Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews

In this podcast, I chat with Menno Henselmans again in what’s meant as a part two to our last podcast on the science of self-control and willpower. This time, we’re specifically talking about willpower as it relates to diet. The episode is chock-full of practical tips for improving your diet adherence, which can help you lose fat faster and more easily. This is something Menno is an expert on because he recently released a book called The Science of Self-Control, which is an evidence-based look at willpower that references over 500 scientific papers and distills it all down to actionable tips you can implement now. Menno’s book is designed to help anyone boost their self-control so that they can better stick to a diet, work smarter (not harder), and simply put, be the best version of themselves. And this time, we’re focusing solely on the dietary part of the book. In this interview, Menno explains why dieting is inherently difficult, ways to make it easier, how macronutrient composition, meal timing, and consistency can help (or hurt) adherence, cravings, the difference between satisfaction and satiety, tips for eating out and going off-plan, and a whole lot more. Menno has been a repeat guest on my podcast, but in case you’re not familiar with him, he’s a former business consultant turned international public speaker, educator, writer, published scientist, and physique coach who’s passionate about helping serious athletes attain their ideal physiques. So if you want to learn evidence-based tips to better stick to your diet, definitely check out this interview! Timestamps: 0:00 - Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ 8:05 - Why is dieting difficult? 16:47 - Why do you only eat "healthy" foods with no junk? 19:15 - When do you feel a difference from your diet? 21:50 - What can we do to make dieting easier? 24:29 - Consistency is more important than "optimal" 26:05 - What are the key aspects of consistency that matter most? 27:19 - Are you always getting healthier when you get leaner? Is 15% body fat healthier than 10%? 29:59 - Does macronutrient composition matter in dieting? 32:45 - Why "if it fits your macros" with junk food isn't sustainable 35:27 - Can you satiate a craving? 38:40 - The order you eat foods has a significant effect on adherence 39:41 - Meal satisfaction 43:43 - Meal timing 44:37 - Tips for eating out 45:50 - Why you shouldn't save up calories by starving yourself before you go out to eat 48:53 - The satiety sweetspot 49:17 - The difference between craving pleasure (satisfaction) and satiety 52:15 - What should you do if you overeat one day? 56:14 - Where can people find your book on self-control and your other work? Mentioned on the Show: Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ Menno’s new book: The Science of Self-Control - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0991FG9SC/?tag=mflweb-20 Menno’s website: https://mennohenselmans.com/

This podcast is about hormones and aging, and specifically, how much hormones affect body composition as you get older. In it, I’ll go through the most important hormones as they relate to body composition, how they change as we get older, and what we can do to maintain optimal hormone profiles relevant to our age. There’s no question that we can’t maintain as optimal a hormone profile at 45 as we can at 25, but as you’ll learn here, we can still maintain good enough hormones to gain muscle, lose fat, stay lean and fit, and feel great. The idea that our hormones crate as we get older and make it impossible to get and stay fit is very discouraging to many people. The good news is that’s mostly untrue. If we’re willing to do a few things consistently and do them well, we can keep our hormones in very healthy and effective ranges. Listen to this podcast to learn about hormones and how they affect body composition, especially as we age. Timestamps: 0:00 - Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ 5:08 - These hormones most affect body composition 5:53 - How do these hormones affect body comp? 6:37 - Leptin 7:01 - Ghrelin 8:27 - Testosterone and estrogen 12:01 - Hormones do negatively affect body composition as we get older if we don't do anything to mitigate the changes 12:31 - How do we prevent our hormones from affecting us negatively? 13:46 - Leptin 14:20 - Ghrelin 14:54 - Growth hormone 16:05 - What effect does training have? 16:40 - Testosterone 17:57 - Do you need high levels of testosterone to get and stay in great shape? 20:01 - Estrogen Mentioned on the Show: Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/

