Longevity In Bodybuilding

And Evan, you were like one of the
first people that I ever came across.
When I was watching videos, I was starting bodybuild
that was explaining the whys behind what they did
and had a health rationale behind things as well,
which was different from other information being put out.
So you were honestly probably one of the first bodybuilders
that I came across that I really connected with because
I need to understand why we were doing things.
But anyway, welcome, Evan.
Great to have you on then.
It’s great to be here.
That’s a massive compliment, and
I sincerely appreciate that.
We were talking yesterday about watching those original videos
of you having all the food spread out on
the kitchen counter and walking through it and stuff,
like with the food preparation and everything. Yeah.
When I started really bodybuilding, doing
it consistently and really getting my
act together with nutrition and stuff.
This is going back maybe like 2003 or four and
did my first competition at age 23 in 2005.
It became apparent to me pretty early
on eating can be very challenging.
Having your food together.
If you’re going to stick to a diet, you need to
have what you need available to you when you need it.
So it requires a bit of planning.
So you need to have some kind of system.
So for me, it was all about
kind of just developing that system.
And over the years it’s kind
of evolved and I’ve perfected it.
John, we just did a video in conjunction with Animal
Bodybuilding.com was involved with it, but I think I prepped
like a week’s worth of food in like 90 minutes.
Was it the twelve foods for cutting or twelve foods?
No, it was a different one.
No, it hasn’t come out yet.
But it’s like I show you basically how to assemble
an entire week’s worth of nutrition in 90 minutes.
I work with clients.
I know you work with clients.
And one of the things you get often depending
on the level that the person is at.
Well, I ran out of meals.
I didn’t have time to prep stuff like that.
But it’s like, dude, you got to get a system in place.
I’m going to show you how to do it so
that there’s no excuses because I’m tired of that excuse.
That’s a great idea, because back then
I was working going to school.
You have the optimal on paper, like do this.
But it’s not often you get how to do it either.
And you just have to kind of figure it out.
And so I think that’s when your videos were
so valuable back then, because you actually showed the
meal prep process, and that’s a huge benefit.
I remember you were doing sliced sweet potatoes and
baking them, and, dude, that’s what I did, like,
back then, and I despise sweet potato now, though.
I was even cold and cold Turkey in College. So.
Thanks, Evan.
If there’s one thing we do as bodybuilders, like,
we ruin food, meaning we eat so much of
it for so long, so consistently, that you just
wear it out beyond all comprehension, you’re just like,
I never want to see this food again.
Do you have a food like that that sticks out?
Like, I can just never eat that again.
Can tuna?
I mean, that still haunts me
from my early days of bodybuilding.
I played it out so bad.
But even, like, fish, I’ll have this relationship with, say,
cod, where I go through months and months of eating
it, and then I’m like, okay, I’m done with it.
I don’t want to look at it. Nothing.
But then it’s fucked up because, like, a couple of
months will go by and, like, want some fish.
I could really go fish on it’s.
Funny you mentioned that, because one of my first preps
with Matt Jansen, you give me the plan, dude, if
that says that food, that’s what I’m going to eat.
And he had Tilapia on there, and I would
prep it because I was working in school.
I’d prep a big dish of it.
Like, I would my chicken, and I would be, like,
scooping out the tilapia with that gel when it’s cool.
I could just keep just thinking about it.
So Tilapia is one.
Like, I just never would pick.
And the next prep was like, Dude, I won’t fish at all.
Like, none. I don’t care.
He’s like, oh, yeah, man,
you should have said something. Oh, shit.
That’s the funny thing. I’m like you.
If I was going through a prep
and I’m working with someone and they’re
like, eat this, that’s what we’re eating.
But then come to find out down the road, yeah,
man, I was eating this, and I was just.
I felt like I was going to gag.
Why didn’t you say something?
Like, you could add cod instead?
I’m like, really?
You don’t want to be that client?
I work with people, and every other day,
it’s like they’re trying to find a substitute
for some food in the diet.
You’re like, no, just eat the fucking diet.
Just stop.
Luke, do you have a food like that that sticks out? Cod.
Okay.
I had a prep where it was, like, cold cod for,
like, four out of the six meals of the day.
It’s one of those things.
You’ve got to eat it, I think, right
away, dude, tilapia, I’m with you, John.
I forgot about that.
This is going back from my first show.
It’s either first or second show at the time,
I was still working full time, and I’d run
out to my car and it was cold tilapia,
cold spinach and the fucking gel at the bottom.
Yeah, it’s sick.
I don’t ever want to see that shit again.
It’s such a low grade quality fish, too.
Garbage fish anyways.
Well, that’s already getting into what
we want to talk about today.
But Renee, she’s like, you have to ask Evan this.
Make sure you do.
It’s the most important thing that
you cover in the whole podcast. What is it?
He’s like, he’s in New Haven, Connecticut.
They’re supposed to have some of the best pizza.
Ask Evan what is the best pizza place in
New Haven, and is it actually that good?
New Haven pizza is that good?
Number one, I lived in Italy for four
months, and the pizza there is outstanding.
New Haven pizza is unique.
Just to just give some general characteristics.
It’s a thin crust pizza.
It’s great, but a lot of it.
I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s
good when it’s kind of burnt a little bit.
The crust is a little burnt.
It’s like kind of charred wood fired, like that.
Well, Peppy’s, right.
Everybody knows, right?
They actually have this massive oven.
You should see, like, they have these paddles
that they use and they’re like 8ft.
The handles are like 8ft long because that’s
how deep and how big the ovens are.
But I think technically it’s a
brick oven, but it’s coal fired. Okay.
It’s really good.
It is truly some of the best pizza in the
world, at least from what I’ve experienced outside of Italy.
Outside of Italy, it’s the best pizza I’ve ever had.
So of the main players, like, Peppy’s
is kind of considered the original.
Sally’s is right next door.
Sally’s is also very good.
Have some not so great experience,
maybe with the service there.
So maybe some attitude problems.
They seem a little strong there just kind of
an attitude like, take it or leave it.
Go fuck yourself. Not really.
Based so much around service.
Modern is great.
Pizza modern.
