Cody Watkins - Create the Body you Want

[00:00:00] brought to you by 180nutrition.com.au Welcome to the Health Sessions podcast. Each episode we cut to the chase as we hang out with real people with real results. Hey, this is Stu from 180 Nutrition and welcome to another episode of The Health Sessions.

[00:00:28] It's here that we connect with the world's best experts in health, wellness and human performance in an attempt to cut through the confusion around what it actually takes to achieve a long-lasting health. Now I'm sure that's something that we all strive to have.

[00:00:42] I certainly do. Before we get into the show today, you might not know that we make products too. That's right, we're into whole food nutrition and have a range of superfoods and natural supplements to help support your day. If you are curious, want to find out more,

[00:00:56] just jump over to our website. That is 180nutrition.com.au and take a look. Okay, back to the show. This week I'm excited to welcome Cody Watkins to the podcast. Dubbed the king of transformation, Cody is a renowned online fitness coach.

[00:01:14] In 2018 he underwent emergency open heart surgery that was required to escape death. He made an astonishing comeback winning a bodybuilding competition at just 11 months post surgery. In this episode we discussed the subtle art of building lean muscle while

[00:01:29] losing body fat, the importance of cardio when wanting to lean up and so much more. Over to Cody. Hey guys, this is Stu from 180nutrition and I am delighted to welcome Cody Watkins to the

[00:01:47] podcast. Cody, good morning, good afternoon for you. How are you mate? I'm doing well, thanks for having me. No, I really appreciate your time. I know you're well looking at your socials and all of your online activities. I know that you're a very busy man. So

[00:02:00] we'll get into the questions in a second. But first up for all of our listeners that may not be familiar with you or your work, I'd love it if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself

[00:02:07] please. Yeah, so I got into fitness pretty early, 15, 16 years old. I think very typical for any male. You're a little bit softer than you like to be right? You got to get those abs, get it

[00:02:19] checked and I just started chasing the dragon so to speak right? So I just kept pushing the size limit, got into powerlifting, got into bodybuilding. I did that obviously along the

[00:02:28] way it's really easy to get into training since that's all you're doing so that's where I kind of fell into that and my love for that and got into coaching. I competed for 12 years in bodybuilding

[00:02:39] ended up having a few setbacks along the way that I had to learn to overcome the base being an open-air surgery. I was kind of a side blast. Didn't see that one coming. And yeah,

[00:02:49] that was a had a birth defect I didn't know about right? Ended up being stage four heart failure. My role like three times size it should be and then I got that all patched up ended up

[00:02:58] competing in a bodybuilding show one year later just just to see if I could right? I wanted to push a little bit but you know I like to take the reasons or excuses out for when it comes to

[00:03:07] clients because we'll build hurdles over things that maybe aren't so I figured if I could push the envelope it would help me as a coach overall right? Because I kind of take that excuse

[00:03:16] barrier now where it comes to work with people. Oh my word. So tell me when you had that surgery and I'm guessing with a character like yourself and live and breathe for working out feeling

[00:03:30] good like moving your body were you ever told that you've got to take this super super easy? Like I wouldn't recommend that you pick up heavy weights or stretch your heart in any way was

[00:03:40] that on the board of the recommendations? Absolutely so going into it I didn't know I had. I had symptoms of heart failure the whole time. I thought it was just you know bodybuilding it

[00:03:51] was rough right? I'm pushing through it grew a little long probably you know maybe TMI but man I was throwing up probably one or two workouts a month just thought I was lifting hard that I

[00:04:00] was my heart not keeping up right? Yeah. But anyways when I found out my heart belt actually ripped that birth defect in it so they were like if this would have happened while

[00:04:08] your training you'd be dead and the day before I was blasting out legs you know just I was six weeks out from a bodybuilding show. Wow. So I had just dexastanded like 6%

[00:04:19] modified I'm like easiest contest prep yet right? I'm so far ahead of the game this is great and then the next day I was in the hospital dying right? I had no idea just side cast and so

[00:04:29] they came back and walk but not uphill right? I don't do anything so I was still going in in person training my clients at the time right? I made them move all the weights I

[00:04:39] just was playing a rep count basically. I had the surgery done and when I got out I was you know cautious I was like hey what are my limitations and then like realistically with this

