Rob Goodwin on hardcore bodybuilding with a ketogenic approach!

Hello, ladies and gents Roberts is Quito Savage.com, and today I have special guest Robb, Goodwin on the line fellow, ketogenic bodybuilder. And I've never talked about before. So, I didn't know what to expect from this conversation. I just went into it, blindly hoping for the best and I was blown away. So he is more of the high protein, moderate fat, low carb type of guy. I am more of the high fat moderate protein, low carb, kind of guy.

And when you, when you bring those two together, you, oftentimes get this just massive disparity between certain ways of doing things and everybody at each other's throats. So I didn't know if that was going to happen or not, but we're cut from the same, the same cloth when it comes to our mindset and approach from a, from a mentality standpoint on how to do bodybuilding, how to do intense anything in life.

And then we transcended that. And start talking about the specific nuts and bolts and nuances, two different types of macro manipulation metabolism, you know, calorie intake

hormone. Of going through a prep and there's a lot that we have in common is if there's a definitely some differences but we're able to sit down and speak civilly with respect towards one another and we both came out of conversation, Having learned a ton having appreciate each other's viewpoints and having benefited from it. And I've got no doubt in my mind whatsoever, the any bit of LED, listen to this podcast will experience the same.

So without further Ado, sit back, don't relax, just get your notepad, get your pan ready, sharpen your pencil, take some notes because you're gonna come out of this. Conversation, having taken some very tangible tangible steps that you can do in your Fitness Nutrition Journey, hands down. No questions. Asked thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. I've got no doubt you will as well. Without further Ado, enjoy the conversation with Rob good one. And we are live Rob Gordon.

How are you? Ma'am, I'm doing great by brother. How are you? It's great to be here. Good to have you man. Good heavy. So I'm curious. I'm assuming Rob is short for Robert, right? It is not see. My parents were hippies back in the 60s and the only, my wife, and my mother called me Robbie. That is actually my name. Yeah, Robbie is actually. Okay. So did you do you introduce yourself as Rob or Robbie? I introduced myself as Rob but you can't tell anybody my name is Robbie, wait a minute.

It's already out there. There's never mind. It's funny because I ask because my name is is Robert. I've always introduced myself as Robert, but for whatever reason, everybody calls me, Rob, I never introduced myself as Rob. That's just, I guess what? Sticks, I don't know. People don't like two syllables. Well, now, you know, everybody there, damn, uncle's going to like like pile on me and call me Robbie from now on. So thanks, man. I appreciate pleasure to man. Place to do it.

Well, shoot, brother. I'm excited to have him because, you know, week before we started recording you and I are both From the similar cloth, in the whole ketogenic and bodybuilding realm. And, you know, I've talked about how I got to that space in my Hill training, but I want to get some back story on you, man. Like what led you to Quito bodybuilding in the first place? Well, I try to make this short, which I always promised that, and it always goes off the

rails. But I promise, I'll try really, really hard. So, I grew up in the 90s bodybuilding culture, and I started training with a competitive bodybuilder, literally from day one. I was like a One, a year old guy that didn't know where the hell he was going in life, and I was working a shit, dead-end job.

And this little Jack, dude, named Melvin walks up to me and he's like, you don't look like you belong here and I'm like, well, you don't either and we hit it off immediately and like five minutes into the conversation is like, you want to go work out. I'm like, what the hell? I hadn't really worked out much since high school. So I dove into it and he proceeded to absolutely annihilate. Me and destroy me and That went

on for days. And the thing about it was is I absolutely fell in love with it right out of the gate. I love the experiment of it, I love the challenge of it. It gave me some sense of purpose and some clarity. Give me something to focus on, and at that time, because I'm working with this competitive bodybuilder, who grew, who grew up in that, 80's 90's, hardcore culture, and I said, so what do

I got to do? You know, to really put on sighs, what do I got to do to get big to be good at this and he said, well, you have to train your ass. Off until you're about to die and then you have to eat tons and tons of food. You can't party anymore, then you got to get lots and lots of sleep. Expecting me to say, screw that. I immediately said I'm in. I'm in the sounds great. So you know at that point back in the 90s, there was no internet.

So we literally you know, I was rabid about the whole thing I do. Right in 150% and started training my ass off and absorbed everything, I possibly could on the body building culture for Or me bodybuilding is the sport that I love. Like like many people love football or baseball or whatever. I love the sport of bodybuilding. I always have. So I dove right in. But for me, I'm also very analytical.

I like to know how things work and it became the experiment of seeing how far I could push the limits of my physique. So, the cool thing was and, you know, all about this, genetics plays, a big role in this, and I sort of stumbled onto by accident the fat, I had really good genetics for this stuff and so I went, I went from this 170 something pound guy.

And within a year, I was about 215, 218 pounds, and then within two years, I was approaching like, 230 pounds and 4 in for people who are wondering, yes, a drug-free. But I literally was killing myself in the gym. I was eating and I'm not exaggerating or kidding. When I tell you back then I was eating eight to ten. Thousand calories a day and I've got lots of stories to support that but that's what I did. I did that for about a decade and for me it was the experiment.

And and so I never really wanted to be on stage fact that that was not my thing standing in front of 2,000 people in my underwear isn't what sort of flipped my trigger. I wanted to be on the back end of I wanted to work with other people. I wanted to continue to push the limits of my own physique and that's how I got into being a

trainer and a coach. And now I've been doing that for Approaching literally, I can't believe it 30 years I've been doing it about 27 years now and so that's what got me into the whole bodybuilding scene and it just it went on from there.

Now fast-forward, that after about a decade of living that life, being a coach being a trainer working in some really big Jim's, I decided to take a little time off from that, so I started doing just a little bit more general fitness stuff, lost a little bit of weight leaned out, whatever. But I noticed that I had a lot of joint distress. A lot of inflammatory markers were high. I felt like okay, I'm a fit guy, I'm a muscular guy.

Why do I feel like this? And that was probably in the early 2000s about 2005 2006 and that's what I'd really jumped on the ancestral Health bandwagon. And, you know, at that point, I started to cut back on carbohydrate. I looked at the inflammatory nature of foods, processed foods, and all these things. And that's when I really started to cut the car, Herbs a lot of the seed oils and the factory Dairy and all these things but I want some more sort of like a

meat vegetable based diet. At that time, was probably a bit more paleo if you had to put a tag on it, even though I hate tags and that we did really, really well. And then in about 2010, is when I read these, very obscure articles about ketogenic diets. And of course at that time, it was about the therapeutic style, ketogenic diets. But also the odd thing was So, here's this former hardcore. Bodybuilding guy learning about ketogenic diets.

From the endurance Community, I was reading about how Ultra endurance Runners and cyclists were using ketogenic diets to help them go longer and harder with less food and burning their own stored fat for fuel and burning ketones, and just really obsessed with that. It made so much sense to me. So as I fast-forward again on denim, condensing a lot of stuff and do a short short explanation.

Patient here. But then in Hazard start approaching 40 years old, I got the bug started training hard again. I really wanted to get hard back in the gym and I decided, okay, bucket list time, I want to compete. I want to get on stage, I didn't do it when I was in my 20s. Now, I want to do it so and I thought to myself, can I bridge the gap? Can I sort of combine, ketogenic or ancestral. Primal principles with nutrition with this hardcore.

For bodybuilding culture because you and I both know, you know, back then I mean I'm older than you obviously. But you know is chicken and rice steak and potatoes, high carb, high protein, low fat. But when you start looking at the physiology of it, it just made immediate sense to me not

to everybody else. Because everybody thought I was a damn whack job but it made immediate sense to me is why can't I reduce the carbohydrate replace you know that energy source with dietary fat be a little Kinder and gentler on my I'm still getting the adequate nutrition in the Attic calories. I need keep the protein, very high to spare and add lean tissue. And so I dove into that and just kept tweaking it and playing with it. And that's where my ketogenic bodybuilding protocol came

together. And I literally went through a prep in 2014 and exactly as I just described. And what I did is I sprinkled carbohydrate, you know, as you know, sort of TKD a little bit of carbohydrate around my workouts and then I would incorporate some refeeds one day a week to sort of replenish and that worked phenomenally well.

So my first show I placed second in both the Masters 40-plus and the heavyweight open and then, you know, as time went on and I've been competing every year since then. I just sort of kept tweaking this and developing it. And you know I've never looked back and no it's not. We say listen, this isn't your Aunt Betty's key. Do you know, this isn't swapping keto cheesecake recipes and fat bombs and putting butter in your coffee.

