Andrew: This course is about how you can get the body you want and be more
productive. The course is led by Adam Gilbert. He is the founder of,
there's the website, mybodytutor.com, the site that helps you stay
consistent with your diet and exercise. That's how they get you results.
They keep you consistent.

I'm Andrew Warner, founder of Mixergy, where proven founders like Adam
teach. This is what we're going to be covering today. I want to run through
some of the big ideas that we're going to be covering, including "Find Your
Why" and you're going to see an old friend and how a 6-pack got him more
productive. You're also going to hear us talk about how to find your inner
food critic, and when you do it's going to help you cut out crappy food.
We're going to talk about indulgence, and if you've seen people eat crappy
food, but still look great and say, "What? Maybe they're just meant to look
great?"

That section I want you to pay attention to, because I think it will
explain it and will also explain how you can consistently stick with what
Adam is going to talk to you about here today. Now I'm going to talk about
texting, how texting can help you stay fit. I know it because a mutual
friend of mine, Noah Kagan. Every time I sit down and talk to him, he seems
to be texting and doing this, and we'll talk about why. Adam, let's bring
you up.

Adam, thanks for doing this and as someone who's seen these programs before
you know this is what our audience wants to know. They want to know the
before and after. Show me what you've been able to do for somebody. So
maybe we'll start with a person who I was mentioning earlier. Let me see if
I can bring him up. This guy, our buddy Neville; what happened with him?

Adam: Sure, first off thanks for having me, man. I really appreciate it.

Andrew: Ah, thank you. Thanks for doing this.

Adam: Sure. So Neville, I've been a big fan of his blog for a long time and
he had contacted me, this was probably a few years ago now, and he does all
these crazy experiments. He did this homeless experiment. He does all these
fun experiments.

Andrew: Where he decided he was going to sleep on the streets and be
homeless for a while?

Adam: Right. It was really interesting. He's a really interesting guy. He
wanted to do an experiment where he'd get a 6-pack in a month. He came to
and he was like, "Can you help me with this?" I usually don't like doing
that because I'm not a big believer in event dieting or just doing things
short-term. It really is all about the consistency.

So, long story short, I mean I did it with him because I thought it'd be a
fun interesting story, and he's a friend. I was a fan of his, and that's
what the end result was. He looks absolutely amazing. I think the cool
thing is very quickly, Nev is an entrepreneur himself, he realized just how
powerful eating right and exercising consistently is. Not only is eating
right and exercising consistently the key to getting the body you want, it
also helps you to feel amazing, helps you to be more productive, helps you
think more clearly, helps you be more focused. Nev actually said he was
giving two more hours of productive work in a day, and I think that's when
he really changed.


Andrew: Two more hours! Now this we can show a before and after photo of,
but two more hours is hard to visualize so I want to emphasize that. Two
extra hours of productivity for this guy who loves being productive as it
is.

Adam: Right. Right. I think that was a big breakthrough for him, when he
realized just how much how we eat and how we exercise really impacts the
way we feel. Then it became a question of, or it became a thing where the
consistent diet and exercise was the goal that was to feel great. A
wonderful side effect became the weight lost and became a 6-pack. You know,
I mean, Neville swears by it. He credits me every time he does a lot of
work. He really focuses on the diet, and that what I'm there to do.

Andrew: All right, so now that we know it's possible, it's not just this.
It's also the extra time. Neville is looking sexy, huh?

Adam: He looks good.

Andrew: He's looking good. All right, we love Neville, he's a good friend,
but we love ourselves even more. We want to get the same kind of
productivity, the same kind of health gains as he did. This is the first
thing that you say we need to do, which is find our why. Understand the
reason for doing this. In Neville's case, what was his motivation?

Adam: He originally wanted a 6-pack, so his original goal was looking good,
but it very quickly became feeling good. The problem with that is that it's
a very short-term goal, whether it's getting ready for a wedding, or
vacation, or the summer. Those are kind of events, and they're fleeting and
they go away. It's much more powerful to have a very compelling 'why'. So
if you have a compelling 'why', I think for a lot of people especially
watching this, it's, "I want to be better at my business, have more energy,
be more productive, be more confident, and I want to be more energized."
Those are great compelling 'whys'. That's important because if you don't
have that, it's going to be hard to make the time, the effort to eat
healthfully and exercise.

Andrew: So just saying to myself, "The reason I want to be healthier,"
that's an important enough tactic to keep on the board? Why?

Adam: I would say let's make it more aspirational. Let's make it more
specific, like why do you want to be healthier. Is it because - you tell
me.

Andrew: For me personally, I don't know what kind of mindset I have, but I
want to be more productive. I don't want to be sluggish during my day and I
do know that when I exercise I end up feeling like I can do anything. Hit
me with a question, I can answer it. Hit me with a challenge, hit me in the
stomach, something, I can take it all on. That's the feeling that I want.

Adam: Right. And that comes from exercising. I think it's very easy when
we're busy focusing on a start-up or anything really, we focus on what's
most pressing. Usually, health and fitness is not something that's very
pressing right away. Usually, it's putting out fires, dealing with your
business, dealing with the kids, dealing with family. Health and fitness is
the first thing to go when we're very busy. But my argument, my thesis is
that when you focus on that first, everything else is much better.

Andrew: One of the reasons that I've wanted to do this course specifically,
because this is a little bit out of our scope. But the reason I want to do
this and talk about health is because I know when I, in business, was at my
most depressed point when sales were going bad, when customers were going
out of business, when I was doubting myself in the most vulnerable place
possible - business, the one thing I thought I was really good at - I had
nothing else. I had nothing else to say, "I'm a good person because."

Then when I took up exercising, which I didn't think was part of who I was,
I thought that was for other people, I took up exercising and had something
I could control completely, I could get better at it completely, and then
if I was having a bad day I could watch myself do better and feel better
about myself as a result of it. By the way, this camera, what's happening
with your camera, is pretty common with some brand of cameras. This would
set me off normally but I had a nice run this morning so I'm feeling pretty
good.

