A good a team. You're bloody champions. Welcome to another installment of the You Projector's harps Craig Anthey harp alive from the thriving metropolis, Well not live, live as I speak, but recorded as you hear, I guess, from the thriving metropolis of Melbourne. Now today's guest I had on a long time ago. I don't even know. I should have looked it up. I probably should have had a re listen.
But it was fucking two hundred years ago when we were just baby stepping the whole podcast experience, and now we're old, now we're old hands at it. It would have been a good four or five years ago, I think. Damon Hayhowe, Hi buddy, how are you?
Eh mate? Great to hear your Ossie accent. I was listening to the show last night and the first thing that struck me was just, you know, seeing as I haven't been there for a few years, like, whoa so Australian?
So yeah, good to hear you man. Which one we're listening to? Can you remember was it a solo one or was there a guest?
It was the solo one and you said some pretty profound stuff that I found quite interesting, so it was good. It was the most recent one, sixteen eighty nine. I think it was.
Oh good, I'm glad you listen. Thank you. Hey. So for my listeners who don't know who you are, which I would think at this my point in time might be the majority, give us a bit of a snapshot of who you are and what you do, and then I don't know, we'll see wherever the fuck we go.
Yeah. Well, I'm a guy who lifted some heavy weights and took off his clothes and flexed his muscles in front of some people, and they said, you're pretty good, and they handed me some trophies for that. And so then I went and somehow started a business teaching other people how to lift heavy weights and take off their clothes and flex their muscles. And people seem to like that. And then I started an organization to credit people who were professional at teaching people how to lift heavy weights
and take off their clothes and flex their muscles. And then I built a piece of software that helps direct people lifting heavyweights and taking off the clothes and flexing their muscles, which allowed me to bail on Melbourne during COVID because screw that and live anywhere else in the world that I chose to. So that's my life story.
And have you been in the same place the whole time or do you move? Like where are I actually don't know the answer to this question everyone. Where are you at the moment?
Right now? I'm in my apartment in Tabilisi, Georgia, just south of Russia, where they've just had the elections, and I've been watching all of the really interesting NATO EU US interference in the election and all sorts of intrigue and stuff that you don't really hear about on the news, but you understand what's going on. And prior to that, I was in Dubai, So I've had a place in Dubai and I've been splitting my time between the two
of them. Was in East Anbul and Turkey for a little while when I first left Australia and I absolutely love that place, just absolutely fab the city. Went to Serbia for a little while, and yeah, a couple of other places it's been in terms of living, It's been to Blasi and Dubai.
What why to Bleisi? Like what where? How do you end up in Georgia? And I'm not Georgia, the state in America, Georgia, the country near Georgia, the small little country. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Basically it was you know when the COVID thing happened, and it was a case of I need to find a place where primarily minimal government fuckery and recently communists so they know never to go back to that bullshit. So as different to Australia and particularly Melbourne as it possibly could, and so to Bleisy, I mean, fascinating story how it came along completely corrupt. They didn't even have running water or electricity. Twenty four hour I was a
day back in the late nineties. Guy came to power after a US coup and you know, view an EU and all the rest of it. You've got to take out the IMF loans, blah blah blah. And he said, now screw that, and he got a libertarian to interview the heads of every government department and they gutted seventy five percent of the government, just fired them all, closed down the departments, sacked the entire police force top to bottom, like overnight, you're all fired. You can't can't be rehired.
We're going to hire a new police force. Went from one of the most corrupt and in opportune countries in the world to top ten in Europe in a space of two years. Was back to profitability and budget surpluses within the first twelve months, and they wrote into the constitution there are five taxes and you cannot increase the taxes without an actual referendum around the country. So this is just one of the freest countries in the world.
You can as an Australian New Zealander, you can come here twelve months visa on arrival, no messing around with anything like that. If you earn your income overseas and you pay no tax locally. The government is so efficient it's not funny. The government's like no government I've ever dealt with in that there's one public service building. You go there for everything. The people are polite, attractive, they help you, they get everything together for you. It's it's it's just really free and easy.
So yeah, fucking you should work for them. You're like the best pr This is terrible. But what is the population or do you know the population Off the top of.
It's about four million, and Tbilisi, which is the capital, we've got about a mill a million and a half here.
And how big is it, let's say, compared to I don't know Victoria. Geographically, it's pretty small.
I guess it's a small ish country. I need to really look at the map to compare the sizes of places. I mean, it's bigger than some European countries and not as big as others. So it's probably like Victoria and New South Wales. Off the top of my head, I might be way off, but it's now the tiny, tiny country.
That is so fucking interesting. See when you said ten minutes ago, what are we talking about? I said, mate, let's not plan And here we are talking about Pelisi and Georgia and my potential relocation out of Australia. See your mom and dad, how did you How did you find out about it? Like, did somebody talk to you and say, mate, you've got to check this joint out? Did we you just online fucking around going what's the best place in the world to live that nobody knows about? Yeah?
When I mean when I first for me the COVID thing, COVID was just the last straw and I was really embarrassed, to be honest, and annoyed it myself that I hadn't seen the writing on the wall so much earlier because I was so miserable and so angry all the time, trying to run a small business in Australia and just always fighting the system, like, as you know, business is hard enough as it is without except the business part wasn't the problem. The problem was just fighting bureaucracy and
stupid crap. And when COVID happens, like what the hell am I doing here? It's like it's the most expensive country in the world. The government is just absolutely out of control. I've had government officers say to me, we proudly we crush many dreams around these parts, and that's that was the attitude. What am I doing? So I went on to just full time. Where do I go?
I got to get out of here. It was during COVID and that was the hardest part, so I was Initially I went to Turkey because at the time, people Turkey wasn't being a dick about COVID, and I could if I left Australia and went to Europe they would lock me up for two weeks. So I went to Turkey first. By the time I got to Turkey, it's if you come from Turkey, We're going to lock you up for two weeks. If you came from Australia, you'd
be fine. So I wound up stuck. Yeah, I wound up sort of stuck in Turkey, which I which turned out. I absolutely love that country. Istanbul is just amazing. Anyway, I was. I was planning to go to a little country in between Spain and France, tiny little micro state and same sort of situation, no taxes if your income isn't isn't local, you know, minimal government, YadA, YadA, YadA. But I couldn't get in because it was trapped between
Spain and France. So then kept looking around. Serbia was on the list, Malaysia was on the list, as in Kuala Lumpur I've been before and I like and Georgia was one of those countries where minimal government fuckery, no tax crap if you set yourself up right. Yeah, So it was just.
