Back in February 2019 I met a guy named Dr. Phillip Goglia in Santa Monica. My wife had turned me onto him as he already had a reputation for turning celebrities into hardbodies and super healthy people, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) being one notable mention amongst many.

I can confidently say that this guy probably saved my life.

I risk sounding like a typical diet testimonial ad with what I’m about to post, but I don’t care. Numbers don’t lie. And they might actually help the person reading this post if they have an open mind and care for their own well-being.

So, I’ve tried all of the diets out there, just about every single one, along with exercise routines galore, and if there was one thing consistent about everything I had done, it’s that I always had different results. At best case, I had half-assed results. Of course, if I do 4 hours of cardio every day, I’m going to lose 30 lbs in a month! But even in this extreme scenario, I found myself in a weird skinny-fat body composition that wasn’t all that healthy.

In 2018, I had traveled throughout Europe and Asia, basically eating and drinking everything in sight. I knew that my body had endured a lot of stress, and the mirror showed it. By December 2018, I was by all definitions, fat. Even the friends I’d meet who would normally feign a sympathetic “oh you look fine,” or “you’re not fat, are you kidding?” did not even volunteer such quips (that’s when you know you got issues). For me, the problem wasn’t so much my image- it was the fact that I might actually not be healthy with a baby coming in 2019. I guess it’s a newbie dad thing to suddenly really care about your health and longevity when you realize that your early demise might actually have a visceral impact on the loved ones around you. So, in the name of my family, I decided to really buckle down, and take my health to the next level.

So here I will summarize the findings of what I’ve been doing and how it’s actually been working.

There are 3 pillars I’ve been actively working on since December 2018. As I write this in April, I’ve been 4 months deep into attacking my 1) nutrition 2) exercise and 3) sleep. In this 3-pronged attack, I’ve had the opportunity to consult with experts in each area and apply it directly for a total synergistic effect.

1 – NUTRITION

When I met Dr. Goglia, his analysis of me was that I was in a catabolic state. When I asked him what that meant, he said it basically meant I ate too little. Up to that point i was meal-prepping each week in organized tupperware containers of salmon, greens, legumes-  things I thought were a healthy combination of whole foods. Turns out, my body has a specific kind of metabolism that requires certain kinds of foods at a certain kind of volume. So Goglia gave me a diet that looked something like this:

6am (pre-workout) – almond butter + jam 1 tbsp
8am (breakfast) – 6 eggs, 1 cup cooked oatmeal, sardines, fruit 
10am (snack) – 12 almonds + fruit 
noon (lunch) – 8 oz. of chicken, potato/rice/starch 1 cup, greens 
2pm (snack) – 12 almonds + fruit 
4pm (snack) – 12 almonds + fruit 
6pm (dinner) – 16-20 oz. of salmon/sea bass/black cod/filet mignon/hanger steak + greens
8pm (snack) – fruit + 1 tbsp Black Strap Molasses (assists with getting into deep SWS sleep faster for optimal growth hormone synthesis)

6 LITERS of water per day. 

Once a week, it is permitted to have what is called a “Free” meal, where I can basically eat and drink anything I want in one sitting. I took full advantage of those, believe me.

Alcohol. Ohhh, the dranks. Alcohol is a motherf*****. I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with alcohol. Everyone knows it’s bad for you despite all the ridiculous broscience out there. But it tastes good and gets you buzzed, lubricates social skids, facilitates a good time, blah blah blah. Goglia’s instructions around drinking were as follows: If it’s vodka, tequila, or gin you’re drinking, for every drink, you drink 1 cup of water. For all others, including wine, whiskey, and beer, drink 3 cups of water per drink. At first, I was delighted because I was secretly hoping that he would give me a method to enjoy alcohol while getting fit – and hearing that I could enjoy alcohol on a regular day was awesome. So, I followed this approach. But I ended up drinking so much damn water that I was up all night peeing, and this disrupted my sleep, which disrupted my next day’s performance and energy. Ultimately I decided to just cut it out altogether on non-free days, and results have been fantastic. All it takes is one night of drinking to tank my Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and raise my resting heart rate by 30-40%. By contrast, nights I stayed sober completely reversed this trend. More on how I measured this later. The great part about this though, was that I have been able to enjoy alcohol, be social, and not be too weird about it – and this was one of my objectives in the first place, to get fit while still drinking somehow.

For the most part, I followed this to the T for the first few weeks. I was skeptical at first, but was confident in Goglia’s approach so kept on with it. What I discovered was shocking.

