549: The Top High-Impact, Low Misery Habits for Fat Loss | Light Watkins

What's going on, everybody? It's episode 549 of The Genius Life. Let's go. What's going on, everybody? I'm your host, Max Lugavere, and welcome back to The Genius Life, a show where we uncover the science-backed tools for living smarter, stronger, and longer without falling for wellness theater or performative suffering. Today's guest is my good friend, Light Watkins, who is a meditation teacher. He's a best-selling author, but this episode is not going to be a conversation about mindfulness or meditation. Light has a new book out. It's called The Year That You Transform, and this episode turns into one of the most unexpectedly tactical fat loss toolkits we've ever done here on the show. We're talking about the real levers that actually move body fat, calorie awareness, added fats, protein ratios, food scales, air fryers, and even how AI can remove friction from tracking and decision-making. What makes this conversation special is that we're not theorizing. We're both reporting back from the field, from our own respective fat loss journeys. He followed my fat loss cheat codes a couple months back, almost to the letter and watched his body fat drop dramatically without misery, deprivation, or bland food. Along the way, we unpack why fat loss is simple but not always easy, why healthy foods can quietly stall progress, and how short seven-day experiments can outperform vague forever goals. This is one of those episodes that can totally change the way that you see food, effort, and progress, even if you think that you already know this stuff. Listen all the way through to the end. You're not going to want to miss a beat. And as always, don't forget to share this episode with friends and loved ones who you think might benefit from it. And if you have a moment, guys, please consider leaving a rating and review on your podcast app of choice. It's a free way to support the show and it really helps the show grow. And now with all that out of the way, here's episode 549 with my good friend, Light Watkins. Let's rock. Light Watkins, what's going on? Max Lugavere. I think this is what, number four? Something like that. Five or something like that. Yeah. One of my favorite people. Yeah. Happy to have you in. Yeah. What's going on with me? Not a whole lot. Well, you have been one of the biggest inspirations in my life in the last six months. I started, you said, I can't remember when it was, you reposted your fat loss. G-codes. Yeah, you posted every, like what, every six months or so. And the last time I was on here, we talked a little bit about it, but I was still sort of like dabbling and eyeballing the whole, you know, macro tracking thing. And then I'd had a food scale for like a year and a half that I never took out of the box. One of those little $10 Amazon basics food scale. And I said, you know what? I'm a fuck it. I mean, I'm just going to go all in. And, you know, I had the whole thing in my head, the story about how, how much work it was going to be and it's going to be a hassle and it's so simple it's so easy when you when you actually put the food scale on your countertop and just leave it there it's right next to my stove and um and i just started tracking everything and of course was shocked by how much how much olive oil uh how many calories are in oil and butter and i was using sticks of butter and bottles of olive oil every couple of months and wondering why I wasn't, why I didn't have a six pack, you know, and I'm working out all the time. I'm walking 12,000 steps a day and all the things. So I just literally followed your cheat code to a T and, um, and that started August 15th. And I've, you know, you and I have been texting offline about that, but I'm still on it. I'm still excited about it. It's, it's completely revolutionized my relationship with food, with eating, with, just lifestyle in general, like just creating, because you also have the story around like how you have to eat bland food. And it's like, I've never eaten better actually. Yeah. You know, when you learn, there's like five foods that are like Legos in that world. And if you learn how to mix and match the different combinations of cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, eggs, protein powder, you can pretty much make anything you can dream of from pizza to pound cake to I have chocolate lava cake all the time for dessert with 40 grams of protein. And, you know, and it's just it's been amazing. It's been absolutely amazing. So I just want to start by giving you your flowers and thanking you for. Oh, man. For inspiring all of us out in the world to take agency over our health. Oh, thank you, Light. Yeah. For anybody listening, you get my cheat codes, shameless plug, you text the word cut to 310-299-9401. I've got like a little autoresponder and it'll send you those cheat codes. But yeah, it's a fat loss is really not, it's, it's not easy per se, but it's, it's simple. Like I would say that today, the biggest barrier for most people is just a general lack of awareness around the calorie density of modern foods. that's a that's a big one and i would say that added fats are like a huge problem and that was kind of revelatory to me when uh when i realized that because you know you get you hear a lot of like there's a lot of like carbohydrate demonization that occurs like people are afraid of carbs like i've got to cut the carbs but i don't think that that's the major problem for most people like if you actually think about carbohydrate rich foods let's talk about like staple foods like potatoes rice they're not prone to overeating like you're not prone to overeating a plain baked potato in fact baked potato a baked potato is one of the most satiating foods you could eat rice on its own is not something that most people are going to be prone to over consuming but it's once you once you dump the butter and the sour cream and the bacon bits on the potato it turns that thing into something that your brain just wants more and more and more of. Same with rice. Like rice isn't something that you're prone to overeating until you dump a cup's worth of chicken tikka masala sauce on it. And then you're like, give me all the rice to mop up that cream-based sauce. So I think, I really do think that it's the added fats for most people. I used to pour so much olive oil and butter in my rice and on my potatoes. I would say another game changer was getting an air fryer. Do you have an air fryer? I do not, no. Tell me about it. It just makes preparation of protein so much easier and carbs. I can make the most beautiful tasting fries just from the potato itself and putting it in the air fryer. So here's what I do. And I got this from a creator on YouTube because there's tons of rabbit holes you can go. And people have already kind of worked out how to make these things taste amazing. But you boil, you take your potato, you cut it into the shape of fries, you boil it for like 10 minutes with baking soda and a little bit of sea salt. And then you take it out, you strain it and you pop it in the air fryer. And 10 minutes, 12 minutes later, it just tastes like French fries. With that crispy outside and the soft inside. And no oil. I mean, a little spray oil, which is basically no oil from a caloric perspective. And yeah, so I've learned how to make like low calorie, high protein smash burgers and fries and yeah, anything you can imagine. You can work the air fryer, you can work your, what kind of skillet do you use? I use a... Because when you're not using oil, you kind of have to go non-stick. Correct. Well, I have a non-stick from our place, which I use primarily for cooking eggs because eggs are the one thing that's like most prone to sticking. Yeah. And then I have a cast iron that I use for like steaks and things like that. With a little spray oil. Yeah. But here's a fun spray oil hack. Tell me. Well, it's not necessarily a hack but um one you know one one tablespoon of oil is like 14 grams of fat right if you actually put your spray like your say you have like an olive oil spray and you put it on your digital food scale and you zero out the scale you'd be shocked how long you can actually spray the oil for before the weight starts to move interesting so it just it just is sort of visual confirmation that a spray is so much more efficient than pouring oil on your food right so like you know i have an extra virgin olive oil spray in my kitchen um and if i want to like lightly coat anything with like extra virgin olive oil i use a spray and i'll like i'll measure to see how many usually it's like you can spray it for like a good couple seconds and you'll see the weight won't change you just put the spray on the digital scale you zero it out yeah and um and you'll see that like you you know a spray is almost like a free right free calories so how much how long are you spraying then to like to to get a gram or whatever yeah just like you know for like a second but it's just it's kind of miraculous like it's it's miraculous how much like how many calories like using a spray will save you. Um, and even among the weight that's even, even like, say it goes down to two grams lost, you know, with a, with a, with an extra long spray, there's still propellants and whatever, like in most, not all sprays, but in some, you know, they'll include propellants. You, you know, you generally want to avoid those, but, um, but yeah, like not even all of the weight that's lost is pure fat. So. And a tablespoon is how much, how many grams? 