'd have to supplement with some protein powders which, going back in history, is one of the reasons why paleo that kind of fell out of favor with the top CrossFit athletes is because it was too tough. Is it healthy? Yes, could it be the healthiest way to eat? Potentially, is it good for performance? That's very hard. It's very hard. It's very hard for those you know, individuals myself included back then to get in five, six thousand calories a day when you're eating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, paleo foods, absolutely rich froning eating a jar of peanut butter and jelly mixed together every single day for his calories yeah, exactly everyone's like what, yeah that? Sugar.
Speaker 2:It's like no right, he needs it because he's burning it off. Yeah, so I I figured that 4 000 calories was too much, so I started off around 3,000 calories. I said let me try to find a baseline here. I think it's been two years since I did the metabolic card. I'm at a different station so I don't run as many calls right, because activity level is one of the variables in that formulation. So I decided to start off roughly around 3,000 calories and let's do this for two weeks and let's see how my body responds to 3,000 calories. If I jump on 3,000 calories and I start to lose weight, then I know that I'm already putting myself in a hypocaloric state. Gain weight, then I know that I'm in a hyper, so I'm eating more calories than I'm expending. And if I maintain that, I know that I'm within the range again, again, a lot of variables that could go wrong here, but I'm within the range of okay, this is the right amount of calories. And that's what played out.
Speaker 1:I ended up eating, roughly to be specific, uh, 3,088 calories for two weeks and I maintained a 214 pounds of body weight which another thing here is is notice how Mike consistently put himself into and I'm going to try this and I'm going to get feedback from myself. Right, Mike did not. Mike knows his body better than most people know their body. He's a seasoned exercise professional on top of being a firefighter, right Top of playing football. He's been doing fitness and nutrition for a long time and he still does not know exactly what he needs.
Speaker 1:So he was doing a one or two week experiment and sourcing feedback. When you know, when we have new clients, starting with you, starting with me and they want nutritional goals met, there needs to be feedback and we're not going to know right away we're going to have guidelines to feed you, not to feed you. We're going to have guidelines to give you and we're going to, you know, to have you reach your goals, you're going to need to provide feedback based on, based on how that works, for us to really fine tune it. So this stuff's not going to work right away and you're a prime example of, hey, there needs to be some, you know, a tune-up period before you can really start to go in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a formula going back to the activity level when you look at the Mifflin-Singh-Jor and Eric says it better than I do. But the equation, the activity level, is a multiplier. Estimate your activity level, which I don't know the studies of this I'd have to ask Eric, but I'm assuming that some people do, because they don't want to seem lazy, or the description of moderately active kind of plays into their activity level. Then they choose that. What, what they might not understand that they're choosing is an actual variable. So it could be 1.55 or 1.75. So this is multiplied into your, into your BMR, which could raise your calories to three, four, 500 calories, and now you're overeating.
Speaker 2:So answering that question alone is very, very important to try to find your maintenance calories. So this is why I tried and I and I push people to do this is Try to find your maintenance first, to find out if that is truly your maintenance, meaning you're going to eat at those calories roughly one to two weeks. Some people get a little impatient so you could do one week, but let's just use two weeks like I used. I set it at that for two weeks and then I recognized okay, I haven't budged from 214, plus or minus a couple pounds, but let's just say 214, because that's exactly what I was at for two weeks. Then I could say, okay, this is roughly my maintenance. Now I'm going to start my cut, because the cutting part is you know where the magic happens and um, and then going through the nine weeks of not rushing the process because, again, I don't want to lose muscle mass or lose as little as muscle mass as possible. That's what's important when it comes to the component and the variables.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's a really you mentioned earlier. You don't want to lose muscle mass. It's very tough to gain muscle mass the older you get, especially without any supplementation, whatever supplementation. How did you ensure that your health was not impacted during this weight cut Right Cause you were healthy coming in that. You know it's aesthetic purposes, whether it's muscle mass or otherwise. What were you doing to maintain health?