This is, you know, the subtraction of carbohydrates, systematically, and using carbohydrate as a tool around a higher protein, moderate fat approach, and I look at that as an energy source, it's still energy balance. So I try to take in the optimal amount of fat, whether I'm going to gain phase or a cutting phase to supply, working energy and, you know, no nutrient dense foods to my lifestyle while still keeping the protein High despair muscle.

So, again, I've sort of taking these two worlds, these two things that don't seem to go together like two magnets then I've sort of joined them together but the cool thing is and we can talk about this is I started a ketogenic bodybuilding Facebook group, several years ago, I guess is about 3 years ago, and I expected like nine people to Joy. Literally, I thought, okay, there's probably like nine or

ten people out there doing this. Maybe we can get these people together and we can, you know, share stories and talk training and talk about how you're doing this and I'm doing this and it just absolutely exploded beyond my wildest imagination. And now we're, you know, sitting at 10,000 some odd members and not only is it just 10,000 members but as 10,000 very close-knit, very tight, rabidly loyal just This, it's like a family and it's been such a blessing to me and then.

So it's just, it's just exploded for there. And from there, that's kind of where we're at now. And then, of course the coaching inquiries come in and now I'm sitting at over 100 online clients from all over the world and I've got my own private Gem and you know, so things couldn't be better. Bringing these two unlikely worlds, together to combine to something that has just been very very enriching in my life and so many others.

I love it man. I feel like you know when you take something that's not supposed to be and you make it be like that gets me excited because like the the Nuance to something that General society says can't be done. Like when people tell me I can't do things. I'm like, man that much more inclined to prove them wrong and that's what happened with me when I started training with the ketogenic that like everybody has working out with the gyms.

Like, you can't do it. You can't compete, you can't build muscle. So I was bound and determined to prove them all wrong and that kind of led me down my rabbit hole. So, I'm right there with you, man, I feel like doing things that Our society says, is not feasible, is often where all the Innovation and progress comes

from. So I'm excited that I've been here because I feel like with the fitness industry as a whole, you know, a lot of the fitness industry is built on the traditional, you know, bro, dieting approach to food or like

flexible dieting. If It Fits your Macros gained a ton of popularity throughout all the 2000's, the 90s you referring to the 90s, you know, that that was like such a sweet spots for, you know, competitive bodybuilding not necessary from a channel standpoint but just from like a bodybuilding and fitness genre as a whole like when I when I first started lifting probably in two thousand seven or eight I guess all of the videos and you know, content that I was consuming around the

sport was all from the body butters of the 90s because like their level of just discipline intensity and shape was in my opinion. Unparalleled from anybody else at that time, I'm assuming you probably on the same page. I 100% agree and I sound like that. I sound like that crotchety old man. Like, get off my lawn. Looks like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino or something. When I talk about Nikes bodybuilding and you know, there are some phenomenal competitors

now. And but back in the 90s, the conditioning was so much better and I think it's because back then the focus was literally on two main, you know, two main things. It was super hard training. You can never take your foot off the gas. You know, I had these wonderful opportunities to trade in and work with and speak to some Legends in the industry. You know, I got to train with, you know, the legend, my commencer. I got to work with legendary

coach. John Perillo, I ran a very large Gold's Gym down in Florida where we had half a dozen magazine, cover ifbb pros and there that I would hang out with and you know, train with and talk to every single day. And again back then you didn't pull up a webpage. You didn't pull up an internet. For them, traveled, you would go to the seminars, you would seek these people out.

I would be that crazy kid knocking on some doors saying, you know, hey, I'm from two states away and I want to meet you, I want to talk to you, can you give me ten minutes of your time? And that's how we didn't back then. And you go to the seminars and you talk to these people and back. Then, the pros didn't have Instagram Pages.

You know, they had the magazines that you get once a month or you would go listen, Them talk at a seminar and that was your only real connection with those people that back then. So you tried to absorb every moment that you could to sort of peace, all this stuff together and then you apply it to your own training and your own physique and your own lifestyle. So I think there was so much more incredible insane work, ethic back then, and not to say that it's not happening.

Now, it definitely is because that's another thing is, I think bodybuilding is making a comeback. I don't know if you see that or not and where you're at, but I Talk to judges, I talk to promoters and they're like, you know, entry fees have doubled. The excitement is back. It hasn't been like this since, you know, Ronnie Coleman was mr.

Olympia. And I think it truly is making a comeback and I see it with my own clientele, the probably the most proud moment for me or the most proud part of this. For me, is of all, with all my clients, I'm not training, ifbb Pros, I'm training, soccer moms, I'm training businessmen. Women and just if I think aback at the last five or six people, that I've prepped to go into a physique competition.

If I think the last five or six right up the top of my head, four of those people are women over 50, mmm. And who have never competed in their lives. Who said, okay, this is a bucket list thing for me. You've convinced me that I can do this. And that's, that's part of our job. You and I both know this were motivators but we're influencers. We let people know that if you're willing to keep died in this gym and you're willing to crush your Macros and you're willing to do exactly what's

required of you. Then you two can do Hercule and things and you can do things that you never thought were imaginable than if you're very upfront. And you're very forward with people. And you are willing to walk through fire with these people. And you do then they understand that, hey, you know, I trust this guy, he's been there, you know, and my clients and The women, I mean, just will blow your mind. These women will eat freaking lightning and crap thunder all

day. They will push the point that just will blow your mind. So, I love this little universe that I'm living in working with these hardcore people. Again, it's, you know, if you're if you don't train and you sitting in a cubicle all day, you want to lose some weight. Hell yeah, I would love to work with you and help you any way I

can. But I'm not gonna lie to you, you know, my join with it. What I do is working with these These people who want to walk into that, you know, hot gym every day with Rusty, barbells and slap the iron on and put their bodies through, whatever it takes and to be compliant with their nutrition, no matter what it takes.

And when I tell them, listen, you have to track this, you have to, you can't miss workouts, you have to sleep more, you have to recover, you can't lose it up on the weekends. You know, I tell my client. So you got to have a half a bottle of wine every night too. With your life. Now you don't need a trainer. You didn't 12-step program, okay? You don't need me.

So if you're but if you're willing to walk through fire, I'm willing to walk through it with you and these people just get they change their whole demeanor changes. And those are the kind of people that I want to be lockstep with these are the people that I want to join with and help them achieve these incredible goals. I mean, that's the most rewarding thing on in the world. 100%, man. I mean, I've got, you know, clients across the whole spectrum and And, you know, I love them all.

I do right by them all, but there's definitely a special place in my heart for all the competitors because, like, when you, when you go through a prep, especially one, that is a very lengthy prep of, like, you know, four to six months, which is what I typically recommend, personally. It's like that you could tell when they're in it all the way and regardless of what they're placing is, but if they, you know, never stray away from hitting the numbers.

Never stray away from the intense training session, and just push it to the Limit every single damn day for six months straight. Like they've earned this whole nother dimension of respect for me because I've been there and it's cool to see other people go there as well. And then tap into this potential that they've never even realized they had from within themselves. I mean, like that is just unparalleled and they're just, we're living this day and age

where it's so easy to be soft. So you have to have the self-imposed hardship, placed upon you in a competition prep, that you go all in on is in my opinion, one of the best. Best ways. I've personally experienced how to bring on that self-imposed hardship and just figure out who you really are. Then you know that that's exactly right. You know exactly what I'm talking about as funny as a funny story.

I was chatting with a couple of people and I just mentioned that I was going to be on your podcast today. They're like oh I know that guy and the first thing that comes out of the month, he's competed. It's like Instant Respect. Okay, I love that guy. He's competed. I've seen the pictures. The guy walks the walk. He talks the talk I'm like, yeah, this is going to be great.

So it's instant, you know, credibility, it's Instant Respect because these people are walking through the process and when they know somebody, who's who's reached the top of the mountain, the respect is never going to go away and, you know, it's a it's a constant back alley knife fight. You know how hard it is? There's no off time.

Yeah, you're not playing in the local Rec basketball league where you got to show up on Tuesday nights, it It is 24/7 every single day, every waking moment, and it's not so much the things that you do. It's not necessarily just doing the workouts to a very high intense level. I'm a big high intensity guy. My clients know this, everybody around me knows this if you're not in a on it, on the workout floor in a puddle quivering questioning Your Existence.