If it’s cooked right, if it’s cooked well done.
Modern is probably my favorite.
Right on.
I’ll pass it on to Renee.
The shows I picked, I picked the New York Pro and
Chicago Pro so I could try both of those pizzas.
You should really just come and have some of all of it.
Well, we’re coming to Jersey after Olympia, and so
we’re like, man, we could just make the little
trip over and try some pizza out there.
Well, dude, you got to come to New
Haven because obviously the powerhouse there, the Montanary
brothers, is you’ve never been, right?
No, you have to go, obviously.
Tell me when you’re going to be there.
If you want my company.
Sometimes you’re with a girl and you’re like,
no, man, I’ve gone through a prep.
It’s been 16 weeks.
I just want to chill.
Maybe me and one other person.
Like, I don’t want this sometimes. It’s true.
Two’s company, three’s a crowd.
But if you want some company, let me know.
We’ll show you around a little bit.
No, that’d be cool. That’d be cool.
We’ll reach out and figure it out. Cool.
Anyway, our topic for the day was just
getting into the health aspect of bodybuilding.
A lot of times starting out, especially young, like the eyes on
the prize is just the next show, the pro card, and a
lot of that can kind of go out the window.
And what you don’t think about, hey, I might be this.
When I was 25, I didn’t think
I’d be doing when I was 35.
That’s ten years later down the road.
So you kind of need this longevity approach to it.
But not to say we’re not going to
still take risk and still achieve our goals.
But what I’m trying to educate people now on is we
can do some of both and not take away from that.
But there’s stuff that we’ve
done that’s just accessible.
But you got into a health approach in bodybuilding kind of
earlier on, at least when I was seeing you coming up,
what really spurred that on for you, when I think back
to, like, when I started in my early 20s, I could
honestly say I was never really reckless.
I had some friends.
They just didn’t give a shit.
And oddly, what you find a lot of
times in bodybuilding is that there’s a lot
of like, partying alcohol, recreational drug use.
For me, that always was really surprising because I always
found any of those things to be really contradictory to
what I was trying to accomplish as a bodybuilder.
So for me, very early on, I just
weeded out drinking and all that other stuff.
I was never the type to go out and party for no
other reason other than it just was contrary to my goals.
So coming from that background, but then also,
as time went on, okay, it’s 2005.
I do my first show. 2006.
I do the junior nationals. Seven.
I win my pro card. Nine.
First pro show.
2011, 2nd pro show.
I’ve got a daughter on the way, and
I’m doing really well, and I’m probably pushing
myself harder than I’ve ever pushed myself.
And my daughter was born, and like a
few months later, my father’s diagnosed with cancer.
So there was a lot of things happening at once.
2009, when I prepped for New York, I
never felt so bad in my life.
I just felt like death.
And there was times during that prep and afterwards, I
don’t know if I ever want to compete again.
I feel so bad.
In what way?
Like, we all run into keto.
Just smash yourself down to the ground high carb.
The diet was extreme. It didn’t help.
I was driving probably 3 hours down to Brooklyn,
2 hours down to Brooklyn, 3 hours back.
Some of the things that I was
using that in hindsight, really weren’t necessary.
And granted, in 2009, I
achieved a really competitive look.
It was a good look, but it was enough to make me feel
like, I don’t know if I ever want to do this again.
I don’t even know.
It’s almost sometimes enough to
make you fucking hate it.
So I didn’t like the way I felt.
So in 2011, when I was, I did
my own prep and things went well.
Granted, I pushed myself really hard.
I put a lot of pressure on myself, but I did
it in a way that I felt was a little more.
It wasn’t so extreme, but I looked even better.
And so that was positive.
Like I said, my daughter was born,
my father was diagnosed with cancer.
And at this point, I don’t know
what I’m maybe 29, 30 years old.
So as you get older, I think having a child
and then seeing what was going on with my father,
you start to really think a lot about things here’s.
My dad, somebody who to me
is like, invincible and tough.
Dude still is tough as nails.
And you’re like, Jeez, he’s getting his lung cut out.
You start to think about things like, I’ve
got a daughter, I want to be here.
And you start thinking, well, my dad never did.
He’s not the type of guy.
He never smoked, he never drank, he
never did any stuff like that.
And you’re like, well, here I am.
And granted, I do a lot of very
healthy things, but I also do some things
that I’m probably not doing myself any favors.
So he never tempted fate with anything.
But here I am doing it.
I really need to try to find a way
to I know bodybuilding is an extreme sport.
Any sport at an elite level is going to be extreme.
Balance to some degree is going to go out the window.
But I got to try to find a way to if race
car drivers wear a five point harness or in a flame retardant
suit, I have to try to find some things that at least
in my mind, I can try to mitigate some risk.
And when I would talk about these things, it was odd
to me because a lot of people would be like, well,
look at the stuff you do and you’re talking about health.
And it’s like, well, yeah, I’m talking about
health because of those things that I do.
So if I was a race car driver, just because
I’m going to drive my car 200 miles an hour
and do crazy, risky shit doesn’t mean that I’m a
hypocrite or I’m an idiot for wearing a seatbelt or
helmet or a flame retardant suit.
It’s all the more reason to do that.
It’s like, that’s why we have a pit crew.
We’re going to check the nuts and
the bolts and all the shit. Right. Yeah.
We’re not hypocritical for doing that.
We’re smart for doing that.
So, yeah, I mean, I started to just try to
at least in my mind, there are certain things you
need to do as a bodybuilder to be competitive.
If it wasn’t something that I need, if I don’t
need to do it, then I don’t do it. Right.
There’s certain things I question the inclusion of certain
chemicals, whether they’re things you’re using for competition or
even just in the food you’re eating. Right.
So it’s like, well, I don’t need that stuff,
and it probably isn’t going to help me.
So if I can avoid it, I’m going to avoid it.
So looking back through that now and how
your approach currently are there stand out.
I mean, maybe just starting like even nutrition
wise things that you were doing that you’re
like, definitely this wasn’t helpful, or you put
these things in place that are really helpful.
Now, look, I think as bodybuilders or in
any sport, really, you fight for every little
tiny bit and every little inch matters.