Speaker 2:So you know I didn't take any. Uh, it's just so happens that I did do my annual physical in May, during the actual cut, but that wasn't part of the procedure where I'm going to do blood work prior and blood work after. I was not going to put myself in a deficit where I would jeopardize my health, if you would Right. So I'm not trying to um, I mean not to tuck in the house side, because I'm more of a, I'm a weight guy, you know, supplementing with all the multivitamins that I take and although we're not sponsored by AG1, the dropping AG1 once a day, and just I mean I'll put it out there. I use Thorne products for all my supplementations on the actual pill forms, but then I do use AG1 just in case that I'm not getting enough vitamins and minerals. I use AG1 plus then. Or eating, trying to eat whole foods, so single ingredient foods, you know, the proteins, the steaks, the fish, the chicken, that type of stuff, and then shopping on the outside of market the whole night. So the health didn't come into play really, because I don't have any conditions, if you will. So there was nothing that was really concerning me, but also it was going to be a shortcut and I wasn't going to put myself in that much of a deficit only because and I'll tell you the you know what I alluded to earlier about my wife is at six three, 207 pounds. You're skinny, like. You look thin and at my age maybe it's the white hair or whatnot, but my wife, when I got down to like the 208s, 209s, she told me, listen, you just, yeah, great, so you have a vein in your abs, that's fantastic, but you look old, you look skinny. You know it's very difficult to spot, reduce.
Speaker 2:So when you lose body fat from your abs and from your arms or from your legs or from your glutes, you're going to lose fat from your face and it's that fat from your face that makes you look thin and old and frail. I mean, you could see it with a lot and not to call out a demographic of people here, but you could see it a lot with very, very thin runners that don't weight train to have very low body fat. They just look older than what they actually are because they don't weight train. That have very low body fat. They just look older than what they actually are because they don't have a lot of fat on their face. So they're the skull, the, the bones stick out more, the cheekbones, the eye sockets. They look a little bit sunk in.
Speaker 2:So I think you could understand the type of person that we're we're discussing here is, if you don't have a lot of body fat on you, you're not going to have in your face, so you're to look old. So to my point is I wasn't going to put myself in a huge deficit because I wasn't going to step on stage. This was just me being me, that I wanted to keep a little bit of fat on me and I wanted to make sure that I was keeping as much muscle mass on me so that I didn't look aesthetically unpleasing to my wife, if that makes sense, the unpleasing to my wife, if that makes sense, the mental toughness required to have a happy wife Of course, happy marriage.
Speaker 2:And I want my wife to look at me and think, oh, he's sexy, not. Oh, he's 204 pounds. Everybody thinks he's shredded, but God, he looks old and skinny and it's just the nature of the beast. I'm turning 50 soon. So I got to make sure that I check that box as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. Next, what is it Seis de Mayo. Next year, it's the 50th birthday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, seis de Mayo, so Cinco de Mayo, and followed by Seis de Mayo, nice, nice. A friend of mine, christy, dubbed that, which is fucking fantastic, it's great.
Speaker 1:Every year, I hear it mentally challenging, was it? Did you need to, you know, put yourself back in that old football player mindset of you know, nose to the grindstone and and, and you know, focus on my goals and stick to it, or did it come naturally for you?
Speaker 2:It came more naturally for me. You know, this is, this is our livelihood, rob. This is what we do for a living put food on the plate. You know, no pun intended. So there's not like an on and off switch. I don't need motivation or inspiration or some sort of like overarching goal in order for me to be able to switch on and off. Um, it's, it just comes so natural. And then with modern technology, my fitness pal recognizes the foods that I eat you know the 10 to 12 foods that I eat. So it makes it so easy just for me to grab my food, throw it on a plate, hit the clear button, weigh it, throw the other ingredient on it, clear it and then punch it into the app that it makes that process easy. So it's not like a grind. I could see how somebody new coming into macros, counting macros, flexible dieting, whatever you want to call it, weighing and measuring food. Like I said, the learning curve. They just have to understand that that learning curve is going to subside. They just need to get used to the habit and the pattern in order to do it.
Speaker 2:You know Eric talks a lot about eating disorders and getting some people obsessed. That is a very real situation that somebody needs to find, where you kind of take the approach of gamifying it. You know, all you're trying to do is here's a number, here's a target number. Try to get as close to that number as possible and don't get too hung up on the outcome. If you go over calories or under calories, don't worry about it. Tomorrow's the next day, type of thing. And that psychology is something that we, you know, got to instill in folks is, if you're trying to do a month or two of macronutrients, just to understand whether you're overeating or not eating, that's the reason for your weight gain or weight loss. If you'd follow this for about eight weeks and just take it as a game more than anything else, then you'll be able to reach your goals and then adjust your nutrition, your diet, the way that you see fit.
