#183: A Physical Pivot: Finding An Algorithm For Human Transformation

Welcome to The Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, bestselling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markel. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your conscious pivot.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I'm really jazzed up as I'm sitting here in the seats getting ready for this show. It's going to be part 2. It's kind of a rare thing for us that we have a guest and just feel like we extracted the juice, but there was more juice to extract. Juice extraction episode, that's part 2 with Angelo Poli. I'll just dive right in here, share a little bit about him, and then we'll, we'll dig in. And in our part 2, we'll cover some new things. Maybe we'll even continue some of the threads that we had in part 1. And if you don't know what part 1 was, then you got to go back and listen to it. It was a killer episode. It was really great. Angelo Poli is an internationally recognized expert in fitness and nutrition. He's the founder of MetPro, an evaluation-based health coaching program specializing in transformations. That's a big word. Using a process called metabolic profiling, MetPro analyzes your metabolism and provides an individualized approach to obtaining your health goals. Angelo has spent much of his career as a motivational speaker, and he was featured at TEDxChico where he discussed his own achievement in overcoming obstacles. After recovering from a crippling injury himself, Angelo brought to light a whole new way of thinking about health, fitness, and weight loss. So Angelo, it's so great to have you back on the show, brother.

Thanks for having me, Adam. I've been looking forward. This is gonna be great.

Yeah, I know, me too, me too.

We're gonna title this Squeeze. You said there's more juice left over. This episode is the squeeze, right?

Part 2 is the squeeze. I love it. Oh man, okay, let's start squeezing. And I think about squeezing, I think about the feeling I had when I was getting ready to do my first TED Talk and how squeezed on the inside I felt because I'd been speaking publicly for a number of years, maybe, I don't know, about 10 years at that point. And before that, I was standing up in court as a lawyer. So I was familiar with being in front of hostile audiences. Oh, before that, I was a middle school English teacher. So I really knew what it's like to be in front of a hostile audience. And yet, TED, the TED event was not hostile at all. In fact, it's one of the most loving audiences you could ever imagine. Oh yeah. But the thought, right, of standing on that little red circle in a room where the whole energy of TED is just very different. It's a very different kind of a public gig, speaking gig, than ones where you're, you know, than I'd had before. And so yeah, man, my insides felt pretty squeezed. So let's go back to you. I want to understand, I want our folks to understand what inspired you to want to give a TEDx talk and what were the nerves like for you? What was the prep like? Did you feel squeezed? That's my question for you, Andrew.

Oh wow, I love it. So that yet another thing we have in common. I remember very clearly that day. It's going back a little ways. It isn't like anything else. I mean, I've done live videos like what we're doing today and, you know, podcast type stuff, but that's a little different because it's you rehearse, you get ready, you have a message, 3, 2, 1, go. You have 3 different cameras pointed at you and basically there's your resume online for the rest of your life. That's it.

Your speaking resume for sure.

That's it, your speaking resume. So there's that little added pressure and then of course I'm a guy, I'm getting up and I'm talking about this really novel rare field of health and wellness, right? So you're gonna go up on a TED Talk, or TEDx is what I did. You better have something interesting to say because everything in health and wellness is that— that's such a chewed-through topic. So what's the unique angle? What's the slant? I wanted to make sure I could grab people.

Yes.

And, you know, the areas that have always fascinated me are everything related to human transformation. As I've gotten older, that word has grown to encompass more to me. At that point in my life, transformation, I was referring more to the physical, to the aesthetic, but all elements of human transformation and the science thereof. How does a small person get bigger? How does a big person get smaller? How does somebody change their shape? How does somebody change their performance? And so going down that path obviously led to nutrition and MetPro and all the the coaching that we do there. But one of the, the kind of the side tangents that it took was a process called neuromuscular reeducation. And it's something that I would have remained blissfully unaware of had I not experienced severe injury in my early 20s. Left me walking with a cane for almost a decade. A lot of people don't know that or forgot that, you know, because that's a little while ago. But I was that guy. In town here, people knew me as this You know, the trainer with the limp, the trainer with the cane.

Yeah. No, I mean, that's— that makes a mark. It's an indelible image when you think about that trainer with a cane and what a beautiful, inspiring image that must have been for a lot of people. So clearly just who you are, that you take a situation that might knock other people down and out for a long time and you just began to use it, use it to your benefit. So I got that. What was it that— Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. What created the injury? Is that something—

Yeah, you know, thinking young stupidity. That's what created it.

Oh, that.

Oh, that whole thing, you know, thinking I was young and immortal and just not listening. I didn't have any one incident. It was a series of ignoring obvious signs and pushing my body. And, you know, that's one of the major things that I talk about, what injury prevention, working out in a way that's sustainable, all those things are so important. You know, treating your body like you're gonna live there forever. That's important. You got to take care of your body.

No, if you want your body to take care of you, for sure. Otherwise, you go, well,

geez,

why is my body Not being kind to me. You look back and go, I don't know how kind I've been to my body. And I mean, this is a question for all of us to ask. I was actually asking this just last night because for the last good, good while, we moved out to California about 10 years ago and our consciousness around our health and around our food in particular and other things relative to our mental set, they began to shift and more along the lines of what I would say would be that my mind, my body would later on go, thank you. You know, there's a lagging— these are lagging indicators. You know, eating a McDonald's burger or a Whopper or an In-N-Out or, you know, any—

Might feel good in the moment, but body's not gonna thank you.

