Transcript
This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. So excited to have this guest here today. As listeners of this podcast know, we have had a ton of experts on different diets, different approaches to nutrition, different approaches to working out and looking better and feeling good and living longer. Today with me is Angelo Polley, the founder of a company, metpro.co, where he basically is the expert on fitness and nutrition. He has worked with NFL stars, Olympic athletes, physique models, and, of course, various CEOs all around the world. And he has a particular approach to how to identify your specific metabolism because not one diet fits all as opposed to many people who push a particular diet. He's also an expert on something that I want to be important to me, which is I wanna transform my body so I look stronger and I'm healthier. So, Angelo, welcome to the James Altucher show. James, that is an honor to be here. Thank you. I mean, you've been I I read about you in Men's Health, Sports Illustrated. You've did TED Talks on this stuff. First off, I never understand the phrase metabolism. Like, what happens? I eat some food, and I stuff it as fast as I can into my mouth and then swallow it into my throat. What happens next? And I'm not I'm not asking necessarily, like, you know, show me as the diagram of a skeleton like I saw in 6th grade and, like, what happens? But, like, what is metabolism? Everyone says, oh, your metabolism is no good, or my metabolism is great. I just s**t it right out. Like, what what the is that How does the metabolism actually work? Yeah. Okay. Here let's dive in. Here's how it works. So let's define it first. If you go to the dictionary, I'm pretty sure what it actually says is metabolism the root of all evil. At least that's how most people have described it to me. But most people are looking for a more biological definition. So here it is. Simply put, your metabolism is the sum total of all the biological interactions taking place in your body that result in the speed or the amount of energy you burn. Okay. So, like, recently, I had on, doctor Steven Gundry. He wrote a book recently called The Energy Paradox. Of course, food is fuel. We have a limited supply of energy throughout the day. So the better fuel you'll take in, the more your energy lasts throughout the day. And I guess this is somewhat related to how calories are burned, and I guess this is related to metabolism. Absolutely. What does it mean to have a good metabolism? So there is a medical terminology when you're talking about metabolism that has to do with, you know, blood markers and indication of health longevity. That's not what we're talking talking about here. What we're talking about is when your neighbor says, oh, I have a a slow metabolism, or the guy next door is he's complaining, but, man, this this metabolism is so fast. I can't gain weight. Or young athletes trying to gain weight for their position on the football team or whatever it is, they have a fast metabolism, or or the person who's trying to lose that last stubborn 10 pounds have a slow metabolism. That's what we're talking about here. So the the reason that I talk so much about metabolism is not because it supersedes any other health marker or fitness marker or any other topic. The reason I talk so much about metabolism is because it's the most misunderstood topic. We're so conditioned by What what do you mean misunderstood? So we're so conditioned by, kind of, mainstream media on it that we confuse health and metabolism. So let let me share, you know, some, you know, maybe some common myths that are most people think that if they're healthy and they're eating good quality foods, that means they have a good metabolism. Well, eating healthy is for vitality and to fight disease. Eating good quality foods are gonna fuel any athletic endeavor, but it's not exactly a one for one translation to a fast or slow metabolism. Your metabolism works by adapting or acclimating to your environment, to your day to day food. So that means it can be controlled, it can be manipulated, if you understand how it works. So what we could do, James, if you're up for it is, you know, we could conduct a little mini experiment to prove that. Because I know I'm saying something that may sound extreme. It's like, wow. Wait a second. Your metabolism can't change. But but it can, it can, and you can control it by what you're eating. And so here's how we might look at it. James, if we were to take a 100 people and drop them off in a desert island, a deserted island for a year or 2, and we have young people, old people, big people, little people, men, women, everything, and every demographic is represented And they're on this island. They're healthy, but the catch is they're all living on rations. 1200 calories a day. What do you think would happen to these people? Well, my gut, pun intended, tells me they'd all lose weight. Yep. Some may. So I ask lots of people this question. And and, also, my my gut tells me that they'll also be tired. Yeah. Because, you know, 1200 calories probably isn't enough. So Yeah. They're probably gonna probably have a decent amount of sleep, to be honest. There you go. So right again, James. Right again. Now here's a more tricky question. Will they die? Now there's no on this island, there's no volcanoes exploding. There's no shark attacks. There's no parachuting gorillas with robotic arms. They're living in peace and tranquility. The catch is every person is on 1200 calories a day. Will they die? What do you think? I would say no. I would say their body would adjust to the lower calories. They'll sleep more. They'll move around less. And, my my guess is their body their their body will adjust. Precisely. Yeah. And we know that. Lots of people exist on on low caloric intake, even lower than that. And so here's what that means, though. So now let's do some math. What that means is that there's gonna be some big dudes on this island, so they're gonna start losing weight immediately. But if they get rescued a couple years later and they're alive, that means that at some point, they are going to stop losing weight. Do we agree on that? Because their body will, yeah, their body will kind of adjust to the amount of energy they're using. And so and, actually, my guess is their body will maybe even retain weight because it'll recognize that, hey. We need energy to survive, and so we can't we can't burn as much as we used to. So their okay. So now I'm getting where you're going. Their metabolism in that sense will slow down to adjust for the fact that they're eating only 1200 calories a day. Ding. Ding. Ding. Has to be. It has to be because we know the outcome. The outcome is they will not die. They will survive. And if somebody just kept losing £2 every week, they would be dead. They'd be dead in, you know, before a year. So their metabolism will acclimate, in this case, by slowing down. So