Michael Heath: [00:00:00] It was in the middle of July, I had my annual physical, and the first thing that stunned him was my blood pressure at that time was like 100 over 60, and my labs came back perfect, and the fact that I only weighed 217 pounds blew his mind, he’s and I showed him, I had my phone, I go, this is what I’m doing, he goes, that’s amazing, and I go, there’s my diet, this is what I do, he was stunned, I’m not on the blood pressure medication anymore, I feel Fantastic.
The best I’ve probably felt in years. Even back into my thirties, you have a lot of energy, you get up, you do whatever. It’s great. And it’s just because of the program.
Mike Matthews: Hello. Hello. I’m Mike Matthews. This is muscle for life. Thank you for joining me today for a new episode where I spoke with Michael who in six months of One on one coaching with my sports nutrition company, Legion, lost 30 pounds, reduced his body [00:01:00] fat percentage from about 25 percent to about 14 or 15%, who increased his squat bench and deadlift by about 100 pounds, who got his blood pressure into a good range, stopped taking medication for his blood pressure, with the help of a dietitian.
The blessing of his doctor, of course, and maybe most importantly, improved his golf game as well. And so in today’s episode, you are going to hear Michael’s story, how he got up to 245 pounds and decided that enough was enough, that he was going to go all in on his fitness, how he found me and my work. How he found his way to my coaching program and then how he and his coach worked together to transform his body and health in just six months.
Before we begin, how would you like to know how to drop from 18. 9 percent to 10. 2 percent body fat in just [00:02:00] 14 days? Forget calories in and out because that is a toxic colonial construct that’s faker than math and triangles. Instead, what you need is timed doses of handstands, bishop’s cap cactus needle supplementation, and satali breathing exercises.
Those things will do the trick. Now, what if you want to extend the muscle building effects of whey protein powder? That’s easy. You just do what your hunter gatherer ancestors did to bulk up fast. They added sprouted galangal root to their grass fed whey protein shakes. And how would you like to be able to indulge in weekly, guilt free carb orgies.
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Cloves and cloves of raw German red garlic. The more the better, my unfabricated data suggests. Yeah, none of that actually works, but it does give you an idea of what you will not find in my newest book that I just released called Stronger Than Yesterday, which is available right now on Amazon. And what you won’t find is page after page of quasi scientific information.
gibberish and pretense geared toward peculiarity and persuasion rather than practicality and performance. Instead, in this book, you are going to find a few things. One, simple, [00:04:00] evidence based, time proven diet exercise and supplementation techniques. That’ll help you improve your body composition, reduce the risk of disease and dysfunction, slow aging, and more.
- Motivational musings that’ll inspire you to wallow in fewer cheat days, skip fewer workouts, and generally stay out of your own way on your fitness journey. And 3. You’ll find zany fitness meanderings. that I hope will earn your smile because, as Victor Borges said, a smile is the shortest distance between two people.
And one of the reasons I wrote this book was simply to get closer to more like minded people like you. What’s more, about half of the chapters in Stronger Than Yesterday are educational and the other half are motivational, which means that this is a book you can dip into every day. for a morsel of [00:05:00] knowledge, a spark of encouragement, a moment of joy.
And by doing just that, by reading and absorbing just a few daily pages, you can gradually upgrade your mindset, your diet, your exercise, your supplementation, rest, recovery, stress management, and more. And also, for whatever it’s worth, I spent nearly two years working on Stronger Than Yesterday because that’s Simply what it took to produce something that is good enough to hopefully not just meet, but beat your expectations.
So again, the book is called Stronger Than Yesterday. It’s available right now on Amazon, whichever Amazon you shop on. And if you do read it, or if you do listen to it, I’d love to hear your feedback. So please let me know.
Hey Michael, it’s nice to meet you. Thanks for taking the time to do this.
Michael Heath: Thank you. Nice to meet [00:06:00] you.
Mike Matthews: Yeah. So we’re here to talk about you, probably one, one of your favorite subjects, and specifically talk about your health and fitness journey. Can you just briefly describe for people to start your before and after, or even if you wanna go after and before, but just to give people a snapshot of kind of before you found me and before you found my work and where you’re at now.
Michael Heath: Yeah, before, I had worked, had different fitness plans where I lifted weights and everything, but I never really did the full program, diet, and everything it was like, you get decent results, but, something was always lacking and last year, I, it’s one of those deals where you go.
Wow, I weighed myself like after New Year’s. I weighed 245 pounds. I go, you got to do something. So I went back. I remember, Jim, I had a workout plan that he really didn’t like, and they used to have trainers there, but they didn’t have a trainer at this [00:07:00] time. So I’m like, all right, I got to do something. So I went online, found your book and I started the five day a week plan.
Lifting and some cardio and stuff and started getting results. And the next thing I thought you had the online training and I thought, wow, all right, let’s try this. So I made the decision to sign up for that. And then I went all in like literally no alcohol, follow the diet. Did everything didn’t skip workouts.
So I went from two 44. To 214 and it was amazing and actually 214 because I had a couple of days where I caught the flu or something. So I wasn’t eating. That was more weight than I wanted to lose. My goal was 220. So we worked my way back up to 220, but it was like, wow. And it actually was fairly.
Easy to do if [00:08:00] you want to do it, this is the time I said, you’re going to do it. Exactly. You’re following everything. I need to take cheat days for a long time, nutrition wise. And it was just worked out great.
