Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto savage.com.
Today I've got special guest Joe Hoy on the line and we dive deep
into the wonderful world of reverse dieting.
So I'm always excited to bring somebody on the podcast that is
well versed in reverse dieting and talks about that because
it's so important. And I feel like some people are
just chronically restricting and under eating.
So getting somebody to talk about reverse dieting alongside
myself is always a pleasure. Thoroughly enjoy the
conversation with Joe. I've got no doubt that you will
take something from this. Stop for the delay, sit back,
relax, enjoy the podcast with Joe Hoy and We Are Live.
Joe, how are you, brother? Doing good things.
How are you I'm. Good man, I'm good.
I do not know much about you. I've I've intentionally not done
my homework. So I like to just go off the
cuff. But and in reading the intro
pitch from your agency, it seems as though you are a fan of not
promoting under eating, which I'm also a fan of.
And I think that is something that we need to dive deep into
here. I'm a very big fan of that.
I'm also a fan of doing absolutely no research on the
person that's going to be on my show cause like you said, it
just makes it so much more fun. Well, I feel like a lot of
people in the podcast game. How long have you been
podcasting? My first episode came out four
days ago, but we have another 40 episodes booked.
Nice, nice. I've been podcasting since 2016,
consistently since 2018. And one thing I've found is that
it has to be sustainable for me. And if I'm doing like hours and
days of research on a guest, it, it puts too much pressure on the
conversation for it to flow organically and natural.
So I just don't do any research apart from, you know, maybe like
a 30 second glance, their Instagram or something, their
last blog post and just wing it from there.
And honestly, I feel like it makes the conversation flow
better because I actually have to listen to what you're saying.
And then I have better questions as a follow up.
You have to listen. And you also, you're just
surprised when I say things and it's, it's, it's organic, which
I think feels much better and people can tell. 100% man, 100%.
Well, where do you want to start?
I want to get some back story on you.
I kind of want to hear what got you into working with
middle-aged women to begin with, man.
Like I had a friend that was talking to me the other day and
he's working with middle-aged women.
I'm like, man, you're never going to be a middle-aged woman.
So you, you're a excellent endurance runner.
Let's dive into the endurance scope.
But some guys can pull it off, man.
So what got you interested in working with middle-aged women?
Yeah, that's, that's always the starting point.
That's always the elephant in the room, and rightfully so.
So kind of a three-part story. It starts with me as a 13 year
old boy. I had two step brothers.
They were in and out of the house, sometimes at my mom's,
sometimes at their mom's. And when they were gone, it was
just me and my mom. She was my biggest, strongest,
most consistent role model and she saw me going down a bad
path. Number one, I was starting to
get picked on and bullied a little bit.
Number two, I was starting to hang with the wrong kids and do
some pretty dumb shit. And because of both those
things, he's like, hey buddy, I'm going to go to the gym.
I'd love it if you came with me after your homework's done,
after I cooked dinner, will you come?
And I was like, yeah, I'd love to.
And it made sense to me because I was getting picked on.
I wanted to be like the guys at the gym that were big and strong
and confident and didn't get picked on.
So I went with her. I fell in love with it.
And from the age of 13 to 18, I went just religiously, but I
never made any changes. I was 511 at 13.
I was still 511 at 18. I was 135 lbs at 13.
I was 140 lbs at 18. Like nothing really changed.
I was super tall, super skinny, still getting picked on.
But she did get me hooked on that.
And that changed the the direction of my life.
And so I graduate high school, I start going to college to pursue
a career in surgery and in the medical field.
Because of that, I have to start taking courses on anatomy,
Physiology, nutrition, kinesiology, and understand what
it is that the body needs for change.
So I was my first Guinea pig, but at the same time I was at
college and I was away from my old environment.
So I started drinking and partying and treating my body
like crap. And even though I was still
going to the gym, still doing more of the right things, I was
doing a whole lot more of the wrong things.
And so I gained weight for sure. But it was the majority of it
was fat. And so I gained 80 lbs in about
a year and a half. I went from the 145 up to 225.
And then I had a new problem. I was still uncomfortable in my
body. Instead of being underweight, I
was just fat. And I didn't like that.
So I ditched the partying, really dialed in everything I
knew to be true. That created success.
And that's when it all came together.
I I went from 2:25 down to the 195 I am right now.
And people noticed 'cause I grew up in a small town.
So like, Joe, I saw you skinny, I saw you fat.
You came back from college and now you're jacked.
Like, how did you do that? And enough people asked to where
I knew I had something and I knew I had to charge for it
because so many people were asking.
So I get my job in surgery. I'll dive into that in a second.
But at the same time, I'm starting this fitness career on
the side. It's like my side hustle.
And transparently I thought I wanted to help people like me.
You know, young men either gain muscle or lose fat and feel
confident in their body because that had a major positive effect
in my life. So I start running these online
weight loss challenges again. Think I want to help people like
me marketing on Instagram, marketing on Facebook and I get
a lot of sign ups, but I never look at the names.
And the very first day that I open up Zoom to do that for his
coaching call, he got a lot of faces looking back at me and
none of them look like me. They all look like my mom.
And I panicked. I was like, what the hell
happened? Like how did this, why?
And what I came to realize is that just growing up with my
mom, spending most of my time with her, most of my time with
her friends, I learned to communicate in a way that
resonated with them just because that's why I was surrounded by.
So I think I naturally drew them in at the end of that first
eight weeks. We all had fun.
They all got our results and I loved it.
And I said, you know what? Maybe this isn't what I set out
to do, but I stumbled across it and I freaking love it.
So I'm going to keep doing it. And the last piece is I got my
job in surgery. I was a surgical technologist.
So my role was to set up the operating room sterile before
the doctor came in. And then when the doc was in
there, I was helping he or she with the procedure.