let me let me ask you a question because this is related to this. When the pandemic and the economic lockdown started, I consciously made a a decision about my activity every day, which is that I knew I wasn't gonna be leaving the apartment, so I probably wouldn't get as much just organic exercise, you know, walking around, running around, that sort of thing. So I made a conscious decision to basically eat only 1 meal a day knowing that I wouldn't burn that much fuel each day. And I don't think I maybe I lost a little weight, but I actually don't think I gained or lost weight during this time. In fact, if anything, on the days when I had 2 meals a day, I felt, like, bloated and and stuffed. Mhmm. Like, what was going on with my metabolism there? Your body's acclimating. So anything you do, your body will acclimate to over time. It has to. So whether it's good or bad, your body will acclimate to it to keep you alive. So in this case, you know, the nuance of what's happening, we have to break down what exactly you were eating and if what your goal was. Was your goal to maintain your weight, not gain weight? Was your goal to hold weight? Was your goal for energy? So we would look at specifically what objectives you have, and then we break down what the best, most direct route to that objective is going to be. So in your case, you're asking a question about cyclical fasting. Most people are using that approach as a method to weight loss, and it can be effective for that, but it comes with a cost. The cost is then your metabolism gets used to 1 or 2 meals a day. Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? Well, what we can agree is it is a thing. So are we prepared for the ramifications of that? And so in the case of someone who's merely content to maintain their weight, it might not be a big ramification, but for someone who needs to leverage and make adjustment after adjustment, we might wanna consider alternative options. So it boils down to this. If you were to go on Google and say, how do I lose £10? You'll have half a 1000000 responses, half a 1000000 different experts. And you know what? They'll all tell you something different. Let me see. I'm Let's do that. They'll all tell you something. Google it right now. Google it. How can I lose £10? That's awesome. Hey. You know what? They used to tell you how many results there were. I don't see I think this is a new change in Google. They used to tell you right away there were 678,000,000 results. But I think maybe too many people were making fun of that, and they do not do that anymore. They don't do that anymore. Well, that is gonna be a lot. We just noticed a change in the Google algorithm. See that? Okay. But here here's 14 simple steps from health line.com. Do more cardio, cut back on carbs, start counting calories, choose better beverages, eat more slowly, add fiber, eat a high protein breakfast, and get enough sleep. Yep. And and those those are general recommendations. Those are all good. I'll put my stamp of approval on that. But if you scroll down, here's what you're gonna see. You're gonna see, you know, ketogenic, you're gonna see cyclical fasting, you're gonna see, you know, everything from only eat foods that start with the letter k, you're gonna see everything in there. There's gonna be a strategy for everything, and it's not that there's a bunch of snake oil salesmen out there, there are a couple of those, But every strategy now I've been doing this for decades. I have seen every strategy work. So there's merit to all of them. The key is, and this is getting back to what MetPro is, identifying what approach is gonna work given your current metabolic circumstance. So the illustration I use, James, is people call me all the time and they say, you know, well, you know, I've heard that you go low carb and ketogenic is the best. Well, no. I've been taught that you just control your calories or you exercise more. You know what that debate is like? It's like going to the mechanic and he's got both arms in your engine, and he yells over to you and he says, Hey, grab me that tool over there. And you say, Which one? And he goes, Doesn't matter. Any tool. That's not going to work. It's just not going to work. You have to have the right tool for the right job. You've got 2 people arguing and says, You know, what do you think is better, the screwdriver or the wrench? Because I hear really good things about the wrench this time of year. They're all tools, And so people have been, since the beginning of, you know, the this age, modern age, they've been trying to answer the question, what is the best diet? Now I'll stay in my lane. My lane is gonna be, what is the best diet to lose fat? What is the best diet to build muscle? I'll leave the health to the health experts. Let me ask you about that, though. Is losing weight and building muscle equivalent to health? Won't they be correlated? It can be and it should be. Now the truth is having been in this industry for years, it isn't always. So for years, I would train, physique competitors, bodybuilders, figure, the whole 9 yards. And some of the athletes participated in their sport in a very healthy way, and they did wonderful. Some of the athletes participated competitively in a not healthy way, and I've watched that happen as well. So while they're both important topics, they're not automatically related. I'll give you another example of that to really, you know, put the nails in the coffin on this topic. Another example of that, when it comes to metabolism, health doesn't automatically equate to fast metabolism. Have you ever seen those shows on the, you know, the stations where it's the the 1,000 pound man getting taken out of his house with a crane? Have you ever seen that stuff? Maybe. Yeah. Sounds familiar. Sounds familiar? Yeah. So, you know, Hollywood will get its hands on it, you know, for for drama. You know, the the camera will pan over these and show, you know, oh, this person eats 2 buckets of fried chicken and 3 cheese pizzas and and 2, you know, 2 liter things of of soda pop. You know, I don't know how much truth there is to that those exact numbers, but here's an interesting point. If you were to put one of these people on 5,000 calories a day, most of them now mind you, they can't even stand on their own. Most of them would lose weight. Now how many how how many pounds would you or I lose if we were eating 5,000 calories a day? How would they lose weight? Because they have a blazing metabolism. I mean, I would gain £700. Right. You'd gain £700. Yet this guy is going to actually lose weight on that. Why? Because his body is accustomed to eating more and more. So remember how we talked about the island and people on 1200 calories a day? Their metabolism is gonna slow down until it's just burning 1200 calories a day? Well, in this case, when a person starts overconsuming, the job of the metabolism is to start speeding up and speeding