No. And the body might not even reject it a day later.

Yeah, yeah.

But you stack all that up, you know, all the burgers I ate, or— and I'm not throwing the burger industry under the bus. It's

just

all the fast food and junk and stuff that I ate in my 20s. It's not like I felt it in my 20s. I didn't turn— I wasn't like, I turned 30 years old and my body went, you suck. I mean, I can't believe you. What were you doing to me? It's like, no, it turns up like when you're 40 or some other point.

That's exactly it.

Yeah. Interesting. So you had been depleted or not taking care of yourself. You ended up in that state. And then—

So I was ignoring the warning signals and thinking, you know what, I can live off of caffeine. I can get up early, I can work late, and I can do strenuous physical labor spotting Handing people dumbbells, you know, 10, sometimes 12 hours a day. I mean, I was 22, 23 at the time. At that point, you think you're indestructible. But circling back to the TED Talk and kind of a really neat personal experience that I had. So first of all, I am still— have a relationship with some of the other speakers on the same night as me, even all these years later.

So do I.

Isn't that neat?

Yes.

So I totally can relate to how it's such a welcoming community and such a powerful experience.

When did you decide you wanted to— you had a message that you had to share from that experience of coming through walking with a cane for a dozen years and going, there's something I've learned here I have to share? Bring us to the point where you go, all right, I'm going to do this TED Talk thing, or I'm going to try. I'm going to make sure I'm going to give it my best to get on a stage, et cetera. Just walk us from there forward.

Oh, you're going to make me dig deep here. It was emotional. time for me. It was, it was a really rough spot. There was, I remember one experience that I had was super painful because it wasn't just about enduring the physical pain I was in at the time, but having to watch my wife endure watching me be in pain. And, oh, it just broke my heart. And I didn't know if I could stay in the industry. I didn't know if I could stay in fitness or in wellness. And There was a point where I almost threw in the towel, but I decided, you know what, this is what I'm passionate about. This is what I feel like I'm knowledgeable about. I think there's still— I hope there's still something that I can offer, and I'm gonna see it through, and I'm at least gonna give it my all. And so I continued after that point. I decided, you know, did the TED Talk. I ended up deciding to continue Expanding my remote coaching and my basically the strategy side of coaching. So I wasn't handing people physically dumbbells, but I was still coaching them, giving them the nutritional strategy, challenging them overall, challenging them the overall game plan. And it was— I ended up with kind of a really cool reward for that. One of my professional highlights, one of the funnest times in my life professionally. I had just had my, my back surgery and I was 3, 4 months out from that, still recovering, and I was just to the point where some days I'd walk with the cane, some days I wouldn't. I ended up getting an incredible honor, and I got the call from one of the pro athletes that I got to work with, Aaron Rodgers, and he had reached out to me, scheduled a time to come meet with me. And it was that week that I said, I think I'm done with the cane. And when I re-entered doing some of the physical work, I had the reward of getting to to work with him. Now we're going back a number of years.

Is this pre-Discount DoubleCheck or—

It was right in, right in there.

Yeah.

Talk about a talented athlete. Oh, what a blast. It was a blast. I tossed out the cane, came back, decided I'm still gonna move forward in this path. And what an experience getting to work with someone of his caliber, both personally and professionally. It was an absolute blast. And so that was all kind of the same time period that I did the TEDx, same time period that I went, did a bunch of speaking engagements. And

what was the message of the TEDx talk? Because I'm sure people are gonna check it out now.

Oh yeah, yeah, of course. Neuromuscular reeducation. So the message of that was basically when we coach people now, I'm gonna assign people the exercise routine they should do or give them strategy around it. Well, when I go into that, I may not be standing in front of you, but there are a few assumptions I can already make about you, and that is your body is lopsided. The reason I know that is because the year is 2020. Well, then it was what, 2014, that area, 2013. Technology abounds. We live in our, you know, devices here. This is the position we're all in. Kids, teenagers, we grow up with it. We're hunched over. We spend multiple hours a day in the seated position. Our Physiology dictates that our postural muscles shorten, anterior delts, pectorals, biceps. We round forward. Our phasic muscle groups, that relates to how they're innervated, weaken or lengthen. That's the muscles of your upper back. And what happens is our center of gravity shifts, not necessarily for the reason you'd think either. We shift actually related to proprioception and balance. So no matter what's going on with your muscular symmetry, your body will always adapt to keep your eyes level on the horizon. Your body has this built-in mechanic where it's designed to prioritize vision because that's your equilibrium. Yeah. Exactly. You'll never see a little elderly man walking down the street hunched backwards, or if they're crooked sideways, they'll always have their head tilted to bring their eyes back to level. So if we work backwards from that understanding, we can see how quite a number of postural imbalances take place to bring ourselves back to that equilibrium for vision. And now how our body adapts around being in the seated position, the hunched position, the shoulders forward, and the effects that has all the way down to our feet.

It's just compensation after one after another, right?