Anything they couldn't do with their own two hands, I was
doing. And again, getting pushed in
this strange direction. For me, I was the one man on the
team. It was myself and six or seven
other women and they chose to take me and stick me inside the
OB and GYM based rooms. So then for the next three or
four years, I'm leaning over this female patient assisting
the doctor on all these female related problems.
And not only that, but I'm trying to be proactive.
I'm like taking what I learned from the operating room and
applying it to my coaching. So I'd ask the doctor to like,
hey, why is this patient in here and what could they have done
proactively to not be in here? So yes, I'm trying to learn from
my day job, but secretly I'm applying everything to coaching
and that's it. Like six years later, inside of
HOI fit, I haven't looked back. I quit surgery a few years ago.
And that's, that's just my story.
Number one, I want to give back to my mom because she massively
changed the direction of my life #2I resonate with these ladies
and I have fun and then #3 I understand their body really
freaking well. I love it man, makes total
sense. I would imagine too that your
impact on the world and the amount of people you can
positively change is significantly amplified in the
coaching sphere rather than the operating room.
One person at a time as opposed to the 100 clients that we have
right now. Yeah, absolutely.
Did you feel like when you were with the, you know, doctor, was
it, was there much talk about, you know, proactive care?
Was it all kind of more of a reactionary basis?
It would depend on the doctor, you know, and just like I think
we all go to different doctors and experience that, but some of
them proactive wasn't even a thought process they had.
It was just like, let's look at what we have now and fix that.
And some of them would try and educate the patient then to
proactively solve something that might come up later.
So it just depend on who I was with.
It's interesting, man, I am not marketing to middle-aged females
at all in any of my messaging. None of my color scheme, none of
my branding, none of my logos, nothing.
Yet that is the vast majority of my clientele basis as well.
And I think that's probably because that's just the vast
majority of the demographic that is looking in, you know, the
online space for health and nutrition wisdom.
So it's a pretty big demographic to tap into, but it's
interesting and I'm sure we can agree on this, that of that
demographic, middle-aged females, the common denominator
that I see holding most of the magnified to distill it to one
simple tangible thing, it'd be that they just oftentimes jump
from one that to the next, all the while chronically under
eating. That's I couldn't have said any
better. Like they, number one, don't do
anything long enough and #2 anything that they do is
generally wrong because the calories are too low and they've
eaten too little calories for way too long.
Why is that the case? Why is it the common
denominator? What is the messaging that
they're receiving to make that the norm?
That's something that I, I transparently and unfortunately
didn't start considering up until like two or three years
ago. And after starting to dig into
it, I think it's because they've just been taught by people that
didn't know any better. Like we've just recently come
into this whole conversation of you need to eat more, you need
to strength try it if you're a woman.
But before, when they were five years old, ten years old, 20
years old, their mom may have been or their gym teacher or
their health teacher or some older peer was doing the best
that they knew how to do with the information that they had,
but it was just the wrong information.
So it was like, hey, Becky, I know you're 12, but I don't want
you to be unhealthy when you're older.
So go on this 1200 calorie diet now.
And that's what they learn as a child is good, or that's what
they learn as a 20 year old in college or a 30 year old that
just had a kid and it's just ingrained in them for years.
So like man, if you don't know any better, it's hard to do any
different. Yeah, 100%.
Obviously, the hormonal implications can come into the
picture when it comes to, you know, body composition and what
makes a diet sustainable in the 1st place.
But before we even peel the curtain back on hormones, what
do you notice when it comes to? Just like, how do you navigate
the messaging when the rhetoric of, you know, flexible dieting
even fits your macros? Energy Balance Calories In,
Calories Out is the reigning champ in the space right now.
It's just I, I'm, I'm not a certain diet guy.
Like I know that your big thing is keto and if people are doing
keto the right way, I am all for it.
I know that some people's big thing is, I don't know, let's
just say high carb. If somebody's giving their body
the nutrients that it needs and the calories that it needs, I'm
generally OK with it unless we start going to extremes because
I just want people to find what works for them.
Yeah, I can totally agree with that.
I feel like a lot of people they, when you work with with,
with women, are you noticing that they're eating less or are
they having moments where they are eating more and they're just
not accounting for that? They're not tracking that like
they're the people that are such big proponents of the energy
balance equation in the law of thermodynamics suggests that if
you are in fact eating below your expenditure, you will, you
know, lose weight. So what would be the the reason
for this obesity epidemic we find ourselves in?
Like what is the the catalyst there in your opinion?
Man, I wish I had that answer like concretely for you.
No, I, I don't believe it. OK.
I because we do see ladies that I know confidently contract the
right way and they're showing me that they're eating 800 calories
a day, 1000 calories a day, 1200 calories a day when their needs,
their caloric needs are clustered like 2000.
And so they're not blowing their calories out of the water Sunday
and Saturday. They're truly under eating and
they're gaining weight or staying the same.
So I don't believe that's true, but I wish I had this nerdy
scientific answer for you. Aside from the body not evolving
as quick as civilization, I can't come up with anything
else, right. What I mean by that is our
bodies are smart. They're built to protect us, and
thousands of years ago, we did not have a grocery store on
every corner. And so when calories got sparse,
our body started protecting us and slowing down our functions
that we burned less calories so that we held on to more weight
so that we could survive. Now our bodies don't know that
we have a grocery store on every corner and if we need, we can
just go drive to the corner of the store, corner of the block
and get some food. But that's true.
Is that, do you agree with that or do you think there's
something different going on? No, I definitely think the, the
evolutionary underpinnings to why, like we are designed to be
innately aware of what we need and what we don't need.