up. Why? Because your body's designed in such a way that it has to acclimate, otherwise you die. If it can't slow down, you die. If it can't catch up, you die. So the metabolism adjusts. And so in the case of a scenario like this guy, who's very sickly, he's morbidly obese, he can't even stand without assistance, yet he actually has an Olympian metabolism. So we're not saying that that's something to strive for, of course. He's paying the consequences for that. He's in a bad spot. But I'm using it as a shock value illustration to really try and get listeners to look at metabolism differently. The metabolism speeds up and changes in response to changes in your environment. Therefore, it can be controlled, at least to a degree. It can be controlled. So so what you're saying essentially is, assuming I eat largely healthy foods, if I wanna lose weight, the key is essentially require my metabolism to be faster by exercising more and using more energy and at the same time eating less calories? Very close. Yes. All of those things are truisms, but the asterisk on it is the biggest lever you have is manipulating the volume of your intake, increasing and decreasing. So to to illustrate, I used to this is going back, you know, a lifetime ago. I used to take athletes to competition, physique sports, and things like that. And every year at these competitions, somebody from the audience would come up to me, and mister Boley, your athletes look amazing. What do you have them eating? And I would give the tongue in cheek rehearsed answer because I get this question every competition, and so I would say, Well, you know, boiled chicken and broccoli and rice cakes. And it was always follow it up. I would laugh. I'd always have follow it up with, would I look like them if I ate that? And the answer is nope. You wouldn't. And and here's the reason why. Because them looking like that is not a function of strictly how they eat or how they exercise. It's a function of contrast. In other words, they were used to eating so much more volume in food that when they cut down to, you know, 1900 calories of boiled chicken and broccoli, the fat just incinerates off of them. So it's a function of contrast. Your metabolism causes you to either lose or gain weight during the time interval that it takes your body to acclimate to its new circumstance. And for some people, it's quickly. Some people, it takes a long time, and they change a lot in that interval. In the case of physique sports, you can tow someone's metabolism up to great heights with all the training that they're doing. And then when you cut them down low, it creates such a contrast that their body responds, and that's where puritization comes in. You have bulking cycles, stripping cycles. Well, for our average client, the same science applies. Now how the application of that is gonna be highly individual, and not many people call me up and say, I wanna be a bodybuilder at 4% body fat. But lots of people want more energy. They wanna be at a sustainable body weight. They want vitality. And so they call me up and they say, here's the deal. I'm already eating healthy. I'm already doing all the exercising regularly, but I'm still not at the physique or health or body that I want. How do I get there? And that's where specificity comes in. Okay. So for me, I'd like to get in better shape, maintain weight, you know, look sharper. What should I do? Everybody asks me, what's the best thing to eat? What's the best thing to do? And the answer is always the same. It depends. So it depends on your goals and your body type. Real quick, I'm gonna define body type. My view of body type is, your genetic predisposition. So whenever I we my team and I start working with a client, the first thing that we do is we review their goals and body type, then their lifestyle, then we determine whether they're strategic or metabolic, and I'll define that in a moment, and then we do nutritional baseline testing. So let's go through just a bam, bam, bam version of that with you. So your body type, I believe, is ectomorph. Does that sound familiar? Have you heard that term before? Yeah. Yeah. I've heard I've heard that before. Okay. Okay. So we won't we won't get into the not the nuances of that right now, but, for me, a solid goal setting session might surprise you. To me, a really good goal setting session is one where we walk away where you know what you're not gonna do or where we're just tearing things out because the enemy of results is a lack of specificity. If you wanna get results, you gotta be hyper focused. Now that doesn't mean that you toss this and toss that and never come back to it, but most people that are reaching out to me wanna know what do I focus on to force progress. So what are your goals? What's your primary objective, James? I'll be honest. I'm just gonna be really honest about this. Let me think for a second what my objective is. I guess I I need energy throughout the day. Like, I work from sometimes 6 AM till 10 at night. So I need energy throughout the day. I don't really need to lose weight, but I definitely don't wanna gain weight, and I wanna look I just I always wanna look better. This is really hard for me. I know. I'm asking for a lot. But I I like my features to be sharp, and it seems like depending on my my diet, my features are either sharper or fluffier. No. You're you're And I wouldn't mind muscle, but that involves more exercise than I'm willing to do. No. No. No. You're you're speaking my language. So I I get I'll get executives, like, type a personality executives, that'll reach out to me all the time. Like, mister Polley, I know who you are. I know who you work with. Here's what I want. I wanna, you know, bench £300, I wanna run a sub 6 minute mile, and, oh, by the way, I wanna drop £30. Can you help me do it? I'm like, yeah, I can help you do that. Absolutely, that's what we do. Now, here's what you have to pick. Which one of those things do you wanna do first? Because if we aim for all of them, we're gonna miss. Whereas if we isolate one objective and hit it hard, we're gonna achieve it, we're gonna be able to sustain it, check it off the list, move on to the next. So here's what I'm hearing. Let me repeat back to you. What I'm hearing from you is that your priority is to get as much muscle and as, and lean as you can within a maintenance range of your current weight with the priority being productivity and energy. Did I hear that correctly? You're not gonna be doing a big bodybuilding routine. You're not gonna be competing in any marathons, but you're not averse to physical activity, and you're not averse to eating clean. Is that would that be an accurate description? Yes. And I to to a large extent, I think I succeeded that. Let let me ask you one random question that's related to this. I love random questions. This article I read this article, like, 6 months ago that Magnus Carlsen, the world chess champion, burns 8,000 