TheoFit Q&A #1: Fast Food, Deficit Numbers, And Getting Protein

30 Nov 2017 · TheoFit Podcast

00:40:04

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TheoFit Q&A #1: Fast Food, Deficit Numbers, And Getting Protein

How do I meal plan in real life? I get meal planning, but how how do I eat healthy when I don't know where all my meals are going to be?

ANSWER: This answer has two parts. First, it’s not a totally necessary component of fitness. Meal planning is good for Type A personalities who like to write everything out. And if you want to do that, I recommend this little journal called the Fitlosophy Fitbook (Which I link in the show notes — at theo.fit/podcast/Question1). But I rely more on meal prep to enable me to eat healthy. And what I do is I buy 4-5 pounds of chicken breast (not chicken thighs — they’re cheaper, but have a lot more calories) and a couple bags of frozen broccoli, and I just bake them on Sunday night, or whenever I have the time. I also cook a bunch of rice. Then, I put them in a bunch of tupperware and put them in the fridge. (I use these — they have compartments, made of glass, and pretty cheap, but very high quality). That part is simple, but it’s a great Pre-Habit than enables you to make healthy diet decisions throughout the week. I use these pre-cooked meals as my “foundation,” and if I want to supplement with some other stuff to keep me sane, I’ll have some Pistachio Halo Top Ice Cream (which is like, this amazing high-protein Ice Cream) or even some Pizza Rolls that I can pop in the over.

Second, there are a lot of times you’ll be out and about and won’t be able to get to your prepared food. That’s fine. That’s why I don’t teach you some specific “TheoFit Diet” that you have to eat, but just TheoFit principles that you can adapt to any situation you’re in. The tough part about eating out isn’t eating healthy, but reflecting on your invisible psychological scripts running in the background that tell you that you have to eat unhealthy if you’re eating out. For example, let’s say you’re out at McDonald’s with friends. Get their Artisan Grilled Chicken Sandwich and substitute the fries for a side salad — and get a water or diet soda. That’s less than 400 calories, and you get get 40 grams of protein. And they have the same options at Wendy’s, or even Taco Bell has a protein bowl and salads that you can get that are very filling, but keep you in the 4-500 calorie range, rather than pushing you into the 1200 calorie range.

The important thing to realize is that if you’re eating fast food, you don’t have to get the unhealthy thing. Even if you’re at a Pizza Hut, get a salad or something.

And one more point on this — and I want to make this point about free food. You don’t have to eat free food. You just don’t. Someone brought a really nice french toast casserole to church or to work? You don’t have to eat it. In fact, you should especially refrain from eating that. Same thing with free pizza. Or free ice ice cream. You don’t have to. Or, and this is even harder, if you’re in a position where it would be truly rude to refuse food or drink that’s being offered to you, take a small serving, just take a little bite, or a small sip. You don’t have to gorge yourself or go for seconds. Just taste it and say that you’re full. If people judge you for not stuffing your face with their food, then they’re the ones being rude, not you.

But the bigger point here is this: You can’t plan all of your meals. Life happens, and nobody can perfectly plan out everything they eat. Nor do they need to. In each meal that you find yourself, remember that you’re trying to eat high protein, moderate carb, low fat — that will optimize your fullness and minimize your caloric intake. And you never, ever have to eat unhealthy food. When you realize that most of your eating habits are more a matter of psychological habit than real need, you can start rewiring your instincts. Human beings can go days without food without suffering any nutritional deficit. You can go a few hours until your next meal without “cheating.”

Hello Paul, First of all thank you for this challenge and all the valuable info you've put out. I'm excited to get started. Forgive me for bringing this up again because you've explained it in great details on the podcast and the core series article. Coming up with my TDEE has been more confusing than ever. I used both the calculators on TheoFit and the one Nate posted in the Facebook group and arrived at significantly different numbers. I'm not sure which number to go with. Your recommendation from the podcast is around 2450 (20~25% deficit) for my weight (262 lbs.). With the calculator on theo.fit my TDEE was 2620 calories which puts me at ~2000 to maintain a deficit.

Does my body fat % have to be factored into the calculating my TDEE? Does it even matter? With my prior attempt at this it was needed to get a more accurate TDEE. I could be completely wrong.

Also for the sake of counting my calories and tracking things on MyfitnessPal is it important to know the other macros(fat and carbs)?. In other words does it matter how much carbs, and fats I'm eating as long as I hit my 20% calorie deficit, lift weights and consume enough protein?

I am so grateful for all your help, and for taking the time to answers these questions.

Thank you!

ANSWER: Great questions! Two points. First, So in short, yes, you do need to take body fat percentage into account when calculating your TDEE and calorie deficit. However, I’d say that if you’re doing weight lifting and cardio 4-5 times per week at 262 pounds, then 2450 is a safe number. That calculator in the CORE SERIES gives numbers a bit on the low end, because I think it’s better to underestimate your caloric deficit, then overshoot it and think you’re in a caloric deficit when you’re really not. As you lose weight, you should decrease that number. For example, when you drop 10 pounds, move that goal from 2450 to 2350. And continue to decrease it as you lose weight in order to continue losing fat. Sorry about the confusion — there’s a bit of an art to it since people’s bodies are so different. But 2450 is a good number for you.

Second, aside from getting your protein in, it does not matter what your carb/fat intake is, as long as you hit your caloric deficit. But carbohydrates, especially unprocessed carbohydrates, are much more filling than fat. And carbs also are a much better source of energy. So, since you’re in a deficit, in order to get as much energy as possible, I would recommend getting as many carbs as you can to fuel your workouts, while hitting your deficit. If you overeat fat and undereat carbs while in a caloric deficit, you’ll feel very sluggish.

Also, one point for you on protein — since you’re a female and you have over 60-70 pounds of fat to lose, I’d say you’ll be fine shooting for 150g of protein a day. No need to shoot for more than that. Great questions.

Hey Paul, excited to see this launch! Looking forward to delving into all the stuff you've got here.

I recently got my first ring muscle-up, but for about 4 or 5 days I had a bit of discomfort/pain in my left elbow. I haven't attempted any muscle-ups since as I don't want to injure myself—what's your recommendation for getting my elbows nice and injury-resistant?

ANSWER: Great question! So, for those who don’t know, a muscle-up is basically a pull-up that you turn into a dip. So, you begin hanging from a bar, and you pull yourself up so high that you’re on top of the bar and you push yourself up vertically.

My advice to you: Stop doing muscle-ups. Especially if you’re injuring your elbows. It’s purely a vanity a movement, meaning — it looks really cool, but it doesn’t work anything particularly well. If you want to work your arms and back, just do pull-ups. If you want to work your chest and triceps, just do dips. But that strain on your elbows comes from transitioning from the pull to the push movement with your full bodyweight adding a ridiculous amount of torque on your joints. So, if you’re trying to get a date with the kind of girl who is impressed by muscle-ups, by all means, keep doing them. But if you’re pursuing fitness and wanting to work your muscles, just give up on muscle-ups. They’re not adding anything to your fitness level.

My calorie counter tracks my cardio and subtracts calories from my total goal. Does that mean I can eat more than my calorie goal? For example, my calorie tracker says I burn about 350 calories during cardio, and my calorie goal is 2000. Does that mean I can eat 2350 calories?

ANSWER: No! If your calorie counter app subtracts calories burned from steps you take throughout the day, ignore that subtraction. Your caloric goal is based on your TDEE, which already takes into account your activity level. Hit your caloric goal, no matter what. Don’t add extra calories because you did extra work for the day. That’s a very bad habit, and you can easily negate your caloric deficit for weeks on end, thinking you’re in a caloric deficit, when you’re really not.

Why are fast food restaurants trying to kill us? Chipotle, Chick-fil-A, Taco Bell...maybe the answer's no, but are there "healthy" fast foods that won't destroy your day and your calorie deficit?

ANSWER: Another good one. I dealt with this a bit above, but you can get lots of good, healthy food at fast food restaurants. Yes, 99% of their food will absolutely kill you if it’s a staple of your diet. But eating healthy food is much more about how much you eat than what you eat. So, for example, people say that it’s expensive to eat healthy. Not if your goal is fat loss. I talk about this more in the CORE SERIES article “How To Eat To Get Fit,” but remember: It doesn’t cost more to eat less. So wherever you go, you can make opportunities to eat healthy if you rewrite the invisible psychological programming in your brain associated with fast food. It just takes intentional reflection when you’re in those situations.

This is a great question, and a difficult decision to make in the moment — but it is very possible to choose the healthy option at the fast food restaurant.

I’m on day three of my taking my overall healthy seriously. TheoFit has been exactly what I needed–not simple how-to instruction, but motivation and mindset development. Thanks, Paul! My questions: What are your thoughts and recommendations for increasing protein? While staying on a low-calorie diet. If you have covered this elsewhere and I haven’t read or remembered that please forgive me.

ANSWER: That’s a great question! I haven’t covered it yet, and it can get really tricky trying to lower calories and increase protein at the same time. First, get a protein powder and supplement with a protein shake. You might think, “I can’t afford a protein powder!” But actually, you get about 20g of protein per scoop, and most protein powders cost about $1 per scoop. Even if you were to buy chicken or ground beef, you’re not going to get that amount of protein in real food for that cheap. So, I highly recommend picking up a cheap protein powder supplement at your local target (I use a protein called IsoPure Zero Carb, which is very low-calorie and extremely high quality protein, and I absolutely love it). But you can get almost the exact same thing for half the price per scoop — about .50 cents per 20g of protein — with Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Protein, which they sell at Costco or here at Amazon.

Also, this is just a little diet trick — most things we think have a lot of protein don’t. So, for example, General Tso’s Chicken, which has “Chicken” in the title, so we think it’s full of protein, is composed of about 80% fats and carbs. So, unless you’re eating pure chicken or cold cuts or steak or fish, most of its caloric value will come from fats and carbs. Deep-fried fish or deep-fried chicken can be especially deceptive in this way — we think it’s a protein-based snack, but we’re spending 200-300 calories per meal just on taste.

One little way to cut these calories out while keeping some flavor in our diets is learning how to use spices in our food. For beginners, I recommend this little 4-pack called Legion of Spice that combines some spices into little packs that you can use on meats, veggies, whatever. That’s a great way to keep flavor in your food without adding a ton of calories with butter, oil, or carbs.

How do I mentally prepare to go into the gym for the first time and/or the first week? Personally I imagine it feeling really awkward and embarrassing and probably pretty humiliating, so maybe my preparation is to just come to terms that it will suck for a short period.

ANSWER: Another good one. I cover this in the album One More Try in the track called “When I Don’t Want To Go To The Gym.” I highly recommend going that album, which you get for free as a TheoFit member, before embarking on a fitness journey — especially if you’re just getting started. Just remember: When you’re weighing the decision about whether to follow through on your commitment to work out, you’re not just deciding for today. You’re deciding for forever.

If you don’t go to the gym today, you’re more likely not to go tomorrow, and the next day. Skipping one day most of the time turns into skipping the next day. A day turns into a week, which turns into a life time, and all of a sudden one decision of laziness just rolls into a whole sedentary lifestyle, which is the very thing you’re trying to escape. So we often choose not to go to the gym because we think, “Well, I can miss one day and it’s not a big deal.” No. Today, you’re deciding your destiny. The moment of decision about the gym is the very real fork in the road for you. It’s a lie that you can skip one day and it’s not a big deal. No. Skipping is like rust. It’s like cancer. It spreads.

So here’s how to make it easier. Run through your workout one more time. Write the whole thing down in your journal before you even walk into the gym. Go to the TheoFit workout page with your workout and watch the videos of the exercises you’re about to do. Think to yourself, “I can do this. I can do that.” And go into the gym with htis mindset: “The faster I complete these, the sooner I’ll be done.” Think of it as a debt to be payed.

Fitness is not something that you own, like a house. When you work out, you’re not building physical equity. Fitness is something you rent from the universe. And payment is due in the form of difficult exercise and healthy diet. There’s no skating by on yesterday’s work. There’s no paying late. There’s just today, and you either seize this moment and start walking down the path of fitness, or you skip, adn you spend the rest of the day, and probably the rest of your life, trying to forget what could have been if you just tried. And let me tell you: When you try, life gets really good. It’s really hard in all the same ways. But you win every day, even if you lose. Because you’re mastering your body. But when you don’t try, you feel like a loser. And to some degree, the rest of your life is spent trying to forget that.

So try. Choose the gym. Pay your rent. Pay your debt to the universe and take what’s yours. Take your health. Take your fitness. Take your strength. Take it for yourself. Don’t even think about it anymore. You’re going to the gym. Consider your decision made.

What are some warm up ideas routines or stretching? Should you stretch? Personally, I know some good stuff here, but would love to hear your thoughts.

ANSWER: Two things. The best stretching you can do is a little light jogging or elliptical or a short, brief walk before your workout. Then, do a couple sets of each exercise with lighter weight before you hit the exercises really hard. This will remind your body what the exercise should feel like and kind of gets you into the “mode” of the workout. It feels like it rewires your nervous system to be in “bench mode” or “deadlift mode.” After you’ve done those lighter warm up exercises, then you can do any relevant stretches to push your muscles to the extent of their flexibility. This can be helpful, again, just to strengthen that psychosomatic link between the mind and the muscle. When you feel your fibers straining in the warmup and stretching in the stretch, it heightens your internal sense of control and authority over that particular muscle. That sounds a little tacky, but I’ll tell you what — it works.

I’m wondering how to divide up my allotted calories each day. How many do I give to breakfast, to lunch, to snack, to dinner. Do I include a protein/post workout shake. Again, so many options. I'm more open to trying things and seeing how it goes. Seems like, based on knowing myself, I'd like the most food at Dinner, so I can go to bed full, but if I don't eat something within 2 hours of waking up, I'm gonna have a headache all day. So, idk where I'm going with that. Would love to hear your thoughts in general.

ANSWER: Just try different stuff out, man. Do a day where you have a pre-workout meal, and a post-workout meal, and maybe you have 5 or 6 meals that day. Try another day where you fast all day and have a big meal at night. Make note of how they make you feel during the day, and at night. What’s your experience? Do you find it easier knowing you’ll be able to eat in a few hours, or do you feel better experiencing the hunger of not eating all day, knowing you’ll get to indulge in a large meal at night?

It’s very individual, and no particular meal timing schedule gives you any sort of advantage in muscle gain or fat loss. One thing, just out of habit — and I think there is a little science behind this — I sometimes drink a protein shake after I work out, even if I’m fasting all day until dinner. There’s some science that indicates that it’s good to drink protein right after a workout, because your body is primed to use a higher percentage of it for muscle-building — almost like the muscle is a protein sponge right after your workout. But other science says that it’s better to fast after a heavy workout, because your body is pumping human growth hormone throughout your body — especially if you worked out in a fasted state. So, either way, I don’t think it matters that much. It’s just important that in the 24-hour period, you hit your protein goal, you work out, and you hit your calorie deficit.

