Hacking Your Health
Hacking Your Health Podcast with Ben Canning and Dave Kennedy - Two guys setting out to hack body, mind, business and beyond. We are here to provide a single source, bullshit free guide to understanding your body and how you can live better, for longer.
Hacking Your Health
Weight Loss Surgery Didn’t Fix Me - Here’s What Did
We discuss the most common reasons people fail in their fitness journeys and provide actionable strategies to overcome these challenges based on our experience and expertise.
• Lack of understanding about how the body works and basic nutrition principles
• Pursuing quick fixes instead of sustainable lifestyle changes
• Misconceptions about "healthy" foods and not tracking actual calorie intake
• Excessive restriction leading to burnout and eventual rebound
• Not adjusting approach when progress stalls or plateaus
• Falling for fitness myths like "cardio is the best for fat loss"
• The challenge of building consistent habits that can be maintained long-term
• How unrealistic expectations can derail progress
• Finding the right balance of calories to lose weight while maintaining energy
• The importance of keeping favorite foods in your diet within calorie limits
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Yo, hey, what's up everybody. Welcome to Hacking Health Podcast. I'm your host, ben Cammie, with Dave Kennedy. Yo, what is up everybody? Welcome back.
Dave:Hey, hey, hey, hey hey hey, what's the update? I just I just got a uh message from a buddy of mine, mick, thank you. He's like finally a new podcast. So, uh, you know it's good to be loved and I appreciate you listening to mick.
Dave:And uh, shut it, here's another podcast, yeah another one we missed a week because, uh, we all got busy with travel and stuff like that. I'm actually flying out to San Francisco, which I absolutely hate. I don't know, I just hate flying to San Francisco. Out of all the places I go to, san Francisco is the worst, the place itself, or the airport specifically, or just the journey. It's all of the above, everything about San Francisco, no offense no-transcript.
Dave:People say I quite like it, yeah, yeah well, listen, I think it's just a difference of like living styles. Right, like san francisco is like super busy, it's like new york like I don't. I love the, the iconic of New York and everything, but I don't like living in the city and I don't like the busyness and the smells and the dirtiness and I don't know. To me noise is all over the place, smells like weed everywhere. It's not for me.
Dave:Listen, I'm not 16 anymore, so it's one of those things where I just prefer the country, I prefer my own peace and quiet, and so the three combo that gets me the worst is the flight, which is like eight hours or whatever six and a half hours, and then you get there and the time zone is completely jacked. You're like five hours behind and then I'm only going to be there for like two days and then I red-eye it back so I get back at like six o'clock in the morning, so I'm going to be all messed up on sleep. I do have enough time built in based on my flights to get some lifts in, so I already planned that ahead of time. I already know which gyms I'm going to. I got all my supplements in the little tub. I testosterone injection. You know ready to go, because tomorrow's wednesday I do monday wednesday, friday for injections. So you know it's like I'm ready to go but I'm not looking forward to it so you're prepared, but just not mentally prepared and on top of I gotta wear a suit.
Dave:So it's like, it's like, it's like yeah, yeah, see, no see this is just gonna be a bad trip.
Dave:It's gonna be a bad trip, so fair enough. Aside from that, what's going on? How are you good? I, um, I don't know what I did on legs day on friday, but I am still messed up today on legs, like I have been walking like something's been jammed up somewhere, uh, for like four days now and, uh, I I went off in the gym on legs for some reason. I don't know what it was, but I was like, oh, hack squat in the hack the heck out of hack squats. I was um leg extensions with run the racks, doing regular squats, uh, deadlifts, I I did.
Dave:Um, you know, what I was really happy about was, um, I was concerned about all the weight I've lost. I've lost over like 35 pounds and I was concerned about, um, you know, my losing muscle mass and losing strength. And I was able to sneak out and fairly easily, actually, um five 500 for three, um, which is right in the range of where I'm normally at. So you know, like I didn't lose any weight, I didn't gain any strength. Um, I haven't been training that way. Um, you have to train heavy to go heavy, but, um, it's one of those things where I I'm very happy. I didn't lose all the muscle mass or anything like that. I'm able to keep my strength up and stay really lean, which is great. So things have been good. Things have been really good.
Ben:I think that that's a valid point, because I don't know if it was on a call recently or on Twitter when I posted that picture the other day. Someone asked about strength and the deficit. I can frame it as to what your expectations would be is. You should be able to maintain the level of strength, ie the weight that you can move potentially not for the same amount of reps, but you would want to make sure that you can at least still move that amount of weight and that's a pretty good gauge to make sure that you're you'll hit your protein target and still maintaining as much muscle mass as as as you can. And there will be some instances that you can progress in weight, but maybe not on those super heavy compound lifts or whatever. But a good barometer for you is can I still actually move the weight? Whether it's for 50% of the amount of reps is probably a good gauge whenever you're in a fat loss phase.
Dave:And when we're talking about deficit and surplus, we're talking about the amount of calories that we're intaking in order to either gain weight or lose weight. Gain weight in a surplus allows you to put on more muscle mass. Obviously, a byproduct of that would be fat deficit, losing fat, hopefully keeping as much muscle mass as we can by padding ourselves with adequate amounts of protein as we're going through and cutting phases. So literally what we're talking about is just calories, right, how many calories we're eating and making sure we're hitting the macros being carbs, fats and proteins. Making how many calories we're eating and making sure we're hitting the macros being carbs, fats and proteins. Making sure we keep our proteins high and then shrinking our carbs and fats to hit those calorie goals as we go along. Our protein goals shouldn't change, should stay the same. You can maybe slightly reduce it, but typically they stay the same and then you just kind of supplement them in with carbs and fats. Of what you do, I will say, these last few days on on calories, I've been I've been struggling a little bit and I've been struggling a little bit. Uh, yeah, I haven't noticed it on the energy side, um, but uh, if you notice, my tongue is blue. Yes, blue blue has definitely been helping out with the energy levels.