Have you like, it's it's very rare that somebody is just gonna you know, like a lot of people think about what you're doing, and to me it sounds really attractive, but the chance of me doing it next to fucking zero. Maybe because I'm a big pussy maybe who knows, but like very few people will actually get up and go and do that. It's like you have a little bit of a global identity less than a national identity, and in a good way.
I think, Well, I'm a Kiwi and so it's I think most of us unfortunately absolutely beautiful country and I'm a hugely proud Kiwi, but I wouldn't want to live there, and so Australia was already my second home. I've never felt any sense of displacement where other people have talked about travel before. It's like, I don't care where I am. It's a piece of dirt and there's people, and people are mostly the same everywhere you go in a certain sense.
Most people are very nice and hospital foods different in every part of the world, but you know, the good stuff's always good.
So yeah, So what do you do over there? Mate? How do you make No? Do you need to make dough? I don't know. Like, by the way, Damon and I haven't spoken for about five years, so like literally apart from this call right now, so I don't even know what he did. He could be a fucking trillionaire. I don't know. But are you still Are you still working? And if you are, what do you do? Yeah?
So the software that I was doing when I was when we were chatting earlier years ago, that's still going. So that's been thirteen odd years now. So that's my source of income that allows me to leave and go anywhere in the world that I want to do and keep on working, you know, the laptop lifestyle, so to speak. But that said, one of the other benefits of TBLISI and one of the other things I was looking for, was just that lower cost of living than what you
have to suffer in Australia. And you come here, you can get technically temporary residence, but you get residency in the country if you spend one hundred thousand dollars on a property and one hundred dollars yeah, yeah, and one hundred thousand dollars on a property. Here is a nice place. You know. The deposit on a on a on a on an apartment in Melbourne will buy you a good place in Georgia.
It's I'll do even I mean, I don't know what it is, but it's it's. The median house price in Melbourne is it's around a million dollars. It's ridiculous.
Yeah, yeah, it is now, Yeah, it's it's.
It's it's and what you say, it's what and what you get for a million dollars is.
Live in it. Yeah.
Some friends of mine who are not rich, they're just you know, a couple mid mid thirties to kids. They just bought a by one say where but out like out out out. I think they spent one point twenty five million and it's in their words, it needs two hundred and fifty grand spent on it to make it nice. And it's not a palace. I mean, it's just a I don't know, maybe three or four bedroom brick house from the eighties and it was like fucking hell like that. Anyway,
let's not do the real estate thing. And so you moved by yourself. You didn't move with anyone. You didn't move with friends, family, partner or anything.
Just you, not just me.
Yep. So when you move to the other side of the world and you go to a place where no one knows you, obviously the world's a bit smaller in terms of connectivity these days, of course, yes, but are difference. Yeah, where do you start, like, what do you like Okay, now you're in Georgia. Now you're in this very small country on the other side of the world. Like language, culture, sociology, where do you live, fucking money, where do you start?
This is the other thing is that it's it's so easy now.
You know.
It's like you want a place to stay, you go on Airbnb and you find a place to stay. English has spoken, you know, most parts of the world you'll find people who speak English. But everything's on apps. You want to travel, you use Uber or the local taxi app. Shopping malls are everywhere, supermarkets are everywhere. They've all got the same, the same shit everywhere that you go. You know, in Dubai you're buying Australian beef for the same price
as Australian beef costs in Australia. In the supermarket, you know, it's the same. And gyms are the same everywhere. You know, there's Tbilisi's a small, poor country, but it's still I'm training on the same hammer strength equipment you know that you that you do anywhere else in the world. It's like they're gyms here are seriously nice, modern, Everything you
could possibly want, you've got. You know, just jeans and all the usual American chain things are in every single country in the world, along with your Louis Vuittons and your blah blah blah. So it's and you know, the other thing is that it's connecting the internet. Here I pay, you know, my internet. I'm talking to you on right now. I think I've got about two hundred megabits per second and it costs me about unlimited, costs me about eight dollars a month.
That is crazy. When you say I'm sorry everyone for gone down. I feel like this is a very self indulgent conversation because usually I'm very aware of the audience and what they might want to hear. But fuck it, Hopefully you're interested in what I'm interested in. Did you say before that you can buy a place for like a hundred grand?
Yeah? Yeah. So I'm actually in a one of the landmark building of Tabilisi. It was built by the Saudi Arabians, and then the opposite officey tower thing to it, we've got Deloittees and Microsoft and all of those sorts of things. So this is the upper echelon building and I got in at a good time, but I got a one hundred and seven square me a corner apartment with wrap around glass, you know, all the mods stuff for one hundred and sixty eight grand.
God, God, what flora you want? What flora you on?
I'm only on the eleventh floor, but you know.
So you're living in You're living in a very very fancy apartment, which is.
A beautiful apartment. Yeah, spectacular, beautiful building.
Yea one hundred and sixty eight grand will buy you our.
Brand new glass tower. There's a there's a beautiful restaurant on the on the opposite building. You go up to and you've just got three hundred and sixty degree views of the entire city all lit up. You can see up and down the river that runs through to Bleasy and up over the mountains. It's beautiful, you know, it's really nice.
And how on earth is that country economically viable? Like that seems like that would be worth more than that to build.
It would seem wages alone. So I mean, like I said, it's a poor country, but you need to look at where it came from as of only twenty five years ago, thirty years ago, where it was, like I said, they didn't even have running water or electricity. Twenty four hours per day, So they've come a long way in a short time, but it's still a country with it's still a poorer country. So I'm not saying that you'd want to be born here to a typical average person and
that you'd live like a king or anything. But when you're coming from Australia, it's sort of like what you spend on your car parking will pay for a really nice apartment rental here.
