Ep. #483: Jordan Syatt on the Big Mac Diet and Staying Fit On the Go

Mike: Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I’m doing on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider picking up one of my best selling health and fitness books, including Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for Men, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for Women, my flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef, and my 100 percent practical and hands on blueprint for personal transformation.

Inside and outside of the gym, the little black book of workout motivation. Now, these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped thousands of people build their best bodies ever. And you can find them on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes and Noble stores.

Again, that’s bigger, leaner, stronger for men. Thinner, leaner, stronger for women, the shredded chef and the little black book of workout motivation. Oh, and I should also mention that you can get any of the audio books 100 percent free when you sign up for an audible account, which is the perfect way to make those pockets of downtime, like commuting.

Meal prepping and cleaning more interesting, entertaining, and productive. So if you want to take audible up on that offer, and if you want to get one of my audio books for free, go to www. legionathletics. com slash audible. That’s L E G I O N athletics slash a U D I B L E. Hey, this is Mike Matthews.

Welcome to another episode of muscle for life. Now recently, Jordan Siott lost six pounds in a month. Ho hum. So what? I know. The twist is, he did it eating a Big Mac every day, which is also completely ho hum if you understand energy balance, but many people do not, or do not want to, and many discussions ensued after Jordan shared his little experiment online.

Some people refuse to believe the results, others Denounced the stunt as irresponsible and others still tried to somehow reconcile it with their fetish for calorie denial. And in this interview, Jordan shares why he did it, what he ate on the diet besides just the Big Macs, how people responded to it, and most importantly, what he wants people to take away from it, how it is.

Helping people start their weight loss journeys and succeed in them. Now we also in this interview discuss various strategies for staying in shape while traveling, for work or vacation, or even just for when you’re very busy. And I liked Jordan’s take on it. It wasn’t the same old thing that everybody says for what you should do when you’re traveling or when you’re very busy.

And as Jordan is Gary Vaynerchuk’s personal strength and nutrition coach, he definitely knows a thing or two about helping busy people and traveling people. Get in, stay in shape. And not only that, but Jordan himself also has set several powerlifting records and definitely doesn’t just talk the talk. He walks the walk too.

All right, let’s get to the show. Hey Jordan. Welcome to my podcast. 

Jordan: Thanks for having me on, man. 

Mike: I’m excited to do this because shit. We. We’re talking about just before we came on, we were talking about some Instagram stuff. I don’t know, it was at least a year and a half ago. Made a mental note that we might’ve even talked about you coming on the podcast.

Then it just disappeared into the ether, but here we are. 

Jordan: But yeah, man, I’m glad to be on. I remember that call. I feel like it was almost like two years ago now, but yeah, it might’ve been. Yeah. I think you’re right. But yeah, man, I’m excited to be on and thank you for having me. I appreciate it. 

Mike: Absolutely.

So let’s start with the Big Mac diet. What’s the Big Mac challenge that you subjected yourself to? So what did you do and why? 

Jordan: Yeah. Basically the long and the short of it is I ate one Big Mac a day every day for 30 days straight. To prove that calories in calories out is like the major driver of fat loss, right?

And that’s like the sum and substance of it. And anybody who has like the base level knowledge of energy balance this won’t be surprising. If I was able to be in a calorie deficit for 30 days and I lost weight, I ended up losing seven pounds over those 30 days. It was very interesting because the response has been, it’s been pretty intense on a number of levels on one hand, the supporters are super excited about it.

They’re like, look, told you calories in calories out there and they love it. They’re super excited about it. But on the other end, there are the people who are like, a calorie isn’t just a calorie. And they’re super upset about it. And they’re trying to find everything within it to go against it and to say this doesn’t count because of X, Y, and Z.

Mike: What are some of those objections? Are they saying you’re just lying or are they trying to make other more? Oftentimes they get into obscure physiological. Stuff that really is missing the forest for the trees. 

Jordan: It was actually really interesting because no one yet has been able to make a logical argument that’s actually in support of what they are saying.

So one of the most, one of the funnier ones is there’s this guy who from the very beginning was really upset about it, like before I even started and he kept messaging me throughout it. He kept being like. Man, every time you take a video of yourself eating the Big Mac, like your scale weights going up.

So clearly like this isn’t working. I was like that’s actually not accurate. Cause I’m filming every single bite of every single Big Mac and I have it all here. So that’s not true. And he kept messaging me throughout, like giving me these like really angry messages, like almost trying to get me like either pissed off or like to push me away from doing it at the end of it.

He wrote this huge long comment. Basically it was just non sequitur after non sequitur and it didn’t even support his final thesis, which his thesis is that carbs make you fat because of insulin. And he was like of course he lost weight. Like he walked 10, 000 steps a day, he had an apple for breakfast and a big salad for lunch and then the Big Mac, and then you’d have a bigger dinner.

And so obviously like he was burning enough calories to where it didn’t matter. I was sitting there. I was like, yeah, you 

Mike: just made my point for me. Yeah, that’s my 

Jordan: point. But then he would go back and be like, but no, like he would try and figure out a way to make it. So it didn’t actually come down to the calories that it was actually the carbs.

I’m like, but you literally just wrote that because I was in an energy deficit, that’s why I lost fat. So no one has yet been able to come up with a logical argument as to why. I 

Mike: always like to point out for the insulin haters that You do realize the insulin response to protein is quite high as well, right?

In many cases, it’s the same as a carb heavy meal, like 40 grams of protein and 40 grams of carbs, depending on what you’re eating can produce more or less the same insulin response. Like you understand that, right? 

Jordan: They get so angry, but so basically like for this, I was like, And I even said, I was like, for anybody who says I didn’t actually do it or it was fake.

I was like, I will pay for you to come to New York city. I will pay for your plane ticket. First class, I’ll pay for two nights in a five star hotel. And I’ll give you all of my footage that I have from day one to day 30. The only caveat is once you go through all the footage, which we will record you going through all the footage and actually see that I did eat every single one, every single day, then you have to eat the cost of the entire trip.

And no, one’s been able to take me up on that offer yet. And I think for me. Even bigger than proving the calories in calories out argument, it was also equally important, if not more important. A lot of the people who follow me are people who really struggle with food anxiety and binge eating and disordered eating.

And I think a lot of that stems from people, they feel like once they have one bad meal or one meal that’s off track, or they go over their calories, they think they screwed up and they think it’s that’s the end of it. So they might as well just keep screwing up. And for me, I wanted to show them that you can have one of these quote unquote bad meals.

And it didn’t ruin your diet, like just get back on track and this is one way to show them. And if you look at the comments in the YouTube video and everything like that seems to be the prevailing theme of people being like, it was one thing for you to write about this and for us to read it in your Instagram posts and your YouTube videos.

It’s another thing to actually watch you do it for 30 days straight. And that completely changed my mindset. So that’s, that was really, I think my main goal is to eliminate any and all food anxiety and guilt around having a going to your daughter’s birthday party and having a slice of pizza or going to your son’s graduation ceremony and having cake is allowing people to have a little bit more freedom with their food.