Dave:Uh, if you haven't checked out methylene blue, it's an interesting uh one. There's some decent studies on it. Um, we've talked about it before on prior podcasts but it was originally a dye that was created and they noticed when they put it on cellular structures it energized our cells, our mitochondria and advanced ATP, so how our bodies basically produce energy. But the crazy part about it is there's a wasting function of our cells where our cells kind of deteriorate over time through ATP. This seemed to remove that byproduct of the negative effect of ATP, which is the cellular degradation. So it actually protects your cells for longer and gives you more energy. It's kind of like you ever use like NAD things like that. It helps with energy levels like NAD plus methylene blue just happens to be pretty good from an energy level perspective, helps my energy levels as I'm going through. So I've noticed my energy level staying good, but my hunger definitely, and I just keep telling myself, hey, it's OK to be hungry, it's OK.
Ben:Shut the fuck up and get omelet, because Ben's only eating 1600 calories. Yeah, I'm not.
Dave:I'm not. I'm not going there I'm not going.
Ben:Yeah, I'm at the stage. I have three weeks left and I'm I am at the same way watching the food network. No, actually not yet. Maybe that's what's wrong. Maybe I need to get to get back on that, um, but yeah, I'm definitely at the stage where, like I want I want this to to be overnight, but I think the the easy part of it is how rapidly you can see the results whenever you're in the process. Do you know what I mean? It almost makes it worth it because you can see the results literally week by week?
Dave:Yep, yep, absolutely. So, yeah, things have been good, can't complain. I'm just looking forward to going to Hawaii here in a couple weeks. It's going to be a great vacation for the family. We're going to go station there in the Marines and couple weeks it's going to be a great um vacation for the family.
Dave:We're going to go, uh, station there in the marines and um, so and my wife and I lived out there for a year and so we're gonna um go see all the places that we scuba dive. Dad and my kids are scuba dive certified, so we're gonna go scuba dive our old spots and um check out all the old hangouts. There's this, uh, a place called dukes in the back of the the hilton has the best fish tacos I've ever had in my entire life, so hopefully that dukes is still there. It's been 15 years, 20 years now, um, so hopefully dukes is still there and I can get the best fish tacos in the world. I haven't changed the recipe at all, but uh, you know, trying to go see some of the old stomping grounds that I used to used to hang out with in the marines, and I think it'd be a good time.
Ben:So nice, cool, phil, and that's what we're working towards in the fat loss efforts currently.
Dave:That's right, got to have that summer beach body. Then, once I get back from Hawaii, you know it's going to start right, I know.
Ben:Don't worry, I'm aware, but right, let's get into it. Today we're going to talk about the most common reasons people fail, because I think we can agree, you have failed in the past. I see it here all the time whenever I'm having initial discovery calls with potential clients they have tried this and that and why they have failed and I potentially still see it sometimes with existing clients, whenever something happens or life comes up and something that we need to sort of conquer together to make sure that they don't feel over time. And this is, I guess, just a combination of the experience that I have from a coaching side and your experience, from someone who has failed and failed over and over again and I do have some notes. I know that you don't, but I mean you have lived experience. So let's start with you.
Dave:Well, we've talked a little bit about this before on previous podcasts, but I think for me, the biggest challenge I always had was I didn't know what the hell I was doing. It's not that I didn't want to change, it's not that I didn't want to lose the weight, it wasn't that I loved where I was at it was. I didn't know what to do, and I think I kind of equate it to my son. My son's like hey, dad, I want to learn how to program. I'm like, cool, I can give you the tools to learn how to program. He's like, well, I actually have to read books. I'm like, yeah, yeah, you have to read books and you have to do stuff. He's like, no, I'm just going to figure it out. I'm like cool, you can do that too, and that might work. But reading from a book or learning from other people's experiences might help you do that right.
Dave:And it your body. And if you eat too much, you will gain weight. If you don't eat too much, then you won't gain weight, and there's really no middle ground there. If you're overweight, you're eating too much food. If you're too skinny, you're not eating enough food. If you're not seeing the results that you want out of something. Well, maybe you didn't give it enough time to see those results or you're not doing the right things to get the results that you need.
Dave:And I think for me, the biggest challenge was I was trying all of these different things like keto and Sean T's insanity and all of this cardio because cardio, I was told, was the magic fat loss burner, and I didn't have any understanding of how my body worked. I didn't have any understanding about what I was doing and so I failed each time doing it. I might have some immediate results. If I was doing keto. I might drop 20 pounds or 30 pounds, and then I'd get tired of eating just meats and cheeses, and then I would just shoot right back up and wait again and I'd look at the weight and the scale and I'd be like, oh, it's just five pounds, it's okay, it's okay, I'll get back on it. And then it's like 10 pounds. I mean, it's just 10 pounds, I still lost 20 pounds, I'm good. And then, before I knew it, I was 20 pounds heavier than what I was when I started before it.
Dave:And it was this horrible ebbs and flows of things where, you know, I spent, you know, three months or five months miserable to lose this weight and then I gained it all back again and I wasn't happy when I lost the weight anyways, because you know I lost 30 or 40 pounds. I still needed to lose probably another 30 to 40 pounds and you know I didn't have any muscle mass to show for it. And so you know, like it's just been a wild ride on everything that has caused this kind of area, and I've talked about some of my surgeries before in the past and originally, when I was really struggling with weight, I got the gastric sleeve which takes my stomach and your stomach looks like a football. They basically chop it in half and you have basically a narrow sleeve like a football, and they basically chop it in half and you have basically a narrow sleeve. Well, knowing what I know today, I really wish I wouldn't have done that, um, because it actually caused a major issue. Um, you know, for for myself, uh, which I had, a high order hernia, which they wouldn't even operate on you now, cause they know enough about gastric sleeves with a high order hernia, they won't even do that, that same procedure anymore. Um, because I don't have a valve in my esophagus and so it was basically kicking acid directly into my chest, burning through my esophagus, which then eventually causes cancer.
