Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews

Typically, “functional foods” are those that can provide additional health benefits beyond fulfilling basic nutritional needs.For example, fatty, cold-water fish like salmon, mackerel, and sardines contain omega-3 fats, which can positively impact your health and wellbeing in a number of ways.Colorful fruits and vegetables like broccoli, berries, and Brussels sprouts are another good example. They contain plenty of vitamins, minerals, and fiber, but also other goodies like sulforaphane, anthocyanins, and carotenoids that can reduce the risk of disease, support brain, eye, and heart health, and more.And even much-maligned foods like beef, pork, and lamb contain a special type of fat, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), that’s associated with a reduced the risk of type 2 diabetes and cancer (and grass-finished/fed meat are particularly rich in CLA).All this is why food and supplement marketers have seized on these types of foods and molecules and spent who-knows-how-many millions of dollars over the last decades promoting their purported wonders.For example, several well-known wellness gurus are trying to make sulforaphane out to be the natural cure for cancer, when it’s far from a magic bullet. Omega-3 fats are important, but they can’t bulletproof you against heart disease as some people claim. And while CLA has some health properties, it’s hard to quantify how helpful it really is for the average healthy person.So, my point is while some foods are more nutritionally “special” than others and deserve consideration in your meal planning, most aren’t as helpful or vital as many self-styled diet experts would have you believe.And that’s why I wanted to get Kurtis Frank, the director of Research and Development for my supplement company Legion Athletics, onto the show to break down the real science of functional foods.Here’s a sneak peek of what you’ll learn in this episode:- What a “functional food” is and isn’t - The best functional foods you can eat - The most popular foods marketed as “functional” that really aren’t - And more.Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter!Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

How can you tell if someone is natty or not?This is a wellspring of controversial fitness gossip, and particularly among men.Some people say that it’s childish, rude, and unnecessary to ask or even wonder if so-and-so is “natty” or not. Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls and all that.Others don’t take issue with the line of discussion but claim there are major problems with the common methods of analysis. Thus, they say, unless it’s completely obvious, it’s really impossible to know whether someone is on the sauce or not.And still others can’t fathom why people purportedly into being healthy and fit would secretly use dangerous drugs to impress strangers on the Internet.Here’s my position:1. I couldn’t care less whether someone does or doesn’t take steroids. That’s their business. 2. I do care, however, when someone takes steroids and lies about it to deceive people. That’s when it becomes other people’s business.Why?Because it’s no different than lying about anything else to make a buck or burnish your bona fides, and it’s one of the reasons so many young men and women have wildly unrealistic expectations about what type of physique they can achieve naturally and should aspire to.This is why you should get savvy about discerning who does and doesn’t use drugs. Let’s learn how.Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter!Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

This episode is part of a weekly series that I have dubbed “Motivation Monday.”(Yes, I know, very creative of me. What can I say, I’m a genius…)Seriously though, the idea here is simple:Every Monday morning, I’m going to post a short and punchy episode that I hope gets you fired up to tackle the workouts, work, and everything else that you have planned for the week ahead.As we all know, it’s one thing to know what you want to do, but it’s something else altogether to actually make yourself do it, and I hope that this series gives you a jolt of inspiration, energy, and encouragement to get at it.So, if you like what you hear, then make sure to check back every Monday morning for the latest and greatest installment.Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter!Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