So when people would kind of roll their eyes,
they’d be like, oh, you avoid artificial sweeteners.
Does that really matter?
Well, in my mind, I’m like, well, I don’t know.
It’s just chemicals.
I’m going to try to eat a diet that’s as natural
as possible, because in my mind, I think that’s what’s best.
I don’t think that artificial stuff is going to do
me any favors so I don’t have to consume it.
So I’m going to choose to exclude it.
There’s no way to know how
helpful or not helpful that was.
There’s a lot of things you don’t know what
it did for you or didn’t do for you.
But I think whatever it is you’re doing in life,
it has to at least make sense in your own
mind, and you have to have belief in it.
So if it gives you some kind of confidence
or makes you feel better about what you’re doing
or sleep better at night, then I think maybe
that in itself makes it worth it. Yeah.
It’s one of those things like even selecting
food sources that it might not affect the
outcome in bodybuilding, like, say, come to mind,
like picking just regular grain fed beef versus
maybe grass fed beef to get to stage.
If you’re doing that or off season
it, maybe it won’t even matter. Right.
But this might be something that matters,
like maybe 40 years down the road. Yeah.
And think I one thing that people tend to
overlook is that any competitive sport may not be
inherently healthy because it is extreme in nature.
Granted, however, to survive it, so to speak, to
have longevity in it and to continue to respond
favorably and perform well, you have to have a
certain amount of health, the healthier that you are,
the better suited you’re going to be to hold
up to the strain of that endeavor.
When you look at baseball players and how many
games they play in a season if they were
not, look at what’s his name, the football player,
the quarterback, Tom Brady or Tom Brady, that guy
to accomplish what it is he’s accomplishing, he’s in
the position he’s in because he’s healthy.
I don’t know what he takes or doesn’t take.
I’m sure I would assume anyone at an
elite level is making use of whatever compound
they can make use of to benefit them.
But the bottom line is, if that dude wasn’t
healthy, he wouldn’t be where he is at his
age with that longevity, exhibiting that level of performance.
So maybe football is a brutal sport.
It may not be the, quote, healthiest sport, but that guy,
to do what he does has to be pretty fucking healthy,
which I think is so important to pull out. Right.
Because John and I talk about like a safer
use model approach when it comes to how we
approach bodybuilding and PED usage and stuff like that.
And people often miss the boat because they’re attached
to this acute response, this large elevation, acute response
in like a three to six week time frame.
And it’s like if we look at the long
term vector of progress over career, being able to
maintain that health throughout a longer duration is going
to allow us to reach higher ceilings within our
career than just running it short within 5678 years.
Yeah.
I mean, acute progress is great, but time goes by really
fast and you reach a point where the game becomes, Can
I sustain this over the long run, or am I just
going to be a flash in the pan?
When I was younger, I mean, I always looked at Dexter
and said, wow, that guy’s got a great physique, right?
He’s got a great physique.
But then you maybe say, Well, yeah, but he
always looks the same, which again, is actually not
a knock because the dude is consistently incredible.
Right?
But the older you get, the more you come to
appreciate a guy like Dexter, because you go, what?
The guy is 50 years old still
competing at the top of the sport.
That is incredible.
I mean, very few people are going to
have the goods to be a Mr.
Olympia, right?
Not only was Dexter a Mr.
Olympia, but he was able to have a long, overwhelmingly
successful career with a ton of wins to his credit.
For me, that is really what’s awesome.
Even Dexter is a great example, because even
his last Olympia, he did prepping into that.
I remember how much he actually
improved his legs and his midsection.
And one of the things he brought up was that he
had to really work on his GI health because he was
eating a lot of processed stuff, sugar, alcohol, just junk.
And it was causing a lot of distinction discomfort.
And I think that was contributing at
least what he attributed to getting on
kind of this rounder stomach on stage.
So he improved his outcomes on stage.
You talk to younger bodybuilders and
they want to talk about drugs.
The drugs are the magic.
That’s what’s sexy.
No, you talk to young guys, they don’t want
to talk about GI health or stuff like that.
But it’s like, dude, you don’t understand that these
are very relevant things and that if you’re going
to make the best progress, make the best use
of what it is you’re consuming and you’re going
to have a successful career.
These are the things that you should be thinking
about, because without this element of health, you’re not
going to get where you think you’re going.
It doesn’t matter what drugs you have access
to or how much of them you take.
If you’re not healthy and you’re not laying
the proper foundation, it’s not going to happen.
Yeah, I can think of several guys that were the
next big thing and they had like these rapid progress
and all putting names out there, but then they disappear.
Like, man, what happened to these guys?
And I think there’s also pressure, a lot
of coaches is to produce the results.
So you get a guy, then all of
a sudden he makes these huge improvements.
You’re like, oh, wow, everyone
wants to hire this coach.
Well, a lot of times these coaches are also pushing
the protocol on the athletes to make that happen.
But then you see a lot of these athletes that
are new, they’re going to do whatever it takes.
They just fade out.
They could be burnt out or
could be from health issues occurring.
I’ve seen some protocols recently coming from some of
the top trainers in our sport, and I’m fucking
blown away when I see some of this stuff.
It’s so far above and beyond anything
that I would even consider doing myself,
let alone recommending to someone else.
I’m not a dramatic person.
I’m not the type to dealer.
That’s dangerous.
But this shit is honestly dangerous. It’s dangerous.
It’s totally reckless and totally just off the chart.
Wacky just totally nuts.
I mean, I wasn’t going to go too far into that.
I was going to be more like food.
But we’re talking about it.
So do you have some, like, mainstay things
within that that you’re like, would definitely don’t
go there with clients or yourself or just
even the health approach behind mitigating those effects,
anything that stands out.
One of the things that just blows my mind is
just the abuse isn’t even an adequate word, obviously, on
the injectable side, but the use of oral steroids, this
is just a blatant fucking no, no.
I mean, talking 1012 plus weeks out from a
show using an insane amount of oral steroids that,
you know, dude, there’s no way around it.
It is fucking your liver.
There’s no way around it, dude.
And I don’t care how good of a look it produces.