Compensation after compensation. So now fast forward into what we do today. We coach people, we help people with nutrition, and oh, by the way, we tell people I'm gonna be teaching people how to exercise, which means I'm gonna be picking your exercises. So what do people do for exercise? Well, they do the same thing that our grandparents did and their grandparents, and that was loosely based on the exercises you would think of in kind of like a boot camp model. We do push-ups and sit-ups and jumping jacks. Well, guess what? Our grandparents and their parents, they were not lopsided. They were balanced. So going into those exercises from the standpoint of starting in a balanced position Made sense. But when, you know, Johnny comes into me and already his head is forward, his shoulders are forward, his upper back is rounding, his feet are rotating externally, his hips are forward, his center of gravity, what's the first thing I do? Oh, 20 push-ups. That's only going to accentuate that imbalance. Maybe a great exercise. Don't go home and say, oh, push-ups are bad. That's not what I mean. I love push-ups, but I always try and take a sustainable approach to exercise. And there's actually some Warm-ups, cool-downs, postural moves that we can do to recondition, to fight back against those postural deviations that develop based on just living.

So, here's what I'm gonna do. You've inspired me to do this right now, Angelo, right in the moment. I am— so folks, if you hear this noise, if you're watching on YouTube, it's more— this will be more interesting, but the noise you're hearing is the sound of the desk just elevating. So—

Nice.

No, wait, I'm gonna have to stand up now. Oh, no way.

Bravo, attaboy!

Out with the chair.

Yep.

Nothing like the desk that'll—

there it is.

I think this is an autonomous desk is what they call it.

Nicely done.

Yeah, buddy, you inspired me. Thank you for that.

Though I remember, so we, we have at, at METPRO, all of our coaches have those adjustable desks so they can stand whenever they want because a lot of these coaches are big into fitness when they come to us. And I have to have the talk with them. I said, you know, you're a coach, you're a fitness coach, you're a nutrition coach, and this is a desk job. So just so you know, because you're going to be talking. The nice thing is we're always doing activities. It's literally inside of one of our gyms. There's always access to physical activity. But day in and day out, we're talking with our clients from all over the world. We've got clients in 6 different countries and we're on the phone with them. We're doing exactly what you and I are doing right now. That's at a computer. That's with a headset and a microphone and it takes its toll. So, if you're one of the millions and millions who have a desk job, there you go, guys. Here's the plug. Get that stand-up desk.

Well, there's a cool thing that we used to do at the beach. I was a lifeguard for a bunch of years and a lot of the more profound lessons in my business life and in personal life even have come from that. Looking back at when I was 19 years old and for 7 summers when I wasn't teaching or in law school, I was on the beach, in the ocean, dozens and dozens of times every day, certainly on a Saturday, Sunday, making rescues or preventing rescues. And one of the things that we did then was we would be— we'd work an hour in the stand and then we'd be an hour out of the stand. And I mean, the hour we're in the stand, you've got to be eagle eyes all the time. Your focus has to be so acute, your attention, you have to be very present because there's a million things happening behind you. So stand is up near the water. You got Several hundred people in your section of the ocean. You know, we typically had 3 or 4 lifeguard stands out to the west and 3 or 4 to the east. And so you've got 2 guards in each stand and hundreds of people in your section of water and thousands of people behind you. You had 100,000 people on that beach. So—

Wow.

We'd have people, there would be fights going on, guys would get drunk. There'd be somebody that, you know, always we'd have some heat exhaustion situation.

Right.

You know, people had heart attacks, all kinds of things. We never lost anybody in the water.

Wow.

And so the intensity and the focus with all that distraction as well as Mother Nature's distractions, got rip currents, the ocean's constantly changing, the sun is in a different place, the wind is different. We were communicating via whistles. I mean, it was intense. And that level of intensity, intense focus and high performance was optimal in small increments. So sometimes this is called the Pomodoro method or Pomodoro technique and I call it toggling. So I toggle back and forth during the day to this day between intense focus like what we're doing now. I'm fully, you know, I feel like you and I, this is what's great about what we've been able to do together is be really present and enjoy each other's company and also allow for things to flow through us. That's not something you can do when you're tired or you won't do it as well when you're tired. You won't do it when you're multitasking. It won't come off the same way. But I couldn't do this. I couldn't do 8 straight hours of this kind of conversation with you or anybody else, right? I don't think you could either. But to do an hour and then have a break and then change my focus and go do something else, like I'll go take a 20-minute walk after this. I've got another thing I'm gonna do with somebody else that's completely different use of my brain and different creative, you know, muscles gonna be exercised. And then I'll come back 90 minutes from when we finish and I'll do one more podcast for the day.

Nice.

And it's this toggling, this changing A focus from one thing to another and taking breaks in between. It's what we did on the beach to enable us to get back in that stand fresh.

Like as though we were focused.

Yeah, man, as though we just started the day. Because on those down hours, we'd go back to the lifeguard shack, we'd lift weights, or we'd eat our lunch, or we'd go look at girls, or we'd go for a run,

or

we'd go surf. I mean, these were the things we would do on our down hours. When we were up, man, we were, we were there to be, you know, Nothing but gold medals. Otherwise, in that environment, if you were a bronze medal winner, it meant maybe somebody—

Somebody lost. Yeah.

Somebody went down. Yeah. So you are somebody I know that is a major leader in this conversation on a global level, which is really incredible. What's the most state-of-the-art thing that you guys are up to right now? Because I just finished a book on disruption, and there's no question that AI and AR and VR and Robotics and blockchain and so many different things are out there disrupting the marketplace. And we only call it disruption, of course, like we worked with one of the co-founders of Airbnb many years ago as he was incubating that idea. And so, you know, disruption is, is only disruption because we didn't think of it, right?

