Transcription
There's a cost to getting lean. And nobody really warns you about it. And the reason why I think that most people who are disciplined and consistent just kind of stop talking about it is because those are the same people that tend to start to keep to themselves as time goes on. Like they just don't really want to bother explaining themselves anymore because you realize that you're so much different than the average person that like your morals and your values and your priorities do not line up with the average people that you're coming into contact with.
I was chatting with this girl the other day and her Instagram bio said this: "Please just go ahead and judge me now because I'm sick of trying to explain myself." And I was like, "That's good. I'm going to get along with this girl." Because I think that's how most really fit and healthy people think.
When you build a physique that's going to start attracting a lot of attention, you know, when you go to the grocery store, the cashier is like mesmerized by you. You know, you've got random people walking up and asking for your workout routine or what you do for your nutrition, and you're attracting all of this attention. What you start to realize is that most people are NPCs. They're just like living this life where they think that the idea of being really locked in and really consistent is cool, but they sort of see you as like a zoo animal because you're actually over there and you're actually doing it. But they're just kind of spectating. They're just walking through life. And a lot of them are faking it. A lot of them say, "Oh yeah, I want to try to get this way." But they're not actually willing to put in the work at all.
And when people that have been putting in the work for years have interaction after interaction after interaction where people are coming to them for advice saying, "Bro, what do you do? How do you stay so consistent?" And then you tell them the same thing over and over and over again. You tell them what you're doing. You try to give them advice, but then these people just don't even listen to it. They might even listen, but then they don't even put it into practice at all. You start to view people differently. Like, you no longer view them as other players in the game. You start to view them as NPCs because you're like, "Dude, I could sit here and explain to you absolutely everything that I'm doing differently, but you're not going to go and do it because there's a disconnect here. There's a disconnect between my morals and my values and my priorities and your morals and your values and priorities."
The difference between us isn't just my physique and the fact that I've got six-pack abs. I've put in the work to build my character to harness my discipline over years. And you think that it's going to come just from simply starting to do what I've been doing for a couple weeks. No, no, no, no. It's about the identity shift.
I was talking with a client this morning 'cause I work with hundreds of men that are going through this transformation process where they're taking their health and their nutrition more seriously. And one of my clients asked me, he said, "Brandon, you talk about this change in identity that is so incredibly important to be able to keep results because most people go right back to where they were. Even if they see a decent transformation, congratulations, dude. You lost 15. You lost 20 lbs. You probably should have lost 60 to 70, but you lost 20 lbs." And then, you know, you finish, you kind of start not showing up to the gym as much. Your motivation starts to kind of lack a little bit. And then before you know it, you've gained back the 20 lbs. And then you've gained back another 5 lbs on top of it. And pretty soon, you're fatter now than you were before you even started your entire journey. You didn't get anywhere. You didn't even begin to see like the long-term health benefits that were going to come from getting lean and being insulin sensitive and not having to drag all of that excess body fat around with you all day. You didn't even get to begin to see the difference in how people treat you and you're already back to square one.
And so my client was saying, "Dude, I feel like one of those people that's just going to springboard back to where I was before." And he said, "How do I cultivate this new identity? How do I become somebody different so that it can actually keep these results and build something sustainable?" And I said, "It comes from the sacrifice that happens behind closed doors. It comes from the sacrifice that you have when nobody else is watching when you're alone at home and it's a Friday night and you're starting to get hungry and you could go to the pantry and eat a crap ton of Oreos and drink a ton of soda and just watch TV the rest of the night. Instead of doing that, you decide, 'Hey, I'm gonna go to bed early.' Hey, I'm going to eat nutritious foods. I'm going to eat my potatoes with my steak, with my carrots, and then I'm going to go to bed."
It's those sacrifices that you make when nobody else is watching that start to solidify the new identity. That's what it is right there. It's those sacrifices stacked on top of each other that create the new personhood. Without those sacrifices, you're not going to feel like you're somebody new. Without those sacrifices, you're just going to go right back to where you were. You're going to start right back at square one. And so as time goes on and you start to sacrifice more and more, the sacrifice starts to become your identity. You start to become the person that does these things even when nobody else is watching, even when nobody else is holding you accountable. Like that's what I hope for my clients is that when they're working with me, I'm there and I'm holding them accountable. But at the end of the term, I want them to be able to go and continue to make those healthy decisions for themselves so that they can see the long-term benefits and actually see the fruits of their labor.