14 grams. Oh my God. Yeah. And a gram of fat is nine calories. So it's like there's like a real precision math here that shouldn't be overlooked, you know? Yeah. But then you contrast that to like when you're just liberally pouring with the abandon of a summer day, your extra virgin olive oil, all of your salad. I mean, that is a F ton of calories. Yeah. Calorie bomb. And you think you're eating super, you know, progressively to the goals that you want to have because I think it is healthy, right? olive oil is not it's healthy correct but if you want to have the kind of body that you may envision for yourself i don't think anybody i don't think any guy wakes up envisioning wanting to have more of a dad bod no more waist handles but so if you don't want that then it's not it's not useful it's not helping you achieve that goal yeah and oil is not fat is not satiating like um and that's like a big thing today. I would eat a whole bag of pistachios from Costco thinking, you know, okay, this is a healthy snack. It's like 4,000 calories. Yeah. A hundred percent. It's, um, it's a huge problem. And also like, you know, nuts are something that you used to have to like go out and forage for and then crack the nut and it would be time limited, right? It would be, they would be slow to eat. Now. I mean, you, you get like shelled a bag of shelled and you add salt to it oh my god it becomes this thing like you can literally like shovel pistachios into your face at i made this joke on a i did a video where i went to target recently and i was like i i was explaining how with unprecedented velocity you can now shovel salted nuts into your face and it's like a thousand calories of nuts before you know it within five minutes like they have these jars of um i forget the brand name but it's like salt and vinegar, almonds, right? That's like crack cocaine to me. Like you give me a can of that, within five minutes, it'll be gone. Like there are no breaks for me. I used to eat that all the time. So I haven't had nuts in four or five months like that. And I don't miss it, honestly. I don't miss the olive oil. I had a little bit of a little sprinkle of olive oil this morning on a salad that I was eating. Cause you don't eat that many salads. I don't eat that many salads now. I eat a lot of fruit. I eat a lot of starches. And every meal is more or less protein-centric. Trader Joe's has these amazing dark yolk eggs. Do you use those? They sound good. They're amazing. And they're super consistent. And yeah, they break very cleanly. And so I've been really enjoying that because you can't get that where I'm based in Mexico City. But yeah, It's just, it's fun, man. Every meal, when you know that the thing you're shoving into your mouth hole is taking you further in the direction of your goal, it makes every meal that's just that much more enjoyable. Yeah. You guys know that I'm a super minimalist when it comes to personal care. I don't even shampoo my hair every day. So when a skincare brand first reached out about working together, I was honestly reluctant. I'm not into 12-step routines and most skincare just doesn't have the science to back it up. But one skin was different. Their team of longevity scientists actually does the research. 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And it's, it's making that trade off, you know, it's like understanding that no decision is bad. It's just you're deciding ultimately with every decision, with every choice you make, you're deciding between what you want now and what you want most. Yeah. And that's what's interesting about this experiment is I had the misconception that you can't have waffles, pancakes, cookies, muffins, and get a six pack. And that's not true. Not true. You can have all of those things. You just have to use the kind of ingredients that will lead you to the goal. And the thing you think you should be eating to be healthy, which are the fats and the nuts and all of that, that's actually what's holding you back. It's like completely the opposite of what most healthy wellness people think. 100%. Yeah, I think the added fats are a big problem. I think like I'm not demonizing fat, like certainly not, but I think you should get your fats from whole foods. And, and also you should have the awareness that whole foods today are fattier. Like meat is fattier than it's ever been. I mean, like, unless we're talking grass fed, like a lean cut of grass fed, grass finished steak, um, you know, domestic cows are bred to be fattier than, than wild game. So there's no necessity to over consume fat. You need a certain amount of fat for good health, for hormone function, digestion. But beyond that, you're just stacking the calories. And yeah, it's a big problem today. You can certainly find ways of economizing. Because all it is is a 500-calorie deficit every day. It's not that much. That's a pretty subtle calorie deficit. And over the span of a week, literally, if you consistently are at a 500 calorie deficit for seven days in a row, that's a pound of fat loss. Now that might not look like a lot on the scale, right? Like if you go from 200 pounds to 199 pounds, that doesn't sound like a big win, but picture holding a pound of meat in your hand at the supermarket in the hand. That's a lot of pure fat. We're not talking about glycogen. We're not talking about water weight to be able to lose a pound of fat in a week off your body of pure fat. That's amazing. Yeah. Following your cheat code in the first three, maybe three and a half months, I dropped my body fat percentage from, I think it was at 22% down to like 13%. Wow. And all I did really was I stopped eating the olive oil and the nuts and the butter. Everything else more or less, oh, and I didn't eat out as much. So that's the other thing. You kind of have to start preparing most of your food because you just can't trust what you're getting when you eat out in terms of oil and butter and stuff like that, because that's how restaurants typically make food tastes, you know, appeasing is by drowning it in oils. But actually, again, you enjoy it. You get addicted to the process of tracking and measuring. And now with AI, you don't need, you know, a subscription to some macro tracking app if you don't want. You can just literally describe what you just ate in your phone and how many grams everything was. And it'll spit out all your macros for you. It's so cool. What were the biggest mental hurdles, if any, that you had to overcome when making that transition, when cultivating that awareness around it? Because I feel like that parlays into the subject of your new book really nicely. I think AI was really the game changer for me. because I had a lot of resistance around MyFitnessPal and apps like that, where you have to type in every little thing and search for this thing at Trader Joe's and da-da-da-da. And I'm in Mexico, so they don't have Trader Joe's in Mexico. So I'm getting stuff from these places that are probably not in MyFitnessPal tracker. And it just felt like a hassle. So when I discovered that I could just describe it or take a picture of something, that reduced the friction point enough for me to say, okay, let me give this a shot. And then also having the scale on the counter just visually helped a lot as well. And all you have to do really, I think, is just track your food for a couple days and you'll see right away, oh, wow, this is how much I'm taking in on a daily basis. And you can also, you can go to chat GPT or whichever AI you use, and you can just say, okay, I am John Smith. I 40 years old I weigh 200 pounds I walk about this many steps which is already tracked in your phone I work out three times a week And what are my maintenance calories And what would my caloric deficit need to be under those circumstances? And if you have any other questions about it, let me know. And it'll spit out your whole program within seconds. So it was just easy to do it. Whereas before you'd have to find some macro calculator and calorie calculator and all that online. And then you'd have to sign up for this person's thing. And then they'd be trying to sell you stuff. And it's just like, I can't be bothered. So AI just made it really easy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you literally like today, there's no excuse to not be making progress towards your goals with all of the many tools available to you. If you can't afford a coach, I'm not saying that AI is a replacement for a good qualified coach, but it's pretty damn good. It doesn't take that much, though. Once you kind of reorient yourself to eating in a deficit, it starts to become just sort of automated. I'll even go to the store. So again, I'm in Mexico, so I don't speak Spanish that well. And I'll go to the store to the cheese section or whatever, and I'm looking for light cheese. but they have different ways of describing the word light. So I'll just take a picture of that section and upload it to ChatGPT and say, is there anything here that would help me with my cut? And it'll say, yeah, that's a deceptive label. This is the one you want to choose. And so that's really helpful as well. And then again, once you've done this a few times, like you said before, Parmesan is like the protein bar of cheese, right? You get those little things locked in And it's like, okay, let me just like hone in on this. So then how much can I do with Parmesan or cottage cheese? And I'm just going to kind of stick to these two cheeses unless I can find another really light cheese for my occasional indulgences. Like I love a good ham sandwich. And people may think, well, you can't have a ham sandwich with bread. But