calories a day when he's in the middle of a chess tournament because the brain burns, like, 25% of our calories per day. What I'm hoping for is that brain activity is just as good as exercise for burning calories. Yeah. Well, Ben Feingold disagrees. Yeah. Do you know Ben? Oh, I've just He's a he's a good He's a good player. I read that in your bio. You're a chess master, aren't you? Yeah. Yeah. But Ben but Ben Vingold is a grand master, and you're right. He's but I don't know how much he plays in a tour. Maybe maybe the reason he's not world champion, he's gonna burn as many calories as Magnus Carlsen. No. I so so just as a taking the individuals out of the equation, that is a little, it's an exaggeration. So the principle is not inaccurate. Okay. When you're when you're intensively focusing on something, you will be exhausted. You will be exhausted from mental exertion. Intense mental exertion absolutely burns calories. That's an exaggeration. That would be an exaggeration even for physical expenditure. You're not gonna burn 8,000 calories. Magnus Carlsen's not gonna burn 8,000 calories. But it is a truism in principle. Okay. I was curious. Yeah. So circling back to the goal scenario, since we know what you want to achieve, then what we're gonna do next is look at your lifestyle. Now people ask me this all the time. Now I love snacks, but not for any of the reasons that most people have heard before or they think. The reason that most of my clients end up snacking is because people don't take snacks socially. Let me explain that. People don't take snacks socially. That means that there's already gonna be, for most people, a number of meals in the day that they'll have partial control over, so we may have to take a principled approach. Hopefully not, but it may be the case. Whereas snacks, you don't call up your coworker and say, Hey, beat me at the water tank in 15 minutes. We're going to split an apple and 24 almonds. People don't get together over a snack. They get together over a meal, which means when I ask someone to eat something specific for their snack, I get compliance. And when I have compliance, I have a baseline I can anchor to, and it gives me a little bit more control over what they're taking in each day, therefore, a little bit more control over their metabolism. So as a lifestyle, what is your circumstance? So it sounds like you're only eating 1 or 2 meals a day, but is that because that suits your lifestyle and schedule, or is that just you've heard that's the better way to eat, or is it just because you feel the best on that? Why are you doing that? A little bit of all of that. Like, I do believe in the benefits of intermittent fasting. Of course, I'm not a scientist. I'm not a nutritionist, but I've talked to enough people to know that some degree of intermittent fasting is probably a healthier way to go than eating all day. And particularly for me, I don't move around a lot during the day, so I figured this was, like, a natural thing for me. So in a case like for you, if we wanna take, your energy level to the next day so people ask me this all all the time. They say, well, I've gotten good results with what I'm doing, but I'm not where I wanna be. So if you're not where you wanna be, then let's consider changing something because doing the same thing is not gonna produce a different result. So while there may be nothing wrong with what you're currently doing, what we're gonna wanna do is find ways to optimize. In your case, what I'd be looking for is what's the lowest common denominator that you can execute simply on, which is going to stimulate muscular activity that you could do. Now I'm all about practical, things you could do at home, things you can do quickly, and then I would want to pack some nutrition around that as well and start with that. And we might evolve into, at least some days, you eating more frequently, but at all days, I would want you eating more, especially when you're active, so that way you're gonna have more energy throughout the day. Now, again, this would be a very different conversation if you said, look, I wanna put on £10 of muscle or, look, I wanna drop £30 of body fat. I'm not hearing those things for you. So we're gonna pick the lowest common denominator and start. Most people come to me. Well, you know why most people call me. 85, and we're sports nutrition, we work with Olympic athletes, NFL athletes, yet still 85% of people are like, oh my goodness, just help me get this last £10 off, I've done everything and it won't come off. That's the metabolism. So that's why we focus on that so much. And then there's strategic versus metabolic. Which are you? So strategic is when we talk with someone, we get to know them, and we determine that it's not a matter of whether or not your body will respond, it's a matter of what you can, in practical terms, do on a given day repeatably. And people ask me this all the time, what's the secret? The secret's time management. Because time management will allow you to take all the other actions that you're gonna need packed in a day to see progress if your goal is any level of physical transformation. So if we determine that you're a strategic type, that means that we're not worried about the bite for bite macros. We're worried about the overall principles and cadence and how we can help you execute on good habits quicker. Speed is key, because I could tell you the greatest thing in the world, but if it's gonna take you 3 hours a day, nobody's gonna do it. So you have to execute with speed. Now, a metabolic type is different. That's usually someone who comes to me and says, Angela, I'm already exercising, I'm already eating clean, I'm already watching my calories, I'm already this, I'm already that, but I'm still not seeing the results I want. That means that your metabolism has acclimated to your already good habits, and it's not that you're doing anything right or wrong, it's just that your body's now used to it. Right? So we go back to the island illustration, your body's used to that intake, so it's not going to change anymore. So in that case, what we have to do is we have to retrain your metabolism. Now have you ever heard the concept you have to eat more to lose weight? Have you heard that before? No. So a lot of a lot of the experts correctly state that you have to actually increase your intake before you can lose weight, which is occasionally applicable. Overall, that is accurate, for sustainability long term, but it's one of those don't try this at home, folks. Because if you miss, if you increase slightly too much or for slightly too long, you end up going backwards. You end up going the wrong way. So the principle is true. We need to get your body to a point where it'll be sustainable long term, and we do that by manipulating your intake. It sounds like it works like addiction a little bit. So let's say you're addicted to some drug and you like the effects of