Nick Bare Tells ALL: Natural Vs Steroids, $60M Supplement Empire & Sub-3 Marathons

All right everyone, what's happening? This is Sam. So on today's pod, I did something very selfish. So I've got these two friends. One is named Nick Bare. So you probably have seen Nick on Instagram or on YouTube. He's got millions of followers and he owns this company called BPN, Bare Performance Nutrition. They do something like $60 million a year in sales. So he is a really successful entrepreneur, but he's like a fitness fanatic. So he looks like a bodybuilder, but he's runs a marathon in like 2 hours and 39 minutes, which is. A freakish time, but it's also freakish considering how big he is. And then we have Sahil Bloom, who's another buddy of mine who's really popular on social media, on Twitter. He's a writer. You probably have seen him all over the place. And I just nerded out on fitness with these guys. We also talked a little bit about business. So we asked the typical questions like, where do you guys spend your money? How much do you spend each month? Where do you like to invest your money? We talked about their, their companies and how they're growing. And we did a lot of business stuff, but most of this was about fitness. And I just asked them all the fitness questions that I had. I had a bunch of listeners send me questions. and I think it was a great time and it was really fun to learn about what these guys are doing for training. Hopefully inspire you. So anyway, check out the pod. Can I ask you, so I, I tweeted out that you guys were coming on and I got a bunch of questions. They range from personal finance, fitness, business, all types of stuff. I want to ask you guys both a couple of questions. I'm going to start. Which I'm going to start with one that sounds like the hardest, but I actually think it's the easiest because you answer this all the time. And I'll preface this by saying I've seen your, your father in videos. I've seen your brother in videos and I've seen you in real life. And so I think I know what the answer is because I know the genetics that you come from. But someone said, genuinely curious, how can Nick be natural given his performance? Please press him on this. And so you constantly get asked if you're natural. I know you've answered it constantly, but just humor me for, because this was a very, uh, a lot of people ask this question.

I am natural. And I used to address these, these call-outs and questions and claims all the time because I would get defensive in it. Like it was all the time. It's been like that since I started creating content. I even went to the extent of sharing blood work every month. I was going to get blood work every month and I would share it on my videos during my bulk and my cut. And people like, oh, he's faking it, he's fine, he's finding workarounds. I'm like, guys. So I finally have gotten to a point where I'm just overaddressing the, the questions and the claims and the hate around it, and I'm just gonna do my thing. Like even in this last marathon, people were like, he's using EPO.

What is that?

Like blood doping. I'm like, what amateur, what amateur athlete, you know, that's running marathons, run marathons, is taking EPO and blood doping?

But then you're like, how do I, how do I get that? Does anyone have a guy?

I'm like, yeah, I'm like, who, like, where do you get EPO?

I don't even know where you'd, you'd, you'd get that. Uh, I, I mean, I've seen you, uh, in real life that you, you just have I think you're just a freak genetically. And I would be honored if someone asked if I was on a bunch of stuff. That would make me feel wonderful.

Dude, also, by the way, like my thing with this always is like I have a few friends who everyone says this about. They're like, oh, they, you know, definitely not natural. And I just know for a fact that that person has just outworked me in the gym on a daily basis for the last like 10 fucking years. Excuse my language. And not by like a ton, but by a little bit every single day for 10 years. And that adds up to something insane and it looks like a totally different human being. So like when I see a dude that has way bigger shoulders than me or way bigger chest, like I know that they probably did that extra set or they did the extra 2 reps that I was just like, oh, 6 is good and stopped. And so like, I just, I think it's such a cop-out when people freak out about like, oh, are you natural or not?

Cause the reality is like, sometimes they don't. Because genetics are real.

Like for example, genetics are real, but like genetics are like definitely a real thing. Like the, the Bear genetics are solid.

Dude, your dad ran like a sub-6 mile. I don't remember what age he is, but he was some, you know, he was a grown man and he still was huge. Like you got, and then I saw your brother, your brother looked like he competed in the Strongman Games. I mean, you guys are just huge.

Yes. My, my dad's 60. My uncle, his brother's 57. If you saw both of them with their shirts off after running, they've still both run marathons, half marathons. I mean, six-pack abs, chiseled arms and shoulders. They don't take anything. They're not, they're not on TRT or any of that stuff. They're just like farm boys who grew up in central Pennsylvania milking cows and baling hay.

Well, dude, listen to this. So Sahil texted me. I, I nerded out with him.

I go, oh yeah, this is good.

I go, dude, I just hung out with Nick Bare. And, and it was amazing. And Sahil was like, yeah, he's, you know, he looks great, whatever, but how tall is he? And I was like, I'm pretty sure he's my height or just like an inch shorter. So he's pretty tall. And I sent him this picture and I remember in that photo, I think, I think Nick, you were at like your weakest. You were about to run a marathon. I was at my strongest and our squats and bench were like almost the same. I think you did 5 pounds ahead and you just like looked so much better. And I, you know, we were like, this sucks that like we're kind of comparable, I guess, in terms of strength. But like, he just, he just has it. He just has it. Like you, you just, you just have whatever it is that you just, you look good.

Uh, I appreciate that.

Genetics are real. Ari's laughing at me.

Being tan helps, Sam. You got, Sam, you got to get a tan, man. You're too pale to, uh, you're too pale to have good looking abs.

That's genetics, man. It's, that's another genetics. He just has it. And so I don't know, everyone, everyone in the comments are going to make fun of me that I'm just like flirting with you. But, you know, I'm just saying what people think.

Genetics are like a real thing. You can take person A, person B, different genetics, same work ethic, same diet, same training program, and you're not going to get the same results. People, people send me messages all the time. They're like, I eat exactly what you eat. I train exactly the way you train. I run exactly the same miles as you. Well, you don't look the same. Oh yeah, because genetically we are not the same. Like, we have different DNA, so it's gonna have different results. It doesn't mean you shouldn't eat right and train and, and try to do your best, but like, I will give, I will give genetics the credit they deserve, but also I am one of the most consistent people I know in terms of training and recovery and diet. Like, my diet is dialed in. I still enjoy myself. Like, me and my wife will go for dinner, I'll get some drinks, I'll like order the whole menu and try everything. I love food. I'm a big foodie. But my, my diet 90% of the time is so regimented and dialed in. I'm eating my meals when I'm not hungry. I'm eating my meals when I know I need nutrition to fuel workouts. Like, it is for me a lifestyle that I truly love and embrace.

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HubSpot, grow better. Are you like that, Sahil? Are you as dialed in, you think?

Yeah, I mean, I'm just like, I, I probably have a similar wiring to you, Nate. Like, I kind of have like a obsessive personality. And so when I, when I commit to something or dive in on it, it's gonna piss off everyone around me because I'm like, if we were traveling during the day and I get home at 10:00 PM, but I had a 6-mile run to do, I'm going out at 10:00 PM and have to go hit the run.

Yeah.

And it's not a question. And like, if I get home at midnight, but I'm the type of person that wakes up at 4:00 and gets in my cold plunge, I'm waking up at 4:00 and getting in my cold plunge. And I'm, I feel the same way as you in general on the genetics thing, although I will say like when people say, oh, I do the same workouts as you, I run the same miles, I did the same thing, I call bullshit. Cause I, I just don't like, I've, I've trained super hard my whole life, but there are people that I just know have trained harder than me. Cause I know like in the back of my mind, I know for sure that like I could have probably done 2 more reps on something, but I like was working out on my own in my, in my home gym and I just like took it easy and that 2 reps compounded over 5 years makes a difference to the point on like time being a lever. And so I'm honest enough with myself on some things where like with running, I post all my stats and so there's no hiding, right? Like if I'm going to post my COROS, you know, screenshot or whatever on my Instagram from any run workout, I can't hide from whether or not I put in the right amount of effort on that workout. But lifting, I can totally hide from it. Like I'm not— you can't see all the stats exactly on what I did and how many reps I hit or whatever it was. And so it's also just like the accountability that comes with sharing things publicly on your progress that I feel like for you, like you've been basically doing that for what, 6, 7, 8 years? Like you've been showing your process in public and the accountability that comes from that, that people are out there waiting like, oh, what's Nick's next thing? What's he going after? Is he going to hit his goal? That adds a whole lot of fire. Like when you're running Sim and you're struggling mile 20 and you're like, this isn't for— this isn't for me. Like, I have a million people out there that want to see me get this 2:39 done, so I'm going to go do it.