Dave:So then I had to get a gastric bypass, and I'm very fortunate on the gastric bypass because at that time I was already training with you this gastric bypass. I got probably four years ago, already training with you this gastric bypass. I got probably four years ago and I was already training with you and I had already solidified my eating habits. I was already looking great from a muscle mass perspective, and so what the doctors were able to do was normally gastric bypasses are a weight loss procedure. Mine was not. It was a fixed issue with my esophagus. The doctors created essentially a stomach out of my lower intestine that is just as big as my normal stomach, so I'm able to eat as much food as I want to. Now I have an issue with malabsorption, which means I don't get enough iron and things like that at the supplement iron. But luckily I was able to, kind of course, correct that, and still I can eat 4,000 calories a day. I can eat 5,000 calories a day and in hindsight 2020, I wish I wouldn't have gotten that surgery done, because I have the tools now to be successful without having to have a sleeve, and here's the thing that happened with the sleeve.
Dave:That I see commonly with people that get the sleeve is that they have immediate results.
Dave:I had dropped down to 185 pounds on the sleeve, but guess what happened? I started getting that weight back again because it's just a tool sleeve. But guess what happened? I started gaining that weight back again because it's just a tool. I didn't have any type of tools to help me fix it, and so what happens is, over time, the sleeve starts to expand more and your body naturally expands that sleeve.
Dave:So I could eat more and more calories and my eating habits were bad. So I started gaining weight again, and at that point I hit rock bottom because I was doing Shanti's Insanity. I had gotten a gastric sleeve and I was still gaining weight and I was going back up to being Big Dave again. And so for me, the failure was I didn't have the right tools in place to understand how my body works, to do something that I could do for the rest of my life, to live a healthy lifestyle for the rest of my life. And that is, I think, the key thing that most people fail at is you might try something or do something, but you don't understand what you need to do for the rest of your life in order to maintain that right, to keep it or to to build on that.
Ben:Yeah, I think if we could summarize that it's it's looking for the quick fix, like looking for the quick solution in something almost like putting a bandaid over the thing but not actually addressing the wound or not addressing the problem in this instance.
Ben:So, yes, you can get, you know, any type of surgery and it will force your body to lose weight. But because you haven't built the system or you haven't built the plan, or you don't have the understanding of what your body needs, you still have all those habits and behaviors that got you to you know, being 50, 60, 70, 80, a hundred pounds overweight and gradually over time, you will fall into that habit once again of oh, it's only five pounds, it's only 10 pounds, and then, before you know it, you're, you're right back up. So it's, it's looking at things that are a quick fix, and I think the biggest problem within that is the way that we are sold to, not just within the fitness industry, just in general, about getting quicker and wanting results right now look at the medical industry, it's like, hey, you have a problem, here's a pill to fix it, yeah, whereas the reason why that problem is there probably isn't because you're missing this pill.
Dave:It's probably because you're doing something that's degrading your body in some way, shape or form to get you that point, or what you're eating or how you're living your life. Like we are always looking for the quick fix and not the root cause of why that's there in the first place, yeah, agree.
Ben:So quick fixes for sure. I want to touch on the nutrition thing because I think that that is probably 85 if not 90 percent of the reason that I see people feel in some way shape or form, um, and there are many reasons around that or many subsections around the nutrition piece. On the whole, it's number one not having an idea about food in general, just not being educated around food, ie calories and macros and good quality foods, and having a having a sort of, I guess, preconceived idea about healthy foods quote unquote versus unhealthy foods. And not having an understanding that you can still over consume unhealthy foods and just because it's a salad doesn't mean it's not 1900 calories. I remember specifically, matt and I were at the the jocco muster in orlando and we went to I don't know, I'm gonna say chile or somewhere like that, and I remember seeing the salad like buffalo chicken salad or something that was like 1950 calories. I'm like people will come here and think I'm just having a salad. I'm not realizing they're eating their entire day's calorie allowance in one meal. But because it's a salad, it's healthy and that's okay. So not having to understand that you can still over consume food, over consume calories with quote unquote healthy foods and generally what you'll find. For the majority of healthy foods, they are going to be slightly higher in calories, especially if it's good quality, high fats, and that's the thing that makes a lot of stuff delicious. So, understanding that, regardless of healthy or unhealthy, you need to look at the total calories that you are consuming versus what your output is or what your energy expenditure is, to find that balance based on on what your goal is.
Ben:I also think, whenever it comes to to food, there's a a lot of people that don't want to track food. I'm not gonna lie, I don't get it. Okay, I understand. Maybe people say it's time consuming. Fair enough, I don't agree. Whenever you get into it, it's not that time consuming. I think a big problem that people face around tracking food is they don't actually want to face the reality of how badly they're eating. I've seen that and I've had that conversation before. The third thing is they they still don't have the understanding of like how to make up meals or what portion sizes look like, and I think that, on the whole, is is one of the reasons, and I know that you said that you can track food based even based on my most recent post about not tracking food, um, that you can track food forever. For me, the tracking food is a tool, um, and Thomas mentioned something on a call last week that he was talking about. You know my ability to sort of dissect the meal and observe it and sort of roughly break it down into total calories and even protein. That has come from 12 years of tracking food. Like, you get to learn what food looks like and you get to learn you know amounts roughly. So for me, tracking food isn't an all the time thing, because I have put the time in to have an understanding of what food looks like and how to put meals together, but I do think it's a necessary part of the process for people who want to make progress, whether it's in a deficit or whether it's in a surplus.
