Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 399 - Building Habits CALL IN SHOW!

Episode Date: June 16, 2020

Today the crew is talking about how to build habits AND taking your questions live on air. This is only our second call in show but it is instantly becoming our favorite type of podcast. Don't miss out on another opportunity to speak with Mark Bell and the crew on air by texting 206-737-7369 to be notified via text the next time we're podcasting live and taking calls! Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Support the show by visiting our sponsors! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Icon Meals: http://iconmeals.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Mark Bell's Power Project podcast hosted by the man himself, Mark Bell, co-hosted by Nseema Iyeng and myself, Andrew Zaragoza. And today we had another Hootenanny podcast. We explained why we call it that in this episode, but basically we had a call-in show. This is easily, 100%, no doubt about it, our absolute favorite new format that we've been doing lately. And so in short, today, we talked about habits, building habits, how to keep habits, how to implement habits. And we took all of your questions in regards to habits. And when I say your questions, I literally mean, we had listeners of the show call in, we have an awesome new call in show format, the the phone line is incredible. We're

really, really, really loving it. Today, we talked to somebody about alcoholism and how can they break the habit of reaching for that first drink, which inevitably is going to end up turning into a second drink and the third drink and so on and so forth. We talked about some of the habits in regards to being a father. Mark gave some great advice to a brand new father that called in. And basically, he asked him, like, hey, how do I balance still being a good father and still being a savage in the gym and whatnot? And then we spoke to a handful of people that lost over 100 pounds by just following Mark's advice. Some of the info that he's put out on YouTube and whatnot. Mark's advice, some of the info that he's put out on YouTube and whatnot.

So it's just amazing that we're able to speak to you guys, but also just hear these real life experiences, these real life stories. It just, like I said, it's amazing. We took a bunch of other calls, but I don't want to spoil any of those. All I'm going to say is that we love you guys for stepping up and jumping on air with us. These, like I said, we are loving these episodes. Really fast before I get out of your guys' way, a super quick reminder that markbell.com is still offering a free 30-day trial,

but it is only available to the end of June. And today is June 15th, so you don't have that much time. So please register before the end of the month and you'll gain access to the entire website. And lastly, if you guys did miss out on today's episode and if you want to take advantage of when we do these call-in shows and actually hit us up on air, please just text whatever you want. It doesn't have to be. It could be gibberish. It could be a word.

It could be a just doesn't matter. Text whatever you want to 206-737-7369. Again, that's 206-737-7369. Again, that's 206-737-7369. And you guys will actually get a text notification saying Mark Bell's Power Project is live. And then just a quick link to actually tap that on your phone. And then you guys will be listening to us live. But also, when you guys do that, you will have access to see when we're actually taking calls and you guys can jump on air with us. Anyways, that's it for me. Thank you again to everybody that called in.

I hope you guys enjoy the show. If you do, please let us know. Hit us up on social media. All links, everything will be down in the description of wherever the heck you're listening or watching this episode. And ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy the show. Happy Monday, y'all. What's going on, man? What's happening?

It's Monday. It's Monday. And we're doing a hootenanny yeah we got another hootenanny we're still trying to figure out what the word means but when we figure it out we will let everybody know yes yep well if wikipedia is correct which you know i don't know how accurate they can be all the time 100 all the time so it was a internet yeah it was has the facts yeah it does so back in the day basically it was like open mic night um or it was a term used for open mic night uh people can come

up and do their like sing a song whatever it was and then the next guy would come out or next one hopefully women would come out and they would perform their song and then it was kind of like karaoke night except with no karaoke machine no karaoke yeah well yeah shoot come on the podcast and sing guys yeah that's not what we're gonna be today yeah yeah yeah last night i think i ate two of the flat irons no no it was two nights ago that I ate two flat irons in a row. And that's like 180 grams of protein, but it doesn't feel like you're eating 180 grams of protein. That's the thing. That's actually, you know, you, you stayed at something really cool there because I don't know if it's because they're, they're so lean, but when I ate those two, I could have eaten another, but I just held myself back because I want to conserve.

So it doesn't feel like it's 180 grams of protein, even though I ate it in one sitting, which is nice. Yeah. Those are definitely my absolute favorite from Piedmontese. Those and I know the Bovet steak's good, but even just like a regular New York strip from them is incredible. And of course the ribeyes, but the grass-fed, grass-finished ribeye. Yeah.

Dude, second to none. I don't get it. We have yet to try the coveted dry age that Mark's been talking about. Yeah, what's that all about? Yeah, I think I was telling you guys, they're building a whole facility. It looks amazing. They're going to be able to have more grass-fed stuff. They're going to have more dry age stuff.

fed stuff. They're going to be have, they're going to have more, uh, dry age stuff. So, um, Hey, thanks to everybody that listens to the show and, and that participates in ordering Piedmontese. I mean, we're buying them bigger facilities. I mean, that's true. I mean, it's, that's the way to look at it. We've, we've, uh, I've, I mean, I've heard countless people tell me like, Oh yeah, I order all the time. I use your code. So you guys are, you guys are helping it move forward and we'll have more amazing beef and they're going to keep figuring out how to you know nutrition up these cows and have them be big and strong so we can keep getting some good food yeah buddy for more information on the best beef in the planet uh please head over to piedmontese.com that's p-i-e-d-m-o-N-T-E-S-E.com. At checkout, enter promo code POWERPROJECT for 25% off your order.

And if your order is $99 or more, you get free two-day shipping. I do want this company to last forever, though. They're better. Their beef is too good. Yeah, it's way good. Anyway, so what you guys got on your minds today? We just chilling, I think. Yeah. Yeah, waiting for the first call we want to talk

about some habit stuff so should be cool yeah we'll cool we'll definitely open up the uh the fan lines pretty soon so floodgates yeah so if you guys are listening live uh once you see the little notification on your screen uh please if you have a question hit us up it's 206-737-7369 and also if you guys are listening to this after we go off air you can text that number and the next time we go live and we're taking calls you guys will get a text notification have you guys ever tried sniffing electrolytes i'm just curious i just feel like It might be An interesting avenue Only off of Someone's ass Yeah

Super effective I think You know maybe Taking it It was a mail stripper You guys want to Break me down It was a mail stripper

Might be a good idea To maybe heat it up On the You know Heat it up On a spoon Yeah heat it up On a spoon

Inject or Put it in one of those Like you know Injector things That go up your butt, heat it up and just make, you know, put it up. The thing Smokey was talking about. Exactly.

Exactly. I think that might be a good idea. I think it was huge. Unbelievable. Well, when you got, you know, when you're a little bit loose down there, anything fits. Anything's possible. Anything's possible. Yeah.

We're going to be talking today about habits and, you know, kind of how to build them, how to kind of keep some momentum going with a habit, because that's, it's hard, you know, you try something new and you don't really like it that much when you first start, and sometimes it takes a long time to get used to that habit. I'll kind of start out by talking about just walking. You know, I started walking like a long time ago, probably about seven years ago or so. Jesse Burdick convinced me to do some fat guy cardio because he was like, I started to implement some small changes into my diet. And that was basically going a little bit more paleo-ish at the time.

You know, it was 3.30 and I was just trying to get rid of junk from my diet, you know. And that wasn't easy. And I would tell Burdick, I was like, ah, you know, I'm still not being that consistent with the diet. I'm still cheating like almost every other day. And he's like, well, let's just see if we can get some activity going. He's like, if we can get the activity built up and we can kind of slowly chip away at the nutrition, then you should still continue to make progress and lose weight. And so that's kind of what I did.

I ate natural foods, natty foods, and started to do some walking. And I would just wear, I have a vest. I don't know why the vest weighs 11 pounds, but that's what it weighs. Yeah. And I didn't need a lot of weight on me when I was that heavy. And I would literally walk for 10 minutes. I would set it on my phone. And when I was five minutes away from the house, I'd walk five minutes back.

That was so simple and so easy that I was doing it two times a week, three times a week. You know, it became super easy to where I was. It was not any problem at all to do it every day after I did it for like a week or two or I did, you know, three times in a week. I was just like, oh, this is so simple. You know, so easy. I can do it every day. You know, so then a 10 minute walk turned into like a lap around the neighborhood, which was more like a 12 minute walk and and so on. But what I learned from that experience was the thing that you're trying to bring in should be super, super simple.

I like to use the word simple rather than easy. I do think it should be kind of easy too, but easy is different for each person. There actually might even be a level of courageousness to it for some, because the definition of doing something courageous is that you're, you're kind of scared to do it. And for some people, just, you know, some people are scared to go outside, period. Like people have these fears, right? And so even somebody just getting outside and walking to their mailbox, you know, might be something that takes a bit of courage to work up. So just imagine of putting yourself under that kind of stress every day and you try to go out and walk for an hour. Like that's kind of a lot, that's a lot to start out with.

So start out with something real small. Yeah. Small wins. Like, and, and, and the thing is, I think it's really hard for people, even myself, like when you start something small, um, like, you know, whether you start doing it only three or four times a week, I have the problem of comparing that three to four times a week to somebody else's seven days a week, plus they're doing more time, right? So it's not motivating saying,

I'm only doing this twice a week, or I'm only doing this three times a week. I know people that are doing this every day for hours on end. And then I think like, it's going to take so much longer to get better. But you got to have like, it does take, I think, also a level of courage to pat yourself on the back for work you're doing, even though you don't think it's enough because it's more than you did last week. And it's more than you did the other day. It's hard to feel good about yourself when you don't have victories. You know, you need to have, need to have some wins, need to have some victories. And maybe for you at this moment, uh, having like a large victory, just

not in the cards, you know, maybe, you know, and maybe the goal that you have, maybe it's pretty high, you know, maybe you want to have a set of abs or something. And, um, and then you're just thinking like, you're not going to be happy until you get that. And, uh, the truth is, is you could be happy right now. If you could have some more, if you could set up some more victories that are going to be a little bit simpler. They're going to be stuff that you can maybe reach for right now. Like, what about celebrating something like this? What about the decision to, after dinner, to have a protein shake or to eat an apple with a little bit of peanut butter on it. You know, not the whole jar of peanut butter.

But, you know, you make a decision. You change one habit in for another. You know, it's almost like you're turning it in and trading it in with somebody. You're like, all right, well, here's my bowl of ice cream. it in and trading it in with somebody. You're like, all right, well, here's my bowl of ice cream. As much as I want that, I'm trading it in for some yogurt and some whey protein or a protein shake. And you should feel really good about that.

Like, that's a fucking victory. I mean, you could, you know, have a, you know, some boxes set up and you can have like a little checklist during your day. And the thing, the greatest thing about having a checklist is that you actually get to check something off. You're like, I did that. I mowed the lawn today. Well, being not that I would ever mow a lawn, but if I did mow a lawn, I would be able to

check it off. You know, just, it could be this, it could be that you wanted to go get a haircut that day. Yeah. Anything. It doesn't have to be, I think people sometimes confuse their goals or they confuse what they should view as goals sometimes as, I think the way that you should view some of these things is to have them be things that are like being on a checklist.

Like they're that easy. Like getting your hair cut is really not really a special thing that you did, but it kind of is. You took the time out of the day to do something that you wanted to do. How is that any different than you selecting better food choices? To me, it's very similar. And also, all the different shit that it triggers in your brain is all the same stuff because your brain doesn't really notice the difference.