Adam: Good. It's weird that it's doing that actually, because I have a Mac,
so I don't know why it's doing that.

Andrew: There we go, now that should work in both directions in regards to
what the camera does. OK, do you want to share another set of visuals here
from your site?

Adam: Sure. I want to make sure it's very important to have a compelling
'why'. What I suggest is really write down a list of five reasons why you
really want to be healthy and fit. So whether it's that you want to have
more energy, work better, be more confident, try to be as specific as you
possibly can. Try to make it a more lasting goal. For me, my main
compelling motivation, it's why I've been able to eat right, which is
really 70% of the battle. A lot of people when they're trying to lose
weight, the first thing you hear them say is, "I need to get to the gym
more." But it's really diet. Diet is 70% of losing weight, it's that what,
why, and how we eat. That's really what we focus on. Having that compelling
why is key. So just make sure you have it.

For me, at the end of the day, as much fun as eating junk food is, and
believe me, my favorite food is hamburgers and fries and cookies, I love
it, at the end of the day I always do feel better when I eat better. Said
another way, I've never felt better eating poorly than I have from eating
healthfully. So for me, my daily motivation is to feel as good as I
possibly can. I talk to my clients. I try to help them with a lot of areas
of their life, because really, health and fitness is all encompassing. One
of the things I always ask them is, when your life is working really well,
when you're really on point, what three to five things were you doing every
day? For me, it's eating right, exercising, sleeping, and writing. When I
do those four things every day, I'm much better able to do everything else.
When I drop those critical balls, everything else falls. That's what I try
to help them do. My ?? is that when you focus on your diet and your
exercise, you'll be much better able to do everything else.

Andrew: This is the other visual I had for this section. This is other
people that you've trained and that have gone through your program, what
they look like before and after. Can you give me one example of an
especially powerful 'why' before we move on to the next tactic?

Adam: I think one of the interesting things for me was when a client
approached me, and she was a New York Times best selling diet book author.
Clearly, she knows how to lose weight. But she [??] day in and day out and
for her, she obviously wanted to get back to where she was and I think she
was a little embarrassed because she's a well known [??]. It's great. It's
a huge confidence booster to me. This was a few years ago now and she
credits my program with being the only one that's been able to help her,
but for her, her compelling why was to get back to where she was when she
lost all that weight and wrote that book originally. That was a compelling
why.

Andrew: Let's go back to the big board and move on to the second big
tactic, which is to, "Eat lean protein and carbs and complex carbs every
three to four hours."

Adam: This is getting more into the tactics of how to get to where you want
to be. I always say this, but it's really so key. One of my missions is to
dispel this myth that there's a secret to losing weight. That there's a
secret diet, that there is a secret pill or secret food. That is not the
case, whatsoever. The secret is consistency. It is so not sexy, but it is
so ridiculously effective. Do the right things day in and day out. As I
always say, "The key to getting the body you want is eating right,
exercising and doing those two things." The types of foods I found to work
really well are lean proteins. I think there's a slide.

Andrew: Yeah. Here it is.

Adam: Lean proteins. Foods like chicken, turkey, fish, egg whites, cottage
cheese, eggs, the yolks are great too, lentils, nut butter. Any lean
protein. What we want to do is combine that with a complex carb. It's very
simple. Instead of white bread, we want whole wheat bread. I think there's
another slide I made for you guys, as well. It's called complex carbs.
There you go. Instead of white bread, we want whole wheat bread instead of
regular pasta we want whole wheat pasta. Instead of white rice, we want
brown rice and other great carbs like oatmeal, quinoa, yams, baked
potatoes, sweet potatoes, cream of wheat. What we want to do is create
meals that consist of lean proteins and complex carbs and eat those every
three to four hours.

The reason why eating every three to four hours is so important, besides
keeping our blood sugar stable, which is really the whole science behind it
is when you go longer than that without food, your blood sugar drops, then
when you eat, your blood sugar spikes. When your blood sugar spikes, that
causes [??] excess insulin in your blood. The more practical reason is, I
certainly know myself from my other clients, when you're really hungry,
when you're ravenous, you're usually not craving fish and brown rice.
You're usually craving sugary, salt, the emphatic foods.

Andrew: Yeah.

Adam: By eating every three to four hours it really makes it much easier to
make good choices.

Andrew: Because we're not starving and not feeling like, "I got to grab
that candy bar. I've got to grab something that's going to be sweet and
satisfying this moment."

Adam: Right. I would say this is a battle between our short-term irrational
mind versus our long term rational mind. The hungrier we are, the more
ravenous we are the more irrational, the more short term minded we're going
to think.

Andrew: What about vegetables? I've got a list here of vegetables to
consider.

Adam: Vegetables are the secret to eating a lot. We all eat with our eyes
so if you really want to feel full, want to feel more than satisfied, which
is what we're going for, then I would suggest loading up on vegetables. One
of the things I do, especially for dinner is I'll always load up on a
salad, [??], or vegetables. Of course, we want to make sure that you're
careful with the dips and dressings because certainly a big bowl of
broccoli with loaded cheese on it is not going to be that healthy. You can
certainly use  the little dips or a little dressing and combining that with
the lean protein and complex carbs will really make it much easier to stay
with [??]. That's the whole idea.

One of the things that I was talking about, I have it somewhere, but a lot
of people come to me. They tried all these diets, whether it's the Paleo
Diet or a cookie diet of shake diet or grapefruit diet and they all say
they worked, but the thing is they worked while they were doing it but, of
course, they're not sustainable. If I eat lettuce and ketchup, I'll lose
weight but that's not sustainable. You can't keep that going. My whole
belief is why not do something that you could actually stick with for the
rest of your life.

