Episode 231: When to Quit Your 9-5, Polarizing Your Audience, Unexpected Benefits of Yo-Yo Dieting, and More…

0:00:12.1 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

0:00:12.8 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, Michael? 

0:00:13.7 Mike Vacanti: It is a miracle that this episode is being recorded right now.

0:00:16.6 Jordan Syatt: That’s exactly right.

0:00:18.2 Mike Vacanti: We are both running on empty.

0:00:19.9 Jordan Syatt: But we’re here.

0:00:20.7 Mike Vacanti: But we’re gonna bring it, we’re gonna bring it. This is gonna be a real episode.

0:00:24.2 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I think we both just got amped up as we were saying it, yeah.

0:00:28.4 Mike Vacanti: Digging deep. Dig so deep. You slept three hours last night? 

0:00:33.7 Jordan Syatt: Slightly more.

0:00:35.1 Mike Vacanti: Three-and-a-half? 

0:00:36.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, around there.

0:00:37.0 Mike Vacanti: Nice.

0:00:37.7 Jordan Syatt: You slept about the same? 

0:00:38.9 Mike Vacanti: About the same. Got a little nap in in the evening after dinner. And then I was awake from 11:00 PM until 4:00 AM. Dad life.

0:00:48.3 Jordan Syatt: Dad life, bro.

0:00:49.1 Mike Vacanti: And then I slept a little bit in the morning, I think.

0:00:52.7 Jordan Syatt: What, just like a 6:00-8:00 or something? 

0:00:56.0 Mike Vacanti: Like a 4:00 to… 4:30-6:00… I don’t know. It’s all a blur.

0:01:02.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I feel you. It’s crazy how quickly a little bit of sleep deprivation fucks with you. It’s nuts.

0:01:09.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I’m soft on that front, too. You were talking about your sleep, were potentially rearranging your schedule.

0:01:17.2 Jordan Syatt: No. You gave me what you said I should do and you’re like, you know that would be better. I was like, it would be better, but I’m not doing that.

0:01:26.5 Mike Vacanti: You asked for my help.

0:01:27.7 Jordan Syatt: I didn’t ask for your help.

0:01:29.0 Mike Vacanti: Think you did.

0:01:29.8 Jordan Syatt: I did not say, Mike, I need you to help me with my sleep.

0:01:35.2 Mike Vacanti: I’m pretty sure those words were uttered. I’m 40% sure.

0:01:40.8 Jordan Syatt: We’ve gotta roll the tapes back. I do not remember, and granted, my memory is not like the one to rely on, but I don’t remember being like, Michael… I did say that if I die and my wife dies, God forbid, you get everything. Like, you are that guy. I told you that. I told you the legalities of doing this term insurance.

0:02:05.5 Mike Vacanti: I’m the executor. I don’t get everything. I’m the distributor.

0:02:08.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:02:09.7 Mike Vacanti: By the way, I’m an executor, I’ve been an executor before, so…

0:02:15.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wow, this is like a common, people… You’re just the guy that people go to. That’s actually a big compliment that people go to you as that guy.

[overlapping conversation]

0:02:22.7 Mike Vacanti: It is a big compliment.

0:02:25.5 Jordan Syatt: I wasn’t the first person to designate you as executor? 

0:02:27.8 Mike Vacanti: You weren’t. But I’m very honored and hopefully it never comes into play and we’re gonna be in our 90s, chilling, lifing weights and stuff.

0:02:37.8 Jordan Syatt: Making this podcast, banging out episodes.

0:02:41.8 Mike Vacanti: That’s right, that’s right.

0:02:44.1 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, everybody? 

0:02:45.7 Mike Vacanti: Anyone listening, be like, been listening for 60 years.

0:02:50.2 Jordan Syatt: Dude, that’s gonna be crazy. What are podcasts gonna be like in 60 years? Are podcasts gonna be a thing? I mean we’ve seen things… I mean, listen, MySpace came and went super fast. I mean, CDs came and went super fast. And I wonder… Podcasts are interesting ’cause it’s just, it’s a conversation, so, but I don’t know.

0:03:10.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s not too different… I mean, radio was around in, I don’t know when radio started, but it’s really not dissimilar, listening to somebody talk.

0:03:20.0 Jordan Syatt: It’ll be… I mean, man, we’ll see. I don’t know. They seem to be picking up speed.

0:03:25.7 Mike Vacanti: Podcasts? 

0:03:26.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, and I think the more that we get separated as a society, distanced from real interaction, the more people crave long-form discussion. Oh, you know what? Maybe they’ll be more… I mean, I guess they already do have call-in shows where you can interact, so I guess that’s not… They already have that. Never mind.

0:03:47.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but then they would just be like on glasses or contacts or…

0:03:50.9 Jordan Syatt: Like you’re in a stadium type thing. Yeah.

0:03:52.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Or it feels like you’re in a room with the person. Right. We’ll see.

0:03:57.8 Jordan Syatt: I told my wife, I think teleporting one day will be a thing. And she didn’t believe me and I was like, I 100% think. Like you know right now how they have refuel, like you can take an electric car and go to this charging station for your car and then your car can drive itself away, like they have cars that drive themselves, I think one day they’ll have teleportation stations where you’re just standing standing there and instantly go somewhere else.

0:04:27.8 Mike Vacanti: I’ve only taken one physics class. It was my senior year of high school and I don’t remember much from it, but I don’t know that… If I was a betting man, I would say that teleportation won’t happen in our lifetimes.