Ben:If you want to lose weight, you need to get an understanding as to how many calories you're consuming. If you want to gain weight, you need to get an understanding of how many calories you're consuming. I've seen it time and time again. I'm potentially victim of it in the past myself. Like I just can't gain weight. I'm like, well, I'm just not eating enough food, like I'm not special in any way, shape or form. Like I, I just need to eat more food. Whether I was eating 4 000 calories or not, I'm not gaining weight. I just need to eat more food. And that is that is what it was, and the same on the way down. People like, oh, you know water weight and some other bullshit excuse and all this other shit, maybe you're just overeating.
Ben:And I think one of the biggest problems whenever it comes to tracking is a complacency.
Ben:I people get to the point where, like they know, so they can just put it into my fitness pal and be just fucking lying to yourself.
Ben:People just telling themselves lies if they, you know, go past the dinner table and they eat a couple of fucking chicken nuggets off their kid's plate or they have a handful of jelly beans and like, oh, I'll just not track it Again, just because you don't track it in MyFitnessPal and you can't see the number go up MyFitnessPal based on the calories you consumed. Your body has still consumed them, whether you have tracked it or not. So people will lie to themselves in that as in well, you know, I just don't get it. But if they sit and actually break it down and they can observe, right, this is actually what I am. I'm actually two, three, 400 calories and all those handful of this and handful of that, and that chocolate bar and this half thing that I shared with my son All of those things still count in terms of calories. So, yes, you may track your three meals, but you potentially still eat three or 400 calories over that on bullshit stuff throughout the day that you don't even realize.
Dave:The basics of what you need to do to be successful is understand that when you eat something, it has calories associated to it and you need to eat less calories throughout the day. If you want to lose weight, you need to eat more calories throughout the day if you want to gain weight. Our bodies all work the same. We might have certain ailments or things like that, maybe injuries that preclude us from doing certain types of exercises, but at the end of the day, our bodies are thermogenic machines that burn energy and we consume calories to burn that energy. And if you look at the breakdowns between fats, carbohydrates and proteins, one gram of fat equals nine calories, one gram of carbs equals four calories and one gram of protein equals four calories. So you know when you, when you look at that, you have to understand hey, how many grams of fat can I eat per day, how many grams of carbs can I eat per day and how many grams of protein should I get in order to ensure I don't waste away on my muscles? You start to build a baseline and there are calculators online total daily energy expenditure calculators that you can go and click into and it'll basically provide you what your rough average is for your age group, how active you are, things like that, and that'll give you an understanding.
Dave:Most people are around the 2000 calorie mark. For most folks you can be up to 2500. If you're extremely overweight or you have, let's just say, an extra 50 to 100 pounds or more, you will burn more calories because you have more fat to move around. Your body has to work harder, your heart has to work harder, your muscles have to work harder to move that around. So maybe your initial calories might be upwards of 2,800 or 3,000. And if you drop that down let's just say 200 calories a day in the span of a week you're looking at 1,000. To just say 200 calories a day, you know, in the span of a week, you know you're looking at, you know a few, you know a thousand to 1500 calories that you're, you're shaving off a week, that you're eating. You will lose weight at that period of time because you're you're, you're in a deficit type of phase where you're burning more calories than you do.
Dave:So what your body does then is it says, well, hey, I have enough protein, so I don't need to eat away at the muscles. And it says, okay, well, I need to burn fat to use energy, and your body doesn't like burning fat. It doesn't like it. Fat is a cushion in every regard for making sure you stay alive, and so we don't, unfortunately, have regulators in our bodies to say hey, listen, we have access to unlimited food. Now we can literally touch a button and food shows up. We don't have to hunt for the food, we don't have to worry for the food, and our bodies didn't anticipate that, and so we don't have regulators on fat. And so when that happens, we continuously put on more and more fat, and your body doesn't like losing it.
Dave:But one thing that I think, talking about failures, is what a lot of people don't understand is, as you lose weight, your calories have to go down as well, and because you're using less energy, because you have less weight to move around your calories, your total daily energy expenditure also goes down as well. So if you're at, let's just say, 2,800 calories and you drop 30 pounds, well, 2,800 calories isn't going to work for you anymore. To lose that weight, you have to drop down another 200 or 400 calories over time, so that you now are again in that deficit, again because you're not burning as much calories. So it's just this balance of numbers to get to a certain point, to where your body's burning enough energy. And that's where I really failed at, because I would do all of this workout, workout. And just as ben explained, I'm going to a restaurant. Hey, I'm going to get this buffalo chicken salad. I'm not looking at the calories, I'm like, hey, it's a salad it's me recently that that the calories are actually on.
Ben:Do you mean like, yeah, true, very true. Years ago they, they weren't able the calories, so it's it is a recent thing, but like being able to see that on it and you go fucking out like it's eye-opening whenever you see what goes actually into some of some of the salads.
Dave:Quote-unquote when I was trying to lose weight before I met you. But like, right, I can remember this, just is, this is actually what caused me. I don't think I've ever actually shared the story with you before. Um, what actually caused me to reach out to people to try to find a trainer was I was eating like so it was, you know, during kind was during the pre-COVID area, but I was just starting to kick into COVID, and what was big for me was I was working from home all the time and I'm like, well, I need to eat healthy. So I'm going to go to Zoop, and Zoop is this soup place that we have and I'd get a little tiny container of lobster bisque and I'd get this wrap, this chicken wrap, and I'm like, well, if I'm eating this chicken wrap, and I'd get this wrap, this chicken wrap, and I'm like, well, if I'm eating this chicken wrap, and I'd also get a chicken salad as well. If I eat these things regularly, I'm eating healthy, right, and I looked at the calorie content on that and it was like 1300, 1400 calories that I was just eating for lunch. That doesn't include what I was eating for breakfast and dinner and everything else. I'm like, hey, I must be eating like 300 calories here because it's super healthy.
