This has to be my favourite interview of the Podcast so far, and what an inspirational story Chris has. It has to be one of the best transformations I’ve seen, both physically and mentally and in this Episode Chris shares the secrets behind his success.
From an alcoholic in bad shape to transforming his body, health and mind… here’s the full interview with Chris.
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Can’t Listen? Here’s The Transcript
Paul: Okay, Chris tell us a little bit about yourself.
Chris: Well I’m a father of three, I’m a digital nomad and I believe that anything is possible. My life hasn’t always been that way. My turning point was really, I’m currently forty nine years old. I’m kind of afraid to say that. Life hasn’t always been that way I’ve been lifelong chronic alcoholic and food addict. All that changed when I met a gentleman by the name of Bill Philips from Body and Life transformation and that was back in 2008 and I entered a contest called transformation.com.
Paul: Your transformation story is, what I’ve seen is hugely inspirational. It’s probably one of the biggest transformations I’ve probably seen personally aswell, and also being friend on Facebook I’ve been following you for a while. I mean the story just you as person now is a huge inspiration. So I think a lot of people can learn from this podcast and what you’re going to share. So if we go back to the turning point, what was the turning point for you?
Chris: Sure, it’s back in 2008 and that was long ago. My wife and my kids had enough of me, my wife would kind of given up and when you live with an alcoholic it’s really difficult for the other person to say the least in the family members. Alcohol addiction is not a solo disease, it is something that affects everybody, your immediate family and the society around you as well and that was really a wakeup call for me and that’s when I said I was going to clean up and that was online, I was just Googling around and I don’t know how I came across it, I came across Bill Philips he’s really the one who kind of invented the before and after transformation of body for life and it started new one called transformation. He just started it and I came across online I was unemployed, I was alone in a big empty home. I was 3 months behind of my mortgage and I saw this contest and it was like you could win 50,000 dollars and I thought what the heck I got nothing to lose and I’ve got nowhere to go but up.
So I entered the contest but when you enter the contest you’re entering a community, that’s a 14-week contest and he actually pulled a lot of the steps that you go through after AA instead of a 12-step program. This is kind of like a 14 steps, it’s a 14 week and it has a lot more to do with just working out and it really starts from the inside out and so I started that and the community there is really supportive and so when I first got on the community it’s an online forum community and unfortunately it doesn’t exist in this previous form any longer so he does have transformational camps in Denver, anybody can google that and check it out, usually he holds that one or two times a year, but anyways the community was really supportive and that’s something that I’ve never had before and it’s very safe for me because I could interact with people online and kind of face them face to face and I needed a support, I needed the help. It’s the first time I really raised my hand and say I’m in trouble I can’t stop drinking, I’ve lost my job, I’m three months behind my mortgage, I need some help and I want to clean up my life, and there’s people in the community that reached out and helped me out and that’s really when I started.
That’s when healing process and the transformation process really started. I know a lot of people see it from the outside, Bill Philips have another best-selling book transformation, and I’m on the cover of that and then my whole story is in one of the chapters there and a lot of people see those before and after pictures and think wow that’s just phenomenal, that’s amazing. And that’s a good way to kind of drop people in because it has kind of shock there, but what takes place to actually get there and that’s where we’re talking about emotional and really facing some of the guilt facing in your entire life, like myself and when you really dig deep inside there which you find inside your greatest weaknesses are your greatest strengths and I just started digging deeper and deeper going to some really painful areas but finding strength within that, that gave me the strength to just fully recover ever since, and I’ve taken all the lessons I’ve learned from there. Let’s kind of start on beginning and fast forward to the end, I’ve taken all the lessons that I’ve learned from transformation and built it into various successful business that allows me and my family to travel the world at ease and do really whatever we want.
Paul: Amazing, and I mean that thing is the mind shift, isn’t it? It’s like the shift in the way you believe in yourself as well and I think you’ve find that way to transformation, it kind of unlocks new potential.