I’m a big believer in the value of aligning the various parts of our lives toward goals.In fact, I think it’s the only way to resist the forces of entropy that govern the universe and create a life worthy of our ancestors.While spontaneity and short-term thinking certainly have their uses (“what song should I listen to right now?”), I firmly believe the better we can conceive of positive long-term outcomes and create and execute plans to produce those outcomes, the more rewarding, meaningful, and satisfying our lives will be.For instance, many of the more significant goals we all share, like . . .- Building a great body - Improving our physical and psychological health and wellbeing - Becoming financially secure - Growing a successful career or business - Raising a healthy, harmonious family. . . all require goal setting, long-term planning, sacrifice of present pleasures, and perseverance.That’s probably not news to you, but what you may not know is some methods of goal setting are better than others. And that’s what this podcast is going to be all about.Specifically, I’m going to share with you some practical ideas and tactics for making your dreams a reality—ones that are not only evidence-based but have also worked for me time and time again, and to which I ascribe a fair amount of my own successes and wins.And no, I’m not going to just rehash platitudes about SMART goals, affirmations, meditation, or journaling. I’m going to go deeper than that.As you’ll hear, this is an interview I did on another podcast—The Food for Fitness Podcast by Scott Baptie—and I’m reposting it here on my podcast because I thought you, dear listener, would enjoy it.5:53 - Who are you and what do you do? 8:54 - Why do people wait until January to work on their fitness? 16:40 - How do you help people make realistic goals? 29:20 - How do you limit the tendency to try to change everything at once? 43:44 - Where can people find you?Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter!Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re either experiencing or have experienced the following scenario:You’re dieting to lose weight and are doing everything right. You’re...- Maintaining a calorie deficit - Eating enough protein - Sticking to your meal plan - Lifting weights regularly - Limiting your cardioAnd at first, everything more or less went as planned. Your weight and waist went down and muscle definition went up like clockwork.And then, the gears inexplicably ground to a halt.For no apparent reason, the scale stopped moving and your reflection in the mirror stopped changing. You understand energy balance and so, determined to get the ball rolling again, you further cut your calories and increased your cardio.It worked, of course...to a point. And then you got stuck again, and this time you felt even more haggard than before.What to do? Is this as far as your body will go? Have you reached its “set point”? Is a lower body fat percentage just not in the cards for you?And then you hear about “starvation mode” and “metabolic damage.”You find stories about people, typically women, who say they aren’t losing weight with extremely low-calorie dieting and hours of exercise every week, and the culprit is (supposedly) metabolic abnormalities caused by calorie restriction.Essentially, the story goes like this:Dieting dramatically and incrementally decreases your basal metabolic rate, which eventually halts fat loss, and which requires a lengthy and involved “recovery” protocol to fix the “damage” should you ever want a healthy metabolism again.Hence, the term “metabolic damage.”When your body is experiencing the complex set of physiological adaptations that apparently cause metabolic damage, it’s said to be in “starvation mode.” This apparently kicks in the first day of your diet and gets progressively worse and worse as time goes on.How true are these claims, though? Well, the short story is this:- “Metabolic damage” isn’t real, has never stopped someone from losing weight, and doesn’t need to be “fixed” with complex and meticulous diet voodoo. - “Starvation mode” is sort of real, but isn’t nearly as dramatic as many people think.And in this podcast, you’ll learn why.Furthermore, you’ll also learn the real reasons why weight loss stalls and what you can do to easily break through weight loss plateaus.Let’s dig in.Time stamps: 6:28 - What is metabolic damage? 11:40 - What is starvation mode? 22:06 - Is starvation mode real? 26:48 - What are the real reasons you stop losing weight?Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter!Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Face fat can be slightly baffling.You can be fairly lean, with decent muscle definition and even a nice set of abs underneath your shirt, and still see double chins in every picture.Why? And what the hell can you do about it?Well, I have good and bad news.Let’s eat the frog first:There are no amount of face stretches or exercises that you can do to slim your mug.Unfortunately, there’s no magic bullet or quick fix.Now the good news:You absolutely can lose face fat, and it’s easier than you probably think.I can’t promise that you’ll get that superhero jaw or those superheroine cheekbones, but if you feel your face is too fat, there is something you can do about it.So, let’s dive in and find out why some people’s faces seem disproportionately fat when compared to the rest of their bodies, and how to get leaner, more chiseled features.Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter!Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

I’ve churned through over 100,000 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 four questions:-Is it okay to use a higher rep range for some accessory exercises? -Do you have any snack recommendations for cutting? -Do you have to train abs while cutting to get six-pack abs? -What should you do to fix a muscle imbalance between your quads?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.Recommended reading for this episode:https://www.muscleforlife.com/rep-range-podcast/ https://www.muscleforlife.com/8-snacks-for-losing-weight-or-building-muscle/https://www.muscleforlife.com/low-calorie-snacks/https://www.muscleforlife.com/muscle-imbalances/https://www.muscleforlife.com/muscle-imbalances-podcast/https://www.muscleforlife.com/ab-workouts/https://www.muscleforlife.com/how-long-to-get-six-pack-abs/Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter!Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