Dave:And I couldn't figure out why I was gaining weight. And I'm like, and I'm like, I'm going to. I'm at the gym trying to work out. I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't understand time under tension. I don't understand hypertrophy. I don't understand, you know, uh, going to failure, any of those things. I'm just lifting the lift.
Dave:They told me I have to lift 12, so I'm lifting 12, even though it's light. I'm not actually taxing my muscles, I'm not even getting a workout. To be honest with you, you know I'm like, why am I going up and weight and why am I not gaining muscle? And so, you know, I hit this point where I was like man, I, I'm doing everything that I'm told. I'm told to eat healthy with salads. You know I'm told to eat healthy with these chicken wraps. You know it's a wheat, wheat chicken wrap, it's wheat bread. It's got to be healthy. Um, you know, and, and I'm going up and wait, I'm getting fatter and I couldn't figure out why. And I was like f this, I have no idea what I'm doing, like something's wrong with me, like I, you know, like I don't know what the fuck I'm doing what I'm doing so I need to reach out to somebody that hopefully knows what they're doing, right?
Ben:and, and that's really where things changed yeah, luckily, we've worked it out.
Ben:We've worked it out between us, um, but I think that that's a valid point too. Um, number one just tracking not enough. Like you need to do something with the information. Like tracking your food and watching the scale go up is not a good idea. Like you need to be able to analyze and adapt the data based on your goal and what's going on. So, track your food for a couple of weeks and then gradually bring it down. Based on that and, as you said, I think probably it would be quite easy.
Ben:For example, if you lose 30 pounds and you've been eating 2,600 calories for three months and you've lost 30 pounds and you feel good, and then it stops working, but you don't know that you can change that calorie intake and you don't know your body has different needs, then that's when people go oh, it doesn't work anymore, I need something else. And then they go to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And that comes down to and I've said this again like I would say, hands down, the biggest reason overall is people just don't spend enough time doing the thing. So, to the person that has lost 30 pounds, uh, across three months or whatever it's been, and then it quote unquote stops working. Just adjust the stuff that you're doing. Increase the amount of output you have and adjust slightly, not crazy slightly.
Dave:These are small increments, right? Don't drop a thousand calories and you feel like shit because your body's gonna hate you yes, yes, agree.
Ben:And that I guess that leads into another point is is being um overly restrictive in terms of just the total amount of calories that that you consume? I remember very specifically, um, and this was a real shocker for me and and I don't know why, but it was a guy that I went to school with, like from new, from. I was like three years old, and I remember a couple of years ago having the conversation, and he's talking about weight loss, somebody was doing and he was like I'm doing this egg and grapefruit diet, and I was like, right, okay, come on, tell me. And uh, he was like well, I, well, I have half a, I love I love your response.
Dave:There, though, you're like here we go, let's hear it. Let's hear it like I know this is going out, but it was.
Ben:It was so like obscure for me because I'm like I don't know how, you don't know this, and it was just bit like his experience was my experience, but whatever, um, yeah, so have a grapefruit in the morning and then basically the long and short of it was he was allowed three boiled eggs for breakfast or three eggs, whatever we wanted three eggs for breakfast, three eggs for lunch, three eggs for dinner and then half a grapefruit.
Ben:So essentially he was eating nine eggs across the day and a whole grapefruit and that was it. And I was like you do realize that's like maximum 800 calories. He was like, yeah, no, but like I'm really losing weight and I'm like no shit, you're probably using a lot of other stuff that you don't know. Um, so unrealistic in terms of a being able to fucking survive on eating a full grapefruit and nine boiled eggs or nine eggs across the day, uh, but also in terms of like the, the deficit and I know I've been posting a lot recently about, you know, my current situation and 1600 calories and truthfully, like 1600 calories is still relatively low. I don't really like bringing clients below that.
Ben:Sometimes there is a need for it, but I think the biggest um I think that's the max you ever put me at was 1600, yeah yeah, I think that the only reason I'm comfortable to go past that is is knowing that I can help the person come out the other side and knowing that it is for a specific time or for a specific reason. But very, very rarely that I would go below that and, like I said, that is relatively low. Like my goal with the majority, if not everybody, that I work with, is to get their body in a place that they can lose weight or whatever their goal is, with the maximum amount of calories that we can do it, so that they can feel good day to day, still enjoy life. I you know celebrations, birthday parties, meals out, out, travel for work, whatever it is and actually feel good in the lifts. And I think that this is was the biggest revelation for me is there's a fine line between creating the deficit too far, that everything's difficult, so getting up and going to work is difficult, getting cardio is difficult, no energy to go out and get steps and, most importantly, your workouts are difficult, whereas if you create less of a deficit, you can still feel good in all the stuff that you do and you can actually leave the gym and think I actually accomplished something and I felt good and you can have that feel good factor as you go through the process, because you have the energy to do your lifts, you have the energy to be able to progress in them and you can actually leave, like I said, feeling good overall, whereas a lot of people just like, well, I only need to eat a thousand calories per day.
