Ep. #204: How Wendy Got Her Best Body Ever In Just 90 Days

Wendy: [00:00:00] I felt like if I could just have somebody to guide me where I could get over the hump where I may just quit and then I could actually start to see the results and the results themselves would create that motivation loop for me. And that’s exactly what happened with your program and working with Jill.

And I’m so happy that I did it.

Mike Matthews: Hey, it’s Mike from Muscle for Life and Legion Athletics. Welcome to another episode of the podcast and this time around I interview Wendy Dinkins who is a recent graduate of my 90 day transformation coaching service which helped her cut fat, gain muscle and strength and significantly transform the shape of her body which was something she was very surprised about in just a few months.

Now before finding her way to me and my work she had been working out for years and she had tried many different things. Most recently she had spent nine months working with an in person trainer only to [00:01:00] see no real change in her body, which of course was incredibly frustrating and disappointing. And even more so at that point, she feared that maybe she would never have the type of body that she really wanted.

Maybe she just didn’t have the genetics or maybe, she’s 46 years old, so she thought maybe that was the problem. Maybe Age was working against her hormones working against her or some other kind of boogeyman was in the way. Then though, she found my book for women, which is thinner, leaner, stronger.

She gave it a read and she liked what it had to say, even though she thought it was probably more true for maybe women in their twenties and thirties than women in their forties, fifties and beyond. But she decided to find out more about me. She learned about my coaching service and signed up figuring that, Hey, She might as well go all in.

If she’s going to try it all at this point, just go all in. And that doesn’t mean she didn’t have doubts though. She did have doubts after signing up. She was actually pretty sure that it wouldn’t [00:02:00] work because everything else she had done hadn’t worked. But it also was very different than everything else she had done.

So she decided to hang in there and just see how it goes, see how it pans out. And as you will hear in this interview, my team put together a custom diet and exercise program for her and her goals. And within the first three to four weeks, she realized that she had made a very good decision because she was actually starting to see real changes in her body, the changes that she had been chasing for years, really.

And she knew at that point that all she had to do to reach her ultimate goal was to just stick to the principles, stick to the program, keep showing up, keep putting in the work, keep working with her coach. And in this interview, Wendy is going to walk us through her whole story and she’s going to share.

The big lessons that she learned along the way, including how she overcame her initial reluctance to go to the scary side of the gym, the free weight section with all the smelly, sweaty, grunty guys. [00:03:00] So if you are in the middle of your own transformation, then I think you’re going to find this interview encouraging and motivating.

This is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills. But I’m not big on promoting stuff that I don’t personally use and believe in. So instead, I’m just going to quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my one on one coaching service. So the long story short here is this is The personal coaching service that I wish I had when I started in the gym many years ago.

Every diet and training program that we create for clients is 100 percent custom. We provide daily workout logs and do weekly accountability calls. Our clients get priority email service and discounts on supplements and the list goes on and on. Furthermore, my team and I have also worked with hundreds of people of all ages, circumstances, and needs and goals.

So no matter how tricky you might think your situation is, I promise you, we [00:04:00] can figure out how to get you results. If I have piqued your interest and you want to learn more, then head on over to www. muscleforlife. com forward slash. Coaching and schedule your free consultation call now, I’ll tell you, there’s usually a wait list and new slots fill up very quickly.

So if you’re interested at all, don’t wait, go schedule your call now. All righty, that is enough shameless plugging for now. At least let’s get to the show. Hey, Wendy, thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate it. My pleasure. All right. So let’s start this conversation with a little background information on you.

And can you just tell me and tell the listeners where you were at before you started the coaching service, what you had also done previously, what had worked for you, what didn’t work for you and why you Wanted some help. 

Wendy: Yeah. So basically I decided that I wanted to get in shape and it [00:05:00] was probably like maybe the 12th time I decided I was gonna get in shape.

And this time I mean it, I had tried different stuff. I had done the bar method, worked with a personal trainer for nine months at a gym. Wow. I know. 