I hope this podcast finds you in a mesmerizing holiday haze of holly jolly hearth and home, because here’s the deal with the winter festivities: They were a tough row to hoe in the Before Times and are even more so in these Quacky Quarantimes. There’s shopping, wrapping, baking, cooking, decorating, entertaining, eating, imbibing, friends you never see, family you’ve never liked, and a gimlet-eyed elf monitoring every minute and reporting every move to a schizoid list-making demi-god living on the frozen nipple of the globe with battalions of undying eldritch-gnomes and bionic beast-deer. Press play to hear more (plus, a psycho-delicious cookie recipe!). Timestamps: 0:00 - A holiday message 5:39 - Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ Mentioned on the Show: Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/

In this podcast, I’m sharing my appearance on The Pat Flynn Show, in which I discussed easy fitness wins. These are simple changes you can make right now to start establishing a healthy lifestyle that you can stick to long-term. Many people try to jump straight into the deep end when they try to get fit and healthy. Grueling workouts with no days off, and extreme diets that deprive you of your favorite foods and leave you hungry and tired. The “all-in” method can work for some, but most people do better with the tiny-habit approach. That is, fostering small behavioral changes that you sustain and build on over time. So in this episode, I share some easy, simple changes you can make that can help build momentum and overcome the inertia that pulls you toward staying sedentary and unfit. Timestamps: 0:00 - Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ 21:14 - Walking 29:24 - What's my motivation? 34:33 - Be flexible with your programming 39:59 - Perfection isn't necessary 42:26 - An easy diet win 45:43 - Food journal 47:10 - Replacing soda and sugar-sweetened beverages 49:48 - Increase your protein 52:43 - New book Muscle For Life Mentioned on the Show: Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/

In this podcast, I talk with Dr. Flint McGlaughlin about marketing, which is something he knows quite a bit about. In fact, I’ve known about Flint and followed his work for over a decade now, so this was a treat for me. In case you’re not familiar with him, Flint is an academic and business leader who served as the Director of Enterprise Research for Transforming Business at the University of Cambridge (UK) and is the founder of the MECLABS Institute, a marketing research institute dedicated to figuring out how people make choices and what influences those choices. Not only has Flint written and edited hundreds of articles and texts and won multiple awards, but he’s patented ten offer conversion-related heuristics, conducted large-scale research projects in partnership with companies like The New York Times, Google, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Royal Bank of Canada, and has lectured at conferences and universities around the world, including New York University, Columbia University, Oxford University. He has also delivered keynote addresses for companies such as Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft, and Google. To put it mildly, this guy knows his stuff, and as you’ll hear in the interview, he’s also an extremely interesting guy. In our conversation, he talks about . . . The concept of "metanoia" or changing one's mind Individuation and becoming who you really are How marketing is the essence of entrepreneurship Why the skill of marketing should be your priority if you want to go into business The blinding power of self-interest And a lot more . . . We also talk about his book, The Marketer as Philosopher, which condenses his findings from 25 years of investigating why people make certain choices and take action. I read the book before the interview, and I really enjoyed it. In fact, it was one of the more enlightening marketing books I’ve ever read, and I’ve read quite a few. So if you’re interested in marketing or business, you definitely don’t want to miss this interview. --- Timestamps: 0:00 - Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ 10:16 - Marketing and NFTs 13:02 - Instead of obsessing over doing the thing right, you have to do the right things 15:00 - Concept of individuation 18:41 - First principles approach 20:35 - What is a value proposition? 25:11 - Truth, beaty, and goodness are identical 26:09 - How do you spot “good”? 27:48 - What does “thriving” mean? 32:41 - How do you examine decision making and influence? 40:26 - What are the most destructive common entanglements? 53:45 - Your life is a message and you're the messenger 56:06 - People judge the person and whether they trust them in order to decide if they want the product 56:45 - What is the initial offering that creates trust? 1:00:04 - What is a brand? 1:02:29 - What do you mean by “individuation”? 1:17:34 - Why do you have to experience a conversion and be customer-centric to convince others in your marketing? --- Mentioned on the Show: Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ MECLABS Institute: https://meclabs.com/ The Marketer as Philosopher Book: https://map.flintmcglaughlin.com/ Flint’s free online marketing course: https://meclabs.com/course/