Chris: I don’t have any unique stories, there’s no unique stories of alcoholic or drug addicts, just nothing that has already been done. I don’t think… a lot of other people out there and you know I used to constantly catch myself thinking “Well, man if I could only cleanup my life, if I can only stop drinking then things would be better”. Or if I can only lose, I was 220 pounds, now I’m at about 160-170 pounds, if I could lose 30-40 pounds life would be better, if I could only have better paying job life would be better, all these kinds of stuff, only if and what happens there is that is I ended up giving up my present moment for future and I think a lot of us do that and when that happens you end up sabotaging the moment, and the moment is what’s most important because you have to learn to enjoy the journey, if your only goal is the end result most of the time you’re not going to get there, you have to be the real rewards is not the 6 pack abs or the big fat bank account or the freedom, or something like that. The real rewards are always in the journey, every single step that you take and if you learn to fall in love with the process, the process of giving up addictions and addictions fall in all kinds of categories, we’re not just talking about, you might think right now “Oh, I’m not alcoholic, I can’t do this, well you know you might be addicted to gaming, you might be addicted to porn, you might be addicted to bread, you might be addicted to sugars, you might be addicted to the internet.
There’s all these things there and I’ve done a great deal with self-discovering myself and also studying a lot about it endorphins and how we can manage them and stuff like that to get our lives back in balance but it’s really just about falling in love with the journey every single day and rewarding yourself. There’s nothing to do with end result and if you look at and if you look at anyone who’s made for example a lot of us probably done this, I know I have in the past just look at someone and say “Man they’ve got a billion dollars why do they keep working”. Well they’re not doing it for the money, that’s not the end result, they’re passionately enjoying the daily joy of doing it.
Paul: That resonates a lot and the problem I find is that a lot of guys all come out with excuses and one of the main excuses that I see is that “I’m too old to make change” what kind of advice can you give on that?
Chris: You know you’re never too old.
Paul: You look younger, the images, the pictures, if I look like that… It’s amazing.
Chris: I appreciate that thank you. It’s never too late to start, you can turn things around anytime that you choose, you know I didn’t turn things around in my life until I was like 42 or 41 years old. 41 years old and that’s when my life turnaround from me, that’s where I hit rock bottom but prior to that I’d never matter too much. I mean I’d never make more than say 40,000 dollars in a year at the most, I was always battling with bench eating and i really didn’t live much of a good life prior to that, so you can start anytime 42, 75, 10 or 20 it doesn’t matter. The point is that just start.
Paul: What was the shift? I mean you obviously had the turning point, but at the same time what was different from the 14-weeks and that program compared to maybe other stuff you’ve tried in the past, or all the stuff you’ve seen. Was it the accountability? Was it you know the money that was, or the community? What was the biggest thing for you?
Chris: it’s the community it was the support, it was the environment to feel that I was safe and I have to raise my hand and ask for help and I have never done that before. It was a place where you can feel vulnerable and safe, and it’s okay and you’re not going to be judged. We all need that in our lives, right?
We need support groups, we need people who can do that, I think for men it’s a lot harder than women, that might be a stereotype but certainly true with majority of my life and I think that’s it. For me there isn’t any magic formula, it was just pure simple support through other human beings. Other human beings just lending an ear, just listening and I’m sure we’ve all experienced, you’ve been on a flight and you’re sitting next to somebody and you clicked and you share more with them or that one person during that flight or during that train ride then you have with even your spouse, to your best friend and then you feel this sense of just energy and you’re really light and free at the end and you feel really empowered and I think that’s just something that we could all learn how to do more often with the people that are closest with us.
It really is empowering just to listen, just to be a friend and just to listen and I’m sure we’ve been all there, where some of just talk even really engaged but we never really said anything back other than you were genuinely listening and just taking in what they said and at the end they’re like “Men, you’re like my best friend or whatever thank you so much for all the advice and you made me said nothing just listened”.
Paul: Yeah.