Mike Matthews: How did that go? 

Wendy: Not good. Not good. Actually I spent a lot of money and I really, I couldn’t see any difference in my body at all.

And each week it was something different. I guess they call it muscle confusion. I felt like it was more like client confusion. And I, she had me doing like a lot of high reps. With really lightweights, I didn’t see anything and we never really talked about diet and I think diet is a big component of getting, I don’t 

Mike Matthews: know why that is.

That’s just so common with, I see it in the gym that I go to now. I have not heard a single trainer say anything about diet once and I just don’t understand that. Yeah. Or, in the past, if they have spoken about diet again, I’m just as generalization, obviously, but the vast majority of the time, it’s something very just vague.

It’s like an eat clean kind of thing. Yeah, [00:06:00] just, eat don’t eat sugar and just eat clean foods, whatever that means. 

Wendy: Yeah. Get a little protein with your breakfast type thing. So yeah, so basically I probably was spending 600, 700 a month. I couldn’t tell any difference in my body.

And so I quit that. And then fast forward probably Nine, ten months. I was like, oh, I really I need to do this. I need you know I just I didn’t feel good and my skin and the way I looked and so I Went to my local gym. It was a different one actually than where I was working out with the trainer I didn’t have a plan I was basically just bouncing around from machine to machine and this girl walks in and she looked amazing Like I was like, I want to look like her So she walks in and she walks right by me and all the machines and she goes over to the corner and she starts warming up on the squat rack.

And I just watched her. I was just mesmerized wow. And she put on some big weights, like she had 45s on and she’s doing squats. And she wasn’t big, like she just looked great. And I thought maybe I need to learn how to [00:07:00] lift weights. So I leave the gym. I go home and I hop on Amazon and I start looking for videos or books specifically about women and weightlifting.

And I found your book and I read it like a novel. It was really well written and I was all super charged about it. And I was like, I’m going to do this. I’m going to do this. And then I found out that you had the program, the 90 day program. And I signed up right away, like that night, I’m like, alright, I know myself I need the accountability, and I didn’t want to mess around, I just was like, I want somebody to guide me through this, I don’t want to have to figure anything out, even though the book, you lay it out really well, I just, I felt like in the past, I, even though I thought maybe I knew what I needed to do in the past, and I don’t know, obviously, I didn’t do it that kind of spoke to my motivation level, and I felt like if I could just Have somebody to guide me where I could get over the hump where I may just quit And then I could actually start to see the results and the results themselves would create that motivation Loot for me and that’s exactly [00:08:00] what happened with your program and working with jill and i’m so so happy that I did it 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, I mean they’re that point of needing accountability Tell me more about that because I know that is a big reason why people Want to be coached even people that Very much know what they’re doing, but they still want to have someone to work with.

How has that helped you? 

Wendy: I think for me, and this actually probably will explain it the best. So of course I, I read the book, I’m really jazzed. I signed up for the program. I get connected with Jill, but the day before we actually were officially to start, I had so many doubts.

Like I was like, ah, I don’t think this is going to work for me. I like to eat. What if I’m really hungry? I’m 46 years old. This was really written for girls in their twenties and early thirties. Like all these doubts started going through my head. So I probably would have quit right then.

Jill, she was great. Basically, she just said, trust the process. It will work for you. I’m here we’ll tweak things that we need to like this, just trust it. It’s going to work. And when she’s saying that, [00:09:00] I was like, it’s like this piece came over me.

And then I think that was like the moment where I really was like, all right, I’m jumping in with both feet. And I really gave it a hundred percent. Cause I want, I really wanted it to work. 

Mike Matthews: And at what point. Did you see Oh, wait a minute. This is actually working. Like how long in did it take for you just psychologically to be like, Oh, wow.

I was I guess my doubts were I guess I didn’t, I guess I didn’t need to worry, look at this. 