However, that upbringing is not in relation to what we have at
our disposal these days. I mean, the fact that we can
walk to the nearest gas station and pick up, you know, those
macho chimichangas that are 800 calories a pop and they're
completely void of nutrition is, is our reality.
So that is in complete contrast to what our evolutionary
upbringing was comprised of. So that that's definitely an
issue. And I feel like a lot of people,
while they may be consuming ample calories, they're not
consuming ample nutrition. So their desire for more is, you
know, amplified. So they wind up consuming a
surplus there. There's people that are
obviously over consuming, people that are under consuming, but
there is certainly a lack of nutrition across the board.
That's a really good point. The the calorie versus nutrition
conversation is super true. And you're right.
Like I'm not saying that the the entire world is under eating and
that's why we're obvious. Like there are certainly lots of
people that massively overeat every day or on the weekend and
that's why they gained weight. So when you're working with with
people, like just kind of walk me through like, what is a
typical avatar for them? Obviously we've established
they're middle-aged women, but like, what are they?
Have they been chronically under eaten, under eating their whole
life? Are they overweight?
Are they underweight? Like what is what is a typical
avatar look like? And how do you kind of work with
them to to scope out what direction they need to take?
Yeah, so our avatar is generally going to be a woman, 4050, sixty
year older. I actually get really excited
when I get like that 35 year old woman that wants to be proactive
because that just makes my day. But most of these ladies have
been on diets, you know, the diets, Weight Watchers, Octavia,
all that stuff for 5/10/15 years.
A lot of times I'm finding now since they were a teenager, a
lot of these people think that they need to do more cardio in
order to lose their weight. They don't understand that the
number on the scale isn't what they're after.
They're actually after a desired feeling of energy and no
cravings and no hunger and sleeping through the night.
And they're after a desired body, not a not a fake number
that's on a tool that we use for data.
Those are our ladies. Makes total sense.
And when you it's kind of hard, man.
Like I've, I've had several coaching calls where it's like,
I know they're under eating and then you have to basically tell
them, hey, look, you've under eaten your whole life.
We're going to gradually increase your intake or rapidly
increase your intake depending on what they're going to respond
best to. And you may in fact gain some
weight initially until your body stabilize.
That's a very hard sell for a coach.
When a client just comes and they want to lose weight, build
muscle, the notion of eating more to do so is is a is a hard
pill to swallow. That makes our job way more
difficult, especially after those first couple weeks, and
the scale might jump up a pound or two.
Not fun. Yeah.
So how how do you kind of let the expectation like what does
that conversation look like when you're working with?
Them number one, I like to set the expectation that, hey, this
might happen. And because I've already told
them that it might happen, when it does happen, they're less
freaked out because they're like, OK, well, you said it
would, so it's not like it's a surprise.
And then #2 I also like to paint them a picture.
And I asked them, hey, Sarah, if you gain 5 lbs in our first
month or two months or three months of working together.
But after that, I helped you lose the £45 that you never
wanted. Fit back into your clothes, be
able to have wine with your husband on Friday night, ice
cream with the kids on Sunday, and when you get to work on
Monday, you still look as good as you did before while living a
normal life. Would you be happy?
And would you be OK with that temporary 5 LB weight gain every
time they say yes? Are they mostly well versed in
the gym or is that something totally foreign to him?
Not for us. I don't know.
I don't know about your community, but strength
training. And when they hear that word,
they, they think they're going to look like you or me.
And we have to get over, we have to get them over that.
Thankfully, it's getting easier because we have a few 60 year
olds, 6764 year olds that are just absolute animals in the gym
now and they're lifting heavy weights and, and their bodies
responding amazing to it. So it's like, Hey, this is what
these clients are doing. Do you want this life?
And so giving them the examples of their peers rather than me
makes things easier. But now they don't have a ton of
experience. I feel like that's, I mean, when
when someone is untrained, though, their ability to
actually build muscle and lose fat simultaneously is
significantly heightened, even if they are older.
So like that can be leveraged in so many different ways.
And it gets them excited. Like if people are gaining
weight, but they're able to see, you know, significant increases
in the performance metrics in the gym, like that warrants that
extra weight gain. And it makes that easier to
stomach as well. Absolutely.
And I, I hope to God that nobody's ever judging their
results simply based on the scale.
Like it's a data point. And we also have to take other
data points like your bi, your biofeedback, so your energy,
your cravings, your hunger, but also your measurements.
And so we'll see. A lot of times the scale might
jump up like you just said, but their midsection also goes down
and their arm size goes down a little bit and their body looks
a little bit tighter. And it's like, OK, well, what
are you after? Do you want your body to be in
the measurements that you want, or do you want the number on the
scale to be perfect, you know? Are you?
So these people I'm assuming probably are not well versed
with, you know, tracking macros either?
Like if you're not weight training, they probably are not
familiar with macro tracking apps generally.
Not some of them will come and they've tracked calories in the
past, but just because they've tracked it, they still didn't
really have a goal to hit. They just stopped By tracking
their calories. Magically, something would
happen. Yeah.
So when you encourage them to start eating more, how do you
ensure they actually do eat more?
Do you have them start tracking their intake or do you just give
them like a, OK, establish a baseline as to what you've been
consuming and then increase it by 10%?
Like how do you go about that? Depends on the person, right?
If we have somebody that's coming from a really disordered
ass with eating, we might not use the scale if they know
that's a trigger for the majority of people.
We will track food, we will use a scale, we will use a tracking
app. And let's be realistic, nobody
likes it. Right.
But also, nobody really likes where they're at today, which is
why they come and work with you and I.
And So what I like to tell them is this is temporary, right?
In order to get out of where you are now, we need to do this for
a short time just to show you what foods actually contain what
calories and macros. And when you understand that and
you understand portion sizes, we can get away from it.