Mike Matthews: And how long did it take to to lose that weight and gain a bit of muscle strength?
Michael Heath: I started the program. At the end with the trainer, it was at the end of February and by the 1st of May, I was in that 214 range, so it came off pretty quick and then Alyssa, we would. Work with the cardio and the calories and we started bumping it back up and the cardio got shut off till, I can get back to the 220 and, but it worked out perfect.
And I renewed with her and it went through most of the summer and now I’m doing it on my own, but I told her, I said, I might get back into this. I want to do something different, though, [00:09:00] more core and flexibility. The lifting, I’ve got to the point where I’m comfortable with the muscle mass, but I want more flexibility and core and stuff.
The legs, I’ll probably just keep working legs hard because I like to golf, and that’s a lot of it, legs and core and stuff. I will probably go back to it, but I still follow the diet exactly the way it is.
Mike Matthews: And is this a new approach to fitness for you, or have you done this type of thing previously?
Michael Heath: I had done where I would work out and stuff, but I never really incorporated the nutrition part of it. I’d eat whatever, drink, if I wanted to have a couple beers, I’d have some beers and I didn’t. I’ve gone back, after golf, I’ll have a couple beers with the guys. It’s not, but it’s not every day and you follow it.
And it just, it works out well.
Mike Matthews: And how did you get to, you mentioned that you just got into a headspace where you decided you’re just going all in and you said, you really have to want to do these things. And I wanted to come [00:10:00] back to that and just hear your thoughts and hear your experience with that in particular, because it’s so true.
And this is what anybody listening who is struggling currently to achieve their fitness goal. At least I’m going to say probably most of the people, they know what They’re supposed to do generally. And there, there aren’t any obstacles that can’t be overcome that simply cannot be overcome that it would require like breaking the laws of physics.
All right. If that’s the obstacle, that’s a real obstacle. We’re not going to get past that obstacle. However, of course, the issue that we’ve all dealt with is. Varying degrees of discipline and motivation and really wanting to do what it takes to get there. And so can you talk a bit about that for you and your journey?
Michael Heath: I probably have to go back a little bit. In 2022, I was having issues with my one eye where I see like I would look at something I’ll Picture on the wall and it was warped. It started [00:11:00] off in the fall of the year when people started putting Christmas lights up. And everybody told me, I think you have a cataract.
Okay, so I got into the eye doctor. It was like the first part of January 2022. And they started running tests and all of a sudden everybody got quiet. Come to find out I had a tumor on my retina, which, very rare, but it happens to men over 55, it’s almost like that’s exclusively what happens. So the next day I’m in the Cleveland Clinic with this surgeon and he went through the whole thing and he told me, Alright, here’s your two options.
They can do this radiation, you’re going to lose the sight in your eye. He goes, what I recommend and what I usually do. We remove your eye, you won’t have to do anything. The one worry is, this type of cancer won’t go to the other eye, won’t go to your brain, but it can go to your liver, especially. There were some other things that happened in 2022 after that.
My wife passed away suddenly, and you get into bad habits when you’re [00:12:00] on your own. I have three golden retrievers that keep me grounded, but you do whatever. And so I got to where I was drinking at home, just, a few drinks every night and it just got to the point where you go, you got to do something, you got to snap out of this.
And that’s what, when I weighed myself and I’m like, you weighed 245, nah, you’re going to get in this shape and just cut it right out. And it was so amazing. I’ve gone to the same doctor. I’m 64 now. I’ve gone to my doctor since I was 28 and I remember him one time telling me the lowest weight I ever recorded was when I was 28 was 229 pounds and he always used to say, and I was on blood pressure medication.
That wasn’t like I had super high blood pressure, but I was on blood pressure medication. He always was like, when I was weighing around the low 240s, you can stand to lose like 10 pounds, lots of drinking, exercise [00:13:00] and, everything will be good. So it was in the middle of July.
I had my annual physical and the first thing that stunned them was my blood pressure at that time was like 100 over 60 and my labs came back perfect. And the fact that I only weighed 217 pounds blew his mind. He’s and I showed him, I had my phone and I go, this is what I’m doing. He goes, that’s amazing.
And I go, there’s my diet. This is what I do. And he was done. I’m not on the blood pressure medication anymore and I feel fantastic. The best I’ve probably felt in years. Even back into my thirties, I you have a lot of energy, you get up, you do whatever, it’s great.
And it’s just because of the program.
Mike Matthews: And I have to ask, so what though happened with your eye? Dave,
Michael Heath: I have a prosthetic eye. I, and I forget about it.
Mike Matthews: Yeah, I also work for people listening. I’m watching him on camera and I wouldn’t have guessed that.
Michael Heath: [00:14:00] Yeah, that’s, it’s my right eye.
And thankfully my left eye is my dominant eye and it’s 2020 vision. I wear reading glasses because of the computer and stuff, but I don’t wear glasses for anything else. so much. One thing that affects me is depth perception, and when I’m putty, I don’t see the subtle changes in degree that people see, and I say that’s the reason why I had such a high handicap, it’s part of it, but lack of hand eye coordination is the other part of it too.
Mike Matthews: But at least you’re out there going, yeah. And I want to ask about alcohol in particular, because that’s also a common obstacle that people need to overcome. It’s not, as the point is not to completely avoid alcohol, but many people do come to the. And often are disappointed when they come to the realization that achieving their fitness goals, it is going to [00:15:00] require just drinking less wine, for example, and you drink a large amount of alcohol and get into shape maybe depending on circumstances, but are you going to enjoy that process?
