Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews

Simply put, if you’re in business either for yourself or working for someone else and want to become a better entrepreneur, businessperson, worker, boss, or even, I would argue, a better person, you want you read this book.In short, it provides a compelling and comprehensive answer to the question of why some companies excel and others don’t, and it’s the result of a tremendous amount of in-the-field research and scientific analysis, not a single author’s experiences or opinions.One of the reasons I recommend Good to Great so highly is it deals with the strategic level of business and work, where decisions carry far more weight and influence than those made in the trenches.In fact, sound strategic thinking is probably the ultimate success “hack” there is because no amount of hard work can transform a lousy strategy into a screaming success, and nothing succeeds like a brilliant strategy executed competently.I believe that applies not just to business, but to all areas of life. Assuming you can do the types of things most people don’t want to do, the more bright ideas you can generate and implement, the more your life is going to be filled with hope, excitement, and reward.And this book can help by showing you how to make more good strategic decisions than bad ones.As you’ll see in my takeaways, Good to Great has heavily influenced my own decision making particularly in my businesses, and to great effect.As a matter of fact, I’d ascribe much of my success as an author and entrepreneur to the “hedgehog” and “flywheel” concepts alone, which have informed much of the direction of my work and companies for a number of years now.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.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 three questions:What’s the best weightlifting program for natural bodybuilding?Is cryotherapy a good way to boost post-workout recovery?How many calories should I eat to lose weight?  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 tomike@muscleforlife.com.Recommended reading for this episode:The Definitive Guide on How to Build a Workout RoutineHow to Create the Ultimate Muscle Building WorkoutI Took A Cold Shower (Almost) Every Day for a Year. Here’s What Happened.How Many Calories Should You Eat to Lose Fat & Not Muscle?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/

Gut health has become something of a buzzword these days and, quite frankly, a bit of a red flag, like “detoxing” or “pH.”Whenever I hear someone talking about how to improve gut health, my Spidey sense starts to tingle because there’s a fair chance that shenanigans are afoot.That said, it’s not all quackery.Gut health is a very real thing and impacts your overall health and wellbeing in a number of different ways, and that’s what Dr. Mike Ruscio and I discuss in today’s episode.Before I continue, however, I just have to give a sincerely sloppy kiss to my friends Sal, Adam, Justin, and Doug over at Mind Pump Media for inviting me to their #PODCASTHARD event where I met and interviewed Dr. Ruscio.They have one of the biggest podcasts in the fitness space and are a bunch of cool dudes to boot, so head over their way and if you like what you hear, tell them I sent you.Okay so back to business. In this episode, you’re going to hear from Dr. Ruscio on a number of hot-button issues, including…- What is a healthy gut, actually? - What is leaky gut and what can you do about it? - How can you tell what foods are good or bad for your gut? - Is gluten as bad for your gut as people say? - How does eating sugar affect your gut health? - And more.5:54 - What is gut health? 7:43 - What are inflammatory foods? 8:30 - Why do certain foods trigger an immune response? 11:27 - What is the low-FODMAP diet? 12:27 - What are soluble and insoluble fibers?15:24 - What is leaky gut? 16:22 - What are symptoms of leaky gut? 17:59- How does gluten affect your gut health? 25:06 - How can we improve our gut health? 27:42 - How does sugar affect our gut health? 30:19 - Why does sugar lead to weight gain? 33:06 - Do artificial sweeteners affect your gut health? 36:44 - How do probiotics help? 43:23 - Are the probiotics at the store shelves already dead? 45:09 - Where can people find your book? 46:07 - Where can people purchase your supplements? 46:28 - Can lifestyle factors improve gut health? 49:16 - Is there a connection with exercise and gut health?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/