it. The benefits sort of go away if you take the same amount every day. It's exactly right. Metabolism's like an addiction. That's a very good illustration. That's exactly what's going on. Yep. So how we determine where someone starts then so we can make adjustments is we baseline test. We don't guess. We baseline test. So what that means is if you were my client tomorrow, James, here's what would be happening. I would send you a meal plan that's boring, not special, not any super defined features that make it better or worse than anything else. The qualities that make it unique that I would send you a meal plan that I have had literally thousands of other men your approximate age, body type activity level also follow so I have averages for what I should expect. Then I'm gonna watch how your body responds, because now you have a meal plan, a template, where I know the macronutrient ratios, the calorie intake, the glycemic load, the timing, everything. And now I have data that says based on a 1,000 men that have done this, here is the average result. And now, finally, I have your data. Here's what happens to you. You gained £3. You lost £3. I don't know how your body will respond, and I've been doing this 20 years. I've dieted almost 20,000 people. Everyone's body's unique. Everyone responds differently. Once I get that data and analyze it, then, and my claim is really only then, should somebody be saying, okay, now let's customize your meal plan. Here's your strategy. Because now they have the whole the deck in their hands. They can see all the cards. Angelo, let's say they don't have you. Yes. What should they do? Great question. Write down what you eat every day. Write it down for a few days. And then what I want you to do is I want you to take that list and go to a friend of yours. Doesn't have to be an expert. Just someone with a good head on their shoulders. Show them your food, and then ask them this question. Can you tell what my goals are based on this diet? That's it. Can you tell what my goals are? And if they are struggling to look at that and say, oh, yeah. You're trying to lose a few pounds, or, oh, you're trying to bulk up, or, oh, you're trying to do this or trying to do that, if they can't, even a nonexpert, come to a reasonable conclusion about what your efforts are, you're lacking specificity. But, Angelo, I would say I mean, you deal with a lot of athletes, and so they have many different goals. But I would say the average person, particularly post pandemic, like, right now Yeah. Is is simply looking to lose the the weight they gained when they were just sitting at home watching TV all day. 85% of them. Yep. Same same application. Write down what you eat. It'll be a very interesting experience. In fact, years ago in my office, I had people would walk in and they would sit in front of me, you know, not not too far away, right behind the desk. Right behind them, I had a custom sign built, and the sign would say, I know this isn't how you usually eat. And then in our first meeting, we would review their food journal. And we'd look at it and I'd say, well, let's take a look at how you're used to eating. And they'd go through it, I'd wait for it, and every single person without exception would make the comment. They would say, oh, that's not how I usually eat. And then I would point to the sign, they'd turn around, and it'd be a gotcha moment because and and I'm victim of it as well. We don't have good self awareness of what we eat in particular, especially when we're asked to recall our overall habits. We tend to have selective memory, so it's a very insightful process of actually journeying, not indefinitely, but just for a few days, to see what we're doing. And then if you wanna take a step further, then you can actually get into some calculations and look at, am I eating a high carb or low carb diet? Would I be on what's considered a high calorie or low calorie diet? Now I'm oversimplifying a little bit here, but the gist of it will help someone who wants to, tomorrow, go out and start making some progress. If you can at least come up with what I'm currently doing, then I can come up with a rational next step. Now our our coaching team takes that to the umpteenth degree, but even somebody just on their own, if they know what they're looking for, they can determine, okay, so I am gonna have the most leverage from changing my macronutrients, my carbs, or I'm going to have the most leverage by changing my calories, or I'm gonna have the most leverage by adding this missing piece, which isn't even on my list, which is exercise. And so we can start making some thoughtful decisions when it comes to how to move the dial forward. And I'll I'll tell you why we have to do that, because there's this fallacy, this this myth in the industry that kind of bothers me. It's this concept that sometimes people in the industry think, well, if somebody isn't getting results, making progress, losing weight, or whatever the case may be, they just don't have the willpower to stick to something. I have not found that to be the case. Now, full disclosure here, There are absolutely occasions where, yeah, I mean, there has to be a hard conversation to be had. But the majority of the time, when somebody isn't seeing progress, it's not because of a lack of willpower. It's not because they're not willing to roll up their sleeves and work hard at something. It's because humans need to see progress to stay motivated. And most people that kind of fall off the bandwagon are falling off that bandwagon because they're either not seeing progress, not seeing enough progress, or not understanding why their progress is ebbing and flowing. So they become frustrated, and that's why they throw in the towel. Not because of a fundamental lack of motivation. Most people, if I can show them a monochrome of progress and a clear trajectory and path forward to continuing that progress, do amazing. So if you have a strategy and you have a good appraisal of where your body is at and what your next steps are, then this very confusing process of weight loss or changing your body or building muscle or improving your energy starts to go from this, wow, where do I start? And it gets a little tighter and a little tighter and a little tighter, and it's down to some, okay, here's some clear steps for me. That's what we're all about. That's what I'm passionate about, helping people find those next clear steps. What I'm getting out of this is that there's no one diet that works for everyone, although it seems like low carbs is better than high carbs. It it depends because, remember, we have to consider goal. So, definitely, when I have, you know, the youth football player or the person trying to build muscle, high carb is better in those cases. So it always, of course, depends on your goal. But, yes, you're right in general, for sure. So, wait, when when's higher carb good? So lots of people are trying to