Yeah, so have you made this is a dumb question, but have you made friends over there? Mate? Or is all your all your relationships primarily online or.
Have you got a social network? Like I say, you make friends everywhere. Everywhere people are very much the same. I mean, you really feel that in Dubai you've have you been to Dubai or spend anything? No, no, no, oh dude, you have to go to Dubai at some point like Mars.
Yeah, it's I feel like I feel like Tblisi is probably more in my budget.
Well, the other thing about Dubai. When I went to Dubai, I was so that the short version of the story was that I wanted to come to Georgia. I'd got an airbnb and I found out the day before I was flying that I couldn't go to Georgia without a special invite from the government, so I contacted the because of COVID, so I contacted the airbnb host and I said, mate, I can't come, and he's like, that's all right, I'm friends with Minister of the Interior. I'll get you a
formal invite. Less than an hour later, I get this email through official Georgian government letterhead from the Minister of the Interior cordially inviting Damon hayhow to Tblisi is a special guest of the minister.
So that is it's a wonder you don't have some kind of government position. You've been there a year, I should do.
That was the first friend that I made, and he was just, you know, the most generous, hospitable, hospitable guy you could possibly imagine. Took us around to the Georgian restaurants. The restaurants for anyone who's a foodie, which you know Melbourne obviously people are. You would just absolutely well, you'd put on a lot of weight in Georgia. Let's just say that the food is incredible, it's cheap, and he would take us around to these Georgian restaurants and just
feed us up like like the Greeks. Do you know. It's like if there's a spot on the table that doesn't have food on it, then someone needs to put food there very quickly.
I'm really interested in your lifestyle, so I love this kind of this different, you know, kind of paradigm of work life lifestyle, working for yourself. So how many how many hours a day on average would you work? Do you reckon?
I honestly couldn't tell you, because it's always for my entire working life, it's always blended in with life like they kind of intersect and they go together. You know, my hobby is going to the gym, but it's also my career in my life, you know. So the people that I speak to are generally most of my best friends are people that work in the industry and all the rest. So so I don't know workers there from the time I wake up in the morning and check the emails to the time I go to bed at night,
and I do whatever I want in between. It's I've always seen work as part of life rather than you know, this is my work time and this is my free time. So I don't remember me.
I remember hearing about you. You were like this fucking you were like this enigmatic character. You were like the.
Dark into the extreme.
You were like the dark overlord of the fitness industry or something, and you just like surround undered by mystery. And I'd never I don't think we'd ever really met. And then I met. I came to Recomp. Is that what your place was called? Recomp?
Yes?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And what a fucking amazing facility, by the way, just thank you. World class, beautiful, amazing, like standalone, incredible center in wherever it was in the city in Melbourne, and met you. I don't know if we met before that, but I definitely had a chat to you, and I'm like, this guy's a fucking champ, you know. Not that I feel like not that, not that I heard a lot of bad stuff. It was just like you were, yeah, this enigma and because you gave no fucks about keeping
anyone happy. I was probably a bit of a people pleaser because I was fucking insecure and you know, the ex fat kid, and I wanted people and you were like, not not fuck that, he's a dickhead. That's good, that's bad. This is I'm like, fuck, this guy has got no filter. But it's kind of sexy. Well it is, it's fucking you know. It's like even challenging the status quo in the fitness industry in terms of I think we spoke about this five years ago, but qualifications and accreditation and
all of that. You're like, it's kind of bullshit because you know, it's not really worth the paper it's written on.
In some ways, Absolutely, yeah, and there's a there's a whole you know, Like I say to so many of the personal trainers at the time, you know, do you do you really think that the police are going to come and arrest you for exercising with a friend in the gym because you didn't pay a registration fee to Fitness Australia, Like, seriously, what are you talking about? You can't work without this thing?
Who are they?
You know? And it's always that case of if you're going to tell me something, I'm going to process whether or not it makes sense, and if it doesn't make sense, well I'm going to investigate it more. And if it turns out to be bullshit, I'm going to say it's bullshit because it's bullshit. And that doesn't gel with a lot of people because a lot of people live in a world of bullshit. They like to they don't like having their feathers ruffled. You should well.
And I think also when when you're getting your information from people who have a commercial agenda or you know, then you're not getting you're not getting objective data, you know. So, And it was funny because I remember you telling me years ago, I think you were. You were saying, hey, mate, you know that that that not only can you I mean, of course we want people in the industry. You've got
knowledge and skills and all of that. But you're basically talking about how how how worthless some of the accreditations were. And I was thinking, oh, he's got an issue, he's got And then I then I kind opened that door a bit wider, and I did a bit of my own research, and I'm thinking, yeah, it's like even some of those because I think some private businesses almost they almost try to present themselves as some kind of government body,
when in fact they're just a for profit business. Yeah, it's like quite oh no, so that's just a that's just a private company to company which they have every right to make money and sell courses, but don't pretend that this is some kind of sanctioned or authorized government entity or something.
But even even then, you know, my my contrary and view of things a little bit. It's that case of who the fuck are you to sanction anything? Like you know, you I've I've never met a bureaucrat or an academic who was particularly competent in anything that they actually did. They spoke a lot of shit, and they said that, you know, we make the rules for the other people who do it, but the people who do it normally hate them and are doing everything they can to work
around the bureaucratic crap. And you know, I think I told you the story when we spoke last of how I tried to create a course and I went and did my certificate for and it was years ago, so I forget what it's called now, but.
The workplace training thing, like that's.