0:04:41.1 Jordan Syatt: Really? No, not in our lifetime, but eventually. Ever.

0:04:48.1 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know.

0:04:52.0 Jordan Syatt: Well, obviously you don’t know.

0:04:54.3 Mike Vacanti: If I was a betting man, I would say teleportation doesn’t happen, where you literally…

0:04:58.8 Jordan Syatt: Wow! 

0:05:00.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I mean there are…

0:05:02.8 Jordan Syatt: We should put this in a time capsule for like 3025, then see, see, people in the past…

0:05:08.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, maybe.

0:05:09.8 Jordan Syatt: Didn’t think that this would happen.

0:05:11.3 Mike Vacanti: Maybe people in the past had incorrect laws of physics.

0:05:13.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:05:15.9 Mike Vacanti: Perhaps. Jordan, last week, you said that every week you were gonna bring three topics of discussion to the podcast.

[overlapping conversation]

0:05:26.3 Jordan Syatt: That’s a real dick move. I’ve got no topics. Teleportation is my first one for today. And you didn’t want to stick on that very long.

0:05:32.5 Mike Vacanti: I’ll count it.

0:05:35.5 Jordan Syatt: Executor, number two.

0:05:36.4 Mike Vacanti: You know what? You’re two of three. Technically I said things that our audience would be interested in, and you might be right. Good. You’re two of three. What’s your third topic? 

0:05:44.9 Jordan Syatt: My third topic of today, I planned for this for hours, so I’m glad that you asked.

0:05:49.8 Mike Vacanti: And by the way, this might have worked in like the sixth grade, where you could just wing it on the fly, but we’re gonna… I’ll let you share it.

0:05:58.5 Jordan Syatt: What? No, you keep talking.

0:06:00.1 Mike Vacanti: It feels like you’re making it up as we go.

0:06:02.7 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:06:03.7 Mike Vacanti: But I’m gonna give you the benefit. We’re both on three hours of sleep. I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt.

0:06:07.2 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:06:08.1 Mike Vacanti: Are you asking Grok for a topic? 

0:06:09.8 Jordan Syatt: I would never do that.

0:06:11.7 Mike Vacanti: Grok’s not gonna give you a good topic anyway.

0:06:14.5 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:06:15.4 Mike Vacanti: What does Grok say you should talk about? 

0:06:17.6 Jordan Syatt: No, it’s not Grok. I just went to Google. I didn’t pull up Grok. It’s terrible. It’s like, discuss food history and culture, a unique hobby or subculture. This is terrible.

0:06:25.6 Mike Vacanti: You still Google things? 

0:06:28.0 Jordan Syatt: Dude I mean, I don’t have Grok up, and I just went to Google instead of… Yeah. Anyway, I’ll think of another one.

0:06:35.7 Mike Vacanti: In the meantime, I got something.

0:06:37.1 Jordan Syatt: Oh, cool. What is it? Oh, I got another one. I got one, I got one. The thing I texted you. The picture. And they’ll definitely be interested in this. So an amazing Inner Circle member left a really nice comment within the Inner Circle, and I screenshotted it, and I wanted to discuss it because I think it’s really important.

0:07:00.0 Mike Vacanti: Good job.

0:07:01.8 Jordan Syatt: Her name is Jen, and…

0:07:02.2 Mike Vacanti: Shout out, Jen.

0:07:02.9 Jordan Syatt: She asked a question in the Inner Circle, and I replied in the Inner Circle Facebook group with a video. And her reply was so kind. She said, Jordan, unrelated, I just have to tell you that your podcast episodes that are not fitness-related made me even more interested in your content. Thank you for presenting current events in a way and to a platform that reached so many in a non-threatening manner. I love this because I’ve spoken about how I’ve lost a lot of followers and people say really mean and scary things, but I haven’t spoken about how the same pieces of content that have led to people unfollowing me and hating me have also led to people becoming customers and loving me and appreciating. And I think it’s very easy to focus on, I’m not going to say what I believe about X, Y, and Z because A, either you think no one will care, or worse, because you think you’ll get kickback for it, but understanding that I think by the same level or maybe even at a greater level, you’ll get people who actually love and appreciate you for it, which is very different than my thoughts, I don’t know, definitely 10 years ago, but maybe even seven, six, seven, six years ago, five years ago was COVID.

0:08:21.5 Jordan Syatt: So probably, yeah, probably that was the beginning of it, I think, because before then it was just everything is like stick to fitness, stick to what you know, stick to that, people don’t, but I’d say probably over the last five years, I’ve been much more outspoken with just what I believe in general, even feeling comfortable diving outside of topic, diving into topics outside of fitness. And I think it’s led to developing more depth within my current audience and people who want to support you for that, which is just, I think it’s helpful. And you don’t need a big audience for that. I think a small audience of people who really trust you and resonate with you and especially in today’s social media economy in which people… Like there are so many coaches, yet so many of us are going to be saying the same things, but the way you stand out is through you, the thing that no one else can replicate, which is you. And some people will hate you for it and some people will love you for it and the people who love you for it will want to support you.

