Conscious Fitness with Fit2Fat2Fit Drew Manning

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 216. Today I'm sitting down with Drew Manning of Fit to Fat 2 Fit and we're discussing conscious fitness. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services, and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

What's up, coach? Thank you so much for pushing clay on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson, and if this is the first time you're hanging out with me today, you are in for for a treat. Also welcome and thank you. I'm so glad you're here. Today I have New York Times best selling author and personal trainer Drew Manning, who is the creator of the TV show Fit to Fat to Fit. He caught the nation's attention back in 2011 with his Fit to Fat to Fit journey, which he gained, then lost 75 pounds over a 12 month period in order to truly better understand the mental and physical process that some of his clients were going through and then chose to do it again at age 40. Fit to fat to 40. To really explore and embody the empathy components that the fitness industry needs truly, in order to help your clients reach their goals. Drew shares vulnerably and personally in this episode about the components that truly helped him transform the way he helps people hit and achieve their goals. From embodying empathy, from knowing what it is that they're going through, and truly changing the industry standards when it comes to helping your clients get healthy and fit. And what's come of it for Drew is conscious fitness. And he's going to talk about it all inside of today's episode. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll that interview. What's up, Drew? Thank you so much for joining me.

How are you doing fantastic today, Beverly. How are you?

I'm doing great. Where are you in the world?

I live in Hawaii.

Oh, nice. We're freezing over here in New York, let me just tell you.

Yeah, quite a difference versus Hawaii, but still beautiful time of year out there, I'm sure.

For sure. For sure. So honestly, right before we hit record, I shared that this is truly a pleasure and a privilege. I've been following your work for years now. It's this, you know, social media is a blessing and a curse because I'm like, oh, my bestie Drew. Or just hanging out. I know you.

I know how it is. I know how it is. So.

So for those of you who have not had the pleasure of being introduced to your work, can you share a little bit about who you are, who you serve, and how you got there?

Yeah. So most people know me as the fit to fit to fit guy. Right? So back in 2011, I had this crazy idea to do this very interesting experiment where as a personal trainer and someone who grew up my entire life in shape decided to become overweight on purpose to gain a better understanding of what it was like for my clients who were overweight. Because you have to understand, I grew up in a family of 11 brothers and sisters. We all played sports. I was very active. And so being in shape was something that came very easy to me, as most personal trainers probably can, you know? You know, they can relate to that in a lot of different ways. But. So I decided to go on this crazy experiment for six months of letting myself go completely. Ended up gaining 75 pounds in six months. It was one of the hardest, most humbling things I've ever done. Luckily, fortunately was able to lose the weight, but with a totally different perspective. It totally showed me how wrong I was and was one of the most humbling things I've ever done. That fit to fat to fit journey of gaining £75 and losing it then went viral. You know, it landed me on a bunch of TV shows and created my own TV show and wrote a book and all those things. And so that's kind of a little bit about my backstory.

Yeah, and then you did it again.

But I did it again in 2020 as a 40 year old. So the first time I did it, it was like 31 years old, you know, and I wanted to do it again second time as a 40 year old to kind of give people in that age demographic some hope and kind of saying, hey, look, I know it's harder as you get older. Yes, it can be harder, but it's still possible. And then also in 2011, social media wasn't what it is today. Like, social media is totally different. There's live streaming, there's insta stories, there's TikTok. And so people didn't really get to see the journey as it happened. Most of them heard about it after the fact or maybe like followed me on Facebook. Right. And so I wanted to do it again in 2020, because the first time Around, I was, like I said, I was humbled. And I learned a lot about the importance of empathy. I gained a lot of empathy for those that struggle with their weight and their body image issues. And so in 2020, you know, how crazy of a year that was with the pandemic and the riots in this country. And it's very divisive and still is, unfortunately. But I think empathy is one of those things that can change the world, truly. And I think the fitness industry is an industry that lacks empathy in a lot of different ways. And so I felt called to do it a second time, even though I swore I would never do it again. And once again was humbled quite a bit, but learned so many valuable lessons from both experiments.

Yeah, I would love for you to share, I'll say a couple of things. So, number one, I when I remember the first time I heard the story and the journey, and for me, what really resonated was this experience of a fitness person becoming a mom and recognizing that there were four body transformations that we go through that I didn't even know was about to happen. And it was such a humbling experience. And I remember what it felt like to be £200 walking up the stairs and being like, how can I live in this body? Right. It was just an incredible experience. So I really had related and connected to that because I just feel like so many people don't recognize or realize just the transformation is mental, spiritual, and physical. It's just everything.

That's what I was going to say. That's exactly what I learned after the first experiment was transformation is way more mental, emotional than we think. I know a lot of people go into, you know, weight loss journey thinking, okay, I'm going to do this diet, I'm going to eat this many calories and do this type of a workout, and then it'll just be a physical thing. But we are emotional creatures. We're emotional beings. And the emotional and mental challenges of life don't stop or push pause just because you want to go on a physical transformation journey of weight loss. You still have to deal with kids and finances and bills and relationships and all those things. And all of those things factor into your ability to show up and do the physical things you know you're supposed to do. But, you know, our ability to do those physical things, exercise, diet and those kinds of things are determined by our mental and emotional states. And so if you are, you know, struggling financially, if you are in a bad relationship or just went through a breakup, your emotions are all over the place, which affects your hormones, which affects your ability to be motivated and, you know, push yourself during workout or even get out of bed some days, or, you know, picking the healthy food like chicken and broccoli and salmon versus pizza and ice cream. Because, you know, sometimes we eat our emotions or a lot of times we eat our emotions. So really open up my eyes to that aspect of it.