No, it’s going to be very unenjoyable actually. And so it sounds like you, you didn’t reach the point of maybe. Alcoholism but it sounds like you went from regular consumption and of course life events leading you to that makes a lot of sense but you went from that regardless to a lot less consumption and how was that process for you and was there anything in particular that helped you make that stick?
Michael Heath: I think a lot of it was when I started doing it at the same time I was starting the program. So you saw the result and it got to where you didn’t need it. Still, in my house, there’s alcohol in there, I just don’t drink it. I go meet people, go to their house or something, whatever, I’ll have a couple of drinks, or I’ll have a couple of drinks after golf.
And today is Monday Night Football, and I live south of [00:16:00] Buffalo, so it’s a Bills game, this is one of the worst. Yeah, you might have a few beers because of that. My, my dad’s from Buffalo, so I’ve been there many times. I know. Yeah. Yeah. But it was, I went, I think it was, I stopped on super bowl Sunday, which was before I started the program.
Cause I decided I was going to do that. And I went all the way to Memorial day. It was like 105 days that I went and then I had a few beers and you realize. Even just having two or three beers the effect that it has on you the next day when you wake up and which is really nothing. You’re not, but you feel it, you feel sluggish.
You just don’t have the energy or something. And it, and I thought, man, I, go back to what you used to do. It destroyed me. I, it just, you feel so good. I had a friend that did the same thing, and he did, he just did it for like during Lent and he’s the same way now. He goes. I can’t drink like that anymore.
I can’t, I like the fact [00:17:00] that I get up and I feel good and I, so he doesn’t drink at all during the week. And the same thing, we’re like Friday afternoon or Saturday after golf, we have a few beers and the rest of the time, no, nothing.
Mike Matthews: Is something that many other people have mentioned who have gone through that experience is by not only cutting it out, but also then doing these other positive things, eating better, exercising, then they start feeling so good.
When they go back to adding alcohol, it’s not like they have to try to gaslight themselves into thinking like, no, they feel it. The next day, they’re like, wow I’ve been feeling really good. And I actually didn’t realize how bad I was feeling previously until I started to feel much better. A common analogy that I’ve heard is you can liken, How you feel the next day to maybe similar to how you might feel if you sleep really poorly, it’s just not a great day.
And so once you make that connection, even if it’s not intentional, it just happens because you [00:18:00] experience it where you’re now it would be like taking actions that might make you feel good. Temporarily, but are guaranteed to make you sleep terribly. And you know exactly what that’s going to be like the next day.
You naturally now are just less inclined. There’s a part of you that might want to, but now there’s a bigger part that says, I think I’d rather sleep well and feel good tomorrow.
Michael Heath: Yeah, that’s the thing I noticed. You don’t sleep well. And even just, like I say, two or three beers. You wake up the next morning, you go, I’m just off.
I just don’t have the same energy or anything that I have usually. And you just go, yeah, you had three beers. That’s what did it. Yep. And
Mike Matthews: similar to sleep, right? Like when you don’t sleep enough, you just feel off. You just, there’s no way to really fix it. Even if you take a nap, at least for me, you can feel a little bit better, but it’s just not quite the same.
Now, and on the diet side of things, was this a major shift in alcohol aside, but looking at food, were there any major changes? For example, did you go from a lower protein to a higher [00:19:00] protein? Did you start eating more fruits and vegetables?
Michael Heath: Yeah, definitely more fruits and vegetables and higher protein.
Cutting out stuff that there’s no fast food. I don’t add nothing. And were you eating that previously? Yeah, it was the easy thing, pick up something just to eat it. And now, you look at labels and you go, I’m not eating that. It’s, and one of the things I did, I got on a factor.
And I have meals delivered, so five meals a week and it’s, they’re good, healthy meals, have a salad with them. My. My breakfast now are things like oatmeal, more high protein stuff, and you look for stuff that, where before, it could have been anything. Lunch is usually some sort of salad or, something high in protein, but not a lot of fat in it.
And dinner, I do the factor things, and things like that, and I cut out sweets, and I [00:20:00] don’t miss them. I, my sweets now are Greek yogurt, nonfat Greek yogurt. That’s instead of like ice cream, I have a cup of that. Was that surprising to you that you don’t miss? It was surprising that I thought, wow, you really don’t miss it and you can change your diet.
My, my cheat thing now is chicken wings that are like with dry rub on. That’s my cheat meal. It’s not that bad. But it’s, that’s my cheat thing. This is the one thing I still have to have.
Mike Matthews: And that’s that’s mostly protein. Sure. There’s a bit of fat, but that’s still, it’s a high protein meal.
It’s certainly not that it would be totally fine if you wanted to have a bowl of pasta or maybe you want to have ice cream or whatever you want to have. But as far as quote unquote, cheat meals go chicken wings are. There, those aren’t even clearly in the realm of okay, that’s something you definitely want to eat in moderation per se.
If you eat too many wings, again, it’s going to [00:21:00] be, as there’s just going to be too much dietary fat, but that could even just be a regular thing. Source of protein in a meal plan, hypothetically,
Michael Heath: yeah, and I stick with, I follow the calories really close. I’ve cut it down now.