Serotonin and yada, yada,ada yada whatever else you produce yeah i know something that i've like adopted a while back but i remember i would look at like things that i needed to get done and i would try to like uh what was that eat the frog right like i'd go for the one that was the biggest pain in the dick to get taken care of please explain that phrase to me eat the frog eat the frog uh so it's a really good book and i remember i just i don't know why sounds fucking gross it just yeah it does um everybody talked about this book and how great it was and i don't know that the hipster inside of me was like if a lot of people like it then i'm not gonna like it i'm gonna go against the grain. And then finally, one day, I just, I didn't have anything to listen to and I threw on the audio book and I loved it. Basically, it's just like your biggest task or the thing like if you have an important phone call to make, like the biggest pain in the ass task that you have for

the day, just start the day by eating that frog it's called eat that frog actually it's the name of the book and you you just have that one task because after that everything else seems super easy right after you eat a frog anything else tastes better i'm just like really just imagining imagining swallowing a frog i wouldn't chew it it's like i feel like they're slimy so you just kind of have to let it go down the throat uh encino man i think he cooked it remember that movie i do yeah you don't remember that one huh i've never seen it yeah dude it's so good paulie shore uh anyways so with that like um that mindset or whatever you want to call it you then all of a sudden build this huge wall of like fuck i don't i don't want to even start that so then then you push that back and it pushes everything else back because you're like, no, I got to do that one big task first and then I'll get to the rest. And then you push it back, you push it back or you don't even accomplish it.

Then you don't accomplish the rest. So by flipping that on its head, kind of doing what Mark's saying, like get some wins first, like wake up and go for a walk. Boom, I got something done. Like, wake up and go for a walk. Boom, I got something done. It's almost like Dave Ramsey's way of getting out of debt, like paying off the small debts so that way you can compound the money into the next debt and the next one. So, that energy and time you put into that little task, you're like, cool, I got some momentum. Let me tackle the next one and the next one.

So, kind of doing it backwards really has helped me a lot, too, because you start off with a win and now all of a sudden you kind of get addicted to that feeling and you just want to keep going and going so i think both are extremely effective especially like the uh the frog thing yeah you know maybe i have to go back and re-listen to it because i probably got it wrong by now but that sounds perfect yeah and it makes sense you know like if i do have to do something I don't want to do, if I just get it out of the way, then we're all good for the rest of the day. But if that one thing is going to paralyze me and I'm not going to be able to move, then, you know, what good is that? Yeah. People make things complicated, too. Yes. Complicated rules will really paralyze you.

Even just having a lot of knowledge can sometimes paralyze you. Even just having a lot of knowledge can sometimes paralyze you. You know, when you know a lot about training, like think when you're young and you don't know shit about training, you just go in there and just blast everything out and you feel great. You're like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And as soon as you start to know a lot, you're like, well, I did a lot of pull-ups yesterday.

And you act like a big pussy, you know? I did biceps yesterday, so I should really be careful. I've already done it twice this week. That's going to really affect my CNS. That's legit, man. That's true. I wonder how that's going to play into my jiu-jitsu. Oh, man.

Sometimes it's just good being, well, okay. You don't need to be naive, but act that way sometimes when it comes to training. But I was going to say, Andrew, uh, with what you said, as far as eating the frog, I think that's one of the reasons why within that whole, the whole self-development community, why they talk so much about your morning routines. I think at this point, anybody that kind of follows that stuff, when they see morning routines, they're turned off to it. But because of what Andrew literally just said, this is why morning routines make so much sense for people. Because morning routines, they're habits that you set up, they're routines that you set up to give yourself already

a few wins. Some people like to wake up and take a walk. Some people like to wake up, immediately make their bed, and then go do some small things that would be small wins, but it sets your day up already without even thinking about it with wins that you, that take no effort from you. And with those wins and that routine going, you then have this, this feeling of wellbeing and this feeling of just like already winning where you're like, okay, I want to hit this. I want to hit this. I want to hit this. Whoa, whoa. Don't break it though. And then you just want to,

you just want to, you just want to win. So that's, that's, that perfectly falls in line with makes you feel good about yourself when you start having those victories. And then also if you think about some of the stuff that we're mentioning so far, nothing that we mentioned,

there's not a genetic component to it at all. Well, maybe, maybe, I mean, maybe there's some science that we haven't's not a genetic component to it at all um well maybe i mean maybe there's some science that we haven't uh heard of yet and maybe there are some people that are born with a little bit stronger habit structure than the next person like i believe that that could be possibly true but for the most part we're not talking about trying to jump up onto a 56 inch box which may require some specific skill set. You may need to be a certain amount of explosiveness. You may need to have a certain amount of flexibility.

So like that stuff that you'd have to really train for, that stuff that you'd have to really work your way into, you could, you could potentially do it, but there may be like, there's probably a ceiling for you somewhere there is no ceiling with the amount of different shit that you can do there's no ceiling with the amount of things that you can handle and for me like um turning my back on certain things and moving away from certain things it's never been it's never been because like, oh shit, that's way too much. It's not because of that. It's just a matter of putting my time into places that I feel are more valuable that are going to make me feel better about myself so I can build these habits so I can stay

on point with them as best I can. I think a lot of people will go too hard on a lot of that stuff. They're like, I'm going to train at 4am. I'm going to do this. I'm going to, and it's what happens a lot of times when you have people that get like militant about it,

they, they revert back to the exact thing that they were doing before. Cause it's too hard to spin all these plates at the same time without having a couple crash down. So somebody that trains at 4 a.m., I would just, this is just an assumption, I'm not 100% sure, but people that have developed a habit to train real early in the morning, they probably either train real early in the morning or do nothing. You know, it's probably, it's a little bit of an all or nothing mentality. And if they don't have that there, then they can't follow through with the other stuff

that they have going with the, with the other stuff they have going on. It's, um, it's almost like they, they need that structure. My whole point here is that we respond really good, really well to scheduling. We respond really well to scheduling we respond really well to having things to having a routine perhaps um but i would also just say try not to make your routine ridiculous you know make it make it make it manageable you know like um think about like a doctor right doctors are pretty damn busy but what happens when you go to the doctor? You're always waiting in the waiting room forever, right?

But it's because the doctor, like even though the doctor tries to space out his time and he tries to make more room for everything, there's still a lot of times where things like overlap, you know? And I think for us, we have to schedule stuff and not only schedule stuff, but we have to schedule stuff and have it be reasonable. You know, like it might take you 15 minutes for you to drive over to jujitsu, but it's not really going to be 15 minutes. It's going to be like 30, you know, because I don't know, you just, maybe there's a little bit of traffic or maybe you had to stop somewhere and get a drink or whatever. Like you need to allow a lot more time than you're thinking. Or maybe you just get sidetracked and you're talking on the phone for a few minutes and take the wrong exit or something like that. So you got to really allow for a little bit more time than is necessary.

So in setting up your routine and your schedules, just make sure you're not being crazy with it. You guys ready for our first call? Yeah, we are. Let's go. Okay, let's see who we got. Caller, what's your name and where are you calling from? Hello?

Is that Casey Mitchell? We had some difficulties earlier today oh no do we got anybody there three these electrolytes want to make an escape already

it's like a 40 hour I'm on right now like these liquids are coming through everybody back up I think I'm puckered right now. I'm good. Oh, no.

Oh, man. Well, if you shit yourself on the podcast, I think that would be a first. No, you know you've done that before. Don't lie to us. Don't lie to us.

Sorry about that. Let me make sure this is on right. Yep, we're good. Did you push the right button? Mm-hmm. Sorry, caller. Call back we're good. Did you push the right button? Mm-hmm. Sorry, caller.

Call back and try again. Let's see. Something happened to that guy. Something happened. Yeah, hopefully this one works out. Nothing's changed. So let's see what happens. Caller, are you there?

Hello? Hello? Hmm. I wonder if it's online. Oh, I see what happened. Yeah. Hello. Oh, there we go.

We got somebody now. Can you hear me? We can hear you. What's your name, man? Where are you calling from? My name's Daniel Garza. I live in South Texas. Cool.

What's going on today, man? How can we help you out? I'm about two hours from the border. Nothing, man. I feel like I want to logger. Cool. What's going on today, man? How can we help you out? I'm about two hours from the border. Nothing, man. I'm just, I feel like I won a lottery. I feel nervous for some reason. That's because Encema makes a lot of people nervous. That's awesome.

It's biceps. First, I just want to say thanks. I like your show, and you give me a lot of motivation to, you know, to keep working out. You know, I listen to y'all's podcasts whenever I'm working out, man. It's great. I love listening to y'all talk. Thank you. Thank you, man.

I guess the only question about a habit I would have is, you know, sometimes at night I like to have a drink. It's not necessarily bad to have one drink, but sometimes it leads to another one. Sometimes it just leads to staying up later. So you have any advice for maybe just how to avoid that one drink and maybe just go to sleep? Yeah, I think, you know, being clear with your goals, I think can really help. So if you have a particular goal, you have a particular thing that you're training for,

I think that can help you align your habits and your actions with the goal. What is your goal at the moment? What are you trying to do? Trying to get leaner or something like that? Yeah, kind of like just bulk up a little bit, but I'm not doing a heavy bulk. I don't want to get fat, I guess. I'm about six foot. I weigh 190. I'd like want to get fat, I guess. I'm about six foot. I weigh 190.

I'd like to get over 200, maybe 210. Yeah, I would just say to try to keep that in the front of your mind, that your goal is to be bigger, more muscular. Your goal is to be stronger. And that if somebody came to you for advice and you listed out the top five things that would help someone get bigger and stronger, just alcohol, it wouldn't appear on the list. The list of things is like you want to eat more food, maybe increase calories. You want to train hard.

You want to also make sure that you get sleep. And alcohol can kind of compromise your compromise your well not kind of compromise it can compromise your sleep so you could be um you want to think about what i would suggest is that when you get to the end of the day like that i think that you should try to think about all the work that you put in the entire day and think about how the alcohol isn't really necessarily relaxing, but how it's counterproductive to everything else that you did during the day. The steak that you ate, the vegetables that you ate, the potato that you ate, all this stuff that you ate was to align directly with that goal. And now you kind of threw a monkey wrench into it, which is going to kind of throw a lot of things off. So that's I would recommend something like that.

And then also I'd also recommend having like one day a week, you know, where you can just say F it and and go for it. And that that way you at least, you know, still have room to, you know, explore some of the stuff that you want to, uh, that you want to do. Along with that homie, I know that he said you can have one day where you say F it and go for it. But remember when we say go for it, um, with alcohol, it's a very different deal. So like Mark mentioned at this point, you already understand that if you drink at night, right, it massively affects your sleep and your goal is getting bigger and sleep is probably sleep is the biggest factor in you gaining muscle you gain a lot of your muscle when you're asleep and if that's compromised you won't be gaining nearly as much right but number

two right if there's one day right where you're like all right i'm gonna go for it tonight i'm gonna get i'm gonna get all these beers in or whatever it is. That can actually mess you up for a few days. As far as your gym performance is concerned, especially if you had a lot of drinks, well, you feel kind of hungover the next day. And the next day, your performance is hampered. And the next day, you're getting close to where you were before. And then by day four, you're back to where you should be. So that one day that Mark mentioned, still try to keep it light. And I'd also keep this in mind, too. You know, you can have the fuck it's in either direction.