I mean, that's— that's why we included a small clip in the video after that race was over. But that's why these— when you hit your goal in a race or you hit your goal in anything, it feels so good when you hit it because you know the work that went in. And all I kept saying after I got across that finish line at CIM, I kept saying, man, I'm so fucking proud of that. I'm so proud of that one because like, you know, all the work that goes into it, the early mornings, hitting your workouts, making sure you hit your paces, making sure you fueled properly the night before those big workouts. And when I was at like mile 20, I knew I was running sub-2:40. The guy, I just knew I was on pace. I was like, I can hold on for another 6 miles. And I could feel this lump just like forming in my throat. I was getting emotional. So I was thinking, man, all this work, like, this is why I did it. I'm holding 6:05 paces at mile 20 with 6 miles left, like home stretch. And when you finally hit that goal and it's because of the work you put in, like, there is nothing that replaces that.

My, um, my dad and I have been really close my whole life, and I played baseball in college, Nick, in case, in case we hadn't talked about that. And, um, when I had to retire because I was hurt, the hardest thing was telling my dad, um, because so much of our relationship had been built around the sport and built around, you know, him coming to all my practices, taking me to all my lessons, all that stuff over the years. And he told me at the time, like, I don't care. I'm going to be there to cheer you on in whatever your next thing is in life. And at my marathon, he surprised me and flew out for it. And I remember like those last 6 miles, I was hurting so, so bad. And all I was thinking the whole time was like, I got to get to my dad. He's at the finish line. He's there waiting for me. And when I crossed the finish line and I had done it, I'd gone sub-3, he was standing there and I like broke down completely. I mean, like, all of the emotion that you hold in from that, you know, from trying to get to something, like struggling through it, hitting your goal, that emotion, like, it's completely unparalleled. Like nothing I've ever experienced in life. Just that, that rush.

I think that's why people keep signing up and, and doing races or signing up and committing to hard things is because when you finally accomplish it, it's like I reference this part of this book all the time because I think it's so applicable, but in Tim Grover's book Winning, he talks about achieving your first win. And when you achieve that first win, no matter what it is, it builds this little ounce of confidence. So then you set out to achieve another win, but that win is larger and more ambitious, and it requires more work, more effort. But when you finally get it, builds more confidence and you keep applying this thing over years and years and years, and you keep pushing out what that win is and could be through the process of succeeding and failing and winning and losing. You build this massive amount of confidence where you finally get to a point thinking, oh, I can actually do whatever I want to do. That's a really powerful position to be in.

That's why I always say there's no such thing as a loser who wakes up at 5:00 AM and works out because it is so hard to do. And if you are losing in life and you're not happy with where you are, get up early and work out.

Dude, I hate when you say that. You piss me off so much when you say that because I get out of bed at 7 or 8, but I'll be doing stuff until 1:00 AM. Whenever you say that, I feel so guilty.

But that is, I'm not saying it on the other end that you can't win. I'm saying if you're not happy with your position in life, one of the biggest reasons is that you need to change your self-identity, right? Like you need to start identifying as a winner. Exactly what Nick said. Like, you need to create evidence that proves to yourself that you're a winner. And waking up early and working out is the easiest way to do that. And like, it still sucks, but if you do that for a week, you immediately are like, oh wow, I can do that. That's one hard thing that I do. I'm like, you start to change your brain chemistry around who you are as a person.

Dude, I feel so shitty. I'll wake up, I'll look at Instagram, and I'll be like, all right, I just got up at 8, and then I see Nick post, and it's like, I think on Saturday or something, it's like, dude, he just ran 8 miles.

He already just ran 72 miles at a 6:15 pace.

He'll, like his Instagram post, I'm gonna shit.

And fed his daughter a great meal.

Yeah. Like he does all this before I'm even awake, but in my head I'm like, that bitch is going to bed at 9 though. I'm gonna fuck him up between 10 and 1 AM.

I am a morning person. I am not a night owl by any means. But now that my daughter is born and she's getting older, if I don't wake up at 5 and work out, there's a chance it might not get done. So right now we're going through this sleep regression where she's waking up at the oddest times and screaming her head off in the night. So last night, woke up middle of the night, gave her a bottle, put her down. She didn't want me to leave her room, so I ended up sleeping the rest of the night next to her crib. My alarm went off at 5. I was like, all right, here we go. Went downstairs, went through my routine, went out for my run.

Ugh. There's nothing that makes me more sick to my stomach than morning air. Let me ask you guys, let me ask you guys a quick question. This will be, it's meant for Nick, but I want to hear your answer too. Nick covers all fitness and diet stuff extensively on his channel, but I want to know his monthly burn. So what he spends his money on and where he puts his money, invests his money outside of BPM.

So investing-wise, at this point in my life, I haven't gotten to a point where I have any personal interest in investing. So I just hire a financial advisor and he takes care of all of my investments for me. Maybe at some point I'll actually be curious and explore that curiosity, but like, I work with a guy, we make a budget. Yeah, I'm just like, take this money, put it where you think it's going to make me some money. Other than that, I mean, most of my money I'm spending is either going towards my mortgage, investing back into the business, my personal brand, and mainly food, to be honest. Like me and my wife—

How much do you spend per month on food?

Just groceries? Maybe like— it's hard to say because we'll do like one big grocery haul week and I go like every other day to the grocery store. I'm going to like these exclusive like butcher shops here in Nashville. It's like maybe I spend $2,000, $2,500 a month on groceries, but then we're going out to dinner and like when we go out to dinner, it's, we want every appetizer, every entree. We're going to sample stuff, get a few cocktails. Like we, that's our thing is we love experiences like that. And we'll do some big vacations every year, but I'm not going out and buying a lot of materialistic things right now. It's more so on experiences.

So you haven't gotten on the no alcohol train, Nick?

Nope. To be honest, I really have no interest on the no alcohol train. Like, I'm not a big drinker, but like, if me and my wife are going to date night on Thursday, because Thursday is our date night night, I'll get one drink, maybe two drinks, but I really, really never drink over two drinks.

Ever.

Wait, do you drink sahil?

I'm the same way as Nick. Like, I, I, um, I think like when it enhances the experience with the person you're with, uh, I love it. And then I just, I've cut all like drink by myself at home out of my life.

Yeah, I don't do any drinking by myself, but like if I'm with a group of people and We're having like an old-fashioned or opening a bottle of wine. I do think it enhances the experience and conversation's always good and it lightens the mood a little bit and just allows you to just relax.

What's your style? What's your answer to that question? What do you do? You do your money the same thing I do. You just are in Vanguard index, right?

Yeah. I mean, we were like, I was much more fun with my money when I was in my private equity days. 'Cause then it was like, I don't know, I was just like freewheeling in my 20s doing whatever the hell. And then we had a kid and I was like, I should probably start just being really boring with this. And I feel like you influenced me in this. Like we're in this group chat all together with a bunch of absolute degenerates.

Total degenerates.

And they all like sling their money into the most degenerate stuff and they're always texting the thread like, this is the best new opportunity.

They'll like buy like a million dollars of aluminum or a million dollars of some shit that I'd never even heard of.

And without fail, by the way, like 6 months later it's at its all-time low. Like this thing just absolutely tanks.

Yeah, it's stupid. Or they'll short stuff or whatever. I don't even know what they do, but it's like these terminology that I don't even understand.

I mean, it goes back to like the fundamental thing is like you should spend more time figuring out how to increase your income versus like what your returns are investing for the vast majority of people, because that's a much bigger lever for your long-term financial wealth.

Oh, that's what I did for a while. I just, I just focused on how to make more money, how to build revenue streams. And then it got to a point where like I was finally ready to start investing and I was able to invest or put away a lot of money a month that I didn't need to spend or have liquid.

Yeah.

And it's just like, I just like to not have to think about where that is though. Like, yeah, I do that too. I just want it to sit in like, I basically want to just track an index and just go sit there. But to the burn question, Sam, we probably spend like, I don't know, 20, 30 a month or something like that, um, all in on everything. And groceries, probably similar to, similar to Nick, we probably spend 3 to 5 a month, um, on food.

I don't even know, I don't know what my monthly spend is at the moment, but maybe 20. But I can see why New York would be significantly higher.

But I, you're about to get on the, uh, Northeast grind, right?

Yeah, I'm thinking about moving up there and I'm looking at the difference in prices and like it's pretty meaningful compared to Texas.

Yeah.

Are you thinking about going to the city?

So my in-laws live around in this, in Manhattan, and I frankly hate Manhattan. I like Brooklyn, but I have a newborn and I think that we will likely do the most bougie thing on earth. But there's a town called Westport, Connecticut. It's Next to Greenwich, Connecticut. So you could say I'm going to move to Greenwich, Connecticut, which is like clay, clay tennis courts and white skirts and shit like that. But I think we're going to, yeah. But we, like, I, I'm testing it out. So I rented a place for a few weeks in late January just to see what it's like. And I'm looking at what the rent is in like a comparable home to where I am now, because I don't want to buy at the moment. It's like $20,000 a month in rent. I mean, it's just like crazy.