It's so amazing. And then also what I noticed about your second journey, which I think is cool and I'm. I can't wait to dive into, is that you picked very specific traditional diets for each week. So you would have themes both ways as you gained the weight and as you lost it. So I can't wait for you to dive into a little bit of. Can you share some of the biggest differences that you learned that you experienced during both, both of the journeys? What surprised you and, you know, some of your biggest lessons?

So the first experiment, you know, that was my first time being overweight. So I will admit, like, I definitely freaked out because my whole life, my identity was my body, right? I was Drew, the fit guy. In my mind, that was the image I had created. And so my body image was my self image. And when I became overweight, I'll be totally honest with you, I kind of freaked out. And I've talked to a lot of other women or moms who have been become pregnant, and they say the same thing. They're like, this isn't my body, like, this isn't me. Like, what is happening? You feel like you're kind of having an out of body experience. But I freaked out to the point where I wanted to go up to strangers and explain to them that I wasn't really overweight, that this is just an experiment because I felt so uncomfortable being overweight for the first time because I didn't know who I was. So that first experiment was very, very humbling and eye opening to just how much of transformation is mental and emotional, which helped to develop empathy. And then I started to gain a better understanding of what it was like, you know, to have, you know, this emotional connection to food and realizing it was more powerful than I thought it was. Fast forward to 2020, the second journey. I kind of went into it, I'll be honest, a little bit cocky thinking I got this, I've done this before. Like, I know what's going to happen. But I was in a different. I was in a different place in life. So just a little bit of backstory the first time around. Was married, two young kids, Very, very young, two years old and a newborn at the time of doing. I was doing that. Fast forward to 2020. Had been divorced for quite a while and was in a new relationship, had a girlfriend. My daughters were 9 and 11 now. And so totally different dynamic this time around, different life situation. And so in the middle of that journey, I ended up going through a very bad breakup, which was not planned, it was unforeseen. It kind of just, you know, happened, unfortunately. And like I said, life doesn't push potlight. Life still happens, you know, even though you're on journey. And so what that, obviously, that was very devastating for me. It was heartbroken. I was, you know, sad and lonely and depressed. And then the food that I was eating before, I was eating it to gain the weight, and of course it tasted good, but now I was eating the food to deal with the emotions of the breakup. So. And that's where things got interesting. That's where I started to develop a lot, a lot deeper understanding on emotional eating and why people struggle with emotional eating. And I have so much more empathy for those that do struggle with emotional eating on a whole nother level, because now I experienced it myself, where that food became this kind of temporary comfort. And I think as humans, what happens, we fall into this trap of, like, anytime we experience any kind of pain, physical, mental, emotional, doesn't matter. We don't like that. We want to escape from that as quickly as possible. And we live in a day and age where we have so many tools to be able to escape that pain, whether it's food, whether it's drugs, whether it's alcohol, whether it's sex, porn movies, TV shows, social media, whatever it is, there's a lot of escapes to numb the pain or distract ourselves from the pain that we're feeling. And food, unfortunately, is probably the most accessible drug because it does the same thing as any other drug will do, which gives you a dopamine hit, right, which temporarily makes you feel good, temporarily relieves the pain or numbs the pain that you're experiencing. And if you could do that multiple times per day, then you're like, you know, suppressing those. Those emotions that are uncomfortable to deal with and use. Kind of like, you know, turn towards whatever the drug of choice is. So for me, it was like Ben and Jerry's ice cream, glass of wine, some brownies or pizza, something like that. And I. And I understood on a deeper level of, of people doing that day after day, month after month, year after year, and then for decades. And no, it's no wonder so many of us struggle with trying to live a healthy lifestyle consistently. If we programmed our brains to, anytime we feel any kind of stress or negative emotion to turn towards a substance to distract ourselves or numb ourselves from that emotional pain. And we just do that day in and day out. It's really. It's like getting someone off of drugs, you know, we know like, hey, just stop doing drugs. Like that's what you would want to tell someone. It's the same thing with food, and we do that all the time, but we sweep it under the rug because food is legal, it tastes really good, and it's easily accessible. It's the most convenient thing nowadays with doordash and ubereats and grocery stores and restaurants and fast food and any time of day you want to, you know, take that drug, you can do it multiple times per day. And so now I understand why people get stuck in that vicious cycle of emotional eating. So those were kind of like the biggest lessons I learned from both those experiences.

Out of curiosity, what was the, what was the speed of attachment of emotional and emotional eating? Like, how fast did you start to realize that this was an issue? Like was this like one meal I'm emotional eating or was this like days compounded?