if you use Dave's Killer Bread with some light mayo and some light Charlesburg cheese with some nonfat ham or reduced fat ham, that's, you know, 400 calories with 39 grams of protein. You know, so you're looking for that 10% ratio of protein to calories. And if you can find that in any variation, then that's a winner, you know. Amen. And also, I think it's like probably really useful for people to, you know, we live in this era where there's this illusion of perfection that's always presented as some sort of aspirational goal, right? Like no diet soda, water only, no light products. You know, everything has to be the sort of like there's this appeal to, you know, ancestry. Like we should be eating only the way that our ancestors ate. But also like we have incredible tools at our disposal today that didn't exist, you know, 30, 40 years ago. So just as problematic as the modern environment has become, just as obesogenic as the modern environment has become, it's also presented a lot of, I think, really valuable tools that shouldn't be brushed under the rug. If you need to use a diet soda as a bridge to just drop some body fat, just to supplement the dopamine that's lost because you're not eating your favorite, most indulgent foods during this period in which you're losing body fat like by all means like drink the diet freaking soda yeah you know like go for the light mayonnaise you know even if it doesn't have like the most pristine perfect ingredients that's going to win you social brownie points by posting it on your instagram stories you know i'm saying like i i shared i found this soda i found uh you know this is not an ad no affiliation but like it's i think seven up as this diet shirley temple soda it's like the most delicious soda i've ever had in my life and it's got all the worst ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and all that no not syrup it's zero calorie okay yeah sparta bean yeah that yeah there's even some red 40 in it yeah don't tell rfk jr but um but no it's so good it's like when you're dieting like when you're dieting to get to a certain body fat percentage whatever your goal happens to be it's like um like that's an amazing goal like that's like i do that you know what's interesting is when i came to la i went to whole foods and i was gonna like stock up on stuff to cook i couldn't find anything so i went to ralph's and i found everything i was looking for because rouse was more macro friendly in terms of light food sugar-free options and things like that whereas whole foods is more like this is natural yeah gluten-free vegan plant-based full fat blah blah blah and uh and i was like yeah pass yeah ralph's is where the the proletariat shop the the civilians but no that ralph's has some great stuff that's where that's where you'll find you can get the quest chips the nacho chips you can't get that at whole foods no whole foods doesn't have like reduced fat cheddar right yeah some of the more basic stuff that i think is really useful when you're on a cut yeah like do the cut, do the, do the damn thing. See what it's like to be in a body that you're, that you're proud of, that makes you feel confident. And also like weight loss, fat loss specifically leads to all these health benefits. Like even just like a five to 10, 10% body fat loss, if you're overweight, profound improvements in metabolic health and inflammatory markers. And if you need, you know, to get rather than like white knuckling it, if you need a diet seven up or a diet, whatever, to get through the day, like just do it. Don't shame yourself about it. Like it's fine. Yeah. And just look at it as a bridge alone to the diet, to the lifestyle you ultimately want to have. Exactly. So yeah, we should all be walking around drinking mountain valley spring water and glass all the time. Nothing else. Of course, of course, for the purists listening. But like, no, we live in a, you know, we live in stressful times. like if you need that dopamine hit and there's there's data that supports that that like diet sodas can help you know can help facilitate weight loss because they provide that sort of dope dopaminergic nudge that keeps you on track also at the end of the day literally at the end of the day when you realize okay i've hit my macros and i have some room left over you can go and get an ice cream completely guilt-free. Exactly. Knowing that, okay, this ice cream is 300 calories at the most. I've got 400 calories left over in my budget for my macros. So let me go and enjoy this indulgence. Whereas before, I would feel all this shame and all this guilt, like, oh, I'm working against my goals because I didn't know. I didn't know if I was moving in the direction. And I would look at something like that as, oh, that's just adding fat onto my stomach that I want to get off. And that's not true. All the body cares about is, are you in a deficit or not? That's it. Right? So, and actually things like ice cream are a lot less calorically dense than that bag of pistachios that I was eating earlier. That was the thing I should have been skipping was the thing I thought was healthy. So it's just, it's fascinating when you learn all this stuff. It's truly fascinating. It's been one of the great unlocks for me of the past, I would say, half a decade. Who was your inspiration? Because I know you knew some of this stuff before, but who inspired you to pull the scale out and start to really track this stuff? You're going to laugh. James Bond. Is that right? Yeah. Daniel Craig, Casino Royale. Yeah. I saw the movie when it first came out, didn't really get it, didn't really understand what the James Bond fervor was about. I mean, like I'm a millennial, so I grew up playing. What was it? License to Kill or whatever that N64 game was. But a couple of years ago, like four years ago, I was, I think, sick. I had a cold and I put on Casino Royale. I was like, what is this like James Bond phenomena? And and it clicked for me because he Daniel Craig was 38 when he filmed Casino Royale, which, you know, kind of around 38 four years ago. Yeah, I was around that age. Yeah. but like there is this cultural script that says after the age of 35 or whatever like it's all downhill right dad bod yeah and i look around at my peers and everybody that i know pretty much is on some kind of trt and um and so it just kind of defied that whole cultural script and it was like well he he looks so confident and capable and jacked and like i know about science i know about nutrition like i've written three books at this point like under my belt but i still like the whole energy balance thing and the whole like um like really understanding how to really work the knobs and levers of body composition um is something that i had that i had kind of i was familiar with in theory but in practice i never really like i i've always been in like good shape but i i was never jacked like i was never like i never had like a six-pack i was never like what i would consider like to be in daniel craig james bond shape so it's like okay i want to know as much as i can know about this like how do i get in that shape like you know he has a hollywood trainer and all that stuff but it can't be that difficult like there are enough people you know like their evidence-based fitness exists like if i just like look long and hard enough at the literature like i'm sure that there's going to be a pattern that emerges And all it was was just understanding that, you know, that energy balance is really like the key that determines whether or not a body grows or a body shrinks. And then beyond that, it's like protein and resistance training determines what your body lets go of in that energy deficit hypoenergetic state. I was already training, but by getting really granular with the knobs and levers of like energy intake, calories specifically, I was like, okay, well, let's put this to the test. And just as like my own end of one experiment, for a couple months, I decided to really audit what it was that I was eating every single day. And at first I didn't start with the scale or tracking or anything like that. I just started to skim off some of these like added fat calories. And like you, like I noticed that the fat just like started melting off and I started seeing like cuts and definition where I hadn't previously. And then because I had at that point, like I had a goal in mind, I didn't want to spin my wheels. I didn't want a day to go by where I wasn't sure that I wasn't in a very slight calorie deficit. Then I started to track. And, um, and over a period of like four or five months, I got the leanest and the most quote, unquote, jacked that I'd ever been. Like the muscle was always there. I've always, cause I've always been training, but the fat loss revealed that muscle to me in a way that was right really motivating and um and yeah and it just and it was and it was surprisingly easy like it wasn't i had you know sacrifices have to be made as you said like you you can't really eat out as much so there is a degree of like you know compromise there um but you know at the end of the day, what I gained in the process was invaluable. You know what I found is my food tastes so much better than most of the meals that I would get eating out. And I think part of it is psychological as well, because I know that it's food that support my goals. So when I make a smash burger, I'm making it with 95.5 ground beef, as opposed to what they give you in the restaurants, which is usually like 80-20 if you're lucky, which obviously tastes good because it's fattier, but you're not really sacrificing