Mike: Yeah. And it’s also, it’s a good publicity stunt in that. Have other media sources started picking up on it and talking about it every year or so, I’ll see headlines along these lines. Like I remember there was some British guy, I forget where the story was, but it was a mainstream, I think it was like an online, the web version of some.

Big newspaper. And they were reporting on some British guy who, if I remember correctly, he was doing it the other way, he was using McDonald’s to lean bulk, so to speak. And, who gained whatever, five pounds of muscle in a couple of months eating, it was at least one McDonald’s meal a day. It might’ve been exclusively McDonald’s or something along those lines.

And of course the media loves those stories because they grab people’s attention and they seem counterintuitive. 

Jordan: Yeah. So I know men’s health. Picked it up and they did a whole feature on it. And Business Insider actually did as well. Business Insider did two features on it, which was really cool because that’s not my usual audience.

So it was like really cool to get a lot of people coming over from there. The New York Post emailed me about it. I don’t think I’ve heard back yet, but I’m also awful with email, so I need to check. But yeah, it’s definitely been getting a lot of people’s attention for sure. 

Mike: So it was just a Big Mac or is a Big Mac plus French fries?

Jordan: So that was the whole thing. That was another part of it was just the Big Mac, but one of the reasons that I hated supersize me is because he acted as though you don’t have a choice. When you go to these places, it was like they asked me to supersize it. So obviously I had to say yes, Mike, that’s not how life works.

You have. The opportunity to say yes or no, whatever you decide. Like I started at about 150 pounds. I’m a pretty small guy. So if I had the French fries on top of that, the majority of my calories are going to be taken away. So I was like, I’m just going to have the big Mac and consistently throughout the video on YouTube.

I said over and over again and anytime they were like, do you want to make it a meal? Do you want to supersize it? I like deliberately would look at the camera and be like, Nope, just the big Mac, please because I have a choice because I’m an adult. I can make that decision. And so it was mostly just the Big Mac the last day I had the meal and I had the French fries and everything, but because I’m like a small guy, I’m five foot four, about 150 pounds, like my deficit at about 1500 a day was plenty.

And I lost about seven pounds in total by the end of the month. But yeah, so it was about 1500 calories a day. And there were a couple of days, like I went to my buddy’s wedding and I recorded that and I obviously went way over my calories at my buddy’s wedding and stuff, but yeah. The majority of the month, I was outrageously consistent at about 1500 calories a day.

Mike: And have people criticized you for saying that, Oh, this encourages people to eat quote unquote, bad food or to make bad dietary choices. 

Jordan: Yeah. So there have been a couple of them. It’s mainly from people who haven’t actually either. Watch the video and or watch the process on Instagram. And so what I did was when I saw those people come out of the woodwork, I’d get them on a podcast.

I recorded the calls with them. They would be like, yeah, this is encouraging eating McDonald’s unhealthy eating. And I very deliberately throughout the YouTube video over and over again, and throughout the process on Instagram, documenting it daily said every single day, I’m not only saying, is this not healthy?

I’m actively saying, do not do this because it’s not healthy. I don’t want you to do this. And usually when I got them on my podcast and then I showed them like outright exactly what I was saying, they hadn’t actually seen it. They would be like, yeah, to be honest, I hadn’t actually watched it. I only heard the title of it.

And then I went off on it. And so Oh, okay. Yeah. Sorry. Like I actually didn’t really look into it very much. I only just heard about it. I read the title. I was like, got it. Okay. So just to clarify. You just heard the title of it, did no research on the back end and then started hating on it publicly before you did anything like to actually substantiate your claims.

So literally anybody who has said this is promoting unhealthy eating, I know right off the bat hasn’t actually looked into it for more than, you can’t watch more than two minutes of it. Without seeing that I’m outright saying this is not healthy. I’m not promoting it. Do not do this. 

Mike: And, ironically, I’m not going to think of the guy’s name.

I think he was like a John Cisna, maybe if that’s correct. I’m impressed at my memory, actually. So I think he was a high school science teacher who did a similar thing. And it was in the case of how in particular that he lost, it was eating just, it was like protein shakes and Twinkies, right? Twinkies and ho’s.

And it was like a gas station diet with protein shakes. And he did that for what, a couple of months, two or something, but he lost a fair amount of weight. So it would have been more than a month, probably two or three months. Cause he, if I remember correctly, lost like 20 pounds. And one of the more surprising, he wasn’t surprised because of course he knows how energy balance works, but he was surprised in that his blood work.

Looked a lot better. It just goes to show that if you are significantly overweight, losing weight is so healthy that it actually can override some of the negative effects of just eating food. Shitty food in a way, like even if you were encouraging some people to do it this way, not that you would do it, say this for everybody.

But even if that were the effect, if there were some people out there who are quite overweight and let’s say they really like to eat McDonald’s and they’re like, shit if I just cut down on my McDonald’s intake and just. Do what Jordan did. If I just have a big Mac a day, and I’m sure you showed all your meals.

So they’re like, I’m literally just going to do it. He did. I’m going to eat the salads and the apples and the McDonald’s that probably would be a perfectly healthy way to at least up to a point, like the outcome could be healthy period. 

Jordan: A hundred percent. Aside from the fact that Excess fat is one of the main drivers of like inflammation and for so many downstream health effects that are like awful for you.

But like also if you look at the behavioral psychology behind why people continually fail their diets, why people continually like they start something and then they fall off track and then they regain all their weight and then sometimes even more, if you just look at that, so much of it has to do with them thinking that they’ve failed.

And just because they had one quote unquote bad meal, and if that means that giving them the opportunity to look at that one meal as not a failure, just as actually part of the process and that allows them to keep more of a positive and optimistic mindset towards their diet, then absolutely. A hundred percent.

Mike: Let’s talk more about that. I guess the psychologists refer to that as the, what the hell effect, right? Like I already messed up once. What the hell? I might as well just go whole hog. 

Jordan: You see this consistently and you actually, I think one of the cool parts about it is. Even just looking in the comment section of the YouTube video, you’ll see this.

And people left comments that there are longer than my term papers in college. Like they’re like, they’re really long and in depth and it’s cool to see because they’re like, Legitimate case studies and reports from like an actual person telling you, this is what I’ve gone through. This is why I failed my diets over and over again.

Seeing this has shown me that I’m able to do X, Y, and Z and not fail. And it’s not a screw up that I’m actually, it’s still okay. That’s the main reason that, you can see it either from the perspective of. You go out on a Friday night and you have a couple of beers and a slice of pizza and you say, screw it, I’ll get back on track on Monday, like to get back on track on Monday effect, but then basically between Friday night and Monday morning, it’s a that means I have about 48 hours to eat as much as I possibly can before I have to restrict myself again.