Hey Paul, what are some good items to purchase that will help one go deeper into fitness. I feel like I have a good arsenal of things already? For instance, I have some nice Nike Metcons Series 2 work out shoes, a jump-rope that is fit to my height, a nice workout bag, a protein shake bottle with mixer ball, a food scale, a foam roller, etc. But I’m curious what else you might thing to be good. Just curious about anything and everything related to purchasing something that will make the discipline of fitness easier.

ANSWER: Great question. I’m going to do a future podcast on this. Sorry to leave you hanging — it’s a great question. More info to come.

Are there workout apps that are good for tracking workouts?

ANSWER: Yes! For weightlifting, I recommend two apps — one is called Strong, and the other is called Stacked. I prefer Strong, because Stacked can give you some advertisements for other products at times, but they’re basically the same. Those are linked in the Show Notes.

Do you recommend any workout supplements? I'd love a podcast devoted to this. Personally, I've never taken Pre-workout, but it sounds awesome. and a great way to ensure I actually go hard in a work out. But part of me wonders, would my 300+ lb body have a heart attack if it were under that kind of stress? Would protein shakes and other supplements be a good idea if fat loss is the goal?

ANSWER: Also on this, I’m going to do a whole podcast on supplements — it might even be the next podcast. Great question. I even want to wait to answer your question about how to use supplements for different goals in that supplement podcast. But that’s great stuff.

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012. iPhone: The Death of Your Intensity
6 Feb 2018· TheoFit Podcast
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We are hypnotized by our iPhones. When you reach for your iPhone, check for notifications, browse endlessly through memes, and twitter away your time staring at a piece of glass, realize that this isn’t an act of free will. These actions are products of highly sophisticated algorithms intended for the single purpose of compelling you to pick up your phone and scroll. Social engineers in California have become rich because most people are happy to trade whatever it is they have to pay to be on the cutting edge of information. The iPhone and its applications — the Podcast app, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Imgur, all of it — consumes for most people an average of 6 hours per day.

What does that really cost us? What does it cost us to be connected all the time? And what are we really getting from it? It’s costing us, I think, our souls. We are angrier, and more offended, on our iPhones. We’re less aware when we’re hypnotized by the glass. We’re literally addicts. How often do you find yourself lingering in your car, in your apartment, with your family, just staring at this little piece of technology?

This applies to working out as well. One of the most common things I see in the gym is some guy who’s out of shape, sitting on a piece of workout equipment, literally just scrolling through his phone. It’s a tragedy. Women, I find, don’t do this as often, because they more often use interval programs that require very short breaks between sets, for which they use their iPhone timer — I think that’s fine. But there is this zombie population in the gym who literally might as well be at Starbucks. In fact, you’d probably get more health benefits by going for a 30 minute walk with a cup of coffee while scrolling through your phone than “Going to the gym” and looking at your phone for such ridiculous durations of time that you end up doing 5 or 6 sets and then going home.

Depending on who you are and what your habits are, the iPhone might be the #1 reason you’re not in shape, even though you’ve been “working out” for several months. Yes, the real reason is probably your diet. But if you find yourself using social media during your workout at all, I would guess you will only get 25% of the benefit from that workout you could get if you had your full focus on performing your routine. Not only will you be able to fit a higher volume into your workout, but you’ll have more intensity and focus during each set, pushing yourself harder, getting more benefit from each rep.

So, what’s the solution? There is only one solution: Go analogue. This doesn’t mean you should never use your iPHone. Sometimes it can be really helpful. For instance, again, if you’re using your iPhone to guide you through your workout such that it is timed so that you are unable to leisurely browse through your phone, then that’s fine. The problem with phone use is that it punctuates your workout with distractions that poke holes in your discipline, weaken your drive, and sap you of focus. This iPhone issue has been a real problem for me this past year. So, I did a couple things to fix it, and my workouts have significantly improved. Here’s what I did:
Get the Freedom App. I love this app. It requires you to delete your social media apps from your phone in order to work, but what it does is — it blocks a selected list of websites that you choose for a duration of time that you choose. So you download the Freedom App to your phone, click “Start 1 Hour Session,” for example, and then you won’t be able to access the sites you choose for 1 hour. If you feel like you can’t give up your phone during your workout, this is a great first step. And if you click the link here (click here), it gives you a discount with the code FREEDOM30 so that it only costs $20 for the year. Find another way to listen to audio. I dug up my old iPod Nano. It took me a few hours to set it up again, and to figure out how to sync podcasts with iTunes, and all that stuff. But it was 100% worth it. Now, when I leave my house to go to the gym, my iPhone actually stays either at home or in my workout bag. If you need to listen to music or podcasts during your workout, you can get an MP3 Player or iPod from Amazon for very little money. One tip: Don’t get an iPod touch. Then you’re creating the same problem for yourself. Get an MP3 player that has no wifi access like an iPod Nano or even an iPod Classic. But most people have an old one lying around. I found an old 8gb Nano from about 10 years ago, and it works great. Use an analog alarm clock. Don’t let your phone wake you up. Get some autonomy. Don’t initiate your consciousness into reality by jacking into the matrix that saps you of strength and willpower. Get up with an old school, beeping clock. I use my $13 Skmei wrist watch, which works very well for me. Use a paper notebook. I suggest the MoleSkine Professional Notebook or the official TheoFit Strong 4-Week Workout Journal. Don’t be dependent on self-quantification apps. I know that I recommended them at one point, but they are only helpful for those who have enough willpower not to look at their phone.
Again, there’s no moral requirement to ditch your iPhone during your workout. But if you ever find yourself mindlessly scrolling between sets, you shouldn’t be wondering why you’re not seeing results in the gym. That’s why. It compromises the amount of sets and reps you’re able to perform in your limited time at the gym, and it drastically reduces the intensity you’re able to bring to the table — thereby compromising your results.

I’d like to end this podcasts with a challenge for you. Try this for one week: Only use your iPhone at times you’ve pre-scheduled for 7 days. In other words, if you haven’t made a previous appointment with your iPhone, it is on airplane mode in a basket in your closet. Try it. You might think that’s impractical—that people need to get ahold of you. But, if you use iMessage on your mac, you can get most of your texts, and if you schedule two 15-minute appointments for your iPhone in your day, then you can call back any unexpected calls you’ve missed in that time. That’s the challenge. Try having an appointment-based relationship with your iPhone for 7 days, and take note of several things. Take note of how strong your desires are to go get your phone out of its hibernated state and check for notifications, and then ask yourself: “When in my life do I feel compulsions this strong for other things?” For most of us, the only times we feel such strong urges are when we are harmfully addicted to something. And then ask yourself: “Why can’t I just be present in this moment, doing what I’m doing? Why do I have to go check on insignificant notifications that only make me depressed?” Frequent iPhone use is increasingly correlated with mental illness. Do yourself a favor and complete this challenge. 7 days — only using the iPhone when you’ve made appointments. See if you can, and how you unfold spiritually as a person in that time. Or, if you try and fail, don’t judge yourself — take it as an opportunity to seriously reflect on your relationship with your iPhone: “What am I using it for? If I only have so many years on this earth, how many of them do I want to spend like a rat in a cocaine experiment?”

If you’re depressed, anxious, distracted, full of mental fog, don’t download the Headspace app — put the iPhone away, and face yourself. It’s possible what you find in an hour of iPhoneless existence is something you haven’t encountered in years. I certainly did. And it has drastically increased my focus, output, and intensity in my workouts. It has also made it much easier to be strict with my diet.

Try it. iPhone used during appointments only. Let me know what you think in the TheoFit group.

If you’re interested in reading more about this topic, check out this book by kinesiologist Andy Galpin: Unplugged: Evolve from Technology to Upgrade Your Fitness, Performance, & Consciousness.
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Motivation 009. Why You Quit (And How Not To)
4 Feb 2018· TheoFit Podcast
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Motivation 009. Why You Quit (And How Not To)
Most people are embarrassed of being disciplined. It’s weird. People wonder why you’re not lazy, thoughtless animals like they are. If you’re out at a restaurant, they’ll nudge you “Have another drink!” But the quiet implication is: “What, do you have body image issues or something?” “There’s no harm in indulging once in a while.” “Fitness is like all things in life — it’s good in moderation.” Meanwhile, they continue their stagnant descent into a state of illness. Losing muscle mass. Gaining fat. A pound, half-a-pound every six months.

There’s a reason for this common social pressure to be unhealthy. If there is a consensus that fitness in the extreme is mentally unhealthy, then the group’s physically unhealthy habits acquire this glimmer of virtue. “Treat yo’self.” And all of a sudden, you become the weird one for going to the gym instead of the bar. You become the boner killer when you order a water instead of an IPA.

And that stigma — that embarrassment you feel pressuring you to participate in the group’s self-deceiving indulgence in illness under the moniker of moderation and mental health — that will kill you. And that’s the real truth of your ability to continue with your fitness commitment after you’ve lost a few pounds. After you’ve accomplished that fitness goal that everybody congratulates you for, will you continue out of a commitment to live? Or will you accept your participation trophy of social praise and return to your current weight?

Because here’s the truth: You are either extremely strict, or you’re losing muscle and gaining fat. Once you let the line break, you’re done. Once you have the mindset of, “I’m good at fitness! I don’t need to count calories,” or “I’m doing great! I can relax a little,” you have at that moment ceased to gain progress. You’ve taken your foot off the gas. You’ve caved. That small mental compromise is the difference between accomplishing your dream goal of being as strong and fast as you can possibly be (which is a real possibility) and being satisfied with a cheap consolation prize of pounds lost on the scale. There is no middle ground. There is no “relaxing” your fitness habits. There is either up or down; there is either pushing your death date back, or pulling it toward you.

When you are in your 60s, you will either be in great shape for 60, or terrible health. And your decision today, either to get started, or to keep going, or to double down on being strict with your diet and exercise, hangs on one decision: Will you participate with American culture in self-deception, or will you commit yourself to a mindset of extreme consistency? If you choose a middle ground -- if you choose moderation -- you are choosing self-deception. If you choose to cave into the coy smile and gentle nudge of your friend’s habitual self-deception, you will cave again tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day, and that mental compromise you’ve made will go unnoticed until you’re back where you started.

People quit their fitness commitments because they are satisfied to undervalue the small mental compromises that sabotage their fitness.

Notice it. Do it. No slack. No exceptions. No uncounted calories. No unstarted or unfinished workouts. Commit to your program for a certain duration of time. Complete the program for that duration, getting back up after any slip ups, calling them what they are, and moving on. Get up. Refocus. Shake off your sense of shame and failure. And commit to a next 30 days or 6 weeks or 12 weeks. Commit. Execute. Don’t look back. Don’t look up. Don’t like to the side. Don’t get bogged down in failure. Don’t try to see the finish line . Don’t take your cues from your friends.

Your choices are yours to make. Your goals are yours to set. And the consequences of compromise are yours to face, or to ignore. Who you choose to be today is who you will be in 6 months. So choose: Better, or worse?
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Motivation 008. Do It Anyway
15 Jan 2018· TheoFit Podcast
Show Notes: https://theo.fit/podcast/motivation8

Audible Trial: http://www.audibletrial.com/theofit
TheoFit Resources:
Get a Free Trial of Audible (They kick us a couple bucks at no cost to you — if you click through this link). I love Audible. I'm currently listening to a university lectureship on existentialism, which is riveting. Truly. I recommend taking the Great Courses through audible's free trial. It's a nice counterbalance to make you feel less trashy for only listening to podcasts — like drinking Cognac and eating Doritos. (Get your intellectual cognac HERE before you listen to this Dorito-level podcast) — http://www.audibletrial.com/theofit

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Motivation 008. Do It Anyway
The things that keep you from working out aren’t “big” things. They aren’t cataclysmic events in your life. They’re little things I like to call “flinching moments.” They’re the few seconds right before the pain of sacrifice where you either choose to do it, or talk yourself out of it.

The little twinge of embarrassment, because you feel like you look stupid at the gym.

That little dip in despair because you think about far you have left to go.

That little pain of feeling stiff, or out of breath, right at the beginning of your workout.

Those are the prison bars keeping you trapped in your body, keeping you trapped in discomfort and embarrassment and weakness. Not the lack of family support or lack of finances or lack of time. Those are easy to overcome. Do 100 burpees to beat yesterday’s time every day and count your calories—you’ll be pretty healthy.

It’s the “flinching moments” that keep us trapped. Should I do the rep? Should I go for the run? Every single step of progress you make in getting stronger and healthier requires you to push through a flinching moment. It requires you to run when your joints hurt and you question the efficacy of your exercise.

“What difference does it make whether you work out or not?” That’s your prison guard talking.

“You deserve some indulgence! You worked so hard!” Prison guard.

“What’s one day off? You’re gonna work out tomorrow.”

If you don’t want to be as healthy and strong as reasonably possible, I’m not going to try to convince you to want that. I can’t. You have to convince yourself.

But if you do want that, life is too short to live in your own prison. Life is too short not to go to the gym. Life is too short not to go on a run. You get 70 years on this earth if you’re lucky. Who do you want to be at 50? 60? 70? The decisions you make today will determine whether you’re the old lady or the old man that people ask, “How do you have so much energy at your age?” Or you could be huffing and puffing just to get off the couch.

These flinching moments will tell you that they are insignificant. They’re not. They’re portals into another possible universe where you’ve made your body an advantage, rather than a disadvantage, in your role as husband, wife, father, mother, pastor, employee, student.

The pain comes now with no immediate reward. But they are portals into a universe where you’re not passively disabling yourself. There’s no shame in flinching. So flinch. But do it anyway. Pick up the weight. Run the miles. Count the calories. Stay on the path.
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Motivation 007. When You're Insanely Hungry
8 Jan 2018· TheoFit Podcast
Show Notes: https://theo.fit/podcast/motivation7
Audible Trial: https://www.audibletrial.com/theofit
TheoFit Resources:
Get a Free Trial of Audible (They kick us a couple bucks at no cost to you — if you click through this link). I love Audible. I'm currently listening to a university lectureship on existentialism, which is riveting. Truly. I recommend taking the Great Courses through audible's free trial. It's a nice counterbalance to make you feel less trashy for only listening to podcasts — like drinking Cognac and eating Doritos. (Get your intellectual cognac HERE before you listen to this Dorito-level podcast) — http://www.audibletrial.com/theofit

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Motivation 007. Defeat the Dragon of Hunger
Getting hungry feels a lot like going crazy. That emptiness in your stomach feels like a vacuum sucking your sanity away. You're not even thinking with words anymore. Just images and smells and tasteful imaginings.

You can feel the hunger sizzling in your brain, like acid, eating away at your willpower.
"After all, what's life about if you can't even enjoy a donut now and then?" "After all, it would be rude for me not to eat this French toast crumble this nice lady made." "After all, if I'm gonna exercise, I need a few extra carbs." "After all, I'll just eat a little less later."
These voices in your head are lies. They are like a seductress leading you down into the pit of death. Don't you remember the despair you felt when you decided to go on a diet? Don't you remember the helplessness and the self-hatred you felt when you looked at yourself in the mirror?