You didn't go hard enough in my opinion and that's just the way I trained myself. And that's what I expect for my clients and I expect my clients to be Set with their macros to be consistent with their nutrition to be consistent with their sleep. Now, we talked about it's as much as what you don't do, is, was you what you do do? So, it's refraining from the party lifestyle refraining from the, the binge eating, and, and calling a refeed, a refeed.

When it's really just a cheap bitch and you wind up, you know, sitting in an alley somewhere with powdered sugar, all over your shirt, cause you just knocked out three dozen donuts. That's not what we're talking about here.

So it's a constant back alley, knife fight, And I tell my clients, you need to be the freak in the room, wherever you're at. And if, you know, my audience, who's listening to this, or they're all nodding their head, no matter what room you're in, wherever you're sitting, you got to be the freak in the room. That doesn't mean just aesthetically that just means attitude, that just means your mental perception of what it takes every day to be the absolute best that you can possibly be.

And once you understand that and you're willing to be the freak in the room and you understand that what we're embarking God is we're not just talking about getting in shape. I you know, our our tagline for ketogenic bodybuilding is Extreme physique. It's Tito for the extreme physique culture make no mistake, we're a niche.

This is for people who want to take this to a whole nother level and be something, they never thought they could be and Crush through those boundaries and arrive somewhere, they never thought they could be. And once you arrive, you know, this is well as I do, you never Ever question, the pain that you went through to get there, all that is behind you, it's only what you've become and where you've been.

And you know, when you've stood on that stage under those hot lights you know in your underwear in front of a couple thousand people and your reach that Pinnacle. It's a it makes you part of a very unique club and I'm not saying you have to compete but I tell all my clients it could be a competition or it could be a photo shoot or it could be six months from now you're going. You go to your sister's wedding and you want to be the most smoking-hot person there.

Whatever the case may be, the process is still the same and we're going to get you there. Yeah, totally green, man, I'd be curious to get your take on this. So I feel like there's like with most things in life. There's this dichotomy that exists between, you know, going far enough going too far and not getting anywhere close. And I feel like, you know, with all the Innovations and scientific advancements that have been made in recent years, especially around, you know, diet.

And exercise and the fitness Community as a whole.

There's like this this weird, you know, plethora of information out there about how like the bio hacking Community which I'm a huge fan of and a big part of but it's like there's so many different there's so much attention placed on, you know, the minimum viable dose to achieve a certain you know, outcome or goal and that hasn't turned had this like backfiring from a psychological perspective because it's like people don't want to go to the extreme because They assume that

there's probably a smarter way to get there without near as much heartache and physical ailment and I think you know that that can be good to a certain degree for sure. But I think with with something as as niche as like bodybuilding, for instance like you're probably going to be doing yourself more harm than good by not willingly going there. Anyways.

I mean if you look at anything through our culture through our history, reaching Victory, reaching the Pinnacle achieving, the goal has never come from doing the minimum to get there. I mean, you know, all through history, it's about conflict but that doesn't have to mean hand-to-hand conflict. That just means conflict with yourself conflict within your own head conflict with fighting your own.

Own personal demons, nothing. Positive in terms of the ultimate Victory comes from settling or finding that least amount of resistance. It's always, you know, you got to crush the, how can you possibly not succeed if you're giving it everything, you have, hmm. You don't want to leave anything behind you. You don't want to leave anything to chance. You never want to question yourself. I mean, this this, you know, this it when you go through a

prep and you That peak week. I always tell people when you get to peak week and for listeners who don't understand what that is, that's that final week before your competition, if you got to come up with a whole bunch of voodoo and bullshit, good. Guess what? You didn't come and shape. Yep. You should be going for Peak we call, you should have to do during peak week, is going to carb up a little bit systematically. And I know how to do it.

I might cut a little bit of water, I get to such a couple little tweaks. There's that little carb up before the pump. Up up, if you come in shape, if you're there, if you've done the work, if you've left nothing to chance, if you've taken yourself to the farthest end of your absolute ability, then you're going to sit there with your feet up on the coffee table during peak week saying, bring it bitches. I'm ready. I'm ready to own the stage and walk up there and claim what's

mine? You never want to sit there and question could I have done more? No I mean when you're talking about all this biohacking bullshit that's just saying what's the least path of resistance that I can take to? Cheap, the skull screw that. What's the most? I can put into this, to make sure that I've left nothing to chance. That I'm going to walk up there

and claim and own this. And that doesn't mean a first-place trophy, that just means knowing that I gave this everything, I could possibly get it. And that once again just to reiterate, that doesn't mean necessarily stepping on stage that can do is just me.

Pushing yourself to be the absolute best, that you can possibly be, that could be running a marathon, they could be doing a triathlon, or it could be something like You know, martial arts Jiu-Jitsu, whatever the case may be, or just being your absolute best, on this certain day, in July, to prove that you had the ability to push yourself further than everyone else. And you left nothing to chance.

And when you do that, the, the calmness the, the level of Zen that washes, over your body, when you know that this is, you put everything into it is unparalleled. Wouldn't you agree with that 100% verbatim at night? May I couldn't have said it better myself like We time I've gone into a peak week, like I've been just, I've been the most calm I've ever been in the life during a peak week because I know there's been no Stern Stone left unturned. There's been no shortcut taken whatsoever.

So, regardless of the placing, you know, I'm gonna go in with absolute utmost confidence because as you can attest to like body building is a, it's not a sport in which, you know, the end-all-be-all success. You know, measure is how you place against other people. It's how you place against yourself. I mean if You're doing everything right and you're doing it to the Intensive. Should you're likely going to place ahead of most of the competitors or take that first place trophy?

But like for me, I go in trying to beat myself from what I was the previous time I stepped on stage and every time I've gotten better, and every time I've known that I haven't left, anything left to chance, and that alone has given me the confidence, and just the serenity, we're like peak week. I'm just coasting through and enjoying the moment. Actually, I couldn't have said that better myself. I mean, that's, that's absolutely perfect.

I mean, I think a case in point in 2019, before all the covid bullshit happened. I did an NPC National qualifier and as we just discussed, I don't think. Well, we always say, we could have done something a little harder, but I'm not sure I really could have. I think, I really pushed my genetic potential to the farthest I've ever in my life, and I was fortunate enough. To win the 50, plus Masters, but what really blew me away as I won the open heavyweight, and this is all ages.

And that was probably the most gratifying experience of my life. But in 2018, I did another show. Another big NPC qualifier National qualifier. And I placed second in the same two divisions and I pushed myself to the Limit, I dieted my ass off, I suffered, I did everything I could. But you know what? What the guy next to me was just freaking better and sometimes

that just happens. If you feel like that, you took your foot off the gas at any point during that prepped, whether it be offseason, gain, phase, cut phase, whatever. Then yeah you have to you have to understand. I could have went harder own that shit and do better the next time. But as you just said it's so much a competition within yourself and if you know that you put everything on the table and you gave it everything you had, you know, I walked away with those.

Places proud happy. And I walked up to the guy that beat my ass and I said, dude you are amazing. God bless you, you know and I'll try harder next time and that's the beauty of it to man. Like like with me you know in the natural federation's that compete in a lot of the competitors. Like we go to the same show like we all know each other and like, before before the virus canceled, the show that I had planned on doing in 2020. We were all going To compete at the same event and I had all of

them on the podcast. We're all just kind of like talking shit to one another but like in a very friendly manner, but that's good because it pushes them to be better. Pushes me to be better and it's like this friendly camaraderie that you would see in the bodybuilding you know, of the 90s and prior to that because it's like everybody wants that competitors to be the very best that they can be because it inherently pushes you to be the best that you can be. Absolutely 100%. Totally agree.

So you know competition is a great thing. I love it and I will probably continue to do it as long as God, blesses me to be able to train hard and do the things I need to do and still take care of my family and be the husband that I need to be in the father that I need to be. And, hey, I'm a grandfather. So that's pretty cool. So, you know, I can put my grandson on my lap and say, hey, look what you're crazy. Freaking Papa.

Did you know that? That'll Own is worth the suffering to me. Yeah, to lie to leave that lesson and that Legacy to those underneath you and your children, and your grandchildren. And I mean, you know, it's a beautiful thing. But again, it's not only just about, you know, competition, you know, competition can just be life in general and, you know, life kicks our asses. And if you ever question that just look back at 2020, I mean, what better way to lift the fog.

Ugh of such a tumultuous and crazy year than to focus on, you know, projecting the best human being that you can possibly be and making that shift in making that change. And, you know, it's all right in front of you, you just got to take the steps. And the cool thing is as we both discussed, once you go through that work and you go through that effort, you will never regret. You will never regret the path that got you there.