Speaker 2:So, in order for me to get prepared for this, all I did was you know, I'll upload all the tools again that I needed, that I hadn't been using in a while, which is the, the, my fitness pal, and and bring my scale with me. I have a scale at the firehouse, I have a scale at the house, and then I don't get overly complicated with it If Jess and I go out to dinner. Um, I'll either, in advance that we discussed the restaurant that we're going to use I'll either jump onto the menu and say, okay, I'm going to have the eight ounce, you know, ribeye with a sweet potato and some broccolini and I'll punch it into the app. I could do it, you know, post dinner. I get to dinner there, I don't sweat it. I look at the menu. I guesstimate what it is, literally justesstimate, like it doesn't even matter if it's the same restaurant, because I know I'm going to be within range.
Speaker 2:Again, this is more recreational, if anything. I'm not a physique model. I'm not looking to do a photo shoot, this is just hey, let me do a little cut, see how lean I could get. So I don't try to split hairs and I don't make it an obsession with my life. So, um, naturally it just comes second nature, because I've done it so often.
Speaker 2:The motivation is there after the second or third week I would say more the third week when I started the cut. That's when I started seeing the results and typically, if you could get that locomotive moving once it gets full speed. Now, the motivation continues to be there because myself, the client keeps seeing the results on a weekly, bi-weekly basis, and that within itself is motivation. People that jump onto a diet and don't see results quickly and I think that people are they jump off the bandwagon a little bit too soon when they don't see those results quickly. They get impatient and they think, oh, this isn't going to work for me, so I'm quitting this or I'm trying something else. So it takes a little bit in order to see results.
Speaker 2:But once you see the results, that within itself is motivation. So, you know, in the mornings I wake up, I don't sleep with a shirt on, so I look in the mirror and I'm like, okay, here we go into months and then, by you know, month number two okay, I can see my obliques here. So once you start seeing here's a couple more veins Once you start seeing that, now you're really vested into it and like, oh shit, I, if I this is working, if I continue this process, I'm going to get even leaner type of thing. So, um, I don't think it's that that challenging. But I'm only speaking for myself, because this is the world that I live in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean you. Even before you were in this world, you, you know, were a high school athlete, a college athlete and a semi. I guess professional athlete to to that extent where you know it was you. You've always been surrounded by that high performance mindset. You know it wasn't, you know it's not a a wall street executive, but you were similarly a high performance individual in your craft.
Speaker 1:And it's easy to apply that from your craft to something such as this, and I think a lot of people that aren't fitness professionals or have been engrossed in fitness, like we have, take that same passion that you have for something else and you can apply it to this and you'll be a lot more successful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that mindset and, as you tell me, you throw me back to my college days. I took a health class and this is when I first got introduced and we're talking 30 years ago this is when I first got introduced to macronutrients, counting calories, and at that time I was a college football player and I was calculated. This could be right or wrong, but I was eating around 7,000 calories a day. We know we did a three-day food audit. We were this business back then, a pencil and paper type deal where you, you know, you write down everything that you eat, you weigh, you measure it and then you get a food log and it tells you you know, this is the correlating numbers that go along with it. And you figure it out and boom, I'm roughly around 7,000 calories.
Speaker 2:At 7,000 calories, I could not budge from 235. I was sitting at 235 pounds, coaches wanted me to get up to 245, I was playing defensive end and I couldn't budge from it. So at that time I decided, okay, I need extra calories. However, I could get in, and I'm not recommending this to anybody this is just what I did and I would set my alarm for 3 o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2:Sometimes in college you're still awake at 3 o'clock in the morning, but I'll set my alarm for 3 o'clock in the morning. Sometimes in college you're still awake at 3 o'clock in the morning, but I'll set my alarm for 3 o'clock in the morning. I would wake up. I had a cup of Flanagan's the big, large green cups full of whole milk sitting in the refrigerator for me, and then a whole strip of Oreo cookies and I would wake up in the middle of night.
