WIN 50 - Keep Food Simple, Keep Food Consistent with Mike Starks

Welcome to win, the Women Investing Network. The podcast where you can learn from successful entrepreneurs, business leaders and real estate investors who are winning in business and life. Learning from others is the fastest way to grow your skills, gain knowledge and avoid pitfalls so you can win. Join our hosts, Elizabeth Embry and Jason Hartman. Elizabeth is a seasoned real estate investor, experienced corporate executive and skilled mentor. Jason is a self made multimillionaire investor, entrepreneur and highly acclaimed thought leader. Together with their successful guests, you'll get the tools you'll need to win.

Welcome to the show. This is Jason Hartman, your host. And every 10th episode we do something kind of special, kind of different. What we do is we go off topic. So regardless of which show it is on the Hartman Media Network, whether it be one of the financial shows, economics, real estate, investing, travel, longevity, all of the other topics that we have, every 10th episode we go off topic and we explore something of general interest, something, something of general life, success, value. And so many of our listeners around the world in 164 countries have absolutely loved our 10th episode shows. So that's what we're going to do today and let's go ahead and get to our guest with a special 10th episode show. And of course on the next episode, we'll be back to our regular programming. Here we go. It's my pleasure to welcome Mike Starks to the show. He is the founder of Personal Trainer Food. And I tell you, if one thing, one symbol thing has impacted my life more than any other, hey, it might be real estate investing, but it might also be this company. I have been a customer for several years now. I found out about this company through a high end concierge doctor that I had. As most of you know, I'm a bachelor. I don't like to cook, but I do like to eat. And, and I like to eat healthy. And so we're going to talk about the problem and one of the solutions to it today. Mike, welcome. How are you?

I'm great, Jason. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, it's good to have you. So I've mentioned your company on my show several times over the years. I called Nast, I said, hey, you know, do you guys do an affiliate program? And, and you designed one for me so my listeners can check out your program and I become an affiliate. I just, it's like that commercial which I happen to be thinking more and more about every year, the Hair Club for Men. I always thought it was funny, that old commercial, he says, I like it so much, I bought the company right Right, Yeah.

I may be joining that club very soon.

Yeah. We don't have a cure for that today, but we do have a cure for some of the biggest problem. I mean, it is, it is amazing, Mike, how just over the years, over the decades, we have seen America and many parts of the world, but America especially, I think, is probably the worst victim to this. The epidemic of obesity, heart disease, cancer, diabetes. It is unbelievable that here we live in this era of unprecedented technology and prosperity. I always say it's an amazing time to be alive. The human race is just. I have. One of my shows is called the Longevity and Biohacking Show. And we recently shared some statistics that for the first time in potentially forever, I don't know, life expectancy is actually declining. And it's simply because of personal choices and that the literal poison. Poison in our food supply. Speak to that a little bit, if you would.

You know, Jason, what's interesting is years ago I noticed that we, America is the most nutritionally educated country and culture ever in the history of the world. We can read a nutrition label. We know what most of the big confusing words mean. We have all that in our brain and at our fingertips, and yet we're the most obese. So why do you think that is? I'll tell you what's happened is we got it wrong. Forty years ago, when heart disease was at an all time high in the United States, doctors were trying to figure out, why are people dying? Well, what they did was they ignored smoking. Smoking was at an all time high in the late 60s and early 70s. Heart disease was at an all time high. And because the tobacco companies and the government were kind of in bed together, they looked for something else to blame. And so they turned to some guys, some doctors, pretty smart guys, and they started blaming fat. And now we know. We learned through the New England Journal of Medicine last year that it was actually a conspiracy. Instead of them looking at sugar, they decided to blame fat. The Sugar association actually paid off these doctors sad deal.

What happened, it seems, in the history of our poisonous food supply is that they started on this, like, public campaign against fat. And fat is actually quite good for you. A lot of fats are. Right. And so I remember thinking about how many grams of fat were in anything, you know, years ago and made on. My mom used to ask the waitress at the restaurant, how many grams of fat does that have? I mean, like, stop. It's just a dumb question, right? But they misled the public and so they took all the fat out. And by taking the Fat out of the food. The food tastes like cardboard. So they added sugar and replaced it with sugar. It's an absolute conspiracy. And if you look at the way the planet was designed by our creator or whatever you believe, you know, sugar is hard to get in nature. Right. You know, it'll take a lot of time to harvest a little bit of sugar, but it's easy to get all these other foods that are good for us and plentiful. You know, maybe that's by design.