I usually try to stay between 28, 2900 calories a day, and that seems to be good. I maintain the weight right now. I think I weighed myself today as a 221, which. That fluctuates up and down. I’m going, okay, and so I’ll keep it that and if I notice it creeping up, then I start adding some cardio in and stuff and I might dial it back to say 2700 calories just to keep it at that 220 because that I like the weight of 220 and I’m going to stay there.
Mike Matthews: And for people wondering, I’m assuming you’re taller than average. Yeah, I’m 6’4
Michael Heath: and yeah, I could, at 245, I don’t look grossly heavy. You have, your stomach, but I can carry the weight. And at 220, I look, really good. It’s holy [00:22:00] God, you feel so much better. It’s just, It’s the the perfect way for me.
I didn’t even think when I started with Alyssa, she was, where do you want to get? I go, I don’t know, maybe 230. Since we got into it, I go, all right, let’s shoot for 220. And we got down to it. And I thought, wow, I didn’t think I could do this, but yeah, it’s good.
Mike Matthews: Did you weigh and measure, was there a period where you were doing that to calibrate your understanding of portions and so forth?
Michael Heath: I go off of whatever it says on the servings, I don’t get into the weighing of it, and I just judge the serving by whatever it says on the label and stick with that.
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And on the training side of things. So what did. That look like throughout this period when you were where you’ve been working and where you lost 30 pounds and so forth.
Michael Heath: It really just the way I look because lifting 5 days a week, which I really like that program because, you usually it’s less than an hour of lifting and you can get that in.
And it just, I have some people like. My nephew, this wife, she looked at me one time and I said, she goes, how much do you squat? She goes, your legs are like, I’m freaking believable. I said, I told her what I’m doing. I showed her, she’s Oh my God. And she said, I see it with your chest and everything, your [00:26:00] back.
And I go, yeah, it’s just, you feel really good. There’s always like the workout or the one exercise, like initially it was like deadlifts. I hate them. And I go, you need to do that because you don’t like them. You need to do it. And you start seeing the benefits from it.
Mike Matthews: I’ve posted that joke on social media.
Do I want to do deadlifts today? No. Is that a reason to not do deadlifts today? No. Squats too sometimes. Are there any exercises that didn’t work for you? Any substitutions that you had to make? Or any obstacles that you ran into along the way? Just adjustments that you needed to make for your circumstances?
Michael Heath: Some of it was because I belong to Planet Fitness, and so you don’t have a lot of barbell stuff. You’ve, and Smith Machine, which I’m in the process, somebody is showing me another gym in the area, so I may switch to that. It’s just because [00:27:00] there’s more options as far as free weights and stuff. There were a couple things I had to, So I have some trouble with my right shoulder.
So certain exercises I have to with the shoulders like the lateral raises and stuff, I’ve never going to do a lot of weight. It just, it’s 15 pounds. That’s all I can do and stuff like that. So there’s some limitations with that, but the rest of it, not nothing.
Mike Matthews: That’s great. And I meant to ask that on the diet too.
So over the course of the months, when you lost a bunch of fat, gained a bunch of muscle and strength, were there any. The obstacles that you had to overcome on the diet, any adjustments that you had to make, or was it more or less, you started out with a plan, maybe you tweaked a couple meals and you just stuck to the plan and got what you wanted.
Michael Heath: That was more like, you tweak things once you started into the diet. You got so used to it that to break from it now, it’s become a habit. I like the food. Alyssa was always, how’s it going? You feel hungry, not really now. [00:28:00] The other thing is I’m drinking plenty of water, so you have that full feeling a lot of the time, and I didn’t really miss anything.
Mike Matthews: The adjustments that you did make, though, I’m just curious specifically, what were those for you? Because usually there’s a starting point, and then you start to learn a little bit of, Okay, actually I would prefer this, I want to shift some calories from this meal to this meal, and so forth.
Michael Heath: Yeah.
It would be like, say for breakfast, I would never do like smoothies or oatmeal or things like that. It was always like eggs and, bad. And so I started shifting to that and I, Then you start realizing, wow, I really this stuff. Lunch, I got away from canned soup, because it’s got so much sodium.
It was more into chicken breast and there’s different things you can do for lunch. [00:29:00] And then the dinners were usually the factor dinners, which there were Things in there that I probably wouldn’t have ever ate vegetable wise, and I know it’s pretty good
Mike Matthews: recipes. Recipes are the key with vegetables.
There’s so many ways to prepare them. And if they’re well prepared, they can go from being. Painful to eat to enjoyable.
Michael Heath: Yeah. And I eat more vegetables now. My, my diet is pretty much salmon, chicken, vegetables. Like I don’t eat a lot of red meat at all. Occasionally, I’ll have a burger or something with ground beef in it, but it’s usually chicken and salmon.
And you get to where you’re so used to it. It’s like you like it and that’s what you want. That makes you feel good. So I eat it.
Mike Matthews: Have you found that, okay, so you like salmon and then you prepare it a certain way for, it could even be months and then it’s [00:30:00] time to just prepare it in a new way. And that kind of renews it for you.
Have you experienced that with any food?
Michael Heath: Yeah, you get different. You go, okay, let’s try this and some of it, like with the factor thing, they’ll always have a new one. That’s different. I’m gonna try this. And yeah, I found out I haven’t found one that I don’t like, and it’s just, it’s something different.