0:09:16.3 Mike Vacanti: Polarization, baby. It’s also, I mean, I agree with all of that. It’s also beneficial because when you talk about the things that you’re truly interested in outside of fitness, and that can be something as like basic as a professional sports team that you like, or it can be something as complex as a political, you know, geopolitical issue, right? Either way, you’re going to build more depth with your audience, but you’re also going to attract people who also have interest in that subject matter. Almost similar to, if you think of different subsets of fitness, aesthetics, performance, fat loss, muscle gain, general health, flexibility, etcetera, when you make content about what you’re generally interested in, you’re going to attract people who are also interested in that. And then you’re going to enjoy coaching those people more because their goals are what you are more passionate about. And so, yeah, I think you make a great point. I also, I agree, it’s a good way to differentiate from other coaches that can happen pretty naturally if you’re making a lot of content. I remember when I was uploading very consistently on YouTube, whether it was vlogs or like, you know, just one take type videos that I would upload, many of them weren’t about fitness or at least weren’t directly about fitness, but people still seem to be interested.

0:10:54.8 Mike Vacanti: And yeah, so good comment by Jen and good point of discussion, especially for any personal trainers listening to the pod.

0:11:05.6 Jordan Syatt: Three topics under 12 minutes. Pretty good. Pretty good. What do you want to talk about today? 

0:11:13.7 Mike Vacanti: Good job. Good job. So I did something or I realized something the other day that is very interesting.

0:11:22.8 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Have you told this to me yet or no? 

0:11:25.1 Mike Vacanti: Nope. I was on my desktop going on YouTube, and I saw Dave Portnoy doing a pizza review of artichoke pizza, which is, it’s kind of like a gimmicky pizza in New York, but it’s really good. Gimmicky meaning they do all different kinds, like a lobster slice.

0:11:47.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s not like just artichoke on pizza, it’s the name of the place.

0:11:51.3 Mike Vacanti: Right.

0:11:51.9 Jordan Syatt: And it’s great pizza. It’s not great, it’s very good pizza.

0:11:55.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it is very good pizza. I realized that over the last 12-18 months, I think I have told you this, there have been periods of time, maybe six months more specifically, but there have been periods of time where I’ve eaten more pizza than I ever have in my life. Like my wife and I will just order a pizza. And I realized that I was consuming a bunch of Dave Portnoy pizza reviews. And I didn’t put that together in my mind. And when I saw this YouTube video, I probably haven’t seen one of these in a month or two months, and I was about to click it. I was like, hang on a second. I haven’t eaten pizza in the last couple of months. I’ve been more on point with my nutrition. I haven’t been craving pizza. I haven’t had the thought like I really want to order pizza. But for a solid six-month period, we were ordering a good amount of pizza. I was like, I was watching all of these freaking pizza reviews, they were making me want pizza. And then I was ordering pizza and eating. And not like, you know, I’m going to have two slices with a protein shake and be dialed and still tracking to hit my macros for the day.

0:13:06.0 Mike Vacanti: I wasn’t really tracking at that time. So I was just eating until satiety, which with pizza, you’re going to overeat. And so, yeah, it was a micro example of one of the many ways we can influence the thoughts and cravings and desires in our mind. And by the way, this doesn’t just apply to nutrition, right? I have a buddy, I won’t name him, but I remember a couple of years ago he was struggling with porn. And he realized that TikTok and Twitter and all these social media apps had like a bunch of, I don’t know, if they’re OnlyFans girls or what kind of content, but he called them thirst traps.

0:13:54.2 Mike Vacanti: And that would lead to him like going down a rabbit hole of being on Pornhub. And he was like, I got to stop watching, like I got to delete TikTok, I got to do whatever because it’s leading me to this behavior. And he identified that cue and… Or that trigger, whatever you want to call it, and was able to, you know, not go down that rabbit hole. Similarly, I’m like, I’m not clicking these pizza reviews anymore. My nutrition has been pretty dialed lately, pretty happy with how the last couple months have been going.

0:14:26.3 Jordan Syatt: I had no clue you were watching so many pizza reviews.

0:14:29.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I was watching a lot of pizza reviews.

0:14:31.4 Jordan Syatt: Like you were watching from start to finish the entire pizza review? 

0:14:34.1 Mike Vacanti: They’re three minutes.

0:14:35.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, oh, oh, got it. Okay. I was imagining like a 20 or 30 minute pizza review.

0:14:39.5 Mike Vacanti: No, he’s on the street. They’re very entertaining. They’re fast moving. He gives it the score. I mean, I don’t even want to promote it to this audience because who knows if someone’s going to be going through what I was going through without even realizing it, but it was subconsciously making me want pizza.

0:14:55.0 Jordan Syatt: I mean, now I want pizza. I’m not even hungry.

0:14:56.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, sorry.

0:14:57.6 Jordan Syatt: No, it’s okay. I’m not going to order it. It’s alright. Yeah, dude. That’s actually really interesting. So did you order pizza yesterday or no? 

0:15:06.0 Mike Vacanti: No, I didn’t click the video.

0:15:09.9 Jordan Syatt: Smart.

0:15:09.9 Mike Vacanti: I was about to click the video and I was like, hang on a second. No, no, no, no, no, no. Scroll past it.

0:15:15.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s funny. It does relate to literally everything. I mean, I think porn is… I think that the social media companies are evil geniuses in so many ways and I think they deliberately target people obviously based on their interests but also I think based on their gender. Like I don’t know a single dude… If you go to any dude’s explore feed on Instagram, you’re going to see butts and boobs immediately, and not even because they interact with those posts, but I think it’s because like, okay, we’re going to show straight dudes this stuff. They just know and they’re going to show it to you because like your eyes are going to go there and you’re more likely to stay on the platform. But I mean also I can see this with literally everything, even with… Especially with political content. Like I mean, oh my gosh. You see stuff on, with political content with essentially propaganda on both sides, which is funny because I have friends who are on extreme ends of both sides and I’ll see the same story from both different sides. Like I’ll see, for example, the Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.