Wendy: So the interesting thing was I was not hungry probably like a couple days and I was like, wait a second I’m not hungry. And actually I felt I had more energy. So that was like right off the bat So I think for whatever reason I was I probably my blood sugar wasn’t like staying like where it should and I probably wasn’t eating Enough protein so that was like immediate Physically, like looking in the mirror, like probably three, four weeks.

I was like, Whoa, I’ve got some muscles popping here on my, my arms and this it happens very fast. It’s so good to have somebody there to just, cause I knew every day I was checking in with her, [00:10:00] I wanted to do like a good job for her and for me. 

Mike Matthews: Absolutely. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it?

Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. If you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say, Thank you.

You can find me on Instagram at muscle for life fitness, Twitter at muscle for life and Facebook at muscle for life fitness. And tell me a little bit about so how, what kind of program did you guys put to, or what was put together for you? Actually don’t have it here on the document or I would know that.

So like how many days a week were you training? Cause what I want to get at is. [00:11:00] I want to know. Okay. So what did you set out to do in the beginning? And then did you have to make changes along the way, both I guess on the diet and on the training side? Did you run into obstacles in the gym or outside of the gym?

And how did you get around them? 

Wendy: Yeah, so basically, in your book, you said five days is optimal, three to five days. I’m like, all right, I’m going to do it five days. And I wasn’t sure that I could do that because I was like, oh, that’s a lot of time going to the gym. But I actually really look forward to going to the gym now.

That’s my goal. Like meditations, so to speak. It was five days of training. Some of the days, are, they’re just really quick. It’s the body parts are different, like legs and butt is, a little longer for me, as far as obstacles, there was a couple extras that I had like a shoulder injury.

So I was like, I didn’t want to hurt that. And I, my knees, I had like issues with my knees. And so for the shoulder injury, we just came up with some alternate exercises that would work to do shoulder exercises. Those work great. I don’t have any problems with that. And ironically for the knees, like once [00:12:00] I started squatting, I don’t have any issues.

Like my body feels the best now than it has like in a really long time. I used to have to get a lot of massages because I, everything like It’s hurting and didn’t feel good in my back. And now, I don’t need to do that. 

Mike Matthews: Probably from just muscular imbalances, muscle tightness.

For example, if your quads are too tight, that can give you knee pain, like in the patellar tendon in particular. But, or if your hip flexors are too tight, that can pull on your back. If you don’t have. actually some form of arthritis, like there’s nothing structurally wrong really with your knee could have been due to whatever you were doing in the past.

Like for example, a lot of people’s lower body training and leg training tends to be a lot more quad dominant than hamstring dominant. And that Alone can cause knee problems and also having a weaker lower back. Cause a lot of people don’t they don’t deadlift or do good mornings or do really much of anything for their lower back muscles.

So simply having like stronger leg muscles, especially [00:13:00] stronger hip muscles, but weaker lower back muscles like that can cause issues. It’s not surprising that. By getting back to basics and doing exercises that increase whole body strength more proportionately, as opposed to, more isolating one particular muscle at the expense of another helped with that.

Wendy: Yes, I totally agree. I think that was exactly what was happening. 

Mike Matthews: And on the diet side of things, so you mentioned that you like to eat and you were afraid of being too hungry and that wasn’t the case. So how did that play out? What kind of meal plan was put together for you and how did it work? Did you make any changes along the way?

Wendy: Yeah. So Jill put together a meal plan for me that had me eating like much more frequently than I was. And I, it was a little bit more protein than what I was. Originally probably consuming. I probably was. Really, I wasn’t tracking it before, but my guess was I was probably pretty heavy on carbs, fat, then protein would have been the third one that I was consuming.

So this was a change for me, but what I found is [00:14:00] my cravings. 

Mike Matthews: What kind of proteins, by the way, because what sources of protein did you like to eat? Cause I just having experience working with a lot of women. That yes, that go exactly from that a higher carb, higher fat, lower, very low protein diet.

Oftentimes it’s because they don’t really like to eat a lot of meat. I wouldn’t even say we have to get creative, but we just take that into account. Okay. So if we had, let’s say we’re just going to have one serving. of maybe four ounces of chicken a day. But there are of course, many other sources of good protein.