So I’m going to go binge as much as I possibly can. And then basically. The entire next week is going to be making up for this binge. And I’ll repeat this cycle over and over again. And then you have other options where instead of just like doing it every week, someone will go really strict for two weeks or a month or several months.

The first time they slip up, it’s ah that’s it. I ruined it. And then they’ll just completely end it. It’s not getting back on track the next week. It’s like they’re done for the next. Month, two months, six months, a year. That’s the yo cycle that we hear about all the time. It’s the yo binging cycle.

It’s where people go away and then they see the scale spike up after a vacation, like 10 pounds or like 10 pounds after vacation, they have no idea how the scale works. There was actually a major part of the video as well is showing people. How scale fluctuations work and why they work the way they do and how to anticipate spikes and whooshes and fluctuations.

And I specifically showed literally the first scene of the entire movie is me weighing in and I was like, check this out. I’m going to weigh in. I haven’t peed yet. I did my first way in. Then I like literally had the sound on while I was peeing so people could hear me peeing. Then I weighed in again and I lost over a pound of pee within a matter of like less than a minute.

And I showed people like that was number one. It was the first thing I showed them. And I showed them after my buddy’s wedding. I, before the wedding, I was 145. So I had lost about five pounds by that point. And then when I got back from the wedding, I was 148. 2. So I gained over three pounds just by going to my buddy’s wedding.

And then the next day, just from being back on track. I was already back down to 145, but most people see a spike of three pounds plus, and they’re like, Oh my God, I can’t believe I gained three pounds of fat just from going away. Like everything is ruined. And then they just, they don’t get back on track, which is why I don’t make the progress they want.

Mike: Yeah. A lot of this is just the assumptions and overreactions where if they had the accurate information, which stuff like what you’re just talking about, it would prevent that. They wouldn’t have to just. See something and assume that it means something it doesn’t and then overreact to it instead by understanding what it is and understanding the context they’re able to respond rationally, which in this case, of course, is knowing that it’s physically impossible to gain three to four pounds of fat in a day.

Period. Like your body could never create that much. You would end up, even if you just ate just drank olive oil all day, eventually you just outpaced your body’s ability to process it. And your poop would just start floating a lot. So that’s a question I’ll get asked often is what’s the most fat you can gain in a day?

And actually have an article on it. It’s hard to say exactly, but I think it’s fair to say maybe up to a pound or so, if you really go for it, 

Jordan: you really went nuts. Yeah. 

Mike: You’d have to probably plan it out cause you’re going to have to eat a shitload of calories and you’re going to have to make sure you eat a shitload of dietary fat, like just a shitload of carbs won’t do it.

And even then it might be closer to a half a pound. And then there’s of course water and glycogen, which for anybody wondering, if you’re not sure why Jordan’s weight was up and then down so much, it’s probably because you ate a bunch of delicious carbs at your friend’s wedding, which then increases the amount of water that you hold.

Yeah. And the amount of glycogen that you hold, and by then bringing your carbs back down to where they normally are, you quickly shed that extra water and glycogen and you carry on. 

Jordan: Yeah, that, and also I think one of the most overlooked ones is also just like food 

Mike: in your 

Jordan: stomach. That’s exactly it. Yeah, More literally have more food in your stomach.

Of course. It’s what do you expect? One of the things that I really absolutely pisses me off more than anything is the demonization of the scale and the fitness industry and how like the scale is evil and like people like come up with really Arguments that don’t make sense. And it doesn’t tell you anything about how much you’re worth.

It’s what does that have to do with anything? It’s under that, you shouldn’t track how much weight you’re lifting in the gym because it doesn’t tell you how much you’re worth. What does tell you 

Mike: how much 

Jordan: you’re worth? That’s exactly. 

Mike: That’s a question for the philosophers. I don’t know, but as far as my body composition goes, the scale is a good place to start.

Jordan: It’s it’s a really good tool and the best way to use it. Isn’t to like, just eliminate it all together because you’re having an emotional response to it is it’s so funny. They’ll contradict themselves over and over again. It’d be like, it’s just an inanimate object. You shouldn’t care what it says.

It’s that’s exactly right. It’s an inanimate object. You shouldn’t care what it says. You should be able to get on it without having an emotional response. It’s it’s exactly right. So you should know what inanimate object dictates. 

Mike: By the same logic, I guess your bank account is also just an inanimate object.

You shouldn’t care that it says you are overdrafted a thousand dollars. It’s 

Jordan: exactly right. 

Mike: So you should just pretend that doesn’t exist. 

Jordan: Your wealth doesn’t define your worth. So you should stop tracking your income and your and like how much you’re spending and just let it go. It’s ridiculous.

It’s just do whatever makes you happy. Oh my God. That outrages me more than I can begin to put into words so bad. So that was a major part of this video as well as showing people how your weight’s going to fluctuate. And I think so many people talk about how awful the scale is and very few people have actually ever shown what their weight looks like on a day to day basis.

So for people to see that my weight fluctuated so much, even as a male, like even this whole like whole thing is men lose weight faster than women. It’s like my weight will fluctuate less often than women, mainly just because of the menstrual cycle. But that doesn’t mean like that my weight won’t fluctuate.

It’s of course it will. And so for people to see that helps a lot to help them understand this is okay. Like your weight’s going to fluctuate. This is what you’re supposed to see. 

Mike: Yeah. Another just tip for people is when you are paying attention to your weight, which you should be, if you are trying to lose fat or even gain muscle, you want to keep an eye on your weight.

You can weigh yourself every day, but you also, then you can take weekly or even bi weekly Averages and just watch how the average changes because of these daily fluctuations. Then if you can zoom out a little bit and just keep your eye on the bigger picture, that also can be a better way to just know that things are trending in the right direction.

And probably for women, right? Exclude a week out of every month from, you just don’t even worry about it. Once you’re holding a lot more water because of menstruation, just, you don’t even have to weigh yourself until that normalizes. 

Jordan: Yeah. I always say like way every day because the more data points you have.

The better, but don’t analyze the day to day, I would say track June 1st to July 1st to August 1st, September 1st, look at the actual trend month to month. And then that way you’ll see number one, the actual trend, but also you’ll know, okay, so on June 15th, my weight was here when my menstrual cycle started.

And then on July 15th, it was here. And then August 15th is here. And usually what you’ll find is. Even though it might spike up relative to the day or week before the actual trend over the months over time, your weight is actually still going down even at its highest peak on your menstrual cycle. So by getting more data and just analyzing it on a monthly basis, then you’re going to be way better off in terms of actual accurate data over time.

Mike: Yeah, absolutely. Hey, before we continue, if you like what I’m doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider picking up one of my best selling health and fitness books. My most popular ones are Bigger Leaner Stronger for Men, Thinner Leaner Stronger for Women, my flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef.

And my 100 percent practical, hands on blueprint for personal transformation, the Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Now these books have sold well over 1 million copies, and have helped thousands of people build their best body ever. And you can find them anywhere online. where you can buy books like Amazon, Audible, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes Noble stores.