Conventional knowledge will tell you that you should avoid foods high in cholesterol, especially if you have high cholesterol (like me). So the thought of consuming 6 eggs every DAY and then adding 25 ounces of protein in the day seemed to me like suicide. Perhaps it would have been suicide for a person with a different type of metabolism, but for me, it wasn’t. Since February, I watched my total cholesterol drop from 231 to 202 – most notably my LDL dropped from 156 to 122. I’ve still got a ways to go, but what I learned from these past 2 months is just because a food has high cholesterol doesn’t mean that it will cause an increase in blood serum cholesterol in a person. Moreover, my conditioned aversion to food – food being the enemy that made everyone fat – that idea was gone, and it’s been wonderful. Every day these days, I never go more than 3 hours without eating something, and I’m never hungry. As a result, my energy is continuously high throughout the day – no “crashes” as I would have previously that would require a caffeine-infused revival in the afternoon.

Below is my chart of where I’m headed. As you can see, I’ve still got a ways to go, but I’m definitely on my way. It’s amazing that I’ve been able to carve close to 4% body fat while eating my face off.

Final takeaway – find out what your metabolism is, and eat to accommodate that. Generally, it’s eating a LOT of the good foods, and frequently to keep blood sugar going, and cutting out all the bad foods. Simple as that, right? 🙂 It is important to know that there is an overlap of foods that are good for some, while being bad for others. For me right now, that’s legumes and breads.

It all made sense now – I had friends who would eat LOADS and all day while looking chiseled as a Roman statue. Another friend eats constantly throughout the day or she starts shaking – and she’s relatively fit (she’s never heard the word “you’re fat”). My own trainer even said in his 3.5% competition body fat he ate like a machine. It’s always been about eating A LOT more of the right stuff, and less of the bad stuff.

A necessary disclaimer about my nutritional regimen above. Since my first prescription of diet, it has changed twice with each subsequent visit. The doctor changes it based on the progress of my blood work. So, while this diet works for me, it can potentially be catastrophic to someone else whose metabolism is different from mine. I’m not a doctor, and don’t advocate this diet for anyone. I’m just stating what worked for me. I do however highly recommend talking with this doctor or any doctor you work with if they do nutrition – and learn what works best for you and your unique metabolism. Ditch the broscience and let the internets chatter all they want about what works and what doesn’t.

 

2 – EXERCISE 

I had been working with a trainer at the gym since December, and this guy knew his stuff, having gone down to 3.5% body fat at one point in his career. He prescribed me a workout routine that emphasized building strength and power, with minimal cardio. I knew that this kind of routine would build muscle in the way that I didn’t want to become (not trying to become a mack truck), so I added a cardio routine and did 2X workouts in both mornings and afternoons. What I quickly realized was that I wasn’t resting enough between workouts, and stunting my progress as a result. I started to incorporate low intensity cardio on my rest days.

Below is my current schedule for what I do at the gym. Through this I’ve reached a few personal records, including a 315 lb. squat! It’s an awesome feeling to stack on 3 plates on each side of the bar and hurling all my aggression at the workout. So far, this workout has been helping me build my tone while shaving away fat slowly but surely.

3 – SLEEP 

I’ve been measuring my sleep cycles with a wristband device called the WHOOP (whoop.com). It’s basically a Fitbit on steroids. It conjures the data nerd inside me with the metrics it has been collecting, and key insights weaned from my heartbeat. For instance, see below from today’s analysis of my sleep. I got a decent 6 hours in, and the quality of sleep was fantastic. As such, this meant that I could go hard today in the gym.

Now, in my experience with this device, it’s not so great at measuring the strain on anaerobic workouts, most of which I do. I think part of it is that while it measures the heartbeat 100x a second, it might not be a good indicator for how hard I’m working my muscles when lifting things. This WHOOP device was made more for endurance athletes, it seems. My doctor said that I have a balanced metabolism, which meant that I was built equally for strength and endurance training. So, for the endurance part, it captures the workout just fine, but since it doesn’t do so well with my strength training, I mainly use the WHOOP to see how I’m sleeping.

Here’s one screen of what it looks like.

More to come as I work towards my goal. But I can tell you this much so far. Eating a lot of the right foods often throughout every day, consistent balanced strength & endurance training, and sleeping right are basically the key. We all know this already intrinsically, but maybe have been sidetracked by all the fake news fad diets out there.

This is the slow and steady. This is what works.