It doesn’t have to just be meat or it doesn’t even have to just be animal products either. 

Wendy: Yeah, actually I do. I actually like eating meat. I think I just was being lazy. And so it’s just, I get hungry and I’d be like, Oh, I’ll just have a bagel or I’ll just, so I wasn’t really being very mindful with eating.

So the stuff that I was eating on the program was chicken breast. I learned how to make really good tender Chicken breast. That was important. Turkey, fish, egg whites. I loved legumes, beans, occasionally tofu. As far as like [00:15:00] changing it up, I really liked the cheat meal. I thought that was brilliant and was, it was really helpful.

Mike Matthews: What was your go to? 

Wendy: Actually, it was funny. I was pretty good even with my cheat meals. I would do a lobster roll. Of course, the bread had put that with butter in the fry pan. Or trout, like a smoked trout salad on Bread and I never like 

Mike Matthews: Pretty tame.

Wendy: Yeah, I never completely went to the dark side I didn’t do cheesy pizza or stuff like that And 

Mike Matthews: did you find that you didn’t really? Feel a desire to because you weren’t generally hungry or didn’t feel restricted in your day to day eating 

Wendy: both I was not hungry and the cravings Really went away for me.

This is like one of my things I used to do, which kind of sometimes grosses people out, but like I had this really strong, like craving for, have you ever had Kerrygold? Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: That’s my wife’s chosen. That’s the brand. She likes Kerrygold unsalted. 

Wendy: Oh my gosh. So I just think that’s tastes the best.

So sometimes I would just go in the fridge and just take off like pretty [00:16:00] good, not gigantic, but definitely like we’re talking probably like a tablespoon of butter. And. That I would just eat that. So that’s 

Mike Matthews: the first person that I’ve ever known that likes to eat butter straight up. My son might be, he might, he likes butter.

I’ve never seen him do it, but that’s something I could see him doing just because he likes butter and he’s random. 

Wendy: Oh yeah. And what I think was happening and I was like, Curious like why would I be craving butter and it was salted butter and I think it was a little bit of my adrenals and my blood sugar.

So what I guess I’m getting at is once I got on the diet part of it that Jill created for me, I didn’t have those cravings anymore. I didn’t like right now like I’m talking about My past craving for butter and I have no desire to run to the fridge right now. So that was a good thing. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. And also previously your dietary fat intake may have been too low or all over the place, or maybe your saturated fat intake may have been too low.

There are other reasons why you might’ve been, Gravitating toward butter. 

Wendy: Yeah. Who knows? 

Mike Matthews: And so you’re going through the program [00:17:00] and is there anything else just in terms of obstacles, anything that maybe not even physiological but psychological, or was it more or less kind of getting through the first few weeks and then seeing the results and being like, cool.

So now this is what I do now. 

Wendy: Yeah. So I, one of the things that was I think hard for me. And I think it’s hard for anybody starting something new and she just feel Oh, I don’t know what I’m doing. Like I’m going to look like a doofus in the gym and people are going to know I’m a beginner.

And, and I started off like for my squats with just the bar, there’s all these accessory muscles that kind of come into play with some of these exercises. And some of those aren’t strong enough yet. So like the bars, doesn’t look really smooth and fluid as I’m doing my squats and I’m very aware that maybe somebody’s looking at me and you just get over that.

You just, I think the other thing was, is, being back at the free weights, there are not a whole lot of women back there. There’s definitely women, but the majority, 90 percent are guys. And I had this feeling like, some guy was just going to [00:18:00] come up to me and be like, Woman, look, you’re on my bench, go get a mat, go get your Barbie weights, and lay down over there and do your thing.

Nobody did that. They were actually really nice. Like the guys were like, can I help you with that? I’m like, no, I got it. But but yeah, it was just, anytime you do something new, there’s a learning curve and sometimes you’re outside your comfort zone. But I think just get over it.