Do you really want to add one more piece of evidence to your inner demon's case against you? Do you really want to give power and authority to that voice in your head that says, "You don't have any control over your own body. You can't change. You haven't changed. You'll never change."

Now is the moment when you assert your authority over your inner demon. Now is the moment you can look back upon and say, "I did it! I was victorious! I took control of my body, and I took control of my life." This is that moment.

You can't delay this choice. It is upon you now. Will you take control of yourself, or will you surrender to despair? Will your future self remember this moment as one of those character-forging moments in your journey to a better, stronger self? Will this moment be a battle story? Or will this moment be one more in a long string of selectively forgotten moments when you wanted to change, but didn’t?

The moment cannot be delayed. Make the choice now. Write your own story of victory with the blood of agony that only you can shed.

Now Get up, and go get a glass of water. Drink it. Savor that water as the nectar of life. And consider your choice made.
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011. The One Fitness Myth That's Destroying Your Discipline
3 Jan 2018· TheoFit Podcast
TheoFit Resources:
Get a Free Trial of Audible (They kick us a couple bucks at no cost to you — if you click through this link). I love Audible. I'm currently listening to a university lectureship on existentialism, which is riveting. Truly. I recommend taking the Great Courses through audible's free trial. It's a nice counterbalance to make you feel less trashy for only listening to podcasts — like drinking Cognac and eating Doritos. (Get your intellectual cognac HERE before you listen to this Dorito-level podcast) — http://www.audibletrial.com/theofit

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011. The One Fitness Myth That's Destroying Your Discipline
Have you ever found yourself in the place where you’ve been working really hard in the gym, and you’re just not seeing the results you want? You’re going, you’re sweating, you’re working hard. But a month goes by, and … no results. Two months … very underwhelming. Why is that? How is it possible to work 5 hours a week for 8 weeks, 12 weeks, and see nothing for all that work?

I’ve coached a lot of people who have been in that place. Some of them just need to be patient—they’re only two weeks in, three weeks in, and they’re anxious to see results. It does take longer than that, and it’s natural to be impatient when you’re working hard.

But among the people that I coach, there is one variable common to every single person who didn’t get the results they wanted after working really hard for a really long time. All of them had this secret habit that they didn’t tell me about, because they thought it was kosher in the fitness world to do it. They didn’t realize that this one little idea has ruined more diets than all the laziness in the world. They didn’t realize that more people have “mysteriously” failed to achieve the results they want because they were doing this one practice that was actually putting them back at ground zero every single time.

Do you know what that Devil is? The Cheat Meal.

“Oh today’s my cheat day.” “I need my cheat meal to like, reset my metabolism.” “I’ve been good all week and I deserve this.” I remember when I gained a lot of weight, I would say stuff like that. My friend and I would be trying a diet and walk past a Panda Express: We’d look at each other: “Cheat day!” Then the excuses you need to cheat get smaller and smaller: “I took the stairs: Cheat day!” “I gave a homeless guy money: “Cheat day!”

But here’s the problem: There’s no such thing as “Cheating” in fitness. And let me explain why. The concept of cheating implies that you’re getting something by taking a shortcut—that you’re achieving the end result without taking the long route that people normally take. If you’re the banker in monopoly and you steal a few hundreds out of the bank, you’re getting the benefits without the work.

That doesn’t exist in fitness. When you take a cheat day, and you indulge in a big meal, the only person who’s getting cheated … is you. And guess what? You’re not getting the benefits. You’re destroying your benefits. Indulging in a “cheat meal” is like if you were playing monopoly, and you put a few hundred dollars into the bank without buying anything. You wouldn’t be cheating—you’d just be losing.

And that’s what you’re doing in a cheat day. You’re just losing. You’re just throwing your benefits away. You’re cheating yourself. You’re literally scamming yourself into a deal that you get nothing on. You get a couple moments of pleasure and sabotage the results of a week’s worth of pain. With a good cheat meal, I could sabotage a week’s calorie deficit. Remember: You’re only achieving a 500-1000 calorie deficit each day. Do you know how easy it is for me to overeat 1000 calories? If you let me start in the morning, I could undo a week’s worth of sweat and discipline and getting up early with a single “cheat day.”

So dial in your discipline. Know exactly what you need to be eating and how much. If you’re frustrated you’re not seeing results, and you’re “cheating” or you don’t know what you need to be eating in order to achieve a significant caloric deficit each day, that is your problem—I guarantee it.

And if you want a day where you can indulge on good food, you can do that, but you have to budget your calories. If you want to maintain your results and still indulge in foods, you have to not eat something else. That’s why it’s so dumb when all these diets sell themselves on eating junk food: “On our diet, you can eat only tweety bird Marshmallow Puffs and you’ll get a shredded six pack!” Yeah if you ate 6 a day, and you’d be severely malnourished. But I do that sometimes—I eat a medium pizza, I do extra cardio, and I wait until night time, and it’s the only thing I eat. But I only do that once in a while because it really throws off my routine, which is key to discipline.

So get that idea out of your head that you can cheat. No more cheat days. None. Zero. Cut the cancer of indulgence out of your life. You’re not doing yourself any favors. You’re not loving yourself. You’re not helping yourself. Cheat days are hurting you. Cheat days are cheating you. So if your goal is to get in shape, stop cheating yourself from all the benefits your time in the gym could be giving you, and start actually getting yourself in shape. Stop making excuses for only doing half the work, partial work, and calling it a “cheat.” It’s not a cheat. It’s just losing. So get up, write down what you need to do, and do it.
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Motivation 006. It's Time to Write Your Origin Story
1 Jan 2018· TheoFit Podcast
Show Notes: https://theo.fit/podcast/motivation6

Audible Trial: http://www.audibletrial.com/theofit
TheoFit Resources:
Get a Free Trial of Audible (They kick us a couple bucks at no cost to you — if you click through this link). I love Audible. I'm currently listening to a university lectureship on existentialism, which is riveting. Truly. I recommend taking the Great Courses through audible's free trial. It's a nice counterbalance to make you feel less trashy for only listening to podcasts — like drinking Cognac and eating Doritos. (Get your intellectual cognac HERE before you listen to this Dorito-level podcast) — http://www.audibletrial.com/theofit

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Motivation 006. It’s Time To Write Your Origin Story.
I don’t need to remind you what it feels like to be fat and bloated. I don’t need to remind you what shame feels like. You don’t need me to tell you what despair about your body and your health feels like. You don’t need a lesson in what it’s like to feel embarrassed about your body.

I want you to imagine right now two different conversations with yourself. One is with yourself six months from now, and one is with yourself today. First, you need to have an honest moment with your six-month-from-now-self. So, imagine—you’re sitting in front of yourself six-months-from-now. What do you look like? What do you feel like? I don’t know you, and I can already tell you. In six months, you look and feel exactly the way you look and feel right now in this moment.

And what you need to do is be honest about that. And confess it to yourself: “The way you look like this is because for the next six months, I never really tried to make your body any stronger, or healthier, or faster, or better, or more comfortable. I tried to try. Which means I half-assed a fitness program for a couple weeks and gave up. But the reason you are exactly the same as you were six months ago is because I did everything exactly the same.”

Now: it’s time to have an honest moment with yourself right now. You okay with that? You okay stagnating for another six months, literally cutting in half the chances you’ll make any change six months after that? Listen: lots of people are fine with remaining the same. They’re fine suppressing their embarrassment. They love lying to themselves: “No, I love my body. It’s beautiful without qualification. I’m confident. Very confident.” Maybe that’s you.

Or maybe it’s not. Maybe you want to look at yourself six months from now and you want to have questions for your six-months-from-now-self. You want to ask: “How did you get that muscle definition?” “How did you lose that fat?” “What does it feel like to look in the mirror and like it? What’s it like?” And you respond: It’s awesome. It feels great. I have lots of energy with my kids, throughout my day. I feel confident going to the gym. It was really hard at first. I didn’t like it. I felt insecure around all these meatheads at the gym. But I made myself do it, because I knew I wanted to look and feel like this. So I stopped coddling myself, and I pushed it. And when I got discouraged because I didn’t see results fast enough, I kept going.”

Guess what? You’re writing your story right now. Imagine a documentary crew is making a story about your success 6 months from now. What’s that story gonna be? What extreme measures are you gonna take? What crazy level of discipline are you going to reach so that you can write a plot twist in your story? Your six-month-from-now-self is either going to be answering questions like “How did you do it?” or you’re gonna be the one asking someone else that question.

Because I guarantee you: Someone else, right now, is having a moment of clarity. They’re looking at themselves and all the excuses they’ve made and all the odds are against them, and they’re looking at themselves six months from now and they’re having a moment of honesty that will transform their lives and their bodies. People do it every year. People do it every day. That’s why I know it’s possible for you.

It’s time. It doesn’t matter how you slept last night, or if you are disorganized, or if you think you need rest. It’s time to start exercising and eating right every single day. No more excuses. No more blogs. Pick your program. Fall in love with the pain of doing hard things. Fall in love with your process. Obsess over it. Buy it nice things. Have a crush on it. Become the origin story of yourself. Or, remain a faceless, changeless observer in the crowd of your own life.

Choices are the ink that write the story of your life. Which story are you writing? What you choose to do right now will determine the path you choose.
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010. When Self-Hatred Has Its Boot On Your Neck
27 Dec 2017· TheoFit Podcast
Show Notes: https://theo.fit/podcast/009
Audible Trial: http://www.audibletrial.com/theofit TheoFit Resources:
Get a Free Trial of Audible (They kick us a couple bucks at no cost to you — if you click through this link). I love Audible. I'm currently listening to a university lectureship on existentialism, which is riveting. Truly. I recommend taking the Great Courses through audible's free trial. It's a nice counterbalance to make you feel less trashy for only listening to podcasts — like drinking Cognac and eating Doritos. (Get your intellectual cognac HERE before you listen to this Dorito-level podcast) — http://www.audibletrial.com/theofit

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009. When Self-Hatred Has Its Book On Your Neck
If you want to be better, you have to meddle in a dark power inside you. You have to tap into something that will be a little bit toxic. That power is self-hatred—that feeling you have when you take an honest look at your body and your life and say, “Oh my God. This is ridiculous.” Now, the world will train you to silence that voice. “No, no, no—you’re fine. You don’t need to change. All that body stuff is just vain people on Instagram. You’re not a fitness person. You’re happy. You need to love yourself.”

No. You have to hate yourself. It’s the difference between getting it done every day and giving up after a couple days. But here’s where self-hatred can be bad: When you fail, and you hate yourself so much that you actually just decide to give up. How do you deal with that? Here’s how:

First, recognize that you have tapped into something that is necessary for discipline, but it is an unstable power source. This is how it’s unstable: It gets you up in the morning or gets your into the gym, but when you tap into self-hatred and then don’t go to the gym anyway—or you eat the donut anyway—then, you’re screwed. Then, self-hatred puts its boot on your neck and you feel overwhelmed, crushed, disabled, sapped of strength by disgust. And you’re tempted to abandon self-hatred altogether, because it’s so painful.

But don’t. Even though self-hatred hurts you when you fail, and even though self-hatred is cruel to you, it plays fair. And this is the second point. Listen to your self-hatred when you fail. It’s going to say, “Gotcha! I won. I was right. You’re lazy. You’re gross. You’re weak. You’re worthless.” And here’s what you say: “Today, you’re right. I failed. I was lazy. I was weak. It wasn’t pretty. But tomorrow, I’m going to remember this feeling. I’m going to remember your boot on my neck. And tomorrow, you will know the feeling.”

That’s what you do with self-hatred. You yield. And you say, “Okay. You got me today. And you know what? You’re right.” Don’t tell yourself that self-hatred has nothing to say to you. Most of the things it’s saying to you are truths you have neglected for a long time. And it hurts to hear them all at once.

And, what about self-love? What about self-care? Shouldn’t I love myself? Yes, but you’re now learning that self-love doesn’t always feel good. That was a childish conception of self-love. In fact, we now have to make a distinction between sinister self-love real self-love, and between sinister self-hatred and real self-hatred. And here’s the confusing part: sinister self-love and sinister self-hate are actually the same thing. It’s this habit we have of indulgence which destroys us. Death by self-love. Weakness by self-love. We don’t see things that make us weak as forms of sinister self-hatred—things like indulging in comfort food, and taking unearned rewards that make us fat and slow and weak and undisciplined.

So we opt for more complex, raw version of self-hatred who is every bit as much our friend as self-love. We need it for its power. We need it like the dark side of the force—to give us power when we are facing something that is just too much.

And when you fail, and self-hatred turns the knife against you and says things that hurt you, laugh it off. Shake it off. And critique your self-hatred when it says anything that smacks of finality. When you hear it say, “See? I knew you were a failure. I knew you were weak.” You say: “I did fail today. You’re right. Today’s decisions were made out of weakness. But I’m not a failure. I’m not a weak person. In fact, I’m gonna use you to make me strong. Say what you need to say. Today you can do your little victory dance. Tomorrow, I’m going to remember this. And I’m going to make you look as stupid as I feel right now.” Keep self-hatred your energy. Your focus. Your determination. Use it for your purposes. It’s powerful. But if you know how to listen to self-hatred, and if you know what to say to it, you’ll crush it better than someone who doesn’t.
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009. Why You're Not In Shape (And How To Change)
20 Dec 2017· TheoFit Podcast
If someone can't summarize how to get in shape in a single sentence, they have no business giving you fitness advice. It means they don't have a system, and it means that whatever they're telling you, they're guessing.

I can tell you how to get in shape in a single sentence.
If you want to lose fat, eat less and move more (a "cut"). If you want to gain muscle, eat more and lift heavy weights (a "bulk"). If you want to look lean and strong, alternate between a bulk and a cut 12 weeks at a time.
It's that simple. But you already knew that (Free detailed workouts here: beginner, advanced, or home bodyweight).
Why You're Not In Shape
I can summarize the big picture of fitness again with a little more specificity:
If you want to get in shape, lift weights really hard 45 minutes a day and eat only lean meats and green vegetables.
But you shouldn't be impressed by that advice, because you already know those specifics, too. You already know that working out really hard every day and eating only chicken and broccoli will get you in really great shape. Your mom taught you about broccoli when you were 4 years old.

But I can also tell you, in a single sentence, why you've never actually done these things long enough to see results.
The reason you're not in shape is that you choose to experience mouth pleasure and couch-lounging over health and vitality.
I know what you're thinking: "No, I'm busy! I have kids/spouse/job/friends/parents who need my time!" So ... why does busyness mean you have to drink milkshakes and eat pizza? Why does busyness mean you can't do a simple home bodyweight routine every day? It doesn't. This is just an excuse that you tell yourself that doesn't actually make any sense. Or, if it does make sense, the answer condemns you: You stress eat. You veg. You burn out. You self-medicate. Again: You choose to experience mouth pleasure and couch-lounging over health and vitality.

And you've probably tried to reverse that choice in the past. You exercised and ate healthy for a day or two — maybe even a week. But it never lasts. You never stick with it. You'd rather give your taste buds an orgasm for a few minutes a day than have your dream body every minute of every day. But you already knew that.