that much taste if you add some light cheese to it and some light mayo and stuff like that, knowing that it's taking you further in the direction of your goal versus just eating for taste, which is like, you know, you have the option to snap your fingers and be in the body that you ultimately want to be in versus having the joy of tasting, you know, fattier foods. I think everybody would choose snapping their fingers and being in the body they want to be in. It's just that you have to make more intentional choices to get to that body. And it doesn't take that long in the grand scheme of things. We're talking like you say, like five months, six months, depending on where you're starting, obviously. But what's interesting, and I've learned this along the way too. and we talked about this offline is you know you get to that point where your body starts to slow down because it starts to i guess uh habituate towards whatever caloric intake you're you're experiencing and so to lose the last however many percentage points of body fat takes almost as long as it took to lose the first big chunk of body fat. And you see online, you see on TikTok and YouTube, the before and after these kind of fat guys who look like Adonis after four months. And I'm like, why am I not looking like that? But then you realize being fat and walking around for years, 200 pounds, 100 pounds overweight, it's kind of like having a weight belt. So underneath all that fat is the Adonis, whereas I'm a former skinny guy. And so skinny guys have to really work hard to build muscle. So as I was losing that initial fat, I'm like, why am I looking so thin? But that's again, it's a part of the process. And you don't learn that until you really start to indulge yourself in the process itself. And you realize, okay, it's going to take me a little longer and I have to do some extra stuff here. But I'm not working against my goals. It's just different because i'm coming from a different place but if you're overweight now you actually are an advantage yeah when you lose weight you're gonna look you're gonna look ripped almost right away because you've been carrying all that extra weight yeah yeah you're likely not overweight because you've got a slow metabolism like in fact heavier bodies like their metabolisms are generally pretty good they're burning just as many calories because they're lugging around you know all that additional weight so it doesn't take that long it doesn't like four months of just being intentional yeah no nuts no olive oil no butter right and it doesn't have to be a crash it doesn't have to be like some extreme calorie deficit like just a 500 calorie it's like it should feel actually effortless yeah it should feel so boring that you're like isn't there like more that i have to do like it really shouldn't be this like thing that you feel like you have to white knuckle through and and And another thing that I think is really worth like underscoring is that you're never you're never that far from shore. Like, yeah, people are generally carrying more fat than they think they are, but you can always reel it back in. You just have to just have to dedicate yourself to it. You have to like find a way to reduce the friction to dedicate the time to it. um but like after my last cut which was like a couple years ago now at this point i think it was like 2022 or 2023 um i you know i i relinquished the cut i went back to just like eating and living with just like a few key takeaways always being mindful of like the added fat intake but i definitely put on like some more body fat which is part of the process you know and i was like really enjoying the energy that came with that because when you're in a cut your energy plummets Like, especially when you're like deep into a cut, like my, you know, she'll also say that like being shredded is mainly an aesthetic goal. Like it's not necessarily for health. Right. But, uh, but yeah, your energy plummets, like your body is like, you know, it's, it's, uh, conservation of energy. Like your body doesn't, you know, it feels heavier. You, um, you know, you feel less excitable, but, uh, but yeah. So like when you're when you're just eating normally and you're not in a cut, like you feel great. You've got all this energy. Your lifts, you know, are going up. And then at a certain point, it starts you start to get this like gnawing feeling like, will I ever be able to be that lean again? And then this time around, because I'm now, you know, in a cut. I proved to myself again that like you're really never that far from shore. Like you can always like reel yourself back in. Like your biology doesn't change. Right. You know, like just get back into that calorie deficit. Yeah. And it doesn't matter really how old you are. Like I'm in my 50s. Yeah. So it's working for me just beautifully. And you look great. You've got angles. Yeah. And you're in your 40s. I'm in my 40s. Yeah. Yeah. I'm older now than I was when I did my first cut and I've got more muscle now. And I'm, I think, leaner now than I was back then. Mm-hmm. It's so great. It's so rewarding. Have you found there to be a spillover effect in, you know, in terms of like other, like the discipline that this has sort of taught you? Mm-hmm. Have you found that to positively affect other areas of life, like social life, maybe professional life, your work? You know, so like you, I always been curious about the diet stuff and wondering why, you I wasn't seeing the kind of results that I thought I should be seeing based on my previous lifestyle, which I would never qualify as being unhealthy. It just wasn't working in my favor because of the fats, the added fats. And I wasn't aware of that. But I would say, and I think this is a good transition to the book. You know, I've been like on this wellness, healthy kick for many decades now and really hyper focused on process over outcome. And I would say this has just reminded me that there always are best practices. There's nothing happening just randomly. and so i would get so frustrated with my body and i've never been overweight right i've just not been as ripped as i thought i should have been based on my lifestyle where i'm walking you know exceeding 10 000 steps a day regularly like i look at my health app and it shows in 2024 my average daily step count was 12,500 steps. 2025, 12,700 steps, right? Like that. So I've been doing that for years. And when you think about those kinds of numbers, like let's say you even stick with the classic sort of 10,000 steps a day. If you went to the doctor for a checkup and let's say you weren't in great shape and your doctor said, okay, here's what I want you to do to try to get in a better shape. I want you to do 70 marathons this year. 70 marathons, right? That would probably make most people have a heart attack. 70 marathons? I don't have time to do 70 marathons. But guess what? If you walk 10,000 steps a day, that's the distance equivalent of 70 marathons. Whoa. Right? So every thousand steps you walk a day is the equivalent of seven marathons when you add it all up at the end of the year. So even if you only walk 5,000 steps a day, you've done the equivalent of 35 marathons by the end of the year, right? But that's the degree of movement we ideally want in order to start to move things in the direction that we want our health to ultimately go in. And then the rest of it is just plugging in the holes and putting the pieces together in a sequence that continues to support those goals. So for me, the diet stuff was really the last sort of piece, the missing piece of the puzzle that I didn't quite have in place. And there are other areas of my life. We talk about relationships. Like there's some definitely missing pieces of the puzzle there. Finances, you know, I do well, but I'm not like a millionaire and all that. So there's some missing pieces of the puzzle there. All of those are gonna come into place. I still working towards all of that but just remembering that oh none of this is arbitrary So the fact that I not a millionaire or billionaire or trillionaire is not arbitrary It because there some missing pieces of the puzzle. And so what do those look like? The fact that I'm not married, I don't have kids, but I want to be in that situation. There's some missing pieces of the puzzle. So that's what it's a good reminder of. And I've solved it with meditation. We've talked about that several times. I've solved it now with diet. And obviously there's still more to learn with experience, but this, what I'm really here to talk about, The Year You Transform, which is my latest book, is really all about giving ourselves an opportunity to create the system, the framework for creating, for living the life that we ultimately want to have by thinking in terms of of choosing some degree, small little inputs of discomfort, which you could call involuntary stress, as a way of keeping ourselves more adaptable to the changes that you ultimately have to make in order to achieve the things that you want to achieve in life. And so I advocate for little seven-day deadlines. You know, forget about six months trying to get into, you know, the best shape of your life. Just track your food for seven days. That's it. Just seven days. If you like it at the end of seven days, keep going. If you don't like it, fine. You know, experiment with something else. But just that one shift from this indefinite goal that never really ends to doing something kind of smaller can be the unlock for a lot of people just to give themselves a shot. and see what it's like. And that's how I started. It sounds