So the biggest reason, by the way, that Sam's not saying for why he's moving here is because it's like 20 minutes from me and we have a long-term plan of my son Roman and his daughter Naomi starting to build the Parr Bloom empire here. So we need to like start cultivating it early in their young years.

Yeah, I'm okay with that. We're just planning ahead. Let me ask you guys another question. Uh, this is a two-parter. So what do most people get wrong about health and fitness? What makes you want to— Nick, what makes you want to throw your computer out the window when people say it online? And the second thing is, um, would love an honest assessment of time requirements and what's the best bang for your buck for workouts, because a lot of us listening are entrepreneurs and we don't have a ton of time. Um, so what's like the best bang for your buck? So that's a two-parter.

I think they— like, I can answer both probably in one answer. I think most people think that they need to spend like an hour running a day and an hour strength training a day. So everyone thinks they have to spend like 2 hours training a day. I think you could easily split that 45 minutes to an hour a day split between strength and endurance training and get like a really, really solid workout. But I think you have some sort of, you have to have some sort of level of cardiovascular conditioning as well as strength into your programming.

When you say cardiovascular, do you mean like HIIT, like a, like a 60-minute Barry's, or do you mean like a, like a Barry's bootcamp class, something like that, or a bodyweight thing? Or do you mean walking, or do you mean zone 2 steady pace stuff?

I'd say it's a mixture between zone 2, zone 3, cuz most people, to be honest, aren't spending their time in zone 2.

Zone 2 is actually like super low, which is like what, 130 beats per minute for like a 30-year-old?

Yeah, it's, it's, it's low and most people are not doing any zone 2 training. So I, I like to refer—

what's the benefit of zone 2 though?

Aerobic base building.

But what's that mean for— does that make me live longer? Does that make me less likely to have a heart attack? What's it do?

All those things. Helps cardiovascular health. It helps build your aerobic foundation so that you can utilize oxygen more efficiently. Like, you're not gonna go run a sub-3-hour marathon by just doing speed work. You need that aerobic base building where your body is learning how to utilize the oxygen at a more effective and efficient rate by then using fuel sources appropriately alongside of. So like, I'd say a split between, you probably want just talking about cardiovascular conditioning, 70 to 80% of that training being your aerobic zone, whether that's zone 2, zone 3, which is like lighter. So you're walking, hiking, jogging, something like that. And then 20 to 30% of your cardiovascular conditioning is more HIIT. You could do a Barry's boot camp. You can go do like a— my, my wife does SoulCycle. Like a SoulCycle class, hop on your Peloton, go do some sprints, speed workout, something like that where the heart rate is getting elevated, uh, lactate threshold type stuff. So if you split your, your cardiovascular training between aerobic zones and some high-intensity interval training, and then you have compound movements, strength training, you're doing some, some heavier movements, working with free weights, barbells, machines. Stuff like that. You don't need to spend 2 hours every day. You can spend 45 minutes to an hour, you know, 4 days a week, 5 days a week. I personally love to train, so I, I'm working out every day a week doing something, moving my body.

For strength training, what do you, what do you say is like, do you tell people like do the 5x5 or like what, what's your suggestion? Just squat, deadlift, bench? What do you do?

I mean, there's a lot of different ways to approach it. Like right now, I personally enjoy the Push-Pull Leg Split, which is a, a 3-day split. You can do 3 workouts a week or you can do 6 workouts a week. So like a push day would be all pushing movements. It'd be chest-focused, shoulders, triceps, pushing being upper body. And then a pull day would be back, biceps, movements like rows, all upper body again. And then your lower day is, um, lower body, legs, quads, hamstrings, glutes. I like starting every strength workout with some, some warm-up movements and then going into a heavy working compound movement exercise like a barbell squat. You do a deadlift, you do a hex bar deadlift. Bench press or dumbbell chest press, and then having some accessory movements alongside of that to support the development of the muscles that you're utilizing for those big compound movements. So that's the way I like to approach cardiovascular and then strength training. I don't personally like to mix the two, like the, the CrossFit approach. I've never fallen in love with that. Like when I'm strength training, I like strength training. And when I'm doing my cardio, I like cardio, but I don't, I don't like like doing them together. I like when they're separate and distinct and separated. Now moving on to, I think, where like what irks me about the fitness space. I actually made a post about this yesterday because everyone going into a new year is going to have new training and diet goals, and everyone thinks that there's this new thing that they're gonna do that's gonna change their life, it's gonna change their body, it's gonna change their health. It's like January 1st starts, people are thinking, I need to do something new. What should I do? I'm gonna do carnivore. No, I'm gonna do keto. I'm gonna go like strictly bodybuilding. No, I'm just like just gonna run. So people go to these extremes thinking it's like the magic pill they haven't tried yet that's gonna unlock this hidden potential that was just disguised by everything else they were doing previously. And the reality is that, like, that's not going to change anything. If it does, like, the, the changes are incremental. But what makes this compounding change in your life and your fitness is your health, is just being consistent with eating better, drinking more water, moving your body. That's why everyone's talking about getting in more steps. You're getting in more steps. You're just being more active, going to the gym on a regular, consistent basis. It's creating, creating habits and routines in your life that help you facilitate these healthy habits on a consistent and regular routine.

Sean was telling me that he was talking, or he saw the guy who started Slice. It's like a pizza app. He was like, between January 1st and January 11th, our sales slump. And he goes, on January 12th, that's National Quitting Day. And he goes, we see all-time high sales on, for people ordering pizza because everyone from their New Year's resolution is giving in on January 12th. That's where, that's where it ends.

11 days. That's wild.

We owned a ton of Planet Fitnesses back in my PE days, and that like first 10 days of the year is like rainmaker season. Like you're just sitting there just like watching the fees pour in like praying to the rain gods for all the money that's coming in. And then inevitably those people just don't end up going to the gym.

It's—

yeah, they still pay.

Yeah, they still pay.

Planet Fitness makes it a profitable business model. Dude, they make it a profitable business model.

Yeah, and you get, you get like 10,000 members for a gym and maybe like, you know, 5-10% of them actually like regularly use it. So the equipment doesn't have to get refreshed that often. It's like, I mean, it's an incredible business model.

All right. Here's a question for Sahil. So we didn't even mention this, but Sahil, Sahil, you mentioned that you were a baseball player. I was a runner all through high school and college. The baseball players were usually the douches who made fun of the runners because of our shorts. And about a year ago, you got into running. You made all these grand claims about these times that you were going to run. You said you were going to break 18 in the 5K. You're going to break through. I was like, you're an idiot, dude. You don't know what the hell you're talking about. It turns out you were completely right. You nailed all of it. You, you, you crushed it in running. And someone asked what the biggest— so at this point, by the way, you're a pretty like, you're like a pretty successful runner for like in the weekend category, in the weekend warrior category. You're like top, top in that category. Uh, which is, uh, sounds like a left-handed compliment. That's not what it, that wasn't supposed to be that. It was, that was a compliment. I take that as a good— that was a compliment. Someone said, what's the, uh, biggest surprise Sahil's learned from getting more into running?

Honestly, it goes back to what you said, like when I was, um, when I was in high school, like, I thought runners were nerds. And in my mind, it was like the nerdiest sport. Like, I couldn't imagine running or like being into— I was like, it's not, you know, it's not a team sport. Like, it's not— it doesn't seem hard, whatever. And I have developed unbelievable respect for endurance athletes and for runners from having gone through this because, I mean, a few reasons. First off, the training is so many hours and so monotonous and you have to fall in love with the long, slow runs. Like, you know, in baseball it was all intensity, so you could get excited about, you know, like a really fast sprint. You know, I was a pitcher, so like a bullpen session or whatever. But with running, like, if you're going to be a marathoner, you have to love the 22-mile at a like 8:30 pace, just zero fun. Like, you have to fall in love with that and be willing to do that over and over and over again in order to become to become a great amateur or to become elite, you know, like on Nick's level and above. And you have to do it consistently over a long period of time. And then the second one is just like the mental fortitude to pull through a race is badass. Like it hurts so bad. I mean, I would argue that the 5K is the most painful. Like I did. So my PRs were the 2:57 marathon, which was painful, but in like a, your legs are cramping kind of way where you just need to like grit your teeth to the finish. I ran the 4:59 mile, which honestly didn't hurt that bad because it was too short to hurt. Like it was just, it was over before it could really start to hurt. It was like you're breathing really fast, but didn't hurt that bad. But the 5K, which I ran 17:52, was like excruciating pain. Absolutely. Like the last 5 laps of that were the most miserable experience maybe of my life. Just like past your lactate threshold.

Awful.

And the mental fortitude that runners have and that endurance athletes have to grind through that, I now like, I no longer think runners are nerds. I think it is legit badassery. And especially when it's like a runner that has body weight on them, I think it's unbelievable.