It was days compounded. So I broke up in, let's see. So I started August through December was my journey in November. End of November was the breakup. So it was around Thanksgiving and Christmas and there was obviously some roller coasters of emotions of like working through the, the breakup. It wasn't just like breakup and then done. It was like, you know, there was trying to work things through and then dealing with, you know, someone else's pain, you know, putting that pain on you. And so there was like lots of, you know, phases of the breakup, to be honest with you. And so it just made things super complicated. But yeah, it was, it came on pretty quickly where I was aware of what I was doing. I'm a very self aware person. I've done a lot of work on myself since my first divorce and leaving my religion around the same time and went to therapy, life coaching, meditation, journaling, all these things that have helped me through that. So I'm a very self aware person. So even me with that self awareness was knew what I was doing, I knew I was eating my emotions, but I didn't realize how powerful that emotional connection to food would become to even where sometimes today if I'm triggered in a certain way because I have daughters and you know, they're going through hormonal changes and it's not easy. I'll be totally honest with you, as a single dad of two daughters, like, it's very humbling. There's no, there's no like manual of like for guys. I think single dads like how to deal with, with daughters. And so it's been very humbling. And I'm still triggered and I still have moments where I'm like, this is too much for me. And it's so easy to turn towards the food or the alcohol or whatever the drug of choice is. That's why I don't judge people. But I still find myself okay dealing with that. And you know, I think one of the keys to overcoming any kind of addiction is self awareness. And that's the biggest focus of my brand now is whereas before it's like, okay, here's your diet, here's your, you know, macro breakdown, here's your calories, here's your specific workout that you know, helps people of course with physical transformation. But if you don't understand who you are and why you do what you do and why, why, why, where certain triggers stem from, then unfortunately living a healthy lifestyle consistently is going to be a lot more difficult if you don't have that self awareness muscle being built over time to understand why you do what you do. Because then you're never really truly able to figure out why you keep reaching for the alcohol, why you keep reaching for the Ben and Jerry's ice cream whenever you're stressed and being able to detach from that, detach from your emotions and your feelings and becoming the observer of your thoughts. That right there is the key to true lasting transformation.

And I think that there's a paradox. Right. I just, it reminds me of one of the, the, the things that my mentor says all the time, which is living on the razor's edge where it's both you care about everything and nothing at the same time. Because it's so easy. It's like those things that we double tap on Instagram, like, yeah, I'm going to detach from my emotions. And then you recognize, oh wait, right, we're still human beings having a human experience. We don't get graduate as much as, you know, we would want to.

Yeah.

So it's interesting how experience and evidence is also a paradox. It's a double edged sword. We have all this self awareness, but it also works against us because we can't see what we can't see.

Yeah.

You know, which I just think is that's why coaching is so powerful. So now you know, so. And I'm also curious, what were some of the scientific lessons that you learned from the different diets going both ways?

Yeah, so let me kind of break that down. So in 2020, when I did my second experiment, experiment, I really wanted to make it more educational this time around because it had so many more tools available to me, so much more data to track. Like I was, you know, there's all these wearables now. I had a continuous glucose monitor, I use my whoop to track my sleep, you know, labs, like blood work, all these things. And so what I wanted to do this time around was kind of go into it and kind of really showcase four popular diets that, and show the, the, you know, both sides of these diets. Right. Paleo, keto, vegan and vegetarian are very popular in our society. And so I wanted to show people that just because you're doing one of these popular diets doesn't automatically mean that you're going to become healthier. And I'm a huge proponent of keto. I have a whole book on keto and I've been doing it for years. Even with keto, I want to show people the pitfalls and mistakes that people make. So when I was gaining the weight, I did a week long experiment of each of those diets, blood work before and after to kind of show the dirty versions of these diets. And so keto, you know what that looked like was a lot of butter, bacon and cheese to the extreme. Just like overloading on the fats, the coconut oils, like I said, the butters and like the cheap, easy processed foods. So keto donuts, keto cakes, keto ice creams, keto pizzas, that's all available nowadays. So over consuming those foods and, and then with paleo, a lot of the process, like Paleo cereals and Paleo pancakes and Paleo bars and you know, anytime a diet goes mainstream, marketing companies jump on board and they're like, oh, now you can eat paleo and still have your, your, your pancakes and. Because cavemen ate paleo pancakes, of course. Right. Same thing with vegan and vegetarian. Like there's like, people don't know this, but Oreos are vegan. You could totally eat Oreos and be a vegan, but it's the most unhealthiest thing out there, of course. But you know, and so that's kind of the experiment I did as I gained the weight and then the idea be after that was when I lost the weight to kind of show people, look, if you're going to do these diets, any of them, I don't care which one you do. Here's the healthy way to do it, by mostly eating whole foods instead of processed junk foods. And that's kind of what the focus was. Um, you know, the difference. But as far as scientifically what I did, one of the things that stood out was my triglyceride levels. And when I did my triglyceride blood work, you know, obviously I did my lipids as well. But the triglycerides, I really wanted to showcase that because when my baseline, I think, was like 46, super healthy, anything under a hundred is really, really good. So obviously it was starting off in a good place, being 46. Right. Then I did dirty keto. And still keto is a high fat, low carbohydrate diet. So with low carb, you're probably not going to have your triglycerides as high. So it went from 46 to like 71. Still healthy. Right? And then Paleo was the next week, went from like 71 to like 1:30. So now it's starting to get up there because I was adding in some more like fruit juices and, like I said, Paleo bars and tons of fruit and so. And then jumping from Paleo to vegan, that's where things got interesting. Went from like 130 to like 4:30 in just one week of eating, you know, vegan cookies and vegan treats and Oreos and certain sodas and lots of candy. That's vegan. And burritos. Yes, yes. And then jumping to vegetarian, which is similar to vegan. But then I could add in things like Mac and cheese and, you know, stuff like that, anything without meat. And, you know, this is the problem with these diets is that we still gravitate towards the comfort foods that fit into these categories. And I see a lot of people make these mistakes. And this is why I wanted to do this experiment to show people, like, look, this is the. These are the pitfalls and mistakes that people fall into when they do these popular diets. Here's my blood work to show just how unhealthy it can be. Even though I'm doing a vegan or a keto or paleo diet and vegetarian, and showing people, like, look, just because you're doing these diets doesn't automatically mean you're going to become healthier. And so it was very, you know, educational information for a lot of people to follow along. For me, it was, it was, it was still miserable, you know, eating those Foods I didn't feel the best.