Chris: and sometimes we just need to listen and other times we just need to share.
Paul: amazing, so let’s go into bit more detail about what it has done for you, I mean obviously people will look at the before and after story, the photos and look at the physical transformation. In terms of what else it has done for you, can you go into a little bit more detail about that, what it’s like to.
Chris: Yeah, sure I’m a really strong believer in not compartmentalizing different aspects of your life. I think what you do in one area of life you do in all areas of your life, if what you’re doing is truly sustainable and when I started the transformation process, in addition to doing that I was also going to AA meetings as well and I noticed in AA meetings is that people compartmentalizes their addiction and they would do that by saying “Ok, I’m going to stop drinking I’m here and you get all support and all kind of stuff” but then they would pick up smoking and never smoked before and also they were drinking 8 cups of coffee and then I would notice that after a few weeks that a lot of people were gaining weight because now they’re eating a lot and they were smoking a lot and so that’s compartmentalizing what the addiction is and what that issue is and so you’re not going to see it if you keep compartmentalizing, you’re not going to see it growing in all areas and that same core of what caused the addictions, which addiction is very complex and by no means an expert at it but both chemically, psychologically and emotionally it affects all areas of your life whether you stay so sober or not if you don’t deal with it.
So I think it’s really important that whatever you do know that it’s not like, “Okay, I’m in business and I’m going to do really good in business and I’m going to explode in that well”. If you compartmentalize that and you’re not also putting in similar efforts and energy into your family and other areas of your life and your health, it’s just not going to balance out and it’s going to be like a really rough flight and you might just get turned over, and you might just crash and burn and it’s not really sustainable. I mean I ran into it all of the time, all kinds of mastermind groups and stuff like this, I’m fortunate to hang a lot with really talented hardworking people where they got online businesses but everything else is just kind of shit, you know?
Paul: Yeah.
Chris: Sorry about that I don’t know, I’m trying not to swear.
Paul: It’s completely fine.
Chris: They’ve got everything going for them but their marriages are disaster, they don’t really know their kids, their health is obviously just atrocious. And that’s an example of compartmentalizing certain aspects of your life, you can do that you’ve got to open it all up.
So when I was dealing with my addiction I was looking around at this and I was going man! I don’t want to start drinking coffee like these people. I certainly don’t want to smoke, I’ve never had before and I’m also dealing with my food addictions here to, and I’m having to face that as well, so I was really examining it and looking at it. You know what, I really want to open this up. I don’t want to just keep this as just an alcohol addiction that has to be much more than this, and how can I open it up to expand it on all areas of my life so that what you do in one area of your life, you do in all areas of your life.
Paul: It’s very turning, and I mean in terms of going back to the health side of it as well. I’ve been following you on Facebook for a while I could see that and I’ve tried the deactivated charcoal and apple cider vinegar. Few little things that you’re doing, is there anything else or the biggest things that you can recommend for people to do, ritual, to help maybe increase their health and increase energy levels or is there anything that you suggest?
Chris: sure, a lot of things the way that I would approach it and the way that I do is I look at it as I’m upgrading. It’s kind of like phone, most of us probably don’t have the same phone that we had last year. If you’re on windows, and if you are I’m sorry and it usually upgrade right every year so it’s just like that way with all your health and stuff you just take it one thing at a time. So I just like to upgrade certain areas of my life and I like to upgrade something every couple of weeks and I love to experiment and I will usually share that on Facebook, so like the charcoal filters I was just reading about that, and it’s interesting and it’s really safe. It’s low cost, there’s nothing extreme about it, I can’t overdo and it has some clear health benefits to it and I’m also a pub med kind of nerd so if you haven’t gone to pub med you can go it online, they have about 25 million scientific reviews and case studies. It’s really boring reading but if you really want to get down to some nuts and bolts about what some of these other authors and things people claim, where they’re getting that from at the reference, at the bottom of the back of the book. That’s where you’re going to read about it.