Well, the runner, like the runner has evolved over the years too. Like now running's become so popular in the past couple years.

It's Do you think it's because of people like you? I mean, I think, I think that you've created like a huge trend of these, like it's, it's now macho to be a runner.

Yeah, I do think that like COVID and the pandemic definitely contributed to a lot of that where gyms were closed down. And this is why a lot of my content actually started growing is because I was pumping out running content for like a year and a half before the pandemic hit. And then pandemic hits, all these gyms close, people have nowhere to, to work out and train, and they need it for their physical health but also their mental health. So people start running and looking for running content, and my content blew up during that time because everyone was looking for how to run, especially, you know, people who are focused on strength now transitioning and evolving towards running. But I, I mean, I think running has become cooler because there's a different look to running now. Like you can carry more weight, you can look like a bodybuilder, you can look like a strength athlete. And there's these different parts of running that exist. Like the ultra scene has come up and I didn't know what ultra running was years ago. And you have like these badass disruptive races. Like have you guys heard of the Speed Project?

No. What's that?

No.

So the Speed Project is like this underground race. That happens and you start in LA and it goes to Las Vegas. There's no spectators, there's no rules. You just get there as fast as possible and it's a relay race. So you have a team of, I say, like maybe 6 people. I think it's like 300 miles and someone has to be running all the time.

Oh shit.

But it's like super disruptive, really like aggressive. In-your-face look and feel. It's badass. And then you have races like, have you guys heard of the Barkley Marathons?

No. What are these?

Dude, you guys, you guys need to watch this documentary like tonight. It's called Where Dreams Go to Die.

Oh, I have seen this.

And this race happens in Tennessee. It's, I think there, there's 5 loops and it's run by this guy named Laz. And you can't have a GPS watch. You don't have, uh, like any sort of sense of where the route is. You're given a map and the map has points on it. There's no trail and you're given a bib number. So say your bib number is 13 on this map. You have to go find all these points before you come back to the checkpoint. And at each point on the map is a book and you have to pull out the corresponding page with your bib number and bring it back to Laz after each loop to be able to go out and start again. And I think there were like 6 years where no one finished, no one won.

Yeah, it's like 15 runners in 38 years.

Dude, that sounds like a pain in the butt. I'm not trying to learn how to read maps, I just want to look good naked.

Like, by the way, like, running— to, to Nick's point, running has definitely changed in public perception. Like, I just more and more now I'm like, I used to think, oh, okay, lifting, like deadlifting to me, I'm like, oh, it's so primal deadlifting. Like you got to pick a car up off of your wife or off of your kid. Like you got to get it up off of them in order to save their life. And now I add running to that where I'm like, if you can't go run like super fast to go call for help when someone's in trouble, like that's super primal to me. Like you got to pick the car up and then you got to go run 2 miles to get help from like the nearest aid station.

We had Scott Galloway on. Nick Scott Galloway, says like big successful entrepreneur or whatever. And he, he said something that was a, was brilliant. He's like a, he's like a poet. He's really good with words. And he said, he goes, my fitness regime, I want to be able to kill and eat most everyone in a room or outrun them. And I was like, I like that. That's great. I love that. That sounds very like a very practical way to exercise. I enjoy that.

Have you seen Theo Von on Joe Rogan talking about who he would eat in a plane crash?

Yes.

If you, if you haven't seen it, it's like one of the funniest Theo Von clips I've ever seen.

Let me, alright, I'll ask one or two more. The, so someone asked, do you guys, do you guys religiously stick to your programming and do you ever create the programming yourself?

It really depends on, for me, like what I'm training for. If I have a very specific goal, then my training program is specialized to get to that specific goal. So like for my, my marathon prep, working with Jeff Cunningham, like he would give me my workouts for the week and I would hit those workouts to a tee. Like I wouldn't miss or skip anything. I mean, there, there's been times where Jeff has accidentally sent me my workouts with wrong paces. and I'll look at him like, oh shit, this seems fast. And I go out and hit him. He's like, what are you doing? I'm like, you sent this over to me. He's like, oh, that's a typo. So like, if you, if he, if you send the program when I'm in a prep, I'm doing whatever you tell me to do. But outside of that, I have a lot of flexibility. Like today I woke up and I was thinking, how does my body feel? How far do I want to run? I went and ran 10 miles. Sometimes in the middle of the run, like 2 to 3 miles in, I, I decide how far I'm gonna run based off my feel. That's called autoregulation. So you adjust your training programming based off your recovery and how you're feeling and how well you slept and all those things. So a lot of my training now is flexible, but it's not as rigid because I don't have a specific competition goal at the moment.

What about you, Sahil?

I need someone else to write the programs for me, otherwise I don't take 'em seriously and I need to pay for them. I've found, because when I pay for something, I take it way more Seriously. So my, my marathon training, I had no program. I was just running with my neighbor Brian Mazza, who's also a, I, I know Nick knows him also. He's like a fitness influencer and personality that was really into hybrid training as well. So I started running with him, had no program, and then I got connected on text with Nick and I was like, Nick, I wanna run a sub-3-hour marathon. What's a workout I should do? And Nick replied and was like, try doing this. And it was— I don't think I'd run over like 16 miles at the time, by the way. And Nick replied and said, 22-mile run. It was 6 miles easy to warm up, and then it was 4 rounds of 3 at 6:30 with 1 at 7:10 float. He was like, if you can do that, you'll feel good about being able to run sub-3. And I had never done— I mean, I had not come close to that. But that weekend I had the same thing as what you said with your trainer, Nick, where like, I was like, all right, I gotta go do that, I guess. And so I went out and hit that. And then I started following Nick's marathon program as a result. That got me through it.

Wow. I do the same thing, by the way. I've got a guy that does my programming here in Austin. His name's Jesse at Central Athlete, and it's expensive. I think I pay $400 a month. And I only, I do everything that I'm told because I'm paying money for it. And if I won't take it seriously, if I'm doing it, Or I wouldn't go, my intensity would be lower. I'd be like, dude, I can't do this. It's like, well, Jesse told me I have to do it, therefore I will do it. All right. Last question.

You get nutrition coaching too?

I'm going to get nutrition coaching. Yeah. I use My Body Tutor. It's basically a service. When I was like really into it, I would call them for 5 minutes every single day and they would be like, all right, what's the plan today? Where like you have like a quarterly plan. You're like, I want to lose weight, gain weight. I don't want to eat this. I do want to eat this, whatever. And it's like, all right, what's, what's your plan today in order to hit your goals? And you, and you'd have to like show them and then they review your MyFitnessPal every night and it's like, all right, you're, you're doing, you're doing everything according to plan. So it kind of guilt, guilts me into doing it, but it also teaches me like, like I didn't know that you had to get a gram of protein per body pound or per pound of body weight. Like I didn't know any of that shit. And so they like educated me.

I think tracking nutrition can be super beneficial for people just getting into health, fitness, and just teaches them about serving sizes and macronutrients and total calories.

Well, I started weighing my food after I saw Nick, you did it on some of your videos. You were like, and I thought weighing your food was like cumbersome, but like I just saw you like just have a bowl on top of the scale and when you were pouring the chicken in there, you're like, I just need about half a pound and you just poured it in there. I'm like, oh cool. That was really simple and easy. He just poured it right into the bowl and put it in the microwave and it was like a very easy thing to track. So I started doing it after I saw your videos actually.

Yeah, I don't, I don't track my nutrition right now, but I still weigh my food just for like serving size allocation.

Yeah. And now I know, but now I just buy like, like if I buy red meat, I buy it by the pound and I know that a pound of red meat reduces to 0.7 and I know what's in 0.7 of, you know, ground beef or 0.7 of chicken. And so yeah, that's how I do a lot of it now for weighing. Last question. And this is from me. I'm actually curious, who influences you guys and what sources do you turn to for like, like for example, there's this guy, what's the guy on, I think his name's Bio Lane on Instagram. What's his name?

Yeah, Lane Norton.

Lane Norton. Lane Norton. He's great. So like, I like, he's like, you know, New York Times did an article where they're like, now everyone has their own fitness guru who they trust. And so like Huberman is like, I'm a guy for someone. Nick, you're a guy for someone probably where I'm like, if they say this, I do what they say. Who are your, your gurus, your fitness guys that you trust for health and nutrition? And what sources do you use?

Lane Norton is definitely one for me. And what I like about Lane is like, if anyone's ever saying something and it seems so ridiculous and bold and new and fresh, I will literally go over to Layne's platform and wait for him to do a response cuz he typically does.

I love his carnivore stuff and like the guy who says like vegetables are bad for you. Like it's great.