Yeah, I remember you sharing. You were sharing and talking a lot about the, the. Which I think is powerful in. You were sharing about the mental stress and the mental, like, impact that was coming from doing this. Even though you knew better, it was still like, I'm sleeping like crap, I feel bad, I'm stressed, I'm anxious. Like, just things that don't. You don't normally feel were coming up.

Yeah, I wanted to show people. This is why I wanted to do it a second time, to kind of show people from like my insta stories and my live streams of like, what goes on behind the scenes, like ink and paint a picture for people. When you eat, when you live an unhealthy lifestyle, you eat lots of processed junk foods. You don't, you know, you're not exercising. How that factors into you as a human and you as a father, as a mother, use, a spouse, you as a business owner, you know, in all your relationships and how it all stems from living a, an unhealthy physical lifestyle and how that carries over into other aspects of your life. Because a lot of people don't realize that. They think, oh, I'm just gonna eat these cheeseburgers and fries. I'm not doing anyone any harm. You know, I'll, maybe I'll get in some body fat. But if that's all it did, was just make you gain body fat, it wouldn't be that bad. But what happens is it's a vicious cycle where you, you know, eat this junk food, you're not exercising, maybe you're drinking some alcohol, you know, you're, you're consuming too many calories, which factors into your ability to sleep efficiently. And I tracked all that in my WHOOP device, showing people the differences in my HRV and how it just plummeted. And so now I'm not sleeping well through the night. And if anyone, like any new, any parents of newborn babies know, if you are not sleeping well, you're not the same version of you, you're not your best self. You're in survival mode constantly, your cortisol's through the roof all day long, your ability to handle stress is severely diminished where your fuse is so short, anything might set you off. And so dealing with kids, dealing with, you know, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, whatever it is, your ability to handle little stresses of life is severely diminished to where, yeah, your fuse is a lot shorter. And so, and then from there you're stressed out and we're more insulin resistant, which then makes Us crave this, the processed junk food even more. And then you eat that food again and you create this vicious cycle and you get these spikes in blood sugar and these crashes and these spikes and crashes, spikes and crashes, which is exhausting to the body over time to release that much insulin. And just time and time again, multiple times per day, affecting your sleep, affecting your hormones, affecting your ability to show up for you, for other people. And even though, like I said, I'm a very self aware person, I knew what I was doing. You know, I would still meditate, I would still journal and do my gratitude list and try and bring my stress levels down, but it was like pouring buckets of water on a burning building. And so yes, it helped out, but it didn't, you know, it didn't fix everything. It still, there was still these problems going on and that kind of really was showcased in this journey. Like, you can see my demeanor, you can see my personality change. You know, there's clips of me on YouTube with like my girlfriend at the time. And you know, I, I definitely was not my best self. And I'll totally admit that even though I was aware of what was happening, it's kind of like, it's kind of like out of your control in some, some cases. And this is why I have so much empathy for people that struggle with living healthy lifestyle, because I understand how powerful our emotions are in those moments when we're sleep deprived and our hormones are out of balance and you know, we're just reaching for the, the, the cheaper, more affordable processed junk food that's available to us. I get why people gravitate towards that because it's the path of least resistance. And to be healthy, you know, it's going to cost more, it's going to cost you a lot more. It's more of an uphill battle. You have to go out of your way to buy grass fed, you have to go out of your way and spend more money on organic. You have to, you know, go out of your way and get uncomfortable in the gym and do hard things. And you know, we are creatures of comfort. We've been so conditioned to be as comfortable as possible. Like anything that makes you uncomfortable, there's a pill, there's some type of technology that can alleviate any kind of discomfort. If you have a headache, you take a pill, you're cold, you turn up the heater, you're hot, you turn on the air conditioner, you have warm water, you have soft clothes, a soft bed, you have a car with air conditioning and heating. And food in your fridge, pantries, doordash, anything you want, you know. And so we gravitate towards the comfortable lifestyle and people get stuck there and they're like, okay, this year I'm going to do it. I'm just going to willpower my way out of it. But now you condition your brain and program your brain to be a creature of comfort. At some point it's going to become super uncomfortable and people are like, this is too hard. And I only lost a pound this week, so it's not working. So screw it, give me the pizza, give me the beer. I had a hard day at work and there we go. People get stuck there.

That brain, it's so tricky. So you started to talk about it and I'm curious if you wouldn't mind sharing and go deeper. What were some, what were the, what was the impact for your kids as they were watching you go through this, especially now as they're 9 and 11. So now they're, you know, their brain's starting to get a little bit more developed. It's different than when they were toddlers. How did this have an impact on them?