You know, people say, oh, fuck it. I'm just going to have a drink. Well, you can say, fuck it. I'm not going to have a drink. And I'm going to see what the hell happens when I'm really dedicated and really serious for 30 days or for 60 days. Let me just try this out for a little bit and see how it goes. You know, this from, from being in the gym, from training, uh, how many times he said, fuck it, I'm going to do another set. Ah, fuck it. You know, I'm gonna do another set. And sometimes you say that so much that you, your, your, uh, 45 minute workout turns into a

two hour, you know, marathon workout where you've hit like every body part in the gym because you've gotten so excited and you said, fuck it, about all the different things. So you can kind of get that in either direction. And I would suggest just trying to just shift your mind. And I think it also is reasonable for you to communicate with yourself, as funny as it might sound, throughout the day about the end of the day. Talk to yourself about it. What's the end of the day. Talk to yourself about it. What's the end of the day going to look like?

Am I going to be sitting there with a beer in my hand again, or am I going to be sitting there with a protein shake? Or when I have that urge to have a drink, am I going to hop on a phone call and go for a walk? Some other thing to kind of fill in that habit that you have at the moment. Okay. That's great, man yeah great advice yeah and for anybody else that might be listening if it's a um because i know this was me back in the day like a socializing aspect of it all like not wanting to not drink that beer whatever it was mark mentioned something a couple of times on the podcast previously,

which was freaking gold. It doesn't really matter if you're with a group of people and you're the only one not drinking because they're going to be hammered and you're not, but you can still get away with everything as if you were, because they're not going to know the difference. They're not going to know any better. So that's just, I'm not saying that that was you, but if anybody else is listening, that could be something that they're facing as well. And to me, that's such an easy way of getting around. Yeah, you're free to talk weird and act silly. Yeah, you take advantage of them.

Oh, well. No, like business-wise or something. Like, oh, let me borrow your car for the weekend or something. Let me put a little something in there. Yeah, we're definitely not going to be Bill Cosby, but you know what I mean. The old backdrop. Awesome, man. Thank you so much for calling in.

Appreciate it. This was awesome. Just want to give a shout out to Andrew. Thanks, Andrew. And then Seema. Hey, thanks. Like I said, I listen to all you guys all the time, man. Y'all are great. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hey, thanks. Like I said, I listen to all you guys all the time, man. Y'all are great.

Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, brother. Heavy stuff starting out the day. That's awesome. Yeah. That was really cool.

Yeah. Yeah, you guys ready for some Mo? Ready for some Mo. There's a lot of people that do that. A little self-sabotage at the end of the day. You build up. You do a lot of good things for yourself throughout the day i think a lot of people are smart enough to know like you know starting off the day with like a bagel and

cream cheese or starting off the day with a donut is just not a great way to start the day off and it you know if you've paid attention to your nutrition in the past it kind of makes you feel like crap especially if you ever got really locked into nutrition, you're like, I don't want to do that. But at the end of the day, you don't mind doing it later in the day because you're just going to be going to bed. You don't think it's going to really have the same, it doesn't have the same consequences. Obviously, it can still hamper your ability to get in better shape and things of that

nature, but it doesn't make you feel like crap. So I think that's where a lot of people kind of let their defenses down. You got to keep the hands up at all times. That's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah. People are tired by then. So like the decision-making is kind of not as on point as it was earlier. So that, that makes a lot of sense.

How do you feel? Cause I was going to actually ask you this while he was on the call, but with, uh, I wonder, do you have any different, uh, takes in terms of alcohol and starting small with that so starting a reduction smaller so for example if you're a guy that has let's just say a beer a night five or a beer seven days a week maybe next day your goal or next week your goal is having only one four or five days or do you feel that it's just better for with alcohol because it's that type of substance to just go to like one or two immediately? I think for a lot of people, they could just simply cut back. I think that sounds, I think that sounds really reasonable.

Also too, I think if you drink earlier, I think it's, I think it's better for your sleep. Not necessarily that it makes your sleep better than not having alcohol at all. But I think that if you were to have a drink at 5 p.m. and you went to bed at 10 p.m., I don't really think that would have much negative impact. I also think that if you legitimately only had one or two drinks i think i think that's totally reasonable um but again yeah i would suggest trying to pull back the amount of times that you do that the amount of days of a week that you you do that most of the time if i don't have a drink and like most of everyone around me has a drink um i think just about every single time i always uh uh i i never regret it.

Like, it's always like, I am always like kind of proud of the decision, especially when you wake up the next day. I don't drink very often. So even just some alcohol kind of makes me not feel amazing the next morning. So that, I mean, I think that's an added benefit for me because i get kind of a slap on the wrist you know for if i have too many drinks oh no i was gonna say it's you know because we are on that topic somebody in the chat room they're just they're kind of they're airing their stuff out saying that they actually do have a drinking problem um and so his question was like what if you start drinking at 7 a.m.?

He says he starts the day off with vodka and water. Yeah. I mean, that's, well, that's, you know, we're, you're getting into something that is most likely like an addiction, you know, and that's, we want some of our habits to turn into addictions almost because we want to have, we want to have something so ingrained that we do it often. Um, and we're thinking like, Hey, we're going to get a healthy benefit from this, but getting like over, you know, getting addicted to anything, um, can be dangerous. Um, one of the definitions for addiction, I don't know a ton about this exactly, but, um, you know, one way to kind of judge your addiction is, has it impacted

your job? You know, has it ever impacted your work before? Maybe you're jobless because of, you know, the addiction. Has it ever impacted a relationship before? You know, these are things that, whether it be alcohol, drugs, pornography, it could even be fitness. Like if this is an impact, if this has impacted relationships and things that you're trying to do in a negative way, then it's time to reevaluate, it's time to reevaluate yourself a little bit and see if you can get help for it. Alcohol and drug addiction, there's a large group of people who just, they'll just tell you flat out, they're like, yeah, I used to do that. And you're like, what would you do? And they're like, I just stopped.

And you're like, huh? Because you don't hear that that often, but there's a lot of people who've done that. They don't go for any help. They just stop out of nowhere. Now, you know, different people have different brain chemistry and different people need different help. They need different cues to get themselves out of it. Maybe those people that were able just to completely stop, maybe they have a really good support system and maybe they already feel pretty good about themselves. They just happen to get themselves hooked on a substance. But imagine if you don't

feel good about yourself and usually the only time or the only thing that takes pain away or numbs you for the day is that drug, you know, then you really, this, you know, guy who's shouting us out there in the chat room, he, I mean, he's trying to get some assistance, even if it's just going to a friend. Most of us know people that have had battled addiction before, even going to a friend of a friend or whatever, say, hey, man, like, you know, if I had a problem and I didn't know what to do, I'd go to someone like in SEMA and say, hey, man, like, I'm really struggling with this shit. I don't know if you know anybody, you know, somebody knows somebody that's overcame it and they can help set you in the right direction. My brother,

we had to bring my brother to a, we had to bring my brother to a uh god damn i forget the name of those kind of facilities we had to bring him to a facility that you basically go to for like two or three days and it's just to it's just to kind of blunt the the the first you know urges or first waves of uh addiction and they uh they medicate you from what i recall it wasn't like crazy expensive or anything but they i mean there is a cost associated with it um some people go to things like that some other people go to like you know sober living places or aa is free um you know so there's a there's a lot of options when it comes to that. But I personally would just would go to a person rather than trying to go to like an establishment. I don't think, I don't like a lot of the stuff that they share in AA.

I don't, I don't think it's, I don't know. I'm not a huge fan. Yeah. I will say like, I mean, I, what Mark mentioned about having an accountability partner is one of the, one of those biggest things. I mean, I've talked about the porn thing on this podcast before, and one of my best friends, we both like, we both kind of were trying to drive through that and get through that. So we kept each other accountable.

We talked about when we were struggling, we had those types of conversations. So we found common ground and we could, we were able to figure it out moving forward. So finding somebody who has either been able to get through it, I think would be something super beneficial. But like, you know, some of the stuff we're talking about in terms of building habits is cool and it's definitely good. But, you know, a lot of these things, when it comes to trying to apply it to an addiction, um, is much more difficult and it's not,

it's not so easy. It's like not powerful enough. It's not, it's not the, it's almost like not the correct medication, you know, for, for the disease,

which is addiction is, is a disease. And it's something that, um, some that can't be really you know played around with but what i the other thing i would examine too is just just why you know like what's the probably a reason you know same thing with people that are really heavy when people are four or five hundred pounds there's almost always some sort of trauma in their life. There's something that happened to them at some point, somewhere, not always,

but most of the time. And that is fairly common amongst people who have addictions as well, that there's something somewhere along the lines happened that just, I don't know, through the course of their life off. I think most of us, if we're being reasonable and if we're being understanding of other human beings, could easily see how we could have made a wrong turn. You know, I could have hung out with a couple of wrong friends, had the wrong people kind of influence me, and I could be into cocaine. I could be into marijuana. I could be into alcohol. Look, the environment I grew up in, a lot of people were on steroids, you know, and I've been on steroids since I was 25 years old. So I, you know, it's, you, you become, you know, the sum of the parts of the

people that you hang around with. It was commonplace for me as, even as a kid, I knew it when I was 12, 13 years old, I saw, I saw these guys, you know, and I was kind of like, hey, how do they get that big? You know, and I started to know more about it. I started to be curious. I think the same thing happens with other types of drugs. Cool. All right. Let's see who we got next.

I think Smokey's going to call us, prank us. Caller, what's your name? Where are you calling from? Hey, good morning. My name's Rob calling from St. Louis, Missouri. Hey, Rob. What's going on, Rob? Not much.

Just got a call in and asked my question here. Yeah. So my question is concerning really for Mark, because I know he's went through some phases when he had his child or children, I guess. I just had a baby boy two weeks ago. Congratulations. Just trying to get some advice on balancing training and being their new father and all that fun stuff. How did you deal with that?

Well, I have an amazing wife, so that helps a lot. The suggestion number one is to try to assist your significant other as much as possible so that they're not super stressed. super stressed, you'll know, you'll get the daggers, you'll get the look, you know, as if they're, you know, as if they're going to murder you in your sleep. And so I would be really conscious of that. Maybe there's things around the house that maybe you don't normally participate in. So maybe you can participate in them more you know whatever the wifey's obligations or your girlfriend's obligations whoever it may be whatever they're responsible for see if you can take some of that burden because the dad's attachment to the kid it's

really weird and I only other dads kind of understand this but you don't even get attached to your kid to your kids like three or four i know that kind of sounds pathetic but but the i think the mom and the child are connected right away um there's a bunch of reasons for that but um and it sounds like almost heartless to say it as a dad, but that's kind of the truth of it. You don't really realize that this thing is yours and you got to take care of this thing for the rest of your life until your kid's like four, even though you know all this going in. And then that bond is really solidified. But in terms of managing your time, you know, try to do things when everybody's sleeping, if you can. Managing your time, you know, try to do things when everybody's sleeping, if you can, you know, whether that's a late night workout or whether that's an early morning workout.