Right, right. That's right. That's right. I'll tell you what's interesting about sugar, is one of the other, I think, culprits here is that up until about 1960 to 1970, like you said, you nailed it, the manufacturing of sugar, it took about 50 tons of water to process one pound of white sugar. And when my wife and I were over in Kauai one year about 20 years ago, we flew over an old sugar refinery, and they were telling us the history of it. And so what I think has happened, Jason, and you're exactly right, when you pull fat out of the food, it affects the texture. So to make up for that, they've got to put in flour or gluten and sugar. And both the manufacturing processes of flour and sugar really improved and increased in the 60s and 70s, and it made it very affordable. But unfortunately, what happened is the health and fitness world, the diet food companies, the medical community, all got on board with this whole low fat idea. And so what happened, and I think we're still seeing the repercussions of this, is that, you know, people my age in their mid-50s, have been taught that low fat is where it's at. And now they're 40, 60, 100 pounds overweight, and they can't lose it. And that brainwashing is very hard to overcome, especially when you get older. And so, you know, that's where we try to be a lot different, is we don't believe in low fat. We actually believe that fat's good for you. Trans fat, of course, is not. But we try to teach people because they'll say, well, what about grease? You know, And I'll say, look. Look at grease as, you know, grease for your joints. You know, like grease on a car is good because it helps everything stay loose and somewhat flexible. And the same thing goes for fats, is that it's good for you in a lot of ways. But it's hard for a lot of folks to get over that. I mean, 25 years ago, I didn't believe in It. But today I do. And that's where I think a lot of the experts now are starting to sing the praises of the low carb, the paleo, the keto diet. And they see some of the benefits of those diets. But I think the Internet is still low calorie, low fat is still the dominant player in the weight loss world.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. Okay. So the amazing thing that happened to me, and it wasn't from doing sit ups. Okay.

Right.

You know, like, people tell me all the time how fit I am and how I never gain weight and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, I don't gain weight. Like, I weigh the same as I did when I was 18 years old. Okay. But I always had kind of a little bit of a spare tire, you know, not much, not much of one, but a little bit. And for the first time ever, after eating your food, I just had a flat stomach. I couldn't believe it. It wasn't from doing sit ups, it wasn't from exercise, you know, and I don't do any, like, extreme amount of exercise. Just am busy like so many people, you know, I just, if you can just. I think it probably goes in this order. Sleep is critically important to health. Maybe this is not in order, but sleep is very important. Diet right up there with sleep and then exercise after that. But you gotta eat right. And it's. So if you just tackle the diet component mostly, I mean, most of your problems are just solved, you know.

Absolutely. And, you know, and that's what we try to teach people. And you're exactly right. Sleep is by far the most important thing you can do. But if you just sleep and you eat right, you really got about 90% of it figured out. I mean, the other part, you know, a lot of people talk about exercise and look, I agree. I think there are parts of about exercise that make you feel better. But realistically, most of us don't have a lot of time to go to the gym or we're not that committed. So what we have learned and figured out over the years is that if you just eat right and abstain, and that's the other part of the formula that most people tend to ignore. But if you abstain from the wrong things, eating the wrong things and cigarettes, things of those nature, then it's really not that difficult. But I think what happens with most people. Jason, I used to tell, when I speak at different events, I would tell folks, the number one cause of obesity in America has been confusion. Everyone's confused. You were telling Me before the interview. Your mom has done, you know, 100 diets?

Oh, she's done every diet. I mean. Oh yeah. Every year of my life, my. I witnessed my mom doing a diet.

That's right.

None of them ever worked, by the way.

The statistic is every female, or the average female in America before she turns 40, has tried almost 40 different diets. Some have tried almost 80 different diets. And the reason is because a lot of these diets are built on unproven claims like the low fat diet or the low calorie. And so what a female does, and this is hard for men to understand, but what a female does, you know, dieting to a female is like religion. Looking pretty or feeling pretty, wanting to feel pretty. The desire is like a sixth sense to a female.

Yeah, I'm not so sure that's true anymore though. Well, if you look around the world.