Ben:And Anthony um, who I don't know if you've seen his posts he's in fucking incredible shape and I think he's prepping for a show or something in the next couple of days. But he said the same sort of thing like for all of his, I think from what he said, from he was maybe 13 or 14. He did these cycles of like massive restriction where he would eat a thousand calories, 800 calories, 900 calories and lose loads of weight and he always got to a certain point. I mean, he talked in stone and I realized fucking between pounds and kilos, talking in stone is a whole other level, so I don't know what it was, but anyway he he got to a certain point and then he just rebounded every single time and he followed that cycle for maybe 15, 15 plus years and once we unfucked that pattern for him and give him an understanding of of what he needs. You know, I coached him for two years. He graduated from the coaching program and now he continues to make progress, like he did that shoot a couple of weeks ago and I think was marking the three-year anniversary from where we started and a nice prepping for for a show, because he has a better understanding and he probably eats more food quote-unquote in a fat loss phase than he ever has and he's a lot more in control.
Ben:So getting an understanding of what your body needs, not overly restricting, and probably additionally to that, is keep the fucking foods that you like in if, if you can control them. Don't keep fucking wheat thins in if you know that you're going to eat the entire box. But if you can portion control and know that you can eat 50 grams and it's within your calories, like, keep all those things in because they're the things that will keep you. Seen, on the days or the weeks where it is a grind and a struggle, 80% of the time you will eat whole, nutrient dense, good quality foods but you have 20% to play about with. Like, keep fucking donuts in.
Ben:I remember Heath, one of my clients. One of his biggest hangups before we actually got started was him and his wife had pizza night every Friday something that was, I imagine, born in COVID, when everybody was just doing magic by themselves and he's like I want to keep that in. And I was like, fucking absolutely no problem. So people's immediate reaction is well, I need to stop eating all these quote unquote bad foods and eating all these quote unquote bad foods. And there's a label good food, bad food, and they just take out all the delicious things that they they know and love and they just overly restrict which works for a while and then you just fucking absolutely go off the rails and you find yourself at the bottom of a bag of doritos not knowing what the fuck's going on. So keep your foods in that you love, don't overly restrict your calories and just make sure you have an understanding that if it starts to slow down or it starts to quote unquote stop working. Then just make adjustments and push a little bit further into it.
Dave:A good example is I was at Airsoft. Surprise. Surprise, it was Gavin's birthday on Sunday. Speaking of, gavin had an awesome prom day. I'll tell you. You know, I was really proud this weekend. So my son went to senior prom. He's a junior but he's dating a senior and it was her senior prom and it was like an all-girls school and, um, you know, to be there, uh, and to be healthy and to be fit I know that sounds weird, but like to be there, like you know, as a strong fatherly figure to my son, and to, like, you know, I was pinning his, his, uh, his little, whatever you call it, the flower croquette croquette, whatever that's, anyways the flower, and people will know what you're talking about.
Dave:Yeah, yeah, a little flower on them and everything it was kind of like a rite of passage where, like I was, you know, passing the torch as a young man to my son and, um, you know, just to be there, to be healthy, to be energetic, you know to, you know to, to be a, a fatherly figure to him, and for him to grow was, was an amazing thing. And I I know that might sound weird, like what? What does fitness and and health and everything else have to go along with it, but what I can say is like I was actually talking to Aaron the other day about this is that, you know, I've seen other families that have, like, caused food disorders with their kids because either a, they're so restrictive or, b, they're not at all. Um, and, and, and I think we have found a really great balance. Like, our kids know how to eat healthy without us ever having to tell them they were eating healthy, like my, the other day, I walk in and my daughter's having a snack and guess what the snack was? It was greek yogurt with a bunch of fruit. You know that was, that was on there and that was her snack. You know, and and uh, my, you know, my, my other son, you know he can, definitely. You know, uh, hit plow some some doritos, something that he doesn't do it often. You know, and you know if they're doing sodas. It's a diet soda. You know it's not the greatest, but you know it's not as bad as as full, full-fledged sodas we never stock, you know, full-fledged sodas, we never stock full-fledged sodas in here. We've taught our kids how to eat healthy and because of that, none of our kids have weight issues. They're all lean, they look great. Gavin is a frigging rail. He needs to put on weight. That boy needs to eat more, to be honest with you. But my kids have never struggled with weight as they've gone through their life because we, you know, we've really worked with them on eating whole foods and eating good meals.
Dave:And I remember there was a time where you know my son, my one son, mason's like I hate chicken, I hate beef, I hate broccoli, I hate this. You know anything that was healthy he would hate. I'm like cool, then you're going to starve. Like we're not cooking anything else for you. Like, like and you're not allowed to use any of the frozen meals, and so like, after like two days of doing that like, he's like okay, I'm gonna eat chicken, I'm gonna eat beef and I'm gonna eat broccoli, I'm gonna like it, and he likes it, you know, and, and he eats. You know, yesterday we, uh, we ordered out for chinese, but you know, we ordered the non-breaded chicken with broccoli and bryce. Uh, broccoli and rice, um, and you know, that was, that was our meal, right, right. So the kids I've taught throughout the time to hopefully instill some habits in them of what it is to eat healthy. We've never been restrictive. We've never created a hate for food or something where like, oh, I can't eat this because it's going to cause me to be fat. It's just within moderation.
Dave:This weekend, when I was at Airsoft, I knew I'm on a deficit, but I hadn't eaten anything all day, and all you can really order there is pizza. So I ordered thin crust pizza and I had three slices and it ended up being around 470 calories, because they're these tiny slices, and that was enough calories for me to be able to still function at Airsoft, because I'm doing high intensity but also burning 600 or 700 calories for being there for six or seven hours, and so it's one of those things where, hey, I managed it. I didn't eat the full box of pizza, you know, I didn't eat. You know a whole, you know a whole thing of it. I just ate three slices. That was good enough for me, and could I eat more? Absolutely, I could have plowed that whole thing down, no-transcript yeah, we're gonna have to shave down.