The one, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for the vocational training. And then a client of mine put me in contact with the lady who at the time was apparently the head of the vocational education department, and I said to her, it's like, I want to create this course for basically
elite level pts. Who focus on bodybuilding style training, and I don't want them to just get the piece of paper based on the fact that they sat in a classroom and listened to some stuff and regurgitated into a you know, on an exam sheet and long and short of it. She said, well, you can't do that. And the example that she gave was she said, for example, you couldn't deny a double am QT a certificate in CPR even though it's physically impossible for a person with
no arms to do CPR. This was the example given by the head of the department, right, And I'm like, what good is a qualification in CPR if you have no arms and you can't perform CPR. And she's like, well, you can be competent in it, but not actually able to do it. So it would be discrimination not to give him a certificate a qualification in CPR just because he can't do CPR. It's like, right, and she said, because if there was somebody else around with two arms,
you know, they could explain how to do it. And it's like someone's going to be dead on the basis of this qualified person with no arms being there. Like, so you give a job to a person who's qualified in CPR but has no arms and can't actually perform CPR. They can be an ambulance officer, now can they? And that would be discrimination? So what is what are these
qualififications worth anymore? So? I was looking at certificate three and nutrition and Certificate three and nutrition doesn't actually teach you anything about protein, carbs or fat.
Right, what does it teach you?
It teaches you about the dietary but the sensitivities of cultural needs and dietary things and how workplace health and safety around the kitchen and just anything other than actual nutrition. But you qualified and nutrition now and it's just I can't work with them. This, this is just crap.
So what is the what's the state of affairs in terms of gyms in Tibilisi or in Georgia? Like, is there a fit this industry per se? Is there are there trainers?
Yeah, there's personal trainers here and they're doing the same useless ship that all the personal trainers in Australia do. And it's it's quite funny. Actually, there's there's not a huge amount of English spoken in Georgia or some of the other countries that I've been either and every single gym I've been to, all of the platitudes up on the on the wall, all written in English. Oh really, you know, go hard or go home, and all of these sorts of things, And it's just it's just interesting.
It's like none of the people here actually understand this, that it speaks volumes to how worthless the platitudes are always thought that It's like we even write these same things on the wall and countries that don't even speak the language.
It is interesting, isn't it. I've always thought about and I mean, obviously you know, I was in on the ground floor, as you well know, with personal training, but I've always thought, sure were it's it's personal training is so like the actual job, like to do it well, to do it well, Like people don't understand to actually to actually do that role where you train people or work with people, consult, coach whatever, teach, educate in by all that shit where it is such a big job
where you need so much knowledge, right because apart from the you know, anatomy and physiology and biomechanics and nutrition and energy systems, and you also need to understand the person in the body as well as the body. You know, and it's it's the I can't say who because I don't want to get anyone in trouble, but someone that
I know very well. Their kids are doing the course at the moment, and let's just say that some of the shit that they're learning is so fucking so far from the market what you well, and it's just irrelevant crap. But the stuff, the stuff that they I believe that really really matters, and they're not being taught. But also part of the problem, damon, is that you know, and I'm generalizing this is not everybody, but you've got people
in front of these students. It's teaching these students who don't work in the fucking industry and never have you know, and couldn't teach you how to do a squad a deadlift or you know what I'm saying. It's like.
But this comes back to our discussion previously, and one of my biggest grievance is about the whole that industry, and it applies across most industries unfortunately. But it's the product that you think of as personal training, that you created with Harper's Fitness all the way back in the day, is not the product that the fitness industry is about the fitness industry is part of the health industry. They've changed that recently, but it's always been part of a
health industry and it's a case of going. The majority of Australians are going to die of a horrible disease because they're completely and utterly sedentary, and all we need to do is get them off. They're ass for half an hour three times per week. And so the course that you'll learn it it doesn't matter whether you squat effectively or well. If you go and you do bad squats every single day, that's health and fitness. That's great.
You're doing rat shit squats, awesome. You're doing ratshit squats with a polystyrene barbell. That's fantastic. You'll never go anywhere, you'll get bored and you'll quit. That's another problem. But we've got you active. We've solved the only problem that there is. So given the fact that they've got to give, as I said, you can give double amputees qualifications and CPR even though they can't do it, you get complete nafties going into the course. You're not allowed to fail
anybody anymore because that would be discrimination. You're not giving them every chance to succeed. So that's literally the wording that they use. It's discrimination if you fail somebody, So you've got a water down the course to be the simplest, basic, most useless shit that it can possibly be, where that person can't harm a completely incompetent per So an incompetent person can't harm another incompetent person when teaching them to waste their time doing half an hour of any random
crap that there is. So what do they teach them? They teach them basic rehabilitation techniques and boring useless shit that you and I know won't won't shed a pound or develop an athlete in any way, shape or form. But developing an athlete is not the point. And then the whole and then the bit that makes me mad is that the industry then goes around pretending that what it's about is creating athletes and athleticism and the ability to do good squats and enjoy these high energy workouts,
and it's like, that's not your industry. You're not selling that, You're not allowed to do that, even except they know that the product everyone wants to buy is that everyone wants to be this high energy you know, ripped abs, muscular, all the rest of it. That's what people are buying. They're not allowed to sell it, and so it's just dishonest to its core, from top to bottom the course, to the advertising, to the product being sold by the gyms,
to what's actually covered by the insurance. Everything about it's just a bunch of lies, and we know how it works. In the gyms. Eighty five percent non attendance is the goal because the gym couldn't possibly operate if all of the members actually turned up and use the facilities. So everything about it is just this grotesque ripof.
I've said, I've spoken about that number before. I don't know where that came from, but I remember hearing that. The term I was I heard was active gym membership and it was fifteen percent, which meant that of the current members in most gyms in Australia, about fifteen percent actually went actually to the facility.
Yeah. Yeah, because in any kind of depreciation on the Yeah, the other wouldn't pass if they all turned up and you couldn't get on all of the equipment, and they wouldn't be able to run the facility if everyone turned up. So they want eighty five percent non attendance. It's pay
your membership, stay doll away. Yeah. Yeah, well, the facilitated if you think about it, it was like, I don't know if it was deliberate, but it's certainly facilitated by things like treadmills and bikes and all of those sorts of things. Like who the hell you and I have been training? I mean I've been thirty three years. You'd be around the same or longer. You know, would you be walking on a treadmill three times a week an hour for thirty three Hell no, who's going.
To do that?
You wouldn't do it for thirty three days?