Because I haven't tracked in years.
My coaches haven't tracked in years.
So you don't have to either. I love it.
I love it When they start tracking, are they oftentimes
shocked at how much more they're consuming than they realized or
how much little or how little they're consuming compared to, I
mean, is their expectation as to what they thought they were
previously consuming accurate at all?
Or is it totally an eye opener form?
His man, a lot of times I'm surprised, but a lot of times
they're actually pretty accurate.
Like it's around 12, thirteen, 1400 calories.
Every once in a while we'll get someone that has no clue when
they're at like 2600 calories or throughout the week there are
like 1600. In the weekend they're like
3000. So then they average what, like
2200? And I mean, that makes our job
more simple because we don't have to do that reverse diet.
We can just drop them straight into weight loss and that scale
goes down right away. Yeah, totally, totally.
Yeah. It's, it's interesting, man.
People that are eating so little, they're oftentimes
lacking in protein. And it's like, I don't know man.
They're, they're eating things that are convenient.
People that are under eating often times only eat things that
are convenient. And unfortunately, the
convenience foods are often times not the healthiest
options. Right.
But at the same time, like anything can be a convenience
food with a little bit of planning.
Totally. Do you, you know, like meal
prep? Is that something that you
incorporate? I like to meal prep.
We have some people that it doesn't work for them and so
like maybe they'll make an extra big dinner and bring the rest
for lunch the next day. And if that works, that's fine.
What I did is I showed a lot of our clients how I personally
meal prep on Sundays. It takes me less than an hour
for seven days worth of snacks, lunches and dinners.
And so they've all kind of adopted that and it's pretty
simple. Yeah, that's the way to go, man.
Same thing I do. I do the Sunday meal prep.
I get everything ready to rock. And I feel like from a
psychological standpoint, having that decision fatigued, removed
ensure that they don't eat too little or eat too much because
everything's already accounted for.
There's just no, because like this, like willpower, as you
know, is a finite resource. And if they're constantly having
to figure out what they're going to consume that day or how to
track macros, it just, you know, taps into that that limit
limited amounts of willpower for they can just remove that
entirely, have everything ready to rock, then that's completely
removed from the equation. Their likelihood of adherence is
skyrocketed. You also get to wake up Monday
and know you're going to succeed on autopilot.
Yeah. And that's a really good
feeling. Totally agree.
So when it comes to reverse dieting, this is a concept that
I've talked about extensively, but very few people seem to
understand. So I'm glad to hear you even use
that term. How do you go about it?
Do you do like a gradual stair step up increase?
Do you have like a pretty significant increase throughout
the gate? Like it's going to be highly
dependent upon the individual, but generally speaking, what is
your protocol? Yeah, I love that.
So before anything, we need to figure out where somebody is,
right? So we'll have them track their
nutrition for the next 7 days and just get an average of where
they're at. From there, it kind of depends
on how long they've been under eating for.
Are they 50 and they've been doing it since they were 15 or
are they 50 and they've been doing it since they were 43?
That's gonna play a massive role in how stubborn their body's
gonna be and how much it's gonna fight back.
Generally across the board. We'll go for like a 20% increase
that first week, see how their body responds and then based on
that and based on their diet and history, we'll bump up anywhere
from 50 calories a week to about 150 or 200 based on again, how
the body responds. What do you what do you guys do
kind. Of depends if they're like a
competitive athlete or not. If like my competitors, they're,
they're tracking everything, you know, dieting down for a
competition. We've got all that data leading
up to that. We know exactly what macro
distribution and caloric intake they're responding to.
And then from there, I'll typically give them a bolus,
increase in protein after the show and then fat as well.
And then I'll kind of taper off my refeeds that I have
incorporated weekly and then basically just increase daily
intake until it exceeds that of the refeeds.
The refeeds become obsolete at that point.
And then we just scale up the daily intake until they start to
notice some adverse effects. But for competitive clients that
are dieted so lean, they can go pretty high with the macros
before they notice any adverse effects.
So they're kind of a a unique situation there.
Yeah, I would say competitors are generally a completely
different conversation. Yeah.
But for my non competitive clients, for my middle-aged
women that have just chronically under eaten, I'll typically give
them a initial bolus, you know, usually around 20%.
It's pretty good baseline from or from their baseline rather.
And then I'm predominantly focusing on the fats and
proteins, not the carbs, obviously.
And I feel like when you don't have carbs as part of the
equation, they don't have as much, you know, fluctuation and
fluid retention weight, which tends to work well from them
psychologically. Like if they don't have to worry
about gaining an extra £5 just in water weight from
carbohydrates, it makes increasing total calories
without having that extra weight increase a little bit more
tolerable too. That's actually a really good
point, because obviously we both know that carbs are going to
cause that water retention. If you're increasing your
calories, and a lot of those are coming from carbs, you're just
going to be a sponge for holding on to that water.
Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah.
But I feel like a lot of people that are under eating are under
consuming protein as well. So like, you know, what kind of
figure out a baseline there, but that's usually a pretty easy
macro nutrient variable to titrate up without much adverse
response depending on like from my standpoint, how deeply fat
adapted they are, that kind of dictates what that percentage is
in relation to total fat consumption as well.
But most people that are chronically under eating are
just also, you know, under consuming protein.
So they're at an increased risk of muscle loss.
It's just, it's just bad all the way around.
But if you can increase calories, increase protein, and
get them weight training, then they start to notice, you know,
pretty significant benefits right off the bat.
That's like the recipe for success across the board.
Yeah, 100%, man. And The thing is, like, if they
feel they just have to be honest with everything else beyond just
the scale weight, like if they're establishing that
baseline and they're actually asking themselves, OK, what is
my sleep quality like? What is my libido?
Like, what is my energy throughout the day?