Speaker 2:I would have that, use the bathroom, go to sleep and that's how would it put additional calories into my diet? Because I could not figure out where do I squeeze in more calories throughout the day? Because we were such. You know, you're playing college ball, you're always active. You know weight room stuff, field stuff, multiple field stuff, and then all the other activities that you're doing that I just couldn't pack on weight. So that mindset of like I have a job to do, this is what it takes in order for it to get done. Just deploy it and make it happen. So I guess that you carry that along with you for the rest of your life, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, definitely You're able to figure out what solutions there were for you, right.
Speaker 2:You know, in that case it is a definitely out of left field solution in terms of waking up in the middle of the night and having oreos and whole milk, but it got the job. Got the job done. Let me just say this, and and I've posted this picture before, and just she gives me the look when I because now it's the opposite of skinny mike, I was my body composition was horrendous. I got up to 245 pounds, but I was full belly, love handles. I didn't even care. I walked around without a t-shirt with as much pride because I was squatting 500 pounds. I could run through a wall Like I was functional. I was a football player, I was in a fitness model. So, no, it didn't bode well aesthetically to have all those calories, because I was starting to put on predominantly more fat than I was muscle. But again, it got the job done. I needed to be heavier so I don't get blown off the ball, and that's what I had to do in order to get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no that's a fun story. Similar stories from wrestling weight, cutting the stuff that you do to cut weight Right.
Speaker 1:And you learn those tricks that stay with you for a long time. I always know how I can cut a few pounds, a few pounds in a day or two, or get really lean just because of those lessons learned from is like hey, I have this job I have to do. I have to lose five pounds by the end of the week, which I was never the biggest weight cutter but you still learn exactly how your body responds and what you need to do. You know how to get an extra workout in, how to sweat out an extra eight ounces, how to you know how to spit more so that you can lose weight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how much weight's in in in your spitting? Yeah?
Speaker 1:you pee, it's always going to be heavy. It's going to be more weight loss than when you take a crap. That's for sure you know people think that a crap was heavier, nah it's the water weighs more, for sure um, but besides that, that stuff, my last question for you before we go through, go through the numbers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you are active, very active on social media. Instagram, you have a pretty, you know, a familial following. You're following are people you, you have a pretty, you know, a familial following you're following are people you've known for a long time. You know people that I've known for a long time and you're close and you talk to a lot of them and you interact with them both in person and on Instagram and you post about this both ahead of time, during it and after did. What level of accountability did you feel to go through with this because of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a great book by the author James Clear. It's called Atomic Habits and I read it a couple years ago and sometimes I throw the audio book just to refresh my memory. But one of the things that he talks about is I'm going to butcher it here, but having an accountability partner. I'm gonna butcher it here, but having an accountability partner and when you tell people and there's there's a little, there's a counter argument to this is when you tell people your goal, you have a dopamine dump, so then you don't pursue your goal. But that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 2:But in James clears, basically saying you grab an accountability partner, which could be social media, and you say this is what I'm gonna do, because I could tell myself and this happens all the time right, I could tell myself internally oh, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to work out five times this week, but then if I miss one or two days, it's not a big deal, because I only tell myself. But if I tell my wife and the last person I want to disappoint or make her think that I'm a failure is my wife so if I tell my wife I'm working out five times this week, it's just extra motivation in order for me to work out five times. So when I post about, okay, I'm going to do a cut, it keeps me more focused that I can't I mean, just to be frank look like a shit talker on social media. I got to make sure that what I'm telling my following and clients and potential clients is I'm going to follow through with this stuff Because if I can't do it and again, this is my industry how do I expect an accountant to do it or a mother of three to do it? I have to be able to follow through with this.
Speaker 2:So that accountability aspect of it puts I wouldn't say pressure challenge. I can't look like a shit talker, I don't want to look like a fraud on social media, so I'm going to follow through with this aspect of it to make sure. So I do recommend that if there is a goal that you're trying to reach and obviously an attainable goal is, tell somebody, tell your spouse, tell somebody that you respect, that you don't want to disappoint. Maybe it's your kids. Hey, mommy's going to lose 20 pounds. This is the mission that I'm on, one that support is imperative when it comes to success, especially if your spouse or your partner is not on that same journey, but two. It gives you a little bit more responsibility to follow through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, and you know it sounds like in your, in your instance, it wasn't necessary, it wasn't. You know it didn't need to motivate you to get it done, but it certainly helped, yeah, and it certainly made it. So you did not fail. Yeah, of course you would have done this either way, but this was, was the added push. And yeah, no, having telling someone, having whether it's a group chat, chat, whether it's your spouse, and just telling him what your goal is, writing your goal down. I mean that's huge too is having a journal or just having a piece of paper write, write down your goal, and you know, if you're working with a coach, having you know, showing your coach, and having your coach give you, maybe modify, that goal. So it's a little bit more obtainable, because a lot of people like to set unobtainable goals for themselves. I mean, I get, look at everything that you did in nine weeks and it was seven pounds, right? People are gonna be like that's it, like I'm not doing all that work for seven pounds.