Yeah. Layne has like a really holistic science-based approach to health nutrition. He also has a really good app called Carbon that is great for people who want to track their nutrition and, and reach your fitness goal. Fitness-wise, I follow Elaine. I listen to some Huberman stuff. I'm typically just like, I don't, I don't have one person I'm following for fitness and nutrition. I'm kind of just like having a pulse and feeling what's out there. And then if I hear about something, I'll go do my own research. So I'll read the actual articles and peer-reviewed literature to see what—

What do you use for that? Have you heard of— I've been using Perplexity for that. It's been kind of cool for— it's like a ChatGPT for studies.

Interesting. Perplexity.

Yeah, I have it bookmarked here. Perplexity. And it's, they do a bad job of explaining what it is, but it, they basically review tons of different studies so you don't have to read all of them. And they'll, and so you can ask, you can ask it a question of like, is aspartame proven to give cancer? And it'll say like, well, of all these studies, here's what it, here's what they, here's the summary.

I'll check that out. Lane has one called Reps. I also use examine.com.

Same, love them.

Examine.com is really good. And then I'll just go like to PubMed, PubMed, and just like read the articles there from like fitness. That's where I'm like pulling a lot of my info outside of fitness. Just like audiobooks. Like whenever I'm running, I'm typically listening to an audiobook.

And that's crazy to me. That's insane to me that you do that.

You can't do that?

Dude, no. Like, A, I don't pay attention, and B, like, it, like, you usually what I like to do is, uh, I like when I go for a run, I know how many I like beat, uh, beat per minute songs, uh, you know, songs that are a certain beat per minute. And so my stride will go to that, that beat per minute, you know what I mean? Which is typically like Like around 80 or 85 beats per minute.

I used to do that when I first started running. I would do that. But yeah, I'll listen to an audiobook and like 10 miles, I forget I'm running for 10 miles.

Like I just, I listened to an audiobook during the marathon. I did the exact same thing.

What?

I listened to, uh, The Martian, Andy Weir's, uh, the sci-fi.

Dude, you guys are so weird. That is so weird to me.

Dude, you know what book I just finished up that like I can't recommend enough? It's called Trust by Henry Cloud. If you guys haven't read that yet or heard of it, it's— I mean, maybe it's just hitting me at like the right time in my life, but it is a powerful good book.

What is it?

It's all about like how to evaluate relationships and trust, how to regain or rebuild trust when you've been betrayed, what to look for in, in trusting someone. A lot of the times we think that trust is someone who just like won't lie, steal, or cheat. So like we'll hire people, we'll bring people onto our team who meet those requirements. Oh, they don't lie, steal, or cheat. I can trust them. Well, can we trust them in the capacity of the role that we're expecting them to perform?

Dude, this is serial killer shit that you can listen to a self-help book while you're like, while you're like running a marathon. I think that's so weird. Uh, like I would read this book.

You went no headphones for the marathon, right, Nick?

Yeah. Yeah. I did no headphones.

That's what ballers do, Sahil. Like if you—

yeah, that is what ballers do.

I grew up going to cross country.

Real runners will definitely give you shit.

Yeah. If you like go to a cross country practice or something and like you go run with headphones on, like the, the hardcores will totally mock you, but I do it anyway. Cause I'm like, this is fun for me. I'm doing what I want. I'm not going to be hardcore.

It was what Nick said at the beginning, by the way. Which is like when you, if you publicly state you're gonna hit some sort of like goals, the running, like the running hardcores will definitely talk crap and troll you until you post proof that you actually did it. And then you kind of like have earned enough clout. Like I sort of feel like everyone made fun of me for getting into running and then I like posted some actual verifiable stats and now you, you know, now I'm like a solid amateur and people can't really make fun of you anymore. So now you've like, you've like earned the respect of the crew, for sure. Like the cool kids in the cafeteria. So now like they can't come beat beat you up.

So that's a real thing that actually happens. Yeah.

What's your, what's your answer to that?

What's my answer to where I go to?

Yeah. And who influences you? Who's like your, your person?

I mean, I grew up, so my baseball training, I was the first client of this guy named Eric Cressey, who has now become pretty famous. He's the performance coach for the Yankees, but is now like the Major League Baseball strength guy, like trains Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, all of like the who's who of baseball.

And I feel like a baseball guy is the worst person to get fitness advice from. That's like the fattest. No, he was like—

no, he was like the— he was the first guy to like really bring strength and performance training to baseball. So it was that it was like the fat guys or the steroid era guys who were just meatheads. And he brought like true performance training to the sport, which now is like the real driver of why every guy throws 100 miles an hour. Like guys are hitting absolute tanks all the time. Like he was really the pioneer of that. I mean, he's been on like Tim Ferriss's podcast. He's really, really big time and a close friend. Incredible. And then there's this guy, Ben Bruno, who is like a celebrity trainer, pretty big Instagram presence. And he's more of the like stuff for regular people to actually implement in their life training. And I just love that stuff because it's kind of a cool blend of the like more extreme things that I like doing with the actionable stuff that people can actually take as advice.

Yeah, Ben Bruno, he's got like the, like the everyday rip guy vibe.

He's super, super strong functionally and trains like insane legit celebrities out of like a 150-square-foot gym in his garage.

Yeah, here's him with Justin Timberlake.

Yeah, Timberlake is like one of his, one of his good friends rolls up there and trains with him. He's incredible. And then on diet stuff, there's this guy, Zach, I think Ruchelow is how you pronounce his last name. He's like the flexible dieting lifestyle is his Instagram handle and he just posts like insane macro recipes basically. Things that are like delicious but don't completely screw up your diet. And I just, I nerd out on that kind of stuff.

He's, he's Austin, Texas based.

Yeah, he's Austin based.

Yeah, dude. Nick, you, you probably know like half these guys I would bet.

I know, I know Zach. I know Zach personally. You know who else is really good for like general health information, health and fitness information for people just getting started is Jordan Syatt.

Jordan?

Yeah, Jordan Syatt.

So Jordan was an intern at Eric Cressey's gym. So Jordan is my year in high school. He went to Lincoln-Sudbury High School, which was like our rival high school, and he was an intern at Cressey's gym when I was training there. So I've known Jordan since we were like We were kids.

Oh wow. Yeah, he's, he's, he's got good stuff.

By the way, I just—

Yeah, he was Gary Vee's trainer.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

I saw that. I just went to this guy, The Flexible Dieting Lifestyle, and I'm, I'm like typing all this in as you guys are talking and I'll, I'll do a little flex. I go to follow this guy and it says follow back. Oh yeah. That's awesome.

Zack is awesome. The protein ice cream recipes are like the best thing in the world.

Yeah, he, this is a great Instagram. This guy kills it. Do you have a, do you have a Creami at home?

Ninja Creami?

I do. Oh, it's the best. One of our best purchases, my wife and I, like every Saturday.

The Ninja Creami, you can make like protein ice cream with it. They were like, they got popular based off of TikTok early on and they like were sold out for months and then they finally came back on the market and we purchased one.

Well, I used to do that. So what I do with your, so Uh, BPN. So I like to do, uh, Ascent protein with just water, and then I use BPN to like eat. And so like, for example, I'll mix it with some type of liquid and I'll microwave BPN and it's almost like I'm eating like, um, I don't, I don't know. I mean, it's like a dessert. 'Cause you gave me the key lime pie one and then you gave me a birthday cake one. And I think the birthday cake one is discontinued. And I would just, we would microwave it and just eat it. And it was like a, a soufflé or something. Now I guess I'll use BPN for this cream.

Sam, I will change your life right now. 2 cups of whole milk, like Fairlife whole milk, a scoop of BPN vanilla, maybe like 2 tiny little packets of stevia and some sugar-free vanilla pudding mix. Freeze it overnight, put it into the Ninja Creami, and it is literally identical to like a vanilla McDonald's McFlurry.

Really?

It comes out insane. And then you can put a couple like Oreo thins in there and get like a legit McDonald's McFlurry that has like 40 grams of protein and is great for you.

Shoot, this is awesome. I'm like literally writing all this down and I'm, I just add the creamy to my cart.

It will change your life. I'm not joking.

It is, it is pretty wild. I did it my first time and like I only mixed it once and it came out. I was like, what's this?

Yeah, you gotta go twice.

So I did it twice, completely different thing after like one more mix.

Light ice cream setting once, open it up, Pour like a tiny, like a tablespoon of whole milk in and then blend it on light ice cream again and it makes the perfect consistency.

All right. I literally just bought it off Amazon, the Creami, and now I only have—

it's the best.

I got to get BPN vanilla now because I only did chocolate, birthday cake, and key lime pie.

I want to hear about this 2:39 though. I'm going to nerd out on this. Yeah.

So, Nick, you're trying to run 2:39 now for the marathon, right?

No, I just did. So you just did at CIM, which is the California International Marathon. That was December 3rd. I ran a 2:39:20, and when I went into that prep, I was shooting for a sub-2:45, and, and sub-2:45 is about a 6:15 minute per mile pace. Ended up doing 6:05 minute per mile pace for all 26.2 of those miles.