So I can read about that stuff. That’s just pretty good. I should probably incorporate that every 3 or 4 weeks or so for a couple of days that seems enough to do, I guess I mix it in my water and do it, and it helps cleaning up some toxins in your body and that’s just one way you can upgrade. One thing that I did a couple of years ago and now it’s really popular, I didn’t even know what it’s called a couple of years ago but today it’s kind of buzz word. It’s intermittent fasting. I started doing it not because of the weight loss or the fat loss or any of those kind of health benefits but rather for the mental clarity because I work for myself and I work at home, I want to be as productive as I can in the shortest amount of time possible and so how can I do that mentally, stay lazer focus for 5 or 6 hours then just “I’m done”.
I can just close up and I’m all done for the day and I started to study and look in at that and I came cross a bunch of studies that were like “Hey, if you fast for like 16-20 hours a day and just have your window of eating for like, just restricted 4 to 6 hours a day just take in normal calories, just crunch it in 4 to 6 hours, it actually increases the amount of brain tissue there’s all kinds of incredible health benefits but that’s just another little hack or whatever you want to call it, upgrade that you can add to your life, you’re not restricting calories, you’re not restricting anything, you’re just consuming and doing the same but man your whole body functions so much better and for someone who’s busy and productive out in the world making things happen, those kinds of people like yourself and me we don’t have time to be eating cookie, and I tell you it’s such a lifesaver to be able to just eat one or two meals a day within a short time period that way I don’t have to prepare nothing. It’s really easy to do, I’m not eating for basically about 20 plus hours a day and I’m laser focused and I have more energy that I’ve ever had before. I would never go back to the other way.
Now recently I found out because other people have been sharing with me all these other incredible health benefits, of course they can do their research but there’s all kind of stuff from anti-aging, helps reduce cancer risks, you sleep so much better because your body is not having to digest food all day long. Normally, I used to like eating all the time like 6 meals a day, 8 small 6 meals a day. Man! What a waste of time at it. I have these all little things and I get out in the morning, these little containers I’ve been there I’ve done that. That’s why I did transformation, I got all 6 containers busted those out and put my other meals out there, had it in a big back pack of stuff and that’s what I ate all day long every three hours and guess what? I was training my body to get hungry every 3 hours and it was always a struggle, this is so much easier but I didn’t do it because I wanted to lose weight. I already lose the weight.
I’m already totally satisfied right now physically. I did it for the mental clarity and so that I could work more productive in hours that I choose to work.
Paul: I’ll tell it to you Chris, I’m doing it, I’m intermittently fasting at the moment as well and I’ve done it in the past. I did it about 6 months ago for a month and again saying this, it was ideal for me I’ve also seen the fat loss involved as well, but in terms of energy levels mental clarity, it was huge and I’ve been doing it again for the past week. I don’t find it difficult; I don’t find myself feeding hungry. Again, productivity level was a lot higher; I mean I definitely agree with you. Do you still do it today?
Chris: Every day!
Paul: Amazing! Do you work out, while you’re fasting or after you eat?
Chris: I work out while I’ m fasting. Just because of time restraints I’ve doing the same thing and I just recently read a study, there’s actually a whole bunch of them on Pubmed and it’s actually why you’ve been fasting, so let’s say towards the end of your fast, you’ve made fasting for like maybe 14 hours or something, then you go and you work out, you’re going to increase your amount of HGH by up to 2000 percent by doing that and your testosterone levels too.
Now, for males this is really important, if your testosterone levels are low and your HGH is low, you’re going to feel sluggish, you’re not going to feel alive, you’re not going to feel that kind of 18, 19, or 20 year old drive like you just want to go out and conquer the world. I see to many 40ish and 30ish even 25ish guys up there with man boobs and they’re sluggish. No drive, I mean this is you out there and you feel “Oh, wait a minute he’s talking to me” try the simple thing. I mean I’m telling you and you don’t have to be a workout star. Just go walk up down the hill for 20 minutes or something, it has the same effect. It’s increasing your testosterone and your HGH levels and that’s what makes men, men as far as I’m concerned and hey I’ve been without alcoholism, overeating kills your testosterone level. I know what it feels like to have very low, and I know what it feels like to have naturally really high and I would never go back.