That's why my clients have been so successful and we have the track record
we do is because the plan I'm asking my clients to do is very, very
practical. It's very realistic and it's very doable. A lot of people will
say, "I shouldn't eat carbs. I shouldn't eat this." There's nothing wrong
with complex carbs like brown rice or whole wheat bread. The most important
thing is that you actually can stick with it. Doesn't matter if you do a
diet for two weeks, lose however many pounds, only to gain it all back. I
couldn't' care less about that. My goal's long-term sustainable change.

Andrew: Every three to four hours, you're saying, I need to take a little
bit of lean protein and a little bit of complex carbs. How much?

Adam: What I would do is structure your day around a breakfast, a lunch and
a dinner and then, if need be, have a snack in between breakfast and lunch
and a snack in between lunch and dinner. Obviously, we don't want to have
large meals every three to four hours, so on a scale of one to five, if one
is feeling ravenous and five is feeling stuffed, we want to feel like a
three. Satisfied and light. The best way I know of how to do that is to
really focus on eating slowly because it really takes our brain at least 20
minutes to process what we've eaten and, many times, I certainly know
you're a very busy guy, I'm a busy guy. We have to eat quickly and if we
eat something in five minutes, we're going to still feel hungry. Try to
savor your food as much as possible. Try to put your fork and your knife
down between every bite, take a sip of water between every bite. The more
you can eat slowly and savor your food, the better.

Andrew: Here's what I've been eating today. I was in such a rushed place I
had some fat free cottage cheese, can you see that? Usually I would make
toast with this, but I got those from CVS downstairs, just bread. This is
no good, you're saying? No dairy, milk, bread?

Adam: That's rye bread?

Andrew: Yeah. Hearty rye bread. Beefsteak.

Adam: Bread is fine. That's the thing. Bread is fine. If you're going to
have bread I like to say, 'Have whole wheat bread, or rye bread is good, or
pumpernickel bread is good, or spelt bread.' You want to stay away from the
white bread.

Andrew: I'm fine with that? What about dairy? What about cottage free
cheese that I've got here?

Adam: Absolutely. Cottage cheese is a great, great source of protein. It's
low in sugar. It's high in protein and that's what we're after. One of the
things I find most fascinating is a lot of people come to me and they'll
talk about how they [??] that food and then when they're actually eating
their favorite food they're just shoveling it into their mouths. What we
want to do is really savor it. We want to really appreciate what we're
eating.

Andrew: I actually see it right here on the list. Egg whites and low fat
cottage cheese, black beans and we'll give, of course, this list to
everyone who's watching. Onto the big board then. Next big idea is, you
say, next big tactic, "To take inventory on what you currently eat for
snacks and meals then substitute the crap with lean protein, complex carbs
that you see yourself committing to for five years."

Adam: I'm all about long-term change here. I couldn't care less about
people who lose 100 pounds only to gain it back. My goal is to help people
lose weight and keep it off for the rest of their lives.

Andrew: By the way, Adam, is someone vacuuming behind you?

Adam: No.

Andrew: Maybe, it was a fan or something.

Adam: You know what? It's my computer. My computer is never adjusted focus
[SP], and it's never made this noise, ever.

Andrew: It happens.

Adam: [??].

Andrew: It's painful for me but it happens. [??]. Go for it. Anyway, you
were saying? Before I rudely interrupted.

Adam: One of the questions I'm a big fan of asking yourselves is, 'Can I
see myself doing this five years from now?' See all these magazines, the
gossip magazines, websites, whatever it is, all these people losing weight
and what they're doing to lose weight is clearly not sustainable. It's like
the person you see all of a sudden out of nowhere they post on Facebook,
they show their six pack. Let's see how that person looks six months from
now. Do they still have that six pack? I guarantee nine times out of ten
the way they did it was not in a sustainable way. Go into the snacks, what
we want to do is, the best way to change a habit is to replace it as
opposed [??].

What I would do is try to focus on doing less of something. You're used to
having three cookies, then let's focus on having two for now. A lot of
people try to go all or nothing and the all or nothing mentality meets
nothing every single time. Being a perfectionist is not even the goal. It's
not achievable. Really what it is, it's a defense mechanism to avoid the
inevitable of doing the right things day in and day out. Saying I'm going
to be perfect and having this out, is really what it does. It gives us an
out so that when the discomfort is there we can say, 'You know what? Screw
this. I'm going to start something else. I'm going to start this vicious
cycle again and again of doing something else for a little bit.'

Andrew: You had a client who wanted to lose 50 pounds. Can you tell us that
story? What happened with that client?

Adam: This is an interesting client. This client was very [??], they were
very excited and at first, especially, a lot of people always want to focus
on exercise when they want to lose weight. You always hear that, but really
diet is 70 percent of the key here. This person was asking me, 'Should I
eat organic blueberries or regular blueberries?' To me that's a very high
level change that I don't want to focus on yet. What I wanted to focus on
was the candy, or the extra milkshakes, or the extra burgers and focus on
the big ones, so to speak, so this way we could build momentum. It's very
important to focus on the big ones. If you're eating blueberries or if
you're eating salad with a little dressing, that's great. Don't focus on
that. Focus on where you can really improve. For most people it's the
emotional eating. This is a whole 'nother topic and something we can get
into now or we can get into after, if you want.

Andrew:  Emotional eating? Yeah. Tell me about it and then we'll also talk
about these snacks and how they fit in.

Adam: Emotional eating's really important. I think for guys, you typically
think of Samantha from "Sex in the City" or something like that, watching
TV eating a pint of [??].

Andrew: Right. I don't think of myself doing that.

Adam: But guys when they do emotional eating they cringe because they don't
think they do. But we all emotional eat and really what emotional eating
is, is eating to change the way we feel. Whether we're stressed, we're
anxious, we're sad, we're frustrated, we're angry. Whatever it is, we're
eating to change the way we feel and that's really the key. I care about
what you eat but I care more about why you're eating it. That's the key
because that gets to the root cause of why we're overeating in the first
place, or why we're eating indulgently in the first place.