Where's my recovery when I do strenuous activity?
And they measure against that, when they start increasing
calories, it becomes a very obvious win relatively soon.
But the problem is they don't ever consider that.
They just focus on what the scale weight is.
Yeah. And so getting away from that
and again, redefining what success is, is always going to
be massive. Because I think that the people
that it sounds like you and I both work with are just, they
just have the wrong definition of success, right?
Because if somebody really just wants to reach a number on a
scale, we can do that and we can do it fast.
But when they get there, they're not going to like what they see
and they're not going to like how they feel.
Yeah, totally, totally. I feel like the being able to
just get them excited about the weight training is key.
So when you're working these people that are untrained and
they don't know, you know, that they don't know what to expect
as far as, you know, soreness, adherence, what to expect as far
as rate of strength gain over time.
Like how do you have that conversation with them?
Do you start them off with like body weight and resistance band
movements, then graduate into machines and then free weights?
Is that something that they're, you know, easily getting into?
Like how do you make that work? It's pretty common, exactly what
you just said. So body weight or bands,
machines, then free weights. Generally I just want them
moving first, then seeing some form of progress either through
comfort level or strength. Then we'll introduce progressive
overload. And eventually, like once
progressive overload is introduced, naturally, people
are going to no longer have a need for body weight or no
longer have a need for banson, like they need that heavy
resistance from a machine or from free weights.
Another big thing that we'll take a look at is how often
somebody's exercising because just like most women that we see
are under eating, most women that we see are over exercising
for the amount of recovery that they get.
And so sometimes we'll have to tone it down like they're doing
six or seven days a week of strength training and cardio,
and we're going to need to bring that down to 3 or 4.
Yeah, yeah, the cardio thing's interesting, man, because I've
worked with people that have consumed, you know, far too
little for what they're doing. Then they'll, they'll, they'll
not have an eating disorder in the sense of, you know, purging
post consumption, but they will do excessive amounts of cardio,
like, like, like just obscene amounts of cardio, like walking
in excess of 10 miles at the end of every meal, like just
craziness. So having that conversation and
having, I mean, having people embrace body fat gain initially
to kind of get to a very healthy point is, is so hard.
It's hard for me even as a, as a seasoned competitor that's gone
through this cycle multiple times.
I mean, when you see yourself lean, then the context, some of
that is lean and you willingly put on more body fat to get to a
acceptable, healthy, sustainable amount.
That's a very challenging thing for people that are already
overweight and are under consuming and they've wrecked
havoc on their hormones, metabolism and caloral baseline.
You know, it, it's you got to have that conversation of, hey,
look, you may gain some weight, but you're going to take one
step forward or take one step backward and you know, multiple
steps forward. It, it's, it's a hard
conversation either way, But it's, it's not a conversation
that you can have via a simple generic macro calculator online
or suit through some, you know, simple one ladder on Instagram,
Like it's a very involved conversation that people need to
hear. It is, and there's a lot of
trust involved with it too, you know, because if somebody's not
bought into the entire process and they're looking really short
sighted, really short term makes it even harder because all they
see is the weight gain and they don't see what's going to happen
after the weight gain. Yeah, totally.
I feel like when people just have to be honest with their
past, their prior year's trajectory, like if they are
unhappy with how they look, feel and perform and they've quote UN
quote done everything out there, then in my mind it only makes
sense to do something that seems outrageous and extreme.
Like what's what's the definition of insanity?
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different
results. Like you, you do that extreme
thing, which in this case is eating more, giving your body
time to up regulate its metabolic demands, increase lean
tissue via progress for low with your training, improve your
sleep quality, hormone function. Like that is definitely a long
game approach, but the the opposite of that is just not
good no matter which way you look at it.
Like it's a down regulation of everything and all things and
that is not a sustainable way to live.
Man, I couldn't agree more. And and what you said is
actually what I preach almost on a daily basis of like, hey,
let's take a look at what you've done.
It's been the same thing over and over and over again for
years and that hasn't worked. So we should probably try
something new to get different result.
The problem I see with that is it's easy for you and me to say
because we can look at the diets that they've done and we can
tear them apart and look further than surface level and be like,
OK, all of these had you eating in a massive calorie deficit.
But I don't think a lot of people see that.
I think that a lot of people just look at surface level and
they're like, well this diet had me eating only carbs and this
diet had me eating only fat and this diet had me eating only 8
hours a day. And like, yeah, through that the
diet looks different, but if you really peel it back, they were
all the exact same. Yeah, totally.
So when you bring somebody's calories up and you incorporate
this reverse diet and you have them, you know, ideally at a
healthy maintenance or slight surplus, how long do you keep
them there before you do transition into a fat loss
phase? So going to be different for
everybody, right? I say that the rule of thumb
that nobody likes to hear is that you want to eat at
maintenance for as long as you've eaten in a deficit.
That becomes extremely unrealistic when we have a 50
year old that's been dieting since they were 15.
That means they're going to be over 100 or close to a million
about a math by the time they get in that bikini.
And I don't think they're going to do that.
So what we like to say is we want to get you to maintenance
or challenge your maintenance. Meaning if the TD EE calculator
says you should be eating 2200 calories, let's see if we can
get you to 2300 without weight gain or 24 or 25 or 26, and find
your true maintenance from there.
Let's stay there for a month, month and a half, See how you're
feeling, not in terms of the scale, but in terms of what you
talked about earlier, those biometrics of libido, focus,
cravings, hunger, energy, mood. And if everything's trending up
and then has leveled off, I say you're at your peak and now
you've earned the right and you've built the foundation that
now we can dive into a fat loss phase that's actually going to
work. And by the way, you're going to
eat more calories than you were before.
Yeah, that makes total sense, man.