actually add mass, lean ma*s. And so eating more carbs, the right kind of carbs at the right time, so those can that can be very beneficial in that scenario. When's the right time to eat carbs? As an athlete, you wanna have carbs throughout the day, to fuel that intensive training. So if somebody's a hardcore athlete and their goal is to add lean mass, limiting carbohydrates will typically slow that process compared to adding the right carbs, which is gonna be slow digesting carbohydrates paired with proteins throughout the day in that scenario. Now that scenario is gonna have a very different response if somebody wants to try and lose weight. Now for somebody trying to lose weight, oftentimes, manipulating carbohydrates is the right approach. But keep in mind, we kinda end up beating our head against the wall on this a lot. A lot of people call me up and they're like, well, Angelo, I had really good results doing low carb. I said, well, what are you doing right now? And they say, low carb. And I say, and so what's your goal? I wanna lose another £30. So low carb is good, but continuing to do low carb, you're not gonna get a different result. So it's not that there's something wrong with low carb. It's that for that individual, we have to take them out of carb sensitivity gradually, get them used to more carbohydrates, and then likely take the carbohydrates back away. Because, like you said, no 2 diets no 2 people respond the same to a diet, I'll take that one step further. You're correct. And even more unfortunately, the same person doesn't respond the same way on a diet the second time. For our listeners, you're going to relate to this. How many people, how many of you relate to this concept? I did the same diet I did a couple years ago, but I didn't get the same result. I don't go 24 hours without hearing that. So, we have to reevaluate every time what's our most strategic next step. You know, let's say, just again, someone's living a normal life. They either work from home, but they sit around all day, and or they commute, and then they sit in a cubicle all day, and they'd like to lose weight, which you've mentioned is, like, 85% of the of of what the goals are. Right. And let's say they have kind of they're generally, like, a little they're getting older, so they've got a little bit of belly fat, and they'd like to lose that. What would be, like, your your not not your recommendation, but your average recommendation in these situations? Yes. So in this situation, we're gonna baseline test. And so I'm gonna ask someone. Now they're not gonna be measuring and weighing food indefinitely, but I am gonna ask somebody for a few days to be very specific while we're establishing a baseline. So that way, whether it's good news or bad news, I get accurate news. So I'll put them on a meal plan, determine their general metabolic pace. Then what we're gonna say is, let's say it's an individual who weighs 200 pounds that wants to weigh a £175. So that individual, I'm gonna determine whether or not we're gonna reduce calories or carbohydrates or often a combination of both, just a little bit less on each, and it makes small adjustments until they start losing weight. Now what'll typically happen is somebody will start making progress, but their metabolism will acclimate to it. So So now they go from £200 down to £90, down to £86, down to £84, and they start law of diminishing returns because their body's now getting used to this routine. Several weeks have gone by and their body's like, okay, I'm good. So now what we're gonna stop and do is increase their intake, and I'm gonna say, all right, Johnny, what I want you to do, Johnny, is go and increase your intake by 10%, but you can't gain any weight. Well, how do I do that? Now we're gonna pull the exercise lever. So now we're gonna start increasing your diet, your intake, every few days until you've gained 1 pound. And as soon as you gain that pound, they're gonna make you do an extra cardio session or an extra workout to burn that pound off, because you can't it's very difficult to exercise £20, £30 off, but you can definitely exercise £1 off. So then Johnny's gonna come back to me, he's like, okay, I lost that pound you told me to. I'm gonna say, great. Now we're gonna add a little bit more carbs, a little bit more calories, and I'm gonna make you gain that pound back. And we keep you adding gradually carbs and calories until he gains that pound, and I say, okay, Johnny, now go lose that pound, but you can't eat any less. You have to do it just with exercise. So Johnny's gonna gain and lose that same pound 4 or 5 times while I get his metabolism used to eating more and more and more. Then we're gonna hit reboot. We're gonna start that diet down process again. Only this time, I'm gonna take him down. Now remember we said he wants to weigh £175? When he gets to £175, he's not actually £175. He doesn't own it yet. Because when he gets there, he's gonna be on the lower end of his intake. So we're gonna actually shoot past that goal. We're gonna go down to about £172. Once he weighs a £172, let me say, alright, Johnny, now remember how we gained weight last time? We're gonna do the same thing again. I'm gonna gradually increase your intake, and we're gonna gain just lean mass, not fat mass, gradually over a few weeks until you weigh a 175. Now when you weigh a 175 and you're eating enough food that's sustainable, enough food that you could eat this food the rest of your life, now he'll own it. Now he actually weighs a 175 because it's where his body wants to be, where his metabolism wants to be without him starving himself. The problem is people starve themselves to hit a weight, but that meal plan was never sustainable, so they're not regulating their metabolism back to a maintenance level and that's the trick. So that's what somebody would typically experience when they wanna lose weight. We take them down a few cutting cycles, pause to speed the metabolism, exceed their weight loss goal, and then actually gain weight back to their maintenance, and then it's theirs potentially for the rest of their life, Potentially. That's interesting. So that that's kinda like if all I did was eat 1 meal a day and no carbs. Okay. So I did intermittent fasting and no carbs. What would, like, what would be the likely outcome? Most people wouldn't be able to sustain that. Very few people could tolerate that. They'd have poor energy, they wouldn't recover, and it wouldn't support an athletic or active lifestyle. Most people. There's exceptions. I I mean, some people, they can eat, you know, drywall and nails, and they feel great. It's just it doesn't faze them. Everyone's biology and genetic predisposition is a little bit different. But if you were to just eat one meal a day and that meal had no carbohydrates, which is your body and your brain's principal fuel source, sugar, glycogen, glucose, you're going to be forcing your body to adapt