Speaker 1:Like I would expect to lose 30 pounds in a week. But as I said earlier, like physiology dictates that a one to two pound per week weight loss is ideal. Anything more than that and they tend to bounce back and put the weight back on and I say you know, two pounds is a lot, yeah, a lot.
Speaker 1:Like some people might lose that in the beginning because they've been so out of shape, but really, if you're at a pound a week and even a little bit under, that is ideal for a long-term weight loss, because otherwise it's not going to be sustainable. For sure, very good point. So there's a lot of work for a lot of results. That just doesn't seem like it to the lay person. So don't you know, don't be put off by that. Losing seven pounds in two months, in three months, is a significant goal and if you obtain it, pat yourself on the back because it's awesome and keep going. For sure, a hundred percent. So walk us through your numbers here. That's where I kind of want to finish this off and we'll talk lessons learned afterwards, if there's anything new that you picked up.
Speaker 2:I'll throw my readers on so I can really show my age here. So just to reiterate what the goal was. The goal was not necessarily weight loss, because I would have loved to stay at 214. The goal was to try to get below double digits body fat. Now you know full disclosure. I'm using the InBody 270, the one that we have here in the office.
Speaker 2:The pre and post in body was taken early on a weekend morning with completely fasted, not a sip of water, nothing. So I tried to keep as many variables in my underwears. So try to keep those variables as consistent as possible. So there's no inaccurate data, if you will. But there is a, and this is something that I should have researched. I will research and we could post this. There's a. There's um, what's the word I'm looking for A deviation, if you will, with these devices, meaning they're not dead on accurate. There's a range, if you will, and I'll find out what that, what that deviation is when it comes to this particular device. But, um, if, even, if you use, even if your device, if it's at an at home scale, uh, that measures your body fat, even if it's an error, if it's calibrated correctly, that error is going to be consistently inconsistent, right.
Speaker 1:Ideally.
Speaker 2:Ideally right. It's something that you want to go off of, so this is the tool that I used in order to measure my body fat percentage.
Speaker 1:It's called validity and reliability. There you go Right. Validity means that it's going to be close to what it truly is Right, which it is. It's close enough. Reliability means it's going to be consistently within that range. So if it's 2% off, it's always around 2% off, and that would be valid and reliable. Now, if it's 2%, if it's plus 2%, then minus 2%, then plus 2%. There's a little bit of validity there in the fact that it's close to it, but it's not reliable in telling you if it is always over or always under.
Speaker 2:Very, very well put, rob, and this is the. You know, when I have local clients, local online clients, I welcome them to come here to use our tool. It's a little bit more high tech than what they're. It's a lot more high tech than what they're using at home, but, um, I try to have them. They could now come and weigh and measure themselves here and then run back home without having another drop of water and, in you know, cross check it with what we showed so that they could always understand the validity and the reliability of that correct.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I always recommend it to personal trainers when I'm either teaching around the country or or um introducing to new new clients. Is, you know, once once a year, once every six months or every three months, whatever you can afford. Get your dexa scan, do that super accurate stuff, but correlate it to your scale right away. Right, correlate it and then you have that correlation and can work from there.
Speaker 2:Of course, course, 100% Okay. So that's the tool. The goal was to lose, get into single digit body fats without losing muscle mass or a significant amount of muscle mass. So this is just what I did, what worked for me. There's many different protocols that you could use, but basically you're putting yourself in a hypocaloric state, you're putting yourself in a deficit, if you will, in order to lose body fat, and then you're putting yourself in a deficit, if you will, in order to lose body fat, and then you're eating enough protein in order to sustain mps and then making sure that your weight training as well in order to maintain muscle. I hate to use or build muscle, because that's not actually what happened here, but maintain as much muscle mass as possible. Also, strength is important to me, as one of the variables when it comes to the performance question of it is did I lose any strength during this cut?