And dude, I started when I was I was fourteen, which is fucking forty seven years ago. I'm sixty one. It's ridiculous. But yeah, it's it's it is amazing. Let's get on something more positive. Yeah, no, no, it's all good. I love it because you know, it's it's true. And I try to get people to understand. You know, they are good and bad gyms, good and bad trainers, just like there are good and bad brick layers. They're good and bad bloody neurosurgeons. Right, it's not absolutely Yeah, you know,
there are great people and not so great people. But explain to people what your business is now, Like, what is it that you do now?
Now is just the software. So before I used to have the gym, there used to be the anti aging medical business, and then also the registration business for personal trainers to be insured for actually being able to train people with heavyweights. And now is just the software. And the software is Recomposer, and it's it's an app for coaches to prescribe diet and training to their clients in
order to alter their physique. So yeah, as of the last few years, that's been a bit of an uphill battle, which I won't get into because it's boring, but it's just been you know, we needed to rebuild it, and the rebuild didn't go so good, so then we had to rebuild it again and so a lot of money went flushed down the toilet and finally we've got everything back to where it started, except working much faster and better.
So yeah, but you were you were really in early, an early adopter in terms of you know, getting in with with an app those years ago. Yeah, Now there's a fucking there's a mine field of apps isn't.
There There really is. Yeah, the difference is so I actually I taught myself. My dad bought me a little computer, a little Dick Smith computer for my ninth birthday, and I just wanted to play games like any kid did, and my parents didn't want to spend the money on these games for me to be sitting there like an idiot playing games. So I taught myself algebra and programmed my own games. And because that's what you do, it's just you solve the problem. So I was programming from nine,
just in basic. But then by the time I was twelve, I'd started to dabble an assembly language, which is the very low level code that runs on devices and things now.
But I was a nerd into computers for a very very long time, and then I got into weight training and I came back around to it and work for some web development companies for a while doing systems architecture and such, and basically I had a staff member leave my business and take all of the company IP with them, so we had everything in spreadsheets and all the rest of it. And I was like, well, this is a very bad way of running a business. If there's going
to be any sort of sustainability to it. So I designed this app as a tool for my company to write, create our programs and diets for the clients. Prescribe all of the weights, prescribe all the nutrition, measure their body composition, do all of the calculations for body fat from the skin folds, et cetera, et cetera. And it was designed to answer a business problem. I didn't go, I want to make money from an app and leave the country
and live around the world. It was my business has a serious risk, and we've already got the systems in place, but we need to develop them on an online platform. So we did that and then I licensed it out to other people and it turned into a business where the way things are now is that you've just got all of these people out there going you need an app. It's like, what does the app do? It doesn't matter.
You need an map, and everyone's got a nap and most of them are completely useless, and most of the apps out there when it comes to training and diet are I describe them as being like a shopping list app where you write down what you bought at the supermarket after you went to the supermarket. Completely fucking useless. You just why would you want to diorize what you ate? It's just sort of like, wow, now I've got a full list of everything that I ate to turn into
a fat bustard. Awesome, what do you do about it? That's not the way that it works. It needs to be prescriptive. It needs to be a scientific experiment. You need to go I think if I eat this and I do this, that this will be the outcome. So I practice what I've written down, and then I measure and test whether or not my hypothesis was correct. And that's how recomposer works. It's we set a goal for
a body composition. We write a diet which prescribes every gram of every food to eat it every meal, every day, and then the training program which prescribes every weight to lift it every workout, on every set of every exercise. And at the end of the week, you measure your body composition again and go did it work? And if it didn't, you go, well, how was the result different to what I expected? And therefore, what do I logically
do to get a different result? He goes, this is very, very logical, but my god, you wouldn't believe how furious it makes people when you suggest doing things this way, like that's on scientific, that's not science and evidence based, and you don't need to do it like that. And it's like, well, yeah, actually you do. You need to measure and plan in order to measure whether or not your plan worked. It's like, no, you don't. You could just do stuff and eat stuff and it's fine.
It's yeah, well, I think I think we're really I mean, I talk a lot about with my groups and my audiences and running a mentoring group at the moment, which is a ten week group. And we spoke last night about last night is tonight Tuesday? Yeah? Last night Monday.
You know, the idea of your life being an ongoing experiment, and my life has been in some ways, My life has been an an equals one experiment since I was a fat fourteen year old, right, And here we are forty seven years later, and I'm still adapting and adjusting my protocol because my physiology changes, my needs, change the way that my body will respond to different stimuli, change what worked for me.
When I am changes the Yeah, what's in the food that you ate this week is not what was in the food that you eight ten years ago.
Fucking oath. And you know, so you go, you know, like, what used to work for me with three or four meals a day, what works for me now is too And when I say that, that's not a recommendation for anyone else. That's not I'm not saying you should. I'm saying here's what happens. When I ate three, I gain that, I go. It depends. I'm sure I could create a model at work, but for right now, I eat it about why bother?
It's I can get this, So I do this, yeah.
At seven am and seven pm aroundabouts, and it works. I'm eighty four kilos, I'm pretty lean. I'm probably under twelve percent. I'm quite strong. I've got enough muscle for an old fucker, and and things are okay, you know. And it's that that kind of tendency for people to trust and believe people who don't even know them, you know, when they go you should do this, this and this, yeahs based on fucking nothing I've.
Had over the years where it's like someone goes to them just goes, oh my god, you look fabulous.
What have you been doing?
Your skin looks good, your eyes are your hair is shiny, and you've lost so much fat and you just look like a bundle of energy and so healthy and you're getting leaner, and da da da da da, what are you doing? They're like, Oh, well, we met this guy and we eat this food and we do this Tralia, you can't do that. That's completely wrong, that's not sustainable, that's not what works. And it's like you start, you literally started the conversation having noticed the evidence of it.