Dave:We're gonna shave down some calories, right? I think we did this skyline chili that same day too. You know, it was like hey we were not in a deficit.
Ben:I think you're back to your point. Like I don't think it. I don't think it sounds silly at all in terms of how fitness is is related to that whole situation and parenting. I did a tweet about it earlier on. I think that more people need to realize that, like I, the more and more my daughter's five and the more the more that, like she grows up, I will say, the more and more I see her like imitate the things that I do and like watch every single thing that I do and like just want to do the things like your.
Ben:Your children will look at you to educate themselves on on how they live life, and how you live your life will impact how they live their life and the the discipline that you do or don't have, the habits that you do and don't have, the habits that you do and don't have all of those things will filter down, whether you like it or not, because they will be a product of that environment. And that environment is the one that you set and that you establish and again, I'm not saying that it needs to be overly restrictive and I'm actually very conscious that I don't want to overcorrect it. I don't want Harper to grow up and think that you have to weigh everything and track everything and I don't want, even now, whenever I put something on the scale, she thinks I'm cooking it on the scale. I'm like you know what, that's fine until you know different, like that's okay. But again to your point, I'm not restrictive in anything else.
Ben:And she'll come in and say can I have this and have this and this? And I'm like meal or something protein? And she's absolutely hilarious whenever she's talking about protein. And she comes back from school and she's like I told everybody they have to have their protein. And she's flexing her bicep and she's like am I eating enough protein? Flexing her bicep. She is five years old and she probably has more knowledge around the benefits of protein and why to consume it than 90% of the population Because of the I guess not even the things that I have told her to do, but her being in the environment and habits that are in the household and the environments that she's been in. So it absolutely is a necessary thing to be aware of whenever you have kids, because they look at you as the role model, as the hero, as the person that they want to emulate and become, and that's going to be a huge positive or it's going to be a massive negative.
Dave:Yep, fully agree. So, basically, you know, do things within moderation, learn how your body works and go from there. I think that's the lessons there, and keeping it simple as possible. I did want to hit on one other topic before we got off because we didn't do it last week, but it's a discussion We'll make it quick on caffeine intake. So one thing that Ben and I have always done and I still will do this, by the way but I feel like over a certain period of time and I've actually changed on this quite a bit but I feel like I would always increase my caffeine intake over periods of time. So my caffeine intake, for example, might be 600 milligrams a day, for example, and then I noticed I was getting up into the 900 milligrams a day just to continue throughout the day. And then I noticed I was getting up into like the 900 milligrams a day just to kind of continue throughout the day.
Dave:What they've actually shown from the data studies is that you don't really actually build up a resilience to caffeine. You don't need to cycle caffeine, you don't need to take a break from caffeine. Caffeine has a lot of benefits cardiovascular-wise, performance-wise, cognitive-wise, everything else and so the latest data study shows you don't actually have to cycle off of caffeine. Now it might be good for you if you're getting into like the 900s or 1000s of milligrams a day. It's a lot of caffeine and that's probably not great for your body. So taking a break from it so you can kind of go to a lower dosage is important. What's interesting is, you know I used to get like you remember this I'd get like the crazy pre workouts that had like 400 milligrams or 500 milligrams of caffeine per one. I was like the more caffeine the better. Load me up, put it into my veins. You know like let's just do an IV of caffeine. I've changed since then quite a bit my pre workouts. Now that I use for hacking your health. I only do one scoop now. So it's like you know around 170 milligrams of caffeine and that's all I use, and then I will have a second like energy drink, you know, halfway through the day, usually like around one or two o'clock, and that's good enough for me. That's all I do for caffeine nowadays and that you know. If you look at the total amount of caffeine I'm doing, it's probably around 350 to 400, you know milligrams of caffeine a day and that works perfectly fine for me I won't typically have caffeine after 3 pm.
Dave:The way that it hits your andesine receptors in your body, it will definitely disrupt sleep, even if you are like, oh, I'm one of those people that can, which, I'm one of those people.
Dave:I can drink an energy drink 5 minutes before going to sleep or 30 minutes before going to sleep and I can fall asleep perfectly fine. It definitely messes up your sleep scoring and how well you sleep and your ability to get into REM, because your body still thinks it's early in the day and so what caffeine really is doing is masking what time of the day is for your circadian rhythm or your biological clock, and your body thinks it's still early in the morning, which is why you have a lot more energy. So as you get throughout the rest of the day, your body starts to wind down and starts to get ready for bed, and with caffeine it hides that and says, hey, it's early in the morning, I still need you to be cranking up and having a lot of energy. So it doesn't actually give you energy. It fakes your body into thinking you need the energy because you're still early in the day to produce, and so, um, you know I'd heavily recommend, you know, after like three, 3 PM or so, um, I'd say 4 PM at the latest.
Ben:I'm going to interject here. Everybody who I coach is listening right now knows that 2 PM is the absolute latest caffeine curfew. So don't be going sprinting and eating bullshit about 3 PM. I know you play by your own rules. Honestly, I would say 2 pm at the absolute latest. If you can play the game and cut it off at 12, you'll be much better.
Ben:Because the issue to your point is, if you think about, the problem that you're trying to solve with caffeine is tiredness, and caffeine will block the tiredness, essentially. But if you're consuming caffeine too late because you're tired, it's going to impact your sleep, and then guess what it's going to happen tomorrow You're also going to be tired, so you're going to need to prop yourself up on caffeine. So I realized there's probably a week or so to unfuck that problem. But I'm not saying don't drink caffeine, I'm just saying make sure that you know what the cutoff is, ie how much and at what time.