Mike Matthews: Yeah. It’s, again, I’ve heard that many times just speaking with and working with many women and I totally understand, but the vast majority go through the same experience where one, they realize actually most people are more just staring at themselves more than anything else. It’s pretty much their phones and themselves.

And that’s 80 percent of their attention for their entire workouts. And then to that second point, with how are the guys going to act? If you’re encroaching in their territory and find the same that it ranges from not having, just no interaction, good or bad to let me help you to let me hit on you is the more annoying.

That’s the really the, I would say the only potential that could be annoying, but that’s also easy to avoid [00:19:00] by just avoiding eye contact. That’s the key to that. You have your. You keep your headphones and you avoid eye contact and it’s very unlikely that you’re going to be interrupted. 

Wendy: It still happens though.

A guy has 

Mike Matthews: to be bold. He has to be pretty bold to come up with. It 

Wendy: happens, yeah. It’s really, it is funny. Yeah, I have the head, headphones on and you just keep your head down. But actually it’s, everybody’s really nice. So it’s not a problem. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. And at what point did you start feeling like you let’s just say a little bit less self conscious because yeah, in the beginning of anything, it sucks to suck and you just, you can just embrace it.

Of course it’s just a matter of being like, yeah, I suck at this. I probably do look silly, but so has everybody else. We’ve all been here. So whatever, who cares? I’m just going to do my thing. And then though, as you start to gain some proficiency, you just lose that thought altogether and it just becomes a part of your routine.

How long was it within that first month or so? 

Wendy: Yeah, definitely within the first month. It goes away pretty quickly. Probably like the first two weeks, you’re very aware. By that time, you’ve gone through the routine twice. I really went back and I watched the [00:20:00] videos and I was, I guess I’m a little anal.

So I like, had my husband. Video tape my form like I wanted to see okay. Yep. No, I’m doing this, right? And this feels good and in each time I was in the gym like I was getting stronger like that was It reminded me of kindergarten and the gold stars like I was getting gold star every time I went into the gym Because the weights were going up the reps were going up And that was another kind of feedback, motivating feedback loop.

This is working like last week. This was hard. This last rep was hard. And this week I crushed it. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. That’s again, I think the majority of the motivation, especially in the getting comes from that comes from results, comes what in the mirror comes from what in the gym. And then it becomes something like you said, where you’re looking forward to your workouts every day, because that you’re going to get that gold star.

And to that point of. Working on camera, that’s a very important point. And it’s something that actually I’m gonna make a note cause I’m gonna be working on third editions. I want to update bigger, leaner, stronger and thinner, leaner, stronger. They’re in really good shape, but I do want to add some information and see if I can actually trim them down.

They’re a bit long, but that point of working on camera is a hugely beneficial [00:21:00] with any sort of physical activity, actually, where there’s a technical aspect to it, whether it’s weightlifting. Or golf. I’m gonna say that personally, because I’ve played a lot of golf and that was a huge part of building a good golf swing.

I don’t think it would have been possible if I didn’t work on camera. Obviously, a golf swing is more intricate than a squat. But yes, I don’t know if this was your experience, but what you generally find, especially in the beginning, and I would say probably on your. On your squat, overhead press deadlift and bench press like your big movements.

What you think you’re doing when you’re doing it is not what you’re doing when you look on camera and you have to make some adjustments that actually feel weird at first, but are correct and adjustments that you probably wouldn’t have otherwise made because it just would have felt weird. You start out.

Doing those movements, however you do them, for whatever reason you’re, it’s your best attempt at duplicating what but then when you see what you’re doing, you’re like, Oh yeah that’s it’s okay, we make some big changes. 

Wendy: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Cause I think like for the squat am I [00:22:00] parallel wait?