So, I love that you asked that question. I'm gonna unload on you now. So, I'm rubbing my hands together. This is awesome. So, you know, everyone's got to know who listens, you know, we go all over the place. So, there was no way to script this. I didn't ask you Hey, could you bring this up? But Adam, let me tell you, I got some stuff. So AI, you ready for this? Let's do it, baby. So I'm gonna try and consolidate this as much as possible. So my company, MetPro, we are passionate about transformation. So all the way from the MVP football players to mom-and-pops to the celebrities who are getting ready for a specific show, we drill down on the exact science that we end up landing on as the most effective steps to help somebody transform. It has long been my belief that it is essentially a series of if this, then that, and it is a mathematical equation, a very, very, very complex one. So much so that a lot of people in the physique sports industry view it more of an art than a mathematical equation. 20 years, 2 decades in the industry, it's my belief that while the inspiration and the motivation is absolutely an art, and while there is flavor for individuality, it's a mathematical equation. There is a science. There's a science to transform. So, what we actually did years ago was we built an algorithm. And one of our employees actually used that algorithm when years ago, he was a friend of a friend. who said, hey, I'll try this algorithm out. He lost 60 pounds. He just followed the algorithm that told him when to increase his intake, when to decrease his intake, the whole 9 yards. He lost 60 pounds. It was incredible. It was awesome. And that algorithm is still ran and part of our technology tools that our coaches use when they're monitoring their clients and suggesting when and how to adjust their diet. It has long been my belief that this algorithm can be turned into an applicable tool for anyone to use.

Yes.

I have been chasing it for years, Adam.

Yeah.

There's a very hard problem to solve. I'm gonna whisper this because I don't want to say it too loud. It'll all come crashing down, but I think I've solved it. Very hard problem. So here's what it is basically, Adam.

What's the problem, first of all? Yeah.

Here's what the problem is. If you tell me, here's what I weigh, here's my performance level, here's what I eat, and here's my goal, I can mathematically give you by odds probabilities what is your most likely best next step and what you should and shouldn't do. And I can do that. How old are you, Adam?

I'm 54 for like another 2 weeks.

Attaboy. We're gonna stay with 54.

Then I'm going to 53 and I'm gonna just keep going the other direction. No, I don't get aged.

That's my line. I love it. I'm going the other way. I love it. So, for anyone who's not watching the video and just watching this, Adam here—

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

You're in rockstar shape.

I mean, you're being kind.

When I grew up, I want to be just like you, buddy. Attaboy. I love it. So you could tell me, okay, here's what I'm eating. Now, when we work with somebody, we go through a process called baseline testing. So with baseline test, I would be basically putting you, Adam, on a meal plan that I know the calories, I know the macronutrient breakdown, I know the meal timing, glycemic load, I know everything about this meal plan. I know it really well because I've had thousands of other fit guys in their 50s follow the exact same meal plan. And I can give you a statistical data point on this meal plan. The average person loses exactly this much weight or gains exactly this much weight or whatever the case is given this much time. Now I'm gonna put you on it and compare how your body responds.

Yes.

That gives me not theoretical, not opinions, but actual hard data. In other words, there's no debate. There's no 2 gurus that say this.

Yeah, with me, it's gonna be hard data, buddy. No soft

data here. Yeah, hard data.

That's all we're after.

That's all we're after. I love it. So here's what happened. Adam, you went on this intake level, this macronutrient breakdown, and you lost 1.6 pounds in 5 days. There's the data. So based on that, I can tell you how I can predict with reasonable accuracy how you're going to react to this, that, or the other change to your meal plan. Here's the problem. The problem is I say, okay, go change this, come back to me in a week. The first question I'm gonna ask you when we sit down, you go, hey, Angelo, I love this meal plan. It's working good. I'm gonna say, Adam, how well did you stick to the meal plan? And you're gonna say to me, you know, pretty reasonably well.

Right.

I have no idea what that means. No clue. That's what I've learned. I have no idea what that means. Which makes building an AI, an algorithm around nutrition exceptionally difficult.

Right, because the variations are infinite in that case.

The variations, they're not infinite, but they're huge.

I mean, think about it. If you change one aspect, because I haven't gone to law school and my favorite course was logic, I don't even know why, it's just that didn't make any sense to me, but the whole if this then that stuff, I got, I got it.

Oh, love it.

And I still love it because there's reliability There's a predictability in something that's logical. I'm not saying it's passionate, I'm not saying it's exciting or whatever, but there's a certain predictability to it.

Yeah.

And that's what you want. You want an algorithm to be optimized for predictability. Otherwise, what's it— if it's random, it's of no use. So taking the randomness out of the equation means the data— what's that old expression? Good data in, good data out.

That's it. Exactly.

Bad data in, bad data comes out.