So again, that is Bigger Leaner Stronger for Men, Thinner Leaner Stronger for Women, The Shredded Chef, and The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Oh, and one other thing is, you can get a book. Any one of those audio books, 100 percent free when you sign up for an Audible account. And that’s a great way to make those pockets of downtime, like commuting meal prepping and cleaning more interesting, entertaining, and productive.

Now, if you want to take Audible up on that offer and get one of my audio books for free, just go to legionathletics. com slash Audible and sign up for your account. Are you thinking about another challenge? 

Jordan: Go I am actually. And I’m starting this one very soon. I’m going to do basically for me, one of the things I always try and do is I try and come up with new ways to get the same information across, right?

Whether it’s on Instagram or YouTube or whatever. And so people really like myth busters, like it’s like busting myths about fitness. So do is and 

Mike: personal stories, making it fun and making it entertaining. 

Jordan: Yeah, exactly. Cool. One myth that is still surprising to me, that’s perpetually thrown out there is that coffee dehydrates you and people really misconstrue the term like a diuretic versus dehydration.

They’re like, think they’re the same. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to actually have Spencer Nadolsky with me on this one. I’m going to fly out to Spencer and I’m literally. All I’m going to drink for 48 hours is coffee and whether it’s in like iced coffee form or hot coffee, whatever, it’s just like for 48 hours, I will only drink coffee and I’ll take hydration tests before and after, and Spencer will do those hydration tests and then we’ll see where my hydration is.

That’ll be fun. It’ll be fun to be done. I’ll be going to be outrageously high, mainly because I don’t want to get dehydrated. So like I’m going to have to, 

Mike: and it has to be caffeinated coffee. Cause that’s what people think is the, if it were a decaf, that would nullify the whole point. 

Jordan: Exactly.

Yeah. So caffeine intake is probably going to be outrageously high for those few days. I’m wondering we might have to adjust The duration of it, it might be that 24 hours is enough that I don’t have to do 48 hours. So if I could just do 24, I’ll do 24. Yeah. It’s going to be ridiculously high for that 24 hours.

Mike: People still say that, huh? I’ve commented on it here and there yeah, caffeine has a slight diuretic effect, but there’s research that this is not an open question, like research has shown conclusively that coffee is perfectly hydrating. Yeah. Again, caffeine is a slight diuretic, but the effect is so slight that you wouldn’t even notice it.

Yeah. 

Jordan: In the same way that like, it’s not even an argument that calories in, calories out, the main driver of. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. No, I’m just surprised that’s one that people will, that’s a hill that people stand on. No, I’m dying on this hill. I swear. Are you going to get the same level of, I’ll be surprised if you get the same level of flaming for this one as calories, I understand.

It’s also calories are more emotional because people can Clearly some of these people for them, food and what food does in the body is like a matter of religion, but I guess maybe some people feel pretty strongly about their coffee too. 

Jordan: Yeah, I doubt this one’s going to get anywhere near the hype over a 30 day thing that I documented every single day is going to be way bigger than a hype over a 24 or 48 hour thing anyway.

Not to mention like calories are way more emotional and we’ll get way more cultish over like the foods that they put in their body. Yeah. I don’t think it’s going to have anywhere near the hype, but it’s definitely one of those things that I get enough kickback on that because I’m a big coffee drinker, so I’ll put it on my story like daily and the amount of people that consistently say aren’t you worried about the dehydration effects of that?

Like it’s there you go. 

Mike: Also it could be a worth. Considering would be lean bulking, so to speak, or bulking with just 100 percent quote unquote, clean foods, eating way too much of them though. And just showing how much fat you can gain despite eating only the cleanest, purest foods. 

Jordan: That’s one of the more common ones that people have been thrown out at me.

I agree. My only concern is I don’t know if I only want to eat those clean pure foods for a month. Oh, come on. It would be a really brutal month. You have to eat so much. I’d be like, Oh, this is really going to suck. It was way easier to do the Big Mac challenge than I think it would be to do that.

Actually. The next one also is because so many people say eating healthy is like impossible on a budget, like without much money. I spent 180 over the month eating a Big Mac daily just because I had a Big Mac and a Diet Coke as well. And so what I was thinking of is doing for a month on 180 in New York, eating healthy and like showing people that eating healthy, doesn’t really have to be that expensive.

Mike: Yeah. That one, I get that fairly often, especially if organic food comes into the discussion, which I understand organic food can get pretty expensive. 

Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. Outrageously expensive for sure. 

Mike: You could turn this into a whole series. This could be, who knows maybe a TV production company will catch wind and come your way.

Jordan: We’ll see, man. I wouldn’t be against it. That would definitely, I just keep going back to that lean bulk on the healthy foods. That would really suck. And then if you wanted to 

Mike: do, it would be that and then lose the fat. Eating a big Mac every day, change it, do it again, but some other quote unquote unhealthy food.

There’s also the diet Coke in there. You didn’t mention that. So that’s the artificial sweeteners as well. 

Jordan: That was a big one. Cause I know a lot of people still, for whatever reason, it’s crazy to me. People are like, yeah, the aspartame or the fake sugar tricks your body into thinking it’s real sugar. And so then because of that, you have an insulinemic response and then you end up gaining fat because of the diet Coke.

And like literally. One of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard in my life, and that’s not how it works. So that’s why I had that every day. 

Mike: Yeah. And again, you can just show research that has, okay, here’s the blood work. Here’s what happens when you have aspartame. Oh yeah. Here’s what doesn’t happen with insulin levels.

It’s that simple, but yeah. So then you lose the weight and then you do it again, eating. So it could be like eating a large surplus of very clean foods, then lose the weight and you could turn that into a, it could be some other quote, unquote, unhealthy way to, to lose the weight. Yeah. And then do it again, smaller surplus eating, let’s say half your calories from again, quote unquote, unhealthy foods, and just show the difference in body composition.

I gained just as much muscle, but quite a bit less fat eating half of my calories. Or even at that point, if you’re lean bulking, it’d be a third of your calories eating a lot of quote unquote junk food. Whereas with the quote unquote clean foods, I gain twice as much fat. Because I ate too many calories.

Jordan: You think like peanut butter? Like all natural peanut butter and avocado and all that stuff. I think actually it wouldn’t be that bad, especially if you have a ton of high fat foods. Even carbs, man. I don’t know. I love carbs. 

Mike: I could easily eat a loaf of bread a day. Easy.

Shit, that’s probably three, four hundred grams of carbs right there. Pasta. 

Jordan: Have you had chala bread? It’s like Jewish bread, cha bread. Have you ever had that? 

Mike: I don’t know. I don’t think so. 

Jordan: Alright. Yeah, if I was gonna have a loaf of bread, it’d have to be the cha bread. You have to have chala bread.

It’s like super good. How 

Mike: do you spell that? C-H-A-L-L-A. I feel like I probably have, but nothing’s coming to mind. You know what I mean? Like I’ve eaten a lot of bread. My brain is saying of course you probably have eaten this. But I don’t know. I get no picture. I get no sensation. I don’t know what it is.