It was kind of a love hate relationship. They hated the way I was acting. They didn't like me gaining the weight. They definitely felt it affect me as a dad. But then they also loved it because they loved having the junk food. And of course they would sneak my treats and like, you know, I try and keep them away from it, but I, you know, they're 9 11, of course they're gonna want the candy and the cereal and pop tarts and pizza. So I couldn't keep it away from them forever. And so they loved that aspect of it. But then I remember asking them, like, what? Like, would you guys be okay if I did this again? They're like, no, never do this again. I hated it. Blah, blah, blah. So yeah, it was really hard, you know, going into. I really had to have a conversation with them like, hey, this is what's going to be happening. This is what I'm going to be going through. And you know, they don't, they don't. That's the thing. Kids, they're so. It's so amazing to be have unconditional love where your kids don't care what size you are, I don't care how ripped you are or anything like that. And it's so cool to have that, like they still love me the same, whether it's 70 pounds heavier, you know, a six pack.

Did the body image stuff come up at all? Again. Or did or was that handled?

Not at all. This time I rocked the dad bod. I loved it. I didn't mind it. Like, I totally took my shirt off, you know, like anywhere I went, I didn't have a problem the first time around. I didn't take my shirt off once in public. I was too afraid. But I think doing the inner work, learning to develop self love, is a huge component to helping people overcome, you know, those insecurities and that, that attachment to that body image as your self image. And so that's why I'm a huge proponent of working in before working out. Because if you just try and do a workout program and diet without doing the inner work, unfortunately, a lot of people just go back to their old patterns, their old loops that they've created, and they're in their brains, and I think people get stuck there. And so for me, this time around, I didn't, like, I wasn't attached to my body image as much, and so I didn't care. Being the overweight guy, you know, it's kind of fun.

Yeah. So you're bringing up a really good point. Especially in the fitness industry, we've seen this pendulum swing. So I'm curious, your perspective, right, is that I feel like we've taken this idea of health at every size is not the same as healthy at every size. And so I'm curious how you have navigated and how you implement your process to do the inner work as well as the outer work and how people can navigate this feeling of like, I know I want to make a healthier lifestyle change. I know I want to lose fat, but not at the expense of perpetuating this, like, you know, you need to be lean, you need to be smaller, you need to hate yourself skinny. How do you navigate that nuanced conversation in your process?

Yeah, that's a really good question. And we'll go deep here. But let me just start off by saying I am aware and recognize the toxicity of the fitness industry and how it's been for so long and placing value and, you know, superior morality by being lean and fit and skinny. And I think it's, it's. Yeah, for too far, it's been, you know, over, you know, the pendulum has swung this way too much to where it has become toxic. And now we're seeing this, like, healthy identity size or health at any size and like body positivity movement, which is kind of, in my opinion, it's. It's kind of the right move to kind of get the pendulum more towards the middle. But also, we shouldn't live in these extremes either, where it's like, okay, well I'm, I'm just going to eat whatever I want to and never exercise and think that self love, I think they're somewhere in the middle. So, so how do we navigate that? For me, self love doesn't mean just eating whatever you want to and Netflix and chilling all day long. Because I'll tell you that, you know, living that lifestyle where you do eat whatever you want to and you never do anything hard or uncomfortable doesn't lead to long term happiness. And you ask anyone, as humans, we were designed to make progress in this life and, and, and to progress forward rather than staying stagnant. And it's really, really difficult to be happy and not progress in this life. I think whether it's financially, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically to not make progress, I think leads is a trap that we fall into. I think real self love is this. When you truly love who you are and you love your body, you want to treat your body with kindness, you want to do nice things. And we know that eating healthy food, sleeping efficiently through the night, managing our stress, doing some form of movement, it doesn't have to be bro lifting in the gym doesn't have to be, you know, deadlifts and squats and bench press and bicep curls, it doesn't have to be that. But some form of movement that gets you into an uncomfortable state temporarily in the short term, but then brings long term fulfillment and results. That right there is true self love where you realize, oh, I love myself enough to do hard, difficult things in the short term that will suck, that will bring me long term happiness. And I think that's kind of where people get it wrong, where they think anything uncomfortable, anything hard is not self love. And I think that's kind of something that we're missing with this health at every size type of movement. I do think you can be healthy at different sizes. I do think you don't need to be or, sorry, I don't think you need to be skinny or lean to be healthy. Because I know a lot of skinny and lean people that are super unhealthy still, so it doesn't matter. I know a lot of people who are overweight that sleep eight hours a night. They do well at managing their stress. They eat whole foods, you know. You know, I'm not saying any diet is superior, but just eating real food for the most part, like as much as possible tend to be, you know, feel you have better digestion, you have better sleep, you have better sex, you have better stamina, you have better mental focus and cognitive function when you eat healthy foods. And then some form of movement, some form of exercise that gets you out of your comfort zone to prove to yourself that you can do hard things and that you're worthy of doing hard things that bring long term fulfillment and happiness into your life. And I do know people at bigger sizes that are judged by society thinking oh you're, you're still overweight, so you're not healthy, but that's not the case. And so I do believe you can't be healthy at larger sizes. I just think that true self love has to also incorporate some form of uncomfortable, uncomfortableness or uncomfortability doing hard things in the short term to bring long term fulfillment and happiness. And so I think it's a balance of that.

It's, that's so good. And I think it too that there's this hard, there's this hard line that people have to find. And in my opinion, I'll just share that it comes with practice in terms of finding it is that in the fitness industry we've been taught, we've been taught that it has to be all or nothing because we're looking for the fast track, right? So we're looking for like it has to be hard, right? And so then what ends up happening is, is that we, we, we, we go so hard and then at all costs, so then people start like going to the gym with the flu or whatnot and then we start losing this sense of flexible discipline because we are like oh, oh, I, I, I can't, I just don't feel like it today. Well, you have, you're going to have to move through some, I don't feel like it, but not at, not at all costs. And I think that that line and boundary is hard to find for people.