Andrew: How do I find out why it is that I go to the vending machine in the
middle of the day and get a snack?

Adam: That's a good question. First I would encourage us to work on some
tactics. The first tactic is all about the [??] and I'm a big fan of asking
yourself questions because questions help us change our perspective, which
is the whole idea. The question I want you to start asking yourself is, 'Am
I hungry or am I eating to change the way I feel?' By asking yourself this
question you realize, 'Am I physically hungry or emotionally hungry?' I
created a slide for you that has physical hunger versus emotional hunger.

Andrew: Let's come back. Maybe we come back to that in a moment. I've got
it later on in the section. I don't want to interrupt the flow, but I want
to keep it all within the confined tactic that it's going to be discussed
in. I took us off track, let's come back to this. These are the snacks that
you're recommending that when we take a look at the snacks that we eat
during the day and we want to substitute good stuff, get rid of the crap
and eat good stuff, these are the kinds of things that you want us to
consider. Bag of almonds, apples.

Adam: Exactly. Cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, walnuts. Those are great
snacks.

Andrew: They're not the best. I got to tell you. These are an acquired
taste. I'm showing you now the cottage cheese that I've got, that I eat
here in the middle of the day. It took me a long time to love it. I really
forced myself, like lifting weights everyday a little bit more until I
learned to love it.

Adam: Slow and steady wins the race. The turtle always wins the race. It's
really important. Let's say you're used to having candy at 4:00, or 3:30.
That's the big time where a lot of people just snack mindlessly. Instead of
having candy, first off, I always say fruit is nature's candy. How about
having fruit instead? Or if you really need that bag of M&Ms, why not have
less M&Ms first, to start with? Andrew, do you think peanut butter is
disgusting?

Andrew: No. Actually I like it. I was going to be a little combative there
but I realized, 'No. I like peanut butter.'

Adam: I think a lot of people don't realize healthy food can be tasty and I
think the key also is to really focus on all the foods you can eat as
opposed to all the foods that you can't eat. It's not that you can't ever
eat them. We'll go into that but there's a lot of healthy foods. There
really are.

Andrew: These are them, and peanut butter in addition to this?

Adam: [??] peanut butter. One of my favorite snacks is celery with natural
peanut butter, almond butter. You can do a handful of cashews or handful of
raw almonds or peanuts or any sort of nut. You could do some vegetables and
humus. That's a delicious snack.


Andrew: How many of them can I have and still, where's Neville, and still
get this?

Adam: Clearly getting a six pack is one of the most difficult things when
it comes to fitness. It requires an extreme level of sacrifice and
compromise and you really have to, what I like to call is, embrace
discomfort a lot. Neville is definitely not my typical client, that's why I
was so hesitant to take him on. It was really more just for the experiment,
because I knew him, but yes. When you're going from that to that, it's
going to require an extreme level of discomfort.

Andrew: Meaning how many more or fewer nuts?

Adam: You don't want to have more than a handful of nuts. You want to
really make sure you're not eating until you're more than satisfied.
Satisfied is the goal. When you eat more than that, when you're trying to
go for a six pack, it's going to make a difference because the key to a six
pack is just getting your body fat very, very low and everything you eat
really counts, of course, when you go into that level.

Andrew: All right. Back to the big board?

Adam: Sure.

Andrew: Let's do it. All right. Next you want us to pretend that we're a
New York Times food critic. What does that mean? What do you mean by that?
You say that so that we can eat slowly to prevent binging on crappy foods.
So tell me about that.

Interviewer: Right. I know I'm going all over the place. There's just so
much I want to cover, so much I want to talk about. With the New York Times
food critic, that's another tactic. Again, like I was saying, a lot of
people will dream about food all day long. Then when they're actually
eating it, they'll shovel it into their mouths. So what we want to do is
just focus on eating very, very slowly. So I like to say, "Pretend you're a
New York Times food critic. Pretend you have to really focus on the taste,
the texture, the smell, the experience, especially when we go out to eat."
A lot of us spend a lot of our money just going out to eat or whatever it
is, and we'll just kind of rush through or shovel the food into our mouths.
Try to savor it as much as you can. It's better for digestion. You'll eat
less, and you'll appreciate the food more, too.

Andrew: You worked with Doug who had a lot of stress. Can you talk about
him?

Adam: Sure. Doug was really stressed. His boss was being a real jerk, and
he just couldn't take it. He emailed me one time, and he's like, 'I really
want a burger and fries right now.' And I spoke to him about just the whole
idea of pleasure versus satisfaction. Pleasure is really, really fleeting.
The second you're done eating cookie, the second you're done eating a
burger or whatever it is and as tasty as those are (and don't get me wrong,
those are my favorite foods) the second you're done eating them thought,
the good feelings they give us (I like to call it a "food trance" where the
world feels perfect: there's no problems, we have no stresses) the second
we're done eating it, those feelings go away.

Of course, what we're left with is our annoying boss who's still being
annoying. So what I encouraged him to do was focus on really dealing with
the problem. Again, this is kind of going back to emotional eating versus
physical hunger. So that's a little thing: just slow down. That's
important. But going back to Doug, Andrew, I think it's very important to
just focus on satisfaction. Satisfaction is lasting where pleasure is not.
That's a big insight for a lot of people: just thinking about that.

Andrew: You asked him, "How long did the meal last?" He said, "Two
minutes." You told him to slow it down. I could see myself getting
competitive with that. How long should I allow a meal? Should I let it go
nine minutes or eleven minutes? But once you give me a number, I start to
get competitive and see if I could beat it tomorrow and then beat it again
the next day. But the point is to slow it down.

Adam: Right. If you can make your meal last 20 minutes, then you're good.
Certainly being aware of this helps. It's not a cure-all, but being aware
of the fact that it takes at least 20 minutes for your brain to process
what we've eaten does help a lot.

Andrew: I see. Right. All right. One more on this one or just right on to
the next big idea? Any opinions on this?