Paul: Amazing, I don’t find it difficult either I mean I cut off eating at 6pm. So I have big moment with family before 6pm, about half 6 and then I sleep for probably 8 hours, I’m up maybe 6 am that’s when I’ll do my work out. So I’m probably near the end of the fast. Do my work out then and then by 10am again that’s a 16 hour fasting window and I can eat again. It doesn’t seem difficult to me either it’s not like I don’t feel like I’m starving.
Also, what I’ve found is that it’s kind of training me to not feel hungry, like when I was always eating throughout the day I was not getting work done because I need to go and get something eat or I need to get and get a snack. That’s pretty where I found myself eating badly as well, so I definitely agree with that.
Chris: What do you tell people, when like because the rest of the world doesn’t do this right? So I want to know what do you say when someone says “Hey, we’re going down for breakfast, you’re joining us?”
Paul: Well, I’m fasting.
Chris: Yeah, because I don’t eat breakfast! I mean I don’t eat breakfast like the rest of the world does and it’s considered like the most important meal of the day.
Paul: Yeah, because I just don’t do. Same as you. I mean to those of you it’s kind of like I’ve gone up and down, I want to be more consistent right now the change I want to do so I want to do it consistently, than do it for a couple of weeks just to lose a little bit fat, but I mean I’m quite strict with it. So I just skip
Chris: Yeah I mean usually don’t have my first meal until, just depends normally around noon or 1 o clock my time. I try to extend it out as far as I can because I’m so much more productive when I do that. I mean I don’t, people get so crazy about, there’s so much… around food and what people eat, raw food, if I don’t eat meat… all those kinds of stuff out there or I’m an intermittent faster or whatever. I just try to avoid those kind of conversations with other people. So I normally tell people, and it happen a lot. I went to Bangkok, go to really with people around there and just want to meet up for breakfast, and they’re like “Hey, Chris! What you’re doing over there you’re not eating. Just drinking coffee, what’s going on?”
Paul: Do you vary your eating windows as well or do you have a strict window every single day?
Chris: I don’t want to say strict but I have a pattern that just seems to work well for me, I like to get up really early around 5 in the morning and that’s before my kids get up and I just like to dive right into my work. I’m the most productive the first 3 hours when I wake up.
Paul: yeah, definitely.
Chris: and then usually after that then I can… once I get in my room, really solid creative things done. Then I kind of go a little bit more control but I like to extend that as long as I can. So it’s usually around noon at 9 o clock and then five or six hours of work then that’s enough. That’s just the choice I make and I don’t work on Fridays or Saturdays or Sundays and those are just the decisions I’ve made. I’ve been in places where, because if you work for yourself and you work at home you can end up working all day long.
Paul: Definitely.
Chris: That’s just not healthy. I have to create boundaries, right? I mean you must have some boundaries, right?
Paul: Yeah of. I’m trying to go back to the set time, yeah it is hard, it’s difficult because there are laptops there, she’s got a project and you haven’t done it. Very uneasy to disconnect from family and you know go in work but yeah I put boundaries in place.
Chris: You’re going to really experience, boundaries, I don’t do schedules.
Paul: Yeah. That’s a good boundary to have, definitely a good outlook to have as well.
Chris: That’s just my choice. That’s the way I live my life I don’t mean to bother anybody or whatever. You want to do something; I give you a window time Monday to Thursday, that’s when I’m sitting when I’m working. But I’ve never like schedules, schedules have always been something that’s back in the jail days, the job days… for me it just puts like this incredible amount of weight on my shoulders. I don’t want that, I don’t want that sitting on my desk. To have flight going somewhere that’s different that’s not like a scheduled meeting or to go stuff that’s not the same thing but to have like a business meeting or something I don’t know. I just don’t do it.