Maybe your workouts don't have to be done during that time, but maybe you can figure out a way to do some of your work at that time. So those are all things I think that would be that would be really, really helpful. And just, again, being super courteous to your significant other, I think is, is the best, is the best route that you can do. Hey, you know, I picked up some food on my way home from work. Those kinds of things, just to take the burden off if she normally cooks. And also giving your spouse a lot of, giving your spouse alone time and space. Like, hey, I'm going to watch the baby, which is like pretty wild when the baby is like a baby baby. It's an experience as a dad because you just don't know what you're doing. you're doing. But that is really, really valuable to allow your significant other to, you know,

get out of the house and go enjoy, you know, something with their sister or their friend or whomever. Because I think it becomes, it kind of, I think being a mom, being like a stay-at-home mom, if that's the case that you have going on, I think is actually can be really like lonely because you're just with like a baby all day. You're not talking to an adult. And there's postpartum depression. There's all kinds of things that women deal with, but they're built so damn strong that they're able to somehow handle it all. But those would just be some of the suggestions. I really just, rather than have your focus on yourself, how do I balance all this shit out? Just kind of lean into being able to assist your spouse as much as possible. And the team effort will make your time, uh, it will help

make your time more available because your significant other should have more energy to assist on other stuff. Right, right. Did you, so something I'm kind of understanding too is like I have an awesome wife and she supports me and still like lets me sneak off a couple of days a week to go get some training in, but I still feel kind of guilty leaving. Did you experience that? And like how did you deal with the guilt of still kind of doing some things that you felt you needed to stay healthy or sane? No, I don't think you should feel guilty because it's for you.

You know, it wouldn't be any different if you told your wife, hey, I want you to go. And whatever her favorite thing is, whether it's, you know, her doing yoga or her going to a gym or even just her hanging out with her friends. Or maybe she wanted to get a manicure or pedicure or whatever it is that she's into. If you said, hey, I'm going to watch the kid, you know, while you go do is really, really important to your overall health and your mental health. I would just kind of, you know, also ask, you know, does it need to be 10 or 12 hours, you know, every single week that you're in a gym? 10 or 12 hours, you know, every single week that you're in a gym. Are there other, other, you know, are there other ways you can exercise and work out that, that maybe don't take as long, you know, like, I don't know how long you work out for, but sometimes that's the case.

You know, sometimes we, you know, train for like two hours or, or leave the house for two hours because it might be 30 minutes to the gym, 30 minutes back, an hour workout, and you're just, you're gone for a long time. So if you do two hours every single day and, you know, you add that up seven days a week or so, that might be a little excessive. And then you might be able to think, you know, oh, you know, I'm going to shift up my training program and I'm just going to train one body part per every time I go to the gym. And maybe those workouts, you know, take half the amount of time. Or maybe you can work out somewhere closer to the house.

Maybe sometimes you can even just work out at home. So those would all be things that I would look into. But, no, you definitely shouldn't feel guilty about doing anything that's for yourself because anything that's for yourself is for your whole family as well all right well last last piece does it actually get better the older they get yeah you run into yeah you run into different how old is your kid how old is your kid now he's a brand new baby like two weeks so it's a lot yeah yeah yeah it gets you know um but when they're that age you don't even have any idea why they're crying and stuff you know i know just like man this thing's i got a broken one man like this this one makes a this one makes a lot of noise um they do get they do get louder you know they're they're uh they Their crying gets louder, so you have that to look forward to. But it will get a lot better.

And also, too, what's cool is your kid goes through these stages. Your kid will go through stages, and the stages that they go through, they all take a little bit of time, so it allows you time to adjust as a parent. they all take a little bit of time so it allows you time to adjust as a parent you know once you see the kid like you know continually like breaking some of your shit then you learn to move it out of the way you know once you see your kid can run and he keeps hitting his head on the coffee table then you can you know know to just you know parents don't usually have coffee tables you know you just learn learn these things that that uh you otherwise just weren't made aware of but again it takes them so it takes them a long time to develop so you kind of have time to adjust to it oh i appreciate all the advice and everything you guys are doing

rob you're off the team thanks for calling in buddy appreciate it thanks thanks man real quick how would you so that first part when you're saying, like, you know, just how can I help my spouse out a little bit more? That's something you should be asking without kids, too, by the way. True. What about when it comes to, like, breastfeeding, though? Because, you know, we don't have the capability of doing that. Throw some titties, bro. Guess so, huh?

I got to think everything around here. I guess I got to take that croissant diet a little bit more seriously. Yeah, see? You know, I, yeah, I think that's just, you know, that's a little bit of an excuse from men, I think. You can do everything else other than feed the kid. So, you know, I think, and also women, a lot of times they'll pump their breast, you know, I think and also women, a lot of times they'll pump their breasts. You know, if your kid's being breastfed, a lot of times women will, which is a pretty, pretty cool thing to witness.

It's pretty wild. That thing making all that crazy noise. I remember my wife had to go into she'd go into like bathrooms, like wherever we were. And she's in there like pumping out her breast milk, even, even when we're on a trip and like, we don't have the kids with us, but like she kind of had to do that anyway, cause your boobs fill up and they like hurt. So how she just had to like, you know, just basically get rid of the milk.

But you know, I think yeah, you can't help with, with, you can't help with a lot, you can't help with a lot of stuff, but there's a lot of stuff you can help with. So what I used to do, my job, my job was to like, I changed diapers a lot. You know, I, I, I changed diapers like they were going out of style, you know, with my, with both of my kids. And it's like that small thing. Um, yeah, it gets bad. It gets bad when they get a little older, but when they're little, it's like not small thing um yeah it gets bad it gets bad when they get a little older

but when they're little it's like not not a huge deal and a lot like most of the time with the baby it's just pee they just pee non-stop for some reason um and so yeah i would try to help with as many things as you can assist with um it's just going to give you, it's going to give you a longer leash is really what we're after. You know, you, you want to make sure that, you know, the lady is comfortable with the things that you're doing and they're not

overly stressed out. Cool. I think in SEMA had a blowout. Now that he's back. Yeah. Let's take a, let's grab another phone call. Let's see what we got.

Okay, bro. Exploded. Caller, what's your name and where are you calling from? Hey, what's going on, guys? My name is Andrew Marquez from Northridge, California. What's going down, man? Love the name.

Thanks. Thanks. Love the show. Been a fan since bigger stronger faster 2008 uh rest in peace to mad dog thank you what i wanted to ask you guys um so i've always had a hard time sleeping always just before the gym actually closed down here in california um i had a rhythm going i was trying to get up at 4.30 like Mark. Didn't quite happen. Getting up at 5.30 seems to be where I can get up naturally.

And I was headed to the gym. Now that gyms closed down, I fell into a little rut. Stopped working out. Stopped eating good. Now I'm trying to pick that back up. I listened to a podcast with you guys and Aubrey Marcus. I'm also a big fan of Stan Efridean and the 10 minute walks. So my question is,

when do the 10 minute walks start when you wake up or is it after your first meal? You know, I, again, I think it's always best to keep things as simple as possible. So I would just do it whenever you can. best to keep things as simple as possible. So I would just do it whenever you can. Stan is a pretty big proponent of utilizing food as your cue to go for your walk. And so he wants you pretty much after every meal to try to hit up a 10 minute walk. That can be productive and it can kind of help with the meal that you just ate. It can help you digest and so on. But I would say just build the habit of figuring out when to do the walks.

And, you know, the gyms, your gym is probably open now, right? Negative. It's 24-hour fitness, so they're still closed. Oh, right, right. Plus, you're in L.A., and I think things are kind of shut down for a little bit longer near Los Angeles. Yeah. What I would suggest is that because you built a habit to wake up at 530 for at least a little bit there, I would maybe wake up at 530 or six. I wouldn't put so much reliance on really worrying about when you wake up so much as being more concerned with making sure that you get enough sleep since you said sleep is a major problem.

You know, go to bed, you know, eight hours earlier than whenever it is that you want to wake up, maybe even maybe even eight and a half hours. So you got a little extra wiggle room for the latency for the actual just, you know, you actually falling asleep. But yeah, I would I would suggest that, you know, when you wake up in the morning, rather than like a 10 minute walk, I would maybe even, you know, when you wake up in the morning, rather than like a 10-minute walk, I would maybe even, you know, just make that a little bit more than a 10-minute walk. And that way, you at least got in some exercise. And maybe you can build a habit of just saying, ah, F it, I'm going to do, you know, throughout this walk, I'm going to bang out some push-ups.

Or before the walk or after the walk, you're going to get an X amount of body weight squats and pushups just because you had one thing to do like that usually sets you forth and sets you forward towards doing more. So it's just like, just like just going to the gym. Sometimes someone is like, Hey man, just go to the gym and just do your warmup. I've heard people say that before. And I think that's great advice because you know you're not going to go to the gym and do a warm-up or go to the gym and just stretch. You know that once you stretch or warm-up, you know that you're probably going to just be like,

ah, screw it, man, I'm here. I might as well at least do some biceps and triceps while I'm here, get a good pump and feel good. So, yeah, that would be my main suggestion would be, you know, to when you wake up in the morning, try to get in a little bit of exercise and try to hit up that that walk. former routine. You know, we were talking about this the other day. One thing that Mark did during quarantine was he got better at something else outside the gym. And that's something else was, I believe, running, right? So he picked up something new to try to improve, but that in itself still helped his fitness. I know that a lot of individuals that have messaged me have really started trying, you know, I can't lift as much. So they started focusing on mobility.

And if you're having problems with sleep, um, a really good thing you can do is I have mobility videos on YouTube. There's a lot of other people that have stretching videos on YouTube. Maybe do something like that before you go to sleep, because I know it's totally anecdotal, but a lot of people tell me, and I find this for myself too, stretching versus sleep, stretching right before sleep kind of knocks you out. It really does. There's something about it that relaxes you. It allows you to just fall asleep.

But the other benefit is because you're a lifter, if you're able to get more mobile during this quarantine, when you get back in the gym, you're going to be feeling pretty damn good. You're not going to feel super tight. You'll feel maybe a little bit weaker because you haven't been lifting as much, but you'll feel good heading back into your former routine. Plus, you have a win because you've developed something new while you haven't been in the gym. Okay. Another suggestion for you would be to, you know, while you're doing your stuff in the morning, I would try to give yourself something to look forward to. while you're doing your stuff in the morning, I would try to give yourself something to look forward to. So you can listen to, you know, this podcast, or you can listen to your, your favorite podcast, or even just listen to music. Um, and then kind of use that a little bit as, uh, an

incentive, maybe after your, um, maybe after your walk and after you get in some exercise, you cook up a breakfast that you like. You know, maybe you like bacon or maybe you like omelets or something. And you can kind of think about all that. Oh, once I get this done, then I'm going to be able to do that. And like that's going to be, you know, that's going to taste good. That's going to be kind of rewarding. And you'll kind of, you might pair those two things up sometimes. You might, you know, start to associate those two things together.

those two things up sometimes. You might start to associate those two things together. So those are a bunch of suggestions that I think will work to help you head in the right direction. Okay. How do you guys feel about taking naps in the middle of the day? Yeah, I think a nap can be great. It's just sometimes hard to find the time for it. Sometimes it can be difficult because it's still like bright out as we get into the summer.