Once your liver is totally fucked over, good
luck trying to get your body to respond
the way you want it to respond.
You’re not going to be able to eat.
You’re not going to be able to process food, and
you’re not going to be able to burn fat.
This is what I’m saying.
When you’re not healthy, your body doesn’t
do what you want it to do.
And just some of the stuff I see with oral steroids,
it’s like that is undoubtedly going to be a problem.
Yeah, I agree.
Within body building, the main organ systems that I really
think are the most for longevity, of course, heart, kidneys,
brain, and then the acute one is liver.
But liver affects all the other ones.
It’s your main site of
cholesterol, lipid metabolism, protein metabolism.
But these orals acutely vastly skew your lipid profile
because of what they’re doing to the liver.
And the acute issues is pretty dramatic as far as
even this year for my prep, I’ve used one at
a time and seen my labs and seeing the impact
to see like, do I need this or not?
And I’ve done the preps where I have four
different orals in place, and I’ve looked better and
harder this year than I ever have. Yeah.
And you have to wonder, is it because
I’m placing less stress on my system?
I’m not overwhelming my system.
So I asked, you need to know, what
are you getting out of each oral to
implement each one, and you’re just doubling down.
Like, at that point, you don’t even know.
And so I think that’s a great
takeaway, especially in the off season.
There’s absolutely no reason for oral
use in an off season.
In an off season, that’s a short,
acute thing to get something out of.
But in offseason, a long period of time, you
want to be able to stretch that out, and
you’re not going to be able to pull anything
out that you couldn’t with like an injectable and
have less skewing of your health profile as well.
Another one that comes to mind that stands out
is Estrin modulation with aromatase inhibitors and serums.
I’ve seen guys that are on like, two
different aromatase inhibitors and like a serum and
estrogen just smash down the whole prep.
I should do both on both. Right.
And it’s like you’re getting HPA adaptation
throughout a prep with females that’s probably
crashing your Esther Valley restaurant anyways.
Yet we’re trying to suppress extra vowel
with both AI and term usage.
It’s like, come on now, we’re
just making a bad problem worse. Yeah.
Even off season, I don’t see a need for them.
I think you can adjust your stack
to where you don’t need it.
And even like, these are breast cancer drugs,
which I was pulling up some research on
long term use of these females.
That who they are designed for.
And they say it’s cardio toxic at least
atherosclerosis because estrogen is protected for the heart.
So in bodybuilding, if we’re constantly
using these compounds, they’re cardio toxic.
They’re going to be issues.
So if we can use less and design our stack
in an appropriate way, you won’t need to be utilized.
I personally never used any kind of
anti estrogen in the off season.
If someone is because it’s something
that’s really problematic for them.
I mean, I’m talking like maybe half of
an armdex like twice a week or something.
It shouldn’t be anything above that.
1 MG every day.
No, dude.
Like, no fucking way.
Not only is it cardio toxic,
but you’re fucking your gains.
You’re not going to grow the way you
need to grow if you’re holding back estrogen.
I mean, estrogen. Yeah. Okay.
You’re going to get a little bloated
and watery and things like that.
But you do need estrogen to grow. You do? Absolutely.
It improves your insulin sensitivity and ghigf.
One conversions needed in cattle.
They give cattle like trim balloon, right?
Exactly.
Why do they do that?
Because trim alone alone doesn’t
increase IGF one levels.
It’s not that great of a growth compound.
So they add estrogen to it to do so because of that GH.
Igf one.
So it’s an aspect.
You want estrogen in the off
season to grow optimally for sure.
When you look at the biggest, strongest dudes on
the planet, they’re not the most ripped guys and
they’re certainly not holding back their estrogen.
They probably got a good bit of it.
Even look at a guy like Ronnie.
Ronnie had some pretty bad guy at one
point before he got it taken care of.
A lot of the guys that have
really good growth potential, like natural growth
potential, just big fucking dudes.
Usually they have a tendency toward
being a little bit estrogenic.
At least that’s what I’ve noticed.
The guys that take stuff and none of it converts.
They never get any whatever.
Usually those are the guys that
are a little bit harder gainers. Yeah.
It’s funny you mentioned that.
I was listening to someone else speak about that,
and it might be more of that kind of
meso, almost Indo kind of buy type.
They aromatize a little bit more, but I think
they would get more at a less too.
And I’m sure these freaks out there, they take
a little bit and it’s a huge response.
But they probably aromatize.
I don’t know exactly.
You can aromatize a little bit
more than the hard gainer type.
So if they were to take the same
dosage as whatever the other guy, they probably
tend to get more size potentially.
It’s intervention differences.
That’s at least what I think. Yeah.
We’re no scientists on that topic.
Anecdotally.
Yeah, I could see that.
But there are some major health issues.
Is there anything that comes up health
wise that you use pharmaceutical wise?
I’m not on a prescription for anything.
I don’t use any kind of what’s that?
No blood pressure medication or anything? No.
I mean, my blood pressure has always remained in
check, and I took it a few mornings ago.
I think I took a picture of it.
What was it? I forget. Hold on.
Let me see if I can find it real quick.
Well, that’s a good topic right there.
You track your blood pressure.
I mean, it’s not something I do every day, but
maybe every week or so I might check it.
The other day was 115 over 76. Yes. Solid.
And I’m like 280 at the moment.
I’ve never had a problem.
That’s why I tell guys too, like blood
pressure definitely be the silent killer bodybuilders.
I do it once a week and I just keep that data going.
I’ll track blood glucose fast, just once a week.
We’re not really impressed because you’re
going to get insulin sensitive anyway.
But off season when I’m pushing food and
usually I can see glucose starting to rise
as I’m starting to hunger starting to drop
off and you’re starting to see progress stall.
It’s like a lot of guys just push
the pedal down, push more food in.
And I think that’s the time when you need to
pull back a little bit and then keep going. Right.
So, I mean, those are some minor things
at home that I can track myself before.
I’m actually pulling full labs to look through
everything when we really look at things right.
You’re the guy who you’re in an
off season and you’re using some injectables.
You’re running some tests in Deca, you’re
running some testing, EQ, whatever it is,
maybe a little bit of growth hormone.