And yeah, well, I think also, you know, obviously, when you talk about food, when you talk about exercise, when you talk about supplements, when you talk about health, when you talk about lifestyle habits, behaviors and protocols, there is a huge percentage of the population that is emotional about all of that or some of that hugely Now, and you think, damon, how many people have like, for example, I won't even say which, but they have their identity
is intertwined with their training protocol, or their identity is interchangeable with their eating paradigm. I am a fill in the blank, right, And so when the way that you eat, or the way that you train, or even your fucking job for that matter, or your beliefs, when your beliefs basically shape your identity. Well, now you have made yourself essentially unteachable unless I am reinforcing your current thinking, which
is confirmation bias, which is your own personal echo chamber. Right, So this is this is one of the dangers, and this is one of the practical realities and real world realities of you know, like, I've been working with bums and legs and bodies and micros and macros and minds and all that shit forever and I'm still learning. I'm still learning doing my PhD. I'm nearly done. I'm an exercise scientist. I've got a whole lot of shit and
I probably know five per cents. May yeah, I know not five percent of what there is to know, and I'm constantly getting shit wrong and some shit right, you know. But it's such a it's such an emotional triggering, you know, shit I.
First, yeah, you know, because I've I've never drank in my life, so sign sign never been oh good man, And well then you'd understand and you'd know this as well. How you'd go to a party or a bar with work colleagues or something like that, and how violently upset people get with you for not drinking, and it's it's like, my, my consumption of alcohol doesn't affect your enjoyment of alcohol whatsoever.
I'm not judging you, but they feel judged. And that was what I felt it came down to, was that fact that nobody sees drunken disorderly behavior as an attractive, you know, positive thing to be doing with yourself. But so long as everybody else is doing it, it's okay.
And then as as.
Someone comes along who's just like I just don't want to do that, they feel very insecure and judged because they know they're partaking in something that to them, they know is not the way that they ideally should be
behaving sort of thing. And that seems I've seen that mirroad over the years with the people who have that same problem with eating, and it's really it's been really interesting with the way that I do the food thing, where it's like a person comes to me, pays for a diet, and I say, the deal is this, I don't know what's going to work for you. I don't know what food allergies you have or anything else like that. I've got a damn good idea and I know how
to fuel you for your weight training. But here's what we need to do. I want to give you this many calories at this percentage protein, carbs, and fats. You choose the food. We're going to build the diet together. You're going to tell me what you want to eat based on the options that I go are available to you. I only want you to eat it for seven days. You choose the food. You make it fit your preferences, your lifestyle, everything else like that. I just want my numbers.
You do it for seven days, I measure you and we see if it works. Can you do that? You're just giving me three hundred dollars. You choose the food.
Can you eat the food?
And some very few people will go no, that's just ridiculous. But most people will just go, well, yeah, I'm going to give you three hundred dollars, and that makes total sense to me. I eat the food so you can measure what it does. A week later, they've already got visible feelable transformation and they're going, Wow, this is incredible, and you go, cool, let's make an adjustment. Okay, you're bored of that, will swap that out for this. That's the numbers. Seven days. I'll see you in seven days,
will measure it again. It's amazing how little motivation is required in a person to do the thing when the thing just makes sense. And it's not you take away that judgment element from it. It's just you choose the food. Let's eat it for a week, measure what it does. That answers the question it doesn't work, we need to change it. It does work, Happy days, keep going.
And I love the fact that you said. I mean essentially what you said. Correct me if I get it wrong. But I say this all the time. As well as what we're doing is we're taking a highly educated guess, but we don't know exactly how your individual physiology will respond. You know, because you and I could see ten guys or ten girls or whatever a mix and who might look and seem similar, and so we give them a similar protocol and we get different outcomes. And so that
is why you know that an equals one. Well, let's you know, we've got a fair bit of knowledge, we've got a fair bit of research, we've got a fair bit of evidence under our belt. Let's I think this is a really good starting point. But let's do this and see what your body tells us because it's always going to tell us.
Something exactly, and everything's relative too. So it's when you realize that you're not trying to achieve the This is not teleportation. We're not going to just eat the right food and then pop out a bed tomorrow morning with the hercules ripped physique that we've always wanted in our dreams. It's a process. So it's just like, well, let's start here. It's going to be a move in the right direction.
We can be pretty certain of that. And you know if you get if you get one day into it and you're going to the toilet eight times, then it's like, give me a call, we'll fix the diet. Like, clearly it's not working. But chances are they're the foods that you like anyway and you want to fit in your day. It's like, let's just structure them a little differently, take out,
you know, but also focus on the positive. It's also that we're eating to achieve something and you are doing it only to find out whether it gets the result. So you know, I'll say to clients, if you eat a pizza on Wednesday night, I'm not saying it's going to make you fat. It won't You might wake up the next morning looking better or looking Who knows the problem with eating the pizza on Wednesday night is that when I test you on Friday, I don't know whether
the result was the diet or the pizza. Maybe you need to eat pizza every day or every Wednesday. I don't know, because you threw another variable in there. So just don't eat the pizza on this Wednesday so we can measure what the diet did. And most people go, that makes sense. You're not integrating me or telling me something that the evidence doesn't line up, because everyone says to me, if I eat the pizza, I get fat. But when I eat a pizza, I'm not fat the next day.
So yes, it is. It is funny that, you know, when people kind of infer that, like you were saying, you know, with you not drinking booze and people being defensive or whatever, or that whole kind of you make me feel I find that a very interesting mindset. And I say to people when they say you make me feel like this, I go, so, I'm in charge of your feelings now, And I'd say that, you know, I'm like, dude, I'm not in charge of that that's just your individual response. And if I'm that.
Was already there, I just triggered it.
By the way the way that I live, in the way that I think, and my last dollar. My operating is on no level a recommendation. I'm just telling you what I fucking do. If you don't want to know, that's cool, you know, But what I can tell you is that it is in your interest to try to figure out what works for you optimally. Hey, mate, we've got maybe ten minutes. I want to ask you some kind of rapid fire questions because I think people will
be interested in. Now I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to try and get an answer out in about one minute. You're a fucking chatty kathy, so that's.
Going to be harkened to do.
So let's see how we go. All right, one or two minutes of advice For people who are absolute beginners, they're listening to you and they're like, kind of makes sense. I don't know, and I know you could talk about this for an hour, but I don't know where to start. Just give me a fucking something, damon, give me a where to start so I can maybe open the open the door tomorrow.
The body that you acknowledge that the body that you want, because I assume we're talking about body composition here, that's what they're training.
For, changing their body, whatever that means to them.