Paul: Great! I’ve recently have talk to people bookings for coaching course and I find it hard to stick to the schedule because I’m so used to arranging time to do other things whenever I kind of want to. I’m not used to sticking schedules either so you know I have to groove you in that. Maybe I need to start scheduling in course.
Chris: I just warn you.
Paul: Yeah, definitely for sure but in terms of… this is going to sound a strange question but I mean I see a lot of people asking on your Facebook as well, in terms of your skin and obviously when it comes to aging do you use grooming products? What do you eat, and for your body weight or exercise, is there any kind of grooming products that you use or is it mostly health benefits.
Chris: It’s a combination of things and it’s definitely deliberate. Number 1 it’s obviously what you put in your body and eat. I just like to eat nice and clean real food, you know I’m not a freak about going to eat this and this and that but it has got to be real for me and it can’t be anything that my body doesn’t recognize, and today that’s almost extreme, right? Like “What!?” because “You eat real food?!” Yeah! It’s like if I’m looking at the label it’s got to have 1 ingredient brown rice, nothing else in it. And I don’t want anything else in it and so that’s number one so I help keep out all the toxins by not putting them in my body like that.
The other thing is with my water too. I distill my water and I know that’s a big topic out there but I distill at home. I distill my water and then I put minerals back into it. So I make sure that my water is really clean. I’m making organic food and real food and stuff like that. I eat a lot of fermented foods which is really good for your whole immune system, your Gut and stuff like that. So the whole insides are taking care of that, then for the outside of the skin and that I don’t use any commercialized or typical kind of cleaning products that you’ll find at the supermarket.
So what I normally wash with my skin is combination of Raw Apple Vinegar mixed with water and that’s really good it has like a perfect pH for your skin and then I use a nice soft scrubbing pad to get all the dead skin off and then I finish that up after the shower I’m dried off and then I put in just raw organic coconut oil on my skin and I’ve been doing that for years and people always comment when they see me, they always think like of my 27, 28 years old all the time.
Paul: Of course, I could see why. That’s amazing because I’ve been drinking apple cider vinegar maybe 1 day.
Chris: Put it in your skin.
Paul: do you both or you just…
Chris: I do it intermittently and drinking with water and that’s maybe every four or five weeks. I might just do a week of that but just a tiny few drops in my water, I don’t do it consistently but I do wash consistently with it and I just mix in like 1 part to maybe 20 parts with the water and then I have a good scrub to wash dead skin off and your skin just loves it, it really does. Your face and your scalp too, guys out there if you’re starting to lose your hair, wash your hair and scrub your skin with that too, really helps.
Paul: Do you usually apply it with a scrub? Good scrub and then wash off and then coconut oil.
Chris: Also, I have the water filters in my shower so I’m not getting all the chloride out of there because that’s going to dry your skin up immediately.
Paul: Sounds like a good tip, also as well a lot of products now a days, the ones that says that they do amazing things or highly. There are cheaper solutions as well I guess.
Chris: Yeah, it’s much cheaper. The thing is that you feel it right away, it’s like. I know I don’t smell like vinegar. As soon as you shower it off and you rinse it off you just smell like you’re supposed to smell like and if you’re clean and healthy you’re just going to smell normal.
Paul: is that daily? Is it once a day or twice a day?
Chris: No, I normally shower about every other day.
Paul: So you do this routine every other day as well.
Chris: Yeah.
Paul: So it’s not something that people really have to put a lot of commitment into either, something that you can do every other day.
Chris: Yeah, some people like to shower every day and if you’re showering every day you really got to look into getting some filter to take out the chlorine out of your water because that’s really dangerous.
Paul: Amazing, that’s a great tip because I mean it’s probably the biggest complement you’ve kept on the skin or is that. I mean I’ve seen a lot of people on your Facebook, mentioning. That’s the old one right there.