0:16:33.9 Jordan Syatt: I’m seeing from story to story, post to post, some people talking about what they love about it and what’s written, and then other people who are talking about what’s terrible about it and what’s written and why they hate it and why it’s like either the greatest thing or the worst thing, literally story to story, post to post. And it’s so easy to see how people could go from social media to then being so hostile in real life.

0:17:00.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:17:00.8 Jordan Syatt: Because they think, oh, well, this is all over my feed, this is what I see, then like everyone I come in contact with is either an enemy or an ally type thing. It’s one or the other, and it’s just based on what’s being thrown in your face. So I could see it with pizza, I could see it with politics, I could see it with literally everything.

0:17:19.3 Mike Vacanti: I see that hostility online, that tension online, translated into the real world in an anecdotal or my perceived uptick in road rage that I’ll see just anywhere I go. Like it seems like there is way more road rage now than there was five years ago or ten years ago.

0:17:39.8 Jordan Syatt: You know who probably really struggles is people who struggle with shopping addictions, right? I mean you see all these people…

[overlapping conversation]

0:17:46.8 Mike Vacanti: Influencers promoting everything.

0:17:50.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And then like the ease of shop now, it’s like before you had to go to the fucking store to go get your shopping fix. Now you just say shop now. You go to Amazon. You click the button. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, you can buy stuff and have it delivered to your door. That might be a very under the radar, I mean at least for me, I don’t struggle with shopping, and I don’t hear anyone ever discussing this. But I would imagine if I had a shopping addiction, I couldn’t be on social media. There’s no way. I’d be fucked.

0:18:22.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s a bad one, especially if you don’t have the money to be doing it.

0:18:26.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:18:29.3 Mike Vacanti: I also equate the seeing pizza leading to craving pizza to advertisers around kids’ processed foods, cereal, things of that nature, like basically targeting, companies targeting kids with ultra-processed, highly palatable, delicious foods. There’s something, and there are so many factors that lead to craving and hunger, non-physiological hunger, just like wanting the dopamine spike of something delicious, but yeah.

0:19:09.2 Jordan Syatt: I mean even the… I remember because I took courses on, numerous courses on food science obviously, but specifically on the marketing of food, and I always found that really interesting. Food photography is really remarkable because oftentimes they’ll use things that are not actually food to make the food look way better. So if they want to use something that’s foamy, like a foamy coffee or something, often they’ll use soap because soap gets way more foamy. So like it will look more foamy even though it’s soap, but like they don’t care. It’s just like there’s… It’s essentially false advertising. But like they just, they will use things that are not real, that not really the food in order to make it look more delicious. Or like if they want to make something look glossy, they might like put some type of glossy glue on top of it to increase the shine or something. It’s actually… It’s super, super, super interesting and that’s why basically the food that you get at a restaurant never looks like it does in the marketing picture. But I feel like that should be illegal. That should be way more regulated in terms of…

0:20:23.4 Mike Vacanti: False advertising.

0:20:24.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:20:25.0 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely.

0:20:26.1 Jordan Syatt: You shouldn’t be allowed to use things that aren’t what’s actually included in the meal when you’re taking pictures of it.

0:20:32.1 Mike Vacanti: It’s like photoshopping a client testimonial and then saying, hey, here’s my client’s results. You can get results like this too. Yeah, not good. But you’d see that… I didn’t realize they use non-food objects. That’s actually very interesting because if you were to eat what was in the commercial, you wouldn’t enjoy it. But remember the Burger King commercials where the burger looks perfect and they like…

0:20:56.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh my gosh, yeah.

0:20:56.7 Mike Vacanti: It’s a very full looking. The bun is real enticing and then you get it and it’s just this smashed like kind of disgusting little ball of food.

0:21:07.3 Jordan Syatt: That’s just gross.

0:21:09.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s really… I mean delicious but also gross at the same time.

0:21:13.7 Jordan Syatt: There was one time when we were still living in New York. It was during COVID. It was like peak COVID, health anxiety was like at an all-time high. One night…

0:21:24.3 Mike Vacanti: Yours or the general population’s? 

0:21:26.8 Jordan Syatt: Mine, but probably general population’s, but like mine was like super high. Oh, you know, oh my gosh, do you remember when I got kneed in the face in jujitsu and my whole one side of my face went numb? 

0:21:38.5 Mike Vacanti: I do.

0:21:39.4 Jordan Syatt: Okay, so that happened. Whole side of my face goes numb. And then I’m thinking like, there’s something really wrong. Like I thought I was, in addition to that, I don’t know if I was having a stroke. I didn’t know what was going on. I was like, I got to the hospital. And this is like midnight. So we went to Sinai, Mount Sinai Hospital, like midnight. And I was like, I’ll go. And my wife was like, she was my fiance then, she’s like, no, I’ll come with you. So she comes with me and we get admitted and we’re in the waiting area. And it’s funny because I have friends who are ER doctors and stuff. And apparently there are just people who are regulars, who are just there all the time, especially in a big city where it’s just, they can, they’re often hanging out. And this guy’s in there and he just looks so comfortable. And he looks at me, he’s like, what are you in for? And I was like, I think I’m having a stroke or I don’t know, something’s going on. And he goes… And I was like, what about you? 