Can you just walk through your progression on the marathon stuff? Because I feel like I've seen a video So, I mean, I only— I started running in March and someone mentioned your name as soon as I started getting into running as like the person that was pioneering this whole idea of like hybrid athlete, whatever. It's kind of become like an in vogue thing now, but basically a guy that can be both jacked and fit in cardio things, not CrossFit, like actual, you know, strength related stuff. And then, and then running. And I remember seeing a video of you like a 4-hour marathon maybe, and your progression from that to running maybe sub-3 for the first time. Can you just walk through like what your progression has been from start to finish on the different marathons you've done?

Yeah. Well, first off, when you and I first started talking and you said you wanted to do a sub-3 for your first marathon, I thought he was crazy when he said that. Dude, so did I. I was like, man, that's— I think I even told you, like, that's a bold move. But you did it. So congratulations on that. Um, but yeah, my, my marathon progression. So my first marathon was in 2018. It was about a year after I got out of the military. And what's funny is the day I got out of the military, I said I would never run a day in my life again. And about a year later, I was running my first marathon and here we are, like thousands of miles later. But 2018 Austin Marathon, I ran a 3:57. Which was just an absolute dumpster fire.

But you weighed like 225, right?

I was like 225. I didn't have a, a training program. I was a bodybuilder. Like I was just, I just wanted to be as big and yoked as possible. Ran this marathon after mile 16, I hit the wall. It was just all downhill from there. A year later, I signed up for the Austin Marathon again. Same training program, which was lack thereof, and I ran a 4-hour 15-minute marathon. So I, I ran 18 minutes slower than the previous year. And then after that, I signed up for my first Ironman, trained for an Ironman, did Ironman Florida, actually started to learn what it takes to build endurance and get better at endurance events and races.

You broke 12 hours in that one?

Yeah, I did my Ironman Florida in 11:28. But I ran the marathon in 4 hours and 4 minutes. So the reason that was so kind of significant was I looked back at my previous two marathons. I was like, man, after I just swam and biked and then ran, I was able to run a pretty decent marathon. So I told myself I want to run sub-3, and that was the goal. And I, I, I posted this online. I said, I'm doing a sub-3-hour marathon. and the internet trolls and activity just blew up. I mean, there are forums on Let's Run, there are forums on, on Reddit. Everyone was like, this guy will not run a sub-3-hour marathon. So then I signed up for the Austin Marathon again. I followed a training program. It was a better prep, but even in my head I was like, I'm not in sub-3 shape. But at the starting line, I told myself, you can mentally outwill anything. I was like, if I just like, I can mentally overcome the physical weakness that I have to run the sub-3-hour marathon.

And what's sub-3? Is sub-3 6:50 per mile?

I think 6:51 is like 2:59:59. Like if you sneak in under 1 second. And the only reason I know that is because of exactly what Nick said about mine, that everyone was like, dude, there's no way. So I knew in my mind, like, I just have to keep this under 6:51, my watch pace, and then I'm going to be fine.

See, I like banking time, so I always like, I like saving time. So at the end, if I need it, I have it.

Which is the opposite of what like real runners tell you to do. I did the same thing, by the way. Like I went out way too fast and then was just like hanging on for dear life, doing the math in my head of like, okay, if I run like a 10-minute mile here, I'm still going to make it.

I'm still going to— because there's like, they call it the wall. The wall is basically, I think it's like when you burn 1,800 or 2,200 calories or something like that and you start going into, what's it called? Where you like start using muscle as energy, I believe. Or, uh, instead of car. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and that's when that wall is where you're like, I can't go any further. Usually that's in like mile 20, right? Yeah.

Ranges, you know, based off the individual of like your conditioning, your experience, glycogen stores, how, how fast you burn through your body's energy. So I went out that Austin Marathon with a goal of running sub-3. I went out way too fast and within the first 6 miles I knew I wasn't gonna do sub-3. Like, I, in the first 6 miles, I was done for. And the Austin Marathon is not flat. It's, it's hills. It's, it's like a horrible PR course. No one PRs that I know of at the Austin Marathon. So then the remainder of that race, I was just holding on, ended up running 3:24. So 24 minutes over sub-3. Everyone on the internet that doubted me loved it. And I went into another training block immediately after that race was done. I actually did a real prep this time, had a really solid coach, Jeff Cunningham, and I ended up running a marathon a year later in 2 hours, 56 minutes, 27 seconds. So that was the first time I went sub-3. Then a year later, I did the Buffalo, New York Marathon in 2:48. And then just recently, December 3rd, 2023. I ran a 2:39:20, which is a 6:05 per mile pace.

What weight were you?

I was 195 pounds.

Oh my God. That's ridiculous at 195. And I mean, it's ridiculous at any, at any body weight, but it's insane at 195.

Were you still squatting and benching while you're, I mean, were you still strong?

I, I, I took a lot of time off strength training during that prep. So for like 13 weeks leading up to that race, I was still lifting here and there, but I wasn't lifting legs heavy. I wasn't lifting even upper body really heavy. I was just getting some movement in just to maintain and feel good. But the priority was, was running.

Because what a lot of runners don't realize is like, so 2:39, that's, that's impressive. That's very impressive. But it's more impressive that you're doing it at your body weight. That is, That is, that is like out of this world. I, um, I got dinner one time recently with, uh, this guy named Josh Kerr. Do you guys know who Josh Kerr is? Unless you're a running nerd, you don't know who he is, but he won the world. He won the world championships recently in the 1500 meter. He's like a 3:45 miler. So one of the fastest milers ever, whatever. But he's pretty big for a miler. For a normal human being, you'd think he's skinny, but for a miler, he's big. And I started talking to him and I was like, you're pretty big. Uh, how'd you do this? He goes, man, He's from Scotland, I think. He goes, when I came to America when I was 17 to go to college and I was training for the mile and I, but I wasn't used to having fast food and like having restaurants open 24 hours a day. And so I got fat like my first semester there and I weighed 200 pounds and I broke the mile when I was 17 or 18 that year when I weighed 200 pounds. He goes, I think I own the world record for the fattest sub-4 mile. And like, 200 pounds for like just a guy who's 6 foot, that's not huge, but to be able to run that time or the time even that, uh, you're running, or even Sahil, you're pretty big too, for running those times with that weight, that's just like inconceivable. Not only because it's hard, but what's inconceivable is that you're not getting hurt running 50 to 80 miles a week leading up to it. That's what's like, in my mind, the most impressive part here.

Yeah, I mean, when I first started running, I, I had a lot of injuries. Just because my, my body mechanics weren't super efficient. So I've had knee injuries, uh, quads, ankles, shins, calves, like everything. But now as I've, I've run longer with more miles, my body has become pretty efficient at form and function, and I rarely get injured anymore. Unless I do like an ultramarathon.

I had two, you know, from my training, I just had two like random life lesson type things from the running that I'm curious, Nick, if you've experienced these. One was before my marathon, I was trying to figure out like how to just like mentally take on the goal of running sub-3 for it and how to think about like if I'm 6 miles into the race and I realize I'm not going to hit it, how to make sure I still finish the race and don't just like mentally completely lose it. And this marathoner told me that for every single race or anything that you're going after, you want to have basically 3 goals. He was like, you have your A goal, which is the main thing you're trying to hit, and then you have a B goal, which is like just slightly worse. And then you have a C goal, which is just like finish the damn race. And you can always like, you lock in on your A goal from the start, but if you start falling off that and realize you're not going to hit it, you need something to fall back on that keeps you motivated when you're in it. And so you have your B goal and then the C goal is just get to the finish line. And I have taken that and like run with it in every area of life now. Like no matter what it is, if you have a fitness goal, like a daily fitness goal, you want to, you know, run every day and work out every day. It's good to have that A goal, but the reality is that like shit hits the fan sometimes. Like your kid is up all night or, you know, like you have a problem at home or something at work pops up. And so having that idea of like, what is the B goal? Maybe it's a slightly lower version. And then the C goal is like, I'm just going to go for a walk. And get 15 minutes of movement in. That has helped me so much in terms of just like navigating the vagaries of life that inevitably hit when you know you're not going to have your perfect day every single day.

Yeah, it's like the mindset of like all or nothing. It's like you see so many people at every marathon, every race. It's very applicable to anything else in life, but like you see these elite runners go out and as soon as they fall off of pace, They drop out, they just fall to the side. And I was actually talking to Ken Rideout a few weeks ago when he was on, uh, my podcast. And now he lives right down the road from me here in Nashville. But he was telling me when he did Kona Ironman years and years and years ago, during the race, he realized he wasn't going to hit the time he wanted. So he just dropped out of the race. And he, him and his family traveled to Hawaii for this race. So there's a lot of time, effort, energy, money going into it. Dropped out of the race and he said it was like his greatest regret ever. So he, he forced himself to go back the next year for redemption, just to prove to himself that he could do it. But I think the feelings and the emotions and just everything that's created when you quit something and drop out because you weren't on pace for that A goal, I mean, that's like self-destruction. That hurts so much more than not actually finishing the race.