Maybe your house is a little bit warm. But if you can find time for a nap, I think a nap is great. I just think just be careful of when you place, you know, where you place the nap. Because if it's too close to bedtime, it may throw off your ability to fall asleep. Yeah, it's definitely super useful. I have one more question, guys. So, Mark, you're married. And I guess Andrew and Zima, when you guys go to family parties,

I know you guys are into fitness, eating good. How do you guys not look like the oddball that is picking and choosing what to eat at a family party? And Mark, since you're married, if you go to your wife's side, how do you make them understand that, hey, I don't eat that, without, I guess, going against their culture? um you know i've been eating in an unconventional way i guess you'd say for a really long time and it's been it's been something that is i think everybody kind of knows um i eat a lot of meat though so there's a lot of meat is like meat is usually the central focus of most parties. I guess with the exception of like maybe like Mexican food, there might not be like a meat

like entree, but most American stuff, like where you have like, you know, what do people do? They have like a barbecue, they cook up some steaks or they cook up some chicken, burgers, hot dogs. Thanksgiving is turkey, ham. Christmas is turkey, ham, right? I mean, so most of the stuff that I can think of is fairly, there's always like a good amount of meat. So I don't think anyone ever cares or even notices. Sometimes they'll ask, but I'm also, I'm not a Tupperware guy. You know, I've never, just during the bodybuilding that I did, the one bodybuilding show that I did,

occasionally I would have to just bring some food with me when we went to like a movie theater or something as a family, just because I was scheduled to eat every two or three hours. But I'm not worried about eating every two or three hours. Nowadays, I utilize a lot of intermittent fasting. Sometimes if there's just not anything on the menu for me at a gathering, I just won't eat anything. And that sometimes will bug people probably more, more so than me making a weird choice or me, choice or me picking croutons out of a salad or something weird. It'll probably be not eating anything sometimes bugs people the most, but they usually get over it really quick. They're like, you're not going to eat anything at all.

And usually I'll just say, oh, I ate before I came here. Totally fine. And usually they get over it. But I think, you know, it's a great opportunity for education. So when someone's like, man, what are you doing? You know, why are you only eating chicken and you didn't have any salad? You didn't have any, you didn't have any dessert. You didn't have, you can say, well, you know, I really got into nutrition a while back. I'm trying to build more muscle.

This is, you know, this is what I believe as the best route. And I really want to take charge of my health and nutrition. And like, I can't imagine somebody being pissed about you trying to be in charge of your own well-being. So I would sell it to people as it's like, it's about your well-being. So I would sell it to people as it's like, it's, it's about your well-being. It's not about, you know, you having abs or you having big biceps because most people, a lot of people will be put off by that because I think they're, they're scared because you're going to be so different than them because they might be fat themselves and they might kind of be worried about you, you thinking in that direction. But if you're just like, Hey, I really,

this is something I take great pleasure in. I love working out and I'm just I'm trying just to feel good about myself every day. It's like, I don't know, man, like who's going to knock that? And let me ask you this real quick. As far as the food thing's concerned. So what's the reason for you? Are you doing it because you're dieting? Are you doing it because the food is something super unhealthy and you don't necessarily want to eat it? Are you doing it because like maybe you find it difficult not to eat the food? What's the main reason? I'm curious

about that. Oh, yes. So the reason is because the food is super unhealthy. So I am Mexican. unhealthy. So I am Mexican. My wife is Filipino. And in our culture, there's a lot of bad. Yeah. I show up to events and the food is delicious. Don't get me wrong, but it's just like my stomach isn't having it. All right. I'll say... I've been... I think... Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. I've been, I think, go ahead.

Go ahead. Let me give you a little example of something like this week coming up, we have a employee party that we're going to have on Friday. And we have like a taco truck that we rent out, basically. And it is like, you know, there's three or four different types of meat there. And yes, you can eat the tacos cause they're delicious and you can have the tortilla with it. Um, or you can just, you know, eat some, eat some piles of meat. So I think, I think in a lot of cases there's, there's, there's almost always an opportunity to eat low or no carb.

So it might not be, it might not fit your macros because it might be like really dense calorically. But at least you can, at least you can side up with some sort of diet at some of these family functions sometimes. I mean, I don't know, I don't know what you guys have prepared or what the things are, but I would just try to make sure, like if you're trying to be healthier and the family makes stuff and they don't leave you with a lot of options for your food, I would try to eat, you know, before you go to the party. I would try if it's you hosting the party. I don't think there's anything wrong with you eating something different. You know, you cook up traditional stuff that, you know, everyone's going to love and like. And, you know, you cook up traditional stuff that, you know, everyone's going to love and like.

And, you know, maybe you cook up a steak, you know, for yourself. But maybe also you cook up a little bit more than just one steak that way in case someone's like, hey, I'd actually like to have that too. Then that way you can. But you also can work on kind of change. Like, does your family enjoy being unhealthy? You know, and that's a conversation that you can start to have, not to fight with everybody, but you can say someone in the family is diabetic, someone in the family is 60 pounds overweight or something, and they start asking you because they know you go to the gym. You can say, hey, you know what?

A lot of times it's the food that we're eating at these family gatherings. It's not helping. It's not assisting us to get to where we want to get to. And you can be the one in the family that maybe helps to change a lot of that. When you show up, you show up with stuff that's not healthy, not necessarily like, you know, you're not necessarily just showing up with celery or something like that, but you're bringing better options, you know, like, hey, I made

these cookies that are reduced fat and gluten-free or something. You know, you got some stuff that is just a little less offensive than maybe some of the current foods that you guys eat some stuff like that i think would be helpful okay and one last thing from a purely application point of view super easy something i suggest to people we've talked about it multiple times here on the podcast i think mark just mentioned it a little bit before too having some protein before will fill you up a little bit but also prior to having that protein before you go fast for the day. One thing that like I tell individuals to do, and one thing that I do, I've had people do this on the cruises and I've done this on cruises is fasting during the

day so that when you do eat during that evening meal or function or whatever, even if you do find yourself eating a little bit more food, it's probably not going to be such an insane amount where it messes up the progress that you've made during the day. So, you know, if you do actually, because Filipino food, bro, is bomb. Like, I'm sorry. If I go to a Filipino party, I want to enjoy those lumpias. I want to enjoy all those nice things that they got. I do want to have a bit more of it than I typically would. And something you can do, you can avoid it, of course. But if you want to, if you do want to have some of it without feeling guilty about it, fast through the day.

So you can go, enjoy some food, leave, and you're still doing okay. Okay. But it's also, it's not more about me. It's about the family because they don't work out. My family doesn't necessarily like to go to the gym. So it's more like, why are you eating this if it's so bad for you? Plus, you're not working out. Yeah, like I said, I would just try to view it as an opportunity to educate.

But don't, you know, I used to say this as a coach, like I don't talk to people that aren't sweating. So don't talk to people that don't want to hear it. You know, only used to say this as a coach, like I don't talk to people that aren't sweating, you know, so don't talk to people that don't want to hear it. You know, only the people that ask, you know, only someone that says, hey, man, why are you eating that way? Or why? Why do you choose not to eat at all? And you can say, well, I actually had like three chicken breasts and some rice before I came here because I was actually super hungry. But I ate that because I knew that there would be food here that's unhealthy for me and I'm trying to make some changes. And then they might say, well, what kind of changes are you trying to make?

You know, and then you could start to explain to them, well, I've been going to the gym for, you know, four days a week and I've been doing this. And most of the time they'll be put off by that and they won't care anymore. But you could at least, you know, at least you presented an opportunity and you could say, yeah, you know, I've been doing, you know, some 10 minute walks. I changed my nutrition a little bit. I was able to lose some weight. I was able to, as soon as I was able to lose a little bit of weight, I also felt a lot better. You know, again, if I think of you're selling people on like wellbeing, it's like, um, less intrusive.

It's less, I think if you're trying to sell people on losing weight, they may recognize that they're unhealthy. They may recognize they're fat and they might be like offended. Like, oh shit, you're saying that I'm fat. And you're like, yeah, that's what I'm saying basically is that you're fat and I want you to not be fat anymore. I'd like you to explore some of this stuff. But I think again, selling them on like wellness, well-being, feeling better, living longer, those kind of words, that's a lot different than, you know, saying, hey, you know, these foods are making us fatter, you know. Okay.

I'll definitely take this advice and i'll distribute it into the families correctly yeah you could i mean you could really i mean think about it that's pretty powerful you could help change a lot of the way that the family lives and i agree with in sema 100 too where you could still have these foods like there's no reason to cut Like there's no reason to cut out, there's no reason to like cut out your culture and to try to turn your family members from what they're used to into bodybuilders. You know, it's like, that's, that's very extreme or very excessive, but could there be some other options with food there that are, you know, not, not fried and not, you know, could you get away from some of those foods or at least just have some options that are a little bit healthier options?

Like croissants. That's right. Croissant sandwiches. Yeah. Dude, thank you so much for calling in, man. We really appreciate it. All right. Thank you, guys.

Yep. Have a great day you know filipino food is so bomb there's a spot like cultural spot by where i live and they like make it there they just have oh yeah they said that's it's so good and then uh our buddy the real mo on youtube he um he said like something you can tell people is like i can't eat this because my doctor said i can't um which it's it will work but then like they'll ask why and then you have to make up some shit so i think what mark said in the past was like just tell them you're part of a challenge at work and then all of a sudden they're like oh okay i get it because

everybody understands like oh they're probably you know they have to diet or lose weight for this challenge and then they kind of like understand that you can even lie and say like, yeah, there's like a thousand dollar pot. So I'm not going to mess up my diet for some lumpia right now. The baddest I would want to. Every single party. I'm part of this challenge, bro. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, damn, you've been part of a challenge all year. It's like, I'm a savage. damn, you've been part of a challenge all year. It's like, I'm a savage. Yes.

You could say, hey, see Uncle Joe over there? I don't want to look like Uncle Joe. Look at how goddamn fatty. I'm kidding. You're not kidding. No, I'm not kidding. I'm actually being very serious. Like, honestly, you look at the other family members and say, hey, did you ever look around?

You know, like, we don't look very healthy. Cool. Yeah. All right. You guys want some Mo? Let's do it. All right. We got six people in line right now. I wonder if there's a, is there a culture that, there's not an ethnicity or a culture that has anything that's all that healthy, I don't think.

You know, though, like, that's the thing. Health the error maybe gym bros i don't know even i've had healthy filipino food right right no i i know and mexican food is like one of the greatest examples because that could be that could be healthy in a heartbeat in a second because so much of it is meat-based a lot of these things are meat-based i think one of the worst offenders is like Chinese food because so much of it is fried, you know, and it has like a lot of sauces on it and stuff. Now it gets to be once you once you get rid of the sauce and get rid of the frying, you're getting rid of a lot of the problem, but you're also getting rid of what it was originally. Yeah.

But yeah, I can't whenever like people are like oh man you don't understand i'm italian you know you don't understand i'm and it's like i don't know of a culture that doesn't smother you with calories you know so i i don't think those aren't those aren't good excuses i don't believe yeah those those are just things that are they are environmental and you need to figure out a way to overcome them, but everyone has environmental health issues surrounding them 24-7. You know, in line with what you said. Didn't mean to do that. All good. All good.

Caller, what's your name and where are you calling from? Hi, my name is Wesley. I'm calling from Lake Deaux, Missouri. What's up, Wesley? What's going down? Not much. I've been listening to Mark now for about six, seven years. He's a huge fan. He's helped me lose about 140 pounds. Oh, hey!