You've always known it, but you've never really accepted it: You're not in good physical shape because (1) you don't exercise and (2) you eat too much bad food. Those are choices — hard choices, but choices you make.

Now, I'm not shaming you. When we admit these truths to ourselves, it's not "self-hatred." It's self-honesty. And it's the place where every successful fitness journey begins — with admitting that you need to change.

Every single human being on this earth feels the desire to sit on the couch and eat junk food all day. Admit that you desire it, and that you choose it. You may not be able to change what you want, but you can change what you do. If you think you don't have the power to make that choice, you're lying to yourself in order to avoid feeling guilty about indulging.

That's why self-discipline makes people remarkable — it's the ability to say "No" to the desire to indulge in bad food and laziness. Self-discipline recognizes that the need for self-control is rooted in the human inclination to be weak and fat, instead of strong and lean. Self-disciplined people resist the self-indulgence inside them so that they don't meet an early grave.
How To Change
The difference between self-disciplined people and self-indulgent people is this:
Self-disciplined people are willing to admit: "I know I'm lazy and indulgent. That's why I need to work hard." Self-indulgent people say: "I work hard. Therefore, I deserve this indulgence."
Which of these two scripts do you recite every day? Do you take responsibility for your failures and begin making changes? Or do you make excuses for yourself and deny your need for change?

The crazy thing is: It's entirely possible for you to get in amazing shape, no matter where you begin. But that stings, because if it's possible, then it begs the question: "Have you just been making excuses this entire time?" That really hurts to admit. That can be the biggest barrier to fitness — self-hatred for past failure.

But here's what you do with that self-hatred: Leave it in the past.

Today is a new day. Don't cry over spilled milk. If you can take control of your body, you can take control of your entire life. You can take control of your body today if you're willing to admit that the reason you're not in shape is because you've chosen not to be in good shape. Again, this is all completely obvious — the way to change is to change. And the more you try to "explain" (or excuse) why you haven't changed, the more likely it is that you'll never change.

The moment you can admit to yourself that your body's fitness level is a direct result of your personal choices, the easier self-discipline will be. Bad genetics? Neglectful parents? Stressful life experiences? They may have all contributed to your body's present condition. But if you can read, you can make decisions for yourself. And if you can make decisions for yourself, you have the power to take responsibility for your own body.
You can choose to sit down for the next 30 minutes and commit to a workout plan for the next 30 days (beginner, advanced, or home bodyweight). You can choose start habits that make discipline and fitness. You can choose to change how much you eat and change what you eat start so that you can lose fat and gain muscle as fast as possible. You can actually have me personally walk you through all these steps in a really simple, practical way in the album One More Try: Why You Always Fail At Fitness And How To Finally Succeed (click here).
You can finally live the life you have told yourself is too far out of reach. You can reach it by reaching within when you realize that your choices are the only reason your body is in its present condition today. Choose now. Get started. Make a plan, and execute that plan.
Choose to begin right now.
I created the CORE SERIES for the sole purpose of creating a runway for your fitness. Feel free to consult other resources, but CORE SERIES is a comprehensive guide that gives you everything you need — from full workout plans to diet knowledge to discipline. Why are you out of shape? Because you have chosen to be. How do you finally change? Start. Right. Now.
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Motivation 005. When You Don't Want to Go to the Gym
18 Dec 2017· TheoFit Podcast
Show Notes: https://theo.fit/podcast/motivation5
Audible Trial: http://www.audibletrial.com/theofit
TheoFit Resources:
Get a Free Trial of Audible (They kick us a couple bucks at no cost to you — if you click through this link). I love Audible. I'm currently listening to a university lectureship on existentialism, which is riveting. Truly. I recommend taking the Great Courses through audible's free trial. It's a nice counterbalance to make you feel less trashy for only listening to podcasts — like drinking Cognac and eating Doritos. (Get your intellectual cognac HERE before you listen to this Dorito-level podcast) — http://www.audibletrial.com/theofit

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Motivation 005. When You Don't Want to Go to the Gym
It’s time to actually show up. We’re done with pre-habits. No more prep. No more practice. Showing up to the gym for the first time, or at all, is intimidating. You don’t even want to pull into the parking lot. You cringe when you walk through the door. Your joints are stiff. There are a bunch of knuckle-dragging apes blocking the water fountain. The lights are too bright. All your equipment is always taken. You have a million reasons not to go.

Run through your list of Pre-Habits. Review your workout — what muscle are you working today? Where will you do your ab workout? Where will you complete your cardio? Would it be better for your phone to be off? I see a ton of people in the gym sitting still, hypnotized by their phones. I promise you, they’re not getting in better shape. Turn the phone off when you’re done reviewing your workout. You can turn it back on when you’re doing cardio if you need it. But treat this like business.

Can the gym suck? Yes. Does it feel like you don’t belong there? Yes. Is it a reminder of how out of shape you are? Yes. Are you going to the gym because you love the pain of exercise? No. You’re going to the gym because you can choose what kind of pain you experience — The pain of working out for an hour a day, or the pain of being out of shape every day for the rest of your life?

Your whole future hangs on today. Your whole future hangs on this moment right now. Will you work out or not? If you don’t, you’re just enforcing your reason not to go tomorrow. Don’t tell yourself, “I can take a day off.” No. A day off easily turns into a week off. And that turns into a life off. That’s what you’ve already been doing. To give up today is to give up forever. To work hard today is to incrementally transform who from a weak person to a strong person.

Everything hangs on your choice right now. You’re not doomed to your fitness level. The screaming voices in your head, “I can’t! I can’t!” are liars. You get to choose whether to believe your self-doubt, or whether to disprove it. If you can get to the gym today, today will serve as scientific evidence for your future self that you can make your body do things it doesn’t want to do. You can choose to be disciplined. Don’t beleive the voice in your head that says you can’t. It wants you to be weak. It wants you to beleive that you can’t really change your body or change your life. It wants you to believe that you will forever be plagued by chaos and disorder and frustration and self-hatred.

It’s time to throat punch that voice. The idea that you are too weak to go is a lie. Get up. Get going. Go to the gym.

Go.

Right now.

Because you can.
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008. Why You Shouldn’t Train Like a Professional Athlete
14 Dec 2017· TheoFit Podcast
Read Full Show Notes Here: https://theo.fit/podcast/008

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008. Why You Shouldn’t Train Like a Professional Athlete
Today, I want to address a really common myth in the fitness industry that persuades many people. And this myth is used to sell a lot of books and programs. It’s this: If a professional athlete or model uses or endorses a particular program, then you should do it. This is why magazines like Men’s Health and Muscle & Fitness will publish articles like:

“10 Ways To Train Like a Professional Athlete”

“Train Like A Pro Athlete: Follow The Lead of The Pros to build a Bigger, stronger, More Chiseled Physique.”

Tom Brady’s Book: TB12: How To Achieve A Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance

And, while it sounds obvious — use their methods to get their results — it overlooks one basic thing: Professional athletes have been training for their entire lives, and those who make it into the Majors are the top 1% of performers of those who have been training their entire lives to achieve their level of performance.

So, what you really have at the professional level are not the people who are most knowledgeable about diet and exercise, but the most genetically gifted humans who have been training for four hours a day, six days a week, since they went through puberty. This means that, at the elite level, the people who make it their are so gifted and are surrounded by people running such a calculated program, that they could literally play Dance, Dance, Revolution for 3 hours a day and they’re gonna get stronger and faster.

It’s the same thing with models on Instagram. They have an even better advantage than professional athletes in the sense that they’re often genetically gifted and and aren’t tested for steroids. And they might not be selling you a training program, but a supplement.

We see this same thing playing out in Reebok and Nike commercials. They show clips of people sprinting with parachutes tied to their waists and running up stairs at a football stadium and doing complicated powerlifting movements while their chiseled abs and bouldering shoulders glisten in the staged lighting.

So, you think: I need to tie parachutes to my waist and learn to do complicated weight lifts and go to a football stadium. You feel like if you do anything less, you’re not going to get to the place of the models in that commercial, or the professional athletes featured in the advertisement. You think, “If I do anything less than that, my results will be less than that.”

But here’s the problem: All of the really showy movements and gear that people show off that people think constitutes “professional exercise” is more for developing certain skills related to a particular sport, but they actually do very little for developing strength or muscle.

Let me put it this way: 80% of what it takes to look and perform like a professional athlete is exactly what you’re gonna find in the TheoFit CORE SERIES program. That’s 80% of it. That will, without qualification, take you from 0% to 80% of any fitness goal you have. But to perform with professional athletes, genetics constitutes the other 10%, and those showy functional movements that they show you in ads and on commercials constitute the other 10%.

You see, athletic brands and supplements and athletes want to wrap their tentacles around your checkbook by trying to convince you that getting in excellent shape is more complicated than it really is. But it’s very simple. Making your body strong, and fast, and healthy, and lean, doesn’t require parachutes or ropes tied to a wall or jerking hundreds of pounds up and down. It requires 5 sets of 5, or 3 sets of 10 — really boring, unexciting, un-instagrammable stuff.

The fundamental tasks that will take you to any fitness goal are so boring and unimpressive that you can’t sell a product or motivate a million people with it. You can’t say, “I’m gonna go to the gym and follow this program and walk on the treadmill” and fire up a stadium. But that’s all it takes. Don’t put this burden of complexity on yourself where you’re underestimating what you’re routine is gonna get for you. To achieve maximal health and vitality, you don’t need to do the functional training that they show off in commercials. All you need to do is follow the fundamentals of weight lifting and cardio and diet. That’s it.

And if you’re able to do that with as much intensity as you can bring to the table, consistently, for several months — you will see radical changes in your body that no parachutes or Crossfit lifts or rope swinging will give you.

This is good news. All you have to do is stick to your program. You’re not functioning at Fitness Level 1. If you’re following a basic weight lifting, cardio, and diet program that includes sufficient program and sensitivity to caloric intake, then doesn’t get much more complicated than what you’re doing right now. Not at all. So get excited about your program, because that’s the vehicle that will bring you from where you are to where you want to be. There’s no special mushroom or special skill you need to add later to get you to level up in special way.

Maybe that’s what’s preventing you from working out — you think you have to work out like a pro. You don’t. Or maybe you’re tempted to skip a workout because it’s a “light day,” or you’re tempted to skip a day because your workout isn’t Reebok Commercial worthy. Don’t. Don’t let the mythology of the Reebok commercial that fetishizes the functional training of professional athletes hijack your motivation and drive to execute your fundamental training, which isn’t flashy or fun or exciting — but which gives you most, if not all, of your desired results.

Fitness is made of 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there.

Keep it simple. And focus 100% of your intensity on what’s in front of you. If you shortchange your program because you underestimate what it can do for you, then your program will shortchange your results. But if you’re dedicated and consistent with these simple principles, you’re going to see results. This is it:

Lift.

Diet.

Repeat.

No parachutes or ropes or special powders or pills required.
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TheoFit Q&A #2. What To Do After A Diet, Why I Don't Wear Captain America Shirts, And A Mini-Rant on "Fat Positive" Research
13 Dec 2017· TheoFit Podcast
Read the Full Show Notes Here: https://theo.fit/podcast/question2

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TheoFit Q&A #2: What To Do After A Diet, And Why I Don't Wear Captain America Shirts
QUESTION 1. I’m not sure now is the time (since most people here are currently in a deficit), but I would love to hear an episode on maintenance. My 13 week cut ends this Saturday, and I am typically the type to fall off the wagon a bit when in maintenance mode.

ANSWER: This is a great question because, of the people who are disciplined enough to reach their goals, it is common, once you’ve reached your goal, to fall back into a place halfway between your original state and your goal, and remain there and get discouraged. For me personally, the #1 time my willpower breaks is when I have to switch from being in a calorie deficit to being in a calorie surplus. Because, remember — if your goal is fat loss, you want to be in a 20-25% deficit. But you can’t stay in a deficit forever. Once you hit your fat loss goal, you don’t want to go right into a 10% caloric surplus and start gaining muscle — you need to rehabilitate your metabolism. Otherwise, your body will be adjusted to burn very few calories in order to do what it needs to do. But your want it to be doing the opposite. You want your body to be burning as many calories as possible when you do start trying to gain muscle so that you can eat as much as possible. For instance, if you go right from a cut to a bulk, a 10% caloric surplus for you might be 2500 calories. But if you take 2-3 months to rehabilitate your metabolism in the way I’m about to describe, your 10% caloric surplus could allow you to eat 3000 calories.

The only exception to this is if you’re really skinny and have to eat more than you’re comfortable with in order to gain muscle. If that’s the case, you probably don’t need to do a cut anyway — you just want to gain strength and muscle, so might want to aim for a 15-20% surplus and adjust week-to-week if you end up gaining more fat than you’re comfortable with.

So, this is what you do after a diet — and some of you already know this — it’s called “Reverse Dieting.” This is where, when you’ve reached your fat loss goal, you continue your exercise routine, but add 100 calories a week gradually until you’re in a 10% caloric surplus, working your way up from your 25% deficit. So you may be adding 100 calories per week in order to go from 2000 calories a day to 2800 calories a day, to take you from a deficit to a surplus. Then you can start bulking muscle.

I’ll cover what it means to bulk in another episode. Your routine doesn’t change much, except you might cut back on some of the long-distance cardio. But that’s for another day.

The short answer to this question is this: If you want to maintain your fat loss results and transition out of your calorie deficit, add 100 calories per day one week at a time, probably of carbohydrates — so we’re talking about adding 25g of daily carbs one week at a time.

This is easier said than done. The hardest part about Reverse Dieting out of your cut and into your bulk. One of the ways I stay consistent in my caloric deficit is I use its simplicity to my advantage. Eating less becomes the form of discipline I’m accustomed to. So generally, when I start eating more, I feel like I’m cheating on my diet and becoming less disciplined, even though it’s a scheduled part of my diet program. So the hardest part is not letting yourself shift into an indulgence mindset where you accelerate that extra 100 calories a week to 1000 extra calories a day — and, all of a sudden, you’re overeating and indulging because all the rules you once knew that kept you on track are out the window.

So, in this time, it’s important to shift your conception of what it means to be disciplined. The tough part is that the solution here has to be psychological, since the primary reason Reverse Dieting is so hard is for a psychological reason. So, try to get excited about the fact that you can be excited about your workouts again. When you’ve been in a calorie deficit for more than a month — maybe even two or three months — your workouts are flat, and you feel terrible. But when you start slowly adding those calories back to your diet one week at a time, you can look forward to getting that glisten back in your eye when you go to the gym. Think about adding 5 pounds onto your lifts, 10 pounds, 20 pounds, 50 pounds. Getting 10 reps instead of 5, 15 instead of 10. All this is to come. But if you add all your calories all at once, you’re going to get all those strength benefits at the expense of all your fat loss goals. You’re just going to gain that fat back to get strength if you add all your calories at once. And more than that, you’re not going to be able to eat as many calories, because your metabolism will still be adapted to a low caloric intake.