But for so many people, that's not the case. A lot of people nowadays, they just want to take a pill to solve the problem. I mean, just think about the statistics when it comes to something like Ozempic. You know, all these people nowadays, they're just running straight to the medication. They don't want to work hard. "Oh, this new GLP-1 came out and I'm going to take it and now I'm going to finally be able to get lean." Thank goodness, dude. Your problem was never something wrong with your body. It was never your hormonal imbalance. It was never your insulin insensitivity. News flash, your testosterone is low because of the fat that you have on your body. You're insulin insensitive because of the fat that's on your body. Those things are not what is keeping you from losing the weight. Those things are a result of you being fat as [ __ ]. Those are symptoms of the problem.
I myself, I mean, I'm hypothyroid, so like my thyroid genuinely doesn't work. I operate with a high TSH. All right? Even though I medicate, I still have a high TSH. I am still in the range of hypothyroid. So I have the excuse where I could sit back and eat potato chips on my couch all day and say, "Yeah, I uh naturally just have low energy. My metabolism doesn't work as well as everybody else's, you know, so I really can't lose fat." I could make that excuse, but I don't. I'm standing here in front of you guys and I'm shredded. Like, I've got a top 1% physique. I'm not going to make those excuses. That's pathetic.
And so, everybody gets hooked on just trying to find the next medication. It's like, "Okay, what can I do right now that's going to make this process so much easier?" But then what you see is that as soon as people come off the medication, they go right back to where they were. Like it does not help them build routines at all. They go right back to square one. So unless you're planning on being on something like that for the rest of your life, you are cooked.
And like I was saying earlier, it's the long amount of time keeping the body fat off that is actually going to give you the incredible results. It's not just losing the 80 to 100 lbs, you know, in one year that's going to magically make your health so much better. No, it's keeping that weight off for years and years to come. So then you're going to feel better when you get to 60 years old, when you get to 70 years old, that the stress on your organs is so much better, so that your quality of life is so much better, so that your joints feel so much better. You right now are working so that you can build a body that can continue to work in the future. Like people are so incredibly shortsighted. Like they just want, they're like, "Discipline, dude. Where'd you get discipline from? Like, where can I buy this discipline that you speak of?"
And so the cost of getting lean is understanding that you're going to start to look at other people differently and other people are going to start to look at you differently. They're going to start to look at you as like a zoo animal, as something that like they're like, "Wow, that's beautiful, but it could never be me." And you look at them and you think, "Dude, you could be me. If you just made the same decisions over a long span of time, if you just had the self-respect, you could be me. You could achieve the same results. But you don't have that same level of self-respect."
And here's the thing, other people are going to respect you as much as you respect yourself. You see all these fat people walking around. You walk into a Texas Roadhouse, the average weight is like 280 lbs of the dudes sitting in the chairs. They're like in a booth and like their bellies are freaking plopped over the top of the booth. Like they can't even fit in there properly. And yet they're there absolutely everything. They're going crazy on the rolls with the cinnamon butter. They're just dipping it in there. When you go and you look at people like that, you're like, "You don't respect yourself. I am automatically going to have a lot less respect for you." And then you're going to look at me and say, "Dude, how do you do that? That's incredible. I should try to do that for myself." And then you never end up doing it. You're just becoming a liar. Like, I'm not going to respect you for that.
If you think about it in terms of a relationship, like if I set up a uh dinner with my friend, you know, I say 7:00 Friday night, be there. Let's go hang out. Let's spend some time together. And then my friend blows me off. I'll say, you know what? Okay, once not that big of a deal. All right, I can forgive that. Let's do it the next Friday. We reschedule and then he blows me off again and I show up to that restaurant and I sit at that table and he never shows up. No longer am I giving him the benefit of the doubt saying, "You know what? Maybe he got busy. Maybe he's got other priorities." No, now I'm pissed. Now I'm genuinely angry because he's not respecting my time. He's not respecting my time. And I'm not going to book a third appointment. I'm not going to set up a third dinner with him. He is insulting me.