Adam: I think emotional eating really encompasses all of these. So I think
we should talk about the physical hunger versus emotional hunger if we can.

Andrew: OK. Let's do it.

Adam: So can we pull up that slide with the emotional?

Andrew: Oh, I didn't include that on the big board, did I? Let's edit in
real-time. We're still going to come back to "Stop Craving" and we're going
to talk about...

Adam: Emotional hunger versus physical hunger.

Andrew: And just like that, there you go. Sorry. I'm doing all kinds of
housekeeping while we're talking. Let's move on to this.

Adam: There you go. Once you get going, there's just so much you want to
cover.

Andrew: Good. Hit me.

Adam: So, physical hunger. Physical hunger is what we want to listen to.
That comes on gradually. We usually feel it in our stomach. We might feel
it in our head a little bit, but it's definitely a physical sensation.
Emotional hunger, and that's what most of us really listen to even though
we don't want to, comes on suddenly. With emotional hunger, we crave
something specific. A lot of times with emotional hunger, we'll eat snack
after snack and nothing will be satisfying us. That's because we're not
actually physically hungry. We're emotionally hungry. That's really where
it comes back to, just the pausing before you eat. Ninety five percent of
this world feels hungry and then they just eat, whereas my most successful
clients, and hopefully we'll all get there together, feel hungry and then
they pause and they think about what it is they're hungry for. Is it for
food or is it for something else? Once we realize we're about to
emotionally eat then I would suggest going to more questions and, as I
said, I'm a big fan of questions because questions help us change our
perspective.

So, the questions are, "What am I really hungry for, or what's really
bothering me?" The second question is, "What can I do about it?" The third
question is, "Why don't I do anything about it?" What we're trying to do in
the moment here, say for example, Doug, who has an annoying boss, what he's
doing is really just taking off the edge. He's choosing food to suppress
his feelings, whereas, what I would suggest is, "Let's actually see if we
can actually talk to his boss or whoever it is that's annoying him." In
this case, it was his boss, and try to alleviate the problem. Try to really
focus on doing that, but it's like an annoying door to door marketer.
They're going to keep knocking until someone opens the door and I like to
say, "Let's just open the door soon as we can because as soon as we do
that, those cravings will go away." Cravings really are just our emotions
talking and that's a big part of what we want to try to do is understand
why we're eating in the first place.

Andrew: Our mutual friend Noah Kagan, emailed you and said, "Dude. I want
to have a chocolate chip cookie right now." What did you say to him?

Adam: Noah's a great client. He's doing amazing. With Noah we got a little
deep. He is a really smart kid and smart guy and I think ultimately
everything we do is really about happiness. I think people who start their
companies or are part of [??] in our [??] tradition, whatever, I think it's
ultimately to make ourselves happier. If [??] eating a cookie, I think in
the short term we think it's going to make us happier. What I reminded Noah
of, and I like to study happiness because I think that's a big part of why
we do what we do. The four stages of happiness are anticipation, savoring
the actual moment or the experience as you're going through it, expressing
it as you're going through it. As your experiencing it, it's like, "Oh.
This is amazing." Then reflecting on it.

For a lot of people, I think, especially me, anticipation and the
reflection, or the memory of it, is where you get the most happiness. The
biggest bang for your buck, so to speak. What I asked Noah to do is, Here's
a question for you, Andrew. If you could go to your favorite restaurant
tonight or in a month from now, when would you go? Let alone your busy
schedule.

Andrew: A month from now, absolutely.

Adam: What about going on vacation? You can go on vacation in two months
from now or this weekend. What would you choose?

Andrew: It's hard to say. I just made that decision. I'm going to Guatemala
in a few hours.

Adam: Really?

Andrew: To meet the guy who's editing this video. I wanted to sit down with
him and talk about how we can edit better, but also to hang out with Olivia
in Guatemala.

Adam: Very cool. Let's say you didn't have this planned vacation.

Andrew: Then I definitely would not want to go to anywhere. This is unusual
for me. I might say, "Let's put it off for a couple of months."

Adam: For you, it's probably just because you're so busy, but I think for a
lot of people, I think it's, a big part of vacation is anticipating.
Getting to look forward to it. I'd rather go on vacation in a month from
now as opposed to a week or go to my favorite restaurant in a few weeks as
opposed to tonight because then I get to look forward to it. Then I get to
also experience it and then, of course, I get to reminisce on it. With
Noah, I said, 'If you really want this cookie, let's try to have it this
weekend. This way you get to look forward to having the cookie and by then
you probably won't even really want [??].' Essentially what it is, it's a
refrain. You're just thinking of a way to pause that initial craving and
look forward to it instead of using it against you.

Andrew: We have this issue. You tell us to think about the four stages of
anticipation, savoring the moment as we experience it, expressing my
happiness as we experience together. Actually, I've got to say I don't
understand. If I'm in a place where I just want a cookie, or in my case it
wouldn't be a cookie, I don't love cookies. I love freakin' potato chips,
especially spicy jalapeno ones. If I want those spicy jalapeno things, what
do you tell me to do? What are the four stages that will get me to stop
wanting it right now?

Adam: That's just something to think about. The problem is when you want
potato chips, all you're doing is you're thinking about this short term
discomfort of not having them as opposed to the long term benefits of not
eating them. What I would do is say, "Let's focus on the benefits of not
eating potato chips." The four stages of happiness is just something to
think about, so if you really want the cookie, it's an urge, this craving,
allow yourself to have it this weekend. [??].

Andrew: I see. Don't say, "Don't have it." Just say, "You know what,
Andrew? You're going to have this weekend, not the kind of jalapeno crappy
ones that they sell here in your office building, but the really good ones
that they have a block away from the apartment. That's what you're going to
have. Just don't give into it now because you'd much rather have it later
the way that you want it." You're telling me to anticipate it and have that
experience?