Now might be a good place to note that when you lose weight, your metabolism isn’t “damaged.” It’s just adapted. So when you hear about how abusive these TV shows are and how these people who were fat now burn less calories than they used to, the response to that are several things — (1) Of course they burn fewer calories; they weight less. (2) It takes several months for your body to re-adapt to a higher caloric intake. So after a long time in a caloric deficit, your TDEE gets lower and lower (and if you’re confused about what your TDEE is, check out the Core Series article on counting your calories at theo.fit/core). But if you progressively re-introduce calories over time after you reach your fat loss goal, your metabolism will re-adapt to a higher intake and your TDEE will naturally increase, with no damage done. One final reason that those fat loss shows may so negatively affect the metabolisms of people on the show is that they don’t focus at all on retaining muscle — it’s mainly just high-paced cardio that probably results in serious muscle loss. So, when you’re trying to win a show based on total weight lost, rather than trying to lose fat and retain muscle, you’re becoming less healthy, because the number on the scale actually encourages you to lose muscle, which is just a terrible metric for overall health — especially if you want to create something sustainable.

Long story short: Try to shift the psychology of your program from having very reliable train tracks of restriction to keep you in line to something else — like a program that has more weight lifting requirements that will stimulate strength and muscle growth. When you’re in a 10% caloric surplus, diet isn’t the hard part — pushing yourself to work hard enough to stimulate muscle and strength growth is the hard part. So try to shift your hardcore discipline mindset from restriction in diet to output in your workout. Great question.

QUESTION 2. What's in your workout bag?

ANSWER:

ANSWER: Several things! I’ll link all these in the show notes — currently:

TRX Cables

Lacrosse Ball

Readaeer Spiked Yoga Foam Roller

Dip Belt

Grip Hooks

Blender Bottle with Portable Powder Containers

Creatine Powder

IsoPure Protein

TheoFit Hoodie

QUESTION 3. Do you have a captain America workout shirt?

ANSWER:

No! If you have a Captain America shirt, I don’t judge you. I love Captain America, and I’ve seen people with those shirts, and I’ve had a little twinge of temptation to get one. But I don’t wear that shirt for the same reason I don’t get a Batman tattoo even though I really want one — The reason you like superheroes is because they look cool in those outfits and with those symbols, but you don’t look cool in those outfits and symbols. The exact opposite, actually. The only reason you should wear a fake Captain America outfit workout shirt is if you want people to look at you and think, “That guy’s not Captain America…” Because that’s everybody’s first thought. You’re just not Chris Evans. And in every way that you’re not as perfect as Chris Evans, that will be the first thing that sticks out to people who see you.

So again, I don’t begrudge those people. I think it can be a genuine expression of fandom, and if you wear it as a fan and not trying to convince yourself that you to some degree participate in the coolness of Captain America, then by all means, please do wear the shirt. But I caution against the delusion that wearing it somehow tricks people into thinking, “Is that guy … does he have that shirt because there’s some chance he has some Captain America qualities?”

QUESTION 4. For a few months now I've been getting back to the gym, starting off with cardio on the treadmill for 15 minutes then going up to 20 minutes. Along with eating healthy I have loss some belly fat and I feel more comfortable than I did before. Yet, I still have some belly fat and I know that cardio alone just won't do, but it was a good starting point for someone like me who hasn't been exercising for years. I'm ready to start lifting weights and I've been coming up with some lifting weight workout plans and days to attend the gym. Tell me if this sounds fine: On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays I'm going to lift weights then right after do some cardio on the treadmill. Then on Sunday, instead of heading to the gym, I have some weights, they're 5lb weights (not very heavy, I know) to work out just to add some workout productivity. Question: On Tues, Wed, and Friday I don't know if I should walk and lightly jog or just walk after the weight training and how long I should be on the treadmill. I don't want to overexert myself by working out 5 or 6 days a week but slowly escalate to that as I progress with the days I have planned. Some advice would be great.

ANSWER: Hey, this is a really great question! And it’s such a great question, I developed an entire workout program around it called the CORE SERIES, which you can access at theo.fit/core. The short answer is: Yes. What you’re doing is good. I do deal with this in the weightlifting program articles in the CORE SERIES, but just to briefly answer your question — yes, you can walk on a treadmill incline for 30 or 45 or 60 minutes after your weight routine. That’s what I recommend to people who are trying to do as much as possible without burning out. And you’re also right to start lifting weights. Unless you’re a genetic freak, you’ll always have some degree of flab if you’re not lifting weights. The only people who aren’t genetic freaks who get in great shape without weights are people who have the level of willpower where they can throw themselves into a bodyweight program that lasts like an hour and a half 4-5 times per week. I actually have a bodyweight program too, that I’ve tried to develop to get as much results as lifting weights in the gym. You’ll never get anything that does as much for you as lifting weights, but you can get a lot done with a bodyweight program if it’s designed properly, which mine is.

QUESTION 5. I get that I have to hit my calorie deficit, but what percentage of that has to be healthy food?

ANSWER: Great question. The short answer is this: When it comes to immediate fat loss, a healthy diet is much more about how much you eat than what food you eat. So we have a myth that if we eat a diet rich in micronutrients — like vitamins and minerals — we are eating a healthy diet, even if we are over-consuming macronutrients — like proteins, carbs, and fats — to the point where we are gaining fat. But if your immediate health or physique concern is fat loss and muscle retention, hitting you deficit is much more important, and the amount of micronutrient-rich food you eat is less important. There’s now an infamous story about a Kansas State Professor who ate a calorie deficit of only junk food and twinkies for 2 months and lost 27 pounds because he consistently hit his calorie deficit.

Having said that, generally speaking, unhealthy food — like processed food and junk food — is less filling than healthy food. For example, a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice is less filling than eating an orange. Typically conceived healthy foods — like kale and spinach and broccoli and lettuce — have very few calories in large volumes. So, if you ate 500 calories of Kale, you’d be very full, and probably have a stomach ache. But you could eat 500 calories of cashews or peanuts in a single handful and forget you even ate them 30 seconds later.

However, I don’t like Kale. So thankfully, this isn’t the kind of diet where I tell you that there are certain “superfoods” that are essential to your diet. There aren’t. Kale has no special properties at all. And I never eat it. There are dozens of low-calorie foods you can choose to eat that fill you up. We’ve listed them elsewhere, but here we can just list a few:

Canned tuna.

Celery.

Romaine lettuce.

Sugar-free Jell-O.

Broccoli.

Chicken.

Fish.

Spaghetti squash.

This is just a random list of low-calorie foods I use to fill up.

The point is this: From a psychological perspective, eating a lot of green foods and lean beef, and cutting out processed food, allows you to feel more full while eating a caloric deficit. If you cut out processed foods from your diet, you might even eat a larger amount of food than you did when you were in a caloric surplus — it’s just not as many calories.

Also, eating nutrient-rich foods will enable your body to function and think better. So, aside from feeling less full because you’re eating processed foods in a calorie deficit, you’ll also probably feel a bit sluggish and drained as well. Whereas, if you eat micronutrient-rich foods like vegetables and lean meats like top round steaks and chicken and fish, you’re going to feel more clear-headed, you’re going to feel healthier, and you’re not going to be perpetuating your cravings for bad food during your diet.

So, in summary, the benefits of eating micronutrient-rich food in a calorie deficit is: (1) You feel more full, (2) You function better mentally and physically, and (3) You teach your body to crave micronutrient-rich foods, rather than keeping them craving micronutrient-poor and calorie-dense junk foods.
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Motivation 004. When You Fail, Get Up
11 Dec 2017· TheoFit Podcast
Read the full Show Notes Here: https://theo.fit/podcast/motivation4

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MOTIVATION 004. When You Fail
You indulged. You stayed home. You ate what you should not have eaten. You refrained from that which you ought to have done. You already feel like crap about yourself, but before I encourage you, I need to know that you understand the severity of your situation. Inconsistency is like rust. If you don’t cut it out, it will consume your life. Laziness and indulgence are the greatest thieves of joy. They rot out your confidence. They poison your sense of self. When you committed to this fitness program, what did that mean to you? What does it mean to you to put your name to something? Is your name worthless? Is your word meaningless? Can you even be trusted with yourself?

There are two ways to answer that question — The book of Proverbs in the Old Testament explains these two options: “The righteous man falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity” (Proverbs 24:16).

One is with self-condemnation, which results in giving up. And you can totally give up right now. You can say, “This failure reveals exactly who I am — weak, worthless, incapable, and stuck. I’ll never become anything more.” That self-hatred and decision to be defeated is, Proverbs says, wicked. The other way to respond is with a fight. Get back up. Say to yourself: “Yes, I failed. Because change doesn’t happen overnight. But I’m pushing for consistency. I will learn how to be better from this — why I chose to be weak, and how to avoid that choice. I will get back up. I may fail again, but I’ll get back up again after that, too. I will never stop pushing this.”

You see, the difference between people who are in great shape and people who aren’t isn’t that one group has perfect compliance and the other doesn’t. The difference is that in the wake of failures, people who recommit to fitness and double down on diet and exercise, rather than giving up, eventually achieve the body they always thought was impossible.
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007. The Right Way To Stretch Before (And After) Your Workout (w/ 3rd Degree Blackbelt TROY WALKER)
5 Dec 2017· TheoFit Podcast
Show Notes: https://theo.fit/podcast/007
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Troy Walker brings over a decade of martial arts training to help us weight lifters better learn how to stretch before and after a workout session. Prevent injury. Build flexibility that supports strength. Lots of rich info and tactics in this episode.
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006. What Fitness Supplements To Buy (And Not To Buy)
4 Dec 2017· TheoFit Podcast
Read The Full Show Notes Here: https://theo.fit/podcast/006

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In this podcast, we’re going to tackle fitness supplements from five angles: (1) Some cautions, (2) The basic kinds of fitness supplements, (3) what kind not to get, (4) how you can basically make your own supplements without buying them from special supplement companies, and (5) my personal supplement recommendations.

Some Cautions About Fitness Supplements
Caution #1 — The fitness industry is under heavy investigation by the federal government. If you’re interested, you can read these articles in The New York Times and PBS, which highlight how most supplement companies proffer “pills and powders” that induce a placebo effect and create a mental addiction on a chemical that isn’t even clinically effective. If you look at any “muscle magazine” in an airport, or supplement advertisement on the internet, you’ll see someone with an absurd amount of muscle and 5% bodyfat telling you that they got that way by doing old-fashioned hard work and taking their special sponsored brand of Branch Chain Amino Acids. It’s a lie. They got that way by injecting anabolic steroids into their bloodstream and working out for 2 hours a day. If you look at any modern bodybuilder or model who looks like he or she has an unattainable body, it’s because they have an unattainable body. They’re not doing old-fashioned hard work, and they probably don’t even use the brand they promote. This is how they make their money — by getting in really good shape by using steroids, and then telling the public that they used Company ABC’s product to get that way. Another important thing to remember — when you see someone in a photo who is in great shape, even the best models don’t look like that all the time — even the ones on steroids. Usually what they do is they starve themselves for 3 months or so while maintaining their muscle (because they are on steroids) and go to a photo shoot on the verge of passing out from dehydration. So, any muscle building or fat burning supplements are sold by images of people that don’t actually maintain that level of fat loss. Just so you know. Caution #2 — Most fitness models you see endorsing supplements are on steroids (even the women). People got in really good shape before supplements. Supplement companies have all these sales pitches that make it sound like you can get a free lunch with working out and eating — like if you just take their supplement, it will make your workouts twice as effective and your calorie deficit twice as big. But the danger in this is that you end up using supplements to compensate for willpower that you could put forward by yourself. So, instead of using a supplement to help you work out twice as hard as you normally could, most people use supplements as a crutch that allows them to put in half the effort and get normal results. In other words, using supplements puts you in a weird position psychologically, because it becomes very tempting to cheat on your diet and workouts because you’re spending cash on supplements. In reality, supplements are only going to give you a 5-10% edge on your diet and exercise. The only reason most people think they can’t work out without it is because they’ve become psychologically dependent on it, so they use it to give them a 50% edge, when really they could achieve that with their own willpower if they didn’t have that felt dependence. In psychology, they call this “learned helplessness” — and supplements are the means by which a lot of people develop these unnecessary addictions. People in marketing call these “sticky products,” which means customers become addicted to them and make repeat purchases every single month. So, the basic point here is that supplements can put you in a weird mental space in your own posture toward your diet and exercise program, so here are the two situations in which you should use them: Caution #3 — You don’t ever need a supplement — despite what companies tell you. You’re really struggling to get started with fitness, and you need to implement some biological trigger that gets you into “fitness mode.” I get this — I do it with my Pre-Workout supplement. When I take it, it’s less about the chemicals, and more about the feeling of drinking a fitness drink. You’re already doing a workout program, and are teetering on the edge of quitting, and need to implement a biological trigger or aid to keep you compliant, or to see results that will motivate you to keep going when you can’t. With many supplements, people begin to perform better just because they’re taking something. This happens all the time with all medicine and habit change — people see change that they want to see, and they manifest change because they want to attribute value to the thing that they paid for. It makes them feel smart for purchasing the product, rather than foolish. So, it’s important to keep in mind that a lot of anecdotal testimonials about supplements aren’t filtered for that placebo effect. Caution #4 — There is a huge placebo effect with most supplements. Now, that’s not to say the placebo effect is a ripoff. It’s not. Change is change. Fat loss is fat loss. And if you need a supplement to effect that change, there’s no shame in that. Like I said, that’s the reason I use it many times. Caution #5 — Fitness companies don’t really tell you what’s in the bottle. When you look at a supplement bottle ingredient list, most of the time, it doesn’t actually tell you how much of what stuff is in it. It will tell you, “This supplement has 5 grams of Super Mega Muscle Juice Blast XXX.” And then they will list the ingredients in order of weight, from most to least. That’s what they call a “proprietary formula,” which is basically supplement companies hiding behind intellectual property rights in order to scam you. So, if you do buy a supplement, it’s important to know what you’re looking for when you look at an ingredient label, rather than just reading their ad copy on the bottle that says, “Our Super MEga Juice has this ingredient that’s proven to increase performance!” Really? It’s proven? Says you, the guy whose job it is to sell me this stuff? And how do I know that you put as much in a scoop of this stuff that they proved was effective in the study? Sure, it might contain good stuff, but is there a potent enough dose of it in each scoop to spend $40 on a bottle right now? We’ll deal with that more below, but you always need to know what you’re spending your money on, why, what you hope to get out of the money you spend, and who you’re trusting when you spend that money. Caution #6 — Save yourself the time shopping around, and just buy on Amazon Whatever you do, don’t buy your supplements from a GNC or Vitamin Shoppe unless you’re in a bind — their products are marked up on average 25%-50% what you can get on Amazon. And, if you can find deals better than Amazon on other sites, if you have Amazon Prime and get free 2-Day shipping, whatever money you’d save is basically made up for with the free, nearly instant shipping on Amazon. So, unless you have a great reason otherwise, just buy from Amazon. Caution #7 — Supplements will do nothing for you if you’re not pushing yourself in diet and exercise. A lot of people get stuck on supplements and fall into a bad place with their diet and exercise, but keep taking workout supplements. Then, they’re taking these supplements that are only useful for the sole purpose of optimizing extreme commitments for a lifestyle that doesn’t utilize those supplements. Taking supplements doesn’t make it as if you’re working out and dieting, even when you’re not working out and dieting. They add maybe 10% effectiveness and efficiency to a program that’s pushing you. Overuse of supplements can tax your liver and kidneys. This is the case for any orally ingested supplement. That’s why Nyquil warns you not to take more than a couple servings in a 24 hour period because it could damage your liver. It’s also why people who take steroids inject the steroids with a needle — because they’re taking such a high quantity of drugs that if they were to take them orally, their liver and kidney would crap out on them in a few months. Now, don’t let this scare you away from supplements entirely. It just means that (1) if you have liver or kidney issues, you should opt for natural alternatives to synthetic supplements, which I help you think through below, and (2) if you want to take supplements, don’t abuse them or take more than the recommended dosage. This is extremely tempting for pre-workout users who think that the more pre-workout you take, the more intense and strong you will be. But usually, taking too much pre-workout just sends your brain into a state of overarousal and can actually make you so frantic that you’re distracted and unfocused. I talk more about this in the CORE SERIES article, “Why You’re Not Disciplined,” which you can read at theo.fit/core.