And these people that you see that are overweight, these people that are sloppy, these people that have asked for advice time and time and time again, they themselves are walking billboards just like you're a walking billboard for the discipline and consistency that you put in. They are billboards of flaking on themselves over and over and over again. And the person who flakes on themselves, the person who doesn't show up for themselves, the person who's not going to show up even for others, 'cause you get in shape for other people, not just for yourself, that person is not worthy of your respect. Like your respect in my eyes, it is going down dramatically. When you're somebody that's constantly saying, "Oh, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this." And then you never end up doing it. Yeah, right, dude. I can't count on you. I can't trust you. You're not a man of your word.
And so, people will start to look at you differently. And it's funny because I'll get these clients that uh come to me and they'll talk a little bit about what it feels like when they finally start getting consistent. You know, they lose a little bit of weight and then they'll have like a cheat meal sometimes, you know, they'll say, "Oh, dude, I went out and I had like a pizza, but don't worry, bro. Don't worry because my weight went down the next day. It's not that big of a deal." And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, you don't even understand, do you? You don't even understand. The next week you're going to be coming to me complaining that you're doing everything right and that your nutrition's on point and yet your weight's staying the same or it even went up a little bit. That's where the pizza comes into play is the next week. Like you had your little cheat meal and like maybe you weighed in a little bit less the next day. You're still like headed in the right direction. That's not how it works. It plans out over a week, over a month. How consistent are you able to be?"
So, you're stifling your future progress. You're stealing progress from your future self by eating that meal now because that body weight, that body fat isn't just going to like all of a sudden come on to you immediately. You're going to see the scale slow down next week and then you're going to wonder why things aren't working. You're going to be like, "What in the world, dude? I'm staying consistent with absolutely everything." Oh, yeah. Really? Are you? 'Cause I remember just last week you told me that you ate a pizza and then your weight went down. But now this week when your weight is up and you're sticking to everything, you think that the weight should just continue progressing even though you're not staying on point with everything. Guys, the results do not lie. I can see it clear as day when one of my clients is lying to me about how much they're eating. It's so incredibly obvious. Like, you can't hide it. You can't hide it at all.
And one of my clients I was talking to, they were telling me a story about how they get approached all the time in the gym and people ask, they say, "What kind of routine are you on?" You know, "Oh man, you look so good." That's usually how it starts. The conversation starts with this way: "Wow, you look so good. How do you look that way? I would love to look like that." And then he says, "Hey, I train 5 days a week." And on the other two days, I'm still getting in the gym and I'm doing cardio." He tells me, as soon as he says that, 90% of the people talking to him just completely phase out. Like, you can tell they just stop paying attention. They're like, "What? Oh. Oh. Like you you actually giving me the path to success. You are actually telling me like what you do in order to achieve the physique that I've said that I wanted. But then they just start daydreaming. Like they can't even keep focused. They're like, "Ah, 5 to seven days a week in the gym. How brutal. That's terrible. I can never do that. I might as well just stop paying attention to this conversation altogether. That's way too much sacrifice."
And I've seen a really common trend with a lot of people nowadays is that everybody seems to want to do the absolute bare minimum to continue to make progress in the right direction. Guess what? That's not going to get you to the physique that you want. That's not going to get you to the physique that you want. Everybody today is obsessed with like being optimal. They're like, "Oh, what's like the least amount of time that I can spend in the gym and still make maximum progress? What's like the the least amount of time that I have to spend sticking on top of my nutrition in order to be able to see the results that I want." If that is where your mindset is at, you are not going to see the results. There is a disconnect, my friend. You need to prove to yourself that you can stay consistent and that you can stay disciplined. And then you can start realizing, "Hey, what's working? Now, I'm going to actively try to get the most out of the least." Then you can start practicing balance. Once you've actually proven to yourself that you have what it takes to get in there every single day, that you have what it takes to stay locked in for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you know, 30 days a month, or even 365 days in a year.
People dramatically underestimate how long it's going to take them to get in shape and like get to the physique that they want. It's crazy. I got guys that will come to me and they'll be like, "Yeah, dude. I really like Thor's physique, you know, and uh I've never lifted before, but I'm 270 lb, you know. Thor's like what, 210 lb. I think that if I lose the 60 lb, you know, and I have muscle by the time I get down there at 210 lb, I'm going to look like Thor." I'm like, "Dude, you got to get to 150. You got to get to 150 lbs, bucko. If you want to be at the body fat percentage that Thor's at, you got to lose 100 plus pounds." And they're like, "What? No. Are you serious? That's crazy, dude. I haven't been 150 lbs since high school."