[00:04:49] heart valve it's mechanical so there's no nothing you can really do for it and they I got seven plates and 28 screws in my chest so it's not like I'm coming apart but I eased back into it pretty gradual but I still remember I was probably

[00:05:02] three months getting cleared for lifting and the surgeon was scoping out my social media right? We're something on his medical team. I've seen an old clip of me benching like 315

[00:05:11] and they called me I'm in the gym parking lot about to go train he's like you can't be lifted that until I was like 60 I was out five months post-op right? He sees me lifted 300 pounds which

[00:05:22] obviously I was and I was still weak at that point but man that was uh that was like oh am I supposed to do this but it was all clear right? I ended up reversing my heart failure my

[00:05:30] heart shrunk down to normal size I did that body won't show you later so it's all green light on that I do train a little bit different now right? I don't push like failure about

[00:05:39] salvo maneuver as much spike in the blood pressure but other than that it's pretty much single single. That's fantastic that surely would have to make the ultimate meme on the internet like you push leg day to the next level. That's just gonna happen right after

[00:05:53] leg day like not during you know. Oh my god so that it's absolutely amazing to hear that um complete reversal really of what you were told to where you were perhaps what we had told that

[00:06:11] you shouldn't do to where you knew that you wanted to be and all of those learnings along the way so I'm keen for you then to share a little bit of your insights into like power or body

[00:06:24] builders and especially competitive like they understand or you understand diet nutrition and movement and all the recovery protocols probably more than anybody else because you have the ability to understand you know macros and all of your body um body metrics in terms of dexascan

[00:06:45] body fat muscle mass uh bone density all that kind of stuff and there's so much information out there about choose this diet and that diet you want to get ripped you want to get six pack

[00:06:56] but ultimately it seems to me like the weight trainers the body lifters the power competitive power lifters like they are the scientists in this area because you've got it down pat and you've

[00:07:07] had it down pat for many many years like even the guys in the 70s knew more than a lot of us do today. Oh yeah um so what tell us a little bit about if you can open up on that secret

[00:07:18] which is everybody's nemesis building lean muscle but losing fat at the same time how do we do it so this is probably the trickiest part of the equation because you know on paper in order to

[00:07:30] build muscle we have to have that calorie surplus yeah in order to lose fat you have to have that calorie deficit so you can do it at once I'll cite questions say it's not my top recommendation

[00:07:40] because it is a slower process it'll keep you looking better the entire time but if you focus on leaning down and then building you'll do it and probably a third of half of the time

[00:07:50] as far as an overall process to go okay you can do it but this one comes more down to nutrient timing so you have to be a little bit more specific with your spikes of surplus so not to get like

[00:08:03] too deep in the weeds but you gotta figure when you're increasing calorie expenditure around the workout time that's when you need the surplus so the body goes oh cool I'm not serving I need to

[00:08:13] put on muscle because from the body standpoint it only cares about survival and excess muscle is not good for survival it's it burns calories at rest so you gotta when that expenditure goes up

[00:08:25] you have to spike it so this is where like a pre and post workout carbohydrate timing usually works out well so you can increase the surplus and then all the other parts of the day usually

[00:08:35] bring those back a little bit so you're trying to tap on that sort of body fat for fuel while general activity and stuff is there and obviously each person you have to play with the numbers a

[00:08:44] little bit kind of on that sweet spot but that's realistically where I see the best results on recomb and it's not a huge deficit so if you do figure out where your maintenance is it's usually

[00:08:54] only going like 200 250 under it if the further you crank the fat loss the less you crank the muscle build so there's a tight rope to walk between the both and I would imagine then

[00:09:07] that you would have to be very very focused on tracking and understanding exactly what you're pulling in in terms of macros and being able to understand what those foods are doing for you

[00:09:18] working out your BMR and then it your surplus or deficit however that works yes yeah absolutely and I think the easiest way to do that if I was going to give the simplest pointer

[00:09:28] I think people get online they punch in formula as they go for that stuff way too quick yeah so your weight's been pretty consistent cool you're at your maintenance right now so all you have to do