like that's how you started as well. Yeah. Well, you, you touched on something really important, like having a, having a deadline of sorts, whether it's a temporal one time-based or a goal-based goal-based. Yeah. But it's really important to have very, to be very clear about your goals. Yeah. And so for me, when it comes to fat loss, my goal was, was, you know, 12% and I got close to that, to that goal quickly. But then in the process, two things happen. Number one, I became fascinated with, with how much further I could go. Not that I want to do a fitness competition. I have zero desire to do that, but I'm like, you know, if I'm already doing it and I'm enjoying it, how much further can I go? But the other thing that I didn't anticipate, and this is what happens when you give yourself the chance, you, you, things, things will occur that you didn't anticipate. And so with me, the feeling tone that I got from making my own food. I was like, oh my God, I've never felt better eating food. And I worked out, okay, there's a connection. When I eat foods that are processed or that have all this oil and butter, it makes me feel heavier. And that still felt okay, but it doesn't feel as amazing as making the food for myself without all that stuff, using some creativity and making things that I never thought were even possible. You know, I make these high-protein matcha waffles. I've had a waffle maker for ages I've never used, and I got that high-protein stuff from Costco, which is not quite the 10% ratio that we like, but still, you know, it's like you could use ingredients to get it to that ratio, but i'm like you look i've got a little space left over in my meal i'm already front loading the thing i'm hitting sometimes when some days 90 grams of protein at breakfast right so if i have those kinds of numbers then i'll indulge sometimes and have like some pancakes or some waffles or something like that some sugar-free maple syrup and um and i feel great i feel amazing it's like like I've never anticipated that. And then that becomes the motivation to keep going. And so with this, my general thesis is that if you take things in smaller inputs and you have a hard deadline that's not too far away and you do the minimum viable action step that you can sustain on an average busy day, so you're optimizing for consistency and you leave it before you wear yourself out like you you do just a little bit knowing you could potentially do more it'll incentivize you to want to do it again the next day or the next meal or the next you know opportunity and you'll happily show up versus what we normally do which is we go all out we watch a david goggins video it's like oh god i gotta go run 10 miles today because i want to get into better shape you run your 10 miles now you have shin splits your feet hurt right and you've your wife your wife is mad at you because you weren't there for some you know special thing that she wanted to do and now you have all that friction for the next time and it may not be for a couple weeks that you go out for a run again and then you get sore again and that soreness lasts for a few days and So instead of being on that kind of treadmill, I'm saying, okay, just walk around the block. You could do more than that. You could probably walk around the block twice, but just walk around the block one time. That's your commitment every day after dinner, because that's what you can sustain when you're tired, when you have a headache, when it's drizzling outside, when the kids need something, when the partner needs something, right? And then the next day, you're going to think to yourself, okay, I can do that again. That was very quick. It only took me five minutes. Maybe you skip the third day and go back the fourth day. you skip two days and go back the eighth day or whatever but eventually you get into the habit of just walking around the block and then eventually you get to the point where you do it seven days in a row after you do it seven days in a row add another loop now i'm going twice right you do that however long it takes you to get seven days in a row then you add another loop and like that you give yourself six months a year to build up to the three miles you initially said okay i'm going to start walking or running those three miles. And if it's walking, while you're going through that process, you're tracking, you're starting to see, hmm, 10 minutes of walking is 100 steps. So then you start thinking, okay, the errand that I normally run, I go to the store, I go to the gym, it's about a two-minute drive. Two-minute drive is a 10-minute walk. That's 1,000 steps there and a thousand steps back. That's a mile. I've always wanted to walk five miles or 10,000 steps a day. And you realize, wow, if I just park a little bit further away from the entrance of the box retailer I'm going to, or, you know, wherever I might work, I park at the back of the parking lot or I take the stairs. These are all little five minute long walks, 10 minute long walks. I can easily get 7,000 steps a day. And I've been driving around LA doing these podcasts it'll be six o'clock in the afternoon, I'm at a thousand steps. In Mexico City, where I live, which is a walking culture, I'll look at my step counter by six o'clock, I'm at 11,000 steps. Because no one's driving, everyone's walking everywhere. So if you live in a driving culture, you really have to be intentional around getting those steps, if that's what you want to do. and if i you know lived here again i would just again i would like try to park further away or i would try to walk my errands instead of running my errands and and if your new year's resolution was you know i want to read a book a week or whatever you can use that time to like listen to an audiobook so you just have to use a little creativity is the whole point of this book it's so great yeah reducing the friction not letting perfect be the enemy of the good adopting one small habit at a time and then building on that habit stacking i think it's it's referred to sometimes have you had james clear on the show i've not no um i haven't even read his book but i know it's a popular one um but no it's uh i see because right now we're still in like the fourth the first quarter of the new year i see a lot of people sometimes like in the gym, just like white knuckling it through these crazy circuit workouts. And they're just usually working with trainers, right? Trainer. Yeah. Trainers, no shades of trainers, but like grunting and sweating. And it's like, you know, how long are you not in great? These people are never in great shape. No. And it makes me wonder like, okay, so how long are you going to actually be able to sustain that? Cause it doesn't look that enjoyable. The real rip guys are doing like these smaller weights yeah you know doing like smaller movements and you're like wow this guy is so ripped and he's he's he's he's a barbell pressing you know 20 pounds yeah i mean i i i mean i'm not saying that i'm like you know the most ripped guy in the gym but like i'm i'm in pretty good shape and you know i i leave the gym most days like i'm not even sweaty really like i I take my time. Yeah, I take my time. I'm like very relaxed in between sets. You know, I'm taking like two, three minutes in between each set. I don't do any crazy circuit training, anything like that. You don't want to turn your resistance training session into a cardio session. Like it's good to pick a lane. But yeah, so I see these people just like, you know, going through the motions of these crazy circuits, like from one exercise to the next. They're like, you know, they're breathlessly then going to the next, you know, phase of the circuit and then back again. And I'm like, how long are you going to sustain that for? Are you going to injure yourself? And like, do you is that even the most effective way to work out? And the answer is probably no. Right. And and yeah, it's very it's it's very it's frustrating to me because on the other hand, it's like it's great that you're there. Like you're obviously putting in a lot of effort. Like it's great that you're doing that. but um but yeah progress doesn't have to be so difficult like i think we it's like the listerine effect i think that there's there's this fallacy actually i was reading about this last night and i completely forget the name of the effect but we tend to put outsize uh we expect the more difficult more laborious appearing journey to be the more effective journey and that's a misconception like oftentimes you know it's like it's just like yoga you know oftentimes if you have to really like grunt through it um you're doing it wrong you know, just like breathe into, breathe into the pose, breathe into the routine, breathe into the, the, the diet plan and, um, and let its ease work through you. Cause I feel like that's the, that's when you're going to only then are you gonna be able to actually sustain what it is that you're attempting to do. And it's the sustaining of that behavior that ultimately is going to lead to the transformation that you're seeking. Yeah. And culturally, we are indoctrinated to believe two things that I think can get in our way. One is that there is such thing as overnight success. And, you know, again, perpetuated by social media, we see what we see on social media typically are the most extreme cases of people who have transformed something, and they've become the icon for this particular thing, whether it's calisthenics. You see these guys just jumping around and doing pull-up, in the plank position without their legs touching the ground and this kind of stuff. Or people who became millionaires and they started their business six months ago. And so naturally we think, okay, this is a possibility. If they can do it, why not me? and then we are also indoctrinated to believe the harder we work, the more successful we can be. And again, there are definitely anomalies and outliers who may put in incredible amounts of effort to achieve those kinds of goals. But for regular people who have other obligations and responsibilities. You want to ideally look at those pathways to change, not as a 40-yard dash, which is how most people start, which is why they typically drop off by February. 