It’s not like anything you’re
using has any actual toxicity. Right.
Outside of the use of oral steroids, you’re not
really going to have any kind of toxicity problems.
But if maybe you have an unfavorable response
in terms of blood pressure or you’re using
growth hormone and maybe for whatever reason, it
really screws your insulin sensitivity and now your
blood sugar starts getting higher and higher.
Like that’s a problem.
Like, a lot of times I think people
are under the impression that the drugs that
bodybuilders use have some kind of acute toxicity.
You could inject an entire bottle of testosterone and
it’s not going to acutely send you the hospital
like a bottle of aspirin or something. Exactly.
Ibuprofen is much more dangerous in that regard.
But over time, as you’re using it and
you get bigger and bigger, a lot of
the side effects, at least in my opinion.
Like I said, assuming you’re not using a lot of
oral steroids, a lot of the problems you’re going to
have are going to be a side effect of being
big, not necessarily directly of the drugs.
When you’re chronically, you know, you’re walking
around X number of pounds above where
your body is comfortable being sleep apnea,
insulin resistance, blood pressure.
Now you start having some problems, but that’s really
just because your body doesn’t want to be that
size, it’s uncomfortable for your body at that point.
It’s kind of multivariable, right.
You have high amounts of foods, high body weight.
The drugs are there, but they’re probably more of
the long term issues that could be accumulating.
Not some acute like liver toxicity might
be present, but yeah, over the long
haul, just look at large body individuals.
It’s not the best health outcomes, right?
Yeah, you’re probably not going to have
an acute issue from the drug use.
But if the drug use is causing you to be a lot
bigger than your body wants to be or that your body can
handle, you’re probably going to have a problem with that.
Yeah, I can definitely agree on that side for sure.
It makes sense.
And that’s an area when you should pull back and hold
let your body get used to that body weight before you
just keep the guys push up too quick, too.
And that’s part of the problem.
Like if you can hold steady and you
adapt a little bit more to that weight.
And some people are better suited for certain things.
I mean, maybe a bad example, but there are people
that smoke cigarettes their entire life and they live a
long time and they don’t get lung cancer.
I mean, I wouldn’t try it.
You don’t want to try and go, well,
let me find out if I’m that guy.
But the reality is that some people are
better suited to hold up to certain stresses
or they don’t respond negatively to certain things.
And then there’s some people look,
you can have two different guys.
One is a long time user of Anabolics
and he has a full head of hair.
There might be another guy who
uses it in his first cycle.
His fucking hair falls out.
A lot of it is how you’re going to respond to it.
And you don’t know sometimes until you’re in it.
And some people just I mean, look
at again, I bring up Dexter Jackson.
I mean, in a way, he survived bodybuilding, right?
There was no way around the fact that there are
certain things he had to do to be that competitive.
And he just fucking held up.
His response has to be phenomenal.
And his response to side effects has
to be as long as good, too.
And I think a lot of times people don’t consider this.
He responds incredibly well to training. Right.
We all want to be hardcore.
We all want to say we go in
the gym and we fuck shit up.
But the reality is all right.
And I don’t know if this is going to sound
soft or not, but if you have really extraordinary genetics
and you don’t have to annihilate yourself in the gym
and you can respond really favorably, well, you’re going to
have a longer career, dude, because you’re not going to
have put that kind of physical abuse on your body.
I don’t care if this comes across as being soft or
not, but just as I would tell someone, listen, the less
amount of drugs you can get away with, the better.
Look, if you can respond to this
amount, no reason to take this amount.
I would say the same of training.
If you can get a great response from
training, let’s just call it training moderately.
Well, then why beat the living shit out
of your tendons and everything else unnecessarily? Yeah.
I think we really missed the boat with that, too. Right?
John and I are really big on the
execution side of things, applying that hypertrophy.
And I think that’s the piece that allows for
that long term, because we’re getting more out of
every rep, we’re getting more out of every set.
And the abuse doesn’t accumulate
quite as much over time.
And we can create tension through
target tissues a lot better.
And I think that alongside some of the things
that you’re probably using, which I would love to
hear on the supplemental side and nutritional side, like
maybe OTC, therapies and things like that, to manage
this chronic elevation and stimulus that we’re actually giving
ourselves, whether it be training or nutrition or even
like the compounds we’re using is going to be
a net stimulus on our system to manage that.
Because I think that that’s where we see
the long term progress for individuals over time. Yeah.
And I don’t know if I’m just lucky.
There have been a couple of times where I had access.
A friend of mine, his girlfriend was
head of ultrasound at a hospital.
And when I first started, he started
off as a client of mine.
And he said, man, my girl gives me a
lot of problems about using some of this stuff.
And she has a lot of questions about what
it could potentially be doing to me internally.
She knows you’ve been doing it forever.
She wants to see what you look like inside.
So if you’d be open to it, you
want to come and get checked out.
And I was like, well, yeah, I’m curious
to know what I look like inside.
So this was me before, years ago at this point.
And I went up there on a
Saturday morning, and she’s able to check
kidneys, liver, my thyroid, scan certain arteries.
A separate guy came in to do my heart.
And at the end of all of it, there’s
something small on my thyroid, like a nodule.
But oddly, the guy who did
my heart was really surprised.
He’s like, Your heart isn’t even
enlarged, nor are the walls thicker.
He’s like, this is really
odd considering both your size.
And he’s like, we get people in who are just
athletes and their heart is larger, it’s thicker, et cetera.
He’s like, Yours is totally normal.
So I joke, maybe I just have
a small heart to begin with.
But she’s like, there’s no scarring or
any fatty deposits in your liver.
The blood flow in and out of your kidneys.
Everything is perfect.
And she didn’t see any build up in
my arteries, so that was really reassuring.
And then it was maybe like a year or two ago.
I asked him, I said, Can I come up again?
Would she be willing to do that again?
And he’s like, yeah. So she did again.
Everything still looked fine.
The only thing I wasn’t able to do at that
point was the heart, because the guy who did it,
this was like, at night, he wasn’t there. Okay.
So, I mean, I would like to say, well, yeah,
it’s because of X, Y, and Z that I’m doing.