0:22:44.6 Jordan Syatt: And he’s like, I think I’m having a heart attack. I was like, oh man. And then he just keeps going. He’s like, yeah, it must’ve been a Wednesday or at this point, early Thursday morning. ‘Cause he was like, yeah. He’s like, you know how Burger King has those, like you get like double burger, double whopper Wednesday or something where you get like one whopper and the other one comes free or something ridiculous, he’s like, you know how Burger King has that? I was like, no, I didn’t know that they had that deal. He’s like, yeah, I keep taking advantage of it. And I think it’s not going well for me.

0:23:18.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s amazing.

0:23:20.2 Jordan Syatt: But he was there before me and they took me and I asked the person, they were like, yeah, he’s here all the time. He apparently he just, he’s a regular. He consistently goes in because he thinks he’s having a heart attack.

0:23:31.5 Mike Vacanti: That makes sense. 80% of their visits come from 20% of the population. Like, what are you in for? 

0:23:40.2 Jordan Syatt: Double Whopper Wednesday or whatever it was.

0:23:42.1 Mike Vacanti: How about you? Heart attack. Nice. Jordan, hey.

0:23:45.9 Jordan Syatt: Double Whopper Wednesday. [laughter]

0:23:47.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I saw a… Kind of related to that. I saw a post about the actor that played Tony Soprano. I’ve seen this post before, but it had a lot of engagement on it, which was, I think he died of a heart attack. He wasn’t very old, like 50s, I want to say. And his last meal was, they listed it. It was like eight drinks, basically. And then a couple orders of fried shrimp and some foie gras. I don’t know how to say that word, but.

0:24:26.4 Jordan Syatt: Foie gras.

0:24:27.2 Mike Vacanti: Foie gras. But you know, not like eight drinks.

0:24:31.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:24:31.5 Mike Vacanti: Not a great meal, but all the consensus of the comments was like, what an awesome last meal. Like if I were to pick my last meal, you know, at least he didn’t eat a salad and then die right after. Like he had a, like a delicious last meal and maybe people were just being…

0:24:49.7 Jordan Syatt: Optimistic.

0:24:50.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Charitable, like not wanting to like speak poorly of him, which I agree with. But there’s part of me that’s like, the fact that he was eating like that probably consistently is one of the reasons why he had a heart attack at 50. I want to confirm the age. Yeah. 51.

0:25:11.1 Jordan Syatt: Jeez.

0:25:12.2 Mike Vacanti: His weight varied throughout his career. He was a large man often around 280-300 pounds.

0:25:16.5 Jordan Syatt: You know, what’s interesting. I had never thought about this until Stan Efferding said this to me. Obviously yo-yo dieting is not ideal, but he said something that gave me such a huge perspective shift. He was like, the worst thing or one of the worst things is just chronically being overweight. Chronically being overweight is one of the worst things you can do for your health, and for so many different reasons. And he said, yo-yo dieting is actually better, physically, than staying overweight consistently. Because then at least you have periods of time in which you are having less stress on your arteries, less stress on your organs, less overall excessive fat. So I thought it was such an interesting take on yo-yo dieting, where it’s like, listen, if you’re having trouble maintaining, obviously the goal should be we should find something that can help you maintain your lower body fat more consistently. But also, your physical health is probably better from yo-yo dieting than if you just stayed the way you are right now.

0:26:26.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:26:27.3 Jordan Syatt: Which I was like, man, that was a very interesting, I don’t hear many interesting takes anymore at this far into my tenure as a coach, but that was a super interesting take that I hadn’t considered.

0:26:39.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. Everyone just, you know, rips on yo-yo dieting, right? No one’s ever made a point about like, here could be a benefit of yo-yo dieting.

0:26:49.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, because I mean, if the option is just stay where you are, or the point being like, well, what’s the point of even trying if I’m going to gain it back? Well, listen, ideally you want to find something that allows you to not gain it back. But even if you do, at least you just spent three months, six months, whatever it is, at a lower body fat, and that could potentially help you more than if you just continue to go up from where you are now or stayed the same.

0:27:12.5 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely. He’s right.

0:27:14.4 Jordan Syatt: Super interesting.

0:27:15.3 Mike Vacanti: I like Stan.

0:27:16.1 Jordan Syatt: I do too.

0:27:17.0 Mike Vacanti: Should we dive into some questions? 

0:27:19.3 Jordan Syatt: This is from Connor Ward, DPT. Casual follower here. How long did it take you grinding/posting to leave your nine-to-five? 

0:27:29.5 Mike Vacanti: Interesting. Did you have a nine-to-five? 

0:27:32.1 Jordan Syatt: Well, no, I never had a nine-to-five. So that would actually be better for you. I can give my thoughts on what I was doing before, but you did have a nine-to-five.

0:27:40.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. I had an eight to eight working auditing in public accounting. And there’s two approaches to leaving a job to pursue a different, to pursue your own business, whether it’s in fitness or something else, but starting your own business. One is burn the boats, meaning you quit your job and focus fully on starting your business. There are obvious downsides to that. There are some benefits to that as well. And then the other approach is your 7:00 PM to 2:00 in the morning, you know, or waking up early before work and working on your business, essentially doing both at the same time until you get your own business in a place where you feel comfortable and confident leaving your nine-to-five. I burnt the boats. I didn’t even fully know what I wanted to do when I quit. I just disliked my job so much that I knew I would regret it if I continued to work it for the rest of my life. And so I quit without any real plan and that worked for me.