80% of people who have a New Year's resolution will drop off by February. Instead of looking at it as a 40-yard dash, you want to see it as an ultramarathon. You're about to get ready to do an ultramarathon. If you want to be in the best shape of your life, that's an ultramarathon. If you want to drop body fat, that's an ultra marathon. And by the time you get one or two months in, you're on step five out of a thousand steps, right? So just mentally shifting your expectations away from this thing needs to happen. And the harder I work at it, the more, the quickly, the quicker it's going to happen is setting yourself up actually for failure. And instead you want to kind of settle in, ideally, you want to have a mentor or a coach or somebody who's written, you know, like you did the cheat code for fat loss. And you're going to have to probably go at it alone. Everyone's got great intentions. All your friends will hear your plan and say, oh, I want to do that too. But what you'll find after a couple of weeks is that they've excused themselves from continuing on for whatever reason. It's fine. They're good people. So you're probably going to have to do most of it on your own. And therefore you kind of want someone who you can use as a goalpost or a guide or a mentor, and you're going to have to build the boat while you're sailing. You're going to have to learn more about it. And so all that is just a part of the process. And if you see that as extra or additional or hassle, again, you're setting yourself up for failure. So that's why I advocate for seven day goals. I call it the tortoise approach to change. I like that. As opposed to the hare. We typically take the hair approach. But if you take the tortoise approach, slow and steady, only what you can do on an average busy day, not on a perfect day. Optimize for that. Let that be your baseline. Don't do more, even if you can do more. Don't do more. But progressively add more, kind of like progressive overload, but for habits, only if you go seven days in a row. Otherwise, take as much time as you need in between the actions. And so it may take you a month and a half to do seven days in a row. But in the meantime, you're progressing by doing four days in a row and skipping a day or doing five days in a row and skipping a day. That's progress, right? So there are little tiny inputs of progress that you can measure that will keep you engaged. So the idea of not doing more than you can do and tracking consistency where you can will keep you engaged and keep the action feeling more delightful as opposed to feeling like a chore yeah you don't want it to feel like a chore no definitely not i mean that's why i think walking is like the perfect illustration of where um like walking is so incredible for how beneficial walking is just for myriad outcomes whether we're talking fat loss brain health longevity it's so easy mm-hmm i'm assuming you're like able-bodied and you can walk i mean it's like we're built to walk yeah i heard a comedian once say that i masturbate every night there's a guy i masturbate every night but i don't floss my teeth because it's too much of a hassle right so we want to get those actions into more into the masturbation category and find a way to make it delightful and if again if it's about listening to a podcast while you're walking listening to a book making it like a little bit of a moving meditation or calling a friend and just making it time to catch up with somebody and cultivate relationship. You know, that's a great opportunity to kind of multitask as long as it gets you moving and or, you know, okay, light, I live in a cold environment. There's no sidewalks. Fine. Get yourself a little walking pad. And just when you're watching television, you can still watch your show and just walk slowly while you're watching your slow. Now, people coming in and watching you do that are going to say you're extreme and rigid and da, da, da, da. But when you get down to your 12% body fat, they're going to be like, what did you do again? Can you give me the plan? Exactly. Amen. I supported you the whole way. A hundred percent. I mean, yeah, imagine being the jacked one in your friend group. You know, the one in your friend group with the quote unquote good genes. Yeah. The lucky one with the good genes. Exactly. Genes had nothing to do with it. I mean, yeah, there's like genetic influences obviously to everything. But like, yeah, I mean, there is a method. There's a method to achieving the body, the physique, the health that you want. And it's a status symbol too, let's be honest. Especially these days. People will put you on a level that you may, you know, that will give you access to things from relationships, to opportunities, to collaborations, because it sends a message that you are someone who follows through, who's showing up for themselves, who has a degree of honesty with themselves that most people don't have. And yeah, and it's attractive. It's very, very attractive, not just physically, but also energetically. Now, obviously there are people who can be really extreme and intense with those kinds of things, but I don't really consider myself to be one of those kinds of people. I don't consider you to be one of those kinds of people. No, but you don't have to be is I think the point. Yeah, you don't have to be. You do have to make sacrifices. And as you said, there is going to be that one person in your friend group. It's like, you know, you've changed or come on. You never want to go out for a drink with us anymore. It's just one little drink. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And I talk about that too. I could talk about strong stories that we tell ourselves versus weak stories. And one of the weak stories that are so common that will justify us doing pretty much anything we want to do is having this one little thing is not going to kill you. And the answer is yes, it's not going to kill you. You're absolutely right. But if you change that story to a stronger story, is having this one little cookie or whatever going to help me get closer to the goal, then it opens you up to another question, which is, okay, no, it's not going to help me. And what else can I do instead? you know and that's a powerful question because it interrupts the subconscious behavior of it's not going to kill me let me just indulge myself oscar wilde said i can resist anything but temptation that's a human tendency we're all like that so you have to understand that that you're going to be asking yourself these weak stories to justify anything you want to do if you're an abusive relationship that's hard to pull away from you're going to ask yourself weak stories you know should i give them one more chance everyone's human everyone makes mistakes and now next thing you know, you're back in the next argument, right? So we all have that. And I think we tend to think we're above it. But if we're brutally honest with ourselves, we come back to the understanding that we're basically primates with podcast equipment, with clothes, with fancy cars. We're primates. So that's our nature, right? And now that we've accepted our nature, now we need to put stop gaps in place to protect us from ourselves. If what we want is some degree of progressive change in these various areas of our life. So well said. Yeah, I mean, I think it's... it's amazing. And it's also, yeah, you owe it to yourself before you die, I think, to, to truly get to experience all that your body can do. And, um, and I think when it comes to, you know, when it comes to, to, I think that fat loss is a really great goal. Um, I don't think it's necessarily a health goal. I think it's, well, it can be certainly a health goal, depending on where you're, where you're starting from. But as an aesthetic goal, like, I think it's, it's been, I mean, at least in my own life, it's been incredibly rewarding. And, you know, I, I, I now starting to rack up experiences at the gym where you know other guys will it funny because you always have this perception that it going to be the girls you know it never the girls It always the guys complimenting the other guys on how jacked they are But yeah, I was at the gym the other day and then some guy who was working out next to me, you know, commented on he complimented my my the vascularity in my in my in my arms. And then I was like, you know, in the locker room and, uh, it was, uh, it was totally not gay, but I was like taking off my, um, you know, I, my, my shirt was off and some, some guy was walking by and he was like a homie. He was like, uh, you know, he totally seemed, it was not, he was not hitting on me or anything. It was just kind of, kind of in passing the level of the qualifiers. Well, I live in West Hollywood where I, I, you know, sometimes I work out in West Hollywood. I used to live there. So, you know, you just gotta be clear. but he was like he was like damn you got some muscle on you bro as he was like