Jordan: got it. All right. I’ll send you some bread for the holidays. You, it’s amazing. It’s super good. 

Mike: Perfect. My wife is German. So I’ve been to Germany many times and all the places I’ve been has the best bread. So when I go there, I eat way too much bread. I eat bread until the point where I can actually feel my body like saying, please, no, just please stop, dude.

Can we just have a vegetable or a fruit or something? No more meat and bread, please. Just to make a hard transition. I wanted something else. I wanted to pick your brain on cause you live it firsthand and it’s something that asked about fairly often, but have not really written or spoken that much about, and that is how to stay fit when you are on the go.

So specifically I hear from people who have very demanding jobs, so they have, long work days. days, and oftentimes they’re traveling as well, or from people who are just traveling a lot. And then there’s also vacation in there as well. So what are some of your strategies you like to use to stay on track?

Because people are going to know this if they listen to the intro, but you train Gary Vee and that’s a very on the go lifestyle. So you not only have to figure it out for yourself, you have to figure it out for him too. And you had mentioned before we started the interview that. This is also something that you help a lot of your clients with.

So I thought it’d be a good topic of discussion. 

Jordan: The way that I’m going to answer this first is going to be very different than how I would have answered it a year ago. And I will give strategies, like it will give actual strategies, but I think the strategies are far less important than your mindset going into it.

And what I realized, it sounds commonsensical, but it’s really, I don’t think it’s as common sense as we would like to think it is. You have to make a decision. And I think this is really important. I think a lot of people, this is coming from like a guy who, I travel with Gary like for three years straight, every single day, seven days a week for three years.

I spent more time in hotels and airplanes and airports than I did in my own apartment. A lot of people, myself included, would use traveling and crazy scheduling as an excuse. To not do it. But there came a point when I was like, I just need to do this. Like I just needed to make a decision that this isn’t something I’m willing to not do anymore.

What I realized is when you give yourself an ultimatum, like you have this zero nonsense, no option other than to do it, then you do it. But here’s the thing is if it’s not something you’re willing to do, if it’s not something that like you really want to do, Then make the decision not to do it and live with that decision rather than living in that middle ground of Oh, I want to, but I’m not.

And then being upset with yourself and dah. And then like lying down and being too tired. It’s if you want to do it, you have to make the decision with yourself that no matter what happens, you are going to do it. And it doesn’t mean that you get a two hour powerlifting style workout in where you max out your deadlift.

But it might mean where you’re in your hotel room and you just bang out a 15 minute. 

Mike: Or you go running up and down the stairs. I’ve done that. For example, 

Jordan: I think, and this is where the individual strategy is coming to play where people are like I just don’t know what to do. And I always carry with me.

I always in my backpack at all times, like aside from a toothbrush, which is always in my bag, I always have jump rope. And I always have those ValSlide furniture slider things in my bag. I just carry them with me everywhere. Usually because the hotel has a rug or a carpet in the room. And that will allow me to do a lot whole bunch of either hamstring exercises or core exercises, different push up variations that’ll make them harder for me.

And then the jump rope where I can either go in the gym or in my hotel room, if it’s big enough outside, if it’s good weather and I could just do that. And if I don’t want to do sprints, but sprints, you could do anywhere. You can go in the hallway and do those. You can do in the staircase, they have a treadmill.

Like you don’t need an amazing gym to get a good workout in. I think the most important thing above all is the actual mental decision that. When you’re going to go wherever you’re going, you have to decide either this is very important to me and I’m going to do it no matter what, or it’s not important to me, and that’s okay, it doesn’t mean that’s a worse decision, it just means that’s what your decision is and live with it either way.

Make your bed and sleep in it, and make that decision, and once the decision is made, then you’re good to go. It’s far easier because if the decision isn’t made, then all of a sudden there’s an ambiguity and you’re able to give yourself an out when you can’t give yourself an out, there’s no other option.

Mike: And it also, when you’re stuck in indecision or you’re stuck in a, maybe it just eats away at you. It takes your attention. It takes your energy. It can make you feel guilty. It can make you feel frustrated. It can make you feel anxious. Whereas it counterintuitive, but to decide, even know. Just know I’m not going to mess with it because I feel like I don’t really want to do it.

And therefore I know that it’s just going to breed excuses. And so I might as well just make a hard decision. Not this time, maybe on my next trip. And that gives you a peace of mind of sorts where you made your decision. Now, of course, it doesn’t mean that you can’t change your mind. You could change your mind 10 minutes later if you want to, but in that moment, your mind.

Is made up and that it’s valuable to be able to do that and I think that extends far beyond just working out while you’re traveling or just working out in general in life. I’d say that’s one of those proverbial. There are two types of people. Type of situations where you have people who that’s generally how they operate.

They make yes or no decisions and they stick to them until they change their mind. And maybe they change their mind because they get new data or they get new information or they simply think about it again. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying this is exactly where I’m at today. And then literally the next day being like, Nope, I’m 180 degrees in the other direction now.

But to be able to do that, to be able to say. Yes or no, and not just waffle and not just go and not punt say that’s a problem for future me current, whatever. I don’t want to think about it. I’d say almost like a meta skill in life. And that if you can be decisive, I really do think that every aspect of your life is going to be improved by it.

Jordan: I could not agree more, not least of which is just from a peace of mind and a happiness perspective. And I’m always. Careful when we get on like the how do you be happy? What’s the key to happiness? Cause I don’t know what the key to happiness is. I’m definitely not happy all the time, but I do know.

I tend to be happier when I know exactly what it is I’m doing. And I’m not like you said, like waffling in between. And I think generally speaking, doing. What you know is right is going to lead to the happiest version of yourself, even, and especially when doing what you know is right is the harder decision.

Mike: I’d say you get even more satisfaction from that though, when you are able to make hard decisions and follow through on them. 

Jordan: A hundred percent. That’s when it really comes down to. I was saying before, it’s if you don’t want to work out, don’t work out. But then we could get into this other discussion where it’s like, 

Mike: Why do you not want to, at least for me, that’s where I would go.

And is it like it’s just hard. And I don’t really feel like it. Okay. That’s one type of reason, but maybe it’s actually a logistical, maybe it’s a situation where you and I would go, yeah, if we were in your shoes, I would go. I feel the same way. Maybe it’s here’s my next week is going to look and here are all the things I have to do.

And it’s going to be a whirlwind. And I would prefer to just focus on what I’m doing and not have to squeeze in workouts. You might go, yeah, sure. Okay. That makes sense. I think there’s a different flavor of reason. What do you think? 

Jordan: I completely agree. There’s so many different possible scenarios here, but if you can be honest and objective with yourself and look at why you don’t want to work out and if the reason really does boil down to, I’m just tired and I don’t want to like, that’s fine.