The other thing that's funny to me about all runners that I feel like they've gone through, you said it like with your first marathon or when you left the military, you were like, I'm never going to run again. I'm done with this. It's like, it's like women after they have, after they have babies, there's like that chemical that gets released that makes them forget how much it hurts going through childbirth. I think the same thing happens with running. It just is like a little more delayed. Like when I finished my marathon, I was like, Fuck this. I'm never running another marathon in my life. That was the most painful thing I had ever experienced. Like the last 6 miles, I wouldn't wish that on my worst damn enemy in the world. And then like 2 weeks later, I'm like, hmm, like, which one should I sign up for next year? Like, I got to go 2:49. I got to do this.

Yeah. I mean, I'm the same way with ultras. Like, I finish an ultra and I'm out for 2 weeks. I can't walk. My toenails are falling off. And I talk to my wife. I'm like, this is— this was stupid. Why did I do this? I'm useless. I can't help out at home. And I find myself signing up for another ultra shortly after.

Dude, your ultra documentary was so good. I, I remember I like had, I subscribed for like the premiere, so I was like sitting at my TV waiting for it to come out. It was an hour long about Leadville, I think, right?

Yeah.

Uh, it was so good. I remember I was like one of the first ones. I was like, all right, it's coming up at this time, Sarah, let's sit down and watch it. And what's crazy about you is like, There's this whole thing where these people who want to talk in clichés are like, every media or every company should be a media company, yada, yada, yada. And the thing is they mostly suck at it. You're actually one of the few guys that has like your supplements. They meet, I don't know what the grade is, but you know, I know, uh, I've talked to you and I've talked to other people about it and your competitors will be like, yeah, BPM, they, they meet this particular grade. They are of high quality, but you also, you nailed that the supplement thing. But then you also are nailing the media thing and no one else, or very few other people are doing that where they're, you're actually really nailing it. It's almost, you could argue that your media is even better than the supplements because supplements, like, I don't know how the industry works, but it seems like, yeah, they're like, these 5 are great, but your media is awesome.

I appreciate that.

You had like, it looked like you had 3 or 4 guys following you around the whole time. Your wife was there. I feel like I know her because of, of the videos. And then she was following you on Instagram or, and talking about your splits. And these guys had these beautiful cameras. It was just like, it, it was a great documentary. How many views did that have?

The Leadville doc now has, I think, 1.5 million.

It was so good, man. It was so good. Are you, did you come up with that storyline or do you just hire good, a good team?

That's my creative director, Jordan, in-house here.

Where's he from?

Jordan is from Ohio geographically, but he was just— when I met him, he was employee number 4 at BPN, and he was filming for another YouTuber when I met him as a freelancer. And I was looking for a videographer at the time because this was 2019. At the time, I was still filming and editing all my own videos.

That's crazy. That's a shit ton of work.

I mean, all I did, all literally All I did was work. And 2019 was the, the first time I was able to bring someone on, on, but I was looking for like over a year for the right person. I would fly people down, they would stay with me, I'd meet 'em, we'd film something. It just didn't feel right, so I didn't pursue it. Met Jordan, felt right. He moved down, creative director. He led my content for a while, then he went and led BPN's content for a while, and now he is back work on directly on my content again. But he came up with the storyline, the, the whole production, the scouting, the editing process. Obviously we had a lot of guys on the team supporting that editing and filming and production, but Jordan led that, that project. We just launched The Last Man Standing Ultra that he led and created with Ian Rodriguez here on my team. And we posted the CIM race video Monday. But yeah, Jordan is a super talented creative.

What's your—

how much are you spending per year on a team for content? And are you able to— are you tracking the ROI or is this just like a thing where you're like, I'm pretty sure it's working?

It's a— I'm pretty sure it's working. I mean, our media team is I mean, with video— just videographers, photographers, we have 10, but then we have our social team. And a lot of my business decisions as like, as an entrepreneur, one thing I've learned, and I think we were talking about this when, when you were on my podcast a few months ago, is that I make a lot of my decisions and I've made a lot of my decisions in business based off of intuition and gut feeling. I never looked at the P&L. I never looked at the balance sheet. If I had this feeling that it was working and I could feel momentum and I had a pulse on it, I was just like, keep, keep spending, keep hiring. Then finally, at one point, I hired operators, a CFO, a CEO, and they're like, hey, we gotta put some guardrails around this. But like all of my decisions in business had been Intuition, gut. If it feels right, I'm gonna do it. I have a feeling there's gonna be an ROI. I might not be able to measure it, but I can subjectively tell if it's gonna work or it is working.

Is it separate at all, like the Nick Bare Fitness platform and your personal social media? Is that separate from BPN as like a functional entity, or are the people like the videographers, the 10 people, is that all under BPN?

Yeah, the whole process has, has changed significantly over the last couple years. So originally it was all one team, and then at one point we separated out where I have now have the Nick Bare Fitness business and then the Bare Performance Nutrition business. So there were like two separate teams.

And the Nick Bare Fitness business is your app, right? It's your app and your channel.

Yeah, it's like my content, my IP, my channel, my training app, stuff like that. I used to do brand deals. I don't do any brand deals anymore.

Dude, Hoka should have been paying you like 7 figures a year. I bought Hokas because of you, because I saw, I was like, oh, big guy wears Hokas. Hoka is his thing.

The amount of, the amount of Hoka Rincons I sold when I first started running, has to be absolutely ridiculous. So just talking about the separation, we separated out Nick Bare Fitness team and BPN team for a while. Really, it, it made no sense, uh, of what we were doing and why we were doing it. Just, I just thought it was the professional move to take in that next step and stage of business. Now we've brought it all back into one entity. I still have the Nick Bare Fitness business, but Everyone that is working on media is on BPN payroll, is a BPN team member, and all the content we're creating is in the hope of building the supplement business. Now the teams are separated, working on different projects. Like I have my creative director Jordan, who's leading my content, Ian, who's working on my content, Everett, who's a podcast producer, and then we have videographers, creatives that are working on just BPN stuff. But there's definitely crossover and the lines are blurrier than they used to be.

Do you think that dings your valuation if you ever wanted to sell the company because it's so tied onto you?

I don't know if it dings the valuation, but I definitely think that a process and a sale would come with a whole lot of structure, a lot of IP, IP, negotiations and possibly issues.

I feel like it's less than you think, actually. I, I was always impressed. So I had actually taken BPN supplements before knowing you and had no idea who you were or that you were involved. They had just like popped up as one of the supplements I was taking.

I actually know that's not the bulk. You think? You think, Sahil, that's the bulk of customers?

I have no idea. I just remember like back in my private equity days, we looked at Onnit. You remember that brand? I don't know if it's still around. Onnit was selling and it was like they had a huge exit. Well, it was so tied to Joe Rogan and what was his name?

Aubrey Marcus.

Yeah, Aubrey Marcus. And that was like when we were looking at it, private equity guys, like that's their biggest fear is like, oh, how involved are these two guys? Like, is it a key man risk? All this stuff. And then ultimately they ended up getting to an amazing exit with somebody and, you know, they put guardrails around it. They get like key man insurance or whatever it is. But I would, I mean, I'd be interested to find out actually, like run a survey of your customers, like what proportion actually end up coming through you and your media versus now just like the flywheel is spinning, SEO is there. And the business kind of just, you know, is self-propagating.

Well, that's been the fear with my businesses, which is I don't want to make it me. I want to make it its own thing, but me or Nick or Sahil, like that gets initial base, but it's like, at what point do you When do you make the transition? And it's a, that's a challenging, there's a, I don't know the answer to that question and I'm afraid of the repercussions of making the wrong, the making the wrong choice. You know what I mean?

Yeah, that, that's been a topic of discussion for the last couple years with us and trying to figure out how to navigate that. And for a while I kept leaning into, okay, well, let's separate in the hopes of building VPN away from myself. So that it's separate and distinct and can stand on its own. But what I, I found by doing that is the separation created this loss of vision and brand. So I've kind of just like flipped my whole thought process on that and said, screw whatever happens in the future, and I'm going to lean fully back in, and I don't care really how it affects valuation or the end process anymore. I'm just going to build a brand that I'm really proud of and the way I want to build it and whatever happens, happens. And if someone comes knocking on my door in the next couple of years and says like, hey, we love what you're doing, let's talk. But if you don't like it, you know, I just want to make sure I'm enjoying the process and not building a business based off of KPIs and milestones.