People. Yeah. I describe it like this. Like a lot of people have an on or off switch when it comes to fitness. Like either I'm on a diet or I'm off a diet. I'm all in or I'm all out. There's like I tell people to switch over to a dimmer, right? A dimmer mentality. And what that means is like sometimes the dimmer is up higher, sometimes it's lower, but there's never offer on like 100%. Just put it somewhere in between. And maybe during certain phases of life when you're able to move more, you're able to focus on your sleep and manage your Stress and you have time to meal prep and stuff like that. Move the dimmer up a little bit. But then let's say life punches you in the face and you lose someone close to you or you lose a job, or you went through a breakup. Okay, bring that down a little bit. Where maybe you go for a walk instead of you go to the gym and like, you know, do a David Goggins style workout or you do like a hardcore diet. Maybe you kind of find a different balance during that phase of life until you feel better again, but never turn it completely off. You know, learn how to push, pause and take a break instead of give up and just go back to your old ways. And I think finding that balance is really, really important. The last thing I'll say about this is, you know, don't let it be determined by other people. Don't let it be determined by people like me or people in the fitness industry or people outside of the fitness industry saying that's too much or don't do that, or hey, push yourself harder, go, you know, go run 100 miler. Like, let it be determined by you. And you determine what that, what a healthy balance looks like for you. Like maybe, you know, Netflix and chill once a week and that's cool and that works out for you. Or you have the cake at your daughter's birthday and that feels good to you. But, you know, and maybe you're okay with not being 10% body fat. You don't need to be ripped and lean like all the time. Maybe you find a happy balance of like, okay, I can go out with my friends, have some drinks, you know, have a pizza every now and then. And. But still I'm able to go to the gym or work out in some way and I'm able to get enough sleep and manage my stress and find that happy balance that's determined by you. You get to determine that line of what that balance looks like. Not society, not anyone else, just you.

Yeah. So good. So I, I do want to go back real quick because you did talk about some of the science that you had learned when you were on the up. So swing of the game. Did anything surprise you as you started to implement these diets on the back half, as you started to lose the fat?

I wouldn't say anything really surprised me because after the first journey, the first experiment, you know, doing blood work, as I lost the weight, I was really, well, I guess that time I was surprised at how quickly my body returned back to normal levels. So within, I would say 30 to 60 days of eating healthy food and exercising every day. All my blood work went back to normal levels. And this is what my doctor told me at the time is like your body is resilient, your body can really heal itself if you treat it right consistently. And for me, luckily I had only done this experiment for six months the first time and then four months the second time of putting my body through hell. And so my body was able to bounce back pretty quickly. People that have been in the year long stance of no exercise or just life gets in the way and maybe it's been decades since they've been able to treat their body consistently, might take longer, right. But their bodies still are pretty resilient and we see that time and time again with all these transformations of people transforming their life at all different phases of life. And so if you treat your body right consistently, it can heal itself. So on this experiment in 2020, you know, doing vegan vegetarian again, you know, I was already pretty healthy to begin with. Even though I'd revisited those diets again just because I, you know, I was still eat, I was already eating whole foods, I was already exercising and doing those things that we know we're supposed to do. So nothing really surprised me on, on the, the journey back to fit. But I will say the thing I guess that did surprise me was eating a healthy vegan diet. Right? Like a whole food approach. Actually I enjoyed it. The food was actually way better than I thought it would be. It wasn't like this beyond burger type of approach to veganism, you know. Yeah, I was pretty impressed with like, okay, this is something that actually isn't that bad and the food actually tasted pretty good, so that's good.

And you were able to hit your protein goals with the vegan?

I was, but I did supplement with like a vegan protein powder, you know, a couple times a day to get in my, my protein goals. Right. Because on, on a plant based diet to get in lots of protein, you're going to have to add in a lot more carbs or fats, you know, whether it's from legumes or you know, lentils, nuts and seeds, you know, to get the amount of protein I needed, you're going to get a lot more calories in versus like animal meat is mostly just protein, you know, unless it's a fat steak or like a salmon with a lot more fat in it. But it's easier to get just pure protein. But if you're eating like a tub of peanut butter to get 50 grams of protein from peanut butter is gonna be a lot of excess calories with this.

And I'm also curious as someone who does predominantly keto and listen, this might be one of my misconceptions, so feel free to discredit. Did you have any fodmap issues as you were adding more fiber and more vegetables into the diet, like frequency?

No, because when I do keto, it's, it's a high vegetable diet when I do keto. That's my approach anyways. I do, you know, a pretty high nutrient dense, non starchy types of vegetables when I do keto anyways. So, you know, and then also fermented foods like kimchi and sauerkraut are pretty keto friendly as well. And so I didn't have any of those issues. You know, I think that's people's misconception as keto is just butter, bacon and cheese and, you know, lots of meat. And that's it. Right. So it doesn't have to be that way. I teach people how to do. There's a. I have a vegan version of keto and a vegetarian version of keto in my book Complete Keto. If that's what people want to do. It is more difficult for sure. But it's still possible if you want to do a keto version of a plant based diet. Okay.

Yeah, I knew. I was like, oh, I'm definitely going to be showing some misconceptions here, but no judgment.

Yeah, no judgment here. I don't judge.

Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, listen, I know there's a lot of people out there that have misconceptions about all these diets, whether it's intermittent fasting or vegan or whatever it is. So that's part of the reason why I thought your journey was so impactful in that way. I appreciate that. So now, now that you've done this, are you going to do it again?