walking by and that felt really damn good you know and it's not like i have more muscle now than i did you know a year ago fat i have less fat yeah yeah and um and i'm not special i'm not on anything like i'm not uh i don't have the best genes and i'm 43 but to be able to receive that i mean yeah And that's not that's something that that the feeling that I had is something that I want for everybody An incredible feeling. Yeah, yeah And anybody can have it. Yeah, that's the thing is like anybody can have it. There's this there's a method I Took the same approach when I taught myself singing. I was not I growing up. I was not a singer. I was um You know not I didn't have any, you know, quote-unquote musical talent. Nobody in my family had had any, you know, musicianship but i thought to myself from a from a relatively young age like in my 20s not young enough to really master you know guitar or singing or whatever but like in my 20s i i i thought to myself i had this thought there are enough people in the world that can sing that there has to be something teachable here and therefore something that i can learn there has to be a system and lo and behold, I found that to be in fact very much the case. You know, I'm not going to have the tone of, you know, Ed Sheeran or Beyonce or Whitney Houston or whatever, but, um, but I have my own tone and I learned how to use it. I learned how to, you know, and I'm not saying that I'm the best or anything like that, but like I can now sing and I wasn't able to, you know, before understanding that and applied to fat loss. It's like, there's enough people that understand fat loss that are lean, that are shredded, that this is something that like, there's no mystery, you know? And if it feels mysterious, it's only because of like, somebody's complicating it. Somebody on social media is complicating it, usually to sell a course or coaching or a book or what have you. But there really is no, there's no, there's no mystery. What's interesting is when you see these videos on social media showing the before and the after, it always shows the person like in the gym on the treadmill doing, you know, dumbbell curls or something. And it's like, all of it is actually happening in the kitchen. We need to see what's going on in the kitchen. That's what people don't show. So that's what's been, that was what was surprising for me. But I had a buddy of mine come to me. He's, he had some business challenges and he's a bit out of shape. And he asked me, you know, what do I think about his business? What are some things he's some blind spots or what are some things he can do? And I said, this is before I started this process. I said, you should just get in shape. He goes, what do you mean? What does that have to do with my business? I said, what I was trying to say without saying it is you don't follow through on the things you say you're going to do. You do it while you're excited about it, but then the excitement obviously will fade and then you'll move on to something else. you're not really honest with yourself. I can hear in the stories you tell me about the things that you believe about yourself aren't really reflecting reality of what I see and how I see you showing up. And those are things that all can be worked on by getting into better shape because you have to do it. And once you do it for your body and you have a real world, you know, accountability tracker in the mirror once you do it with your body over an extended period of time. And this is why you can't snap your fingers and change. It has to take some time, but in the time that it's taking, it's rewiring your whole approach to pretty much everything else. And you start to realize there's got to be a system to this. There's got to be a process. There's got to be a smaller step. If the step that I'm trying to do now feels too intimidating, how do I make this smaller? And you can apply that to pretty much anything you want to do. And that's, again, what makes learning more exciting is because you realize... And I learned this, too, years ago when I... Something told me to go get a Rubik's Cube one day. I was in New York City, and I was walking through Union Square, and I just had this download to go get a Rubik's Cube. That's so funny. I know. So random. And I went and got one and I came home and I went online and I was like, how do you solve a Rubik's Cube? I thought you had to be like Einstein to solve a Rubik's Cube. And apparently, do you know how to solve a Rubik's Cube? No. Okay, so there's a sequence. It's a sequence of steps, of twists and turns that you memorize that takes, you know, if you're a newbie, it'll take you three minutes or whatever to solve a Rubik's Cube. So the Rubik's Cube can be in any configuration. You just follow the sequence and it's like you keep repeating this one step over and over and over and eventually it'll solve. So when you see those videos of those young kids blindfolded, solving it in 4.8 seconds, they're just doing that sequence. You know, they look at it and then they put the blindfold on and then they're done. They're just really practiced at the sequence. You don't have to be smart. I always thought it was just autism. Right. You don't have to be autistic. You don't have to be smart. You don't have to be on a spectrum. You just have to memorize the sequence. And I learned that life is a lot like that. Pretty much everything is a different version of the Rubik's Cube. There's a sequence of twists and turns, action steps, and understandings. And if you follow that, you can get wealthy. You can get in great shape. You can optimize your dating profile. You know, whatever it is that you're trying to do, you can do that if you understand the sequence. So that reduces any sort of intimidation factor. And then it's just about, like you said, finding a mentor or somebody who can break things down. And this is why ChatGPT is so great now, because you can say, explain this process to me like I'm a 10-year-old, right? And you can cut through all the BS that the people who are trying to justify their expensive coaching fees by complicating it, you can cut through all that. There's a saying, it was, I believe, nietzsche they muddy the waters to make them seem deep yeah i like that i haven't heard that before that's it that's uh that's the that's why there's this tendency to there's this uh perception that fat loss good health is this complicated esoteric mysterious thing it's really not it's um Um, but we live in an era now with like where we live in an era where attention is the currency. Yeah. And so by perpetuating the idea that health, good health is this like complicated thing. Um, it, it, it's big business, you know? And I was, I spent years trying to out train a bad diet, even though you hear, you hear it all the time. You can't out train a bad diet. and I never thought my diet was bad until I started experimenting. Yeah, it wasn't bad. I mean, who could fault you for? Well, bad meaning it's not leading me to the goal that I want. Right. You know? Right. Exactly. Man, I think this might have been the best like fat loss episode. Really? With a non-expert? Yeah, no. Because people have the information, you know? So like having another expert on to share information, like, you know, maybe that's not what people need at the end of the day. Yeah. Right? Yeah. They need someone they can relate to. It's the behavioral, it's the psychological aspect. I mean, obviously there's some technique, you know, but involved. I'm a walking case study for your cheat code. There you go. Because that's exactly what I used to start the process. And then of course you go down your own rabbit holes. and i feel like we live in an age now man where again with social media tick tock youtube you can find recipes to anything you want to make in a way that supports your goals so and it's fun because it's the same five ingredients so it's not like you had to go out to the store every time you want to make something you just do a different configuration of these ingredients and you'll be eating better than you've ever ate. You'll be eating better than you've ever eaten in a long time. Yeah. And once you figure it out, then you can kind of swap things in and out. You can kind of, you know, play around the margins. But you can have a little olive oil because, you know, you have a budget for the olive oil. You're not blowing your budget. Exactly. Exactly. I use all of I just measure it. Yeah. You measure it. Yeah. And and, you know, if I'm eating like, uh for example if i'm eating um for dinner if i'm having like a lean steak you know and in in the steak i know that there's some fat it's not a fat free meat no meat really is um unless we're talking about turkey yeah like lean skinless you know turkey breast or something but like you know if i want to eat some dark leafy greens on the side maybe i'll put like a half a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil in there or maybe i won't even use any oil do you ever spray your salads or anything or is that that's a great idea no you could yeah why not because i mean there are fat soluble compounds in the in the dark leafy greens that you need fat to absorb but if you're eating the greens at the same time as you're eating a steak like you don't need any added fat um you know now you don't want to go too low with your fat intake obviously so i'm not saying like you you generally want about 25 of your calories you know there's a range like 25 to 40 of your your calories to come from fat. But most people today are grossly overshooting their fat intake. And