But what happens is diets are like bad boyfriends. You know, you try it, you try it, you get cheated on, it doesn't work, whatever. And after you, after you've had 10 or 15 bad boyfriends, heck, the last thing you want is a boyfriend.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you. Okay.

And it doesn't just go for one female.

Psychology today, folks.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's one of those things that we've just tried to tell people that, look, like you said, if you just eat right. And so what we've tried to teach people to do is we don't get lost in the minutiae of all the extreme organic. And I can't remember what they call it, the free stuff. We just say, look, if you can go from pizza, popcorn and pie and just eating meats and vegetables in two or three weeks, you have really made a huge impact on your life that's going to have very long lasting effects. Not only do you lose weight, but you improve a lot of internal things, your glycogen levels, your glucose levels, insulin, all that stuff.

I would actually argue that it gives you the latitude to cheat a little bit and have some of those treats too. Because I certainly love chocolate, for example. And if your base food, I mean, I eat your food three meals a day almost every day. If your base food is good. And I would say paleo oriented. Okay, right. And listen, I've tried, I tried my 20s for six years. I was a vegetarian. I wasn't mega strict about it, but I was pretty much a vegetarian little fish once in a while maybe. But you know, I've, I've tried different things. Like everybody has over the years to see if you can crack the code. But the key is if it's not easy and if it doesn't taste good, you're not going to stick with it. You might do it, you know, be really disciplined for a week or two weeks or something, but it's just not going to last with your stuff. It lasts. I enjoy eating it. The food tastes great. I season it a little bit, you know, but it's fantastic. And it's so easy, it's so simple. And I don't do the prep that I used to with you guys in terms of putting it in the microwave. I do it in a skillet. Like I mentioned to you before we started, you know, maybe you can talk about what it is really, you know, we talked, everybody knows the problem. Look at America's totally obese diabetic. It's tragic. It's gotta stop. And I'll tell you, one of the biggest offenders is not McDonald's, it's Starbucks. And it's amazing to me how Starbucks has just been left alone. I am shocked that people just turn their head at the Starbucks dietary health disaster. Those disgusting, poisonous drinks and food that they serve there. I mean, it's pathetic. Read the nutrition information on their website. Oh my God. You have no concept how bad that food is or those drinks. It's like you could become diabetic. I bet with a Frappuccino once a day, it's unbelievable how much sugar is in that stuff, how many carbohydrates. It's just mind boggling to me. So Starbucks is a huge offender. Any thoughts on that?

Yeah, it's interesting. One of the things that I used to help illustrate this really well for people, and this is part of that confusion that we were talking about. Companies like Starbucks, companies like Kellogg's, companies, like a lot of the yogurt companies, they have become very good at marketing their products as harmless or marketing them even worse as healthy for you. And I used to do something that would really help people understand what's actually going on. What I would do, Jason, is this is. I would be up on stage and I'd have a table and I would say, okay, how many of you in this room have this for breakfast? I'd show a bowl of Special K with milk, a glass of orange juice, a banana, and a little thing of yogurt.

Oh my God, that's like an insulin disaster right there.

And about, about 70% of the ladies, you know, would hold up their hand because they've even got it on instagram the picture of the perfect American breakfast of a healthy woman. You know, they raised up their hand, they're smiling, looking around, thinking they've done well. And then I sent three Coke cans up there and I said, which one has more sugar? And when I do, the hands start dropping down very quickly because again, what's happened is big companies, corporations, just for the sake of money, have really put our health at risk. And now that we have smartphones and we have tablets and TVs where people are sitting around all day and, and eating more of this, quote, so called healthy food, I think we're in for a rude awakening. And, you know, I don't know. I do think, I do believe in humanity and I don't think it's the end of the world, but I do think the government will have to intervene, just like they did with big tobacco in the 70s. I think the government's going to have to intervene with the sugar industry because it's getting so out of control.

Yeah, it's just totally out of control. It's, it's. Something has got to be done. Okay, so what is the solution? Let's talk about the solution. What solution does your company offer? And by the way, folks, you can get a special deal because I am an affiliate now, I'm proud to say, at jasonhartman.com food jasonhartman.com food you'll get $200 off the 28 day system, if you will, where they send you this great big box of wonderful food and easy, inexpensive food and healthy, of course, $200 off that, that's the one I order. And then you also, and I've never used these, you have subscriptions. And on those you can get $50 off if you go to Jason hartman.com food so talk about the solution. What does your company provide?