No matter how painful, no matter what you'll never look back and regret that sort of like childbirth. Looks like my wife's like, yeah, I had fun. I pushed for kids out. It sucks, it hurt. But I would never in my wildest dreams of a regret that because I have four beautiful children. It's the same thing when you push yourself to that degree of pain, you know? And again, life life in our human existence has always been about to some degree of suffering.

And it's only in our recent culture that we've all tried to find the leaf least path of resistance. And I think we all see the evidence S of that. And it's taking us in a negative path and I think the consequences of that have been dire.

Yeah, I completely agree, man. I mean it's I don't know, like I like being able to exercise my stomach muscles, I like being you know having a hardships and obstacles in front of because it inherently makes me a better person and I feel like anybody that has that mentality is going to be better for it even if they have to go through a period of discomfort. I mean that's that's what life is. So you just got to Cowboy up and go for it.

Exactly. I think we are speaking the same language on all fronts from everything. I can tell this far. So I really want to kind of get into some specific nuts and bolts to like dining protocols and strategies and macro manipulations because I'm curious to see how you personally manipulate macros and in kind of go about it with a ketogenic approach because there's so much there's so much Nuance to kill genic

bodybuilding. I've got a system that I feel like I have not perfected because we can always get better but I feel very confident. I feel like You and I probably have a few differences of opinion on certain specific strategy. So I kind of want to pull the curtain back and see what see what you working with here, man. So that said, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the whole, you know, Cal versus hormone debate. Do calories really count.

Okay? Number one, let me be very, very clear about this and I fight this in my ketogenic, bodybuilding Facebook group, I fight this and all matters of so So media, you know, that can be everybody's a badass behind their computer. If what you're doing is working for you. God bless you. Let me just say that right out of the gate. I don't want to get the thing about it is, is I follow, and this is no secret. I'm a high-protein, moderate fat, low carb guy. I am that works.

By far the best. For me, it is worked spectacularly. Well, with my clientele and many in my group, Would attest to that. However, if you're more of a high fat moderate protein, low carb diet, God bless you, if it's working for you, then by all means, continue. I'm not a zealot. I'm not some cult leader, I'm not any of these people. I follow this simple rule when it comes to human beings. I don't care who you are. What you do, what race you are.

What gender you are? Everybody is Beautiful to me. I judge everyone under one criteria and one criteria only, and that's whether or whether or not you're an asshole. If you are not, then we can be friends. I don't care if you put two sticks of butter and your coffee and drink, you know, do shots of melted bacon, grease all throughout the afternoon, if it's working for you, fantastic.

But if I happen to come forward and say, I tried that approach and for me, combining And the old school, there's a couple of things that I have adopted from my old school bodybuilding approach that I have brought into the mix because I can tell you without question, they have worked the best for me in building my physique as well as the clients that I've tested but you can talk about science, all you want.

But you and I both know that when you work with clientele day in and day out, you get to know these people on a very personal level. It is, the ultimate daily, controlled experiment. It is a Research study in and of itself kind of percent. So when I work with these people, like I will say, you know many people have come to me and said I started doing a ketogenic diet. I lost 25 pounds right out of the gate, I'm just throwing out some examples and now everything has stalled.

I in all nearly every case, tell this person after running some numbers, let's bring your protein up a bit. Let's back off on the fat a little bit. We're going to keep your carbs very low and that seems to always break the stall. My reasoning is, is I do believe that it is about energy balance. First hormones, do definitely play a role, but I do believe in the law of thermodynamics. Nothing has made me change that yet.

Yet. So I do believe that you do like if you're in a game face to put on bustle, you go into a caloric Surplus and then when it's time to cut, you go into a caloric deficit. I also firmly believe and this is where a lot of people. This is where it starts to become a back alley knife fight because the keto zealots come after me with their claws out. When I say, I am not a big intermittent faster. I'm not a big person on fasting if that works for you. I think that's phenomenal.

If fasting Helps you achieve and maintain a caloric deficit to lose weight. I say, go for it. Do that all day long. God bless you. But for me, trying to maintain as much lean mass as humanly possible, when we're talking about protein synthesis and nitrogen balance, I have found that I still find the old school approach that meeting frequently throughout the day.

I eat every two to four hours, making sure that it's protein heavy moderate fat, low carb has worked Phenomenal for me but I've also found out is it has worked phenomenal for my clients. The other thing I've noticed is and you will understand this phrasing where others may not. When I am ingesting, some protein and nutrients every two,

to four hours. I feel and I maintain and muscle fullness a muscle pump, everything seems to click better with me, but again, this is about enhancing the extreme physique. This is not about cubic. Sitting Sally trying to lose 20 pounds. This is about the person who's trying to maximize lean tissue growth to the ultimate degree. Maintain it I'm 52 years old

from. So for me now it's really about maintaining and trying not to lose anything that I've worked so hard to put on and I think the science supports the fact that if you're trying to maintain lean tissue masks, the two things that would support that support that over anything. Is keeping protein high and training. A hard in the gym because obviously you're going to lose some lean mass in a cut. That's inevitable.

So you try to you know keep those losses as minimal as possible so my ketogenic bodybuilding hybrid. Okay, kids remember I use the word hybrid, I'm joining two things together to create, something to fit a specific goal. So, I do take in higher protein and for me, and my clients that's anywhere from point. 82, literally 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight if

you're not morbidly obese. If somebody who's carrying a lot of body fat than will convert that into a lean body mass, but that's another conversation and then we use fat according to your energy output. So essentially we're reducing the carbohydrate. We're bringing good dietary fat into support or modal function, nutrient density and to supply

energy to working muscles. So my Approach isn't, you know, everybody kind of freaks out when they come into my group and they're like, we have been doing the, I've been doing keto. It's 75 percent protein, you know, you know, twenty percent or 75 percent fat, 20% protein, whatever and like. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, it's not just a blanket formula, you know, it's a little different for everybody. We're all different, we all have different goals, will have different needs.

So in the ketogenic bodybuilding, Old that I live in that I coach in and 10,000 members would attest to this. And many of my clients here in my gym, the higher protein, moderate fat, lower carb approach works really, really. Well, one more thing to add on top of that, and this is really where people start throwing things at me, I also believe that. Okay, don't everybody freaked out. Take a breath carbs, are not the enemy, they're not the devil, okay?

Now Now, I think that carbs in excess to be terribly bad, they don't work well for me, and that's why I changed my entire approach, all the way back in 2005. However, if you have a toolbox full of tools, you've got your duct tape. You've got your WD-40 and you've got your crescent wrench that will handle most shit that happens in your house. But every once in a while you need to bring up that one number seven, star, bit wrench that just works on the back plate to your you know why?

Heater. And if you don't have that damn wrench, then the whole freaking your whole day is going to fall apart. Well, carbohydrates are that same way. So I will ingest a small amount of carbohydrate around my workouts to fuel those workouts. So if I take in 20 to 30 grams of a fast absorbing carbohydrate like a cyclic dextrin or even something, more simple, like a cream of rice with my workout intensity.

Those carbohydrates are gone by the time I do my last set so it's just A tool that I pull out of my toolbox to fuel May through intense training and then they're gone. And then I go back to high protein, moderate fat, low carb.

And that I also advocate for most people, not everyone, some people cannot tolerate them truly, but I also advocate refeeds for certain athletes, and this could be 100 grams of carbohydrates on a Sunday, or it could be 500 grams of carbohydrates for a Robotically, genetically, gifted 230-pound male body building and then they absorb those carbohydrates, replenish that glycogen, and then they go back to normal

eating on Monday and everything. Just works great under the hood so that, in essence, you know, if I just had to Broad Strokes here. I mean, obviously, it's nuanced depending on the individual. If I have 15 clients here, everybody's numbers are going to be different. Everybody's, you know this. But but that, that is Definitely my Approach. And again, it is a hybrid and it works phenomenally well for me and my clients, especially, I can attest to the fact that those clients who have got on

stage. I've never had I'm a very proud to say this but I've never had a client not placed top three that I've coached ever. And we all do high protein, moderate fat, low carb, according to that individuals, unique energy output, you know? So does that answer your question? Yeah, yeah, I love I'm smiling

right now. This is just Audio Only but I'm smiling right now because you and I have a lot of commonalities and how we view nutrition and we have a lot of very Stark differences, but what's interesting is that I'm hearing what you're saying and it's like, I totally respect it. Totally appreciate it. Totally, you know, get behind

what you're saying. I'm a little different in some of the specifics, but here we are having a very civil conversation where it's like, there's probably people in your camp that would throw shade on what I would. What I would recommend is people in my camp that would throw shade on what you just said. It's like people get so defensive about these dietary protocols. They have this very Zealot like approach to it, which to me is just, you know, it's there's no good that comes from it.

