Ep. #891: Q&A: Barefoot Shoes, Meal Planning Tips, Stretching, and More

Hello, hello, and welcome to Muscle for Life. I am your host, Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today for another q and a episode where I answer questions that people throw at me over on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness. If you wanna follow me there. Every week or so, I put up a story with the little, ask me a question sticker and I get a bunch of questions from people and then I pick ones that I find interesting or that are questions I’m getting asked a lot these days, and I answer them there on Instagram.

Then I come over here on the podcast and answer them. So that’s what we’re doing today. Answering questions like, what do I think about the carnivore diet and specifically a 90% carnivore diet. What I would do if I were the absolute ruler of earth, what changes would I make? What do I think about barefoot slash minimalist running shoes?

What tips can I share for being better with meal planning and meal prepping, and my favorite book and more before we begin, how many calories should you eat to reach your fitness goals faster? What about your macros? What types of food should you eat, and how many meals should you eat every day? Well, I created a free 62nd diet quiz that’ll answer those questions for you and others, including how much alcohol you should drink, whether you should eat more fatty fish to get enough omega three fatty acids.

What supplements are worth taking and why? And more to take the quiz and get your free personalized diet plan. Go to Muscle for Life show slash diet quiz muscle fo r life show slash diet quiz now answer the questions and learn what you need to do in the kitchen to lose fat, build muscle, and get healthy.

All right. CLE pocus asks, why do I see women eating as much or more than me ripped af? Well, it could be higher activity levels, whether intentional like exercise or unintentional, like non-exercise activity, thermogenesis. Maybe you’ve heard of that or the acronym. Neat. Basically, all of the. Movement outside of formal exercise, including stuff that we don’t think about, like maybe pacing around and fidgeting and maybe deciding to take the stairs instead of the elevator.

Where to park in the parking lot. Do we park? I. Close to the entrance, do we park a little bit further away? All of that activity burns calories, and those calories can add up to a lot. Research shows that in some people it can be 600, 800, even a thousand calories per day. And again, that’s outside of any formal.

Exercise, and in other people it can be quite low. It can be just a couple hundred calories per day. Some people seem to just move around more than others. Now, if this person is referring to people they see on social media, something else to keep in mind is many people on social media lie about how much they exercise and how much they just move in general, and how much they eat.

Eat. And so they’re able to stay very lean because what they’re doing is extreme and unhealthy. And sometimes cutting drugs are involved too. And I, I say that specifically because the drugs that. Men often use, yes, it can include cutting drugs, but those drugs are usually different than the drugs that women use.

And in the case of men, you also often have strong anabolics involved if they’re also taking cutting drugs or taking drugs to speed up their metabolism. Maybe thyroid medication, for example. Not because they need to take thyroid meds, but because they are trying to turbocharge their. They’re thyroid.

Well, men who take those types of drugs also often take anabolics, which can increase metabolism further, mostly through large increases in lean mass and other physiological mechanisms. The bottom line is when someone is on a lot of steroids, they’re going to find it a lot easier. To stay lean than if they were not on those drugs.

Alright, let’s move on to big bad Booty Daddy. He asks, why don’t you mention anything about your thoughts on stretching in your books? Well, most people don’t need to do anything really beyond the stretching that naturally occurs with proper training. If you are. Squatting. If you are pressing, if you are deadlifting or doing some sort of hip hinge and you are using a proper range of motion with those exercises, you are going to maintain good flexibility.

You’re gonna be a lot more flexible. I. Then the average person, that’s for sure. That said, if inflexibility is causing issues, then yes, stretching can help. And if you wanna learn about a little stretching routine that I do, I’ve been doing for years now it’s only like 10 minutes a day. But it addresses a couple of areas that I just need to stay on top of.

I need to do a little bit for outside of my lifting, uh, my hips, my shoulders. Head over to legion athletics.com, search for yoga, and you’ll find an article I wrote that, uh, shares the. Few yoga poses basically that I do every day. They’re stretches, but they’re yoga poses. Alright, let’s move on to c A A 1997.

They ask, if you were the absolute ruler of Earth, what changes would you make? Well, I think I would follow Caesar Augustus’s playbook. So first is find me in a gripper. Second is execute and exile thousands of traitors, malfactors, schemers, and the like. And third is create and maintain conditions that allow the people in society who give more than they take to thrive.

I. Can’t see the name asks. What do you think about a 90% carnivore diet? Well, plant avoidance of any kind is just dumb. Our primal ancestors ate plenty of plants, and you simply cannot get sufficient amounts of essential and non-essential nutrients for optimal health without eating plants regularly. And even eating nose to tail, that is not enough.