[00:09:38] if you're a beginner starting out and you're not really wanting to play with the sale too much it's more like I want to tone up maybe put on some muscle lose some fat log your food out honestly

[00:09:47] for two three four five eight right just get calorie number two don't change anything you're going to order a large pizza that night put it in right doesn't matter get an average to

[00:09:56] where your numbers are now you know your average calorie learn then if we take that protein number okay now let's go up to a gram per pound a lean and even if you keep your calories exactly

[00:10:07] the same increased protein because most people are going to be lower at that you're going to get in a thermogenesis effect from the protein to where you're actually out of deficit after you do that

[00:10:16] so that should be enough to actually instill the the recontact to actually happen without really changing the calorie number at that point right just switching a couple of macros around yeah right and that protein intake um obviously very important would you would you be consuming your

[00:10:34] protein intake based upon your current weight or your goal your goal so I like to eat for the goal not eat for where you're currently at so same thing like because this is where it gets

[00:10:45] hard i'll work with some larger individuals we'll get people that are four or five hundred pounds that will come in as well and that 500 pound person doesn't need 500 grams of protein

[00:10:55] like there's a little human height in there right so we got to kind of eat for the target right and so that would be eat for the eat for the body you want not the body you have and that's what's going to

[00:11:06] dry that pulling digit there got it and what's your carbohydrate of choice because you mentioned just about you know adjusting with carbs and things like that are we talking like does it matter

[00:11:15] can we eat fruit rice potatoes or does it really not matter yeah so and on a base level if you're newer to it I wouldn't go into the weeds with it just count the carbs get the numbers to it

[00:11:27] the more technical you get the more advanced you get the more in in advanced your physique gets the more specifics will come into play so if you're an elite bodybuilder you know single

[00:11:37] digit body fat 200 plus pounds it's going to take a lot more to move than needle then somebody coming in like 160 pounds just getting into fitness so these people have a lot more leeway

[00:11:47] so don't go to the weeds with it but you know the carbs of choice I like a search so it digests for a while right yeah I'm not a fan of simple sugars other than around the workouts because they're

[00:11:59] so quick to burn that get that instant spike and then you get that crash so you feel rather lethargic after a while the other don't digest quite as quickly so you get a little bit more

[00:12:08] sustained approach to it fruit I'm not a fan of if people are going to lean down and not that fruit is bad but nobody eats an apple and gets full nobody the banana and gets full

[00:12:20] so there's food that doesn't have a lot of volume to it which if you're someone that's let's just say metabolic impaired it's not your ideal choice for carbohydrates just from the satiety standpoint now there is interesting data on fructose and sleep so if we were going to

[00:12:35] time that fructose before bed it actually can help you sustain a longer period of sleep which is kind of a cool side it's yeah it's funny you should say that so I do I have fruit after my

[00:12:47] evening meal because it helps sleep exactly and it just works like really well where a lot of people get it so if you if you have like one of those continuous glucose monitors you'll see it but

[00:13:00] a lot of people that wake up at that 3m time like the witching hour that's your blood sugar dipping and your body's pumping out adrenaline to get that back up because it's going too low and so if you

[00:13:10] ever have those moments where you're like 3am on the button you're like waking up heart racing and all that that's exactly what happened so fructose replenishes liver glycogen yeah so store car right here's some liver so that's what sustains your blood glucose throughout the day so if

[00:13:24] you're a guy who's training pretty intense you're depleting glycogen the liver taps out too so if you don't have enough sugar in there there's nothing to balance you out when your overall blood sugar dips right so if you did do a bigger evening meal and you got that

[00:13:37] insulin spike and then the drop all you're going to get is a hot button wake up at 3am it with no sustainability when it comes there's gonna be so many people that absolutely resonate

[00:13:48] with that because we I think at the moment we're very um the low carbohydrate movements you know whole low carb keto intermittent fasting um it's a big movement right now and very um probably not the best approach then if we want to put on muscle mass

[00:14:08] yeah no and this is this is kind of my my side quest on things and this is kind of a knock on the fitness industry in general a lot of people when they're looking at you know bigger

[00:14:18] influencers and stuff like that what maintenance takes and what getting their takes are miles apart yeah so for me to maintain a 10 body fat for z 240 pounds I can eat fast food five or six times