There’ll be times when she don’t want to do that, but I bet if your actual goal is to be consistent with your workouts and to improve your body composition and to get stronger. That if you ended up doing it, even, and especially when you didn’t want to do it, you’d be happier on the other end of it and even be happier within moments of deciding, I’m going to do it anyway.

It’s that area in which you’re being indecisive, that the unhappiness is breeding, and it’s the longer you’re in that area of indecisiveness, the less likely you are to actually do it. The longer you wait, the longer you wait, the longer you wait. The more opportunities you give yourself to justify not doing it, when you if you go to bed, you wake up the next day, you’re going to be unhappy.

You didn’t do it. You know it. So sometimes just being more decisive in that moment and doing what you know is right is going to lead to more happiness in that short term and also the long term. And then we’ll also lead to more. Consistency down the road, because once you’ve done it, you’re starting to build a habit.

You’re starting to build like the confidence in yourself to do it repeatedly. 

Mike: And to be able to make up your mind and know that this is what’s going to happen. I’m going to be in the gym tomorrow. Either I’m going to be dead or I’m going to be in the gym. It’s one or the other. And I often will say that you may not.

Enjoy every workout. Nobody does, but you’ll always enjoy having worked out. I’d be very hard pressed to think of a time, unless you’re sick or something where that’d be a good excuse. Actually, you should not be in the gym. If you’re sick, just let your body rest. But beyond that, it’d be hard pressed to think of a time where after workout, I was like, Oh, that sucked.

I feel like shit. No, it just doesn’t work like that. Doesn’t matter how unmotivated you are. Going into it. If you just do it, you are going to come out feeling better. 

Jordan: A hundred percent. And that’s why I carry the jump rope and the furniture sliders with me, because they add up to maybe about a pound between the two of them.

If that worst comes to worst, if there’s no gym in the hotel, or if there’s at least I can do something right there. And I don’t even need those. Like you really don’t even need that much. 

Mike: Yeah, there are plenty of body weight exercises you can do and variations you can use to make them more difficult to get in a decent, I’d say it’s maybe along the lines of exercise.

It’s going to be hard to turn that into training because if you’re halfway strong, you’re going to be doing a lot of reps and you’re just going to be, you’re trying to work up a sweat and train your muscles as much as you can, but it’s as far as exercise goes. And as far as a workout goes, that can work.

Perfectly. I’ve done that many times traveling, whether it’s in a hotel room or back in the day when my wife was living in Germany. And so I’d go stay at her house and just in their living room too. I had a little body weight circuit that I would do for about 30 minutes and I enjoyed it. It was something different than what I normally do.

So that inherently made it actually a little bit more enjoyable than I thought it would 

Jordan: be. It’s so funny. It’s there’s different types of training based on your goal too. So it’s you could do a little body weight circuit. You could do something a little bit more higher intensity and get a sweat going.

You could do something more cardio based. And I remember, When I was like 18, 19, I was traveling in the Middle East and Israel. And I oftentimes didn’t have like access to a gym because I didn’t have the money at that time to pay a guest pass or anything. Do you remember, this is such like a throwback. Do you remember the book, the naked warrior by Pavel?

Mike: The title sounds familiar, but I’m not seeing a cover in my mind. 

Jordan: It was literally just a book based around mastering body weight strength. And it was based around the one arm pushup, the pistol squat, and the one arm chin up. And I still default to that anytime I really want to work on just maximal strength when I have nothing but my body weight.

I’ll do variations of those three movements wherever I am. And sometimes I can’t do the chin up just because there’s no chin up bar, but defaulting to variations of the one arm pushup and the pistol squat, wherever you are, it’s like you can always make a really good strength workout no matter what.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. That’s true. And what about on the diet side of things? Because when you’re traveling around, that often means eating out. And that can be challenging if you don’t know what you’re doing. It can be challenging to just even keep your calories under control. Obviously you’re not gonna be able to be as precise as if you are weighing and measuring everything, period.

So that’s also one other thing that I would just throw out there is on the then I’m. Give the mic back to you to answer the question, but just while it’s in my mind on the point of expectations, especially if it’s vacation, like just be happy with maintenance, be happy with if you can go on a trip for a couple of weeks and come back more or less the same, not really having gained much weight or lost much weight or gained Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Any strength or lost much strength. That’s great. Take that as a success. Don’t look at that as time lost or moving backward. That’s what I personally do. If I’m traveling and I know I’m not going to be in a gym as I regularly am being able to do my normal thing. Let’s say it’s a vacation, for example, then I’m happy to do a few workouts during the week, do plenty of walking, pay attention to the food I’m eating, which goes back to the question that I originally started with and come back get right back to it.

And I found that by doing that, I am able to pretty much just carry on right where I left off. And so again, that’s just taking some of the pressure off, or just reframing what we’re trying to achieve. Because when you’re at home, and you’re in your routine, and everything is dialed in, then that’s the time to expect more out of your training and out of your fitness.

But when you’re Things are up in the air because you are moving around a lot and you’re not able to get in the normal workouts you normally do. And your eating is a bit erratic. That’s not the time to have the same expectations. 

Jordan: Yeah, I agree. And it’s I’ve always said, maintenance is progress too.

And I use the analogy, actually, I filmed a video like two years ago or something when I was on a train, the train is going and It’s moving and all of a sudden the train stops and when that train stops and other people are getting on and some people are going off, it’s not like you all of a sudden say, ah, screw it.

And you just get off because it’s not continuing to move forward. It’s like you wait and you sit there until everyone’s on and the doors close and then you keep going again. And like that period of time in which your pause just sitting there, that’s like maintenance. That’s where you’re still going to keep moving forward.

Just don’t get off the train. Okay. Just wait there. And it’s that’s how I look at maintenance where it’s you might not be in a position in time in which like where you are, have the best gym opportunities, which your nutrition can be perfect, but you can absolutely do enough to stay right where you are.

And as long as you don’t just say, ah, screw it and give up completely, then you’ll continue moving forward and you’ll put yourself in a better position to make more progress when you actually get back to a more optimal. point in time. And so that’s how I look at that. And in terms of like actual nutrition strategies or tactics, I would say it is inherently way harder to stay on track when you’re traveling and really like doing a lot of either business meetings or flying a lot.

For me, the two main ones that have worked really well are number one, I made a rule where I will not eat in airports. And or on airplanes, it’s just is that being decisive rule? It’s I will not do it now, obviously, if I have a layover or if something is canceled or if they kick me off the plane, cause they have something wrong with it.

And I have to wait there for six hours. I won’t starve myself because I made that rule. The general rule of thumb is. I will not eat at airports on airplanes and the reason I’ll make that rule number one is outside of the airport and plane food just being ridiculously expensive. It’s super high calorie unless you get eat like some type of really bland salad or whatever and even then you don’t really know how many calories are in it all the time.

But what that forces me to do is to make sure that I fill up before I go there. It forces me to make sure that like I eat or something at the hotel, or I’ll stop by a 7 Eleven or a Walgreens and I’ll get a bunch of Greek yogurt and hard boiled eggs or something. And I’ll fill up on that before I go.