Kinds of Fitness Supplements

Pre-Workout

Pre-Workout is basically anything you take before your workout in order to get pumped up. No matter what supplement you get, basically the primary psychological ingredient is going to be caffeine. So in the average Pre-Workout, you’re getting 6-8 cups of coffee in a single scoop that you mix in with water.

Now, there are a couple other ingredients people will do a little more than that. If you’ve ever taken a pre-workout supplement that makes your heart beat faster and makes you feel tingles in your skin, those are the effects of something called Beta Alanine, which is proven to help your circulatory system work at a super-optimized level to deliver oxygen to your muscles and to your brain. Basically, 5g dosages of Beta Alanine have been definitively proven to increase exercise performance and focus. Again, we have to remember that this effect can become addictive and actually stunt your mental perspective because it’s so powerful — so you end up with enhanced mental focus, but also diminished mental intensity because you’re depending on a chemical to be disciplined rather than your own willpower.

You can do both — you can use your Pre-Workout to take your 100% effort and bring it to 110% o even 120%. But one way to make sure that what you bring to the table before you take your workout doesn’t slip into lazy dependence on the chemical is to only use Pre-Workout every other month. That way, you ensure that (1) you’re not building up a chemical tolerance to caffeine and Beta Alanine that ultimately makes them ineffective, and (2) you’re not becoming mentally addicted to the edge Pre-Workout gives you that it actually corrodes your own mental commitment to work out hard.

So, that’s Pre-Workout — basically a nutritional supplement that adds intensity to your workout by optimizing your cardiovascular system.

Creatine

Creatine helps to prevent your body from eating away at your muscle in a calorie deficit, and it helps your body to add muscle faster if you’re in a caloric surplus trying to add muscle. Think of Creatine as the post-workout version of Pre-Workout supplements. The best things you can do for post-workout recovery is eat protein and sleep a good 7-8 hours. But creatine will maximize the results of that. There’s no psychological effects of creatine.

To sum up creatine, it’s scientifically proven to help muscle and strength development and to prevent the loss of muscle and strength (read more about it here), and there are rumors that it’s bad for your liver, but that’s simply untrue (read about that here).

Protein

We’ve covered protein quite a bit at TheoFit, but suffice it to say, protein is just the kind of cells that exist in food that your body can use to rebuild your muscles after you’ve worked out. If you ate 0g of protein every day for the rest of your life, your body would cannibalize itself and you’d die. There’s a reason anorexic and bulimic people lose muscle — because they never metabolize or fully digest protein — and therefore their body turns on their muscle mass, which is the foundation of their immune system, in order to get energy to live.

When you’re in a calorie deficit, your body is never more tempted to cannibalize your muscle for energy. This is why many people who want to get in shape and try to run and achieve a caloric deficit, but don’t lift weights or eat protein, just end up looking smaller. But they’re not necessarily healthier.

But, it’s really hard to eat all the protein you need — I recommend at least 1g of protein per pound of lean body mass while weight lifting in a calorie deficit. So, people take protein powders — which most commonly are just dehydrated and powdered milk. Now, milk protein is about 20% Whey Protein, which your body uses to build muscle very quickly, and about 80% Casein protein, which your body takes a long time to digest, but which aids in long-term muscle recovery. Most protein is Whey Protein, which is basically protein that’s been powdered and filtered into only the fast-acting stuff. But you can get protein from anything — there’s pea protein, vegan protein, soy protein, bone protein — you name it, they sell it. And it’s all pretty much the same. The only reason you might want to use Whey Protein is that it is metabolized — or, absorbed — by your body faster than other proteins.

Multivitamin

Multivitamins are sold on the common myth that they help you live longer. But there are three reasons you actually shouldn’t take them: (1) One epidemiological study showed that those who take multivitamins tend to die earlier than people who don’t, (2) The supplement industry is so unregulated that there is no way to control for whether the vitamins they say are in the pills are really in the pills, and (3) vitamins for food are much more bioavailable than those in pills — for instance, if you were to eat 100mg of vitamin C from an orange, and 100mg C from a pill, your body would digest and utilize a higher percentage of the vitamins from the food. You can read more about these studies at a couple articles I provide in the show notes, one of them from the Bekeley Wellness Center (here, and here).

I will, however, recommend one multivitamin pill and then not deal with it again below — and that is a supplement by a company called Legion Athletics. They sort of admit that it’s impossible to get all the nutrients in a single pill that people say you can get. So what they do is this — they put what you would normally be told you’re getting in a multivitamin pill, crush down the real food versions of those vitamins, and basically put that crushed real food in eight god-awful horse pills that you have to choke down to really get all the nutrients you need.

So, if you’re really looking to take a supplement that gives you “nutritional insurnace” without having to focus too much on eating certain foods with certain vitamins, then I’d say legion is the way to go — and, that product is linked in the show notes.

Get the Legion Multivitamin here (click here).

Greens Supplement

Greens supplements fall under the same category of multivitamins. There’s a lot of scammy stuff out there, and most of the promises that come from green supplements are really ambiguous and sound like hocus pocus. Greens Supplements are essentially a whole class of supplements that emerged from a single image of drinking a “greens shake” in the morning and thinking that’s somehow extremely healthy, rather than just a way to destroy your bowels.

So, if you want to feel like a yogi and balance your chi, then knock yourself out and buy a $100 bag of “Athletic Greens” (Don’t). Or, if you are a super health-image-oriented person, that same company that makes the multivitamin — Legion — makes a Greens Supplement called Genesis (click here to get it) that’s cheaper and more modest.

BCAA

There is this supplement people often take called BCAA’s — that’s Branch Chain Amino Acids. Essentially, these are different proteins that are meant to help the Whey Protein you take be more effective. Think of using Whey Protein as using basic gas, and adding BCAA’s as making it Premium. Two of the primary amino acids are called Leucine and Casein, which are really helpful to supplement when trying to prevent muscle loss — especially if you’re getting older and losing muscle mass (Read about Leucine here, and Casein here).

BCAA’s are great to take if you’re over approach age 50 and really pushing the line on your calorie deficit while lifting weights, but only if you have a very expendable budget. If you’re tight on budget, they’re not worth it at all — better to spend your money on basic whey protein supplements, or pre-workout with creatine in it, which I’ll get to more below.

Nootropic

A nootropic is a brain-optimizer. All I’ll say is this: Nootropics won’t do anything for you if you don’t suffer from brain fog. If you have the ability to sit down and focus, you don’t need a nootropic. But if you suffer from a constant lack of ability to stimulate mental energy or clarity, they can be helpful. Here are two kinds of nootropics to stay away from — one is too weak, and the other is too strong. Fish oils are generally too weak to significantly improve brain performance if you suffer from severe mental fog, and the other end is adderall, which you should only get from your doctor if you truly suffer frmo ADHD.

Now, the middle ground — for those who struggle to focus but don’t have ADHD — I recommend a nootropic called Ascend, which has a really impressive scientific board of advisors behind its production. But currently, it’s out of stock. So, your second best bet is Onnit’s Alpha Brain, which has mixed reviews, but I’ve heard good things from friends — they say it increases your focus but can sometimes make you a bit nauseous. I think if you have a strong stomach for that kind of stuff, you’ll be okay. You can get it here (click here).

Fat Burners

You have to be really careful with fat burners, because back in the 90’s and early 2000’s, Hydroxycut was basically giving people these liver-destroying amphetamines that would absolutely cause fat loss, and also take a decade off your life. So, stay away from Hydroxycut and any stimulant-based fat burner. There are some herbs and roots that do two things: (1) They suppress your appetite, making your calorie deficit easier to hit, and (2) they have what’s called a “thermogenic effect,” which means that it makes your body more inefficient at using energy, thus requiring more calories to burn to maintain your body, thereby essentially raising your BMR and your TDEE.

So, that’s great — but we need to make a distinction between “fat burners” that help you lose weight by basically poisoning you, and those that are just naturally and functionally assist your diet and exercise. I’ll recommend a few of those below.

Testosterone

Some people will sell you testosterone supplements — this is, 100% of the time, a scam. Testosterone does assist in building muscle and losing fat, which is why men generally are more muscular than women, but it’s currently regulated to the point where you can’t take a pill-form and see any significant changes. The only way to raise your testosterone levels in a way that effects real change in your body is to take enough that you actually have to inject it. And there are two reasons for this. One is that you want to be a roid monster and take steroids in an attempt to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is currently illegal in the United States, but there are certainly ways of doing it. The second reason to get injectable testosterone is through your doctor — if you have what they call “Low T levels,” meaning you have low testosterone levels causing brain fog, fatigue, and depression. You can get tested for this by your doctor, and receive what’s called TRT — testosterone replacement thereapy. This will give you medically administered testosterone shots that you can use to bring your testosterone to a normal level. Most guys approaching 50 who feel mental fog and depression should consider this as a great way to assist your fitness attempts.

However, don’t buy testosterone pills. They are either (1) not enough to cause any significant difference in your body, or (2) liver-damaging. Just don’t buy T-Pills at all. It’s not worth it, and science simply has not given us anything besides anabolic steroids to cause any noticeable change.

Do-It-Yourself Supplements

Pre-Workout

Work out fasted with coffee.

Creatine

Eat red meat — especially wild game like venison, elk, boar, bison, stuff like that.

Protein

Chicken breast or egg whites.

Multi-Vitamin

If you regularly eat red meat and broccoli, you’ll be fine. The only thing you might need to supplement is vitamin D — a lot of people are realizing that emotional and physical dysfunctions are resulting from a vitamin D deficit, so it could be helpful to supplement this (click here for the vitamin D supplement I personally use).

Greens Supplement

You don’t need a Greens Supplement alternative — if you really want one, you can go out and get some kale, coconut milk, and chia seeds and get your yogi on. But don’t expect any amazing results beyond feeling like a health nut.

BCAA

In order to get BCAA’s, just get protein from milk, which contains lots of Casein, and cheese, which contains Leucine. Chicken is also very dense in Leucine. Again, this adds a couple percentage points of optimization to your protein intake — but in reality, that’s what being smart about fitness is: It’s getting every edge we can get, doubling down on it, and adding them all up to get the best results we can.

Nootropic

A good nootropic to boost your brain in the morning is to not eat breakfast, put a tablespoon of grass fed butter in your morning hot coffee (good brands are Kerrygold and Lurpak), and take it with a vitamin D supplement. That will boost your brain like crazy.

Fat Burners

The best at-home fat burner is not eating anything. For some reason, for me, only eating one meal a day makes fat loss much easier and more effective. There’s nothing magical to eating once per day, but for some reason, when I do it, I shed fat much faster.

Testosterone

The best thing you can do to boost your testosterone is to lift heavy weights. Eating one meal a day increases testosterone as well. Actually, if you supplement with vitamin D, eat one meal per day, and lift heavy weights 4-5 times per week, you will drastically increase your testosterone. Also, fat loss increases testosterone — since obesity is correlated with low testosterone levels.

Again, you’re not going to look like Arnold after raising your testosterone levels, but it might be the added vitality and focus you’ve been missing.

Budget Supplements I Recommend

If you want an all-in-one Pre-Workout, Creatine, and PRotein in the same powder, it’s quick and dirty, but it gets the job done — check out N. O. Shotgun (I used this for a while and had great results — I might use it again soon).

Pre-Workout

C4 Pre-Workout

Creatine

Optimum Nutrition Creatine Powder

Protein

Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey ($30)

Expensive Supplements I Recommend

Pre-Workout

N.O. Xplode ($37)

Legion Pulse ($40)

Creatine

Legion Recharge ($35)

Protein

IsoPure Protein ($40)

Multi-Vitamin

Legion Triumph ($35)

BCAA

Optimum Nutrition Instatized BCAA ($25)

Greens Supplement

Legion Genesis ($40)

Fat Burners

Legion Pheonix (non-caffinated) ($35)

Legion Forge (caffinated, for fasted training) ($35)
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Motivation 003. Superpower Amnesia
4 Dec 2017· TheoFit Podcast
Read Full Show Notes Here: https://theo.fit/podcast/motivation3
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MOTIVATION 003. Superpower Amnesia
Have you ever daydreamed about having a superpower? Most people do, because it’s something that would make them special.

If you're like most of the people, you want your body to do be as superhero-like as possible — strong, lean, energetic, able. But who has the time? Or the money? or the energy? So the only thing you can do with the gap between you and a superpower is to try to just forget that you’re disappointingly normal.

I love the movie Unbreakable with Bruce Willis. It's about this guy who has super strength, but basically suppresses his strength and forgets it as a teenager because he meets a girl that hates violence, so he lives a normal life so that he can be with her. The movie was marketed as a horror movie that didn’t mention the main character’s powers at all — partially because the director was M. Night Shyamalan, who was known at the time for making The Sixth Sense. Quentin Tarantino says that movie missed a big marketing opportunity. He said, the movie should have been marketed like this: "What if Superman really existed in our world, but he didn't know he was Superman?"

I’m not gonna try to convince you you're Superman. But I do think you have a power that you've told yourself you don't have. And that superpower is self-discipline. But your self-discipline is asleep inside you. Your self-discipline will only wake up when you start doing things that need it. When you start performing feats that require it.

This is all cliche stuff, I know — right? But listen: Scientists and experts are telling you the opposite. Some people will tell you that the more you use your discipline, the less you have. They say that the more willpower you use in the morning, the more tangled your mind will be throughout the day. This ... is a lie.

When you wake up early when you’d rather stay in your warm, cozy bed. When you go to the gym when you’d rather just not. When you pick up the weight when you’d rather just go home. When you put the donut when you’d rather scarf it down. These decisions give you more discipline, not less.