to run on very low amounts of fuel. Sometimes we swing the pendulum too far because we understand that sugars and overconsumption of carbs or processed carbs have all this delirious effect on our body, but that causes us sometimes to run too extreme to one direction or the other to where now we're actually undernourishing our body. So in a case like that, somebody would lose weight, but likely, they would find that they're binge eating in very short order because they're app they're just so hungry or they're just so depleted, that it wouldn't be sustainable. They would lose weight. Is that a fair answer? Yeah. No. That that's good. Like, how how did you get into this? Pain and suffering. So when I was in my early twenties, I had a back injury, a severe one. My favorite answer. Yeah. Good. Good. Yeah. You seemed a little bit like, you you you'd go for that. Alright. So when I was in my early twenties, I had a fairly severe back injury. I walked with a cane for almost 10 years. And so interestingly Oh my gosh. Wait. How did you get the back injury? I thought I was young and immortal, like a lot of you know, 22 year olds, and I had to learn the hard way that your body actually needs rest and recovery, not just pounding. So it was a it was an accumulation over time. I didn't have a major accident. It was accumulation of poor exercise habits, poor sleep habits, and, oh, by the way, poor nutrition. So I ended up with this severe back situation that required surgery. I walked with a cane for 10 years, and it turns out not everybody is excited about hiring a personal trainer who walks with a cane. So I had to really teach people something if I was gonna earn their trust, as an injured personal trainer. So I I started doing seminars and teaching, the science behind physique transformations, and the nuance. And so what I would do is you know, I would travel from health club to health club, college to college, hospital to hospital, and put on these seminars. And in short order, I realized in order to help the most amount of people as quickly as possible, I needed to determine what their needs were because like we've discussed in abundance today, no 2 people need the exact same thing. No 2 people are alike. So I started having people fill out these questionnaires and answer a few questions in advance so that way when they came to one of my lectures or seminars, I could look at that in advance and then give them more specific recommendations. And it became crystal clear and painfully apparent that the number one determining factor as to whether somebody would be able to lose weight easily or with great difficulty didn't have to do with their age, didn't have to do with their weight, didn't have to do with their activity, didn't even have to do with their gender. Now, all of those things do impact it. Don't say, Mr. Polley said it doesn't matter, because it does, but they are all playing second place to how much food they were currently consuming. People who were used to either overconsumption or consuming a lot of calorie dense, sugar dense junk food had a proclivity to lose weight very rapidly when that was adjusted. And people, even if active, were already conditioned to very clean eating, were the ones that noted difficulty and stubborn metabolism and having a hard time losing the next few pounds. And so I figured out the reason why. It's because your metabolism adapts. And by the way, I'm not the first person to figure out this. All the experts know this. Most often, it's not given enough of a place of honor in the strategy approach. We all acknowledge that when you eat less, your metabolic rate slows. When you eat more, it raises. But most people simply don't realize to what degree that happens and how it can be used to manipulate your body weight and your composition. So when I learned that early on, I was able to really become a strategist for individuals. And then I started teaching other coaches, other fitness instructors, other trainers because most people that hire a personal trainer, guess what they're hiring them for? To lose weight. To lose weight. In order to get it, yeah, those 2 go hand in hand. So that's how I ended up getting into this is I was forced to be effective at the strategy piece because, physically, I couldn't hand people dumbbells anymore. But, you know, there's a silver lining in things. And so it it worked out good for me, and I'm able to with me and my team are able to now do something we're all very, very passionate about, and that has helped people with their with their transformations. When I was young, I would say I had an extremely fast metabolism. Like, I could eat 5 Big Macs and then go home and have 3 bagels, and Yeah. I wouldn't gain any weight. Yep. But, of course, as you get older, your metabolism does change, and, you know, you get a little bit of fat around the gut, and it's harder to lose weight, and and you feel bloated much much more often. Yep. And I try a lot of things, but, like so the age does have a factor, but, like, how do you how does, like, someone like me and I don't have, like, a lot of belly fat, but you get it, and it seems like it's there forever. Like, how does how does someone like me start losing that where it's sort of like there's this permanent fat that that you get? I and it may be it may be hard to believe, but someone like you now I can't say this definitively until we actually test and we baseline test to see how your body responds, but very likely, based on my experience with people of your age, your activity level, and your body type? The answer is very easily with the right strategy. And so it would be it it would basically the first thing we would do is we would change something. What we change would be based on our learnings from your analysis, from your testing, but we would change something to trigger, force, fat loss while focusing on preserving lean ma*s. And so for you, it's going to be either one of 3 things. It's going to be forcing your metabolic rate up, which we can do by changing up a little bit the way that you're getting your daily calories, or it's going to be decreasing your caloric intake marginally or adjusting your carbohydrate intake marginally. There's a lot more nuance in there, glycemic load, meal timing, the whole 9 yards, but those are the 3 grandfather techniques. And then we would look at what you have access to that's going to be effective, efficient, and sustainable for physical activity. You have to exercise. It has to be a part of this. It has to be part of your longevity approach, but it doesn't have to be cumbersome. In fact, I'll go as far as saying as it shouldn't be. Because if it's cumbersome, you're not gonna do it. In fact, I would much rather someone have a simple routine. Right. That's for sure. Yeah. I'd much rather have someone have a simple routine that you can do, day to day, even if it's literally 8, 10 minutes, versus being sporadic at hitting the