But I could just be lucky, right? Yeah.
It’s hard to say.
At least you’re wearing your seatbelt
in your race car, right?
So I think if you’re in it and competitive, it’s smart
to probably go get an Echo cardiogram once a year.
Like, for how much?
I have guys that they’re spending, like $1,000
a month in growth hormone, but they’re like,
oh, man, that’s $200 blood test.
I don’t know, man.
That’s not in the budget.
What are you talking about?
Or just going to pay for an Echo for
the years that you’re in bodybuilding, just monitor it
so you’re not ten years down the road, you’re
like, I don’t know how this happened.
Like, yeah, man, there was warning signs all the way.
You just didn’t stop and look at them, right? Yeah.
You don’t want to get to the
point where you’ve created irreversible damage.
I see what my father went through.
He spent six years fighting cancer.
He had a lung removed.
He had a carotid artery removed.
He went through various courses of chemotherapy.
He was essentially told, just go
home, try to stay comfortable.
It’s over.
He ended up getting into a study at Rutgers University.
It was an experimental trial with an immunotherapy
drug, and it ended up working for him.
So that was great.
But life can be really, really fragile.
Like what you hear stories.
And this guy, healthy guy, athlete, he just
dropped dead, or he bumped his head.
He went to sleep and never woke up.
Sometimes it could take so little, and
you only get one shot at this.
And I don’t care what anybody says, man.
I want to live as long as possible.
I don’t want to fucking die prematurely.
I’m terrified of dying.
I want to be here for as long as I possibly can.
I want to enjoy my daughters.
Hopefully they have grandkids.
I’d love to be a grandfather. That’s awesome.
I want to be here as long as possible.
And health.
When you look at people, I mean,
look, money helps a lot of things.
And even when it comes to health, okay, if
you have the funds, you may be able.
You may have access to certain
treatments that other people don’t.
But even then, man, look at Steve Jobs.
That dude had all the money in the world.
It couldn’t save him. Yeah.
You don’t want to tempt at least as little as possible.
You don’t want to tempt fate.
You don’t want to neglect your health.
If you’re going to push things, then at least try to
do if you’re going to do some things that are unhealthy,
well, then try to do extra things that are healthy.
Yeah.
I would do everything possible that you
can outside of your unhealthy behavior. Right.
That’s what we do.
I tear through my nutrition or my cardio or
my supplement regimen to try to see anything that’s
going to be efficacious that makes sense to do.
And there’s lots of things that when
I was younger, I wasn’t doing.
And like you said, you don’t know genetic is
going to be just like, if you’re going to
be a pro body builder, it’s heavily genetically determined.
I just have to rule that out
because I can’t change it anyway. Right.
But at least what I can do around
nutrition or supplement regimens, like things younger, man,
I have to say fruit and vegetable intake,
even with my clients, is so low.
And it’s such a basic thing.
I know people want some superfood.
Tell me the food, though, the one, right.
But if you look at cultures and the
epidemiological studies and just people that live a
long time, the common trend, even in these
healthy diets, the Mediterranean diet, et cetera, they
just have high fruit and vegetable intakes.
I know that sounds really basic, but how often do
we see a bodybuilding diet that’s, like devoid of it?
Right?
Well, I think a lot of bodybuilders would take that
info and they’d be like, okay, let me pile a
bunch of fruits and veggies on top of my diet.
And that might not be the answer either.
I think a lot of what
you said, fruits and vegetables, undoubtedly.
But you might, too see a smaller
caloric intake be a common trend.
Very well.
When I’m dieting for a competition, I might not
be eating this incredible variety of superfoods or anything
like that, but I’m in a calorie deficit.
And in being in a calorie deficit, I can feel my
inflammation is lower just by being in a calorie deficit.
I don’t know.
I mean, a lot of guys talk about
when they’re prepping, they don’t feel well.
And I’ve had a couple of those preps.
But by and large, if I’m prepping and I’m doing it
what I would consider the right way, I feel amazing.
I don’t have any aches or pains.
I sleep like a baby at night.
My digestion is spot on.
I don’t go for four months and not have a single fart.
You take those nice big shits where
there’s nothing even there to wipe.
So I’m like, man, things are on.
I feel healthy.
Yeah.
And it’s funny you mentioned that when
I was doing my Masters in nutrition.
We had this cancer researcher come and
we kind of nailed them down.
Like, hey, what’s one thing to do?
What is the thing?
The thing that we have the most nailed down
variable is just to keep a low body weight.
That was all he really said.
It wasn’t like eat this food
or it wasn’t even about calories.
Just like in general, a lower
body weight has less disease occurrence.
Well, you know what I think is really
interesting, and this is my feeling based on
what I’ve experienced, I think a bodybuilding prep.
Now, I don’t mean one that’s just
bombarded with every drug under the sun.
What I mean is the process of dieting. Okay.
When you’re prepping for a show, if you consider some
of the things you do, your meals are totally regimented.
So your intake is very constant.
You’re in a consistent calorie deficit.
You’re eating pretty much all natural, no processed
foods, at least me, this is me talking.
I’m eating nothing processed.
Usually it’s very low in carbs.
And when I look to the times where I used to
do keto even more so I felt like a million dollars.
Water intake is high, getting
plenty of sleep each night.
These are all really helpful things.
And I think that getting down to
a very low body fat percentage periodically.
If it was once a year, I think
you’re kind of cleaning house, so to speak.
If you look at cars, if you have an old car, one of
the things they tell you is don’t ever run out of gas.
Like don’t ever let the fuel go so low that
you start pulling from the bottom of the tank.
Because over time, sediment, whether it’s dirt, rust, things
like that build up in the gas tank, and
that shit sits at the bottom of the tank.
And if gas ever gets low enough,
that’s when you start sucking up.
However, if you had a new automobile,
this is just me, conceptually speaking, and
you routinely ran it low on gas.
Stuff at the bottom of the tank would never build up.
Right.
So what I’m saying is if every year you
clean house, you get down to a really low
body fat percentage, you’re in a calorie deficit.
Your inflammation is really low.
I think you give your body the opportunity to heal itself in a
lot of ways and to get rid of a lot of shit.