Speaker 1:So that's put a little physiology twist on that. That's called the protein sparing mechanism, right? When you go to lose, when you try to lose weight, your body might start eating its own protein. You know, breaking down your muscles and using that for fuel. And one way to spare your protein is to continue to lift weights and eat enough protein, right? So that's protein sparing mechanism. When you go to lose weight, lift weights, eat protein and you'll keep as much muscle mass as possible?
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. So here's like I said earlier, here's how I did it. I'm going to throw the readers on. So I started off at 3000 calories, 3088 calories. I did that for two weeks. My protein was just above 1.1 gram per body weight because at the time I was 214. My protein was 223. I'm not going to bore you guys with these, I'm just going to ran them off real quick and then kind of give you the overarching principle of what I did. I did that for two weeks. Sure enough, I stayed at 214. The scale did not budge. 214. The scale did not budge. Then I put myself in a slight deficit which I dropped it down below the 3000 calories and I went to. Three weeks later I went to 2720. So that's a roughly a 300 calorie deficit, if you will. I upped my protein. So when I was reducing calories through carbs and fats, I upped my protein to roughly 1.2 times body weight. So I was in the 250 280 range. Again, I'm using a range here, not a specific. There is a specific number, but I give myself like a 10 to 20 percent range here. I stayed at that for a week. Then I dropped it down to 2,600, just dropped a hundred.
Speaker 2:The reason I'm going so slowly here is because I'm watching the scale and a subjective look at my abs, right Like that's exact. That's the, the, the, the body part that I want to reduce, cause that's really where I store my body fat is in my abs and my love handle. So I'm subjectively looking at my abs in the mirror same lighting, same picture, same camera, all that but then I'm also weighing myself. So those are the two metrics, if you will, that I'm using in order to see if I'm having progress or not. Before I, you know, move the bus type. Moment when I jump on the scale nine weeks later. Moment when I jump on the scale nine weeks later. So 3,270, I'm sorry, 3,2,700, 2,600. A month later I was at 2,400. So 2,414. And I was at 2,680.
Speaker 2:This is where the hunger started. This is primarily. The hunger started around 3 pm, so I would eat lunch roughly between 12 and 1 around 3 pm. That's when the hunger pangs started. Um, my mood, I was a little bit irritable just because of the hunger, but nothing dramatic, nothing that should even be noted. I wasn't depressed, I wasn't sad, I wasn't you angry at the world. It was just like oh, I'm a little bit hungry. Damn, I wish I had something to eat and I would. I would feed myself.
Speaker 2:Whether it was one of these keto cookies or whether it was one scoop of whey protein, it fit my macro. So why not throw it in there? Just have a smaller dinner if you will, so it's not to say that I have to. Oh no, I cannot eat because I'm not allowed to know. Why suffer through that hunger pain? If it fits your macros right, just go ahead and eat something and just Take it off the back end, which is gonna be your next meal, your dinner meal?
Speaker 2:Most of the time at the station, we dinner around 6, 6, 6, 30. At home, jess and I eat dinner around 8, and it was more than enough to keep me satisfied Into sleep. During this cut. I never had any problems with sleep other than the ordinary, you know, at the firehouse and then sometimes at home if Jess or the babies wake me up, but there's nothing. There's no signs of insomnia, anything I don't. The cut wasn't that significant in order for me to get into that, so, and then I finished off with just another roughly looks like 70 more calories, so I dropped it down to 2353.
Speaker 1:Now how many how far into it was this, so this is week this is week eight, week eight, nine. And where were you? Pound loss, wise and body fat.
Speaker 2:So now, so at this point I am uh six pounds lost this last week going into this last week, when I dropped it down to 2300 calories, uh, six pounds lost. I didn't know my body fat percentage because I you just did it to start at the end start at the end, so that.
Speaker 1:So you're. So, yes, you've done. You've lost six pounds in the first seven weeks and over the last two weeks you lose one pound.
Speaker 2:So it's that you know it's slowing down gradually. Yeah, the weight loss is slowing down. Slowing down, right. My body started to go like yo-yo. What's going on?
Speaker 1:here. Yeah, like bro, where's the 7 000 calories from college 100?