Yeah, man. High school was the last time that you were actually active and you moved your body and you didn't just eat whatever the hell you wanted to eat. You were out doing things. You didn't sit on your couch all day and you were actually lifting. High school was the last time that you were insulin sensitive. High school was the last time that you actually were in good shape, that you were actually the body fat percentage that human beings are supposed to be. That was all the way back in high school. So you say, "Oh, 150 lbs. I haven't weighed that much since high school." Yeah, we're going to get back to your high school physique. We're actually going to have you training hard like you were in high school for sports, probably. We're actually gonna have you limiting the amount of food that you're eating instead of stuffing your face 24/7 because now you just look for the next dopamine hit.
And it's a blessing and a curse. Like at the end of the day, there is a cost to being separated from everybody else. But there's also massive benefits. Like you are going to stand out. Like you are going to be the billboard that shows everybody, "Hey, I practice what I preach. It's like I put in the work every single day. I am healthy and I feel good." You have so much more energy. Like I'm not sure if you've ever hung out with really, really unhealthy people before. You know, you like go to the park or something, start throwing a frisbee and they're like out of shape. Like they can't do anything. It's just sad to watch. It's sad. Like these parents, they can't even take their kids to Disney World. Their kids are like, "Mom, dad, can we go to Disney World?" It's not even because they don't have the money that they can't go. It's because the mom and the dad, they can't even imagine walking around all day in the hot sun, getting in more than 10,000 steps. Like, they can't even imagine that. They're going to have to sit on every single bench, take like a solid 5 to 10 minute breather every freaking step of the way. They're not even enjoying their kid's youth and they're probably stuffing their kid's face. So, the kid's probably extremely out of shape, too. But at least, you know, the kid is youthful. The kid is vibrant. At least he's getting out there and he's probably jumping around everywhere going crazy because that's how kids are. Like, they're hyper. They're they just have a lot more energy.
You'll go to the grocery store and you'll see a mom shopping with like two kids in the cart, you know, and like another one trailing along and the cart is just full of garbage. Just like chips, high sugar cereal, ice cream, gummy worms, literally just the most garbage things that you can possibly think of piled into this cart. And these are the same people that are like, "Oh, no. Eating healthy is like way too expensive." You know, "It's way too expensive to eat healthy. I can't do that. Oh, it takes way too much work to like meal prep and stuff along those lines." Seriously, are you kidding me? You're just going to go to the store where it has absolutely everything that you need, actively avoid it, and pick out all of the things that are going to sabotage you and your children. Like you are setting the rest of your bloodline up for failure.
And people will come to me and they'll say, "Well, Brandon, you know, I'm not as uh well off as you. I didn't My starting point is lower because my parents, they were super super overweight. They didn't teach me good habits. They didn't teach me good habits. They're kind of like blaming their parents. Yeah, my parents are the reason that I'm fat." No, dude. You're the reason that you're fat. All right, here's the deal. You get absolutely no benefit from blaming somebody else for where you are right now. Being a man means taking full responsibility for absolutely everything that is happening in your life. Even if there is a component where your parents didn't set you up the best, you still need to take accountability and responsibility. It starts now. You take responsibility for everything that you've ever done, even when you were a kid. And you take responsibility for everything going forward. That is what it means to be a man. And if you're a parent, then you need to sack up. You need to start spending the extra time meal prepping for your kids and making the healthier decisions or buying the healthier foods. It's not an excuse. It's not an excuse that things are more expensive or that you don't have the time.
People hate it when I say that, especially the parents. They're like, "Oh, how dare you? How dare you tell me that it's not a valid excuse that I don't have the time?" You want to know how I know it's not a valid excuse? Is because I've seen the metrics of people's watch time. I know much how much time they spend scrolling on their phones watching Netflix. I know much how much time they lose every single day because of how unhealthy they are. So regular everyday tasks take so much longer. They take so much more energy. You don't have enough energy for your kids. You're the one at fault here. You start eating better, you're going to have more energy to be able to work harder for them. You are going to be able to stay healthier for longer for them in the future. This becomes something that's not just benefiting you, but it's benefiting the people around you. As soon as you become a parent, your kids are your responsibility. It's your job to be a good role model for them.