Adam: Right. This way you get to look forward to it. Again, it's never
about not eating your favorite foods. If you really want the potato chips
or whatever it is, indulge it, but my whole thing is let's pick and choose
what is really and truly worth it. This way, when there's something that's
really worth it, we can indulge guilt free as opposed to just those short
term mid-afternoon snacks that we really don't even want. What you're doing
right now, if you want cookies or potato chips, most likely is you're
emotional eating.

Andrew: The thing you're telling me is, "Don't say not to yourself." Say,
"Have it later," instead of saying no to the chips. Right?

Adam: Right. This way you get to look forward to it.

Andrew: And you're also telling me to consider that I might not be
physically hungry, I'm emotionally hungry? In my case here at work it's,
"Man. I've got to get another interview done so that I could then go on to
the 3rd or 15th interview," or I have to figure out a way to say no to
somebody who wants to partner up with me on something that's super terrific
and he's a friend that I want to keep but I've got to say no without
breaking his heart. Now I won't say no now, I'll go to the vending machine.
You're telling me, "Put it off until later, number one, and understand that
it's an emotional hunger, not a physical hunger?"

Adam: You're not physically hungry. Exactly. That's what I want you to do
is pause before you eat and think about, "Are you physically hungry or
emotionally hungry?" That's a big question that can really help you a lot.

Andrew: Back onto the big board. We talked about, I didn't highlight it,
but we talked about how to stop cravings and the way to stop a craving is
by saying, not now, but later. The next big idea is to indulge and you say,
here's from my notes, "Choose another way to reward yourself instead of
eating junk food, but know when you can indulge." When can I indulge, man?

Adam: This goes into two things. I think the deep psychology here and I
think what a lot of people might realize or not, is the reason why we want
to indulge in the first place is we're viewing food as a reward. We feel
that we deserve it, we work really hard, we're entitled. I'm supporting my
family, I'm doing this. There's a lot of feelings of entitlement and that
we deserve it. What I want to help you do is come up with another way to
reward yourself because when you use food as a reward, obviously it's going
to be very hard to not have that reward. I would say, "How else can you
reward yourself?" Whether it's getting yourself a new shirt, getting a
massage this weekend if you eat well. Whatever it is, allowing yourself to
read a magazine, having conditional rewards really helps. I created a
slide.

I'm a big fan of conditional rewards so if I do X, then I get to do Y. If I
exercise, then I get to watch TV later on guilt free. If I eat as planned
all week then I can buy a shirt, or whatever it is. Having these rewards,
having these conditional rewards, makes it much easier to do that behavior
that we really want to do. A lot of people would just wake up, they'll log
into Facebook for 45 minutes then they feel like crap. My argument is,
Facebook is something you enjoy doing, but instead, use that as a reward.
Say, "If I go to the gym or if I do this amount of work or if I eat
healthfully, then I can get to log onto Facebook guilt free."

Andrew: You have a client, by the way, do you want to talk about him? The
one who wanted a whole pizza?

Adam: Sure.

Andrew: I'll just read it, it's right all in our notes. We did a lot of
prep work so I've got the notes here from that. You have a client who lost
four pounds in a week and rewarded himself with a whole pizza pie. What do
you think of that?

Adam: Food is fuel. We can certainly enjoy food, but we don't want to use
food as a reward. Clearly, eating well all week and then losing weight and
then rewarding yourselves with pizza or a whole pie is not going to help us
get to where we want to be in the long-term. What I really helped him do
was to come up with other ways to reward yourself.

Andrew: So that one big indulgence of, I don't know where it came from,
moment of frustration, a feeling that he worked so hard that he deserved
something. Whatever it was he had a whole pie to reward himself that ruined
a week's worth of work?

Adam: Right. What we worked on was other ways he could reward himself. Soon
as we unlocked that and soon as he realized that he was viewing food as a
reward it became much easier to keep going because he wasn't looking for
food as a reward.

Andrew: So, the reward for him instead would be watching TV, buying a whole
bunch of apps, it would be playing a video game for half a day on the
weekend, but find some reward. If food is your reward, you're craving some
sense of appreciation and personal space. Go do it in another way.

Adam: Right. Or even allow yourself to indulge in really fresh foods, like
fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, fresh fish. One of the things I find really
interesting is when we're really craving something, we'll spend six or
seven dollars on a pint of something. That's when we're highly irrational,
but then when we're very rational when we're at the supermarket, we're
looking at healthy foods like vegetables and we're like, 'Oh. This is so
expensive,' but if you view healthy food as an investment rather than a
cost, I think it makes it easier to choose healthier foods. That was just a
little tangent there.

Andrew: That makes sense. I'm trying to think how many people would think
of apples as an indulgence. I happen to and I'll tell you why I do. I get
these big bags of apples from Trader Joe's. I don't have to cut them at
all, I just have them here like potato chips for when I'll sit here. I'll
read Hacker News without any sense of guilt, at least until the bag is full
and once that bag is full, I don't want to eat anything because there's no
more room.

Adam: I don't think people look at vegetables or fruit as an indulgence,
but I think a lot of people are very focused on the price or the cost of
healthy food and the whole argument is 1000 calories of Oreos is a lot
cheaper than 1000 calories of vegetables. My only thing is, you think about
it as an investment rather than a cost. It makes it much easier to justify
the healthier food, which of course pays dividends in how you get to feel,
in how you perform and how much more energy you'll have.

Andrew: Anything else on this topic before we go to the next one?

Adam: We can also talk about worthwhile indulgences. There is a slide
called Oprah.

Andrew: Called what?

Adam: It's Oprah. It's under the . . .

Andrew: I wanted to make sure that I had the right one. Yes.

Adam: There you go. A lot of people think, when they talk about how Oprah
has all the money in the world and she can't be fit, then how can I? I
would argue that Oprah, the reason why she's overweight is there's a lot of
emotional eating and she's using food as a way to escape. The point of this
slide though is, it's not about never eating your favorite foods and it's
not about not having your favorite potato chips or what not. It's about
just being really conscious and being picky and being very selective.