Speaker 2:but you could see it aesthetically like, my abs were not shredded. I'm not bodybuilder shredded but they were clearly defined and I don't think I have very good abdominal muscles like large abdominal muscles, because that also plays into effect on how good your abs look um, but you could see the veins in the top of my abs. You could see the veins in my lower pelvis area. So I was super, super lean, along with skinny. You know, fat being driven off of it and then that last week I lost that one more pound coming into.
Speaker 2:I actually ended up losing on my scale at the firehouse. I actually ended up losing one more pound before I went on vacation. So, uh, I went 207, 206 at the firehouse. This registered me. Registered me here at 207, neither here nor there. When I went to siesta, I was where I wanted to be, which was.
Speaker 2:You could see that, oh, this is a fitness guy you know you don't see many 50 year olds walking around with and I know this sounds shallow and narcissistic and stuff, but you don't see many 50 year old men walking around with abs. So I was where I wanted to be veins on my shoulders, that type of thing. I had checked the box. Here comes siesta. My fitness pal was deleted off my phone because now I'm enjoying life, and this is the balance that a lot of people need to understand is we are not. I'm not here. I'm not training physique models. Okay, I'm training average Joe's and Jillills that are looking to just lose some fat, look sexy, vibrant and live a productive you know, healthy, fun, enjoyable life. By the way that they feel about themselves and look in the mirror, right. So the weight loss is the key with this.
Speaker 2:So here comes siesta. My fitness pod gets deleted. But I go back to my principles. Like am I having protein with a meal? I'm not having a big breakfast because I know that it's gonna be a little sketchy to eat at the beach. So let me get my big breakfast here, let me get my big dinner and there's my my two big boluses of protein, if you will.
Speaker 1:That would be a good topic with Eric to talk about. It's like what do we do when we don't? Have a Just to wrap it up, the final numbers 214 weight to 207,.
Speaker 2:110 pounds of lean body mass to 109. So I lost one pound of muscle mass and 10.2% body fat to 8.4% body fat.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. So give me one big takeaway.
Speaker 2:The biggest takeaway that I could say is it's important to be patient and slowly put yourself in a deficit, right? What a lot of these fad and I'm just using the term fad because everybody understands keto, paleo, mediterranean, whatnot these diets is they put you in. They could potentially put you into a huge deficit. So, yes, you're going to see a huge weight loss. Like what you said earlier, that's not the most productive. And then also, you're jeopardizing muscle mass loss, which my age and when I say my age, you're talking 30s, mid-30s, 40s it's very difficult to put muscle mass back on.
Speaker 2:So damn it Shit, I'm in 30s now, yeah, you got to protect as much of it as possible, right? And so um beep, I know it's cliche, is, but the biggest takeaway is you gotta be patient with this weight loss and, and and and trust the numbers and and just stick to the protocol. Whether you do it, there's so much information online that somebody could do this on their own. They don't need coaching.
Speaker 1:Some a lot of people hire people like us forely aspect of it. But, um, yeah, I'm, I'm very happy with the results and now I'm reverse dieting.
Speaker 2:So now, now we're going the reverse dieting muscle mass. That's another you know conversation. But basically now I'm reversing everything I did 2300 calories, 2500 calories, 2700 calories over the courses of two weeks to get me back up to my 303500 calories by november, so that december hopefully. I know it's a lot and I know I'm going to gain fat, but I'm going to be close to the 220 range again and I'll continue that until like next march and then I'll do another cut awesome yeah, man, awesome, that's a good talk.
Speaker 1:I enjoyed this one, yeah for sure. Thanks, perfect. Thank you, michael, for all of that. That was great experience and and anyone listening let this be motivation too and let it, you know, be a voice of reason for what you see from a lot of other sources out there on what can be done. Yes, sir, like this is us doing it. Yeah, absolutely Good stuff. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Fitness Fiasco Podcast. You can find more information about the topics covered today and in any other episode on our website, fitnessfiascocom fiascocom. If you're looking to connect with our hosts, you can reach Eric on Instagram at Eric Bustillo, that's E-R-I-K-B-U-S-T-I-L-L-O. Mike on Instagram at Mike Osuna Fitness, that's M-I-K-E-O-S-U-N-A-F-I-T-N-E-S-S, and Rob on Twitter at Rob Strength.