So here's the, here's the thing. Here's the thing. I swore I would never do it the first time. So this time around, I'm not going to say never. But I don't foresee it happening in my foreseeable future. I don't. Like, in my mind, the answer is no. Today, tomorrow would probably be no. Years from now would probably be no. I don't foresee myself doing this again. But I guess never say never because I said it a million times, so I don't want to jinx myself. But no, I don't think there's anything really. I need to learn this Time around it is very taxing on my body, I'm not going to lie. And my mind and my relationships as I demonstrated, I mean, I didn't, we didn't break up because of the journey. I think me being in an unhealthy state exacerbated certain things that I was going through at the time. But we didn't break up because of the journey, if that makes sense.

It does, it does. So I, I'm also curious about, you know, the difference that you learn as someone who just turned 40 this year. It's this weird thing, right? You all of a sudden think like, oh my, you know, people's, it used to be 30, but now I feel like it's more like 40. But maybe that's just because I just turned it, but, you know, did. Was there any difference in this ex, you know, with age being 40, how have you now changed the way you people who are going into this phase of life?

Yes, 100%. So yeah, there were some small differences, but my approach was different to lose the weight this time around. This time around I did more of a keto slash intermittent fasting approach, which I think works well for older people. I think when you're younger, your metabolism is faster, your hormones are probably more optimal as a, you know, 20, 30 year old versus a 40 year old. So I was able to lose the weight pretty efficiently with this approach. I though the biggest thing that I noticed was my ability to recover. I remember being a lot sore, a lot stiffer the second time around, you know, as a 40, as a 40 year old this, this time around. So I think your body's ability to recover is a lot more noticeable. You know, I'm 41 now, almost 42. It's a lot more noticeable at this age than when I was 31. I don't really remember that being an issue of like being sore or not recovering as quickly.

Interesting. So as you say that I'm like, man, so that's why I'm still so sore.

Exactly. So you, you just got to put a lot more time and effort into recovery than probably you did in your early 30s. Now it's like, okay, you know, way more into meditation, way more into like walking and stretching and yoga than I was in my 30s. You know, back then I was just those bicep curls and bench press and, and you know, just like push through any kind of pain. And now it's like, oh man, my back's really tight. Like my hip flexors are tight. My hips like it's got to like loosen up. And so I have to spend more time on, you know, self care and recovery.

Okay, interesting. And so now the people that you're working with now. So this, you were, you were doing this as you were launching an app, right? So you were working, you're. So now you have an app, right? So the people that you are working with, you do you find that you are working with coaches as well? Are you working with, you know, general population? Like who have you been finding coming into your world?

All kinds of people, all different backgrounds from all over the world. It's really cool to see people come together. And I think the thing with this fit to fit to fit journey or experiment that people gravitate to is I love a quote by, I think it's Franklin Roosevelt who said no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. And I think because of that, people tend to relate to me now more versus just your typical six pack physical trainer that exists out there that's like pushed through the pain, no excuses. Because I'm coming from a place of empathy and I understand the mental emotional side. So I think people tend to gravitate towards that and that brings in all kinds of people that you know, aren't the David Goggins of the world or don't like the Jillian Michaels like military style approach to just like punish yourself beat yourself up more. Because I do think, here's my whole philosophy now is I think if people can learn how to love themselves first and foremost before even starting a physical transformation journey. Operating at a place of self love versus self hate brings more lasting, long term fulfilling changes in people's lives versus this temporary hate yourself to skinny beat yourself up self hate approach which can work for a small percentage of the population to just like beat yourself up. Because I come from that, I come from that world of like, of, of hardcore, you know, push through any kind of like, you know, hard thing and just like do it from a place of self hate. That can be very motivating when you're coming from a place of like being hurt or in pain. Now that I'm older and I've learned how to love myself, I'll take self love any day because it makes the journey so much more enjoyable. The journey of doing the hard physical things that we know we're supposed to do now. It's not this chore or this thing that I have to do, it's this thing that doing it from a place of self love makes the uncomfortable workouts or eating the healthy Food instead of the junk food. It makes it more manageable and a little bit easier to navigate those waters. When you're operating at a place of self love. And I think that's kind of brings those kinds of people that want that approach, that want to learn how to love themselves no matter what their bodies look like, whether they reach they get the results they want or not. It's not about, you know, getting the results. It's not about reaching the top. It's about learning how to fall in love with the process. And if you could learn how to fall in love with the process, then you can accomplish anything. There's a good quote that says the man who loves to walk will walk longer than the man who loves getting to the destination. And that's kind of the whole concept is learning to fall in love with the process. And if you could fall in love with the process, the change becomes the byproduct, the results become a byproduct. That's not your source of happiness anymore. Now your source of happiness is doing the process from a place of worthiness and self love. And you're like, oh, this actually feels good to live this way. And then the results don't become the focus anymore. And so that's kind of, I think, why it brings so many a wide variety of people so good.

The results become the ripple effect results because it's just so much deeper. Last question. Because I want to be mindful of your time. So I'm curious. One of the other things that you said it a couple of times, and I know it's part of your philosophy is, is your ability to bring empathy and also to, to share a lot very vulnerably in a very powerful motivating way. I'm curious, you know, you know, and to talk about self love, like some of this stuff that we talk about that you talk about specifically can feel wooey or people push it off as like, you know, you know, like that's, that's the soft skills when it's really the power skills. So I'm curious for you coming from that bro background of like no athlete, like, oh my gosh, we're all or nothing like you lifting your whole life. Like that's not the conversation y' all are like talking about in the gym when we're slinging around weights. So I'm curious, like how did you transition in a way that like, was there a moment? Was it compound effect? Was it like, you know, like how did you switch? How did it. Was there a moment that.