That's man. And I was originally about, I've fluctuated my weight up and down since high school. And Mark's helped me lose weight a couple times. I lost my pants and then kind of got off my schedule gained most of the weight back and then uh this time i've lost like i said 140 pounds and i'm about 190 pounds and i'm wanting to get a six-pack and uh that's something i've been wanting to work for for a long time, and I'm getting a lot closer now. I'm just wondering if you guys have any tips or anything to help me get over that last little 15-pound hump.

Damn, man, it sounds like you made some really good progress in the face of some really crazy adversity. So this part I think will be easy in comparison to, you know, everything else that you had to deal with. How is your diet now? And how's your, you know, kind of current activity level? Have you been fairly consistent with your nutrition? And have you been fairly consistent with your activity? I think the nutrition, yeah, probably the most inconsistent part is my nutrition. I do stay very active during the day i work outside i i lift pretty much every day and uh always trying to find activities on the weekends to do playing basketball whatever

but it's just um i got a lot of kind of a loose not really loose skin i have a lot of uh i'm not as tight as i would like to be, but I'm trying to get there. You most, yeah. Something also to know is like, you most likely, whatever it is that you have in your head of what it is that you want to look like, I think you should make that as clear as you can. And maybe try to look at somebody else that has lost a significant amount of weight, who's gotten lean as kind of a model for you.

Because when you think about having abs, you might think about looking like Mike O'Hearn, right? And that's a cool goal, but that's very, you know, Michael Hearn looks that way from 40 years of lifting and from, you know, just really having you want to look like. And the more reasonable that is, the easier it will be to obtain that. And the easier it will be to actually be satisfied and happy with that. Because I think you may be thinking that, you know, you lost all this weight and that I'm sure is bringing you some happiness. But I think sometimes people think when I get to this next wealth bracket, when I get to this next level, when I bench that 500 pounds, when I have abs, it's going to make me happier. And it's not necessarily true. The journey of it and like the fact that you're able to lose 140 pounds, those are the powerful things. The fact that you were able to prove to yourself that you're strong enough to develop these habits over a long period of time, have them turn into willpower, not just willpower, but have these habits turn into part of your character, really, I think is the ultimate thing.

And that's sometimes more important than, you know, just like leaning out necessarily. But to get to this goal, you're going to have to be really consistent with your nutrition. And I would say that from the sounds of it, it sounds like you probably only need to be pretty consistent with your nutrition for like 60 to 90 days and you would probably get there. Right. What's the diet that you use to drop 140 pounds? How do you do that? Mostly intermittent fasting.

And just eating, you know, good whole foods. Like I said, I was a lot more consistent with it. Probably the last six months or so, I've been fairly inconsistent. But I've still been losing weight. And I just want to get over that little extra hump. I would say, like, let's try to shift the focus from, like, losing weight and shift the focus into, you know, body comp, you know, just pure body composition changes, and so

hit the gym hard, you know, eat a lot of protein, build that muscle mass because you lost so much, you lost so much weight that in addition to losing body fat, you probably also lost a combination of some muscle in there as well. And so you can kind of take advantage of revving up your metabolism by building up some, uh, some more muscle mass. I'm sure in SEMA we'll have some good advice on this as well. Honestly, man, I'm not, yeah, I'm not sure exactly, um, how you've been trending or how long you've been at the same weight, but you know, at this point you've lost 140 pounds. It might be a good idea, you know, um, to like I said, like Mark said, shift from dropping that last 15 to now maybe have the goal

of staying close to the same weight. Stay within whatever your weight is within five or 10 pounds for a few months. And if you have gym access, try to improve your performance, try to train harder, but try to do all of this while keeping your weight where it is. Because what you'll notice is after a few months, your body will look substantially different in a good way while you're at the same weight. And you might realize that maybe you don't have to lose 15 to 20 more pounds to get that six pack. Maybe you'll be able to have all of that show up where you are. Because

again, if you can keep that same weight for maybe even three months, you're going to be leaner. And if you increase your performance in the gym, you're going to be stronger and you're going to be leaner and if you increase your performance in the gym you're going to be stronger and you're going to look overall better without having dropped weight plus you've done a great job of this and mark mentioned this to you and i want to give you kudos to it you fall in love with the process of training and as long as you love training and as long as you love doing that that you're gonna get to that goal it's the individuals that are only always focused on weight loss and they don't really love training. That's more difficult for them. So you're winning already.

Okay. I appreciate you guys. Another thing, I really have a problem finding like-minded people. I'm from a small town here in Missouri, and it's hard to find like-minded people like you guys that live and breathe training. You can't find those people around here. I don't know. It's just kind of a quick question.

Like, what would you guys do to find more like-minded people in your area? But you guys are from a bigger town. So, I mean, it's obviously easier. But do you guys have any suggestions on finding something like that in a smaller town? Yeah, I would say, you know, try to go to a, if you can go to a local powerlifting meet, weightlifting competition, bodybuilding show, any of those kinds,

any number of those things that are even within, you know, 30, 40 minutes of you. And then you, when you go to these things, you know, just try to be a little proactive in communicating with people, but you'll find people. And there's, there's probably also, I would just guess that there's probably a power lifting gym within, within, within reach of where you're at, even though it feels like you're in a small town. I bet you there's some maniacs out there that love to bench squat and deadlift, and they probably have a facility that's probably not too far. It's just having a little bit more knowledge of what's around you,

what's in your surrounding areas. I know in St. Louis, the last guest was in St. from St. Louis too. Um, uh, oddly enough, but I know that a first form is there. That's, uh, Andy Frisella's, uh, company and they have like thousands of employees. Uh, those thousands of employees, I don't know if it's thousands of employees. Yeah. They got a lot of employees. Those employees are much of them are very much into fitness. They also have something there every year called Summer Smash, I think it's called, which is a giant event that has a ton of people. I think you have to like buy tickets for some, I forget how it works. But I suggest that you look that up and you'll meet a lot of people. I think Brooke Wells is from the area.

You know, I know some like CrossFit people out that way. I know of some power lifters from out that way. So there's probably some better gyms and there's probably more like-minded, like we're everywhere, you know, us fitness freaks. We have infected the whole entire country, you know, and we're all we're, we're all over the place. Yeah, it's great. It's great. Mark, you have done an amazing service with so many people out there. You have no, I mean,

I'm sure you do at this point have a little of an idea of how much you've helped people. And it's just incredible how much your word gets out and how many people you reach. Thank you, man. I really want to thank you for that. I really appreciate it. You've helped me out so much. Yeah, thank you. And I'm sorry to hear about your parents.

But again, congratulations on that. That is some really significant weight loss. And that's something that can help change and help shape the rest of your life. And you should utilize that as a learning. I think it's a good idea should utilize that as a learning. I think it's a good idea to utilize that as a learning tool that if you could lose 140 pounds and overcome some of these tragedies that have happened to you, then you can kind of tackle just about anything. You could work at any place that you want to work at. You could start a business. You could do just about anything that you want. You're you already, you already shown that you've already proved that you've

already done some things that other people may not ever, ever pursue or ever do because they just, they put their hands up and they say, Hey, you know what? This is too hard. Like I I'm, I'm way overweight, but man, I know, I know what I need to do to not be so overweight. And if that's going to take too long, I don't even want to. They just won't even start, you know, which is understandable because it is kind of scary to figure it out. So congratulations to you. That's awesome.

Thank you, guys. Yeah, have a great rest of your day, buddy. You too. I appreciate it. See you later. That was amazing. Yeah, that's awesome. 140 pounds. Incredible. I appreciate it. All right. See you later. That was amazing. Yeah, that's awesome. 140 pounds.

Incredible. That's crazy. That's a lot. Cool. You guys fill in some more? What do you think? Yeah, we can do it. We could do another one.

Yeah, just to kind of fill in a little bit of what he was talking about. And I think what Nsema and I were trying to share with him is that, and I think like most of the time, if you have a decent diet, not a decent diet, if you have a pretty damn good diet, let's say your diet's on a scale of one to 10, let's say it's between like a seven and an eight, which I consider to be pretty damn good. If you're between a seven and eight with your diet and you're very consistent with your training, if you have the right style of training, you have the right programming going on for yourself, and your diet is actually, you know, you're not lying to yourself about where your diet's at, you should be able to continue to get a little leaner just, just cause, just cause you're training like, and, or just make progress. You should always be able to make a little bit of progress. It just kind of depends on what you shift your, what you shift your attention towards.

But I think for most people, I think a lot of people are just always trying to lose weight. They're always trying to lose weight. They use that as their barometer for success. And I think that it can be a mistake. And I think with this guy weighing about 190, like it would be cool if he ended up weighing like 185. And he, you know, went through the journey of like just taking his time, losing weight. And what we know about that, we know that if we were to communicate with Wesley on a daily basis and that if we programmed for him and made him accountable, he sent us pictures, went back and forth, we know that we can get him abs in just a couple of weeks. I mean, we've done it with other people. It's not impossible. It's going to happen. But what we also know is as soon as we lose contact with somebody like that, they won't have abs anymore.

Abs will wash away. Does it with the suggestion that we gave him, you know, to kind of maintain that body weight and to go after almost maybe even being bigger? We know that a year from now, two years from now, when we see Wesley out at like a trade show, he's like, hey, you guys got me abs and probably pick up a shirt and still have them. Jacked as hell, too. Yeah. Sick. All right. Let's see who we got next. Caller, what's your name? are you where you go oh hey i'm glad to be on my name's orion fry and guess what i'm from uh british columbia canada so hey awesome man great to have you on the show

today oh hey just a little delay nope no problemo what you on the show today. Oh, hey, just a little delay. No problemo. What you got going on today? Well, today I actually just discovered you guys, and I was like, wow, Building Habits Call-In Show. So that's super cool. I appreciate what you guys are doing. Thank you. I appreciate it. So basically, I am a native Canadian, and i have a history of mental health and hospitalization

and i made it out it's been about four years since my first hospitalization and over time you know because i developed a depression too over my psychosis and i've been on meds and then i started self-medicating too I've been smoking weed for a long time but then I started smoking cigarettes and drinking and all that stuff and just recently like just recently I just quit everything all at the same time you know weed cigarettes alcohol congratulations television and video games and I've been more productive. So, yeah. Congratulations, dude. That's amazing. Thanks, man. But basically, like, my hope is advice for consistency.

Because, you know, this isn't like the first time I tried quitting cigarettes or weed or cutting out all these bad influences. So, like, yeah. Yeah, well, one suggestion I would have without knowing, you know, your full story would be to try to fill in some of those habits with things that we could agree would be healthier. You know, like, I think... Oh, absolutely. I think walking might be a good idea. Like, I'll give you some examples of what I've been doing now lately.

I've been working on my poetry book. I've been working on drawings. I've been playing my guitar more and singing aloud. I even played for people publicly for the first time. And then I also started my own YouTube channel. It's in its infancy, but I do upload daily. channel. It's in its infancy, but I do upload daily. So like, and I just, I just need like, you know, kind of like a confirmation, but also like advice on consistency, because I know I'm heading in the right direction, but I don't want to lose sight of it.