[00:14:33] a week and do this right it is not challenging whatsoever yeah getting here way more difficult now in time you're gonna see a lot of your favorite people six pack abs shredded with a bone they're

[00:14:45] like I do intermittent fasting I've competed in bodybuilding with some of these guys yeah and I'll tell you 10 years ago they weren't doing it it sounds good now right and they may do it very

[00:14:56] well now to maintain it but they would have never got to that body in my opinion in the first place by following that protocol somebody who's obviously like above maximal level muscle right not like a

[00:15:08] shredded individual but what we're talking like a 200 pound male who's pretty lean yeah he didn't get there by restricting eating hours right you have to have a good amount of food going in

[00:15:17] in order to grow like that the internet I think can be it can be an interesting beast in terms of the messages that you see and how perhaps that plays into a part of the truth I remember there

[00:15:29] was a movie that came out a few years back about plant-based diets on on Netflix and I think Arnold Schwarzenegger was on there and he was talking about now he's an advocate for plant-based

[00:15:41] diet and of course people look back at what he was and think oh my word look at you you're a beast of a man I don't think he got look he got there with what what he's doing right now it probably

[00:15:51] wasn't the plant-based approach that took him to his uh his greatest achievements that's for sure exactly well and on the flip side right because I own that Dexascam business for almost four years

[00:16:01] so I've seen thousands of people personally as far as like body effects go and every individual that we would have come in there that was fasting they lost a massive amount of muscle and I'm

[00:16:12] not seeing that there's not some people that can thrive with it right so it's not enough I just got to go off the information that I've personally seen and so I'll leave them unnamed but there was two

[00:16:21] individuals and they did uh a week long fast right just for religious purposes right you want to see but we scanned them before and after just to see what the composition came from right

[00:16:32] yes one of the guys lost 16 pounds in the week 13 pounds of it was about 13 pounds it was muscle excuse me so three pounds about oh wow okay the other guy lost 17 pounds and 15 pounds of it was

[00:16:46] muscle two pounds now granted glycogenery fill when they're done and stuff but I got to go off the numbers right so basically what that tells me is extended curves of fasting annihilate the

[00:16:57] lean tissue which then impairs metabolism so if you go back up to your old levels of eating now that if it was maintenance before it's now a surplus and now it's going to start to stick

[00:17:07] and so from a sustainability standpoint it's not my it's not my favorite approach because the hardest thing we do is when we restrict eating windows we restrict the ability to get enough protein in

[00:17:18] and so I'm out of the thought process that okay your ex baby can only absorb x amount of protein but I am of the thought process that me or you is not digesting 100 grams of protein in the

[00:17:29] city very well for building purpose no no exactly right and preference on protein I mean there's so many different sources of course now we've got um we've got powders and shakes and bars versus we've

[00:17:41] got whole food versions and and junk food versions too what do you think on that so this one here I like to go personally with what digest well for the person and works well right and so what chronic

[00:17:55] use can sometimes lead allergies so I used to drink a gallon of egg white today right that was my frame source of protein super easy but guess what my only food allergy is now yeah right so I do the

[00:18:06] same thing now way you know knock on wood hasn't done me dirty so I do about five or six meals a day just with weight protein shakes right I only do two solid meals a day it works better for my schedule if

[00:18:17] you've been like me and you've been shackled to your you know bodybuilding restrictions for you know 17 years I'm kind of sick at eating by this point right so if I could just drink my

[00:18:26] food and get on with my day it's way more convenient for me so I knock out those two meals lunch and dinner everything else is in liquid form and makes my day go way more smooth yeah fantastic now that is

[00:18:36] great advice so for our listeners then that they want to lean up and there is lots of conflicting advice some people say well you know what let's just get on the runner or do your steps get

[00:18:48] that cardio going like bang bang bang bang bang um but conversely perhaps if you're just going to focus on that you are as you mentioned before going to start to lose your lean muscle when you

[00:18:58] lose lean muscle the metabolism will change in some way shape or form and ultimately when people think about leaning up they would often look to perhaps people that they'd see in the media

[00:19:10] as you know I want to look like that and I'm imagining that those people will be doing a lot of resistance training um and perhaps not as much cardio as they think so what what's your tape