The body that you want is a superior physical specimenist, a superior athlete to the body that you currently have. That's the sole difference. It all comes down to the athletic performance. It's not about going and doing random bunches of shit as punishment or penance for having sinned or anything else. You've got to find something that actually interests you in terms of an athletic endeavor and legitimately try
to get really, really really good at it. And if you can do that, everything else takes care of itself.
Perfect all right, And I know this list is very long, but the most common mistakes and I know this, but across the board in general terms, the most common mistakes that people make with diet. Now, I know this is almost a stupid question, but go processed food.
That's it. It's nobody got fat eating organic chicken and rice in any quantity. It can't be done right. The reason that we have so many people so fat is because of the source that they add to the chicken and the rice, and the obsession with flavor and the obsession with convenience. It doesn't matter whether you're talking about protein bars or pre workout formulas or anything else, whatever
the hell they stick into food these days. These things that God did not put on this planet to be consumed by human beings, Whatever is in it, that's what's causing all the problems. Because wherever you go in the world, where where people don't eat that shit, they don't have any of the problems that we have. And that's the number one thing. Just eat natural foods. And it's pretty difficult. I mean, I mean, we're as a starting point, that's the primary thing. It would be before I even get
to protein, carbs and fats. If you're eating shit, you're eating shit, and who knows what it's going to do. Yeah, And I measure that. I've been measuring this stuff in people for decades and the difference that a little bit of shit makes is profound. You know, if you think a diet coke doesn't make a difference, I'm telling you it makes a difference.
Really, what's diet coke? Do I have? The odd diet coke?
Come on, again, I don't know. I don't know the physiology. I don't really care. What I can tell you is if I've got a person on a on a diet and a training regimen and we're going for just ultimate fat loss with muscle retention and it's just stalled out and they're doing that, you just pull that out and the fat just goes for weeks on the same diet, the same train, diet.
Coke. Really, yeah, that's that is It's so interesting.
It was fascinating because you know, I was one of the ones back in the day. I'm just sort of like, yeah, if you want to have that, that's fine, there's nothing in it. And then it's like, man, nothing's really working. Let's just pull that out and see if it makes a difference. Because these things always do and butter bang consistently. It's not like a some people can get away with it.
And this is sorry, I know you said one minute, but a really interesting thing you'd find was going to Dubai and it actually threw me off my game in a big way. When I went to a gym, Binos gym, very world famous bodybuilding gym in Dubai, and the physiques in there are. I've been around probe as you. I've been around pro bodybuilders. I've had Big Rammy train in my gym. I've had the biggest and the leanest guys there. And these guys are freaks. These are the biggest, leanest,
scariest like everyone in there. It's like I was the fattest, weakest and smallest of the women in Benos gym. Like they are just next level everywhere. And the training is absolutely fucking abysmal. We're talking lightweights with bad form, with long rest between sets. No one puffs, no one sweats. Occasionally you hear someone grunt or do something. It's just shit, absolute shit, And so you go to you look around and you're going, this doesn't gel like what's going on here?
And you go, what it's got to be the drugs. It's not the drugs. It's the same drugs as everyone's using everywhere else. And there's you know, all the eighty kilo guys are using the probably more drugs than half of these guys, and these massive ripped guys. And then one day I see I start noticing every now and again a guy would come in with a great physique
and a bunch of his friends. It'd be like, you know, natural national champion level kind of physique, nice round muscles and everything, but nothing too crazy or anything else like that. Never trained before. They're teaching him for the first time. And these are all Arabs, Egyptians, Africans, all of them. And the genetics on these guys is like nothing I've
seen anywhere in the world, just absolutely freaking unbelievable. And you watch these guys pre drugs with physiques better than most of our top natural bodybuilders, and then they lift a few half fast lightweights, fucking around with bad form.
No squats, no deadlifts, no bench press, is just machine everything with crap weight, long rest, no puffing, nothing, no effort, and you watch them transform, they grow muscle light they're on drugs, and then they put the drugs in and you just see them turn into probody and I'm just like, what the what the fuck is going on? This just throws out every belief I've ever had about drugs, training, diet, like, because they don't eat proptly either, They just eat whatever
the hell they want. And then and then a few times I've seen one of these ginormous guys just lie down on the bench press with somebody else in there who's actually doing some serious bench presses, and they'll just casually bench press are wobbly five plates for a few reps, having never lifted a having never lifted a heavyweight in their entire life, they're doing Australian record bench presses with the worst, most ugly shouldered, destroying technique you've ever seen
in your life, because they've never learnt to bench press it. And that's when the penny drops and you're like, it's still the same shit. These guys have these genetics that allow them to become world champion level strength athletes without putting any effort into actual strength training or actually learning
out of strength train. They just fuck around with some weights and the body just grows muscle because for whatever reason, that that's how their DNA has said to you know, respond to very low levels of stress, and they the massive, massive guys are still every little bit as strong as you would expect. But these guys don't lift heavy, and when they try to, because they don't care and they don't really understand and they never lifted it, they hurt themselves.
So then they tell everyone, well, I don't lift heavy because it's really risky and you get hurt and injured, and it's like, well, no, you just suck at it because you never actually learned how to do it, and you don't care because it's not hard and it's really interesting. And the reason I get into this is because this has permeated all of the training beliefs of everyone around the world that you don't need to put high effort into your training. You can lift light weights and just
squeeze your muscles and you'll grow muscle the same. They look at what these unusual genetic anomalies do and they go, if I do what they do, I'll get the same results. You didn't even walk into the gym looking like them, you won't.
It's it's like one of the things I see a lot in I try a little In fact, I trying a gym called Snap, which is one of my old gyms would which is now a Snap franchise, And you know, a good little gym, and it's got everything I need and it's you know, it's probably got a million bucks worth of equipment. It's not the bloody best gym in the world, but it's good for me. But more than ever, I'm seeing young, like more than I've ever seen in my life. In gym's young dudes coming in like at
at four o'clock, five o'clock. Seventy percent of the clients are boys age between fifteen and twenty, like seventy percent of the people in the gym. And some of them good, some of them are you know, young studs. But the other thing that's happening is because they're watching so much shit online and they're watching fuckwits who do a set of dumbbell presses incline and then drop the weights from a great height. Right, But these guys are doing you know,
incline presses with hud kilos each dumbbell or whatever. But then you get the young guys in the gym who are emulating their heroes and just throwing weights from four foot high. And then when I would go up and go, hey, champ, don't do that, they look at me like I'm the fucking enemy, the.