Oprah, a few years ago, had this show called "The Biggest Give" and what
she did was she had these contestants, I think she gave them $1 million
each and they could use that million dollars and give it to two or three
charities that they felt were deserving of it.

What I want you to do is think of the way Oprah did that show. It's not
that we can never indulge, we just want to be very picky. Allow yourself to
have two or three worthwhile indulgences per week and this way when you
have that short term discomfort of wanting those potato chips you can
really ask yourself, "Is this really and truly worth it, or am I eating to
change the way I feel?" That's my whole thing. I'd much rather save myself
for a really and truly worthwhile meal, for example, going to my favorite
restaurant [??] a bag of potato chips that I can literally get in any
corner of the world. That's what we want to try to do, save ourselves for
worthwhile indulgences.

Andrew: Next big tactic is, let me read it directly from the notes here,
'Exercise is not complicated but you have to be consistent.'

Adam: The theme of this interview, hopefully, is consistency. I'd much
rather you commit to doing 20 minutes three times a week and actually be
able to do it than commit to a ridiculously, daunting exercise program that
you'll never do or you'll do once. Consistency trumps all. In the book,
"Powerful Engagement," there was some really interesting studies and, where
is it? The point was, what I want you to do is, when you commit to
exercising, I want you to think about when and where you'll actually
exercise.

What a lot of people do is they'll just say, "I want to try to exercise two
or three times this week." And that's it. They don't think about it again.
What I want you to do is pretend it's a really important meeting with a
client or a perspective investor, whatever it is. Clearly, you wouldn't
miss that. What I want you to do is mark it down on your calendar and plan
when and where you'll actually work out. By doing that it really makes such
a difference.

Andrew: Put it into my Google calendar. Say specifically when I'm going to
be doing this.

Adam: Exactly. They found, though, [??] engagement so when you add that
when and where, most people say when, but they don't add that where. When
women committed to when and where they'll do a breast examination, 100% of
them did it. There was another one where drug addicts had to write an essay
and when they committed to when and where they'll do it, 80% of them
actually did the essay by just committing to when and where they would do
it. It's a big difference.

Andrew: I didn't realize it was that powerful. The where part, I would
never have thought of. You had a marathon runner who worked with you and
she said this happens with a lot of marathon runners. I know it happens for
me with races. She didn't train unless she had a race. What did you do?
What did you tell her?

Adam: I always say, "Something is better than nothing." Clearly, this
person thought it wasn't worthwhile to train unless she was doing this
daunting workout. The fact that it was a daunting workout actually made her
never do it because it was so daunting in the first place. What I tried to
encourage her to do is focus on baby steps, a little bit everyday, or a
little bit a few times a week is far more effective than doing a ridiculous
workout two or three times a month. We really worked on helping her change
her mindset to that. That really goes hand in hand with this all or nothing
mentality.

This all or nothing mentality, and dieters are notorious for this is, we
decide we're going to go on a diet on Sunday night. Monday comes, we do
good. Tuesday we feel stressed. We have a cookie and then we put our hands
in the air, we say, "Screw it." Then we just say, "I'm starting tomorrow."
Then Wednesday comes, "I'm starting next Sunday." Then it becomes a game
of, "I'm starting next Sunday. I'm starting next Sunday." It's really easy
to rationalize and justify our behavior. So, by just allowing yourself to
make mistakes, allowing yourself to indulge, makes it much easier.

Andrew: I understand where she's coming from, too. I used to have this that
if I was training for a marathon and it felt important and then I'd
exercise all the time to make sure that I did the marathon. Then afterwards
I'd be exhausted or everything else didn't seem big enough or important
enough and so I wouldn't do anything. I'd rest and then when it was time to
get started I'd go, 'Well, who cares? Just run. I'm not about to run a
marathon.' So you told her, 'Just do something,' and you also have this
exercise. This 20-20-20 Workout?

Adam: For the 20-20 Workout, I think, a lot of people here will say they
don't have the time. They don't have the time to focus on their diet and
their exercise. Again, my argument is that when you make the time, we make
time for what's important to us. As busy as we are, we make time for what's
important to us. When you make the time for exercise, when you make the
time for eating right, which is really the most important part of this, you
will get so many dividends in so many other areas of your life.

One thing I recommend people do, especially if they're traveling and they
have no time to do anything, is my 20-20 Workout. The 20-20 Workout is, you
can do 20 jumping jacks, 20 pushups and 20 crunches. You can also do the 20
times 4, which is adding squats in. You can really do that anywhere in the
world, no matter were you are and take 12 minutes and it's just a way to
get yourself feeling good. That's really important, keeping that momentum
really helps a lot, as opposed to just doing really great for a few days
then missing a workout and missing another workout then having to start all
over again. Something is always better than nothing every single time.

Andrew: I've got this slide, too. This is another one of the 20-20
Workouts, 20-20-20 Workout. On to the last point. Let's do it. Let me bring
it up. Last one is to text, and I said that my buddy, Noah, texts you all
the time. What's he doing? How does that fit in with this?

Adam: Again, it's very easy to rationalize and justify our poor choices. So
what I do, what I offer with my program, what my company does is we help
people stay consistent by providing daily and personal accountability.
Otherwise, it's just too easy to rationalize. What Noah does is he texts me
after he eats, or email me and by doing this, it keeps him accountable and
that's really the key. It really makes such a difference.

Andrew: He eats. He takes a picture of it and he says, "Dude. This is what
I just had." That holds him accountable and makes him stop eating certain
foods.