0:28:50.4 Jordan Syatt: But you did save money.

0:28:52.9 Mike Vacanti: Correct.

0:28:53.5 Jordan Syatt: Right? Like you didn’t just burn the boats with a month or not enough money. Like you had enough money for a couple years, right? 

0:29:00.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I had probably 18 months at least of runway depending on how cheap I wanted to live, maybe a little bit more than that.

0:29:11.2 Jordan Syatt: You were living cheap. You were living in your friend’s closet. Like you were living cheap. So you weren’t like living in a $3000 a month apartment and fucking driving a nice car. You were living in your friend’s closet.

0:29:24.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. That’s just the obvious thing to me and my tendencies is, it’s like you and understanding people.

0:29:38.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, but like the obvious thing is people should exercise and eat well.

0:29:42.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:29:42.4 Jordan Syatt: And they’re like, should I do keto? 

0:29:44.9 Mike Vacanti: If someone’s working a nine-to-five that they genuinely hate and they want to do something else and they’re passionate about that other thing and like spending excess money on fancy dinners or Gucci bags or a Lexus compared to a cheaper car or having a 5000 square-foot house that you don’t need compared to a smaller house or buying versus renting. Like you’re getting cash, accumulating cash buys you time. And what you need when starting your own business is time because you’re not gonna have revenue right away. And if you’re pinched and you need to do things to get revenue right away, you’re gonna utilize business practices that are very bad for you in the long run. They’re bad for your brand, they’re bad for your reputation that don’t lead to long-term success, which is what a lot of gurus are actually preaching. The like, you know, whether it’s sell every single one of your family members, on being your fitness client, or it’s spend 10 hours a day cold DMing people trying to get them, whether it’s the high ticket sales, cold DMs. If you want to build a business the right way, you need to go into it knowing that you’re not gonna make a ton of money immediately.

0:31:10.4 Mike Vacanti: And so, saving for that just makes sense. It’s also good life practice to not be in a position where you only have one or two months of expenditures on hand.

0:31:25.1 Jordan Syatt: And then how long did it take you, burn the boats, grinding, posting, to get to a point where like you were making enough to then you weren’t living off of savings anymore? 

0:31:38.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s a good question. Something that’s very relevant to that question is how much is someone spending each month at that time. I was single, I was living in a one…

0:31:54.5 Jordan Syatt: One-person closet.

0:31:56.3 Mike Vacanti: And then when I was in New York, I was in a one-bedroom apartment and there were three of us in a one-bedroom apartment. So like fake walls, you know, my… Yeah, yeah. And so…

0:32:07.9 Jordan Syatt: I think I went to that apartment before… After you had left.

0:32:10.2 Mike Vacanti: Oh yeah, I think you did.

0:32:11.9 Jordan Syatt: I did, with Joey Persia. Yeah. Yeah. It was a small apartment. [laughter]

0:32:19.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And I don’t remember the exact rent there. I want to say something like $700 a month, which in New York City is unbelievably cheap. Prior to that it was $500 a month for rent. And then shopping at Costco, just like spending as little as possible. Basically spending $1000 a month. You know, cell phone bill, insurance, the highest deductible, lowest premium insurance I could possibly find.

0:32:48.2 Jordan Syatt: You weren’t Ubering around the city.

0:32:50.4 Mike Vacanti: Maybe $1200 a month, I was walking everywhere. I had the subway pass, which at the time I think was $100 or $110 a month. But yeah, so… How long did it take until I wasn’t burning savings? Well, I really only needed to be making $1500 a month. And I quit my accounting job in July of 2012. And I was making… When was I making $1500 a month in fitness? Maybe like… No, I don’t think so. January, February of 2014 maybe? 

0:33:34.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So a year-and-a-half. Makes sense.

0:33:38.7 Mike Vacanti: Yep.

0:33:39.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Probably about the same. But I also think important context here as well. Because the verbiage here is grinding/posting. And the amount of work that went into this timeframe is pretty… I was literally… I was just talking to a buddy today who, he was saying, I haven’t been on a vacation in a while. And then I was thinking, man, even when I was on vacations, I was still… I literally haven’t taken a single work-free vacation in my entire adult life. And that’s not a brag. I’m not like, oh, look It’s the truth. And when you own your own business, you have to decide what’s right for you. And even on my honeymoon…

0:34:39.7 Mike Vacanti: We wrote our book.

0:34:40.7 Jordan Syatt: We had to write our book. The publisher was like, we need this draft by this date. And that was during my honeymoon. So I fucking brought my laptop to Greece and did some work during my honeymoon. Not ideal, but it had to be done. And thank God my wife is super supportive and didn’t guilt me about it for a single second. During the couple of hours of work, she went out and read a book and did her own thing. And she was great. But yeah, I mean, grinding, working, posting, it’s going to look different for everyone. Also, when I first started, I was single. When I first started posting in July of 2011, and then essentially single until my wife, which was many, many, many years later. So single, no kids, no responsibilities. If I had to do it right now, it would be completely different. It would be completely different. Everything would be completely different because I would want to spend more time with my kids, but I would also want to grow my business and something’s got to give.