I, I try and recommend like a three to one ratio from a
competitive standpoint. Like if somebody's dieting, like
using myself as an example, you know, I dieted for, you know, 33
weeks from my last prep, I'm going to spend 3 times that
minimum in a maintenance or surplus before I die down.
I'm actually going to spend significantly more than I'm
going to take the next four years at a surplus before I die
down for another show. But I think the three to one
ratio makes sense for most people unless they've been
dieting, you know, for the last 40 years, in which case, you
know, three times. That's going to be a pretty
lengthy process. Nobody's going to stick with us
that long. I like that real thumbnail.
That's awesome. And I'm glad that I'm glad that
you can talk about that because it shows people.
Look, number one, I'm applying it.
I'm speaking as you right now. And #2 I'm looking big picture
because that's what's best for me.
Like my body's going to perform it's best because of that.
And this is not a finite game. Like this is a game that I want
to keep playing for the rest of my life.
Yeah. I mean, well, you start and
think about it like, yes, you can build muscle, lose fat
simultaneously, but you're going to certainly optimize them if
you separate them out because they kind of compete for one
another. And it takes time to build lean
tissue. But the more lean tissue you
have, the higher functioning your metabolic rate's going to
be, which is going to like to consume more calories, more
protein, more fats, more everything at a healthier
baseline. And if it takes a long time to
build lean tissue, in my mind, it just makes more sense to
spend more time in a gaining phase than in a fat loss phase.
Because you can, you can lose body fat relatively quickly in
the grand scheme of things if you do it appropriately, you
know, with a sustainable approach.
So it, it makes sense in my mind to spend the majority of one's
time in a building phase. It's just hard to embrace the
fact that, hey, I know how to look leaner.
I can look leaner, but I am choosing to not so I can
capitalize on this lean, this building phase.
But when you do that, the next time you do lean down, you
ensure that you actually look better than the last time you
lean down as opposed to the same or worse.
Because you know, father times that do us any favors.
We're not getting any younger. So maintenance is a myth.
You're either getting better or you're worse.
And I think if you do it that way, you ensure that you're
stacking the odds in your favor to get better from time to time.
I love that last thought of maintenance is a myth.
We talked about that a lot because so many people here that
they're going to get to maintenance and they think of
that as well. Nothing's going to change, and
it couldn't be further from the truth.
If you're doing maintenance right or hopefully a slight
surplus, you're gaining muscle and like it's like you just
said, you're going to look way better when you do peel that fat
off. But the other thing is, as you
build muscle, you're only increasing your metabolic
engine. And so when it's time to peel
that fat off, it's also a whole hell of a lot easier and you get
to eat way more food while you do it, which makes sure that you
can actually do it long term. Yeah, 100%, ma'am.
It's, it's interesting because I'm obviously speaking to, you
know, bodybuilders. That's, that's what I am.
And people assume that these things wouldn't apply for me
because I'm not a bodybuilder. But we're all human beings.
And what you were describing with the reverse diet, with a,
you know, building phase, a cutting phase like that is all
the same for all of your clientele and none of them are
competitors. So it's like these, these laws
of, of biology apply because we're human, not because we're
competitors or not, because we're at the end of the day, I
was trying to tell people, look, we're all bodybuilders.
Whether you step on stage and posing trunks or not, that
doesn't change the fact that you're either building up your
body in a positive way or negative way.
So you might as well do so the right way.
I was just going to say that right?
A bodybuilder is just an athlete and an athlete or or a pro
bodybuilder is just an extreme athlete and that is just
somebody that takes what works for everyone across the board
and pushes it to his extreme, which means it's still going to
work for you. You just don't need to go as
hard as the professional bodybuilder.
Yeah, 100%, ma'am. That's a hard pill for people to
swallow. But like they just assume that
it's something other, something different that is not
applicable. They just assume that, well, you
know, I'm not on steroids, so that wouldn't work or I'm not
going to step on stage, so that wouldn't work.
But like having a defined building and cutting phase and
capitalizing on those with the right method that is sustainable
for you regardless of your age, sex or whatever, like that is
something that we would all benefit from.
And I think the more people providing that messaging, the
better because there are certainly no shortage of people
that are just, you know, preaching this chronic
restriction, you know, crash dating gimmick game.
So I'm I'm glad to hear that you are not in that camp.
No, and it's always nice to get on a, on a podcast with somebody
like you and like just chop it up about these things because
the conversation we're having right now is a massive minority
in the, in the world that you and I live in.
Well, it doesn't. It's not as appealing, man.
Like it's, it's very hard to tell people, hey, look, I'm
going to teach you how to eat more food, probably put on
somebody fat and you're going to do it for the next six months
minimum, but that's going to allow you to be healthier than
you've ever been before. Like that's a much harder sell
to somebody not nearly as sizzly as, you know, throwing some
before and after on someone that's, you know, jacked on
their mind on trembolone and eating, you know, pop tarts and
stuff and saying this is how you you get ripped.
And that's just, it's not what salesman is.
It's unfortunate because human nature is such that it always
gravitates to this, you know, surface level sizzle.
Whatever is easier, whatever is more accessible, that's what
people are going to go for. And so, yeah, I mean, you nailed
it. We're fighting an uphill battle,
and in both of our worlds and that.
Have you had a lot of people coming into your system asking
about these Ozempic drugs, Wygovy, semaglutide or is that
not really in the conversation? We have a few.
We always shut it down pretty quick because we, again, we just
look at the big picture And I had a friend text me that I used
to work in the OR with actually, and she wanted to do Ozempic.
And because she was a friend, I had the ability to like really
go in on her rather rather than talk to her like a potential
client. And I was like, OK, let's look
at your end result if you do Ozempic and if you don't do
Ozempic and do it the way that I'd preferably like to see you
do it, she's like, OK, shoot, like great.