And it’s the same thing with chicken. You can have chicken. God, there’s infinite ways that they, with the different recipes. And I don’t feel like I’m missing anything and it did diet works really well.
Mike Matthews: I just want to mention that because I know a lot of people who are just starting out and are concerned about food fatigue and are wondering how could I possibly eat salmon and chicken for 12 months straight?
And I’ll say I’ve heard from. Many of these people over the years and universally, they have this experience that you’re having, but something that certainly helps is again, thinking with [00:31:00] recipes and different ways to prepare things. So you go with maybe an Asian kind of style for a while until you get sick of that.
And then now you move over to a Mediterranean style, and then you move over to a Mexican style or whatever. And then maybe by the time you’re done with the Mexican style, the Asian is actually. appealing again. So you go back to the Asian and you can more or less repeat that forever. That’s basically the universal experience.
Michael Heath: Yeah, that’s what I found out, and then there’s some that you just really I really like this. This is like my go to if I, every other week I have to have this at least once, that’s true. That’s true. And you never get sick of it. Never get sick of it. It’s yeah, I will always have that.
Mike Matthews: It’s like the sex equivalent of food. It’s one of the few things that you can never get sick of. And there are certain foods that are just like that.
Michael Heath: Oh yeah. I, all right, I’m not having this and it’s did you have the last weekend? Maybe this week too.
Mike Matthews: Yeah. And haven’t you had it every week for the last four years and you’re like, yes, [00:32:00] and I’m having it again.
What about cardio? So you were lifting five days a week. Were you doing cardio in addition to that?
Michael Heath: Initially I was doing it, I think I was doing it three days a week. And it was 30 minutes on a treadmill at an 8 percent incline at about four and a half miles an hour. Which that was pretty good workout.
And as the weight started coming off, then we went. To two days a week and then one day a week and then it just stopped when I got into where I like I gotta put some weight back on and now every once in a while like I’ll just get on the treadmill and decide, okay, today’s a good day. Do some cardio and just do it.
And it’s I like it. I’m not somebody that’s going to run. And I find like an elliptical, I think that’s, they’re boring. So I like I like the treadmill with that incline.
Mike Matthews: And it’s also just to comment, finding what you like is a big part of making this work for the longterm. [00:33:00] And this is a theme in the diet, finding the foods that you like, finding the foods that you like for the specific meals.
- Personally, yeah, I like oatmeal, but I actually like it more at night as overnight oats. I prefer that personally over oatmeal in the morning for breakfast because I don’t really like breakfast. So you find these things, this is the way that you like it and it fits the parameters of what’s needed.
Great. And same thing with exercise. It’s just to your point of cardio, does it quote unquote make sense? Can you logically explain why you just like the treadmill and don’t like the elliptical? Probably not. It doesn’t really matter because. You just like what you like, and it works. So you choose what you like.
And the reason I’m saying that is a mistake that I’ve seen many people make over the years is not and often it’s because they’re given the wrong parameters. It’s too constrained. But when you understand that you have a lot of flexibility, that there Are many things that are negotiable. Only a few things are non negotiable.[00:34:00]
It’s worthwhile to try different things that meet the criteria to see what you really like. I generally tell people don’t settle for Whether we’re talking about diet, don’t settle for a meal plan that you don’t really like where don’t, I would say, don’t even settle for a meal, a regular meal that you don’t really like, think about it.
And if you have to try different things, but it’s worth that little bit of extra effort to get to what you like. And the same thing for exercise, don’t force yourself to go on the elliptical if you don’t like it. Try some other things and you found, Hey, I actually like the treadmill.
Great. Then let’s stick with that. And the same thing would apply for weightlifting. It would apply for exercise choice. Again, you can get down to the smallest details that you want to get to, but it’s always worth considering. What do you like?
Michael Heath: The treadmill I feel like it was [00:35:00] giving me more of a workout, you know Were you like wow, you did something here and it I really like and there’s park around my area Where it’s almost exactly two miles around you take the outside and there’s hills and stuff and so on and a nice day You either want to do the treadmill or you want to walk around that park twice.
You go one way and then you go back the other way. So you’re going up and down the hills differently. Hey, because it’s like, to be a half an hour or something on a treadmill. It’s a nice day. Let’s go walk. And that I usually would have done because I work out Monday through Friday. That’s like a weekend thing.
Hey, it’s a nice Saturday afternoon. Go walk and it just that helped a lot too with losing weight because it’s like an extra day, an extra workout that you can join. You find out that. Sheds the
Mike Matthews: pounds. There’s also some additional benefits of getting outside and [00:36:00] being around nature. It’s it’s good.
It’s good for mental health as well.
Michael Heath: Oh yeah. That’s in I live in Western New York. We’ve had a beautiful summer. In fact, it’s been beautiful. Today’s a little off these last couple of weekends, it’s been 80 degrees. How’d you go? Golfing.
Mike Matthews: Yeah, enjoy that while it lasts because you know what’s coming.
Michael Heath: Yeah, it’s coming. It’s coming here. Another. Another month from now. We’ll be thinking about it. Yeah.
Mike Matthews: Yeah, exactly. What about supplements? Did you take any supplements?
Michael Heath: Yeah, I pulse and recharge. And then I also took Genesis. I like that. And they were good. Interesting. So no, no protein powder.