Doing cardio on an empty stomach doesn’t necessarily help you lose fat faster.Doing fasted cardio can help you lose fat–and “stubborn” fat in particular–faster, though.(And it works especially well when combined with several other fat loss strategies, which we’ll talk more about in this podcast.)This sword cuts both ways, though.Do your fasted cardio wrong and you won’t lose fat faster. You’ll just lose muscle instead, which is a good way to wind up skinny fat.We’re going to break it all down in this podcast and learn the simple science of fasted cardio, including…What fasted cardio actually is (and isn’t).How it can help you lose fat faster.Why it can cause muscle loss.How to maximize its benefits (fat burning) and minimize its drawbacks (catabolism).What types of fasted cardio are best.And more.By the end, you’ll know how to use fasted cardio to speed up fat loss without sacrificing muscle.So let’s go. 5:52 - What is fasted cardio? 9:10 - How does fasted cardio affect fat loss? 11:37 - What does the science say about burning more fat with fasted cardio? 18:54 - How does fasted cardio affect calorie burning? 21:11 - What is stubborn fat? 26:39 - What is yohimbine? 33:30 - What is synephrine? 36:26 - What type of fasted cardio is best? 42:03 - What about fasted weightlifting? 45:23 - How do you maximize the effectiveness of fasted training? 48:12 - What is HMB? 56:59 - What I take before fasted training? 58:28 - What should you eat after fasted training? 01:02:08 - What's the bottom line on fasted cardio?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 my buddy Kurtis Frank, who’s the co-founder and former lead researcher and writer of Examine.com and the current Direct of Research for my supplement company Legion Athletics.This time around, Kurtis and I dive deep into the science and physiology of appetite, including the body’s primary levers for controlling it, how appetite is influenced by different types of foods and diets, easy ways to reduce your appetite while cutting and increase it while lean bulking, and more.So, if you’d like to gain a deeper understanding of how your body’s appetite works and how to make it work more the way you’d like, you want to listen to this episode. 4:11 - What is appetite? 6:04 - What are some common factors that screw up natural appetite? 17:58 - How is appetite affected by different types of diets? 19:29 - What do you mean by handling carbohydrates well? 
 20:48 - What are some signs of insulin sensitivity? 22:41- How does a high fat diet affect appetite? 
 24:15 - Is it true that your body is better at sensing food volume than caloric density? 26:17 - Is a high fat low carb diet what it tends to be lower in fiber?
 29:07- If you could cut on 2500 calories per day, should you add more carbs?
 32:08 - How do you reduce appetite while cutting?
 32:40 - Is it true that having water with food increases the satiating effect? 34:04 How much water should you drink per day? 
 38:30 - What else can people do to reduce their appetite while cutting?
 37:47 - Does caffeine suppress appetite? 37:13 - Can you sense caffeine tolerance?
 40:12 - What are some tips when increasing appetite while bulking? 46:48- What does the endocannabinoid system affect?
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 you first start lifting weights, getting stronger is simple.Show up, add weight to the bar, and hit your reps and sets, and go home.As you inch your way toward your natural muscular potential, however, progress slows.You’ll start missing or even losing reps, feeling burnt out and overtrained, adding little if any weight to your lifts for months.Where to go from here?There are a number of ways to keep progressing in your weightlifting workouts, but one of my favorite models is known asdouble progression.It’s a simple method that anyone can put into use right away, and it’s one of the most effective ways to keep making progress after your newbie gains begin to evaporate.So, in this podcast, you’re going to learn what double progression is, why it works, and how to do it right so you can get the needle moving again.Ready?Let’s start at the top.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/

Charlie Engle has had a lot of ups and downs in his life:- He ran 300 miles straight, without a break. - He ran across the Sahara desert. - He almost died from a cocaine binge. - He was a producer of a top-rated T.V. show. - He served 16 months in federal prison for a crime he didn’t commit.And as you can imagine, he also has a lot of hard-won lessons and wisdom to share that we can all benefit from, which is what this interview is all about.If nothing else, maybe by the end you’ll have a few things to remind yourself of the next time you’re tempted to tell yourself that you “can’t,” because let’s face it—we almost always can.For instance, I loved how Charlie dealt with being sent to prison for mailing loan documents that, unbeknownst to him, had been illegally altered by his mortgage broker, which he proved in court.Yes, Charlie beat the IRS’s claim that he forged documents and proved that it was in fact his mortgage broker and he had no idea, but was still sent to prison because he mailed the fraudulent documents to the bank.#justiceAnyway, as you’ll hear in the interview, Charlie made the absolute most of the experience and by the end, was saying a lot of sad goodbyes upon his release.Oh and I have to also give a big shout-out to Spartan for inviting me to their world championship to interview Charlie, who’s working on a very cool project with them that you’ll learn more about in this episode. 6:43 - What was the most extreme thing you did before running across the Sahara Desert? 9:31 - How did you get an academy winning crew to create your film? 12:05 - Why did you run across the Sahara Desert? 14:06 - What lessons have sobriety taught you? 15:36 - How did you become comfortable with discomfort? 32:45 - Have you recorded an audio book before? 40:00 - Do you still have inertia when you begin a project? 41:26 - Why is your project called 5.8? 58:44 - Why was your tax return such a mystery to the IRS agent? 1:00:06 - Did you overstate your income on your home loan? 1:03:14 - Have you read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius? 1:07:34 - What plans did you have after prison? 1:13:13 - Did you get a prison tattoo? 1:14:41 - Are prisons privately owned? 1:17:15 - What's next for 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/

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/

In this episode I interview Geoff, who’s 34 years old and used my Bigger Leaner Stronger program to completely transform his physique. In this interview we talk about 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, articles, and podcasts. 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 Geoff 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, Geoff shares what has helped him navigate these barriers skillfully and prevent them from getting in his way. 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. 5:03 - What were your diet and exercise habits before BLS? 5:59 - Why did you gain the weight back? 7:47 - Where are you at now with your diet and training? 9:28 - How do you fit training into your busy lifestyle? 11:30 - Did you always have an ‘all in’ mentality? 14:56 - How did you find my work? 16:30 - How did your body respond to the BLS program? 24:09- How has getting in shape affect other areas in your life? 30:10 - What would you like to achieve moving forward in your training?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/