"When's your next book coming out?""What kind of supplements are you going to release next?""What would you name your boat if you had one?"I'm asked questions like these all the time and so I thought I'd start doing monthly updates about what's new and exciting here at Legion and MFL HQ.So here’s a quick hosedown of what me and my jolly band of pirates and bums have been up to lately.Enjoy!Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter!Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

In this episode I interview Lyell, who’s 46 years old and used my one-on-one coaching service to completely transform his physique and add 300 pounds to his big compound lifts in just 6 months.In this interview he shares how he found his way to me and my work, including what he had tried previously, how things changed after he started implementing the advice in my books and articles, and how my coaching service helped him take his body to a whole new level.As with everything, nothing ever goes exactly as planned, and learning to adjust and adapt to conditions is an important part of the fitness game, which is something Lyell experienced firsthand.He ran into a number of roadblocks along the way that most of us can relate to, including issues with workout and meal scheduling, hunger and cravings, dietary temptations, and more, and in our chat, Lyell shares what has helped him navigate these barriers skillfully and prevent them from getting in his way.Lyell’s story is particularly interesting, because as you’ll learn in this interview, he had been trying to get fit for a long time and simply couldn’t get the needle to move. As he told me, “I’m blown away by what this has done compared to my previous experience with exercise and diet. It’s just been truly unbelievable.”So, if you like hearing motivational stories about how people have changed their bodies and lives, and if you want to pick up a few tips that may help you along in your personal journey, then this episode is for you.Timestamps:5:20 - What was your diet and fitness like before and after our coaching program? 7:20 - Why were you afraid to go to the gym? 10:21 - What was your training program like before our coaching program? 13:29 - What were some obstacles you had to overcome during our coaching program? 14:15 - How was your experience with our diet plan compared to your previous restrictive diet? 19:55 - How did you make your diet work with your busy schedule? 24:23- What does your current training program look like? 29:42 - Have you had a diet break? 31:46- What were some training obstacles you had to overcome during our coaching program? 36:43 - What are your current training goals?Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter!Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Back pain is the bane of athletes everywhere.About a third of adults deal with it at some point, and that number is even higher for us fitness folk.To make matters worse, the cause of back pain, and low-back pain in particular, is rarely obvious and notoriously difficult to diagnose. It also often strikes out of nowhere, lingers for a while, and then suddenly vanishes for no apparent reason. Or not—sometimes it sets in the for long haul.All this mystery, confusion, and frustration has made low-back pain a reliable honeypot for Internet profiteers, fake doctors, and supplement shysters who aren’t bothered one bit by cashing in on people’s pain.That’s why I wanted to talk to one of the most respected, experienced, and knowledgeable experts in the world on spinal health and function—Dr. Stuart McGill—to help cut through the noise and get an honest, practical, evidence-based take on treating back pain.Dr. McGill has spent over 30 years studying the mechanics of the spine and what causes back pain and how to safely and effectively treat it, has published several books including The Back Mechanic, and through his work has helped tens of thousands of people prevent and eliminate back pain without invasive surgery.In this interview, Dr. McGill and I start more or less from square one and then dive into the nitty gritty details and address a whole host of questions I get asked fairly often, including . . .-Is back pain always caused by structural damage? -Can you have structural damage without pain? -How do different forms of exercise affect the health of your back? -How common is degenerative disc disease? -What can people do to self-diagnose and heal their back pain? -When is surgery a good idea and when it is unnecessary? -And more.The bottom line is by the end, you’ll know more about the real science of back pain than 95% your fellow lifters (and more than many doctors and personal trainers).6:28 - Does back pain mean good or bad structural damage? 16:24 - Can there be structural damage without pain? 25:16 - How does mechanical stimulation damage tissue and correlate to pain? 32:38- What options did the clinicians give your client? 36:49 - What are your thoughts on back surgery? 42:36 - What should back surgeons prove to their patient before recommending back surgery? 45:35 - What is a scenario that requires back surgery? 50:07 - Is deadlifting and squatting safe for the spine? 58:59 - What is the goldilocks zone for squatting and deadlifting? 1:10:51 - Where can people find you and your work?Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter!Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/