0:36:00.2 Mike Vacanti: You would also need more security because it’s not just you, single guy. You’re supporting your family. So you inherently would need more savings because your monthly burn is higher. And you would probably want a higher number of months saved up because you’re thinking about other people and not just yourself. Like it’s one thing to think, oh, okay, if I’m going to put myself in a really bad position, I’m okay with that. Like if I make my bed, I’ll sleep in it. But to do that to your family is, yeah. So, and like you said, wanting to spend more time with your family. I think the punchline there is you just have to go in with the expectation that you make slower progress and that’s okay.

0:36:42.4 Jordan Syatt: That’s it, yeah. It’s just, it would take much, much, much longer if you have more responsibilities like spouse, kids and other things. The more responsibilities you have outside of the work you want to do, the longer it’s going to take, generally speaking.

0:36:58.8 Mike Vacanti: Yep. Which is not a reason not to do it. And you definitely shouldn’t be comparing yourself to the 24-year-old fitness person who is working 18 hours a day. We’ve had many many people in the mentorship in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, who have grown amazing businesses, who have families, and so it absolutely can be done. But, I don’t know, I think a lot of people just see this, the marketing for, oh this guy just signed on to my business mastermind and had an $89,000 month within his first six months. It’s like…

0:37:35.1 Jordan Syatt: First of all, no he didn’t, you’re lying. Second, it’s the exact same thing as your client seeing like, oh look, this person was 300 pounds and they got down to 140 pounds in like six months. It’s like, no. And also, like that’s, even if it’s true, that’s not gonna happen to you. And you don’t know what they did to make that happen, did they take any drugs, like you just have no idea. You have no clue, and then what happened after that picture was taken, and so yeah, it’s, you’re falling for the same bullshit. You’re falling for the same get rich quick, get fit quick, it’s all, it’s the same thing.

0:38:16.1 Mike Vacanti: So did we answer the question? 

0:38:18.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I think so.

0:38:19.5 Mike Vacanti: How long did it take us? 

0:38:20.6 Jordan Syatt: Fucking, I would say on the low end, a year, and that’s like the fastest, fastest, fastest I’ve ever really seen someone completely change their finances, like starting from working at another job to, and that’s the fastest, and then 10 years on the other end of the spectrum. It’s anywhere in that range.

0:38:46.2 Mike Vacanti: I also, I’m talking about how much I made from my online business, like online fitness coaching. I got a job in-person coaching, which covered more than my expenses in the meantime, as like a, not only for the money, but also for more experience, and we’ve talked many times about the benefits of in-person fitness coaching, how it translates into making better content, being able to help your clients better, etcetera, but I forgot to mention that.

0:39:16.6 Jordan Syatt: What’s your favorite kind of bagel? 

0:39:18.2 Mike Vacanti: What’s yours? 

0:39:20.9 Jordan Syatt: Man, I’m Jewish, so I’ve got, I got, there’s a whole thing, whole like a command center going on here. I think if I had to pick just like, if I’m only eating it plain, just like I’m gonna eat this bagel with nothing on it, I’m probably going egg bagel.

0:39:39.6 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:39:40.1 Jordan Syatt: I really like an egg bagel. You know what, and that might be my favorite, because I’m thinking, all right, let’s get that bagel. My ideal bagel is egg bagel, slabs of cream cheese, and then lox, like smoked salmon on top with some capers and lemons. Not lemons, capers and onions, excuse me. Bro, that’s a bagel with schmear, come on.

0:40:08.5 Mike Vacanti: Schmear is cream cheese.

0:40:09.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, a little schmear.

0:40:11.0 Mike Vacanti: Nice, nice. I think mine is a rosemary olive oil. But with like a turkey sandwich on a toasted bagel.

0:40:21.8 Jordan Syatt: I like that.

0:40:23.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Or, you know, a standard blueberry bagel with some cream cheese.

0:40:28.4 Jordan Syatt: Have you ever had a cinnamon sugar bagel? 

0:40:30.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, those are good too.

0:40:31.7 Jordan Syatt: Bro, yeah, from Einstein Bros, you kidding me? 

0:40:34.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I’ve had that pre-workout. That’s great.

0:40:37.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, dude, that one’s ridiculous. That one’s ridiculous.

0:40:41.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:40:43.0 Jordan Syatt: I’m not a fan of the everything. The everything bagels, I’ve never done it. I don’t know, it’s messy. Same with poppy seed.

0:40:49.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, sesame seed.

0:40:51.1 Jordan Syatt: Making a fucking mess. It’s like a rice cake, and it’s obviously better than rice cake in terms of taste and texture, but I don’t want to make a fucking mess.

0:41:00.5 Mike Vacanti: Right.

0:41:00.9 Jordan Syatt: Seeds are all, if you have it in your car, it’s getting all over your seat, getting in the, yeah, you know, just not good.

0:41:06.7 Mike Vacanti: Not worth it.

0:41:07.6 Jordan Syatt: How long does it take to see physical results if you’re lifting heavy and hitting your calories and protein? 

0:41:14.9 Mike Vacanti: Fat loss, are we assuming? 

0:41:16.2 Jordan Syatt: Let’s go both. We’ll do fat loss and muscle gain.

0:41:19.7 Mike Vacanti: So, how long does it take to see changes in the mirror when you’re losing fat? 