You got it. Therein has lied the challenge that we have been working at collectively for years, but really drilling in on this recently. So we've basically been able to layer our algorithm with a way of valuing data. So now when we give you a meal plan, you check off which behaviors you followed and which you didn't. Each behavior and each stat is weighted based on years of experience and thousands and thousands of clients. So, we're weighting things reasonably well and we are able to throw out the incomplete data. So, somebody follows a program and has this outcome, what it's going to do is it's going to look at your inputs and say, okay, that data may not be 100%, but it's enough quality that MetPro's AI is able to say, based on how you've responded, here's the recommendation. And if it can't, it'll tell you exactly how far off and how much more data that it needs in order to have a baseline to make the recommendation from and give you that next step. And we've been working really hard at it and it's now in beta, which means it's not like ready to go, but it's in beta. We have testers and it has been absolutely thrilling. It's the thing that in this world I am the most passionate about today.

I think I got that. Yeah. You get a chunk of your time, your energy, and I'm guessing some money behind this future because it's true that the algorithm is something that has transformed so many businesses and is transforming, I would say, pretty much every business. You know, where you are in the curve of that, that's a question for business owners to be asking themselves, but—

There's a problem to be solved here. It's not what diet is best because there is no answer to that. I've seen every diet. I've seen every workout program. I've been around since Since people were using the sweatbands and the Jazzercise to the CrossFit movement and the physique sports and everything in between. And I have seen every single genre, every single paleo, keto, plant-based, cyclical fat, every version work. It's a matter of knowing what is going to work best for you right now with where your body is at. And the problem is you can go to You could go to 10 different doctors and you could explain, here's my symptoms, and with reasonable reliability, all 10 doctors are gonna say, oh, well, it's clear, you have this, that, and the other. You're sick, you have this. You go to 10 different doctors and you say, how do I lose 50 pounds? You will get 10 different answers. You go to 10 different trainers, fitness trainers, and say, how do I lose 50 pounds? You will get 10 different answers. There has to be some sort of standard, and the standard needs to be at least Starting with, give me a tool that will parse, calculate my approximate metabolic rate. None of this, you know, you can go and you can breathe in the O2 stats and it gives you a— you know, people call me up all the time and say, oh, I went to the doctor, I used one of their real expensive machines and it gave me my metabolic rating. I said, that's great. I could have saved you the $2,000 and told you your metabolism was slow. That's like saying, hey, I'm gonna try and learn how to tango. I'm gonna try and learn how to waltz. So what I did was I went to a bunch of great dancers and I took Polaroid pictures of them dancing to learn how. It's a snapshot. What you need is a tool that shows you day by day, week by week, what your metabolism is doing over time, because we all know it's a moving equation. That's what we're trying to solve and we're trying to create at MetPro.

Is a methodology for the tracking.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it's really important because at different points in our lives, the same thing wouldn't work. And the diet I had, if I could call it a diet, in my 20s was what we used to— what I used to refer to as the Neanderthal diet.

I know exactly what you're talking about. I know exactly what you're talking about.

Basically, all that meant was I'll eat anything. I'll eat anything as long as I can incinerate it. And I could incinerate it. I had a straw, you know, the fire was stoked at that point that physically I would burn off anything. I'd burn— and that was my whole routine because I hear people even then that were just like, you know, I shouldn't eat this, I can't eat that. And I didn't get any of that. I said, listen, you can eat anything in my— I don't mean to the extreme because I also had a philosophy that everything in moderation is okay. I don't know that I believe that now anyway, but at least not at this point. But if I could burn it off, I felt like the burgers I was eating, you know, so okay. You know, not, not that I'm again gonna promote them.

I remember those days. I waved at them as they went by.

That's not the case now. In this decade of my life, to take my body for granted in that way or to just pile on with stuff that I know it doesn't want or it doesn't need or it's not in its best interest to do that to my body and to force it to be like, well, I'll just run a couple extra miles or swim an extra couple of miles in the pool or whatever it is. I mean, that's a recipe for lack of health or my body just not being at ease. Yep. So, I mean, what do you say to people who are Well, go ahead. I know you want to say something.

So no, I was just gonna say you— and I'm still going back to you said you love the if this then that.

Yes.

Let's do one. Let me take you through one. Let's do it live. Let me take you through it. If this then that.

Love it. Yeah.

So this may take a left turn. It may be applicable. It may not. But at least you'll get a sampling of how metabolic profiling takes that approach for nutrition and training. Next steps. If this then that. Because ultimately, if you were to strip out all the art and all the nuance At its core, what I do in helping people transform is if this, then that. So it starts with a goal, and a goal has to be, okay, what we're not going to put our effort into. That's really what a goal is about, figuring out— I know what everyone wants to accomplish. They want to get leaner, they want to get stronger, they want more energy, they want to feel better. Okay, so of all of those, which are you willing to wait for tomorrow for? Which one are we doing? Right now. Let's check it off the list and move on to the next. So it starts with a goal, and then based on your genetics, your history, if this then that. Give me a goal, Adam. What would you like to achieve physically? Maybe throw out one performance goal, one aesthetic goal, so we catch the range.

Love it. Okay, so I'll tell you what I'm working on right now, which is my gut.

Mm-hmm.

What I want to have is better gut health, and since I can't see into my gut and I I can't actually have a conversation with my gut. You know, the idea that I can return it to a more optimal state, that's one thing. And the other has to do with physically how that gut looks. So for example, I had a little beer belly that showed up sort of when I started to be around 50. And my wife loved it. She's like, oh man, finally, finally, after all these years,

I

got something I can hold on to. For real. So she's loving it and I'm loving the fact that she's loving it. So I'm going, okay, I'll have a little bit of that. So no more 8-pack. It's like I got this little whatever. But now it's 2, 3, 4 years later and I'm going, okay, this thing has only gotten a little bit bigger. My weight morphed from where I could have on any given day weighed in somewhere between about 163 and 165.