So I like that you and I have, you know, very commonalities towards certain things and very different takes on other things because it allows us to just pick each other's brains and grow from it and be able to have a intelligent civil conversation together. So look like, you're not doing anything wrong. I'm not doing anything wrong.

And the thing is that drives me crazy is we both Advocate ketogenic style principles of eating, just because we differ on some of the nuances doesn't mean we can't all get along. We're the ones that should be uniting against the processed food, crap. Big Pharma, all the things that are just you know, decimating, you know Our culture through

shitty nutrition, poor advocacy. I mean, we should be uniting, not being divided by G of freaking fat, I think it's absolutely insane if, so, if a client of mine came to me and told me that they've begun working with you because your principal seem to be working better for them. I would say, well, hell yeah, he's a great dude. He knows what he's doing. I applaud that, you know, everybody's different rent and I would go about my business again. I'm not one of these zealots.

I'm not some freaking cultist, I don't understand that mentality. I mean II do think that these people that just recklessly sucked down fat with Reckless abandon have it wrong? I think that they need to take a step back and take a look at a

few things. But apart from that, I mean, it's just twisting the knobs and flipping the switches and turning some We're here and we can all get along and whether it's your approach or my approach, someone out there could take yours take mine or meet somewhere in the middle and you damn, well know they're going to make a very, very positive change in their life, no matter which approach, they take. Yeah, hundred percent man. So to kind of dissect what we have going on here, just for the

listener second. I think there's gonna be some really good nuggets that people, listen, this can get out of it so you and I, you know, like I'm probably more of a high fat, moderate protein. Very low to no carb. Whereas you are more high protein, moderate fat, very low to no car, but we're similar in that. We're both very minimal carbohydrates. So we got that going for us as far as the the energy balance, think I think we're probably on the same page there.

I definitely like the high-fat from a hormone standpoint, I like the high fat from an energy standpoint, but I am right there with you, on saying that people that are just simply guzzling, down, fat, without any, any you no attention whatsoever. To energy balance, they're just shooting themselves in the foot. So we're on the same page there. There's probably a lot more commonality that we have than differences. I don't do any of the targeted carbs or the cyclical carbs.

I keep it pretty strict keto throughout and I think by doing a high fat moderate protein approach, that's probably more conducive to not seeing any necessary gain from The High car. However, I can see your approach in, which its higher protein, less carbs, you can, you can have More of a lever effect from the carbon Appalachian. So there's there's sense in that too. So I feel like we probably have a lot more common than people would think. Oh, absolutely.

I totally agree with that again, with the carbohydrate manipulation and I think manipulation is a fantastic

word. Believe me when I assess a client's carbohydrate intake around workouts, I already have a very good understanding of their level of intensity at the chip and let me reiterate this and be very, very clear if For a moment think that there would be any and you know this term if there's any spillover from any carbohydrate ingestion around workouts that I'm going to reduce it or eliminate it. I also and again you know this as well as anybody, it depends

on the individual. I've got some women especially if for some reason it's always women. My men generally called tolerate carbohydrates, so much better than women. But I have women that if I give them M, let's talk about on a refeed. Let's say, like, I could get, I have were five male clients that I can give 500 grams of carbohydrates on a Sunday and they'll walk into Monday, chiseled ripped, vascular, no

spillover. Look amazing. And I have women that if I give them 40, damn G, it's a damn train wreck. Everything just goes off the rails. Now, what I have learned and you've probably done this as well, is some of my metabolic refeeds as I like to call it. Is it? I will just do a caloric or even a fat receipt where if I have them on a little bit. Like if I have them in a caloric

deficit, if they're on a cut. So I've got their fat grams a little lower and then I'll bring them in on a refeed day. I'll up the grams of fat raise their caloric ceiling a bit and I find that that's enough to sort of get the metabolic Machinery Back In Motion, get things working again. Sort of shake off that stall and I know that if I give these women carbohydrates once again, it just goes Goes off into the

weeds. So you have to assess every one individually and I think I've kind of gotten known you know I've had people come to me and say hey I heard you're the guy that can kind of tweak my shit like okay. I'm not sure what that means. But painting, I'll treat your shit. All right, but no, but but let's say so that's what I do. So instincts are very important and when you doing been doing this as long as I have you develop Your instincts were when you're looking at an individual.

And again you probably do this too. But I have my clients submit photographs regularly. Yeah. And you look at these photographs and it's shocking when you have a good eye and you've been doing this a long time, how something that I will see? They don't even see the like, okay, well that worked well but let's do this in two weeks, you know, for the next photo shoot or let's do this. So you tweak things and you keep manipulating because if I could

Drive home. One thing that this ideology is that every human being is different than that. One of us is the same. None of us have the same DNA. We're all unique. So everybody needs something slightly unique with their programming. I did a lot of give a lot of people. Same workouts. Obviously weights are different, but when it comes to nutrition, let's let's shave off a few grams here. Let's tweak this.

Let's raise that. Oh well, you know, I totally screwed up on that carbs, don't work for you. Let's try this. So that works phenomenal. So we keep everything moving in the right direction and when you see constant, you know, graphs of people's weight loss coming down and down and down and they're keeping their lean mass and retaining the lean mass, which is the goal.

Then you know, you're moving in the right direction because what drives me crazy Did the scales, not drive, you nuts, the scales drive you insane, like, like body weight, scales are food skills, like body weight scales, like stepping on a scale that drives me insane because it's about body composition. Yeah, it's about retaining lean mass and removing body fat. Like I will literally have clients say, well, you know I look better in my clothes. My pictures look better.

I'm actually down a size but the scale hasn't moved. So this obviously isn't working. Yeah, that dress Bloods. That drives me nuts. The third grade math problem, I'll say okay. Okay, listen pumpkin, if you put on two pounds of lean tissue, you've made a spectacular change in your body composition. If you lose two pounds of body fat which believe it or not is very substantial amount of body

fat reduction. You're going to make a dramatic change in your overall physical appearance and how your clothes fit and how you feel, but the net result on that scale is zero. Hmm. So you want us, I tell people To burn their scale, take it to the gun range. Smash it have a scaled thrashing, party, whatever I make my clients submit photographs and circumference measurements because I don't give a crap about the scale because, you know, as well as I

do, it's about body composition. So what I'm looking at their numbers and I'm tweaking things as well, how can we retain this lean, beautiful sexy, gorgeous muscle and bring this body fat down to reveal that muscle and to give this woman or this man? The physique that they say, So long for and, you know, once you convince them of that and clear that fog and make them understand that then our job is so much easier.

Yeah, that totally agree. I'm definitely a fan of doing consistent weigh-ins but also in the context of the pictures in the measurements and the composition scans. I mean, it is all about composition where I find the benefit of the scale is if I'm tracking trend lines, I'm trying to see, you know, what what manipulations result in more water retention or something like that, you can see that and pictures as well. But Like that.

I see a benefit in the scale but people that put their entire measure of success waited in the scale weight alone. That's just a very flawed perception. Absolutely. And I get it as a metric of success and that definitely works. It's like the thing that so many people it's just it drives you crazy how the people's perception even at today's culture as intelligent as we are as incredible as technology has become, you know, it's like I like I'm sitting here right now

and I weigh 230 pounds. Pounds and I'm probably sitting somewhere around 10 or 11 percent body fat. I could go find 25 men. My age that weigh 230 pounds, line them up next to me and they're all going to look completely different, you know how that works and it's still 230 pounds, but the body composition is completely different. So it's such a people. Just don't, they don't think about that.

They don't run that through their computers, not if I have somebody who's You know, clinically obese. Then I think the scale is very important because you have to see those little victories. And if you are, you know, if you're at a point where you're, you know, you know, 40% 50% body fat then. Yeah, you want to see that reduction in the scale because then, you know, the compliance is where it needs to be from that individual. But when you're talking about somebody who's, you know,

visible abdominals. And you know, they're trying to tweak themselves video, absolute best, they can be there becomes a point. Where the scale becomes very arbitrary and now we have to start taking a harder. Look at that visual appearance and those circumference measurements and just putting an eye on these people. And that's where it really starts to come together. Totally, totally green. I want to get your take on macro adherence because this is a really hot topic as well.