You nailed it right on the head, Jason. I mean, I've always told people if it's not easy, meaning if it's not convenient, doesn't fit your busy lifestyle, it will not become a habit and it will not become a routine.

Right. Yours fits on every, it hits on every cylinder. It's easy, it's cheap and it's healthy and it's tasty. Like, that's right, it's, that's right. It's got everything. Yeah.

And that's what we realized when we started testing this 10 years ago. We realized we had to have all those components. It had to be of good value. It couldn't be too expensive. It had to fit your busy lifestyle. Meaning you can grab A bag, and you can customize. You can eat a meat and a vegetable. You don't have to grab a TV tray and eat whatever's in that. You get to select your meat and your vegetable, heat it up in a minute and a half, two minutes, and you're done. It's got to taste good because most diet food tastes really bad, and most people will eat it for a week to 10 days at the most, and then they give up. And it's got to have results. And so, you know, I think that's what we offer in one package. And I think our reorder rate, we at one time had a 65% reorder rate, which is light years. It was the highest in the industry. There's another big company, I won't say their name. They're at 6%. We were at 65. And today we average between 35 and 40%. So our reorder rate speaks volumes for. I think we've kind of figured out the solution, but a lot of folks think that because of the name Personal Trainer Food, that it's just for trainers, but it's actually food that trainers recommend to their clients to eat. And so, yeah, so it's got to be easy, it's got to taste great, it's got to be of good value, affordable, and it's got to have results. And if those four things are in line, you've got a really good meal plan. And I think that's what personal trainer food is.

Okay, so what do you get? What happens? What I do is I go to the website. It saves my menu from. From the last orders, so I can just reorder those really quickly or I can design a new one. And I get a bunch of choices of what I want to put in the box. And the box comes with dry ice. I get it in about three days and I put it in my freezer and I'm all set. I mean, it's so much less expensive and so much more convenient than going to the grocery store every couple of days, I'll tell you that.

Oh, yeah, we used to have people go, well, gosh, I'll just go to Costco and buy all this stuff and bulk and.

Yeah.

And you know, and we tell them, good luck. You know, we'll hear back from you in a couple of months. Because it just the time that it takes to go shopping to prepare the food. Yeah, it just doesn't work.

You could. The one thing you could achieve by doing all of that, you'd spend a ton more is you could get organic and you could get free range food, you know. Right. But that'd be more difficult to prepare, much more expensive to buy, certainly much more inconvenient. So again, this doesn't have to be your whole diet. It doesn't have to be everything you eat. I mean, I eat out too, and I eat a few other things at home. But it's good if it's just there as a convenient base. And I tell you, everybody I've referred to you and there have been many people, especially families, like people with kids love this. They just, it's so easy. Your kids can eat something fast and healthy and inexpensive. And it's, you know, busy moms, my busy mom friends that I've referred to, they just love it. They call me up like three, four days afterwards and they say, this is so tasty. Like I'll prepare it for them at my house when I have a friend over. And they're like, wow, this is good. What is this? You know?

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Interesting enough, most people, the first time they buy our food, they buy it for weight loss. But every time after that they buy it for the convenience of it. They'll lose their 10 to 20 pounds. And their family has snuck a few of the items out and so they're like, well, gosh, we like this food so much. Let's just buy it because it's the right way to eat. Not just because it helps you lose weight, but it's just healthy way to eat.

Yeah. Okay, so what do you get? What I mean, I described the way I order the 28 day plan and I get three meals a day. I get breakfast, lunch and dinner. And of course, it always asks last me much longer than 28 days because I don't eat it for every meal. So I'll probably typically reorder every 40, 45 days maybe. I don't know, I'd have to look at my history. But then you have these subscriptions. Now. I've never used one of those. What's that all about?

Well, what we decided to do was a lot of people because as you know, our 28 day box is a monster.

It's pretty big.

Yeah, it's 21 inches by 21 inches. It's about 50 pounds of product.

Clear out your freezer.