And it's crazy to me the amount of people who are just totally accustomed to having like terrible stomach pain throughout the day, but they don't even realize it because it's so normalized in today's society. You know, you'll talk to people, "Oh my gosh, it's so crazy. People are walking around with like the most diabolical digestion digest. These people are walking around with the most diabolical digestive issues of all time, but they've been living that way for so long that they don't even notice it." And you know what's crazy is I know how these people feel on a regular basis because when I go and I eat those foods once, twice a year, I feel like garbage. I feel so bad, but these people are so accustomed to it. "Oh yeah, I just blow out the bathroom multiple times a day. Nobody wants to go in there after me. It's absolutely disgusting. You know, I'm running to the bathroom. I feel like, oh, my stomach is like turning, you know, throughout the day because I just ate like this massive meal and then I'm going to go like chug this Monster Energy drink that has a ton of sugar in it. And then after that, like I'm going to get the donuts at the office place." These things are making you feel terrible, but you become so desensitized to it.
Once you start cutting out the crap, you start to feel so much better. Like 50% of the population, they've just gotten completely used to the fact that they have a constant stomach pain. Like they constantly have a stomach ache, but they just chalk it up to like, "Oh, that's just how like humans live." "Oh, I have IBS." "Yeah. Oh, man. I just have like digestive issues." "Yeah, dude. You definitely have digestive issues for sure, but they're not caused by what you think that it's caused by. You're making this excuse that like, oh, your digestive issues are something that's, you know, like been plaguing you for years and like, oh, it's so terrible. Do you just have a bad stomach? You know, genetically, oh, my digestion just isn't great. I'm just that kind of person." No, it's because you've been eating [ __ ] garbage for a decade now. For a decade straight. That's why you have digestive issues, my friend.
All right. So, if you actually want to get lean, there's a cost associated to it. You have to lay down that old self. And trust me, it's going to be the best decision you ever made. Especially if you can start seeing the fruits of your labor pan out and you start feeling so much better and you attach all of the positive things that start to happen, you're going to start to build up this momentum. People are going to start to treat you differently. Everything starts to compound. But you have to be okay with being a little bit of a reject in some of these social situations. You're at work and you pull out your meal prep, everybody's going to be teasing you. Everybody, "Oh dude, why don't you eat the pizza, bro? Well, why don't you eat this? Oh, bro, you got the broccoli today. Oh, you freaking You're microwaving your chicken, dude. That looks terrible. Oh my gosh, that's so bland." I don't know how you eat that. It's because I have the taste buds of like a regular human being and not a 400 lb behemoth. That's the difference.
So start leaning into that more and understand that hey as everything starts to unfold, I will not only start to feel better but I will actually start to take pride in the new person that I am becoming and that pride will be built off of the sacrifices that you know that you make behind closed doors because you don't have to go out and tell everybody, "Hey, these are the changes I'm making. I'm going to be on a diet now. I'm going to be 100% consistent. I'm going to the gym consistently." All that type of stuff. No. Just let your actions do the talking.
All right. I come on here and I make these videos because hopefully it gives you guys some insight because I know that the other fit people, they don't tend to talk about it all that much. They're sick of it. I used to be this way. I used to never talk about my fitness goals and such whenever I would go to work and people would make fun of my meal preps because it was just exhausting. It was annoying. It's like, "Guys, go ahead and judge me." Like that girl's Instagram bio: "Go ahead and judge me already because I'm sick of explaining myself." I don't want to explain myself anymore. The amount of free advice that I've given out to people and they just don't use it time and time again, it just makes you lose hope. It makes you lose faith. You walk around and you see these NPCs and you realize that they're not actually dedicated to what they say they are dedicated to and that they don't have the discipline and that they don't plan on executing on any of the good advice that you give them and it just makes you tired. So hopefully these videos are a breath of fresh air for you guys. Make sure to drop a like down below if you enjoyed. Drop a singular thumbs up in the comment section and I will see you guys all in the next video. Peace.