And that way, like I’m no longer tempted when I go there. And then also the other rule is. I have to have at least really one big ass salad in that day. So a lot of times what that means is, especially when I’m coming back from like the West coast to the East coast, I usually end up landing relatively late.

And if I’m going to eat something, it’s the perfect time to just say, fuck it and get a pizza or whatever. But I have to make sure that I have at least one big salad in that day. So usually like having that rule where the first meal I’m going to have, once I land is a big salad. It basically forces me to get right back on track.

Or it’s like, all right cool. I’m landed. I’m here. I could go and do this meal that might push me further off track, whatever. But as long as I follow my rule, I don’t say I can’t have the pizza or the whatever after, but I just have to have the salad first and usually once that’s done, I don’t really have much temptation at all to go off track.

Mike: Yeah. I like that. That’s simple and workable. What about protein powder? Do you travel with it or do you buy any? I’ve always found that to be helpful. 

Jordan: Yeah, actually I have a bunch of Legion protein powder that I’ll put in baggies and That was completely 

Mike: unintentional. I had no idea. I actually did have no idea.

I like that though. Perfect. Perfect. The key is that it’s legion protein powder. 

Jordan: That’s the key there. If you really want to keep your progress going, you have to have the legion protein. And I will say I’m not a fan of protein bars just because the extra calories it’s extra calories. They don’t fill me up.

A lot of times they end up making me hungrier, but protein powder is just, it’s super easy. What like literally like at a water fountain and fill up water or just get like some almond milk or whatever. And mix it into a shaker cup or something. And it’s super easy and it helps you get your protein in.

I will say, I think one of the benefits of being a smaller guy is that it’s easy for me to get my protein in with a relatively few calories. 

Mike: Yeah. If you hit a hundred grams for the day, you’re like, I’m fine. 

Jordan: Exactly. And like a lot of people are like, I don’t know how to hit a hundred grams for a day.

I’m like, that’s a problem. That’s something that you can work on. That’s really not that difficult. 

Mike: A hundred grams in one meal. That’s not very enjoyable, but two meals is easy. 

Jordan: Especially because. So much of my calories on a daily basis tend to come from Greek yogurt or cottage cheese or something like that.

It’s it’s really not that difficult at all. 

Mike: Have you tried skier Icelandic yogurt? Yeah. I love skier. I don’t eat Greek yogurt anymore just because skier ruined it for me. Skier is too good. And I like to mix protein powder in it actually. So take plain skier, take two, mix some protein powder in it.

Jordan: It’s super thick when you mix protein powder in it. Like it’s already relatively thick, but if you put protein in it, it’s like really thick. 

Mike: Yeah, it’s delicious. And it’s just an easy, like cool, there’s 70 grams of protein done. Exactly. 

Jordan: Yeah. 

Mike: Awesome. Any other travel related tips, vacation related tips, anything that you share with your clients often or any, anything that we haven’t addressed specifically that is still floating around in your mind?

Jordan: I would say in terms of the workouts, it really, it boils down to you could literally just do something with your body weight. You’re not looking to reach maximal peak performance with it. Like you really have to treat it like a maintenance workout. Like you’re just doing it to keep up the habit of doing it and to improve.

Like you’re like getting a better mood, mental mood, emotional mood, like improving your hormonal profile, just from doing it, give yourself that habitual aspect of getting it done. And I think what you were talking about in terms of being okay with maintenance and understanding that, This isn’t a workout or a nutrition day that’s aimed at reaching a high level performance.

This is done for maintenance of it. And like, when you have that mindset, I think it helps a lot. It helps take away a lot of guilt that will come with maybe not being able to do an incredible workout or have a great nutrition day, but also boiling it back down to, and this is something that I’ve just like in all aspects of life really been thinking about a lot lately is just making the decision.

Whatever your decision is, just make it and live by it and do it because once the decision is made, it’s way easier and you’re going to be happier for it. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. Something also just to add to the maintenance point is this is something that many people don’t know, but it does not take much to maintain muscle and strength for talking about getting in the gym and doing a proper workout.

You can maintain your everything you’ve currently got. You could maintain certainly with two workouts a week, possibly with one, but certainly if you did an upper body workout. In a lower body workout, and it would be a difficult workout, not overly difficult, it wouldn’t be necessarily a 20 or 30 minute workout, but that is certainly enough to maintain.

And I’m talking about now for the longer term. So let’s say there was a three month period where that’s all that’s possible to weightlifting workouts per week. You can absolutely, if you’re new, you can make progress on that with that. Eventually the volume is not going to be enough, but that is certainly enough to maintain a high level of fitness.

If that’s all you can do for talking now about a shorter trip. Like literally if it’s a two week trip and you did one whole body workout, you’re able to do some resistance training per week. If that’s all you did as far as workouts go. And then beyond that, maybe you did other activities, walking or swimming or whatever.

Then you’re not going to lose any muscle. It’s harder to lose muscle than many people think. I often hear from people, Hey, I’m going to go on a seven day trip. What do I need to do to not lose muscle? Nothing really. Like maybe just make sure you eat some food, that’s about it. Cause. If you look in like the D training literature, a safe bet is probably if you haven’t done any sort of trained your muscles at all for maybe three or four weeks, that’s when you can start to lose some muscle for talking about actually losing muscle and not just losing water and glycogen out of the muscles.

So yeah, I just wanted to add that, that it’s very easy to maintain the muscle that you do have. Even if you have to. Play the maintain game for a while, and it’s harder to lose muscle and even lose strength. You can not lift for a couple of weeks and come back and maybe only have lost a couple reps off of your big lifts, especially if maybe that time off was where you were able to rest a bit more than usual and recover a bit more than usual.

And so that’s also something I know that helps just ease people’s fears of, I’m going to lose my gains because I’m going On a cruise or something, 

Jordan: yeah. And I think what you said was a really good point in terms of it’s not just like the water and glycogen leaving your muscles. I know a lot of people they’ll go on vacation and like within a couple of days they’ll be like, Oh, I can feel myself losing my muscle.

It’s no, you 

Mike: shrinking withering away. 

Jordan: You don’t feel yourself losing your muscle. It’s just you don’t have as much glycogen in your muscle. And it feels like you’re deflating and yeah, you might not look as pumped because you don’t have a pump. Your muscles are not. Getting smaller or withering away because you haven’t lifted in 48 hours.

Mike: Yeah, that residual pump is also a good point too. Oh, one other thing, one other thing. Alcohol. What’s your take on alcohol? Because oftentimes traveling, especially as vacation involves alcohol, how to best manage that to mitigate the damage, so to speak. 

Jordan: From a personal perspective, I’m definitely not the best with this because I don’t even really drink very much if at all when I was younger, I did a lot when I was in high school and I think I just, I drank enough in high school, like for the rest of my life where now I just, I don’t like it at all if I’m going away and if I drink, it might be a beer here and there, but it’s not too much of an issue for me personally.