When you work out in the morning, you feel great. When you get that mental win, you have more self-discipline. You have more willpower. Because now your discipline is awake. Your superpower's not asleep anymore. When you made your muscles burn, when you let your stomach grumble, when you tell inner cry-baby "No," you remembered your superpower.

And tomorrow, you'll remember the lesson you learned: Staying in your warm bed, not working out, giving into cravings, these things make you feel less than super. They're like amnesia. If you had a superpower, and you knew that certain habits gave you amnesia about your superpower, wouldn't you do everything to avoid those habits? Discipline is like having telekensis for your own body — you have psychic control over a physical object in the universe.

But laziness makes you forget that power. And you abandon yourself to your own fabricated sense of powerlessness. Acting like you lack discipline puts your discipline to sleep.

That's why you can't wait for discipline to motivate you. You can't wake up your discipline by watching a YouTube video. You can't wake up your discipline by getting inspired. The only way to wake up your superpower is by doing hard things that need it.

When the morning comes, it will be dark. The sun will not be there to get you up. The artificial lights in your house will hurt your eyes. Your house will be too cold. The universe will feel very unwelcoming to you when you want to do the hard thing. Your stomach won't feel good. Working out won't sound good.

Splash some water on your face, drink your coffee, put your clothes on, leave your house, turn on your favorite podcast, it's time to roll.

If you stay in bed, or you skip the gym, or you say, “Ah screw it,” to your diet, you're gonna forget that you have this amazing psychic power lying dormant in your mind, just waiting to be woken up by the right choice — by the right challenge. Or you could live life business as usual— tomorrow morning, you'll be even less likely to to remember what you’ve got inside you. The more you do, the stronger your mind gets. The more you say “No” to yourself, the more your discipline wakes up and gets to work for you.

But you’re on your own for the first 10%. The first 20%. Maybe the first 30%. You’re on your own. You have to build that initial momentum. You can’t rely on your discipline to get you started.

Getting out of bed isn't gonna feel good. You're gonna hate it. You’re gonna feel sore from your last workout and think, “I shouldn’t be here.” But when you're cruising to the gym, or getting warmed up, or putting your clothes in your locker, take that moment and call upon your superpower: “Hey. time to get up. Time to work.” You did it. Super power, engaged. You just left the shire. Time to experience the entire hero's journey over the course of your workout — you’re gonna have mental blocks that need bulldozing, temptations to quit early that need resisting, self-doubts that need rejecting. And you just happen to have the superpower perfectly tailored to break the backs of all of those voices.

When you're done, you'll have put your demons to bed. And you'll be walking out of the gym feeling super, because you remembered a piece of you that you’re so used to forgetting for the sake of comfort. You woke up your superpower that was so convenient to forget. But now he’s awake. And he’s with you for the rest of the day. Because if you just get up and work out, you can have super willpower for your entire 24-hours. So get up, let's go. It’s time to remember what you’ve got.
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Motivation 002. Compliance, Honor, and Shame (Explicit)
2 Dec 2017· TheoFit Podcast
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MOTIVATION 002. Go To The Gym. Your Honor Is On The Line.
(No Manuscript) — Do you ever find yourself going to the gym and leaving 15 minutes later? It happens to me all the time. ... Wait ... It happens "to me"? No. I choose to do it all the time. I even did it this morning. But I rectified it at night. And I learned a valuable lesson: If you are committed to fitness, you need to view compliance with that program as a matter of your honor. Have you put your name to it? Good. Use that commitment to fuel your intensity. Have you felt shame when you fail to try your hardest? Good. Use that shame to fuel your honor.

Now go to the gym. And be a man or woman of honor.
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Motivation 001. Working Out When Life Sucks
1 Dec 2017· TheoFit Podcast
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It’s great to have a fitness program. But if there’s one thing that can throat punch all our good intentions, it’s life. I’ve spent so many rest periods between sets thinking about life crises that were going on at the time. I’d pick up the weight and think, “How could my girlfriend dump me like that?” “What did my boss mean in that email?” “What if I just left — or didn’t go at all — and fixed this little work issue that’s bugging me?”

All these voices claw at us, telling us that exercise is unimportant and trivial and vain and unnecessary. It drags us down, and keeps us chained to the floor of busyness, never really achieving the things we want — Things like feeling strong, being strong, being fast, the satisfaction of making yourself healthy, the joy of adding decades to your life.

Easily stolen one day at a time with a little lie — And that lie is this: Exercise does not matter, because you have other obligations in life. And this is what you say to that voice:

Exercise matters because I have more important things to do.

I have a whole life left to live.

I have a family to protect.

I have body to care for.

I have a job that requires my vitality and my focus.

I have a fleshly craving to which I must learn to say “No.”

I have a mind to strengthen.

I have muscles that will either get weaker or stronger.

Exercise matters because everything in my life will get better, or worse, depending on whether I go to the gym today and pick up that weight and eat that healthy food.

Bosses will always be there to email you.

Boyfriends and girlfriends will always be there to break your heart.

That email will always need to be sent.

That little thing will always be undone.

That bill will always need to be paid.

We never, ever have a perfect mental situation for working out.

But we do know that that boss, that family, that relationship, that email, and that little detail, they’re taking from your focus. Don’t liquidate your mental energy first thing the morning, and offer your body on the altar of sacrifice to the little details that will repeat themselves tomorrow. As much as you want to, don’t put the oxygen mask on the kid first.

Put your oxygen mask on first. Make yourself strong. Push through the set. Pick up the weight, even when you’re plagued with anxiety and depression and all the distractions are screaming at you to leave. Just do the work you’ve written down on the page. Lift the weight. Perform the rep. The more you do this, the more you’re gonna own all that other crap even better.

You’re strong. You’re capable. You’re ready. Don’t think. Just do. If you don’t, you’ll just push your failure out of your mind, because you’re so good at that. But if you show up and do that hard physical work, yourself later today will be on their knees in gratitude that you were strong enough to push through.
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TheoFit Q&A #1: Fast Food, Deficit Numbers, And Getting Protein
30 Nov 2017· TheoFit Podcast
Read Full Show Notes Here: https://theo.fit/podcast/question1
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TheoFit Q&A #1: Fast Food, Deficit Numbers, And Getting Protein
How do I meal plan in real life? I get meal planning, but how how do I eat healthy when I don't know where all my meals are going to be?
ANSWER: This answer has two parts. First, it’s not a totally necessary component of fitness. Meal planning is good for Type A personalities who like to write everything out. And if you want to do that, I recommend this little journal called the Fitlosophy Fitbook (Which I link in the show notes — at theo.fit/podcast/Question1). But I rely more on meal prep to enable me to eat healthy. And what I do is I buy 4-5 pounds of chicken breast (not chicken thighs — they’re cheaper, but have a lot more calories) and a couple bags of frozen broccoli, and I just bake them on Sunday night, or whenever I have the time. I also cook a bunch of rice. Then, I put them in a bunch of tupperware and put them in the fridge. (I use these — they have compartments, made of glass, and pretty cheap, but very high quality). That part is simple, but it’s a great Pre-Habit than enables you to make healthy diet decisions throughout the week. I use these pre-cooked meals as my “foundation,” and if I want to supplement with some other stuff to keep me sane, I’ll have some Pistachio Halo Top Ice Cream (which is like, this amazing high-protein Ice Cream) or even some Pizza Rolls that I can pop in the over.

Second, there are a lot of times you’ll be out and about and won’t be able to get to your prepared food. That’s fine. That’s why I don’t teach you some specific “TheoFit Diet” that you have to eat, but just TheoFit principles that you can adapt to any situation you’re in. The tough part about eating out isn’t eating healthy, but reflecting on your invisible psychological scripts running in the background that tell you that you have to eat unhealthy if you’re eating out. For example, let’s say you’re out at McDonald’s with friends. Get their Artisan Grilled Chicken Sandwich and substitute the fries for a side salad — and get a water or diet soda. That’s less than 400 calories, and you get get 40 grams of protein. And they have the same options at Wendy’s, or even Taco Bell has a protein bowl and salads that you can get that are very filling, but keep you in the 4-500 calorie range, rather than pushing you into the 1200 calorie range.

The important thing to realize is that if you’re eating fast food, you don’t have to get the unhealthy thing. Even if you’re at a Pizza Hut, get a salad or something.

And one more point on this — and I want to make this point about free food. You don’t have to eat free food. You just don’t. Someone brought a really nice french toast casserole to church or to work? You don’t have to eat it. In fact, you should especially refrain from eating that. Same thing with free pizza. Or free ice ice cream. You don’t have to. Or, and this is even harder, if you’re in a position where it would be truly rude to refuse food or drink that’s being offered to you, take a small serving, just take a little bite, or a small sip. You don’t have to gorge yourself or go for seconds. Just taste it and say that you’re full. If people judge you for not stuffing your face with their food, then they’re the ones being rude, not you.

But the bigger point here is this: You can’t plan all of your meals. Life happens, and nobody can perfectly plan out everything they eat. Nor do they need to. In each meal that you find yourself, remember that you’re trying to eat high protein, moderate carb, low fat — that will optimize your fullness and minimize your caloric intake. And you never, ever have to eat unhealthy food. When you realize that most of your eating habits are more a matter of psychological habit than real need, you can start rewiring your instincts. Human beings can go days without food without suffering any nutritional deficit. You can go a few hours until your next meal without “cheating.”
Hello Paul, First of all thank you for this challenge and all the valuable info you've put out. I'm excited to get started. Forgive me for bringing this up again because you've explained it in great details on the podcast and the core series article. Coming up with my TDEE has been more confusing than ever. I used both the calculators on TheoFit and the one Nate posted in the Facebook group and arrived at significantly different numbers. I'm not sure which number to go with. Your recommendation from the podcast is around 2450 (20~25% deficit) for my weight (262 lbs.). With the calculator on theo.fit my TDEE was 2620 calories which puts me at ~2000 to maintain a deficit.
Does my body fat % have to be factored into the calculating my TDEE? Does it even matter? With my prior attempt at this it was needed to get a more accurate TDEE. I could be completely wrong.

Also for the sake of counting my calories and tracking things on MyfitnessPal is it important to know the other macros(fat and carbs)?. In other words does it matter how much carbs, and fats I'm eating as long as I hit my 20% calorie deficit, lift weights and consume enough protein?

I am so grateful for all your help, and for taking the time to answers these questions.

Thank you!

ANSWER: Great questions! Two points. First, So in short, yes, you do need to take body fat percentage into account when calculating your TDEE and calorie deficit. However, I’d say that if you’re doing weight lifting and cardio 4-5 times per week at 262 pounds, then 2450 is a safe number. That calculator in the CORE SERIES gives numbers a bit on the low end, because I think it’s better to underestimate your caloric deficit, then overshoot it and think you’re in a caloric deficit when you’re really not. As you lose weight, you should decrease that number. For example, when you drop 10 pounds, move that goal from 2450 to 2350. And continue to decrease it as you lose weight in order to continue losing fat. Sorry about the confusion — there’s a bit of an art to it since people’s bodies are so different. But 2450 is a good number for you.

Second, aside from getting your protein in, it does not matter what your carb/fat intake is, as long as you hit your caloric deficit. But carbohydrates, especially unprocessed carbohydrates, are much more filling than fat. And carbs also are a much better source of energy. So, since you’re in a deficit, in order to get as much energy as possible, I would recommend getting as many carbs as you can to fuel your workouts, while hitting your deficit. If you overeat fat and undereat carbs while in a caloric deficit, you’ll feel very sluggish.

Also, one point for you on protein — since you’re a female and you have over 60-70 pounds of fat to lose, I’d say you’ll be fine shooting for 150g of protein a day. No need to shoot for more than that. Great questions.
Hey Paul, excited to see this launch! Looking forward to delving into all the stuff you've got here.
I recently got my first ring muscle-up, but for about 4 or 5 days I had a bit of discomfort/pain in my left elbow. I haven't attempted any muscle-ups since as I don't want to injure myself—what's your recommendation for getting my elbows nice and injury-resistant?

ANSWER: Great question! So, for those who don’t know, a muscle-up is basically a pull-up that you turn into a dip. So, you begin hanging from a bar, and you pull yourself up so high that you’re on top of the bar and you push yourself up vertically.

My advice to you: Stop doing muscle-ups. Especially if you’re injuring your elbows. It’s purely a vanity a movement, meaning — it looks really cool, but it doesn’t work anything particularly well. If you want to work your arms and back, just do pull-ups. If you want to work your chest and triceps, just do dips. But that strain on your elbows comes from transitioning from the pull to the push movement with your full bodyweight adding a ridiculous amount of torque on your joints. So, if you’re trying to get a date with the kind of girl who is impressed by muscle-ups, by all means, keep doing them. But if you’re pursuing fitness and wanting to work your muscles, just give up on muscle-ups. They’re not adding anything to your fitness level.
My calorie counter tracks my cardio and subtracts calories from my total goal. Does that mean I can eat more than my calorie goal? For example, my calorie tracker says I burn about 350 calories during cardio, and my calorie goal is 2000. Does that mean I can eat 2350 calories?
ANSWER: No! If your calorie counter app subtracts calories burned from steps you take throughout the day, ignore that subtraction. Your caloric goal is based on your TDEE, which already takes into account your activity level. Hit your caloric goal, no matter what. Don’t add extra calories because you did extra work for the day. That’s a very bad habit, and you can easily negate your caloric deficit for weeks on end, thinking you’re in a caloric deficit, when you’re really not.

Why are fast food restaurants trying to kill us? Chipotle, Chick-fil-A, Taco Bell...maybe the answer's no, but are there "healthy" fast foods that won't destroy your day and your calorie deficit?
ANSWER: Another good one. I dealt with this a bit above, but you can get lots of good, healthy food at fast food restaurants. Yes, 99% of their food will absolutely kill you if it’s a staple of your diet. But eating healthy food is much more about how much you eat than what you eat. So, for example, people say that it’s expensive to eat healthy. Not if your goal is fat loss. I talk about this more in the CORE SERIES article “How To Eat To Get Fit,” but remember: It doesn’t cost more to eat less. So wherever you go, you can make opportunities to eat healthy if you rewrite the invisible psychological programming in your brain associated with fast food. It just takes intentional reflection when you’re in those situations.

This is a great question, and a difficult decision to make in the moment — but it is very possible to choose the healthy option at the fast food restaurant.
I’m on day three of my taking my overall healthy seriously. TheoFit has been exactly what I needed–not simple how-to instruction, but motivation and mindset development. Thanks, Paul! My questions: What are your thoughts and recommendations for increasing protein? While staying on a low-calorie diet. If you have covered this elsewhere and I haven’t read or remembered that please forgive me.
ANSWER: That’s a great question! I haven’t covered it yet, and it can get really tricky trying to lower calories and increase protein at the same time. First, get a protein powder and supplement with a protein shake. You might think, “I can’t afford a protein powder!” But actually, you get about 20g of protein per scoop, and most protein powders cost about $1 per scoop. Even if you were to buy chicken or ground beef, you’re not going to get that amount of protein in real food for that cheap. So, I highly recommend picking up a cheap protein powder supplement at your local target (I use a protein called IsoPure Zero Carb, which is very low-calorie and extremely high quality protein, and I absolutely love it). But you can get almost the exact same thing for half the price per scoop — about .50 cents per 20g of protein — with Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Protein, which they sell at Costco or here at Amazon.