Chris: I mean that’s all I did besides eating good.
Paul: Cool. What you said is that you keep it simple; you don’t count macros and do this. You just keep it simple. You eat real foods that’s probably just making it more efficient.
Chris: you see it online everywhere people getting so crazy with that they’re eating and it’s like hey look if you don’t have organic available just do the best you can or look for some fruit or vegetables that have the least amount of pesticides on it, don’t get crazy about it, the real things to avoid out there I think are just all the processed, all the stuff that’s in the box, a bag or in the can.
If you didn’t just eat anything out of the box, a bag or a can or through a drive-thru you’d be fine.
Paul: Yeah, definitely. Chris, I mean you take a similar outlook with your workouts, don’t you? I saw that you work out probably for 25minutes, isn’t it?
Chris: Just like work I want to get in and out of there and it’s efficient as possible.
Paul: Your workout, is it high intensity.
Chris: Yeah, it’s just as efficient as possible. I just kind of look at, when I first started the transformation process I got my first membership with a gym and with that experience as normally goes as with most experiences in the world, you have an opportunity to get a trainer and so I did, and I showed him a picture of Bill Philips, Bill Philips when he was 42 years old, he was looking fantastic, all ripped and stuff. I said look I’m 41years old and I was like 220, I look pale. I’ve been drinking for 15 years straight. And I said I want to look like this guy in 14 weeks and the guy just looked at me like “they don’t pay me enough to deal with guys like you” and so he just kind of look down and he started typing away, and he pressed his printer button and just all these page are on print and you press the paper work across the table, and said this is what you got to do, if you want to look like this, even then I don’t know if it’s possible and it was like working out like an hour and a half a day, plus adding a morning aerobic sessions and like 6 meals a day and all these cans of tuna.
I felt so defeated, what the heck I’m going to do now. He’s telling me it’s impossible to do basically or I’m going to give up my life to do this, and I really started looking for something that was more sustainable and I started looking at it not through his lens or the perspective of the traditional body building community some six meals a day, 1.25 grams of protein for body mass, all these kind of stuff, whey protein. BBC chains, all these stuff. And I just looked at it more from a fresh perspective because I didn’t know any better I didn’t have a different perspective and I looked at it and said okay.
What’s the most efficient way to get from point A to B. so looking at the work out routines? So jeez if I can do more compound movements that’s probably going to be more efficient than doing 2 years non compound movements and I see all these guys resting in between sets, if I didn’t get rest I could get out the gym a lot faster and I just started doing that and there’s a really good story of someone, this guy is out of Australia and he was a sheep farmer his entire life and he’s 65 years old and he was going to take his very first vacation ever and he’s a farmer and he’s going to have his brother watch the farm and in his vacation what he wants to do is run this race and it’s the most gruel race in the world, you basically run the equivalent of two marathons every day for 5 days straight and he’s 65 years old and so the thing is that he is a sheep farmer and years ago like 20 years ago he lost a sheep dog, which a sheep dog would run around and wrap around up a sheep, right?
So he lost his dog, he just felt so heartbroken that he didn’t want to replace it. So he just started herding the sheep himself so that’s where he got his exercise, right? So he’s 65 years old and shows up for this race and the day of the race to pay his entrance fee he’s wearing his Oshkosh overalls, he’s got on his ring boots, because he checked the weather and he knew it was going to rain and here he is surrounded by all these 20 and 30 year olds in this high-tech gear and stuff ready to run this week long race, anyway the end of it was this; they started off the race, they started running and he immediately gets pushed into last place but no one told him that everyone sleeps at night so he ran throughout the night, at the end of 5 days he not only won race, but he broke the world record by 2 hours and the reason is because he never listened to the experts, he never read a running world magazine, no one ever told him the rules that you have to do, no one told me the rules of working out.