Oh no, I didn’t, I didn’t go to parallel and I only know that. After I’m looking at the video and then I can make the adjustment. But the video so I use that pretty frequently in the beginning, cause I wanted to make sure I wasn’t creating like a bad habit. And then I like to just, once a month, just check in and be like, Nope, that still looks good with the video.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, that’s smart too, because as you get stronger and you start pushing yourself, I’d say the likelihood of your form slipping a little bit goes up, especially when you’re getting down to those last few reps and you’re starting to get fatigued and there’s actually research on this that shows that our perception of what we are doing with our body and with our limbs changes.

Tends to become distorted as we get fatigued. It’s just a good idea. Yeah. To check in and especially again, on your bigger lifts and on your working sets and making sure that you’re getting your last few reps, because, oftentimes what you’ll find is your first, let’s say the first half of your set will be very good, and then things can degrade from there to where maybe your last rep or [00:23:00] two are not terrible, are not where you would want them to be.

And then that’s I’d say the second phase of ingraining proper form is when it starts to get hard. 

Wendy: Yeah, it does. And I think for me, like my squats have continued to go up. There was like a two week period where they stayed about the same, but yeah, And I still look forward to leg day, but maybe not as much as I used to.

Cause you know, I basically I’m getting spanked each time I go in. Cause I’m really at I’m, I’m adding the weight, like maybe, five pounds every couple of weeks instead of five pounds every time I’m going in. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. And it slows down as time goes on and you have to work harder to continue making progress.

But one of the motivating factors of that, even though is. Depending on what, where you want to go with your physique. I would say for most women, if we’re talking weightlifting in particular, it’s probably maybe a year and a half or two years of steady work. And they’re pretty much where they want to be.

And then it’s a matter of, at least in terms of muscular development. And then it’s a matter of just getting down to the body fat percentage that they want, which [00:24:00] again, in my experience seems to be somewhere around 18 to 20 percent is where most women seem to be. To be happiest, not just with what they see in the mirror, because that’s the point where you have abs.

You have muscle definition in your arms, you have muscle definition in your legs, but you don’t look jacked. You know what I mean? You look more athletic and it’s also, you still get to eat a fair amount of food and especially if you stay active as opposed to, trying to be very lean.

So as a woman, if you’re trying to maintain, let’s say something like 14, 15%. Yeah. You have to almost just be neurotic with your food intake. You’re going to always be measuring everything. You’re going to have to stay very active. You’re going to not really probably want to go out to restaurants much.

And it’s just, is that lifestyle? Yeah, it’s just, there’s a trade off there. If you really being shredded that much and you’re willing to sacrifice all that, then that’s fine. But I’d say also it’s not. I just don’t generally recommend it because psychologically I feel like that tends to lead to eating disorders and body dysmorphia.

No, I wouldn’t [00:25:00] say more often than not, but it can become a slippery slope. So it’s just all around better to take the athletic look and be happy and enjoy your life as opposed to, living for Instagram shots. Not even that you can’t be on Instagram, you can look great on Instagram, it’s just the bar is so high on social media because you have so many people that are just mentally ill about it.

And then you have a lot of drug use as well. So it’s sometimes you can get into that trap where you’re looking and you’re like, Oh shit that’d be cool to look like that, but you don’t realize really what that is going to entail. 

Wendy: Yeah. And I guess everybody’s got their own idea of what they want to look like, but that was never for me looking really.

That ripped I like the softer curves with the athletic look and the muscles 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, and so where do you go from here? So what’s your plan now? 

Wendy: So I maintained after the program with jill and then I decided that I wanted to do a bulk And so I signed up for the continuation program and i’m working with her now.

I’m only like two weeks into It’s good. I [00:26:00] feel like I told her again. I’m like I’m like It feels so good because I just know I’m in good hands and I don’t have to like, not that I don’t have to think about it at all. I am thinking about it, but I don’t, it’s just, I know it’s taken care of.

So yeah, so she created a new a new diet for me and I’m just still hitting it hard in the gym, trying to get my weights up and we’ll see, in a few months where I am. 

Mike Matthews: Nice. And are you feeling the extra calories yet? 

Wendy: Yeah. A little bit. It is a lot of food. I think, it’s totally doable, but I feel actually stronger too.