Not that you have to. Oh, I have protein to get protein. Yeah. Because that’s usually my, Way to get up to the protein level, cause when you’re right now I’m doing like 200 grams And you’re always stuck at that like [00:37:00] 150 ish and you need that a protein shake or something So it doesn’t it’s not every day, but it’s probably five days a week, throw on a protein shake and like the afternoon or the evening or something just to get my levels up and I really enjoy it.
I hadn’t really done that before and you see the benefits of it. I like it.
Mike Matthews: Yeah, the convenience is similar to the factor. What is that? Is that factor five? Is that the name of the company? I think so. Yeah. Similar to the, it’s just, it’s so convenient. And I wanted to comment on that too. Somebody who works with me started doing that as well, just for the convenience.
And they look at it and they go, this is high quality food. And if it saves me time because I’m busy and I don’t like to cook. Yeah, that’s that. That’s why he’s doing it. And I just wanted to comment that’s also just similar to this point of finding what you like and what, again, there are parameters.
You can’t just do anything. If you like, just eating hot dogs and drinking beer, then we’re going to have to work [00:38:00] on some some other things that you might like, but that if that makes it easier, if the factor five, the pre, okay. Prepared meals just makes it easier for you and makes it more enjoyable for you to get in your nutrition, then it’s a good solution.
Whereas other people who are faced with, okay, I don’t want to, I don’t really like cooking. I don’t, I have no interest in it and I don’t want to take time. And so therefore I’m going to just eat fast food, for example, that’s one option. Or you can go, okay, let me look what’s out there. Oh, look at this.
Here’s a company. They’re going to make the food. They’re going to send it to me. I can just heat it up. It’s the exactly what I need. It’s whole grains. It’s vegetables. It’s protein. Let me try that. Let me see if I like it.
Michael Heath: Yeah, that’s what I saw. And the biggest thing is that, two minutes it’s ready.
It’s, and it’s not frozen. It comes, it’s refrigerated. So it’s, I haven’t had any problems with it at all. And it just, because I’m not a cook. [00:39:00] And I don’t want to learn. And so it’s easy for me just pop it in
Mike Matthews: and the other supplements. So the protein powder, people understand it’s convenient. You can’t beat it for convenience, high quality protein and the other supplements, why do you like them?
Why do you include those in your regimen?
Michael Heath: I think the pulse and recharge, it definitely gave me some good gains. And I felt like that helped a lot. The Genesis it seems to give me more energy. And also it’s almost seems like you’re thinking clearly or so. I don’t know. That’s what I get out of it.
I really like it. And it was one of those things when you’re thinking, The first time I took it, I like, yeah, to get used to the taste a little bit, but I like this is pretty good.
Mike Matthews: It’s hard. It’s hard to make spirulina taste good. That’s the problem. Especially if you’re using that, if you’re using natural flavors, they had to work for that.
Michael Heath: It’s not bad though. But I see the benefits of it. It’s more like mentally [00:40:00] you seem clear. A little more energy and it says it, like with some of the benefits of it, hey, it’s, definitely would help deep I don’t know if it’s a detox or not, just anything that I could take like that or, hey, this could be benefit to my liver, or, I at some point, so I thought, okay, I’ll try it and like I like it.
Mike Matthews: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that’d be spiralina where most people listening probably know that any supplements that claim to just help your body detox, that, that’s huge. That’s just a red flag because that’s not really how it works. However, can you take supplements to support. Your body’s organs that detox support your liver, for example.
Oh yes, you can. And spirulina is an example and there’s a lot of research on it and it helps with liver function, particularly with heavy metals, but yeah, it’s just the detox that’s one of those buzzwords you got to look out for.
Michael Heath: Yeah, and that showed up on my blood work when I had my physical because I was, because of the weight and the alcohol and things, I [00:41:00] was, it almost would say pre diabetic, and then he would, my doctor goes, you, I can tell you’re drinking more than you should because your liver functions are, they’re getting off a little, and then there’s the last one, he goes, these things are spot on.
He goes, and there was one, I go one of them is. He came back on my phone, it said it was high. He goes that’s because of the blood pressure me medicine. You’re no longer gonna take. He goes, that’s why that one’s off. He goes, that’s on me. He goes, the rest of them, he goes, they’re great, they’re perfect.
And he said They’d be perfect if you were 34 instead of 64. So they’re perfect, okay.
Mike Matthews: Is your doctor just as excited as you are? ?
Michael Heath: Yeah. Yeah. It blew with mine. He, and he was like, wow. Yeah. And he goes, I got a lot of patients. He goes, they’ll never do it. He goes, I don’t never do it.
He goes, they won’t do it. And he goes, I got people that are younger than you, 20 years younger than you come in here. And they’re not going to make it to 64. I tell them [00:42:00] that because you’re, you’ve got issues in my doctor. He’s. A family friend. We know our families and stuff. And I come from an Italian family where longevity was most, my grandmother lived to be 96, and they all lived into their 90s.
He goes, you’ve got the same genes. He goes, you just have to make sure. You take care of yourself to get there because nothing wrong, easily I can see you living into your 90s. And so that’s another one of my goals, hey, be here as long as I can.
Mike Matthews: Absolutely. And is that that’s all of our goals.
And at probably at the point when you realize you actually are mortal, like once, maybe you hit your thirties or maybe it’s your forties and then you either implicitly or explicitly at least have the idea that, Oh, actually I would like to be here for for a long time, rather than just a good time, as they say.