How tall are you?

5'9 and a little bit.

Okay. Okay.

And so I am now, or I was 175 pounds. I said, this is not going in the right direction. I don't want a gut. That's just not where I'm coming from. I'm on stages. I'm traveling around the world. I coach people to speak. I got to model what I talk about. And if I'm talking about resilience as an example, you know, all that that involves, I have to be more resilient myself. I got to be more true to the message. So I got back in the pool. I started swimming. I guess it was about 2 months ago. So I started a 6-week program a year ago to regain my 6-pack, start with 6 before you get to 8, right? And get rid of this gut and improve my gut health through green drink and alkaline, you know, just bringing myself to a more alkaline state and apple cider vinegar and a bunch of probiotics, etc., right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So all that stuff. And here I am 6, 7 weeks later. And you know what? My gut looks very different, but it still has that bulge. I still got it. And you know, my weight on a good day when I weigh in right after swimming, I'm still at about 172 pounds. And I'm thinking to myself, it's like 1% change, 1% change, and I could take I can tell that things are moving in the right direction, but I don't know whether I'm ever gonna see the underside of 170 pounds again. I don't know. So—

Well, if you want to—

I don't know whether I need to. I don't know whether my body is meant to, but—

Oh, you absolutely can if you want to. That said, I think what you're alluding to there, so you would not be what I would consider a weight loss client. You would be a body comp client. You would— that would be— so if you called me out of the blue and said, hey, Angelo, I want to get to the next level. I'm in my 50s. I want to make sure when I hit 10 pounds—

I'm 10 pounds over where I ought to be.

Here we go. So what you brought up was 2 goals. You gave me a health goal and aesthetic goal. So let's put the health goal aside. That's your gut. Suffice to say, your great stuff that you're doing, that's a goal unto itself. Let's talk about the aesthetic goal. But what I— the point I really want to make about it is don't confuse the

Got it.

They are absolutely 2 different things. I wish it weren't so, but I've dieted 20,000 people. I've been doing this 2 decades, and healthy is a goal unto itself and has enough value and enough virtue to aim for it and sacrifice for it all by itself, even if those 2 aren't linked. Because the reality is, for everyone you can say, Well, you got healthy, you also got the body you want. Yes, they're related, but they can be uncoupled because I can show you lots of 19-year-olds coming out of the McDonald's drive-through with 6-pack abs that are putting nothing but junk into their body.

Totally.

I've trained bodybuilders and physique models for years, and some of them are all organic and clean, and some of them put synthetic garbage into their system all the time, and they have a stunning physique, but they're not necessarily really putting in their body what I would consider clean and natural food. So I just want to make the comment that what you have is macronutrient calorie metabolism and health. They're 2 different things. They're both good. They're both important. So we'll slide the gut health and the health to the side and say we always want to do things in a natural way to aim for that. Now—

And that's— and by the way, that's my first priority. Yeah, because to me, it's the garbage in, garbage out thing. You know, when I know I'm taking good care of myself, even if my physical body was lagging, you know, There is such a thing as age. I mean, I hate to admit it, but the fact of the matter is we're going to be different when we're 80, when we're 110, we're going to be a little different than when we're 30. So, that's just the reality of it.

I just lie to people and say it doesn't matter because everyone says to me, Angelo, I want to hit this goal. Do you think the fact that I'm in my 50s matters? I said, no. Are you lying? Yeah. But if you can't control it, then it just means the things you can control become that much more important. They're that much more important. So the things you can control, let me tell you, I have people in their 50s, in their 60s, and even in their 70s that are telling me that they are just now in the best shape of their life, if you can believe that. I'm not saying that's a daily occurrence, but I have people who have told me in their 70s— we had a gal, she was in her 70s, ran her first marathon. First marathon in her 70s.

And that's less about aesthetics, and I didn't make that point well enough, so I really appreciate you just said what you did, because to me I was just in the pool the other day and I'm swimming. So this is one of these surreal moments. I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but I'm swimming next to a high school team. So the La Costa Canyon High School team practices at the same place that I swim at. It's an Olympic-sized pool. It's really beautiful, zillion lanes. I'm next to their team and there are 2 kids that are just crushing it. So when I get out of the hot tub, I read in the hot tub, then I loosen up, you know, even a little bit more. Nice. And then I'm gonna get in the pool and do my workout. So I'm watching these 2 kids battling each other in this lane next to where I'm gonna swim. And I'm watching them for like 10 minutes because I'm like in awe of just the speed and the long— and just the longevity. Like, so it's speed and endurance. And they're just crushing it in 200s.

Nice.

They're doing sets of 200s, which is 8 lengths of a 25-yard pool. And they're doing these and I'm going, oh man, I can't believe this. I'm going to swim next to these guys now. I'm tired. It's 5 o'clock. I worked all day. exercise my brain and I just want to get in there and do a workout and get out. But now—

You can't doggy paddle. No, man.

No. Now, it's like the gauntlet got thrown down. I'm gonna get next to these 2 young bucks and I am not gonna just knuckle the fuck under to them. No chance. And I got in and—

Pushed yourself, didn't you?