So we’ll see. 

Mike Matthews: That’s what you should notice fairly quickly. Like within the first two or three weeks, your workouts should feel just a bit easier. 

Wendy: Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: Let’s say that was supposed to say this. The weights you’ve been working with should feel a bit easier. The workouts themselves actually might not feel easier because you are now progressing, a little bit faster than you were previously, you notice Ooh, I have more energy.

And this was pretty heavy a few weeks ago and now it’s not so heavy. 

Wendy: Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly what’s happening. 

Mike Matthews: And so it’s always interesting speaking to a woman that just cause bulking is tends to be more of a guy thing because a lot of women are [00:27:00] afraid of gaining. Any fat, even though, of course, when you do it right, you don’t have to gain very much fat.

So psychologically, where are you at in that? Are you just you just don’t care about gaining fat or what? Why did you choose to bowl? 

Wendy: I think what was such an amazing thing for me in the program, the 90 day program was The shape of my body really changed, I tried like dieting and cardio and yeah, I could get thinner and in my clothes, people were like, Oh, you lost weight, but I’d be like, Oh, gosh, I wouldn’t want to be in a bathing suit in front of you because I I felt like I had a little bit of that skinny fat and the shape hadn’t changed.

So after the 90 day thing, I was like, wow, like my shape, it really, Mike was right in his book. You really can change the shape of your body. And then I was just looking at myself and I was really pleased with what I was seeing. I still really am. I’m so glad I did it, but I was like, I wonder if where I could take this, like what, what could it look like?

So I talked to Jill and yeah, I was a little worried. I’m like, Oh, I don’t want to get fat. And, but then I was, I thought about, I was like, it was so [00:28:00] easy to drop the weight. The first time around with the in the 90 days like I know what I need to do and even if I like get chicken I you know, I’ve got Jill in my quarter to help me So and ideally, we’re creating a diet that is gonna give me a little bit of a surplus but not crazy I don’t think I’ve put on like a lot of Excess body fat at all.

And I’m hoping to, and you 

Mike Matthews: won’t, you’ll notice, I would say you’ll probably after the first month or so, you’d be like, Oh, I guess I look a little bit softer and that’s just how it’s going to progress. Every month you’ll be like, man, I look a little bit softer, but it doesn’t get out of control unless you let it get out of control.

Wendy: And that’s where the pictures come in with, once a month I’m sending my pictures to Jill. She can also just make sure and we’re doing the measurements. So yeah, so this is a new and I’m going to, I’m going to see where it takes me. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. It’s great. And just for everybody listening what she said, I have found that again, for myself and just working with people is the simplest way of getting over [00:29:00] that fear of gaining body fat is once you’ve.

Lost it. And once you’ve gotten lean one time and this is just really, isn’t that hard then the, then you’re just like, okay, who cares? Because you have a purpose for gaining a little bit of body fat, which is of course just gaining some muscles. So then it becomes even fun where you’re like, okay, cool.

It was for the next three, four, whatever, however many months I’m gonna be in a slight surplus and I’m gonna have good workouts. And in general, you’re just going to feel a little bit more energetic and you’ll probably notice other beneficial changes more related to just because. Your hormone profile is generally at its best in terms of in a dietary context, at least when you’re in a slight surplus just because you have, your anabolic hormone profile in particular is optimized.

And then there are just downstream effects from there. So all around, you can enjoy the process and then you get to see two or three months of cutting and you get to see now, what did that get you and compare your pictures and compare your measurements, 

Wendy: right? Yeah, it’s like unwrapping a present. And I think you got to wrap 

Mike Matthews: it [00:30:00] first 

Wendy: and one of the things you were asking, like challenges, like another thing that came to mind is I have a tendency to be a little.

Perfectionistic. And in the past, like when I was just doing cardio and dieting, it felt like I was just on that hamster wheel and heaven forbid, I have a week where I don’t want to do, frickin cardio or whereas with this, the perfectionistic Tendencies disappear because I’m like, all right, I’m in the gym, I’m building that muscle, that muscles there.