I feel like, you know, from an intuitive instinctive, eating standpoint, you know, the the ketogenic low-carb diet is, is perfect for Able to just kind of, you know, strip away all the, the crazy fluctuations is going to get from a craving standpoint due to the insulin release. And if you're going to be intuitive and instinctive, you can do so much more easily on a low-carb, be judging that.

However, from a body re comp standpoint, like if people are really want to change the way they look lose a ton of body fat, gain a ton of muscle mass, especially if to the extent of like stepping on stage and being a competitive bodybuilder, I feel like so much of it. Hinges on one's ability to be disciplined and strict with macro adherence for a, you know,

defined period of time. So, I'm curious to see, you know, like, when you're working with clients, you know, what kind of window do you consider to be reasonable? Like, if you prescribe them certain macros for a week, you know what window outside of that range? Do you think is realistic or reasonable? That's a really, really good question. I think we have to step outside of that. Just one step And look at it as how can I put this?

Well, let me use an example. First of all, what you said about adherence with the ketogenic diet is so critical. And I'm glad you brought that up because we haven't covered it yet. I think it's Paramount when I was doing high carb, high protein, low fat, you know, eating when I was doing the bodybuilding, back in the 90s, it was so difficult when I I got to that point, where were you start cutting to start getting to that point of working towards being the leanest physique that you can?

And when you bring up the word suffering and diet, when you're you, when your body's use, you know, to that roller coaster, that glucose roller coaster. And then you all of a sudden subtract that nutrient, and then it becomes just an absolute sufferfest. One of the most beautiful things about a ketogenic style approach, is that I it was just floored me, is that I went to higher protein, moderate fat, low carb. My level of satiety was so incredible, it almost freaking me out.

It kind of scared the shit out of me because, you know, and I do believe in gain phase cut things. I believe, if you're trying to put on lean mass, you have to go into a slight Surplus. And then if you're trying to lose, you have to go into a deficit. And then if you're trying to get to that point of extreme physique, we're going to step up on stage.

You are you and I both know. No you and I both know it'll get to that point where you have to go very very you know deep into your deficit to get to where you want to be. Yeah, the bizarre thing that I found and discovered back in 2015, when I prep for that first show was when I went down. Even I was getting to the point where I was taken in like, you know, 17 1800 calories. And this is for, you know, 220-pound guy. I still had a level of satiety

that blew me away. I mean, I Back in the 90s. If I went down to 1800 calories, to try to get shredded, I would be absolutely crying miserable like like yelling at people beating people up wanting to sleep all day. I hate my life screw you, you know, offending people. And when I went to a ketogenic style diet and I flipped the script from, you know, carbohydrate and fat and kind of flip those nutrients. My level of satiety went through

the roof. So in terms of got dietary adherence to, you know, that entire our protocol that ideology has been invaluable in working with clientele to adhere to the diet. Now, the downside is receipts and I'll admit that and we talked about that you said that's not necessarily your thing and I get it and it's not always necessary. Re fades in my thing, I do refuse but they're ketogenic colloquy feeds more so than the Carberry feeds so they're similar but different.

Sure. So what I found is the only downside is you have to be at a high level of adherence and discipline because when you tell somebody, okay, Sunday, I want you to have 250 grams of carbohydrate, and I want to want you to drop your fat down to 30 grams. And I want those carbohydrates to come from sweet potatoes, cream of rice, you know, brown rice, you know, traditional nutrient, dense, bodybuilding sort of carbohydrate nutrient for lack of a better term. Nutrient dense.

What? We know how that is. Yeah and then that certain you get that certain eventual that has okay I've just had sweet potato that I had some rice with my chicken at lunch and then I had you know, whatever potato with dinner and then that potato turned into ice cream. And then it was, you know, like like like, pinning, my daughter against the wall and stealing her french fries and then like, rating the house at three am looking for jars of Nutella.

Yeah and then you know, two days later you see the guy sitting in an alley panhandling for carbs and sugar so you have to be very aware of the individual that you're working with that. They can have that mental discipline at that point in time to adhere to that. So you know, you have to be careful. It's a slippery slope and so I know I got off track a little bit with your question, but it brought up a sort of a greater point that I think what needed

to be said that the ketogenic. It principles have been absolutely invaluable with that level of satiety, and that dietary adherence. And the one thing I would say is, you know, a lot of the ketogenic people out there saying, you know, fat is the most satiating nutrient. Well, the science suggests, otherwise, that protein is has a little higher level of satiety and I would agree with that.

But I think, when you combine the two with the absence of carbohydrate the level of dietary adherence, Becomes so much easier than the old school carbohydrate approach.

Now we're I like to bring in the carbohydrates to touch on another quick topic, is a lot of people in the ketogenic Community, talk about insulin like it's this evil horrific thing that you never want to get near where I would argue that if you're trying to build lean mass and the most extreme muscular physique that you can, you do want to have periods of insulin secretion to maximize Has the ability to gain and maintain lean muscle mass because it plays a role.

Does that make sense? Yeah, it does play room. Totally. I mean it's weird that people villainize insulin in the the ketogenic space may not everyone. But I mean instance, a pretty important hormone in our body. So it's not like we want to just disbanded it completely. There's like, again, there's a dichotomy to every single thing that we're talking about here. Right. Right. Absolutely. And the points you're making are absolutely perfect. And I think they need to be

said, so any and you're right? We agree on so many things, but we're not completely lockstep. And that's the beautiful thing about this and I'm so glad that you're, you know, thousands and thousands of listeners out there, hearing this. To listen, guys, you don't have to be just I'm on this camp or I'm on this Camp. There's something to be learned

from both. Now, once again, the, the crazy, you know, butter chugging two sticks of butter in my coffee, you know, in fast for the next nine days. People, I can't get on board with that, but the absence of carbohydrate and then, you know, the adherence to that nutrient,

dense, fat. And the high protein for the maintaining, the maintenance of muscle tissue and the growth of tissue Etc. I mean it makes perfect sense and So many people don't understand how you can combine the worlds of strength training and bodybuilding and that extreme physique culture with ketogenic principles is beyond me because it's just a simple look at some of the science dictates that it the marriage really actually works perfectly

together. If you go back to the Golden Era of bodybuilding like Vince gironda, the dude was eating like three dozen eggs a day. You know, you talk about Arnold Schwarzenegger Was like, if you asked him what his perfect meal was the, dude always said, steak and eggs. And again, for those people out there, I'm not.

I'm not one of these keto cheesecake cookie dough pizza, Kita. I've always said, why don't one of my tenants one of my Commandments is, is the first thing that you do when going key do is start looking for keto versions of the shit that got you into this mess in the first place, you're screwing up. Okay, that's not going to work.

So, when I think of Carb ketogenic, Primal ancestral, Health Nutrition, I'm thinking steak eggs, chicken fish, salmon, avocados, healthy omega-3, oils nutrient-dense, quality fat foods that are actually going to give you a net positive results with not only the ability to build and maintain muscle. But your overall hormonal Health, longevity, Vitality, all of these things, it's not just about, you know, figuring out how to Change the crust on your damn pizza to adhere to some bullshit.

Ketogenic lifestyle that you read about Shape magazine, total agreement. Totally totally agree. Sorry for the language. But you know when Slimfast has a keto freaking Shake, even don't you see through that shit immediately. I mean, they're just trying to sell you some more processed garbage and lend to your inability to take your Anywhere it needs to be while they've had their wallets. These people don't care about

your results. I don't care about your health and fitness they sit in their boardroom talking about how they can increase advertising dollars and Pad their damn wallets and make their shareholders happy. They don't give two shits about you losing weight on your health.

So you're going to talk to people like yourself, you got to talk to people about like me and other fantastic people in our community so we can band together and work together to try to change the culture whether it's to be the step on stage. Age that me this ripped amazing freaking machine or just, you know, the local, you know, your grandmother who needs to stay away or morbid obesity.

So you can hover around for another 20 years to give wisdom to your grandchildren, kind of percent man. I think, you know, it's strange because there's so much in common with in the low-carb, keto Community, you know whether it's higher protein, higher fat, I mean, it's all built on a very Miller Foundation that I get so frustrated seeing all this, you know, like Cutthroats disparity between the groups that are all at the end of the day in the same subculture to begin with.