boot camp or going to the gym and doing a gorilla workout. You know? I want something that I can anchor to and build on. And so picking something that's simple and easy, that doesn't take a lot of time out of your day is gonna be a best starting place. You can always upgrade your game. Alright. So it's it's interesting. And then, James, let's do it. Let's get you let's get you lean. Let's get you that you want a a 6 pack? You wanna take the body fat off? You'll have to roll up your sleeves a little, but I'm in. Let's do it. And, you know, I kinda want here's okay. If I was really being super honest, I try to stay low carb, but I kinda love carbs. Is there any way I could eat more carbs? That's on my wish list Yes. For life. The answer is yes. I wanna eat pasta again. Yes. The answer is yes. How do how does that happen? By not eating pasta tomorrow night, by eating a bite of pasta, or better yet, we're gonna increase you by, you know, a quarter cup of this or a little bit of fruit or a little bit of, carbs that you can easily burn off. Instead of getting them all at once, I'm probably gonna have you split them throughout the day. I don't mind if you do intermittent fasting on some days, but we're probably going to, increase your meal frequency initially. Why? Because you have to change something. You're used to eating 1 meal a day, which means by a process of elimination, we have to use a different technique. There's merit in many different techniques. I'm gonna get your body acclimated to more carbohydrates gradually, and then I'm gonna pull them away. I'm gonna cut them out, not entirely, but largely, so that way we can strip body fat because your body has acclimated to your lower carb approach. It doesn't mean you've taken the wrong approach. It means that you've played the card. You don't have a duplicate to play, so we have to play a different card now. Let your body reacclimate to that. What that will do is it'll make cutting carbs effective for you again in the future. So in your case specifically, this does not mirror what somebody else might experience if they call me up. But in your case in in specific, we're going to actually increase your carbohydrates, do a metabolic revving cycle, then I'm gonna decrease your carbohydrates, do a fat burning cycle, and then I'm gonna increase your carbohydrates again to bring you to a maintenance spot where you can sustain whatever weight we're at and still eat good carbs at least to a reasonable degree. Alright. Well, I'm I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna try it. Well, now you're committed. And I I kinda wanna yeah. That that like I said, that's my dream list is I wanna, you know, lose weight, look a little better, and eat carbs. That's that's my goal in life now. As much as I hate people that say ease, it should be simple and easy and nothing as simple and easy, for you to get this objective will be as simple and easy as possible, and you're gonna do great. We'll have a blast. What's been your greatest success, like, with an athlete? You know, I I've had the privilege, and it really has been a privilege of working with some incredible athletes, NFL MVPs, multiple NFL players. I've got to work with athletes in the endurance field, cycling field, running field, Olympic athletes. But I I have to be honest, my greatest, personal satisfaction and and and the most incredible, experiences I've had are with people that are just doing life. People like you and me who just wanna be healthy, wanna play with the grandkids and lose a few pounds and have energy to do it, and just don't wanna waste time. They want a bite for bite, step for step strategy that makes sense to them that they can wrap their head around, and they wanna see progress. You know, when you help somebody score another touchdown, that's a great feeling. But when you help somebody take a £100 off, that's life changing, and they're gonna be usually a relationship for life. And so I've been very privileged to be a part of that. But one experience stands out in my mind above many others. I had a father who brought his son to me to to help his son just get healthy. And his son was only 13, 14, and his son was not healthy. And we worked together for 2 or 3 months at this point, and the father called me up crying. And he thanked me. He said, I saw my son run for the first time this week. That, I'll never forget. That is meaningful to me. But working with the athletes is fun too. So I I I enjoy all of it. I hope that answered your question. Yeah. No. And and I really appreciate you you coming on and, solving you know, helping us figure out what the myths are. And, also, I appreciate the very flexible view towards diet and how it all kind of fits together, like the combination of diet, exercise, metabolism, kind of this more holistic view of nutrition without specifically saying these foods are good and these foods are bad. I think people gradually know that, alright, donuts are not so good, and, you know, vegetables and and, you know, organic meat and some fruits are, like, the best. And I know there's there's nuances, like, you know, doctor Gunther will say some vegetables are good, some are not so good. Sure. Other people will say fruits are not good because there's too much sugar. Other people will say steak's not good because it's meat. But in general, the average person knows what's good and what's bad and still chooses donuts, by the way, because and not and none of that's a bad thing. It's just donuts taste good. So or at least it does to them. So so I appreciate the more holistic approach that that really because I think people know the basics. But, well, how do how do people find you? So, I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget. So if they go to metpro.co/altiture, then they'll actually be able to, you know, get ushered right in to talk with one of our specialists and have a meaningful conversation. So even if it's not, even if right now is the not not the right time for you to jump into a big program, if you can learn one thing by having a conversation with a with a specialist, I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied. So if you go to metpro.co/altager, we have a a a special consultation that won't cost anyone anything to talk with one of our specialists and just visit about what your goals are because everyone's goals are different. Oh, well, that's really great. Well well, look. Angela Poli from metpro.co. It's not dotcom because I went to dotcom to research you, and that was, like, some other logistics company or whatever. And I'm like, oh, do they do nutrition and logistics? But no. Angelo Polley, thanks so much, for coming on the James Altucher Show. It's it's been a pleasure, and I'll do whatever you tell me for next steps to to get in better shape and nutrition. Deal. So let me know. We'll be in touch. It's been a privilege. Thanks, James.
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