But a lot of people, they’re chronically overweight.
Inflammation just gets higher and
higher and stuff builds up.
I think over time, look at what happens when you die.
It too your propensity for any kind of like
in Chinese medicine, they would call it dampness.
There’s dampness, there’s dryness.
And literally when you prep for a
show, you get really dry, literally.
But what that means too, like, there’s
not like a lot of fat tissue.
You’re not holding a lot of extra fluid.
Even the propensity for any kind of fungal
infection decreases versus people who are consistently.
They’re watery, they’re chubby.
If you look at their system, sometimes
they’ll have a propensity for fungal infections,
and it’s just like a damp basement.
It grows mold.
I mean, this sounds weird, but I think a prep,
or at least achieving a really low body fat periodically,
I think is one of the healthiest things you can
do well on that, because if you look at some
of the nutrition longevity approaches, they look a lot into,
like intermittent fasting or just caloric restriction in general.
Because what do we see when
we’re in these calorie surpluses?
You’re in high PDS, you’re training,
you’re driving all those anabolic processes.
Cells are turning over and over,
and that’s an aging process fasting.
Clark, restriction, it’s the exact opposite.
You’d have slower cell turnover, you have less
of these growth stimulus that also promote age.
I know we just think muscle, but think
about all the tissues in the body, but
those are kind of like an antiaging approach.
So even caloric restriction.
Yeah, you reduce inflammation in the body, and
I think you would have an antiaging aspect.
That’s the approach that people are utilizing for
long term in what you said to me.
We cannot escape evolution. Right.
Every species on the planet has certain
things that is meant for them.
Certain species are supposed to eat certain foods.
You don’t go feeding certain things to certain animals.
You don’t go putting gasoline in a diesel truck.
It’s not what’s meant for it.
And from an evolutionary perspective, we’ve evolved over
thousands and thousands of years to eat certain
foods and to even go through certain patterns. Right.
Food wasn’t always plentiful like it is now.
So maybe there would be periods of feasting.
Okay, maybe you slaughter an animal and there’s a lot
of food for a couple of days, and then you’re
back to you’re on the move, you’re looking for food,
you might run that tank back low again.
So there’s a lot of this, I don’t think even just
the very concept of eating five, six meals a day, this,
I don’t think is really part of our evolution.
Even when you look at gut health, they say, wow,
Jeez, fermented foods and probiotics is a very healthy thing.
Yeah.
Because that’s part of our evolution.
Because we didn’t always have a frigid
air refrigerator to put things in.
So we had to find ways to preserve food.
So that bacteria and that fermented, all that
stuff, that’s a part of our evolution.
We’ve evolved, that’s part of us.
And when you look at what’s happened just over the
last hundred plus years, all the changes just in the
food supply, it runs totally contrary to our evolution.
And I think it’s no coincidence that you’re seeing
a lot of the problems that you’re seeing.
The bottom line is we just do
shit we’re not meant to do.
Well, it’s like the 80s, so you
had the big spike in fast food.
It’s like, man, food accessibility is like an instant in
eating a lot of processed foods, but also just all
day long in calorie excess is driving a lot of
disease States that you see with what you said, Evan
diet at some point because you have guys that go
into these extended off seasons, right?
They want to grow all year.
And like you said, nothing’s ever linear.
There needs to be some time to probably come down
to even a maintenance level, if not even diet some.
Do you do anything like that
for these extended off seasons?
I know you just have just diet for a little
bit and then bring it back up to off season.
Do you do anything more acute?
Like, do you do fasting days or anything like that?
I mean, there’s sometimes where I’ll just decide,
you know what, I’m going to die.
I’m going to get myself in shape
and it’ll be a good change.
And then when I go back to
eating, I’ll respond to it again.
We will all experience the post show rebound
and there’s nothing better the trigger for that.
Like when you’re like, man, I need to die.
It’s just like when your food is pushing
and seems like nothing’s moving anymore, or is
it, you know, when you’re not hungry anymore,
your sleep starts getting shitty?
Maybe you even feel your blood pressure a little bit.
You’re like, dude, I just got to clean house.
I just got to clean myself up.
I’ve got to reset things and I’ve got to
start not start over, but I’ve got to resharpen
everything and set myself back up to respond again.
Even recently, I started doing every other day.
Like one day it’ll be predominantly protein and carbohydrates,
and then the next day I have no carbohydrates.
And what I’m finding is that even though on
those days where there’s no carbohydrates, there’s quite a
bit of fat, I feel like, generally speaking, my
appetite is increasing tremendously and I’m responding more favorably
to the carbohydrates that I’m consuming.
And I almost feel like my metabolism is increasing.
But I also feel like because there’s maybe
half the week I’m not eating any carbs.
I actually feel like my inflammation is
a lot lower and I feel better.
I have less aches and pains in my body.
Do you feel more of a benefit to
doing that versus just like an even keel?
Like, say you’re trained, you have a lot of carbs
and protein the other day, a lot of fat.
What if it was just middle of the
road every day, like some carbs, some fast?
Do you notice the difference between the two? Yes.
And you know how we were just speaking about yes.
Bodybuilding.
I think one thing, okay, eating the same thing
every day is a lot easier to conceptualize.
It’s easier to plan for.
Generally, we like routine. I like routine.
I like knowing okay? I’m going to eat today.
The same thing I ate yesterday bodybuilding or
anything that you want to cause a response.
The body never responds to this, ever.
That’s why you train.
A workout is an hour long or 90
minutes long of you training really hard.
He said, well, what if I
just took all that same training? Okay?
I moved X amount of weight.
Why don’t I just stretch that
out over a five hour period? Right?
Well, it’s not even a fucking workout anymore.
But you did the same thing, right?
So you said, okay, if my total amount of carbs, proteins
and fats for the week were the same and my calorie
intake was the same, whether I did it every other day,
protein and carbs, protein and fat, or I just had some
of all three each day, or wouldn’t it be the same?
It’s not.
It has a different effect.
Just like I said, if we were to stretch
a workout, it’s the same amount of activity.
Let’s just stretch it out over a few hours.
Doesn’t have the same effect, not even close.