I mean, I wish they would all just sit down and have a conversation band together and what they have in common and recognized that where they have differences is oftentimes just you know personal preference by own individuality something probably be improved upon here and there but for the most part we're all speaking the same language so banding together and fighting The same fight is is key. You know, Paramount of importance. Are you doing? Good on time, I do have one more

question for you. Oh, I'm totally good on time. I don't have a life. What are you talking about? I'm going to gyp. Well, in that case, I'll bring up two topics, the butter chugging thing. You know, it's interesting because I feel like there's, I've often been pegged as this high fat, low protein guy which I've fought tooth and nail from from the beginning.

Because I've it, This is weird, you know, pendulum shift in the keto space in which people have become fearful of protein for, you know, the sake of it, decreasing their Beach be count on a blood meter, which is a massive frustration for me. I mean, protein is so incredibly important. And yes, there is a period of time during the very latter part

of a prep. We all have my protein down, very low relative to my fat intake, but I am all for consuming a lot of protein that right now, for instance, I want to building phase and I had 225 grams of protein. Yes. So that's pretty high protein for something that weighs 180 pounds. While we're like brothers, then, you know, we're like brothers than. That's, exactly right?

I mean, here's what I would say about that is you have I'll get these people that come to me and talk about their taking a super high amounts of fat but they tell me that their goal is to drop body fat. So I told them okay, thermodynamics is still up thing, energy balance is still a thing hormones, do play a role and each macaron. Trent differs from the other macronutrient, you know, we have, you know, protein has a, you know, higher thermic effect.

You know, that that differs as well as well as carbohydrates do. But my thing is this and it's almost become a catch phrase within the people within my group. And the people that work with me and follow me, if you're number one, goal is the reduction of body fat. That's your goal and your taking in fat in the excess of what your body needs for energy. Energy output to consume for energy output, which is the purpose of it. You know why?

I always ask a question, I always say, give me an answer. Would you rather burn the butter in your coffee? Or would you rather burn the fat on your ass? To this day. Nobody has said anything other than ass fat. So, you know, if you take in fat in excess of more than your body needs for, you know, output and energy, then any unused fat, like any other, you know, nutrient is going to store. Now the one slight exception to that rule is protein protein has a job to do.

It doesn't necessarily want to convert to body fat of the three macronutrients in terms of body fat, Version fat can convert to body fat fairly easily. Carbohydrates can definitely convert to body fat fairly easily. That's why we have to watch the amount of fat that we take in and use it for constructive purposes. Whereas protein wants to break down into amino acids, it wants to fuel and wants to repair and replenish the body wants to build muscle. That's its goal.

It is like this little construction workers that slap on their hard hats. It's closed up. Their lunch pail stamp out their cigarettes, and they're ready to get to work. Protein has a job to do of all the three major macronutrients. The one that is the most least likely to convert to body fat, who has the highest you know, thermic effect of food is protein.

So that's why people like, you know, competitive bodybuilders for as long as you and I can possibly remember go very, very high on their protein and, you know, back in the 70s and 80s, they would go moderate fat, and very, very low carb on their preps. And then that kind of shifted a little bit little bit in the 90s, but they were still very cognizant and aware of the amount. They were taken in, to make sure here's that word again, but it doesn't spill over. You have to be aware of that.

But the one nutrient macronutrient that there's little awareness, put toward in terms of storing, his body fat is protein. So, and, you know, there's some great. Listen, I'm the boots on the ground. I'm like, the The guy out there you know he's got blood stains on his fatigues, you know, marching with my troops out on the bloody dirty Battlefield, taking them to war. That's what I do. There are other guys out there a lot more intelligent with me that the lane Norton's of the world.

The Marty candles of the world that said Naamans of the world. So many others that I could list that I've forgotten. Even Dom D'Agostino that would tell you the same damn thing. You know. It's not just about consuming fat with the Reckless abandon, it's about being very disciplined. Your fat intake to make sure that you're getting the required amount that you need without it spilling over. And then letting protein just do

its damn job. Okay. And then people talk about oh gluconeogenesis gluconeogenesis. Well we also know through the science that gluconeogenesis is demand-driven, not supply driven so you don't have to be terrified of it. Like so many people are, that's another major misconception in the key to world that if you're taking in all this protein, is just going to immediately transform into glucose, you know. Protein does not turn into gummy bears.

That's not what it does. Yeah but we've been led to us. So once again, you know you're definitely on the same page. I think I'm on the same page so we kind of find the nuances between those macronutrients that work best for our level of output and energy. Now, I'm a 230-pound guy. I'm a big guy. I always have it out of 11 pound baby with big-ass, broad shoulders at nearly killed. My mom coming out, you know, and I put on weight, like I, I'm a self. Listen, I'm not naive.

And I tell, every young guy that I meet good. Please listen to me young kid. Please. It's about genetics. It's about work, ethic, and you have to kill yourself. Don't for a minute, think it's about anything else so, you know, it's definitely your. What is your stage? Wait, when I'm a lot lighter than you. I come on stage at like one between 157 and 165. Depending on what look I'm going

for. Okay. So your between 115 165 and And the and 219 I was at 2:13, you know, I was a heavyweight, we're two completely different individuals, but the same thing remains. We have to find the right. Nuance between those macronutrients that work best for our level of output. Our size, our genetics are body weight. I mean, so many things come into it goes all the way back to.

What we started talking about. 45 minutes ago, every unique individual has unique needs and you have to find out what those needs are and Take them and turn the levers of twist the knobs until you find the right formula. That works for those individuals. Totally, totally green. I want to I want to pull the curtain back on something. You said here because I feel like this is a point of contention. Amongst a large part of my audience and likely large part

of your audience. I'm like, people say, you know you don't want to eat a bunch of dietary fat. If your primary goal is to lose body fat and I understand what they're saying. I typically don't like that Viewpoint because I've always He's viewed it to the sense of like what I'm doing a prep. For instance, I'll have a very high fat ratio and I'm cutting body fat, like crazy.

I'm taking a lot of dietary fat more dietary fat real to the protein by a long shot, and I'll still be losing body fat. So, if it was just that, that wouldn't necessarily apply to me and I'm assuming that I'm not like a, you know, the one person the world with that would apply to. However this is where this is what we're going to. Wow some people here so much of it hinges on metabolism.

So if somebody is Consuming like somebody's down regular their Metabolism from chronic under eating and they're only consuming 1000 calories that they're trying to can't maintain a high fat ratio like 75 percent or greater, they're not going to be consuming near enough protein to to be healthy.

Whereas if you get a very high functioning metabolic rate due to having a period of a building phase like you when you were talking about earlier you're going to have a lot more caloric Runway from which to taper from going forward and you can maintain a high fat ratio while still. Zooming, totally adequate protein. Like I don't want to be ever pegged as a low-protein guy. I'm the adequate protein guy. There's periods.

I have high protein a or have low protein, but depending on the goal that goes up and down my whole view, towards the high fat percentage is that if my primary fuel source is coming from dietary fat, and I'm consuming a lot of dietary fat, my body's efficiency at using fat, as a fuel source is heightened where that's dietary fat or stored body fat. But all the while I'm consuming adequate protein.

So I think this would be a good You know, I want to just kind of run with it for a second on the importance of having periods in a surplus to ramp up metabolism because no matter what protocol you're following. Whether it be high fat moderate protein or high protein moderate fat. If your metabolism is screwed at the onset, you're just shooting yourself in the foot with a ton of caloric restriction. Oh absolutely, I would 100% agree with that.

I have clients that I've have, well, I've got one client who's fat is higher than their 18. But I've got a handful who are equal very much equal and it works so well for them and they are lighter leaner high metabolism, kind of guys. And I would 100% agree with that. I am. I am one of these people, you know, I'm a bigger guy and I am a self-professed. What's the term I always use? Well, I look at a weight. I put on muscle, I've always been that way.

I'm a hyper responder with with that comes. If I am not on my game, I put on fat quickly and easily, okay? So I have to be very, very cognizant of that. And I 100% agree with your premise and don't ever, I don't want anybody to confuse the fact. They think that I'm don't think my moderate fat take. Don't confuse that for low fat by any stress because when I first set somebody's intake, Oftentimes you know, fat has nine calories per gram to proteins for.

So even though the G are considerably different, when you look at the percentages, they often equal out, that make sense. Yep, exactly. So when I'm working with somebody, especially on a gain fence for sure or even at maintenance support, when working with somebody at maintenance, which I usually start them out at maintenance and then grow them into a game

face. There's a term that I like to use called growing into the diet when you put somebody at Maintenance calories and you up their intensity and the gym and you change your level of training and you manipulate their macros, they will grow into that diet to wear those initial macros that you set. Have to be altered or manipulated because they've added some lean tissue and drop some body fat so they sort of grow into the diet.