You do Ozempic, you absolutely crush your appetite to where you
have absolutely none. And you could actually go a day
or two without eating because that's how little of an appetite
you have. Protein's the most filling
macronutrient we have, and because of that it's even more
off putting 'cause you're already full, so now you're
eating next to no calories. You're having probably below
your RDA of protein. Because of that, you have no
energy. Because of that, you're not
exercising. Because of that, you do get to
your goal weight, but because of that, you look like a saggy
Raisin with legs and you have no energy.
Are you happy? And she was like absolutely
terrified. She's like, no, no, no, no, I'm
not happy. I'm like, OK, cool, well, let's
look at it my way. And so my way is the
conversation you and I have had for the past 40 minutes.
But after you really explain what the outcome is gonna be, it
becomes pretty clear on what's right.
And especially like, it's an easier sell when somebody is
considering Ozempic for weight loss and they're not getting
that through insurance. And then Ozempic's like what,
3-4, five, $600 a month, it's like, well, do you want to
invest in that that's going to get you to this crappy result or
do you want to spend the same money and get you to the good
result? And so again, that makes it
easier. With that same amount of money,
you can get a a solid gym membership and some pretty good
groceries. You know, it's like you don't
need to take the drugs. And I feel like people like this
whole conversation around the obesity epidemic, people being
overweight or underweight is, is certainly a relevant
conversation. But I think more often than not,
people need to have the conversation of, look, you're
under muscled. You know, you are simply, you
know, your composition is not there.
Like you are not walking around with the optimum amount of lean
tissue for your height, weight and stats.
And I feel like if you look through life through the lens
of, hey, what can I do to build and preserve as much lean tissue
as possible, then that totally changes the landscape on how you
adopt your nutrition, your training, your day-to-day
lifestyle factor, your sleep, your, your party scene, the,
the, the drug of choice, whether it's alcohol, something
different. Like if you, if you view the
world to the lens of hey, muscle is a priority, what kind of to
build and preserve as much linked tissue as possible.
That is going to drastically shape how you go about your
day-to-day. Absolutely.
And not only that, but for the women we work with, they're
already losing muscle even if they're doing most things right.
Like at 4050 sixty, you're wasting away at muscle year
after year. They're also losing your bone
density. And so that's when strength
training really comes into the equation is because yeah, you
are probably already under muscled, but you're also gonna
become more and more under muscled even if you just do most
things right. So we really need to put a focus
on this. Totally.
What about bioidentical hormones?
Man, I know with your client demographic that is a
conversation that has gained prevalence, especially in recent
years. Yeah, I'm a fan.
To be honest with you. That is not my specialty and so
I don't dive super deep on it. I have had the ability to hire
someone on the team that's a hormone specialist so that when
somebody presents with low testosterone, yes, that's a very
big problem with women, by the way, low estrogen, low
progesterone, we can do something about it.
That's just not my fear of like, what I can talk deeply on.
Yeah, I would imagine too, like if you get these women eating
the right foods and actually weight training and eating
enough of the right foods, their hormonal feedback and blood
markers drastically improved totally independent of any
exogenous hormones. A lot of times, yeah, we will
see cases when sometimes no. The other thing that I like to
point out is we have a lot of women come in that they haven't
had blood work done right. They just feel like crap because
of perimenopause, menopause or post menopause and under eating
for years. And so they come in and they're
pointing the finger at hormones, but they're not doing any of the
foundational things that you and I just said.
So I'll always level with them. Like, you know what, I have a
connection. I can get you really discounted
blood work. I'll help you read it.
We'll be good to go and we'll assess what's going on.
But you don't have the right to do that until you've done all of
these foundational things first. Because realistically, if we get
you on HRT but you're still treating your body like crap
from exercise, nutrition, sleep, recovery, stress management,
nothing's gonna change. Yeah, I think that's the best
way to look at it, man. Like I I don't ever wanna be,
you know, Termer knows it to bioidentical hormones,
especially with all the science coming up nowadays.
But I feel like people turning to that just as they would would
turn to like a way go V or zompic without having the other
things dialed in first and foremost.
I think that's just a a distraction.
It's, it's, it's not where their priorities should be, but I feel
like if they've got all that stuff down and then becomes a
much more viable option for them.
Absolutely, yeah. And once those things are, are
in place, if if it's really not working, we do take a look at
that and we have found that it can massively help.
I mean, simply looking at progesterone for sleeping
disturbances in menopause is huge.
Or I mean, again, you were talking about bringing people's
nutrition levels up to manage hormones.
What I find is a lot of women will have low testosterone and
then managing their stress levels, bringing stress down
will bring up testosterone. And even though hormones aren't
my my super educated place, I do know that as a woman in
perimenopause, your testosterone should actually increase to
combat the effects of your estrogen progesterone
decreasing. And I mean testosterone's going
to be made in your adrenals along with cortisol and it's not
going to make both at the same time.
So if you stress your body out AKA under E massively, you're
going to make more cortisol and less testosterone.
Yeah, and and even before women get to that perimenopausal
state, like when they're in their, you know, 20s and 30s, if
they are not having a regular cycle, more often than not, man,
I see it because they simply aren't eating enough.
If they if they ate more food, more quality, nutritious food,
that cycle almost always stabilize and returns to normal.
So, yeah, we're speaking the same message there for sure.
Man, I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one shouting this
from the rooftops. No, Sir, we're doing it.
We are doing it well. Let's let's switch gears
slightly, man. We got a few minutes left here.
I want to hear about things from like a business standpoint.
I love business just as I love bodybuilding.
So you've been coaching now for how long?
Six years. Six years and you get the the
website, you get women coming in.
Are you doing like a group setting with them or what?