0:41:24.8 Jordan Syatt: And we’ll just assume you’re doing everything right. Let’s assume nutrition is dialed, training is dialed, sleep is dialed. Average person, not elite genetics, but for the average person, but they are doing everything right.

0:41:39.5 Mike Vacanti: I like to err on the slightly higher side when giving this number just to manage expectations, and I think that helps with adherence and people not giving up. Six weeks on the low end I’d say 6-8 weeks.

0:41:54.8 Jordan Syatt: For fat loss? 

0:41:55.4 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm.

0:41:56.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:41:57.2 Mike Vacanti: Look, if someone is 15% body fat and they lose two pounds per week, are they gonna see a difference in four weeks? Yeah, probably. But 6-8 weeks is a good range for expecting visual progress from losing fat.

0:42:16.1 Jordan Syatt: It also depends where you store your fat, right? I store a lot of my fat in my belly and my face. So if I lose five pounds, you see it almost immediately come out of my face. Same if I gain five pounds. If I gain five pounds, all of a sudden, you’re like, bro, you look inflamed, you know? You see it in my face more. Whereas if, some people they gain it in their legs, for example, and they’re wearing pants and shit, you just don’t see it as much. So that does play a role. But yeah, I think, generally, I think six weeks from a fat loss perspective, especially if it’s sustainable. If it’s more rapid fat loss, yeah, you’re gonna see it more quickly. But sustainable, I think six weeks is great.

0:42:58.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:43:00.0 Jordan Syatt: Longer for muscle gain.

0:43:00.6 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I would probably… It’s so tough because for people who aren’t taking drugs and trying to gain muscle, and especially if they’re relatively lean when starting, being in a surplus, three months in, you’re probably gonna think you look worse, shirtless. Really.

[laughter]

0:43:31.9 Jordan Syatt: That’s so funny. And very true. It can be really discouraging, like…

[overlapping conversation]

0:43:37.2 Jordan Syatt: What the fuck? 

0:43:37.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. You’re happy your lifts are going up, you feel good, you’re not hungry, you’re in a better mood, your sleep is better, but you look at yourself in the mirror and you’re like, I have less abdominal definition than I did three months ago. And my arms haven’t grown an inch. I don’t have traps up to my ears. I don’t really notice a difference. The way you clothes fit if you were wearing like a relatively snug T-shirt, I guess you’re gonna fell a little bit of a difference in maybe that 12-week range. But for aesthetic changes, visual changes, from muscle gain, I’d say six months is a good, on the low end.

0:44:20.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And oftentimes you won’t really even see it until you cut back down again. Right? It’s like you’ll look bigger, but you’re gonna think you look fatter. And then once you cut back down again, assuming you do it properly, like, oh cool, here it is, that’s what I was looking for. I will say, I do think the only caveat to that is when you’re a brand new beginner and you’re not really paying attention to calories and you’re just lifting and you’re getting newbie gains, I do think you’ll see it, you will legitimately see it a little bit sooner and the psychological aspect of just like, I think you placebo yourself into being like, fuck, yeah. In those first 3-6 months of strength training there might not be any legitimate physical change, but your confidence is getting up, you’re excited that you’re getting stronger, you’re being consistent in the gym, you look in the mirror and you’re like, my fucking arms, let’s go. Whether it’s there or not, you believe it and that’s all that matters, realistically. But I do think those newbie gains are… Is like yeah, that newbie mental game that you play, where it’s like you feel like you look super different, which is amazing.

0:45:38.8 Mike Vacanti: Some of it’s definitely mental. Some of it is newbies can recomp really effectively and gain muscle early on too. So you don’t have the… One, you gain muscle faster than an intermediate or advance lifter, and two, you can lose body fat and gain muscle in the same window and so you are going to look better because you’re gonna have more definition potentially a little bit more size. So I agree that I would bring that number down for someone who’s new to strength training, for sure. That’s a great point. But long term, like I like to say minimum six months just so someone who’s never done a true muscle gain phase before isn’t discouraged when they don’t think… When two months in or three months in, they’re not seeing seein the changes they wanna see. There’s an old saying. When you’re gaining muscle, you look better in clothes, and when you’re lean you look better shirtless. But if you’re lean nad in clothes, you’re like, I feel small. If you’re bulky and you’re shirtless, you’re like, I feel fat. It is just relative to where you were when you started adding muscle.

0:46:48.3 Mike Vacanti: So the dilemma of the natty lifter…

0:46:50.4 Jordan Syatt: Maybe that’s what we’ll title this episode.

0:46:52.8 Mike Vacanti: That’d be a great title.

0:46:53.7 Jordan Syatt: The Dilemma of the Natural Lifter, The Natty Lifter. I like it.

0:46:56.5 Mike Vacanti: Let’s do it. You have another podcast.

0:46:58.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I do.

0:47:00.3 Mike Vacanti: Great episode.

0:47:00.4 Jordan Syatt: This was good. Thanks everyone for listening. We brought it today.

0:47:03.3 Mike Vacanti: Let’s go.

[overlapping conversation]

0:47:10.5 Jordan Syatt: Please leave a five-star review. Share this episode. If you like this episode share it on your Instagram, give us a tag. Tag both of us, I’ll be the only one… If one of us sees it, it’s gonna be me.

[overlapping conversation]

0:47:23.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s a challenge. I might see it.

0:47:26.7 Jordan Syatt: Thank you, have a wonderful week, talk to you soon.