Let me tell you something. I pushed myself and I swam. I went pretty lickety-split. I gotta tell you. I

just learned everything I need to know about Adam right there. That's it.

My ego got triggered for sure.

3 times. So, at, at MetPro, we classify people and put them into categories. No, we're not profiling. These are broad strokes and I'm not a psychologist. There's people way more intelligent than me about this stuff, but—

I have a feeling it's coming. You're gonna—

Here it is.

Right here.

I get people Go ahead. You say, I'm so proud of you. I got to call up and say I'm so proud of you. We talked about what you're gonna eat for lunch and you ate it today. I want you to do it tomorrow. Keep going. You're doing such a good job. That's person A. That's the person that likes a good support system in their life. Person B is, hey, remember that lunch we talked about? Remember you asked me those questions on why I asked you to eat specifically this? Let me go into the breakdown of behind why I'm having you eat this and not that. Yes, that's the type of person who needs to know the why behind it. But then there's the third type. That's you, Adam.

Here it comes.

It's, hey Adam, I ate this today for my lunch. See if you can do better.

Oh, listen to you.

That's fair. That's fair. Invited to a challenge to really reach their best.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm thinking to myself, I— and this is the moment that was, was funny for me. I'm swimming next to these guys. And I'm going, I'm literally 40 years older than these, these kids. I'm like 40. I'm going, I'm doing math and I'm thinking to myself, I could be right next to them. I could be another high school knucklehead in about a second. I could just swim under the lane line, sneak into the group and let the coach dress me down for dogging it or whatever other things, you know, that I would do back then. Like it happened a second ago because it is a second ago. That's the truth of it. It's literally— You know, a snap in time and all that. But I go, 40 years later, you know, will these kids be able to do what I'm doing right now? And that was the question I asked myself. What are the odds statistically, knowing what we know about obesity in this country and all the other stuff that's going on with people dealing with, what are the odds that either or both of those 2 kids would be doing what I'm doing 40 years from now? And regardless of the answer, because that didn't matter to me, I felt good about myself. And it was less about my— the look of my gut. It was less about the aesthetics, frankly, and more about the fact that I was doing something that was really good for myself that made me feel good about myself and was overall, like you said, in that first category of health. I just felt healthy.

That's— see, I love that. That is an awesome story. You're right on the same wavelength as me. That feeling of satisfaction, knowing that you're taking care of your body. Knowing that you're taking care of your mind and just feeling able. And there are people that trust me; it's coming from a place. I walked with a cane. That was not something I was in control at at that point in my life. I had to deal with. But whatever yours,

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy. It's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and Habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today.

Circumstances. You know, the number one reason that people— I don't want to get morbid on us, but end-of-life stuff— number one reason people end up in assisted living facilities is not what we would think. It's not the heart attack or the stroke or the cancer. It's actually mobility.

Broken hip. Yeah.

What— it's a simple matter of their knee started hurting. So because their knee hurting started hurting, they stopped getting up. Because they didn't get up and go for a walk, they gained weight. Because they gained weight, it was harder to walk, so they walked less. And so basically, Their body aged faster. Their body just simply aged faster to the point where now it's a mobility issue and they can't do the things they used to. That's why they ended up in this circumstance. And so much of that is preventable. Yes, it's a real difficult thing when you have an injury or when you're dealing with something, but it's worth working around it. Sometimes, depending on the circumstance, working through it just depends on what your what you're dealing with. But don't ever stop. Don't stop moving.

Young tree, when it is, you know, a little sapling, it's soft and it's flexible. Old tree, hard, rigid, right? Wind comes along, breaks the branches off, uproots the tree. Baby, small— us as newborns, we're so flexible, we're so soft, we're so, yeah, pliable. And us later on in life, stiff. Nearer to, nearer to the end, stiffer, ultimately stiff, right? I think it's really something important that's so obvious that we, that we overlook how important it is that we keep moving our bodies and maintain that softness, that suppleness, that flexibility. As you know, whether it's yoga or it's tai chi or qigong or any— walking 20 minutes, like you said, you just, I think you hit on something that is so profoundly important. And a lot of us are at our desks for hours and hours and hours. And so back to what we said earlier, you know, you can, you can take an hour of intense whatever it is, and then just get up and walk, move your body, stretch, do some yoga, go outside for 10 minutes or 20 minutes or something. I want to, as we, as we wrap things up, Angela, I want to find out about your, something that you do for yourself on a regular basis. You know, whether it's a specific exercise or it's something you eat or it's a particular thought pattern that you create. Just want to really dig into the world Angelo's world for a moment.

You ready? Yeah. Here's my secret. I garden.

You garden?

I love it. And I never thought I would be that guy. I never thought. I absolutely love it. It's my secret.

Tell us about gardening.

Oh my gosh. I come home and so, I love what I get to do because I feel blessed. I get an opportunity like you do because you're in the same industry line of work. Where we are talking with people and getting to know them from so many different walks of life and so many different backgrounds. I mean, I have— I'm on the phone with one guy, you know, helping him with his nutrition or his exercise, but he's a big rancher and into equestrian and horses. And that was just something that when I grew up, as I was growing up, I was just never really exposed to that world. And now I actually know a little bit about it. I'm on the phone with another guy, he builds submarines. So he's telling me all about this. And he's going down, apparently there's 7 highest peaks in the world and mountains. Well, there's like 7 depths. I'm not an expert on this, but I know more than I did.