Old rouch in the gym.
Yeah, dude, what are you doing? And they're like what, I go, what are you doing? It's just it's not okay to just throw you weights from three feet I and nobody tells them it's and they just wants the shit on. Yeah, they mate, you're not a fucking pro bodybuilder. And and you know this, this floor is not the floor that they're throwing their way. It's different. And those weights they're not built for that, you know.
Oh well, you look at Metroflex gym in Texas where Ronnie used to train, and it's like, you're going to make this gym look like Metroflex, like like an absolute ship hole where everything's you know, beaten up.
Oh that joint, I've seen that joint. That's that's absolute chaos. All right. I just want to okay a couple more than we're going to wind up. And of course different people need different things. But putting aside drugs and putting aside peptides, what are the in general terms, what are the supplements that you think are okay these days? And I know it's a kind of a dumb question because different people need different things, but what are the supplements that are on your maybe list?
Protein powder is the only one, really, protein powder, Vitamin C, vitamin D, you know, for people who are not getting out in the sun or using sunscreen. But that's about it. I've never been a huge supplement guy. Creatine creatine can be beneficial on a high carbohydrate diet, not the way most people think. I find that it prevents people getting fat, so fat on a high carbohydrate diet. But that's about it. I absolutely loathe pre workouts with all of the you know,
basically amphetamine and a raspberry tever. Yeah, just absolutely terrible.
Well, people don't understand either, by the way, I don't know. I don't know if you know this story, you probably do, But do you know that my training partner died at the gym? They?
Yeah, you know, you mentioned it? Yeah, I vaguely remember that.
Yeah, so Mark Mark Lampard, who was a pro bodybuilder.
Unbelievable for z yeah, beautiful physica.
Oh yeah, yeah, so he died for seventeen minutes, right, So Friday afternoon five years ago. I think it was the seventeenth of October, So the anniversary has just passed. His fine, now, everybody only he was but literally five minutes past five on a Friday afternoon, he went off line dead cardiac arrest and was gone, fucking gone for until twenty two minutes past five.
And really shit, and it's minutes I come back from seventeen minutes?
Yeah, very few people come back, and also very few people come back without significant brain brain issues, brain damage. Yeah, but yeah, he was gone. He was literally dead for seventeen minutes. But this is just my theory everyone, And I'm not going to say which brand, but my theory is because he had nothing wrong with his heart, nothing
wrong with all that. Let for one of a more technical term, plumbing of his heart, all these arteries and veins, and they ordered everything fine, right, no degeneration, no arteriosclerosis, no atherosclerosis, no reason in inverted commas to have a heart. Well, he didn't have a heart attack. He had a cardiac arrest. Now the day that he had that, he was out all day working in the heat. I think he was dehydrated. He was down at Lawn. He drove two and a
half hours back from Lorn to the gym. He came straight from LRN to Lawn as a place to everyone, not the grass out in the front of your house, but l O r N. It's a coastal town. He was down there, drove back, dehydrated. He drove he drank something like two or three I won't say which brand, but caffeine drinks, probably the equivalent of eighteen or twelve coffee yeh, fucking whatever. And then he came to the gym and had some pre workout.
Now, oh Jesus, yeah right.
So he's probably got the equivalent of twelve fifteen coffees on board. He's dehydrated, So if you're dehydrated, you've got less blood volume. Your blood is thicker, so if viscosity increases, all this shit happens. And then he did twenty chins literally two zero chins and held his breath for every rep, and then he died or no fucking shock that he died, right, still he died, but yeah, yeah, he died. They died.
I have an absolute fucking passionate dislike for pre workout because apart from the fact that there's just a central nervous system stimulant that puts an incredibly unnecessary load on your cardiovascular system, and kids are drinking it like it's water, yeah, you know, not only that, then they're then they're just cranking out cortisole and adrenaline and not in a good way, and they're they're predisposing themselves to issues down the track, you know, and so bad.
I just find it completely the opposite of to train effectively. You need to be focused. That's not focus, it's just pure panic. You just become you know, it's just manic panic. And if you're you know, if you're doing the last rep of any kind of pressing movement, it takes a period of time and it's like you're pushing with everything you've got, Like on the last rep of a squad, which we call an eight minute rep because you know, you die of brain death from lack of oxygen doing
that last rep. That's just so slow. When you're totally off your head on these stimulants, that three seconds of actual time that a very very hard rep might take to grind all the way to the top feels like thirty minutes. You quit within a micro second of putting the effort in and just go, oh, I missed and I was trying, you know, it felt like you were trying for thirty second. You weren't trying for a third
of a second. Because the brain's all scattery. And I've seen that many people they just miss their performances because they're so buzzy and wide and it's the wrong state of mind to be in for a properly intense workout. If you want to go for a run, probably a you know, great thing. Yeah, you're you're energized, and you just even then, probably you run too fast at the start and you tie yourself out too soon. It's it doesn't contribute to performance like I think people believe that it does.
I agree, mate. If people want to find you or follow you, or connect with you or learn about your app, how do they get involved?
If you search? Damon, hey, how you'll you'll find me everywhere? Not that active on the socials lately. Struggling with that a bit. But yeah, your.
Last post, your last post on Instagram was twenty twenty two. To say that you're not that active lately is like fucking saying I never.
Instagram never never grabbed me, just like you know, Snapchat or anything else. It's just I don't know, it just never worked for me.
So you're doing all right.
I'm getting by anyway, So.
Mate, I appreciate you. Will chat off here in a moment, but for the time being, thank you for this, Thanks for hanging out on the you project. Appreciate you. I'm glad you're doing great, so fucking fascinating to hear about your story, and good luck with everything moving forward man.
Thanks mate, appreciate it.