So please stop looking for excuses to not eat vegetables. Just eat your damn vegetables, throw in some fruit, throw in some whole grains. My four year old daughter does it, okay. Dawn Hitman’s asks know of any place one could live free from the Covid tyranny. Well, I live in Ocala, Florida, in the middle of the state.

There are a lot of horse farms around here, and it is essentially pre covid living. I mean, I’m sure there are still a Covidian or three running around, you know, still quarantining their mail and bleaching their food. But for the most part, nobody cares. Nobody cares about. Omic hold, or whichever sct we are onto.

Nobody cares how many injections you’ve gotten. Nobody cares how many masks you wear, whether it’s zero or 10, it’s nice. High, 3, 4, 2, 1 asks, why are people still getting tested for the rona? Well, because many Ians are indeed sick, but just not in the way that they think. Jay Nelson asks, do you think those barefoot shoes make much of a difference?

Well, based on the research I’ve reviewed, there is a good case against cushioned running shoes because studies do show they can change the way that we run for the worse and can weaken our feet in a way that can increase the risk of injury. Furthermore, there is evidence that walking or running barefoot or in minimalist shoes can lead to fewer injuries and less pain.

So there clearly is a bit more to it than just marketing hype, which is what I expected when I first started to look into it, honestly. But I was surprised to see otherwise. One tip is if you do want to give barefoot or minimalist exercise, Weightlifting wouldn’t count because it’s not going to pound your feet.

This would be running. If you wanna do that, then start with walking before you try running, because if you are coming from a cushioned running shoe, chances are it’s going to beat up your feet a little bit in the beginning. Now your feet will get stronger, they will adapt. It’s not bad. But you are probably not going to be able to go from a high volume of running on a cushioned shoe to the same volume on a minimalist shoe or barefoot right away.

You’re probably going to have to work up to it. Alright, Kev Sandoval asks, favorite book beside your own, like how you added that. Also, if you weren’t into working out, what would be your obsession? You know, I get asked this fairly often. One favorite book, one book I think everyone should read. Uh, one book that most changed my life, and it’s hard for me to answer that.

It feels impossible to pick one because I. I regularly read in different genres and I have favorites in each genre. So for example, starting Strength, one of my favorites for fitness, ready, fire, aim, one of my favorites for business, particularly business growth and marketing. Um, on writing well for writing, the magic of thinking big for self-development and the five love languages for relationships.

Now, as for what else, I could see myself doing a lot of. Writing fiction is something I plan to do in my next life when I decide to make the time for it. I suppose maybe in the next couple of years that’s what I’m thinking and possibly poetry as well. Uh, I like to read poetry and I, I think I probably could enjoy writing it and enjoy the challenge.

It certainly would be difficult, and I also. Probably could have fun creating and publishing board games. I think that could be a hoot, because I like board games and I like the creativity that goes into them. I like the marketing. Anyway. We’ll see. I’ll have to make more money. I think that’s going to be step one, so then I can justify taking a bunch of my time.

To create board games and write poetry. So if you want to support my dreams, please go to legion athletics.com and buy a lot of stuff. M X M K Z K asks tips for being more consistent with your meal plan and meal prepping. Well, one is to make sure that you are eating stuff you actually like, and if that means that you have to take some time to work in some variety.

In your meal plan. If you’re somebody who likes a lot of variety, take the time to do that. It does make a big difference. Another tip is to prep as much as you can in one or two sessions per week, and choose foods and choose recipes that are conducive to this. Stay away from stuff. That needs to be prepared more often, that you can’t just do on a Sunday afternoon, for example, portion out and heat up every day.

Um, some people also, they’ll do Sundays and Wednesdays for example, because some stuff won’t keep well for the entire week. Another tip is to eat out as little as possible because the more you eat out, the easier it is to overeat. And if you’re eating out frequently, you are probably going to overeat a lot more frequently and, uh, a lot more egregiously than.

If you are not eating out, and the final tip is to not allow yourself to get too hungry at any point throughout the day. Make sure that your mealtimes and your meal choices keep you full. Don’t force yourself to eat a big breakfast, for example, when you tend to be not hungry in the morning and you get hungrier later in the day.

In that case, maybe you have a small breakfast or no breakfast if you want to skip it, and maybe even a smaller lunch, and then maybe you are saving more calories for an afternoon snack and a dinner. I myself, I like to eat light more or less throughout the entire day. I have a small breakfast, it’s just a protein shake and I mix in.