Yeah, yeah, you got to clear out your freezer. That's right. And so we started getting enough requests for a smaller box, so we decided to do a 14 day subscription. And don't let the word subscription scare you. It's not like we're just going to auto bill you till the cows come home. You can change your delivery date up to six weeks out. So you, if you want a box every 14 days, every 10 days, every four weeks, but you just get a much smaller box with about half the food in it. And when people order our food, again, where we're a lot different than any other company out there is you don't order a TV tray style meal plan. You order all your meats and you can select three of this, seven of that, you can customize it, you get a nice variety. Yeah. And you can also order your vegetables. And, and so that way, you know, when you sit down to eat, you can pick the meat and the vegetable that you want to eat at that meal. The breakfast or an omelet. Different omelets that we have with different meat products in the bags and our breakfast are excellent. And then we also have snacks. And so it's a lot of food. Our goal is not to starve you to death, but it's to make sure you're satiated eating good food. Food that's very simple. But you're right, having the good selection and the different items, it just makes it a lot easier. Stick with. And we are going to be doubling our menu in about the next 45 days. So we're going to have a lot more selections on our menu.

Now, how come you can't do fish in there? Does that, does fish just have a spoilage problem? What's the deal with fish? I mean, you have of course all the meats, but you don't have fish.

The USDA just approved pre cooked frozen fish to be shipped about 13 or 14 years ago. So we started testing it and the problem is the fish stinks so bad when you microwave it that even most men wouldn't want to eat it. And if fish does thaw out a little bit, it's a very risky protein. And so we decided to, we love fish, but it's just too risky and it just doesn't work well.

So you get a nice variety and you can do. You've got all sorts of examples where people kind of customize their meals and do that kind of stuff. What I've taken to doing is eating two portions of vegetables and one portion of meat. Gosh, if I tell you, if you can look at your plate and it has 2/3 green or vegetable stuff, colorful stuff, you're doing great. I mean that's just, it's, it's hard to beat that. And, and see, the thing is, even Though this is not organic and it's not farm raised, you're going to be consistent with it. And that's the thing I would venture to guess people that are really like, I have an ex girlfriend who's super picky about food. She, in fact, I was teasing her because there's a name for this. It's called orthorexia. Okay, like anorexia, but it's someone who's got, got to eat everything organic and it's just got to be perfect all the time. Right. They've actually named this a bit of a disorder. Yeah. But you know, it's just too hard for her to do that consistently and she may win one meal, meal at a time. But I'll win with your stuff on the consistency program, you know, so that's something to think about.

Oh yeah, yeah. And you're right. It's about consistent consistency. Doing it day in, day out. And we tell everyone it's one meal at a time. And once you've done it for about two to three weeks, then the light bulb goes off and you go, okay, I get it. It's about avoiding sugars and gluten and the low fat pastas and the, you know, the things I thought were healthy and just keeping it simple by eating meats and vegetables. And if that's one thing I could tell your listeners is that if you just keep it simple so that you become consistent at it, you will have a lot of success.

Absolutely, absolutely. Very good point. And the thing you didn't mention too is that by eating right interestingly kills a lot of those sweet cravings. It's just weird how the body works when you start getting this stuff in balance. You just don't really crave the bad stuff. You know, when you do just, you know, if you're still hungry, just go have another meal. It takes you about three minutes to prepare. So it's so wise, you know, just, just have seconds, you know.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, hey, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been really interesting. I'm glad to be an affiliate. I really just love your product. After this, I'm going to go make lunch and it's going to be your food.

Which everybody can get a nice discount on@jason hartman.com food jason hartman.com food anything else you want to tell our listeners in closing?

I will say this, Jason. We're very selective on affiliates and we have less than four or five in the United States. And so we're grateful for the work that you do and for you being a customer and just for your story and your testimonial and the fact that you're trying to help people, that is huge in our playbook. So we appreciate you.

Yeah. Well, hey, thank you. It's absolutely my pleasure. I. If you can help this country overcome the obesity and diabetes epidemic. And of course, that's also translates into heart disease and cancer, of course, you know it. That would be a huge, huge thing. So I just hope it spreads like wildfire. I know. How many customers do you have, by the way? You have a. You're big. I mean, you're a big company.

We have just under 200,000.

200,000. So all you got to do is get another 319,800,000 and we'll have the whole country eating your stuff.

There you go. I think big. Be big. I love it.

That's right. Good stuff. Good stuff. Well, Mike Starks, thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you, sir. Have a great day. Jason.

Thank you.

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