Yeah.

So I'm always talking with people. At the end of my day, I come home and I'm just, it's all sinking in. And I meditate. And I need a physical activity but not an exhausting activity.

Right.

I plant trees. I have just this little plot and it— I mean, my backyard is horrible rocky ground. It's like the worst place you'd ever want to plant a garden. But you know what? It's a good challenge because such a transformation when you do get stuff growing. So I come home and I put in my— and now people are really going to tease me— my smooth jazz because I don't want words. I just want, you know, something that The background and I dig my holes, I plant my trees, I run my water lines. I love it and that basically revitalizes me.

Yeah. So, you and I are simpatico in many ways, this just being one of them. But yeah, I love putting my hands in the soil. In fact, Randy and I, we made ourselves a little planting project this past weekend and to see something that you— well, look, we're parents and this is another parenting nurturing type activity, whether it's your pets or it's your pet plants. I mean, putting something that's alive in the ground and then nurturing it, making sure that it's taken care of and watering it and all the rest that's involved in that kind of thing. It's just what we're built to do as human beings. We're made for this. Yeah, I think that's just a wonderful way to finish out a day where you've been interacting with other humans, you know, to interact with something that can't talk back to you. Not that you can hear it anyway, you know, that plant's going Oh man, you're so rough. Why are you so rough? Can't you just be a little bit more gentle with me?

We live way out in the country, and so, you know, my wife comes downstairs and, you know, opens the back door and yells at me. And she always says the same thing she usually says first. It's put some pants on. But after that, you know, it's like, yeah, you know, no, I'm just—

protect your knees. Oh dude, all right, I could We can't do this forever. We'll have to call it, call it here.

That is a blast.

Total fun. I mean, that's all it is. The part that I want people to hear now is that there's a lot of information about METPRO and about Angelo and his company and the work they're doing. It's in the show notes. There's links. You can find out more. Obviously, just Google METPRO and find out about them instantaneously. But the show notes are really cool. So, check those out. And of course, let us know what you thought about this episode, any questions that you might have for Angelo. for myself about this and your comments are totally welcome. And Angelo, your TED Talk too, I want people to check out the TEDxChico talk that you gave some years ago. I think it's one of those things that can be a catalyst for so many. I don't know where this— where that talk was in the sequence of this business evolving. I don't know whether it was on the front end of that or it was you already incubating the idea or you were a startup at that point. I don't know. Where was it in the sequence?

I had a personal training company for years and I was just starting to branch into remote coaching thinking, hey, these methodologies that we're using could be used actually around the world with anyone anywhere. And so we were just in that transition where it was going from a gym to an actual company. So it was, it was interesting time for me.

Yeah, way cool. And so

I

think there's a lot of people that are in their own minds trying to curate the next thing. I mean, regardless of where you are in your own business model, you've got to ask yourself, what business will I be in in 5 years?

Yeah.

And for many people, knowing that they might be pivoting in some way, getting clarity on what that pivot would look like is very special. That's what I love about TED, about TEDx events, because it requires you to get intensely clear about one particular thing.

It does.

Right? Whereas there's usually this sea of ideas and sea of thoughts and sea of messages and people just can't formulate one clear through line to save their life. But that's what you have to do to succeed on a TED stage. So, and that's what we do. We work with people to help them to get those done, get on those TED stages, etc. So if you have interest in that, please let us know as well. And of course, I will conclude here with the same advice or the same It's a great reminder that I love this for myself as well as for other people, which is that tomorrow we get a choice the moment we wake up in the morning. It's like a really great plussing of your end-of-day practice, which is to put your hands in the soil and get into nature and garden. Yeah. Well, for us, the tilling of that soil starts the moment we start thinking, consciously thinking in the morning. So it's like, what are the seeds that you want to plant in the ground at the very beginning of a brand new day. Every day stands completely on its own. And so you go, tomorrow morning I get to wake up. What's the first seed I want to plant? Is it a seed of gratitude or is it a seed of worry, doubt, or something else? Because I know how it is to start the day thinking about my to-dos or thinking about the things I didn't do yesterday or whatever. Just those sort of thoughts that take you off in a place where you go, do I want to see the fruits of that? Do I want to see that? What I'm planting right now? Do I want to see what those fruits look like? Because those fruits are pretty, they're pretty gnarly, right? Whereas you could plant a different fruit. So what's one thing, what's one thing tomorrow morning, Angelo, when you wake up that you'd love to set as a sort of that first seed of the day thought-wise?

Appreciation for awesome people that I have around me. It's so easy to take that for granted. I think I do it. Everyone does it at different times. Because there are some phenomenal people that come into your life, and if you're so caught up in the day-to-day and what's going on, you're going to miss how great these people around you are. Get to know the people around you that you're with day-to-day and tell those that are important to you. I think that's huge.

Beautiful. Mine is I will keep the habit and the ritual of saying these 4 words out loud when I wake up, I love my life. I love my life. I'm reminded in this moment just how much I love my life. So, you all have a fantastic, flipping great rest of your day, your evening, wherever it is we're catching you. And Angelo, thank you again, brother, for being on the show.

Thanks, Adam. It was great.

All right. Ciao, everybody.

And leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcasts. For more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot Community on Facebook at pivotfb.com.