Legion’s Genesis. So I mix Legion Genesis, I see Berry flavor with, I like to mix it with plant plus our plant protein, and I mix it with the vanilla flavor. I think the combination of those two actually tastes pretty good and the mouth feel is nice. I. And so that’s my breakfast. And then I’ll have some fruit in the middle of the morning.

You know, maybe like a handful of blueberries. I eat some hummus too randomly just ’cause I like it. And I will have another protein shake before I go to the gym. So I’ll have a scoop of Legions, whey, and Plant Plus I like to mix them together with, oh, probably about six to eight ounces of water. And then mix it up into almost like a pudding.

And I eat it with a spoon. And I like to mix the salted caramel or the cinnamon cereal whey with the vanilla plant, plus, at least that’s what I’m doing right now. And then around 3:00 PM I make myself a salad and I put some protein of some kind into it. Normally it is chicken or beef. And then I’m eating a little bit more fruit either before, after.

Sometimes I’ll have a little bit of soup as well, some tomato soup or split pea soup. That’s what I’m eating these days. And then I have a bigger dinner. I’ll have a bunch of vegetables, my vegetable slop as I call it, and there’s gonna be some sort of meat in there. And after that, I like to have more food.

I like to eat more food, both volume and calories at night than earlier in the day. So eight or 9:00 PM I’ll make my, I’ll make myself some oatmeal, a cup of dry oatmeal, cook it, put some nuts in there, cut up a banana in there, and then finish it with another scoop of legions, whe, and, uh, some almond milk.

Now, for the last four weeks or so, I have not been eating the oatmeal because I’ve been cutting. And that was my meal plan is just keep eating the same stuff, leave the oatmeal out ’cause that’s several hundred calories and I’ll let that be my calorie deficit. And I think I’ll do that probably for another, I don’t know, two to four weeks.

We’ll see. And then I will add the oatmeal back in. Okay. So rah rah, Rachel. Asks how to respond to a boyfriend who keeps telling me to tone with lightweights. Oh, I don’t know, maybe blow a voo. Zla in his face. Maybe duct tape his flapping mouth shut. Maybe shank him with a letter Opener. Simple. Not easy.

New. Asks, how is Legion Protein powder so damn good. Well, I could tell you simple, not easy, new. But then I’d have to crack your skull, steal your face, and boil your bones for broth, I. And by the way, if anyone listening to this has not tried Legion’s Whey Plus yet, you really should fix your shit immediately.

Salted Caramel and Cinnamon cereal, I mentioned those earlier in this podcast. They are king. Don’t at me. No. Seriously though, Legion’s Whey Protein is one of our most popular products. It probably gets the most word of mouth and the most five star reviews, it’d be a toss up between way and or way plus is what it’s called, and Pulse, our pre-workout.

But people are consistently impressed with way plus, especially when they’ve tried other 100% natural whey protein powders because Whey Plus is. In another league. I mean, it tastes good compared to any whey protein powder, even the artificial stuff, and there are two reasons for that. One is the material itself.

When I was starting Legion and creating Whey Plus, I requested the best whey isolate powders in the world, and there were a handful that were considered top tier. One came from the United States, another one came from. Holland, I believe another came from New Zealand, if I am remembering correctly, and another came from Ireland.

And the Irish Way was so much better than the others. I stopped sourcing at that point. I was like, I want this. This is delicious. This is incredibly creamy, but it has no fat and it has a very mild flavor. I. I really liked it and then I took that and I worked with some really good flavor labs who have a lot of experience working with natural flavoring and natural sweeteners.

Many labs don’t have much experience with that and are, and are not very good at it, but I worked with some labs that are very good at it. And the result way Plus, and I’ve sold tens of millions of dollars of way plus over the years and it continues to be a top seller and it continues to get Legion, a lot of customers and a lot of loyal customers because it is hands down, I.

The best 100% natural whey protein isolate powder on the market. And if you want to fact check me on that, if you wanna see for yourself, just go over to buy legion.com, b u y legion.com/whey. Give it a go. And if you are not impressed, just tell us and we will give you your money back. Well, I hope you liked this episode.

I hope you found it helpful, and if you did subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don’t miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you.

And if you didn’t like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have, uh, ideas or suggestions or just. Feedback to share. Shoot me an email, [email protected], muscle f o r life.com and let me know what I could do better or just, uh, what your thoughts are about maybe what you’d like to see me do in the future.

I read everything myself. I’m always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.