And I bet you're, I mean, I have, I have no idea. I've never seen you comment on this, but I would, I would have to assume the app that you have, how much do you charge? $50 a month or something?

Uh, it's $19.99 a month.

So I would have to imagine that's doing well too, right?

I mean, I, I make much more money outside of BPN than I make personally with BPN.

Yeah.

I mean, I think it's killing it. Sahil, have you ever thought about doing it?

Yeah. I mean, that type of business model is incredible, right? It's just like the ultimate scalability and, you know, as your personal brand, it just for you. As you think about reinvesting cash flows into your brand building, it just makes it, it makes it so much more dynamic because you can run all of your media stuff at breakeven if you want to. Like you can just reinvest all the cash that you're generating from YouTube ads, from the app, from any of those things into creating better and better content and create this massive flywheel and just count on BPN as the like long-term upside bet.

Yeah, but if I had to bet, I bet you Nick, if I had to bet, Nick has probably been, even though his net worth has skyrocketed, I, if I had to bet, you've lived relatively poor compared to the net worth that you've created, cash flow poor. And now you probably taste this and you're like, okay, finally I can afford like, to live like I want to live as opposed to just living on $80,000 a year. Yeah.

I mean, for the first, I didn't take any money out of the business for the first 5 years.

What do you get, like, just like a, like an Army, or you get like a military stipend or something?

Yeah, so it worked, it, it worked well because I started the business 2012. 2017 is the year I transitioned out of the Army. So I actually had to start paying myself then, me and my brother who moved down from Pennsylvania to help us build the business. We signed our first warehouse lease that year. It was the first year we hit 7 figures in revenue. And it was also like the most challenging year of my entire life because I didn't know anything about financing inventory. I didn't know anything about leveraging debt. I didn't know anything about taking out business loans or utilizing lines of credit. Cash flow was an absolute nightmare. The only money I thought I had to spend was the money that was in the bank account. We had no terms with manufacturers. Like 2017 was arguably the worst and hardest year of my life, but also the best year of my life. That if I could go relive any year right now, it'd be that year.

That's insane.

That's one thing, by the way, like just the timeframe on all of this. I feel like people don't appreciate time as a lever for growth on anything as much as they should. And actually, like, people in fitness and athletes understand it better because they understand that, like, Growing slowly is the game and just getting better slowly. Like when I look at your YouTube channel and go to most popular videos, a bunch of these videos, like you've been at this for years and years. There's like 6-year-old video, 4-year-old video, 3-year-old video, like 8-year-old video, the 10,000 calorie cheat day challenge. Like some of this stuff you've just been at it. And I know you just said it, you were editing these, like you were actually on the ground spending the like 100-hour weeks doing this stuff. For a long, long time. It wasn't like you all of a sudden popped up and had this unbelievable, you know, production quality that you have today. So I also just think like appreciating time as a lever for growth on these fronts is incredible.

That is one thing that's been a powerful skill for myself over this last decade plus is just the consistency at which I've just kept doing the thing. But even the one thing Sam and I talked about when he was on my podcast, I think you were going to do like a speech and you were back in like the green room before going out to the speech and you're talking to all these high-worth individuals who are super powerful and they're all sitting there super insecure and scared and nervous and like, yeah, you're like, holy shit, these people aren't any more secure, confident, or better than me. And I think once you realize that, that I have all the skills that I need to take whatever I want to take to the top. I just have to apply it because I used to think, and I went through this phase where I was like, okay, I'll get this business, I'll get this thing to this level, but at some point I'm not going to be smart enough. So I'm going to have to outsource people to come in and take it from where I built it to where it needs or can go. And sometimes you do that, but you don't have to. I've realized that there's no one smarter than me that's going to take this business to the level it needs to go. I just have to be super consistent at this approach for a long period of time and it's going to pay off in dividends.

But you did hire a CEO, I think. What are you, a year into that?

A little over a year. Yeah.

How's that?

It's been great. I mean, the main reason I wanted to step out of the CEO role and I wasn't actively looking to hire a CEO, but Kat came into the business first as kind of just an advisor, and then she joined as the Chief Revenue Officer, leaning into more operations. And then we just had a conversation one day. I was like, hey, would you ever want to be CEO? Because I really just want to like focus on creating content and brand building. And she's like, yeah, if you want me to be CEO, I'll be CEO. So we made the switch because the business got to a point and a size where I wasn't spending my time on the things that I was passionate about anymore. I was spending my time on like people management and lawsuits and retail and finances and P&L and balance sheets. And I was like, this is all like super critical, important stuff, but I don't love it. I want to focus on what I love, and that's creating content, that's building brand, that's getting people jacked up. It's talking about the products, it's working on new product innovation. And that's why I wanted to make that change, which has been like much harder than I thought it would be. And I'm only now a year in of that transition, really finding my lane. But this last year for me has been an interesting one.

Dude, and it's hard. So I have a CEO too. We'll be at 1 year in a couple months. And it's hard because you want to be a good, I don't know what it's called, a good partner with your CEO where you want them to make mistakes and you want them to, you know, put their flavor and stuff because you got to let a CEO do that. But then at the same time, you're like, but I already did all this and I can tell you what the outcome of this is going to be. Or, uh, you know, it's just like, it's really, it's a, it's a hard, it's like getting married where you, and, but not living together right away. And so you get married and then you move in and you're like, oh, you're fucking quit leaving the cap off the toothpaste. And it's like, well, no, you can't like bitch about little stuff. You got to let them do what they want to do. You know what I mean? It's like kind of weird. It's like a, it's like a weird, there's, it's a weird thing, but you have to learn how to like manage each other. And it's, and it is a challenge, but when it works, it's hard. It's the best.

At any point, do you feel the need to jump back into the CEO role?

Well, in my, when I get pissed off, I'll be like, I gotta do this. And then I'll get like end of week or end of month updates. And I'm like, oh my God, Jordan is so much better at me than all of these things. And I, and, and also like I would have done this different, this different, this different, and those 3 things I probably would have been wrong about. So like the, the name of the game isn't being right 100% of the time. The name of the game is being right. For the right things most of the time. And I just had to like, kind of like have empathy and put myself in his shoes. And that helped a lot. But, uh, no, like when I, on a bad day, when I get pissed off, I'm like, I should do this. And then 99% of the time I'm like, you are more talented than I am at so many things. I cannot do this.

Yeah, I think sometimes too, when you're, when you're far removed from the position for an extended period of time, you forget all the bad things you have to used to deal with.

Yeah.

You only remember the good. Like, man, I kind of miss this. And then you get exposed to all the things, the bad things that you don't miss too much. No, you got it. You run with it.

It also kind of— I just— before you jump forward from that, Sam, it, um, it also differs greatly between like a true business operations endeavor and a creative endeavor. Like, you couldn't step away and truly have a CEO just like running your content apparatus because it would lose it would lose the, like, the Nick soul that is in it. That's in every single piece of content that exists. You can, like, build your team around it, but you actually being in that creatively, I think is so key. There was this, I think it was Jerry Seinfeld did an interview with, I think it was like the Harvard Business Review and they asked him about the fact that him and Larry David basically wrote every episode of Seinfeld and after 9 years they had basically burned out and so the show just had to end because they had burned out on doing it. And the Harvard Business Review was like, could you have hired McKinsey to come in and like help you find a better model and design something? And Jerry Seinfeld said, who's McKinsey? And they said, it's a consulting firm. And Seinfeld responded, are they funny? And basically his point was, you don't like, I don't need them if they're not funny because the efficient way of doing the creative thing is actually the wrong way. And what he said is the right way is the hard way. The show was successful because they did it the hard way. They micromanaged every single detail of the creative process and they really had their soul in it. And so I think that like your creative success and what has allowed all your businesses to thrive are also fundamentally tied to the fact that you have your soul in every single piece of content that you guys are putting together.

Yeah, I agree with that. I think sometimes entrepreneurship and building a business and founding a company from the outside looking in, like people make it seem easy. So it's romanticized and everyone's like, oh, I could start a business. I could do it. And then you finally do it and like you have this passion around everything you're building, but then it gets hard and it gets challenging and then it grows. And then, you know, your passions are sidelined for the priorities of the, for other parts of the business. But it's just maintaining that consistent work ethic, even when you're working on things that you truly weren't passionate about in the beginning, but you know, it drives business and leads you to an ultimate end goal.

Well, guys, I appreciate you coming on. It was a little impromptu, but this is fun. I just like hanging out with you guys and learning. Nick, Sahil, I'm close to Sahil, so I don't have to say this to him, but Nick, I've looked up to you for a while now and I appreciate you doing this. Sahil, I appreciate you doing this too. This is awesome.

No, thanks guys. Appreciate the opportunity.

All right. That's the pod.