I'll just make sure that some of the things that you're doing, that they're, they're, they are things that you're strongly interested in. And I would also make sure the things that you plan on doing are simple enough to where you can incorporate them without feeling exhausted. You know, you shouldn't feel, when you get done with each day, you shouldn't feel like super tired from the different things you did. Like the saying, keep it simple, stupid. Yeah, yeah. Find things that are simple that you can do daily. It applies. But like, I want to evolve too. Like, you know,

I don't want to just keep it simple, but simple because I'm, I'm inspired by what you guys are doing here. You're helping people. You're sharing what you guys have. And that is definitely what I want to be doing. Great. Yeah. You know, Wesley, sorry, what was your name again? One more time. Not was or Orion. Orion.

Okay. Yo, Orion. We were talking about something earlier in this show and you sound like an extremely driven dude. Like first off with everything you've done so far, you're, you're winning man.

Cause that's not what you did already. First off isn't easy, but now you're taking up such that's not what you did already first off isn't easy but now you're taking up such like the guitar is difficult starting a youtube channel is is definitely something that a lot of people don't take on because it it takes work um you're doing a lot of things that take a lot of work you're winning bro but the one thing that we mentioned earlier in the show mark talked about it is recording wins. Because I know that you probably have big goals with your guitar and singing. You have big goals with your YouTube channel. You have big goals for all the things that you want to do.

And those things are in your mind, right? But it's going to be a great idea day by day to maybe, I like having a notebook. And maybe jot down some of the things you did. And just kind of write down those wins. And give yourself a pat on the back for that. Even though you're not at, you know, you're not at a hundred thousand subscribers or this or that. Maybe you gained a subscriber. Maybe you gained. It's in its infancy.

Yeah. But I do like that idea. I'm already writing things down to prepare myself before my videos so I can, you know, work on my message and my vocabulary and, you know, so I just want you to keep your eye on those wins and, and understand like those small things are progression towards the bigger goal. Um, because it's, it's very easy when you're focused on the bigger goal, it takes a while and you don't want to fall off of all the things you're doing because you're not there in the months that you want to get there. Just continue to focus on all the ways that you're winning. And that's one thing that

can help you be super consistent. Okay. That's cool. That's super cool. Yeah. Okay. You don't have to be worried about too much of your time, but like, I can, I can tell you, like, you know, I'm,'m i'm 21 i'm turning 22 this year and about four years ago i uh you know i ended up in the mental hospital because i had a psychotic breakdown you know the whole universe's pressure was built on me and it felt like it was just on me and everybody was just observing and it was it was it was very, very crazy. But, like, I learned from it. And I feel like I have something to offer other people.

It's perspective. And you guys are doing that right now. And that's inspiring to me. I just want any kind of nugget of, you know, advice. That would just be super helpful. Awesome, man. Thanks for calling in. Have a good rest of super helpful. Awesome, man. Thanks for calling in. Have a good rest of your day.

Yeah, man. You too. Cool stuff, man. We're getting some people sharing some deep, deep things. Sometimes I think people have a concern about how long something is going to take, but whether you worry about it and don't do anything about it, or whether you start on something now, time is going to pass either way. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, and you're also like pain is coming your way either way. You know, you'll either have pain from starting the thing, you know, or you'll have pain from not starting it. You start something, and now you just created a bunch more problems for you, for yourself. They're different problems and they're hopefully, all we can ever get to as human beings, I don't know if people understand this, all we can ever get to

is better problems. That's it. That's all you can ever get to. You're just going to have, you're just, I know Andrew's looking into a new home, he's going to have a pool, but he's just, you know, he's just going to have, he's got some problems here. He might reduce the level of problems at this new home. He might be like a little happier.

There'll still be problems. They'll still be like, man, this AC is a piece of shit. Or man, the internet here is super slow, right? There's always, there'll always be, you know, some issues. It's all we can ever do is to try to you know shrink down the problems that we have or make them just better problems yeah and i think you know for for him being only 21 years old he still has like three four lifetimes to figure things out too you know i think a lot of people will i i know myself i'm like by time i'm 35 i'm

gonna have it all figured out and blah blah and it blah. And it's like, shit, gotta be the next so and so and i gotta be successful and i gotta do this all before i'm you know 30 years old and it's like no not at all i hope i hope he's he hears this or he's still listening orion because um first off the fact that he shared that with us what he went through and how he's doing right now that in itself probably already helped somebody that's listening right now, that in itself probably already helped somebody that's listening right now. Because I know this guy, he has this podcast called Ace of Spada. And he's a young, he's a young dude. He's younger than me, but he has, in the past, he tried to kill himself and his coming up and, and, and, and not doing that that sharing that with other people i mean multiple

people have messaged him say you save my life he's a young cat he's like 22 yeah right he saved people's lives because he was courageous enough to share that with other people and what this guy did just right now i don't know if he's sharing stuff in terms of what's happened to him but that perspective that he mentioned that takes a lot of courage to share, a lot of strength to share. So first off, dude, congrats. And I hope that you just keep on going, dude. Yeah, suicide is a huge thing.

There's a lot, like, I think that it's important for people to understand that you're not alone. There's a lot of people who not only suffer from depression and anxiety, but there's a lot of people who have gone as far as to attempt suicide or were thinking about it every single day. It's a major, major problem in our country. And I think I think I think that will get to be, you know, such a problem that we'll we'll see us, you know, auditing that too as well coming up. I think that in the next couple years, we'll start to question more about like, you know, why aren't we more on top of mental health? Why? Why is there no? Well, I guess there's some regulations on social media, but why isn't there like a little bit more?

that social media should come with a skull and crossbones. You know, people might think that that's a little, but like I'm telling you, in the next five years, there's going to be a lot of anti-social media stuff going on because it's not just the social media itself, it's the way that we react to it. It's still our own fault. You know, we can utilize it whatever way we want. You know, I can just follow a bunch of

people that have memes and have funny stuff on there, you know, that I'm like, hey, I dig this. But no, you know, you want to follow people that mix it up a little bit here and there. You want to follow stuff that has some news and things like that. And I could be, you know, you might interpret that as being stressful, especially with all the all the different things that we're seeing right now. But hopefully that guy is still listening. And some advice I'd have for him also is to look into stoic philosophy. I know that somebody listening who's like, man, that guy sounds like he might be bipolar. He sounds like he might have these severe mental illnesses. And how could you recommend something

like that? He might need medication and so on. I still think, regardless of your circumstances, that you can still, to some degree, choose how you respond and how you react to things. It may be more difficult for somebody that has a mental illness because they might not have, they might have a chemical imbalance in their brain. They may have just a much harder time. There's some people, for example, that don't have any empathy. They have no, they don't, they don't empathize with anybody. You know, I think it's a psychopath that they don't empathize with and they don't have, they don't have the capability. However, I still think we have some control over how we filter stuff, how we take stuff in. And even somebody who's bipolar or somebody that has some conditions, they could still learn to reinterpret stuff just the way anybody else can to some degree.

learn to reinterpret stuff just the way anybody else can in to some degree cool so do we want to close the lines or do we want to take like maybe some rapid fire questions from people yeah let's take one more all right we got one more all right last caller of the day we officially get to say turn down your radio because we hurt ourselves but hey man. Yeah. Sorry about that. No,

no worries. What's your name and where are you calling from? My name is Brian. Everybody calls me backstage B and I'm calling from Houston, Texas. Why did they call you backstage B bro? I'm sorry. Just can you explain that?

Yeah. So literally I do a security and bodyguard work at a very well known and famous music venue here in Houston, Texas called warehouse live. And I've been working backstage there doing security and overseeing it since bodyguard work at a very well-known and famous uh music venue here in houston texas called warehouse live and i've been working backstage there doing security and overseeing it since 07 backstage hey that's back there you're an artist nice okay what's going on today uh so it's oh man i'm just relaxing but i gotta i guess it's okay, I'll tell you a little bit about myself and then I got a question. Yes, sir. Go for it. Literally, I was a police officer for 10 years.

During that time, I ate like crap. Of course, anybody who was in law enforcement knows during 12 hours, you're just eating whatever you can. You know, it's a stressful job during that time. I was smoking cigarettes, chewing tobacco, you know, all those kind of things. As life progressed, I slowly started to get away from all that. I stopped smoking cigarettes. Just one day I was like, why am I doing this? And stop.

Same thing with chewing tobacco. During that time, of course, in law enforcement, I always stayed healthy, stayed active, working out. Then when I got into doing the security stuff, same thing. Stayed active, stayed active, stayed active working out then when i got into doing the security stuff same thing stayed active stayed active stayed active was in like the best shape of my life i was like 210 215 pounds working out like a beast one day my food blocked on me and i literally collapsed at work it was the worst pain i'd ever felt i literally felt my food run through my system from that day for five years i dealt with every time i would eat no matter what i would It was the worst pain I'd ever felt. I literally felt my food run through my system. From that day for five years, I dealt with every time I would eat, no matter what I would eat, my left side of my stomach would swell up.

Went to multiple doctors, multiple tests. They ran me through the ringer. You name it, they did it. They said there was nothing wrong. Fast forward to January, see a video in reference to Mark and the corner board diet. I started literally changed my life, you know, for five years, I dealt with swelling to now every now and again,

I still swell up, but it's not like it used to be. But during that time of, you know, not, I guess eating carbs and fast and eating all the junk food, like I used to, I lost the size that I had maintained and gained for all those years.

So my one question is, what would be your suggestion as far as to try to get my muscle size back with only eating meat, which I've heard Mark say, just eat more meat. But, you know, for me, after like the third or fourth meal, it's like I can't eat anymore. It's like my body's just telling me no. it's like I can't eat anymore. It's like my body's just telling me no. So with all that being said, my next question would be,

my wife, I have been trying to get her to do this carnivore thing since I started in January. I've showed her the videos of what Mark said. I've showed her other videos that I found on Instagram of all these people

who are like saying like, hey, it works. But in her mind, it's not healthy. And she keeps saying, oh, it's not healthy. she keeps saying oh it's not healthy it's not right she's seen the progress from me and seeing how i went from complaining every day for five years about my stomach to not complaining about it at all so what would be your suggestion

of how can i make the horse go to the trough and drink you know what i mean that old thing you can't make them drink but like i've tried this and that and that it's like, I'm at the point where like, what else do you think I could try to do to get her to get on that? Give it a try at least. Yeah. That's always, uh, that's always kind of a tough one is to get, you know, somebody else to, uh, do some of the things that you think that you're doing. What I would maybe, um, express to her is, you know, the changes

that you've noticed and how it's helped you from like a health perspective. She also knows that you've had a, you know, an odd set of circumstances there with like breaking down and digesting your food. And she probably doesn't have that same concern for herself. And so she might think that it's a little bit of a weird diet that you tried because you had these kind of previous health conditions. But I think a key factor in trying to persuade somebody is to just leave it at persuasion and don't turn it into anything more powerful than that. Say, Hey, I think, I think you would enjoy this. You should try this with me for like three days, four days. You might even make it more about each other than you do about her or you. So if you say, Hey, let's just, I would love to do this as a couple for a couple of days. Maybe you give her

an opportunity to lay out something that she wants both of you to do or explore as well. And that way, you know, it's a little bit of a compromise. You know, you meet her halfway on something else that she's always wanted to do that you just think is going to be miserable for you. And you can you can maybe, you know, get her to do a little bit of stuff that way. But, you know, trying to like, you know, force somebody into something, no matter how much evidence you have, it just won't have, it just won't have good staying power. And maybe, maybe she has a lot of bias towards, you know, how much meat to consume. She's got all these kinds of things from her past that won't allow her to maybe kind

of see the light in the way that you have with this particular diet. But maybe you can encourage some other things. Maybe you can encourage, you know, maybe you can encourage that she eats more protein. Maybe you can encourage that she eats less carbohydrate and say, hey, let's do this together. Like your version of it can be slightly different than mine. That's okay. But I think it would be kind of neat to see, could we do it for a week together? Just as like a challenge that you kind of throw down. Additionally, I want to say congratulations.