Also, this is just a little diet trick — most things we think have a lot of protein don’t. So, for example, General Tso’s Chicken, which has “Chicken” in the title, so we think it’s full of protein, is composed of about 80% fats and carbs. So, unless you’re eating pure chicken or cold cuts or steak or fish, most of its caloric value will come from fats and carbs. Deep-fried fish or deep-fried chicken can be especially deceptive in this way — we think it’s a protein-based snack, but we’re spending 200-300 calories per meal just on taste.

One little way to cut these calories out while keeping some flavor in our diets is learning how to use spices in our food. For beginners, I recommend this little 4-pack called Legion of Spice that combines some spices into little packs that you can use on meats, veggies, whatever. That’s a great way to keep flavor in your food without adding a ton of calories with butter, oil, or carbs.
How do I mentally prepare to go into the gym for the first time and/or the first week? Personally I imagine it feeling really awkward and embarrassing and probably pretty humiliating, so maybe my preparation is to just come to terms that it will suck for a short period.
ANSWER: Another good one. I cover this in the album One More Try in the track called “When I Don’t Want To Go To The Gym.” I highly recommend going that album, which you get for free as a TheoFit member, before embarking on a fitness journey — especially if you’re just getting started. Just remember: When you’re weighing the decision about whether to follow through on your commitment to work out, you’re not just deciding for today. You’re deciding for forever.

If you don’t go to the gym today, you’re more likely not to go tomorrow, and the next day. Skipping one day most of the time turns into skipping the next day. A day turns into a week, which turns into a life time, and all of a sudden one decision of laziness just rolls into a whole sedentary lifestyle, which is the very thing you’re trying to escape. So we often choose not to go to the gym because we think, “Well, I can miss one day and it’s not a big deal.” No. Today, you’re deciding your destiny. The moment of decision about the gym is the very real fork in the road for you. It’s a lie that you can skip one day and it’s not a big deal. No. Skipping is like rust. It’s like cancer. It spreads.

So here’s how to make it easier. Run through your workout one more time. Write the whole thing down in your journal before you even walk into the gym. Go to the TheoFit workout page with your workout and watch the videos of the exercises you’re about to do. Think to yourself, “I can do this. I can do that.” And go into the gym with htis mindset: “The faster I complete these, the sooner I’ll be done.” Think of it as a debt to be payed.

Fitness is not something that you own, like a house. When you work out, you’re not building physical equity. Fitness is something you rent from the universe. And payment is due in the form of difficult exercise and healthy diet. There’s no skating by on yesterday’s work. There’s no paying late. There’s just today, and you either seize this moment and start walking down the path of fitness, or you skip, adn you spend the rest of the day, and probably the rest of your life, trying to forget what could have been if you just tried. And let me tell you: When you try, life gets really good. It’s really hard in all the same ways. But you win every day, even if you lose. Because you’re mastering your body. But when you don’t try, you feel like a loser. And to some degree, the rest of your life is spent trying to forget that.

So try. Choose the gym. Pay your rent. Pay your debt to the universe and take what’s yours. Take your health. Take your fitness. Take your strength. Take it for yourself. Don’t even think about it anymore. You’re going to the gym. Consider your decision made.
What are some warm up ideas routines or stretching? Should you stretch? Personally, I know some good stuff here, but would love to hear your thoughts.
ANSWER: Two things. The best stretching you can do is a little light jogging or elliptical or a short, brief walk before your workout. Then, do a couple sets of each exercise with lighter weight before you hit the exercises really hard. This will remind your body what the exercise should feel like and kind of gets you into the “mode” of the workout. It feels like it rewires your nervous system to be in “bench mode” or “deadlift mode.” After you’ve done those lighter warm up exercises, then you can do any relevant stretches to push your muscles to the extent of their flexibility. This can be helpful, again, just to strengthen that psychosomatic link between the mind and the muscle. When you feel your fibers straining in the warmup and stretching in the stretch, it heightens your internal sense of control and authority over that particular muscle. That sounds a little tacky, but I’ll tell you what — it works.
I’m wondering how to divide up my allotted calories each day. How many do I give to breakfast, to lunch, to snack, to dinner. Do I include a protein/post workout shake. Again, so many options. I'm more open to trying things and seeing how it goes. Seems like, based on knowing myself, I'd like the most food at Dinner, so I can go to bed full, but if I don't eat something within 2 hours of waking up, I'm gonna have a headache all day. So, idk where I'm going with that. Would love to hear your thoughts in general.
ANSWER: Just try different stuff out, man. Do a day where you have a pre-workout meal, and a post-workout meal, and maybe you have 5 or 6 meals that day. Try another day where you fast all day and have a big meal at night. Make note of how they make you feel during the day, and at night. What’s your experience? Do you find it easier knowing you’ll be able to eat in a few hours, or do you feel better experiencing the hunger of not eating all day, knowing you’ll get to indulge in a large meal at night?

It’s very individual, and no particular meal timing schedule gives you any sort of advantage in muscle gain or fat loss. One thing, just out of habit — and I think there is a little science behind this — I sometimes drink a protein shake after I work out, even if I’m fasting all day until dinner. There’s some science that indicates that it’s good to drink protein right after a workout, because your body is primed to use a higher percentage of it for muscle-building — almost like the muscle is a protein sponge right after your workout. But other science says that it’s better to fast after a heavy workout, because your body is pumping human growth hormone throughout your body — especially if you worked out in a fasted state. So, either way, I don’t think it matters that much. It’s just important that in the 24-hour period, you hit your protein goal, you work out, and you hit your calorie deficit.
Hey Paul, what are some good items to purchase that will help one go deeper into fitness. I feel like I have a good arsenal of things already? For instance, I have some nice Nike Metcons Series 2 work out shoes, a jump-rope that is fit to my height, a nice workout bag, a protein shake bottle with mixer ball, a food scale, a foam roller, etc. But I’m curious what else you might thing to be good. Just curious about anything and everything related to purchasing something that will make the discipline of fitness easier.
ANSWER: Great question. I’m going to do a future podcast on this. Sorry to leave you hanging — it’s a great question. More info to come.
Are there workout apps that are good for tracking workouts?
ANSWER: Yes! For weightlifting, I recommend two apps — one is called Strong, and the other is called Stacked. I prefer Strong, because Stacked can give you some advertisements for other products at times, but they’re basically the same. Those are linked in the Show Notes.
Do you recommend any workout supplements? I'd love a podcast devoted to this. Personally, I've never taken Pre-workout, but it sounds awesome. and a great way to ensure I actually go hard in a work out. But part of me wonders, would my 300+ lb body have a heart attack if it were under that kind of stress? Would protein shakes and other supplements be a good idea if fat loss is the goal?
ANSWER: Also on this, I’m going to do a whole podcast on supplements — it might even be the next podcast. Great question. I even want to wait to answer your question about how to use supplements for different goals in that supplement podcast. But that’s great stuff.
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005. When Spouses Disagree About Fitness (Guest: The Beautiful MOLLY)
28 Nov 2017· TheoFit Podcast
TheoFit Resources:
Archive of All TheoFit Podcast Show Notes

TheoFit Membership

Weekly Email

TheoFit Store

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
Podcast 005: 005. When Spouses Disagree About Fitness (Guest: The Beautiful MOLLY)
I don’t have a transcript of this podcast for you. But Molly makes up for it. Molly is my wife. She is one of the most disciplined, hardest-working people I know. But in the business of all her obligations (and I am no easy obligation), she struggles to find energy for diet and exercise. In this podcast, we have a real-time, unscripted conversation about how to navigate a relationship in which one person is pursuing fitness, and the other is not.

Enjoy!
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004. Exactly How Many Calories You Should Be Eating (No Calculator Required)
27 Nov 2017· TheoFit Podcast
Read The Full Show Notes Here: https://theo.fit/podcast/004/
TheoFit Resources:
Archive of All TheoFit Podcast Show Notes

TheoFit Membership

Weekly Email

TheoFit Store

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

004. Exactly How Many Calories You Should Be Eating (No Calculator Required)

I’ve received a lot of great feedback about the TheoFit Podcast and the brand new TheoFit website that you can access at Theo.Fit. But I’ve been receiving one very common question from a lot of people, and it’s this: “I know you say to eat a 20% calorie deficit, but what exactly is that, and how do I know how many calories to eat?”

And, while I do explain it in the CORE SERIES at theo.fit/core, in the article “How To Count Your Calories,” a lot of people just don’t have time to visit the site and go to the calculator and figure out the math for their bodies. And you know what? I realize now that that’s not the ideal method to help people implement this fitness program. And it was really helpful for me to learn that.

So, in this podcast, I’m going to very briefly explain how many calories you should be eating for your weight. You won’t need to use a calculator or anything else — I’m going to tell you exactly how many calories to eat, and briefly, how I reached that conclusion for you specifically. So, pay attention, because I’m going to be going through a variety of bodyweight and activity levels that will include you, but you’ll need to pay attention to make sure you recognize yourself in the explanations I give.

1. How I Calculate Your Calorie Deficit

So, I’m basically about to explain to you the math that you won’t have to do after this podcast. I figure out your calorie deficit by calculating 2 numbers. First, I figure out a number called your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) — that’s the number of calories your body would burn if it were in a coma. That is, the amount of calories it takes for your body to run without any activity — just pump your heart, etc. I figure out your BMR using a calculator that takes into account your age, weight, height, and body fat percentage.

Then, I multiply your BMR by a number called an “activity multiplier” that takes into account how physically strenuous your job is, how many hours per week you work out, etc. The result of that equation gives me a number called your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE), which is the amount of energy measured in calories it takes for for your body to sustain itself and do all its activities throughout the day — everything from working out to digesting food.

So, if your goal is fat loss, you need to aim for at least a 20% calorie deficit — 25% if you can stand it — which means that you eat 25% fewer calories than your TDEE. In other words, you eat 25% fewer calories than your body needs in total for the day. For example, if your TDEE is 2,000 calories (and I’ll tell you what it is in a second), then a 25% deficit is 1,500 calories. That means you’re in a 25% calorie deficit, because you’re eating 25% fewer calories than your body needs to perform the activities you’re performing.

So, where does your body get that extra 500 calories? From your fat. And a pound of fat is 3,500 calories. The more calories you can force your body to take from your fat every day, the faster you’ll lose fat. There is no other way to burn fat. Every single instance of fat loss in human history comes from being in a caloric deficit. By counting calories, you’re essentially managing that fat loss in a way that will give you a calculated guarantee that eventually, you will lose a certain amount of fat at a certain rate.

Any other method, or anything less, puts your fat loss in the hands of guesswork.Can you lose fat without counting calories? Yes, of course. But any method for fat loss other than hitting a calorie deficit is imprecise and indirect. The only question you have to answer for yourself is: How much of your own time do you want to waste getting in shape?

2. The Amount Of Calories You Should Be Eating

In this section, I’m going to go through a list of weights and, if you fall in this weight class, how many calories you should be eating if you’re compliant with the TheoFit diet. Now, I’m going to put this chart on the shownotes for this podcast, which you can read at http://theo.fit/podcast/004 (or you can click the link in the show notes in your Podcast app). But I’m going to read it aloud here so that you can walk away from this podcast with the exact number of calories you need to be eating for the day. Okay, are you ready? So the number I tell you is the number of calories you need to eat in a day in order to achieve a 20-25% deficit. If you want to know your BMR or TDEE or all the math behind these numbers, you can visit the CORE SERIES at theo.fit/core and read the article “How To Count Your Calories.” But if you don’t have time for that, just listen for your number. And remember — this calorie deficit assumes you’re doing the TheoFit workout or something like it (including weight lifting, abs, and cardio) 4-5 times per week. Okay, here we go:

3. How To Count Your Calories

Download the MyPlate app (or the MyFitnessPal app). Counting calories is never fun. It always sucks. It’s one of those new habits that every single person hates. Even people who have been doing it for a long time really hate it. And eventually, after you’ve been counting calories for 6-8 months, you’ll be able to eyeball most things and enter all your calories at the end of the day, rather than at the beginning of every meal.

But if you’re new to this, you need to enter everything you eat — from the sauces you use to cook to the dressing on your salad to — into your calorie counting app. It’s one of those disciplines you just have to grit through. It sucks to face reality. It doesn’t feel good to have to realize you’ve been eating 3,000 calories a day and now your goal is 1,500 or 2,000 calories a day and you have to get creative with what you eat in order to hit your calorie goal without going insane.

It doesn’t feel good. But remember: A calorie deficit isn’t forever. You hit for for 3 or 4 months, or until you hit your desired fat loss, and then you can eat your maintenance. You can eat your full TDEE. And the beauty of knowing your TDEE and continuing to work out is that you can maintain your fitness level, continue to get stronger and healthier, without eating less than your body needs.

The purpose of hitting a calorie deficit isn’t to be hungry forever. It’s to hit your desired body fat level so that you can later eat the exact number of calories your body needs while staying in shape, which is entirely sustainable.

So download that app right now. That’s the hardest step. Download MyPlate or MyFitnessPal. Start fooling around on it. And whatever your calorie deficit was, hit it for the next 3 or 4 months. Or if you need to lose more fat, hit it for the next 6 months. After the first month, counting calories will become second-nature.

It’s starting that’s the hard part. So don’t let something petty like a dislike of calorie counting get in your way of hitting your goal. Don’t let your unwillingness to do this simple thing sabotage all the hours you put into the gym and all the willpower you put into eating healthy food. Count your calories, hit your deficit, and you’re guaranteed results — guaranteed.
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Show more

Episodes

012. iPhone: The Death of Your Intensity

Motivation 009. Why You Quit (And How Not To)

Motivation 008. Do It Anyway

Motivation 007. When You're Insanely Hungry

011. The One Fitness Myth That's Destroying Your Discipline

Motivation 006. It's Time to Write Your Origin Story

010. When Self-Hatred Has Its Boot On Your Neck

009. Why You're Not In Shape (And How To Change)

Motivation 005. When You Don't Want to Go to the Gym

008. Why You Shouldn’t Train Like a Professional Athlete

TheoFit Q&A #2. What To Do After A Diet, Why I Don't Wear Captain America Shirts, And A Mini-Rant on "Fat Positive" Research

Motivation 004. When You Fail, Get Up

007. The Right Way To Stretch Before (And After) Your Workout (w/ 3rd Degree Blackbelt TROY WALKER)

006. What Fitness Supplements To Buy (And Not To Buy)

Motivation 003. Superpower Amnesia

Motivation 002. Compliance, Honor, and Shame (Explicit)

Motivation 001. Working Out When Life Sucks

TheoFit Q&A #1: Fast Food, Deficit Numbers, And Getting Protein

005. When Spouses Disagree About Fitness (Guest: The Beautiful MOLLY)

004. Exactly How Many Calories You Should Be Eating (No Calculator Required)