But now that [00:43:00] you are. On the other end of this transformation and are still going, which is what I want to ask about next. And you’re seeing the results. You’re seeing the blood work. Is that, it has to be encouraging where you’re looking at it and you’re saying, Hey, look, here’s real data that suggests that, yeah, I can be around until my nineties.
It’s not just a, it’s not just a wish. And then your doctors, they’re looking at blood work, just. Not even knowing what to say, thinking that this dude’s gone in 10 years. There’s no way this is happening.
Michael Heath: Yeah, it’s you get to that point. Now I go, all right, you put the work in, you got here now it’s easy to stay there because it’s become a lifestyle and I, I get up to like over two 21.
All right, got to cut, get the cardio and stuff and you don’t want to go back to that. Way you felt. It just, it’s amazing. Absolutely amazing.
Mike Matthews: And so what are your goals now going forward? Are you [00:44:00] have you shifted more into a kind of a maintenance mode or what are you? What are you looking to do?
Michael Heath: It’s maintenance. Yeah, which is why then there’s other goals. I thought you should work on your flexibility. Some as you’re getting older, you need to work on that. My core is fairly strong, but it could be stronger. And so my next goal will be maintain the muscle mass that I have, not really try to add anything.
I still would work my legs fairly hard, everything else, I’m just going to stay at this level. I’m not going to try to increase anything and keep my weight, but then improve my flexibility and strengthen my core, things like that, just to prevent, I don’t have really issues with my back, but I don’t want to have those.
So it’s like maintenance and still there’s things I can improve. Flexibility and things like that. So that’s my next goal.
Mike Matthews: That’s good to work on, particularly as we get older, it’s good to work on often because when we’re younger, we’re [00:45:00] just naturally fairly flexible and we lose some of that flexibility as we get older.
Now, training does produce proper training, does produce good flexibility, but only in certain ranges of motion and with certain joints. And there are things though, that. Are not a part of regular training. Like I’ve commented before, and this is something that I’ve been working on and I finally got it to something that’s respectable is if you think of the butterfly stretch and how that stretches your hip flexors, just your hip muscles.
And that’s something that I never did consistently, even though I’ve been consistently doing various stretches for about 10 years, but it just not that. However, that motion is really not a part of proper. At least training for most men you’re usually not doing any AB duction or a duction, for example, where you might get some of that stretch, like you’re not sitting down on the AB or a duction machines, maybe like some women would for training either kind of like the [00:46:00] inner thighs, so to speak or the glutes.
And so that’s something that my. Butterfly stretch was terrible when I started just a couple months ago. I say terrible, I’m exaggerating. It was not very good. Let’s just put it that way. It should be better. And I’ve been working on that. And what, cause that was causing issues where my psoas muscle, so other hip muscles were deep core muscles were tight.
And then that was bothering my SI joint. And by addressing that, for example, and finally now getting it to a more respectable place. Oh, now my hip feels better, which was getting annoying for deadlifting where I stopped deadlifting. I could do like a single leg deadlift. I was doing different types of hip hinges, but a traditional deadlift just didn’t feel right.
And so that’s just an example. There are a few of these stretches again, where you think about if you’re training correctly, you’re going to maintain pretty good flexibility in certain areas, but If that doesn’t necessarily mean that there [00:47:00] aren’t going to be serious impairments and flexibility that can cause other issues like weightlifting alone is not necessarily enough to maintain the level of flexibility.
And specifically, it’s just the range of motion that you want in your key joints and in the different Planes of motion that they work in. And so that’s a, that’s my pitch for people to consider adding some stretching. I know it’s not very fun. I do it at night when I’m reading to my son, I don’t like just sitting there stretching, but all right, if I’m going to read to him, then I’m going to do my little stretches.
I got it. I’m going to do it anyway. Or, if you’re going to. If you’re going to sit in front of the TV at night, then great, then you can do it. Then I understand not wanting to take another 50, even if it’s 15 minutes out of the day, I actually do understand to just sit down on the floor and do a stretching routine or certainly longer than that.
But if you stack it onto something you’re already doing, at least that’s been an easy way for me to be consistent with it.
Michael Heath: Yeah, that’s, I do some of that now, around here, just [00:48:00] certain times during the day, just, stretch and stuff. I don’t really do it at the gym because it’s more when I’m done.
I’m out of there. Yeah. And then I, but yeah, at night, you figure, all right, you can stretch a little here and stuff and certain things, but I need to get, do it more. Let that part go.
Mike Matthews: Yeah. And again, if you think about, if you just look at, and Alyssa should be able to help you with this. If you look at, all right, you can assess your current level of flexibility, just a basic, you can find these little.
tests online of basic flexibility for your key joints, different planes of motion. And probably what you’ll find is because of your training, you’re going to, you’re going to be pretty good with certain ones, and then you’re going to be not so good with others. And it certainly makes sense, I think, to address the weaknesses with the stretching, as opposed to getting even better, going from good to great on, let’s say, touching your toes or something, where you’re already pretty good.
And can you get your palms down on the ground? No. So that’s, That you could spend time doing that. Or maybe you find that your quads are actually very tight [00:49:00] and you could spend your time doing that while it makes more sense, I think, to work on the really tight quads when your hamstrings are already decent, for example.