So, you know, you can look, if you look at some of these macros on my app, like all of my clients, get this very, very cool app that they use to track everything, you know, somebody might be at, you know, No, 47 percent protein, and 46 percent fat. That's that's not that's not low fat, it's just but if you look at the G, if you're not educated on this, you think oh, look how much lower the fat is in the protein. Well, you know, elementary

school stuff here. Don't you don't forget, it's nine calories per gram opposed to 4. So I'll often start you out nearly equally in terms of percentages. But if you look at the G, there's a stark difference because of the calories per gram. That seems to work very well, then if I take somebody into a gain phase, there's even been

times for that. Percentage is in the is in the greater column with the fat, just depends on what the human being can tolerate, what their metabolism is you know all of these things that you mentioned. So I would I would 100% agree with that. Once again we've realized that we're not very far off here. It's working with each individual's unique needs to create the most you know the greatest. Just body composition that we can muscle is a premium. You lack of muscle is a bad

thing. Always 100 percent body fat is bad. Always 100%. You do need some. I'm not I'm not being ridiculous here obviously, you know, I always tell my client, I was clients and you know, them that get super, super lean, you get a guy that gets sub 10 percent. You get a woman that gets like sub 14%. And they love the way they look and like I'm going to live this way you around. No you're not because that's crazy and we need to think about

your health. So we bring them back up to a desirable maintenance and bring them back to a healthy body fat percentage and give them a diet break for God's sake. And then we look at, you know, because of what I do with my clients, I look at everything as a season and we take you through again. We might be a take you through a maintenance diet break. When we met I take you through a cut will achieve a goal. We will reset read manipulate and then we will start the process.

Again, I mean, that's just the way that I look at it. That's just the way I'm wired and so far, my clientele loves that approach. It's not for everybody. Some people want to be think they want to be set on the same macros. The same caloric ceiling and live that way year-round. And if we do that and that works for you, great, I'm all for that. If the clients happy I'm happy. But, you know, as well as I do. How many happy clients you have 12 months out of the year?

I mean come on I mean isn't it all literally on a weekly basis? You can have somebody who's that eight pack abs looks amazing. Vascular chiseled just just ridiculous and they're going to find flawed because that's just the way our minds work. You know if you're getting if you're coming to the end of a prep, your two weeks out, everybody in the gym says, oh, Robert you look absolutely stunning. You're going to crush this. Nobody's close to you.

You look in the mirror, you see Napoleon Dynamite, that's just the way our brains work. Okay. We all see that, you know, we all see the flaws, we all have clients that will send me a pic and say, I look fluffy, I look fat. I look like absolute dog, shit. I don't know what the hell's going on and they are chiseled and ripped and amazing and muscular and vascular and just just Exquisite. So I've got to talk him off. The damn ledge explained to them in 13 paragraphs.

Why you're being too hard on yourself? You look amazing and then hopefully they'll see the logic behind my the way I'm talking to them but I'm getting I'm going off into the weeds again. I do that. Now I totally agree man. The grass always looks greener on the other side especially like when you're in a certain phase like when you're at the at the end of a cutting phase.

Like all you can think about is getting into your bulking phase and as soon as you get in too much of a surplus and you're like a little bit fluffier but you're hitting new PR. You're like man, I can't wait to get into another cut. It's like people never wanted fully embrace the phase. They're in Exactly. They, they never want to pull a. I mean, I went to I'm 15 weeks out from my first competition, and then I go to Nationals a month after that.

So I've got a national qualifier on June the 19th, and that I've got Masters Nationals in Pittsburgh, on, I believe it's June the 23rd. So, when I made that shift where, you know, I went through my best, what, I call gain phase, I believe in my life, and I'm stunned. I was able to do that at 52 years old, you know, how that works muscle memory muscle maturity? You know, it all builds up over the years.

So I was very, very pleased with what, the level I was able to take my physique but then, you know, I got up to my greatest body weight of all time without being fat because of a ketogenic principles that I use back in the 90s. If I got to 240 pounds, I'd have been a fatass. Yep. Ketogenic principles that I've used in adopted. I'm able to get to 240 pounds and still Have lightly visible abdominals but holy crap, you know, you've been there. So you know, then you make that

shift into, okay, I'm cutting. Now, I've done the math. So now it's time to taper and make that transition. And then when you make that transition every week basically brings something slightly different slightly new as you do the calculations bringing you into that first show, and what's the first thing you start thinking? I'm shrinking, I'm getting small, you know, even though you're looking Better because you're chiseling away the body fat. We're not filling out the shirts

like you did. You don't, you're not the big guy in the gym anymore, like, all damn, I'm shrinking and I gone too hard. If I go too fast, don't need to slow it down. You know, do I need to eat a potato? You know, you know, and you start questioning everything. So you just kind of surround yourself with good people. Have that second set of eyes. That guy that I mentioned when we first started talking, but seems like hours ago, still helps me to this.

Stay the guy that got me into training million. Back into back in 1993, still walks into this gym today and on Fridays and said, all right, take a shirt off. Let's have a look at you. He's now an NPC judge nice and he'll walk in and say all right, you know what I'm here and I'm going to take my damn shirt off and I'll take my shirt off and I'll walk through my mandatory poses. And you'll say, you know, very very calmly, you're good. I like this, that's looking good there.

You have more density in your back, your lat. A little wider I like the striations in. Yeah, I like the separation in your hams and quads things are going well. Okay, we're going to do this. He's basically my opposing coach because I suck at that. So he's like okay so you're going to do these poses every day for the next week you're going to hold each one for 30

seconds. And when you're not looking like, you're a quivering fish about to die, they're going to take that to 20 seconds and he holds me accountable to that and he gives me that second pair of eyes. So when I'm looking in the mirror and I see nothing but shit, he looks at me and says Yeah, yeah. You're coming along great. You're going to, you're going to dominate this. You're doing awesome. Don't change a damn thing. Don't screw this up. Don't be stupid. Okay, thanks.

And then he leaves and that's all I needed to hear and then I carry on carry on. So, yeah, that's huge. Managed to Simply having some some additional accountability and a second set of eyes, to kind of. Give you give your put your mind at ease is so so important. Oh, no doubt, man. No, doubt, you've been through it. Well, shoot, man. I could probably sit and talk to any of the three hours or so.

But Respect for your time. We got to do around to them and because I feel like there's so many questions that still have four. I love to get your take on some things, we need to like get together in person and do like a full-blown workout, and then record a podcast. Yeah, we need to get together, train, record, that shit and

show those people out there. Hey, we may be a little off at where the same damn, you know, or part of the same network were part of the same club, we dominate the same space, and I think that would be great for people to see. I would love that. And I would be honored to be back on your show at any time and hey I don't know if you knew this or not but I've got a little podcast myself and I would be absolutely honored if you'd be my guest so I could pick your shit apart. Yeah man.

Come in 100%. Let's just get it on the books and make it happen. I would love that, man. I would love that and I really appreciate it. It's phenomenal being on your show. Well, I'd certainly appreciate having you on here. Where can people go to? Listen to your podcast and find more about you, man. It's the ketogenic bodybuilding

podcast. It's on all major platforms, iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio Google all of it and everything you need to know about me. Is that Rob good one.com our, OB G OD wi n and that's got all my coaching on it. It's got links to everything that I do if you're not a member of the ketogenic bodybuilding, Facebook group do a quick search on that the links are also on my website would love to have you

as a member. It's a great supportive group and I just started Only because I'm old and I'm slow about these things. There's now a ketogenic bodybuilding Instagram page. It's just simply at ketogenic bodybuilding on Instagram. Would love to have some of your listeners come over. I'd love some of their feedback and because I know we're all kind of like minded and I would just be honored to sort of merge.

Our universe has 100% man. Well, I will certainly link out to all of those sites and loved get on your podcast and we can dive even deeper and I'll have you back on my show. Will get a workout schedule, man. I would love that man. Please stay in touch and I think I sent you my number so give me a call and give me your number and we'll connect and I would love to continue some of these conversations. That sounds great to me man. Take care of I would love that man.

Please stay in touch and I think I sent you my number so give me a call and give me your number and we'll connect and I would love to continue some of these conversations. That sounds great to me man. Take care of