It’s not going away. Okay. I’m bulky. I’m going to add a little fat, but I’ll just take it off. And then, we’ll see what we got underneath. 

Mike Matthews: Absolutely. And when you know that you can lose fat and not muscle, cause that’s also a common fear which I understand of people have experienced that even speaking to the skinny fat.

Point that you made where a lot of women have experienced that where sure you can lose weight. But if you go about it incorrectly, a fair amount of that weight is going to be from muscle. You can get to that where people, sure, you look a bit skinnier in your clothes, but you’re just not happy with what in the mirror.

And then you’re stuck like, so what then am I just genetically fucked? Am I [00:31:00] always going to have a body that I can’t change how my body looks then. Is this it? 

Wendy: Yeah, it did feel like that was like the carrot at the end of the stick. It just wasn’t fully attainable. That’s how, it felt up until this program.

Mike Matthews: Totally. Okay, great. That’s everything I had on my list. Is there anything else that you wanted to share with with me or with the listeners? 

Wendy: Yeah, there was one thing, actually, I just remembered. A year ago, I did one of those DEXA scans for bone density, and it showed that I was actually starting to lose bone density.

I was, I forgot the term, it’s like the precursor to osteopenia, I think. I did another one, and I’m no longer in that state. I would just really encourage, All women, especially women who are older, lift heavyweights, do it for yourself, your self esteem, but do it for your bones. Like it really, it does reverse that.

And it’s pretty amazing. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. It’s a good point. Yeah. Osteopenia is so you have sarcopenia, which is muscle waste and osteopenia being, or osteopenia being bone wasting. And just to that point that of course makes sense [00:32:00] because they’re, I’ve myself, I’ve looked at a few studies that show that.

That’s exactly what happens when you lift heavy weights is it makes stronger bones and that, that matters, like you said, it may matters less to a 20 year old person than to a 40 year old person, but it matters less to you than it does where it really is going to pay off is. 30 years from now, you’re not going to be falling down and breaking your hip.

You’re going to have strong bones. You’re going to have a strong body. 

Wendy: Love it. Thank you so much. Oh, and one other quick thing I was just thinking, you had a quote in your book that really spoke to me. I’m probably not going to get it verbatim, but basically you said, in 90 days when you look in the mirror, you’re going to be like, I’m so glad I did this.

Are you going to say, I wish I had? And it was always the second one for me up until your program. So I really appreciate you and I appreciate Jill. And I’m really glad that you wrote that book and that you’re doing this. So thank you. 

Mike Matthews: Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate the support and I appreciate taking the time to do this.

And if you, Mr. Or Mrs. Listener would like to follow in Wendy’s footsteps and get on the [00:33:00] fast track to building your best body ever head over to muscleforlife. com. That’s just muscle F O R life. com slash coaching and schedule your free consultation call today. Talk to my director of coaching. See if this program is a good fit for you.

And if it is Then we would love to help you. So again, head over to muscle life. com slash coaching, check it out, learn about the program. And if it sounds good to you, then schedule your free consultation call. And let’s go from there. Hey there it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful.

And if you did, and don’t mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick. review of it on iTunes or wherever you’re listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best [00:34:00] bodies ever too.

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I read everything myself and I’m always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that’s it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously, though, I’m not big on promoting stuff that I don’t personally use and believe in.

So instead, I’m going to just quickly tell you about something of mine. Specifically, my one on one coaching service. So the long story short here is this is the personal coaching service that I wish I had when I started in the gym many years ago. Every diet and training program that we create for [00:35:00] clients is 100 percent custom.

We provide daily workout logs and do weekly accountability calls. Our clients get priority email service and discounts on supplements and the list goes on and on. Furthermore, my team and I have also worked with hundreds of people of all ages, circumstances, and needs and goals. So no matter how tricky you might think your situation is, I promise you we can figure out how to get you results.

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