Michael Heath: Yeah that’s my next thing. Flexibility that’s coming, but then just still going to maintain the program, live five days a week. It’s just pretty much, like I said, plateaued with the weights to where I’m not going to try to add. That much more
Mike Matthews: and that also, that’s the right way, I think, to program for maintenance is you want to, you don’t want to lose strength.
So you wouldn’t want to drastically reduce your training weights and then maybe even maintain the same rep ranges where now your training weights are like warmups. However. If you’re happy with where you’re at in terms of your muscularity and strength, then you just do exactly that. You keep your training weights where you’re at, and you keep your rep ranges where they’re at.
If you’re feeling particularly strong, and you think you can get an extra rep or two, all right, get the extra rep or two. And over [00:50:00] time, that might actually produce more muscle. Very slow progress. Like your training weights may go up a little bit because what used to be a six rep max weight or an eight rep max weight is now a 10 or a 12 and you want to bump it down, but that’s a slow process.
So generally your training weights are staying more or less the same, maybe slowly uptrending and you’re doing the exercises that you like and your workouts are. In the duration that you like, and it feels almost, it’s interesting when you’ve pushed hard for a while to make progress, it can feel a little bit odd to make that shift, but that is the right way to do it.
Michael Heath: Yeah, and then, like I say, I have your book, so sometimes I had 2 programs with Alyssa, so I do a mix and match sometimes I go well, why don’t you swap this one in instead of that exercise? And then if I get to where I’m going you need to do something different with your chest exercise throw a couple new things In there, so I’ll go to the book and I’ll add something and I’ll try those for a while It just [00:51:00] give get some variation.
Mike Matthews: Yeah makes sense. All right final question. Has it helped your golf game?
Michael Heath: Yeah,
Mike Matthews: I asked because I’ve played a lot of golf in the past and I know how frustrating it can be,
Michael Heath: I, yeah, I, if I could hit it straight, but I golf like my son and my nephews you hit it longer now, I did a longer there’s sometimes.
I can my long drive for me is like in the 290s. I can get them up there. Usually i’m Hitting 260 ish, but and like I tell my nephews my son I my driver is 16 years old. They’ve got all the new ones I go you wait till I get to this winter i’m getting a new one. I go you wait Because they drive it They’re in the 300s.
I’m going to get you guys this week at this next year. I go and I go to a guy he’s got a golf trade where he films you and stuff. First time I went, I was like, Whoa, but you [00:52:00] start seeing it. And so this winter it’s got an indoor facility, even though it’s like a 40 minute drive. I’ve joined to go there because I can hit balls in the winter.
Western New York, you’re not going to do anything. So that’s my goal for this winter. I told him, I said, right now I’m in the, a good round for me is like the low 90s. That’s a good round. I used to be like 120. So it’s got down to there. And I want to get down into the low 80s. So that’s shaped 10 strokes off.
Mike Matthews: Yeah, that’s a good goal. And that’s doable. Even getting into the seventies is technically doable, but it takes a lot of work. You got to be willing to commit the time it needs to become one of your number one priorities, actually.
Michael Heath: Yep. Yeah. And I like it, but I’m, I have friends that are.
They’re on the course every day. It’s a routine. They’re there for hours. They practice, and they practice after, and it’s I, [00:53:00] no, I like it, but I’m not that. I can’t do it every day. I got other things going on.
Mike Matthews: Yeah, I understand. That was all the questions that I had. Is there anything else that I should have asked or anything else you’d like to share to everybody listening before we wrap up?
Michael Heath: I don’t know. I think we’ve got a worthy thing. I’m really happy with the program. I, and I definitely recommend it to anybody. It’s like anything else. You’ve got to want to do it. And I think some of it is when you pay the money to get the training or you’re paying for something. Take advantage of it.
Do it the way it’s supposed to be. Because, how many people have a gym membership that they don’t ever use? That’s, that’s the entire business model. That’s what they need. Yeah, that is, yeah, because I had a friend who had a gym. He goes, everybody signs up after the first of the year.
I see him for two months and then they pay all year. They’re not here in the summertime. That’s the exact business model. I see it like the planet fitness until you get to about May around here. It’s [00:54:00] busy. And now. It’s starting to pick it back up now because we got back out of the summer, but in summer months, nobody’s in there.
They go up there at noon. There might be three people in a place.
Mike Matthews: Which you appreciate. You appreciate that’s the business model because if 80 percent of people were showing up, then they would, it would now be a broken business model. All of a sudden prices would, they would have to raise them five times just to keep the membership at a, Viable level,
Michael Heath: yeah, they’ve got money coming in people that there’s people.
No, it’s still coming out of their account They don’t even realize
Mike Matthews: That’s true. This was a great discussion Michael. Thank you. Keep up the good work. Great story Thank you. Every day your biology is changing. It’s getting stronger or weaker faster or slower healthier or sicker And the driving factor behind these changes is not your genes, or your environment, or even your age.
It’s your lifestyle, how you eat, how you [00:55:00] exercise, how you sleep, how you supplement. And not just how, but how often. Because what you do every day is far more important than what you do every so often. That’s why I just released a new book called Stronger Than Yesterday, which is available right now over on Amazon, and which is a daily reader with 169 short and insightful chapters that give straightforward and practical answers to perhaps the two hottest questions in fitness.
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So again, the book is called Stronger Than Yesterday, it’s available right now on Amazon, and I’d be honored if you got a copy, gave it a read, and gave me some feedback. 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.
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