I’ve churned through over 150,000 emails, social media comments and messages, and blog comments in the last 6 years. And that means I’ve fielded a ton of questions. As you can imagine, some questions pop up more often than others, and I thought it might be helpful to take a little time every month to choose a few and record and share my answers. So, in this round, I answer the following question: Are peptides a safe and effective alternative to steroids? If you have a question you’d like me to answer, leave a comment below or if you want a faster response, send an email to mike@muscleforlife.com. Timestamps 0:00 - Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ 5:26 - What are peptides? 7:16 - Why are peptides popular among bodybuilders? 9:07 - How effective are peptides at increasing HGH production? 11:56 - The biggest problem with peptides 12:25 - Are peptides safe? What are the side effects and long-term consequences? 13:21 - Are peptides effective and safe? 18:39 - How long do you have to use peptides? Mentioned on the Show: Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/

This podcast is a Q&A, but it’s a bit different from the kind you’ll typically find here on Muscle For Life. In my usual Q&A episodes, I take a question from email or Instagram and then fully answer it in an episode of the podcast every week. However, over on Instagram, I’ve started doing weekly Q&As in the stories, and it occurred to me that many podcast listeners might enjoy hearing these questions and my short answers. So, instead of talking about one thing in an episode, I’m going to cover a variety of questions. And keep in mind some of these questions are just for fun. :) So if you want to ask me questions in my Instagram stories, follow me on Instagram (@muscleforlifefitness), and if I answer your question there, it might just make it onto an episode of the podcast! If you like this type of episode, let me know. Send me an email (mike@muscleforlife.com) or direct message me on Instagram. And if you don’t like it, let me know that too or how you think it could be better. Timestamps 0:00 - Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ 5:25 - Can you do video tutorials of all the exercises in your books? 6:39 - Does No Nut November really have benefits? 7:08 - Favorite cereal? 7:37 - Is yohimbine worth taking  if you’re over 10% body fat? 8:40 - How does CrossFit build good physiques with high volumes but no progressive overload? 12:36 - Would you rather get a cough or Bell's palsy? 13:24 - Opinion on Mentzer-style training? 18:07 - Thoughts on olympic weightlifting to build muscle? 19:09 - Would you consider steering Legion into politics? 19:38 - Should you eat the same amount of protein on non-training days? 20:07 - How do you know if you've reached your genetic potential? 21:29 - Is 1.5 g per lb of lean mass too much or is that more effective while in a surplus? 22:16 - Microgreens: magic or overrated? 22:46 - Is a temporary decrease in strength after a deload normal? 23:14 - Heavy pressing is crushing my shoulder joint health. What should I do? 24:23 - Remedies for burnout and losing motivation to eat while in a surplus? 25:11 - Have you been in modeling? 25:40 - Thoughts on MCT oil supplementation? 26:23 - Are the unvaccinated going to be the survivors of a new world or will they die in jail? 29:28 - Why do people bench press with their legs on the bench? 30:12 - BCAAs are still the top supplement recommendation by PTs. Why is that? 31:32 - What is your carbon footprint? Mentioned on the Show: Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/

Are we too comfortable? Do we complain too much? Modern life is filled with modern conveniences that are engineered to make life easier and more enjoyable. But what if these contemporary comforts masquerading as a panacea of pleasure are really a double-edged sword? What have we lost in the process of gaining comfort? Is there value in choosing to be uncomfortable and adding discomfort to our lives? What are the benefits? These are questions Michael Easter addresses in his book The Comfort Crisis, and in this interview. As he’ll explain in the podcast, he’s traveled all around the world and interviewed an interesting cast to learn why you should inject challenge into your life and not get too comfortable. In case you’re not familiar with Michael Easter, he’s not only an author, but a contributing editor at Men's Health magazine, columnist for Outside magazine, and professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work can be found in Men's Journal, New York, Vice, Scientific American, and Esquire. So if you’re interested in hearing why Michael Easter chose to spend a month in the Arctic, what he gained from the experience, and how you can include more discomfort in your own life, you don’t want to miss this podcast! Timestamps: 0:00 - Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ 6:20 - What is the "comfort crisis"? 7:31 - How does too much comfort harm us individually and collectively? 10:06 - Should we make things harder for ourselves? 11:15 - How do you introduce "productive discomfort" into your life? 15:22 - Boredom increases creativity. 18:27 - The effects of solitude. 19:57 - Did you learn something about yourself by being alone in the arctic? 22:46 - How much comfort is appropriate? 28:15 - Is it wrong to "savor" life? 33:57 - How long have the benefits stuck with you? 35:47 - What is misogi? 47:16 - Where can people find your work? Mentioned on the Show: Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ The Comfort Crisis: https://www.amazon.com/Comfort-Crisis-Embrace-Discomfort-Reclaim/dp/0593138767/?tag=mflweb-20 Michael Easter’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michael_easter/ Michael Easter’s website: https://eastermichael.com/