Adam: Just knowing someone else is there really makes a big difference.
There was an interesting study done with trick or treaters and what they
did was [??], but basically these trick or treaters would go to this door,
there'd be a full bowl of candy with no one there and there would be a sign
that would say, "Take one." Of course, when there's no one there who says,
"Take one," all these people just dump the whole bowl of candy into their
bag and run away. Then what they found was when they put a mirror behind
the bowl of candy, these people would actually only take one because they
found that when you look at yourself before you do something you know you
shouldn't do, you hold yourself back. That's exactly what I like to say we
are is, we are your 24/7 mirror. We're providing accountability so you can
see what you're doing so you have to own up to yourself and us, because
again, it's so easy to rationalize and justify our behavior.

Andrew: You say find a stranger to text? Why a stranger? Why shouldn't it
be a professional like you or a friend?

Adam: I think this was another way to get accountability besides my
program. The problem with a friend is, my mom is a former high school
English teacher. When it came time for me to take the SATs a long time ago,
she wanted to tutor me, because she actually had an SAT tutoring business.
Of course, when she tutored me I didn't take her seriously at all, because
she's my mom. She couldn't be honest, she couldn't be objective with me so
if you can't get her whole accountability, as I like to call it, is
actually  more effective to get someone like a stranger because a friend is
not going to be brutally honest with you and that's really the key. A
friend is not going to really tell you what you need to hear to get where
you want to be.

Andrew: You're saying get someone who's not going to be flexible, who
you're going to respect and feel obligated to follow up with. Text them
every single thing that you eat?

Adam: That would help. Yes. Most people probably don't want to do that and
services like mine exist, but if you can then certainly. Accountability
works. There's no question about it.

Andrew: If they can't find a friend or don't feel, as you're saying, don't
find a friend. If they can't find a stranger, come to this website right
here, mybodytutor.com and you'll help them do what? You'll find somebody
for them to text everything that they eat to?

Adam: Really what we do is, there's a billion other health and fitness
companies out there and as you were saying, Andrew, the key to getting the
body you want, it's not a secret. It's eating right, exercising and doing
those two things consistently. It's the consistency part that's so hard.
It's very easy to start a diet. It's very hard to keep on going. What we
help you do is stay consistent and that's what we really focus on, is the
consistency part. Every night clients will log onto our website. It's a
very easy to use website. You tell us what you ate, what you did for
exercise, a few other questions and then every single morning you're
getting your very own tutor who's writing back personal critique, personal
suggestions and encouragement to make sure you're staying on track and
being consistent. If you're not, we help you understand why, which is the
key. It's worked amazingly well for so many people and it's exciting what
we've been able to do.

Andrew: Actually, if they go to mybodytutor.com/mixergy, what do they get
there?

Adam: What I'm going to do is I'm going to run a little contest for those
who sign up for my newsletter. I will randomly select someone who signs up,
they'll win three months of coaching from us, which is a $447 value. We'll
work with them everyday to help them get to where they want to be and, of
course, those who don't win you'll still get my newsletter, which I
guarantee you will learn a lot from. We talk a lot about the psychology of
weight loss, a lot about understanding why you're eating and I'm very
confident that you'll enjoy the bonuses that I've made up for you.

Andrew: That's at mybodytutor.com/mixergy and very soon you too could not
only look like, where is that? Like Neville, but you could also be texting
all the time when you eat and really hold yourself accountable. I saw Noah.
We had this terrific dinner at this hotel over here, had a good group of
people around the table. I ate my pasta and then I ate my wife's pasta
because she's really good at not eating too much. Noah, who's your client,
he had a little bit of pasta and then he called the waiter over and he
said, 'I think I'm done with this.'

Adam: That's my client, baby.

Andrew: First, he took a picture of it and then he said, "I think I'm done
with this." Before they even brought the dessert and put that little thing
on his table, he said, "No. No. Don't bring any of that over here."

Adam: It's much easier to say no when it's not in front of you than when
it's right in front.

Andrew: I thankfully was doing a long run the next day, so I used that as
an excuse, but I was, as soon as I saw that I said, "Where did you get
that? Who are you texting? What is this about?" and that's when he told me
about you and he said, "Andrew, you got to have him on" and I appreciate
you coming on here and I'm glad I had you on.

Adam: Another person you had on recently was Chris Savage.

Andrew: Chris Savage of Wistia.com, yes.

Adam: Yes. And, I mean, he's a client of mine. Noah actually referred me to
him and Chris has lost 30 lbs already with my Body[??] and, I mean, he is
absolutely doing amazing and just every night he reports to me what he ate.
He's actually my client, I've worked with him personally. [??] coaches and
every morning I'm running back critiques, suggestions and [??] daily
personal accountability. I come on with this unlimited support and the
system to monitor and check your progress, which really makes a huge
difference.

Andrew: The down size, of course, is that all these guys end up being
shirtless on the internet. Like Noah Kagan and people who are on his
website and saw that he was sitting there with a shirt off. How
professional is this?

I'm sure next time, well, who knows? Maybe, next time I see Chris Savage,
he'll also be shirtless. They're all eager to show it off.

Anyway, I hope people who've take in this course, well, if they're not
going to be shirtless, will at least be fitter as a result of it and more
than that. As much as I want them to be fit, I want them to achieve even
more so I'm looking forward to hearing about their before and after,
pictures, seeing those and I'm looking forward also to hearing if you're
watching this and have gone through this program and have done anything
from this, I want to hear how your life has changed at all as a result of
it.

Now, it's always overwhelming at the end of these sessions, because you've
been hit with so many different ideas. My one suggestion is find one thing
that you can start with. Find an easy way to get started. It doesn't have
to be complicated. It doesn't have to be every single thing but if you can
find just one thing, you'll start building that momentum.

All right. Thank you for watching and Adam, thank you for participating
with this camera and whatever issues we had along the way, we made it all
work. Thank you.

Adam: Thanks for having me, man. I know I spoke very quickly, covered a lot
but like you said, pick one thing and it'll help a lot.

Andrew: One thing.

Adam: There is a lot of stuff I want to go over but thank you. Thanks for
having me. I really appreciate it.

Andrew: Thank you. Thank you all. Bye