[00:19:20] then on cardio as an effective tool for leaning up so it's it's effective when you hit a point that it's necessary so your main movers when it comes to leaning out nutrition resistance training

[00:19:33] and then cardio slash activity now obviously like you want the hormones to be fine the body crying all that stuff but that's kind of intermittent with all those as far as the

[00:19:41] movers that you have a more direct control of work that's it so I would put the emphasis on nutrition before I ever put somebody else emphasis on the stair master because what's going

[00:19:51] to end up happening is if you're a tiny person you can get on that stairs and mash an hour out and hate your life yeah and I keep her more calories sitting in this chair talking to you

[00:20:02] we want to maximize the burden not only when we're spending effort to it but when we're doing nothing at all and so if we can ramp that metabolism up through obviously the right nutrition strategies but increasing the lean tissue and paying on too much of that through

[00:20:16] the resistance training this whole process becomes night and day difference as far as ease so and you mentioned a phrase and holding on to this lean tissue and again so many different

[00:20:29] strategies and I don't know whether you've read the book The Four Hour Body by Tim Ferriss yeah Tim Ferriss right so he had it I think it was Occam's protocol in there but he essentially said

[00:20:42] his case study wanted to pack on a whole heap of muscle and he did it in one white training session a month and albeit it was the mother of all white training sessions and trained all body

[00:20:54] parts he went gangbusters and then focus just on gorging himself with food what do you think the minimum effective dose is to put on and keep lean muscle mass so keeping one to two times

[00:21:09] every week to two weeks keeping maintenance is beyond easy growing it becomes a bit of a challenge right so this is where it's a tightrope so the best thing I've ever heard for it is you force

[00:21:23] the body in it reacts you coax it and it responds I mean if you try to force a bunch of muscle on there's usually a bit of side effects with it and by side effects it can be you know obviously

[00:21:33] XX fat gain or a surplus this is kind of the nemesis you'll see in bodybuilding just speaking from personal experience the quicker you push that muscle gain the more you're likely to blow

[00:21:43] that waist out so if you want to keep that nice petite waist try to put on 20 30 pounds of muscle in here it does present a bit of a problem right so I used to have a little girl wasp waist back

[00:21:54] of the day it was beautiful right and it don't suck it as high as it used to you have to poke it out right so first the first off is like the rate you want to put it put it on but

[00:22:04] when it comes to putting on lean tissue like you have to have the right environment for it and everyone will be a little bit individual with it so you kind of play the cards off what you're

[00:22:13] dealt so if you're a guy right now you come to me you train it three times a week I'm probably not going to get away with two times a week to get that muscle growth we want because your body's

[00:22:22] accustomed to a certain level of stimulus yeah likewise if somebody comes to me not working out at all they'll grow like a weed on one or two times a week yeah because it's so new

[00:22:31] and then it's a matter of getting that proper periodization of training in there making sure we're actually progressing the workouts which is an area a lot of people don't put enough emphasis on

[00:22:41] they get up there they do the work but they don't track metrics they have no idea what weights are moving no idea what reps are doing and they don't beat anything so if you want to make the best

[00:22:50] progress in a short period of time find the days that fit your schedule the best if you can keep for cool maximize that and then make sure that you are putting that effort in so

[00:23:00] track the weights you're moving track the reps and try to make consistent progress and if you're noticing the weights and reps increase the only two things that can happen is you increase muscle

[00:23:10] size to do so or you make your cns more efficient so you're nervous system to move more weight either one of them has a greater potential for you to put on muscle overall brilliant so next

[00:23:20] question then which feeds into that um lifting heavy for less or lighter for more like what is is there yeah and i know i get this question so my answer would be uh heavier for more lighter is

[00:23:38] so i think the fallacy we get into is like three to five reps for strength yeah five to eight reps for mass and then eight to twelve reps for endurance when really if we look at the the body from an

[00:23:51] energy standpoint you have the ATP cp phase the glycolic phase and then you have cardio road phase right so we're going to take that last one out and we have one that's dependent on carbs

[00:24:01] which is a little bit higher reps and we have one that's dependent on creatine and ATP that's the lower reference but both of those ranges build muscle so if you're someone on a ketogenic