What have you found to be the most successful?
Like a group setting, Like a one-on-one.
Yeah. So we just do one-on-one
coaching. We have 4 coaches that work on
the team aside from me. So we have a registered
dietitian, she's our head coach, a hormone specialist, a behavior
change specialist, and a mindset specialist.
And every coach, well every client is assigned 1 primary
coach. But at the same time like I
hired these men and women that have different specialties for a
reason. Like I want every client to
benefit from everyone. So for that reason, all of our
clients, even though it's one-on-one Monday through
Friday, there's always a support call that's in a group setting
with every coach. Nice.
That's very cool. I like that model.
What have you found to be the best way to get people into the
system to to learn about you to just kind of get that initial
touch point? Just so that they hear about me
and hear about what we do. Yeah, this podcast, right?
Podcasts have been huge before that.
And I mean, if anybody goes to my Instagram, you'll see it.
We're doing 3 reels a day. Some of it's fun, some of it's
educational, some of it's meant to kind of poke you a little bit
and make you question if you're doing the right thing.
And it works. But nothing works better than
you and I having a real conversation and someone forming
an opinion of like, you know what?
I hate this guy. I'm not going to listen to him
or I love Joe. I love how he talks.
I love his mission. I love why he does it.
I'm going to spend time with him.
And so that's just, that's been what's been the most helpful for
us to spread our message and help more people.
Yeah. And I feel like kind of like we
were saying earlier, you can't really get this depth of a
message out in a sizzle reel nearly as you know you as well
as you can for via long form medium.
And podcasting just bodes so well for long form medium
because we can go deep. So I think that makes total
sense. Yep, exactly.
What about you? Same thing.
Yeah, I love the podcasting. I'm, I'm not doing a really good
job at getting like, I haven't promoted myself as a podcast
guest because I'm always just hosting the podcast.
So I need to actually start pitching myself to other
podcasts. I've been on a few, but I just
love hosting because it's cool for me to be a host.
I just get to learn from other people, bring them on, learn
their story, kind of a deep dive, but I need to start, you
know, ramping up the promotional efforts to get on other people's
podcast. But yeah, podcast has been
monumental for me. Realistically, like if we're
talking from a business standpoint, it should still be
helpful to help you grow. Cause like you're, my audience
is gonna hear this podcast and if they love you, they're gonna
make, you know, I want to go spend more time with Robert.
And so you should be like feeling my audience a little bit
and everybody else's. Do you find that that happens?
Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. I mean, I've got this will be
episode 700 something. So I've got so many podcasts and
so for so many years that yeah, it kind of has this like you
cast a really deep wide net with the podcast for sure.
And everybody kind of reciprocates because it's
mutually beneficial for both parties on a podcast.
So I'm all for as long as it's a good fit.
You know, I've had some people pitch their podcast to me and
it's just that they've obviously not done any research on who I
am. So it's just a very clearly and
not a good fit. Not to say that I wouldn't bring
people on that I know that I disagree with because I think
that's healthy as well. I don't ever want to become, you
know, close minded towards things, but I like bringing
people on that, you know, have like, I don't want to bring
somebody on talking about, you know, some crazy off the wall
topic that is not relevant whatsoever, but this is
incredibly relevant talking about reverse diving.
Yeah, exactly. I'm with you.
And I used to be that way. Actually.
I would get on any podcast I possibly could.
And I quickly realized that is not the way to go.
So I'll get invited on or I'll have people want to be online.
So you know what, I don't have anything against you personally,
but I just don't think it's going to serve my mission.
And so same with you, I just won't do it anymore.
Yeah. And I mean for you as a podcast
guest, like it, it takes a lot of time.
Like it takes a lot of time to, you know, give your spiel, talk
to people, lay out what your mission is.
And if their audience is not receptive to that at all, then
then you've, you know, wasted that time.
Not 100% waste because you just gained the clarity of, hey,
look, this was not a good fit. But you you get more honed in as
to what would and would not be, you know, and a worthwhile use
of your time. Yep, absolutely.
I love it ma'am. I love it.
Well, if there's anything I can do to to spread the message
further, you just let me know. Because like I said, the more
people shouting from the rooftops about the importance
and significance reverse batting, I think the better
because it is not widely understood at all, but so very
important whether you're a competitor or a 60 year old
female that wants to improve her health because she's been
chronically eating for the past 40 years.
I love it. Yeah.
I think we went back and forth on this and, you know, a little
bit, but if it's OK with you, I would love to give one of your
listeners some free coaching. Three months of free coaching.
That's it. So if you're cool with that, let
me know and I'll kind of share how I see this playing out.
Yeah, Rock'n'roll man. Cool.
So for anyone that resonated and doesn't hate the 30 year old guy
that helps 60 year old women will toss a link in the show
notes and in there all I need is your name, your phone number,
your e-mail. That's how I'm going to contact
you if you're the winner. And then the last box is a
really, really compelling reason as to why you think you should
be the winner of three months of pre coaching.
And if we choose you when you get in there, the only thing
we're going to sell you is how successful you can be.
We're going to coach you for free for six months.
Three months, love. It love it.
Can't beat that offer, man. Can't beat that.
I didn't think so. Well, I will definitely put that
in the show notes. What what is the the link to
the, the website, the homepage, the socials?
Where's can people find you? Yeah, So it's just Hoy fit.com.
I'm very, very searchable, just like I'm sure you are, Robert.
So just search Joe Hoy. You'll find me on Google, on
Instagram, on Facebook, on all the things Internet.
Awesome brother. Well, I will definitely link
out. Make it easy people to find you.
Put that link in the show notes. And like I said man, there's
everything I can do for you. You just let me know, brother.
Same to you. Thank you so much.
You bet. See you, Joe.