We've had some people call in today that are a bunch of beasts. You guys are amazing. They're a bunch of beasts. You guys are amazing. That's fantastic that you took charge of your own life and found a diet that could work for you after having some of those health concerns. In terms of trying to build some muscle mass, I think bringing in some carbohydrates would probably be appropriate. And you would just have to learn, you know, what carbohydrates, um, work for you, what carbohydrates can you digest. So maybe, um, maybe looking into almost like a paleo style diet might be a good idea where

you're bringing in certain potatoes and maybe certain, uh, types of fruit, um, things, things like that. So that way it's just not it's not all you know just steak all the time and you can have some other options in there to help you build up some muscle mass which you got in SEMA well as far as you know getting

your wife to fall on board you know sometimes when you know we're saying a lot of the same things sometimes having hearing it from multiple different people really helps. So we've had a podcast with Dr. Ken Berry that is really good. And he has the doctor in front of his name. So a lot of the people that I've talked to about the carnivore diet, once they heard Dr. Ken Berry talk about it, they're like, oh, well, the doctor says it.

So it should help. We've also done multiple podcasts with Dr. Paul Saladino and Dr. Sean Baker, which are also on this channel. Really great podcasts, multiple episodes. These are things that you can show your wife. More ammo. Also, there's also some females as well talking about the carnivore diet. So I think sometimes females are like, yeah, this whole meat thing sounds like a guy thing. I don't know why, but eating vegetables sounds like a lady thing and eat meat sounds like a guy thing. I don't know why, but eating vegetables sounds like a lady thing, and eating meat sounds like a dude thing. I'm not sure where that came from or how that is,

but go to a yoga studio, and it's predominantly women, and most of those women are not going to be on a carnivore diet. They're going to be probably eating more veggies or even be vegetarian or vegan. Yeah, and although she didn't specifically talk about the carnivore diet, but Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, she talked heavily, a ton, about how women just need to eat more protein. So I think hearing from another female's perspective and also having the doctor in front of her name, I mean, she's super smart.

So I think maybe going back to the first time we had her on the podcast in studio might be a like a good way to either like educate yourself when you're talking to her or just be like hey check that check out this episode with dr gabrielle lion and you don't have to necessarily even say like anything about like carnivore diet you can just say like hey this is why it's important to uh take in more protein yeah right yeah because i mean like i said i've been trying everything even last night we had a pretty in-depth conversation, and she was like,

oh, what you're doing is unhealthy, and I'm like, well, tell me what is healthy. I'm like, because, you know, the way I look at it, the older I get, the more of the stigmas of what you're supposed to do, and you're supposed to eat so many times a day, and you're supposed to do this, and you're supposed to do that. A lot of that is just people being brainwashed from a young age

of, you know, whether it's something they're trying to sell on TV or telling you to do this. It's just the constant, you need to do it, need to do it, need to do it. But like, what is healthy? You know what I mean? I would say one of the only things that we know for sure is unhealthy is to be over like excessively overweight like that's that's like not debatable whether you know whether a cookie is unhealthy or not like we we would have to have somebody give us some good research on why they think a cookie is unhealthy because um i don't think a cookie necessarily is unhealthy if we start to eat

too many of them too often, that could be unhealthy. We know with the most degree of certainty that being excessively overweight for long periods of time is unhealthy. All the way to the point when they do autopsies on heavy people. Somebody was telling me about a documentary the other day. I've got to try to find the name of this. But there's a documentary the other day. I got to try to find the name of this, but there's a documentary. And in this documentary, they explored some heavier people. They did autopsies on them. And the inside of someone who's obese looks completely different than somebody who's not obese. And I think we can all agree like, hey, man, on the inside,

we're all pretty much the same. There's some differences. We had some difference in muscle mass, some differences in body fat, some differences in muscle types and muscle fibers. And there's some differences, but there's some major differences in the way a heart looks from someone who's really heavy versus the way a heart would look from somebody who has managed their body weight, you know, throughout their life. So that would be a focus. And for you, if you have, you know, been able to lose weight, if you've been able to get more fit and you've noticed that, you know, you're having better sleep, your performance in the gym is better, your life in general has been enhanced by you losing some weight. That would be the thing that I would focus on with your significant other rather than saying, hey, this is the diet. This is what you need to do.

This is what you should do. That doesn't work great. Maybe pulling her into a conversation of saying, like, I just think that we should make healthier choices together anyway because this is a concern for me. And I'd love for you to, you know, join me on some of this. And she tells you to go fuck yourself. Then that happens a lot in households, right? That's the kind of thing because what it is is, you know, over the last few years, I've been trying to create my own brand, which is called Horseman Worldwide. And I have friends who work security. i have friends who work law enforcement people who don't do those kind of jobs but just in general who know me and affiliate with me who have reached out to me i'm like hey what are you doing and i've given them tips based on things that i've

tried and it's worked male and female i mean there's one security guy that i worked with who lost 90 pounds. He literally called me one day and was like, hey, my life depends on it. I need some help. It literally started with changing his mindset telling him every day, hey, I can and I will. You got to say it every day, every day, every day. What blows me away is how I get all these people

to be able to change stuff, but the person in my own household won't do it. You know what I mean? I think we all feel it. Honestly, it's the people that are closest to me that don't listen to me. Straight up. I think Andrew can attest to that, right, Andrew? Oh, absolutely, yeah.

No, 100%. Yeah, so, I mean, yeah. So I got to get a few other mouths to just listen to what Mark said. I think he's got it. Yeah, right. Well, that's the crazy thing. I've been listening to what he says since January,

and like I said, I'm in great shape. If I could just gain another 10 pounds, that'd be great. Other than that, I've never felt better in my life since eating just meat. You're amazing, bro. Seriously, that's awesome the way you've been able to help people. That's great. Well, I appreciate you guys' time. I'm not going to keep you all any longer.

I appreciate what you guys do, and thank you for your time. Yeah, man. Have a great rest of your day. Catch you later. You guys have a great day. Peace. Man, we had some best listeners, man. Yeah, we had some cool guests on today.

Dude, that was great. These are easily becoming my favorite shows. This guy, he lost all that. He got in such a great shape. They sound like they're fake callers right they kind of do i hope to go buddy lose 90 pounds like hey man i tried your carnivore diet and i lost a bunch of weight it's the same guy he just keeps changing his accent he's like it's like damn smokey's doing a really good job in the other room calling us

oh man this is great i love this yeah thank. Thank you, everybody, for checking out the fan lines there. If you guys missed out or if you're listening to this after we go off air, please, please, please text the number 206-737-7369. When you do so, the next time we go live and we're taking calls, you guys will actually get a text notification telling you, hey, we're live and we're taking calls. I know a lot of people have mentioned before, like in the live chat room, like, hey, I don't do Instagram. I don't have Twitter. I don't do any social media. How can I learn when you guys are going to be live? This is the absolute best way, like hands down, because you'll get a notification on your phone. You click a link, boom, you're now listening to us live. And then of course, when we we open the fan lines you guys can chat with us just like everybody did today and super powerful stuff i mean i think everybody is going to get something from today's episode

yeah yeah that proximity thing happens you know often you know it's you um you know you you have a certain message you know in your household or you have a certain message, you know, in your household or you have a certain message kind of outside the home that people get attracted to and that people enjoy and that people practice and they gain great benefit from it. And then but inside your own home, for some reason, you can't get anybody to listen to it. A lot of times it's just this they just kind of take, they take you for granted. I mean, I remember for years, you know, talking about, you know, different supplements and different practices to have with nutrition and different practices to have with your sleep. And it wasn't a thing until it was on Oprah. And it wasn't a thing until it was on Dr. Phil. Like, I would tell my family members over and over again, hey, these things are important. You should be doing some sort of

cardiovascular training. You should be doing some sort of resistance training. And then that same uncle or that same family member comes to me a couple years later and they're like, I saw on Oprah, Tom Cruise was on there and he was talking about the importance of resistance training and what it does for your body when you're older. And then they had a woman in the crowd who, you know, and you're just like, you know, I've been talking about this for the last fucking 15 years. And you had to wait until Oprah said it, you know, to get the confirmation that you needed.

Yeah. That was us with the ketogenic diet, you know, praising like how great it can be. And then it's like, that's no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then a couple years later, so, I heard on Dr. Oz there's this keto thing. Like, do you know what that is? Like, the keto diet we talked about? Yeah. Oh, they're the same.

Yes, yes, they are. Thank you and you're welcome. Yeah, man. No, it no it's ah it's great i wonder what the like psychology is of like humans right like i think that's the right word when somebody in your household you like just don't want to hear anything they have to say when it comes to their advice but yet a random stranger even somebody on a message board you'll be like oh shit that worked for that person i'm gonna give that a try like a yeah like a dentist with a family full of bad teeth right of course yeah yeah like you know the importance of it but you know the kids maybe are still eating like sugar and you know they don't don't want to listen to the whole story you know

i think it's also because these people oprah tom cruise right you see them in one way you see them in the ideal way the only few bites that you see in movies or interviews you don't see their full person your family knows every aspect of you typically the good things and the stupid things right so when they see all those stupid things well when they hear and sema say do this but then they also like, yeah, saw and SEMA do something really, really stupid last night. They haven't,

they don't want to respect what you got to say. Yeah. They know, they know like when you watch TV that you pick your toenails or something like you're gross. I'm not listening to anything you say. You're like me picking my toes and I have anything to do with anything else. Yeah.

Oh man. So that's true. anything to do with anything else. Yeah. Oh man. So that's true. Didn't think about that one. Yeah. Awesome. That was great. Love these shows, man.

Yeah. This is awesome guys. Let's get another one soon. Yeah. You guys got anything else? That's it, man. Awesome.

Well, yeah. Well, thank you everybody for checking out this episode. Thank you to Piedmontese for sponsoring this episode. For more information on them, please check out the YouTube and Facebook descriptions, the iTunes show notes, or wherever you're listening to this on your podcast app. And again, just real, real quick, just one more time.

The number is 206-737-7369. You guys can text that number right now and you'll get a text notification the next time we do one of these shows. Please make sure you're following the podcast at Mark Bell's Power Project on Instagram at MB Power Project on Twitter. number right now and you'll get a text notification the next time we do one of these shows uh please make sure you're following the podcast at mark bell's power project on instagram at mb power project on twitter we're on linkedin facebook and of course youtube my instagram is at i am andrew z and sema how can people get in touch with you our last two numbers are six nat and sema inyang on instagram youtube and sema yin yang on tiktok and twitter mark i'm at mark

smelly bell strength is never weakness weakness never strength catch y'all later bye