Ben:Because, yes, I also could drink a double espresso and go to sleep, but the fucking quality of my sleep would be absolutely brutal. I would sleep, yes, but I would not get a good quality night's sleep and I would challenge anybody who says that they can. I'm just actually looking at my own check-in sheet and over the past couple of weeks the average for my caffeine consumption which I know you don't track but I do is anywhere from 57 milligrams to maximum is 188 milligrams the week. So I've massively cut that down and I haven't actually had any past 11. Am not trying to say that I'm better than you, but I mean that's for other people to say.
Dave:That's for other people to say when it comes to caffeine, it sounds like you're better than me, but everything else you know. Like my deadlift, I definitely got you, but uh, not rack bulls, not right, not, not rdls, not rdls, um but I guess we need to do that anyway relevant for right now, but yes, I think it's important, in terms of caffeine, um, to just know what it actually does.
Ben:And you're right, it doesn't give you energy. Calories are the thing that give you energy. I actually saw a reel the other day that I thought was quite good and people were arguing about uh, there's a can of monster and a can of pepsi, and which actually gives you more energy. The kind of monster, in terms of the caffeine content, will give you the illusion of more energy and better performance because of how it reacts in the body, but technically, in terms of energy available energy the kind of pepsi will give you more energy in terms of the calories to your body. So, looking at it like that, I'm not saying go and drink a can of pepsi, but just for perspective yeah, or or.
Dave:If you're a coke fan, I'm a coke fan, uh, over pepsi.
Ben:So you know, yeah, well, I mean, pepsi was used in the example oh oh kind of pepsi can make you gain weight even though it's zero calories.
Dave:Thanks, siri, everybody's listening yeah, well, those, those, um, the artificial sweeteners. You know there's more and more studies coming out just how great they're not for your body, and it's also the same thing for canister that has 40 grams of sugar in it too. So it's like pick your poison. The whole caffeine piece. Here though there's also to denote there's different types of caffeine. In our pre-workout we have what are called delayed onset caffeine, which it takes longer to metabolize in your body and for it to basically bind to your andesine receptors. We do that intentionally, because if you take a pre-workout in the morning, what happens is is you know after a few hours that that caffeine unbinds from the andesine receptors, and then you have this flood of hey, you're, it's actually, you know, two o'clock. So you get the caffeine crashes where you feel super tired, um, because your body's like whoa, it's actually two o'clock, it's not, you know, 8 am, that, I think it is and so your body's like, it hits you with the massive like, and that's why a lot of people you know we'll get the caffeine crash and have to take a nap or get super tired or sluggish. With ours we actually, um, have, uh, delayed onset, so so it keeps firing at the andesine receptors and when the caffeine unbinds, the other delayed caffeine release gets released to those andesine receptors. So it keeps you Throughout the day. It's a gradual decline in energy over time. You don't get those crashes. So you also got to be really careful the type of caffeine that you're introducing to your body as well. If you take our pre-workout, let's just say at 4 o'clock pm, well, the caffeine is really not going to wear off until like 2 am, right, so you got to be really careful with that. It's not the same type of caffeine versus quick-hit caffeine, which typically binds from three to six hours. It can be upwards of eight. So just things to remember as you're doing that, to be really careful when you're taking caffeine and how you're taking caffeine.
Dave:Dr Huberman uh, andrew Huberman, um, says don't take caffeine the first half hour to an hour after you wake up. Um, because you still need, um, you know that that natural clock, the circadian rhythm, to kind of kickstart all of those processes in your body. Um, that's why you know he says, like natural light exposure or the mood lamps, things like that Light actually kicks off the process in your body to start your day and give you energy. And then, once you do that, then caffeine is fine throughout the rest of the day.
Dave:I personally don't drink caffeine the first hour I wake up, just as a. I'm getting things ready, I'm waking up in the morning, I'm getting some stuff done and then I'll have, usually as my pre-workout, I'll have some caffeine. Even days I do Orange Theory. I wake up a little bit earlier just to make sure I give myself enough time get some light exposure. I have a mood lamp in my bathroom, so when I'm getting ready in the morning I have some natural or some fake light, but it looks like natural light. I'm heading me to kickstart the day. Natural light, yeah, yeah, yeah, because you know I'm waking up early in the morning. Um, you know, it might still be dark outside. So you know, getting that natural light, you know, into you and kind of starting that process, gives me a lot of energy and then I take the pre-workout after that. So agree.
Ben:Actually and this is a second third party information, I think it was jason wilbert told me recently that, uh, andrew hebron come out and says he doesn't actually do that. He recommends that for people who are sensitive with caffeine, but he doesn't actually do it himself. I'm like this motherfucker.
Ben:Yeah, um, but yeah, I think, I think that that's a valid point because I know, again specific to the industry and specific to people that I work with, I've seen in the past like they, they can't function without caffeine and it's the first thing that they go to in the morning, like, bro, just take some fucking, like, take an hour, have some water, have a drink of water and go from there Like you're probably dehydrated more than anything else. But yes, I think to your point, the crash will come, whether you deal with that tiredness and your body sort of coming to life in the morning before caffeine, or whether you mask that with caffeine, you deal with it at 3 pm, whenever you feel like a bag of dicks in the afternoon. So, yeah, be careful with your caffeine intake. Absolutely. I would say this there are caffeine and things that you don't think, like you know again, coke, pepsi, even chocolate, there are caffeines. You need to watch that shit too. It's everywhere, it's all around us. It's all around us.
Dave:All right. Well, thanks for listening to this week's podcast. Hopefully you enjoyed it. We'll be back same time, same place next week. Uh, and appreciate all of our listeners out there and keep going. And you know again, remember this is just a journey, uh, and we're living in it, and you get to forge your own destiny, uh, and by having the tools necessary to either lose weight or gain weight, or to get the desired physique. That is possible just with some hard work. So keep it up. I agree. Thanks all.