Yeah, no, thanks for asking this question. And I love diving deep into this. This is way more interesting to talk about than like macros and calories and stuff like that. Because, yeah, I've. People see my muscles, my tattoos, and think, oh, Jim, bro, this guy's like all into like, you know, push yourself and like, you know, hardcore fitness. And. And then I'm talking about self love and vulnerability. And they're like, wait a second, what is happening here? And it's because of my experiences in my life. There's a really good, you know, saying that people say, like, let your mess become your message. And I went through a whole life of mess leading up to this. So I think it stemmed from being broken down to the point where hitting my rock bottom. So I would say this happened. I got. I was married for 10 years and like I said, I got divorced after 10 years of marriage. That right there was probably one of the hardest, most humbling things I've ever been through. And I left my religion around the same time. So I was born into religion, believed that 100% was in it. And to go through this identity crisis of losing my marriage, losing my religion, trying to figure out who I was at that point. And that's where I started to step into the world of, of healing myself through things like therapy, which I wasn't open to before because I was taught therapies, like for broken people or people that are, you know, woo, woo, that are just like, you know, need help. And I was like, I don't need help, right? So admitting to myself that I needed help, being open to new tools like therapy, meditation, life coaching, which totally transformed my life. And I think that's where it started to stem or started to create this sense of, oh, I am lovable and wow, I've never felt that self love. And man, this actually feels really good. And then I started seeing other people talk about, you know, the importance of vulnerability. And that's why I have this tattoo on this arm that says vulnerability is strength. Reading books by Brene Brown and, you know, studying her work and, and then seeing other men in our culture become vulnerable, which gave me permission to be vulnerable. And, you know, Brene Brown talks about vulnerability breeds vulnerability. And so stepping into the arena like she talks about is scary as hell. It's so scary to like, take your mask off and just show like you're stepping out naked to the world for the world to see and saying, I don't care anymore. And that right there is so freeing. It's so scary, of course, but it's so freeing once you, you're on the other side of it and you're like, man, I've been missing out my whole life because I've had to wear this mask to, you know, fill this void, to kind of, you know, that's been, you know, there my whole life. And so I used to think if I have this healthy, fit, ripped body, then people will value me. And yeah, society puts a lot of value and emphasis on, oh, you're a ripped, lean guy, okay, we value you, like here's attention. And it feeds your ego and it never quite fills that void, though it temporarily does. People think, oh, if I have this body, then all my problems will go away. People will love me and then I'll love myself. But you realize, oh, wait a second, I still hate myself even though I have this awesome body, there's still something missing. And then once you learn how to take your mask off, which is scary, you can finally be authentically you and you stop caring what other people think about you. And that right there is, that's, you know, it was the spark for this journey of learning how to love myself. And, and then from there, life experiences of, like I said, divorced, leaving my religion, doing the inner work that I mentioned and learning how to live that as a lifestyle really plays into. And that's how I shifted my whole brand, my fitness brand to where it's so much more than just helping people transform their bodies. Because now I've realized like, oh, I could, you know, help someone try and fill this void by giving them this body that's going to feed their ego. Or I could help them learn how to love themselves as they go on a physical fitness journey so that now their self worth isn't in their body, their identity doesn't get wrapped into this body image as their self image and they give them the tools that I learned from this kind of self discovery journey. So hopefully that makes sense.

It does. It's so cool. So what's next? What are you working on now?

So right now my brand, Fit to Bed to Fit is, you know, it's evolving, I would say. And this whole idea of something that I've kind of like started calling it conscious fitness is a whole new paradigm shift for the fitness industry. And I feel like the fitness industry needs a paradigm shift. And like I said, like swinging it from one pendulum to the other pendulum to now, like, hey, let's find this peaceful middle where it can exist. Where this idea of conscious fitness is a totally different approach than your traditional fitness model. Of like, you know, hitting yourself to skinny. It's doing it a fitness journey, but from a place of self love and learning to fall in love with the process, not the results. And that's kind of what this conscious fitness idea is, is kind of becoming where I do these 30 day conscious fitness challenges that people can join. And my next one starts in January and you get coached by me of learning this whole concept and rewiring people's brains and shifting their perception and focusing on, yes, doing physically hard things that are required to, you know, transform your physical body, but learning how to do it from a place of self love instead of self hate. And that's what this conscious fitness challenge idea has become to where I did some beta testing earlier in the year and people love it. It's so different than what they think it is. And so I'm really excited to launch this next one in January. And yeah, this whole concept of conscious fitness I think is starting to take off.

That's so cool. Oh my gosh. We'll make sure that we link all of that up in the show notes because that is so cool. So for those of you, thank you so much for pouring into me, pouring into the community. So for those of you who want to connect with you, go deeper with you, learn from you, what are some of the best places I can send them? Them?

Yeah, right now it's super simple. It's just fit number two fat. Number two fit. So fit to fat to fit on all social media channels. It's my website, it's my podcast, it's my first book. And yeah, I appreciate it you, I appreciate you having me on Beverly.

Cool. Thank you so much.

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