I decided I wasn’t going to listen to that trainer there that had the whole paperwork, the stuff that I’m going to have to do. The six meals a day, an hour and half workout plus an extra thirty minutes of bla bla bla, and I just looked for the shortest route possible between there just for fresh perspective.
So sometimes you’re better off not listening to the experts.
Paul: Definitely, I do agree. The key things in all you say is compound movements and trying to get as much done in span of time. I see a lot of guys at gym and I’ve pulled my hands off, I quite used to do that as well, as you go to the gym and you do weight training and you rest a minute or two minutes in between and you check in your phone in between your rest so that you chat with your friends between your rests and then you were in the gym for over an hour and you come out and you felt like you haven’t really done much. Something that I’ve been doing recently is just trying to make my work out a lot more efficient.
Chris: and like a said, for a Pubmed kind of geek. They’ve got some really solid studies out there of the health benefits, get this, this is measuring all the blood work, all your cholesterol levels, your testosterone, your HGH all the good markers of inside your body, what’s happening in there whether the health benefits of exercising 1 minute a day, three times a week, the health benefits; if you do it in 10s in 1 minute the health benefits are off the chart. I mean we’re talking really good.
So this has totally confirmed that it’s not the amount that you’re doing, in fact most of these peoples that are working out for I would say any of just as, doctor, not a professional on this but from studies that I’ve read if you’re working out any longer than about 40 minutes your cortisol levels go up so high and if you’re doing that 4 to 5 days a week you constantly have elevated cortisol levels which makes you irritable, you can’t sleep as all kinds of detrimental health benefits, shrink it down. More is not better in this situation at all, go in and hit it hard then go home. You’ve got better things to do than hangout in the gym.
Paul: Definitely, and I think it becomes an addiction as well, it isn’t it? I guess a lot of guys spend a lot of time there; it’s kind of an addiction isn’t it?
Chris: Well, it could be an addiction, I’ve think for some it is certainly, I know people who run that they get and they get addicted to, I don’t know if addiction is the right word but they get accustomed to the endorphins in their brain being released which I totally get that but I think it has definitely, but it also has to do something with it’s just the way it’s always been done, no one ever questions that. I mean really nothing has changed since whenever the whole body building scene broke out which is on a red park, so whoever started the whole thing it has never really changed ever since. It has always been the 6 meals lots of proteins and if you want to bulk up you’re going to do 5 to 6 sets, I don’t do anything lower than 12 reps, ever and the reason is it’s not because I want to bulk up, lean up but I just don’t want to get an injury. I just go to any gym and get to know guys that have been working out for like 15 to 20 years, it goes back to the question of what’s sustainable and then quality.
You talk to any guys that has been working out for 15 to 20 years, and like hardcore and you look at it “Oh, that’s amazing shit bla blab la” all of them by none got all kinds of injuries, lower back, shoulders, knees, whatever and it’s just like I don’t want to end up like that and plus I don’t want to spend 1 to 2 hours a day in the gym like they do but I want to look good and I want to feel good so what’s the quickest most efficient way to do that.
I’ve found a good system that works for me.
Paul: that’s amazing, amazing concept there. There’s so much valuable concept that guys, I made tons of notes I’m going to go away and scrub my face with apple cider vinegar. Amazing Chris, I appreciate you taking the time out. Is there anything to add? Is there any way that people can come and find you?
Chris: you can just come and look me up on Facebook on Chris Winters, I’m in there.
Paul: I’m going to post a link on the blog post as well about you and the transformation, if that’s okay with you.
Chris: Yeah, you could post videos and stuff but I would just, one big take away, take the long road because it’s a lot shorter.
Paul: Very true, thanks very much! I appreciate the time and it’s hugely inspirational. I think a lot of guys can take a lot of inspiration. There should be no excuses. Thanks very much Chris!
Chris: No problem.
Paul: Thank you.
Connect
A huge thank you to Chris for taking the time out and giving such amazing value. Looking to connect with Chris? You can do so via Chriswinters.me.