So much fitness advice is framed like this: FACT CHECK LOSER. IF YOU CAN’T WAKE UP AT 3 AM AND DEADLIFT DOUBLE YOUR BODY WEIGHT FOR DOUBLES IN YOUR DRIVEWAY IN THE DEAD OF WINTER, UNFOLLOW ME ALREADY BECAUSE YOU’LL ALWAYS BE WEAK, FAT, AND PATHETIC. LGBFJBLFG!!!!!! I’ve shared plenty of tough love myself. Make excuses or make it go, “secrets” never work unless you work for them, train hard even when the motivation carcass is being picked by crows, whatever. Here, however, I want to talk to you in gentler tones about fitness. Why? Although fitness requires work and effort and sometimes feels like a stormy love affair that you just can’t quit, too much lectern-pounding bust-your-assery can hold you back and even burn you out. The key is balance, in knowing when to steam and when to stroll, when to brace up and bear down and when to back off and breathe. Go, go, go versus slow, slow, slow. And that balance is often hard to find in the fitness racket. Everywhere you turn there’s another hard-faced hardo bellowing about cooking up the suck and injecting it into your veins so you can earn the aftermath one sweat brick at a time. So, with grumpy mugs and slash-and-burn sermons in more-than-ample supply these days, I want to offer a counterpoint—a few gentle fitness reminders that acknowledge that sometimes you need to growl and gut it out, and sometimes you need to grin and give more leash. Press play to hear my advice! Timestamps: 0:00 - Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ 3:18 - Intro 5:34 - Train at your own pace. 5:54 - It’s okay to feel like you don’t know what you’re doing. 6:13 - There is no one way to get fit. 6:32 - Even a little can go a long way. 6:50 - Sometimes you have to drag your draggy body through a spate of not-great workouts before you have a great one again. 7:08 - Some days are easier, and some are harder. 7:24 - Whether it's your first year or fourteenth, workouts will feel awful sometimes. 7:39 - You don’t have to hit a PR to have a fitness win. 7:56 - Comparing yourself to others is a sure way to feel lousy. 8:20 - Unswerving faith in the process isn't essential to performing the process. 8:41 - Whatever works for you is valid. 9:03 - Your motivation is an ocean. Mentioned on the Show: Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/

Some people—my favorite people—listen to most or even all of my podcasts, but my wizbang analytics tell me that while many listeners tune in on a regular basis, they don’t catch every installment of Muscle for Life and thus miss out on insights that could help them do at least a little better inside and outside the gym. That’s why I do “best of” episodes that contain a few of the most practical and compelling ideas, tips, and moments from the more popular episodes I’ve published over the years. This way, you can learn interesting insights that you might have otherwise missed and find new episodes of the show to listen to. So, in this installment of The Best of Muscle for Life, you’ll be hearing hand-picked morsels from three episodes: Menno Henselmans on How Genetics Influence Muscle Building (Originally published 1/21/2017) How to Make Meal Plans That Work For Any Diet (Originally published 5/29/2019) My Top 5 Takeaways from Mastery by Robert Greene (Originally published 9/15/2017) And we’ll be starting with number one, Menno Henselmans on how genetics influence muscle building. Timestamps: 0:00 - Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/ 4:16 - Menno Henselman on How Genetics Influence Muscle Building 13:57 - How to Make Meal Plans That Work For Any Diet 23:13 - My Top 5 Takeaways from Mastery by Robert Greene Mentioned on the Show: Pre-order my new fitness book now for a chance to win over $12,000 in splendid swag: https://www.muscleforlifebook.com/