That being said, if it’s like for just general recommendations, I would say. Alcohol tends to not be the issue. Like alcohol in and of itself, isn’t going to destroy your muscle or your gains. But if you’re drinking so much where then all of a sudden you can’t eat enough protein and or where you’re not working out for a considerable period of time, then yeah, like that’s absolutely going to be an issue.

Again, if it’s like a seven day trip and you’re able to get your protein in, like there’s really not too much to worry about. If you’re. Consistently traveling now, like on a work basis and like you’re having a lot of work dinners with a lot of alcohol and drinking and you’re using the hangover as an excuse not to work out because you’re doing this on a consistent basis.

Yeah, the alcohol, like you might want to keep that in check and make sure you’re not drinking to the point of having a hangover where you can’t get up the next day to work out. But I think most people end up having issues with alcohol because either after they have the alcohol, they end up eating like an asshole and they get way over their calories on a consistent basis and or because getting so drunk on a consistent basis that they’re not actually working out like they should be.

And that might also be that. Maybe they’re getting to the gym, but residual effects of the alcohol are preventing them from being able to work out as hard as they could. Yeah, it’s great if you’re going to the gym, but if you really want to make great results and you’re not actually putting in a legitimate effort, you’re not progressively overloading the muscles because you’re like so hung over, then yeah, that’s a big problem.

Mike: Yeah. So ideally you’re going to be a bit more strategic about it. And for example, if you have a heavy deadlift day, Tomorrow, maybe it’s best to avoid the alcohol tonight, but if tomorrow is an off day, then, and you want to have some alcohol, have it, just keep it in moderation. 

Jordan: Yeah. It’s one of those things where, and this might be a weakness of my own, but anytime someone has come to me with a, Oh man, like they’re not making progress because they’re drinking so much.

I’m just like, I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t have sympathy for that. It might be like a serious issue of my own that I have to address like from a coaching perspective, but it’s I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m definitely not going to empathize with the fact that you’re spending a ton of money on alcohol and then you’re not able to get in the gym because of it.

That’s not a problem I’m willing to empathize with. If you are serious about like just traveling in general. Is like super tiring and if traveling and like your work problems, your family problems, like that’s something I can empathize with. But if drinking too much is preventing you from actually making progress in the gym, like you either have a drinking problem that like you need to address, or it’s like you really need to Look at what you’re prioritizing in your life and say, okay, you know what?

Maybe I should really cut down on the alcohol. 

Mike: Yeah, no, I agree. And like you, I don’t drink at all, so I can’t speak from personal experience on this other than just, I’ve shared some physiological, some things that people should understand about alcohol and how it accelerates fat, just accelerates fat storage.

So if you’re going to have alcohol you might want to not combine it with a bunch of fatty foods or even ideally a bunch of carbs. Like ideally, if you’re going to drink. Let’s say at night that you would make that kind of a high protein, just lower calorie day, but that’s really just a one off strategy.

That doesn’t necessarily help you if you’re like, but I want to drink a lot and often that’s another problem, but I’m with you in that. If alcohol is truly in the way of fitness, I would guess that there are some other things that would need to be addressed first. Whether it’s, yeah, is this really a.

An addiction issue, or is it just a priorities thing where it’s okay, you have to choose this alcohol every day or working out. And it doesn’t even mean that you have to never drink. It just means you have to drink less. So if drinking less sounds a lot worse than getting fit. Then, I don’t know, keep doing what you’re doing and maybe one day your body will force you to do something about it because eventually it comes to that when we’re talking about too much alcohol consumption.

Jordan: I remember I was working with this woman once and she’s great. She actually, she’s a really good friend of mine still. And for the first three months that we worked together, I sent her three month progress pictures and there was zero change. And her picture is like none. And I said so what do you think?

And she was like, honestly, I was expecting more change. I was like, why do you think there hasn’t been much change? And she was like it’s my drinking. And it was something that we had consistently spoke about via email where she was drinking at least 12 to 14 drinks a week and not to mention whatever that ended up being on the back end of how much of what food she would eat after that.

And for the first three months, she was. Continually resistant to the idea of drinking less. I think a lot of it boiled down to the idea of she wanted to be a quote unquote, flexible dieter. And she thought that meant that there could be no restriction whatsoever in any part of her life. And so I was like, listen.

If you’re not happy with where these pictures are, what if we do a 30 day challenge where you just don’t drink for 30 days? And I was like, realistically, if you can’t not drink for 30 days, that’s a bigger problem. But I was like, if at the end of 30 days that you want to go back to drinking exactly as you are now, then do it and just do it 30 days.

And she was like, okay, fine. Within two weeks, she made more progress than she had the entire first three months, and that was enough. Right there to get her to stop drinking entirely where she was just like this isn’t worth It was like if I knew that I could make this much progress in two weeks Then I would have stopped doing this three months ago but I think like a lot of people are so focused on trying to like number one either impress other people because they don’t want to not drink with their friends and they Think that their friends are actually going to care about it And if your friends do care that you stop drinking then you probably need to get some new friends but like it’s so What?

Incredible to me. What will happen is, and it doesn’t mean like you said that you have to stop drinking, but literally just drinking less for a period of time. If that shows you that your results are radically better, what’s probably going to happen is you’re going to be more motivated to not drink just because the results are way more worth it.

Mike: And that’s a great way to frame it too is okay, let’s do it a little bit differently for 30 days. And if you want to go back, you can always go back. You have the rest of your life to drink as much alcohol as you want. I’m just asking for 30 days of let’s just do a little experiment and just see how it goes.

And you know what? Actually, if we get two weeks in and you. Absolutely hate not drinking and we’re not seeing any improvement. Then maybe you could just call it quits there. Again, totally up to you. This is on you. I’m not asking you to make a change for the rest of your life, but play with me here.

Come on, let’s have some fun. Let’s see what happens. 

Jordan: Exactly. Yeah. Yes, exactly. 

Mike: Awesome, man. That checks all the boxes I wanted to go over with you, so I really appreciate you taking the time and let’s wrap up here with telling people where they can find you and your work and what do you want them to know about what do you have up and coming?

What’s new and exciting and so forth. 

Jordan: Yeah, I would just say on YouTube, Jordan Syatt, S Y A T, Instagram, Jordan Syatt. I have a Jordan Syatt mini podcast, but that’s pretty much it. And I hope my information is helpful. And if you need anything, don’t hesitate to reach out. 

Mike: Awesome, man. Thanks again.

I really appreciate you taking the time. 

Jordan: Thank you, man. I appreciate you having me on. 

Mike: Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I’m doing on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider picking up one of my bestselling health and fitness books, including bigger leaner, stronger for men, thinner leaner, stronger for women.

women, my flexible dieting cookbook, the shredded chef and my 100 percent practical and hands on blueprint for personal transformation inside and outside of the gym. The little black book of workout motivation. Now these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped Thousands of people build their best bodies ever, and you can find them on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes Noble stores.

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