This is when you get people that start bringing up
studies to argue because they’ll look at the big picture.
Right?
Calories of calorie or macro is a macro, but it’s
very segmented in how they’re looking at things and variables,
which especially for us, I think being higher level and
in a high competitive, it does matter.
And nutrient timing matters.
Of course, food sources matter. Yeah.
If you carbohydrate intake, if you were to concentrate
it for the week, say, I don’t know, into
one day or even two days, even if you
had the same amount of calorie intake for the
week, it changes things because your insulin sensitivity changes.
And the way you process it changes.
Like if for the week you had the same amount of
calories, but in one diet, it was all spread out evenly.
And then in another diet, there was
like two cheat meals that were really,
really calorie heavy, same number of calories.
But by concentrating it into that meal, you’re probably not
even going to fucking absorb a lot of it. No.
We have research that looks at this like
one meal the night before, looking at insulin
sensitivity the next day, and it’s drastically skewed.
Like people are vastly more insulin resistant, so
that next day hunger signaling could be less.
You won’t get as good pumps.
I mean, some people have a cheat meal and sodium and
your water is up, so you feel good in the gym,
but long term, keep doing that in the off season and
you just get fat and pumps are gone.
So there is a response to it that
goes beyond just like the steady, even heal.
And I agree.
I have a more of a cyclic approach, too.
I even think from a growth standpoint, like putting
more around training, it makes a lot of sense.
But also, like carbohydrates and insulin.
It’s anticataboric, but still you drive a
lot of ambitionsm in fuel training.
Then times when you’re not, it makes
sense to not have as many carbs.
It’s the practicality aspect, too, like try eating the
same amount of food on your off day, man.
Sometimes it can be a struggle to get it down.
So it’s like just eating less makes sense.
I’m going to use the word intensity.
Intensity matters whether it’s with training or
a diet and with a diet.
When I use the term intensity, what I mean
is where you choose to focus things or as
opposed to just doing this, it matters.
It undoubtedly matters.
I mean, you can take something and you
can water it down so much that it’s
not even what it was supposed to be.
You can water a workout down so much
that it’s not even a workout anymore.
If you curled a dumbbell for ten reps and
you made it a set versus you curled it,
once you put it down, you walked away.
You came back a couple of
minutes later, you curled it again.
It loses all meaning.
You need that drastic stimulus.
There has to be a certain concentration of something.
Adaptation, positive change.
Well, that’s everything, isn’t it?
That’s even what determines if something
is a poison or not, right?
It’s a concentration of it.
It’s what gives meaning to almost all
things is the concentration of it.
Even, I don’t know, water,
drinking water, it’ll kill you.
And that’s a relatively healthy thing for us, right?
Right.
Sometimes things are no longer things if you water
them down enough, no pun intended with the water.
We’re coming up right on an hour
here, so we’ll wrap it up.
Do you still take on clients for coaching?
Are you, like at a cap right now? Yeah.
No, I do.
There’s a lot of times where someone will
email me and say, Are you taking clients?
And I’ll say, Well, I am, but tell
me a little bit about yourself first.
And sometimes I’ll say, well, based on what you’re telling me,
I don’t know that we would be a good fit.
And that has nothing to do with
people like you only train bodybuilders.
Now, one of my best clients is a 63 year
old woman who is not a bodybuilder at all.
She’ll never step foot on stage.
I just like working with people who if somebody
has this idea in their head, there are certain
people I just don’t like working with.
Well, I think what it is, is like for
me, if you’re a reasonable person and I feel
like literally I can work with you.
I don’t care what your goal is or where
you come from or how old you are or
whatever, I’m happy to work with you.
I just don’t like working with
unreasonable, crazy people for everyone.
I need someone I can connect with kind of on
the same mind wave, and they’re going to Understand.
So I Like People That Are Very Passionate About
Learning And That Connects With Me Because They Want
To Put More In Too, And They Want To
Invest In Themselves Rather Than Me.
Just here’s What To Do. Go Do It.
That Doesn’t Excite Me.
I Need A Client That I’m Excited To Work
With Because They’re Excited About And Passionate About It.
That’s Why I Need To See Someone Just Passion.
I Don’t Need A Genetic Elite.
I Just Need Someone That
Someone Who’s Serious About Things.
They’re Not Just Going To Flake Out.
I Mean, If We Work Together And You’re Able To
Follow A Protocol, You’re Going To Have A Good Result.
I Just Like Working With
Anybody Who Can Follow Directions.
Well, For People To Reach Out To You, Evan,
Or Follow You, where Can They Do that after
You Want To Give Some Plugs Or Anything?
Yes.
I Mean, You Can Find Me On Instagram.
It’s Just My Name Evans.
You could DM Me, you Could Email Me At Evan@centapony.com,
Or You Could Go To Centapony.com And There’s Some Info
On Training In The Shop Section Of My Website.
You Can See All The Training Services That I Offer.
But yeah, I Mean, Mainly On Instagram.
That’s Probably The Easiest Way.
That Or Email The Easiest Way.
If You Want To Get A Hold Of Me. Cool.
I’ll Leave It In The Description Below So
Anyone Can Check You Out And Bug You.
But Anyway, Man, It Was A Great Conversation.
Again, thank You For Your Time And For Coming On.
I’ve Always Wanted To Just Be Able To Chat With You.
And Since We Started The Podcast, You’ve Always
Been In Mind, Like A Mindful Bodybuilder, right?
So Again, Thanks Again For Coming On.
Thanks For Having Me.
I really Appreciate It.
We’ve Known Each Other Long Enough Now, And I’ve
Seen Things You’ve Been Doing Over The Years.
You’re really One Of The Better Minds In The Sport
Because You Seek To improve And Educate Yourself And In
The Process, share that With Others, And That’s Really Admirable,
and That’s What Makes You Good For The Sport.
Keep Doing What You’re Doing.
I Come Back Anytime.
I really Appreciate You Having Me.
And thanks To Everybody Out There For Watching.
Thanks A Lot, Man.
I Appreciate The Kind Words.
J three You Podcast.
We Are Out And We’ll Talk To You Next Time. Bye.
See you guys.