undershooting their protein intake. And undershooting their protein intake. Because then you get skinny fat, so you want to maintain the protein. Exactly. Which is fairly easy to do. I've always been intimidated by, how am I going to get all this protein? But if you just, again, you just become more intentional about the ingredients that you're using, use a little more Greek yogurt instead of ranch dressing, use some cottage cheese instead of whatever other cheese you're thinking about using. Use low-fat ground beef instead of high-fat ground beef. Use whole jumbo eggs instead of little puny eggs. You can pretty much optimize for 40, 50 grams of protein per meal. 100%. If you're eating eggs, pour some egg whites into it. Right. Egg whites, amazing. And unless you're like a 200-pound guy like me, you don't need that much protein you can get it all in three meals yeah and maybe a snack so some greek yogurt one of my favorite snacks is greek yogurt with uh no fat greek yogurt with a scoop of protein powder and a little bit of honey and some berries which is basically free calories and you know it's amazing it's amazing little snack so good i love it man light watkins well pimp the book the year you transform the quickest path to changing your life for the better is um it's out now available on amazon it's self-published i love it the year you transform yeah and uh and then you know you can find out more about that or about me at light watkins.com i'm on the socials at light watkins as well love it brother this was so fun honestly this is very i could i i we've talked about some really key levers for people like the majors i always talk about not majoring in the minors majoring in the majors and um i feel like if you just like adopt one or two or three of the habits and strategies that that that you've been able to glean over the course of this episode maybe listen to it again um we'll go a really long way. I would say, okay, in that regard, even if you, for whatever reason, aren't into tracking, right? Stop eating olive oil, stop eating butter, replace it with spray oil and stop eating nuts. If you do that, you will get into some sort of calorie deficit, I guarantee. Yeah. Especially if you cook most of your food or prepare most of your food. A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, think about it. If you're, if you're drinking, like if you have a daily habit of a can of soda every day and you just cut that out replace it with a diet soda i mean that's 120 calories right right there right over the course of a week that might be well it's not gonna be a pound of fat but over the course of a month it will be eat all the fruit and vegetables you want and um you know try to get some protein however you want to get protein look at your labels don't put anything in your basket without looking at the labels and try to get as close to 10% ratio protein to calories. You always want to look at the calories of every single thing. And the calorie on the box is going to always be per serving. So you get a box of pasta, it'll say 160 calories per serving. And then you have to look and see the spine print, how many grams is a serving? Because the whole box could be, you know, 400 grams and it says 50 grams per serving. So there's eight servings. And that's how much protein is in that serving. So just be mindful of the manipulation that some of these, the Pop-Tart, protein Pop-Tarts with 400 calories in 10 grams of protein. Have you seen that? Yeah, shit like that. Protein washing, crazy. It's like, come on. Come on. But no, get a food scale. It's like $10 on Amazon. That's it. I use that thing. It's out constantly to reduce the friction, like you said. But you don't have to like put in, it's not a calculator. You just literally hit one button, just one button, and it'll tell you exactly what's in your food. There's another, it's called the Hawthorne effect. Like just merely observing your own behavior will influence it, usually for the better. And yeah, tag me. Tag me in the photo of your brand new, shiny new food scale. I want to see it. It's the greatest biohack that exists. That, my meat thermometer, my air fryer, and my chef's knife. Those are like, those are my, that's my like altar for my kitchen. I love it. So valuable. So important. Use a meat thermometer? Oh man, I'll tell you. There's no affiliation, but have you heard of the meter? M-E-A-T? Is that the one where you connect it to your phone? Yeah. No, I haven't used it. Pro. I've seen them on TikTok. Oh my God. So yeah, I have a thermometer, a pen thermometer. those are amazing but uh but me and my brothers we bought this meter device m-e-a-t-e-r you plug you stick it into like a you know whether it's like a roast or a turkey and it goes in the oven with the yeah with the meat and it tells you exactly like when to pull it like you you set whatever you know temperature you want the meat to come out at it's amazing me and my brothers have made some insane prime ribs just insane that thing is such a gift do you do slow cooked stuff like not pot and all that and i don't do it like short ribs not when i'm on my own but yeah with my family hell yeah yeah yeah we're a big meat family like we love it prime rib is just so good do you meal prep much i don't meal prep that's what i want to start trying next is just meal prepping no because well i work from home so for me i don't really have to like meal prep is super valuable for people who work like out of the house yeah but um for me i don't yeah yeah my meals only really take like 10 15 minutes max to prepare it anyway so and it's there's something to having like freshly cooked hot food oh i do meal prep every night i make uh overnight oats for myself do you yeah protein oats yeah what i do is i put uh 52 grams of dry oats into a bowl with that's the great thing of having a food skill. You can be really precise. And then I put about, you know, half a cup, if not more, three quarters of a cup of- Because it's always less than you think 52 grams is, right? Yeah. Pasta, especially. You can't eyeball pasta. Because, I mean, think about how calorie dense pasta is. You can't eyeball it. You can't. And then I put it in my fridge, like overnight, and then I eat it. The next morning I take it out and I mix in some casein protein, which is like this super thick decadent, like dairy. uh protein so i mix in about like 25 grams of protein worth of of that yeah and then i put i sprinkle a little bit of uh um sliced almonds about 15 grams of sliced almonds on top almonds very calorie dense so you want to know why do you use almonds well almonds are great because the texture the texture the flavor and also yeah mainly that the almonds are also very nutrient dense great source of vitamin e of magnesium um and nuts are healthy prebiotic fiber but you know nuts are very calorie dense so you better be sure i'm using my food scale for that 15 grams grams of sliced almonds on top and then how many calories is that 185 okay that's not bad see yeah you know this stuff it's not like added work once you figure it out um and it's great that's That's how I start every day with like a nice hit of fiber, of carbs, of protein. Right. It tastes like, I mean, I shared this recipe with my newsletter audience recently. I call it my birthday cake overnight oats because it tastes like birthday cake because the vanilla and I put these like keto sprinkles on top and I look forward to it every morning. It's so freaking good. It's so freaking filling. Keeps me satiated for hours. and um yeah so that's the extent of my meal prepping nice i love it light walk-ins thanks for coming out thanks for having me man dude this was so fun you're a homie thank you for being the uh the willing recipient of all of the homoerotic mirror selfies that i sent to you for the course of this process and i love receiving yours exactly yeah yeah so we have a text thread where we send each other pictures of ourselves topless every like month and a half or so just to kind of stay accountable and check in. Get you a friend who you could do that with. Yeah. You know, we don't even see each other that often. He lives in Mexico City. Right. But yeah, it's good to have an account to build a buddy. Yeah. Do you have anyone else who's doing this? I think it's just you. Like we're doing it? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Out of all those millions of followers, no one's like sending you. I mean, I put them up on the gram, but I feel a little bit like naked, you know, when I do that. No, it's good. It does feel good to have somebody else in it with you who can kind of relate to the journey. Yeah, exactly. Well, remind listeners where they can find you on social media. And again, go to Amazon, The Year You Transform. Amazing book, an amazing person. What are your social handles? Light Watkins, at Light Watkins. Love it. Everywhere. Thank you guys for tuning in. Share this episode, please, with people in your life who may benefit from it. Incredible episode. Incredible fat loss deep dive. I really think that this was one of the best, if not the best, that we've done. So thank you for coming out. Thank you guys for being here, sending love, and I will catch you on the next episode. Peace. Peace. Hey, guys. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the show. If you enjoyed it, hit subscribe and leave a rating and review. It really does help. And don't forget to grab my free weekly newsletter at maxlugavere.com slash newsletter for science-backed insights, expert interviews, and exclusive discounts. No spam, just good stuff. Catch you next time.