[00:24:11] or a lower carb approach you're probably not going to be able to run those reps as high as someone who has carbs present because you don't have that sort of glycogen yeah so that's

[00:24:20] the first thing i would look at make sure the training matches the diet protocols you're on so you can really maximize it second thing you want to do is the intensity of it will be a

[00:24:32] way bigger factor than the rep range itself so if you go up there and provide it we're counting more than like three right we want to do a few but if we if we go up there and we're doing

[00:24:44] six reps super intense like you're barely getting it up that's going to be a lot more effective than doing 12 reps where you're having a conversation with your workout partner right so we want a certain level of intensity to it but regardless it's intensity and progression

[00:25:00] so this is where i would still fall back on the reps will not matter as much as long as you're tracking and making progress over time so if you do six reps over time you do 12 reps over time

[00:25:11] as long as that weight is increasing for what you do over a three six eight month period you're probably going to notice an increase in lean tissue to some extent from that point

[00:25:20] i would always evaluate which works better for you if you've done both personally that sweet spot i find is that six to ten range okay so we basically when you can get a weight for 10 try to go for the

[00:25:32] heavier weight for at least six build that six or up to 10 you leap frog up and you do that until you can't or when the body's getting used to it you're not getting a sore recovery is getting

[00:25:42] easier then you flip the workout so it's a whole new environment a whole new stimulus and i would repeat the cycle and do it all over again perfect and would you would you be pushing to absolute

[00:25:51] failure on that last last two reps no this is the balance of training right so for the most part now the further you push that actual failure like muscle and nervous system failure

[00:26:06] the more likely your recovery is going to go down the tank so if you're someone who's only training two to three days a week you can maximize that a little bit better yeah but if

[00:26:14] you're a guy going up there four or five or six days a week you can't annihilate it every day or your nervous system is going to go on the toilet so what you want to do is you want to find that balance

[00:26:22] so i i do one to two reps in reserve yeah so like if i think i can get 10 i stop at like eight or nine right and it leaves me a little bit where i can finish the rest of workout now if you're

[00:26:34] someone who's shorter on time you could reduce the volume how many sets and reps you're doing and crank the intensity which would be more like what tim ferris was doing or old school

[00:26:43] doing eight yeah but that takes a different caliber of person to do so like if you're someone who can push that limit mentally hey more power to your right you might really get away with trade less

[00:26:55] i like that balance of work still kind of fun i don't feel like i'm a pet talk myself into every second going to you know yeah no that does that doesn't make sense and in order then

[00:27:06] to maximize i guess the inputs that you are allowing your body to have during that period of time we have things like pre workouts we've got creatine and then post workout consumption of protein shake

[00:27:24] or small meal or something like that do you i mean creatine has been around since day dot it's so well studied at one time it was thought to be well be very careful you've got to cycle it

[00:27:36] because it's dangerous on the kidneys and now it's like well actually it's really protective even for the brain everybody seems to be pushing that right now yeah where do you sit on on the supplement stance and how do you use those supplements to compliment what you're doing

[00:27:50] yeah i would 100% say everyone should be taking it right so it's one of the things it is so widely studied and on the brain thing like they have it for Alzheimer patients getting better memory yeah and if we got something that's increasing cognitive performance physical performance

[00:28:06] amount of lean tissue you can put on in a year and the only side effect is you have to drink more water so that's a pretty fair trade to me right for an easy game so you know you can probably

[00:28:18] get an extra month or two of progress a year just so if you want to take 14 months to get 12 months of progress don't take it if you want to join your 12 months of progress in 12 months

[00:28:28] progress throw it right five five five 10 grams a day right depending on the form get the water and take off you'll be good as good go males and females right and i think a lot of females kind

[00:28:38] of shy away from it because they're oh i don't want to get bulky but you have like an eighth the testosterone levels guy it's gonna be really hard to get bulky just on crazy so you'll get that

[00:28:48] one lean muscle ton you'll be good it's really hard isn't it because that is that is a phrase that we hear so much i just you know i don't want to look like a man i don't want to get bulky i don't

[00:28:58] want to look like the whole boy oh boy if you knew how hard i work in the gym and the supplements i take and i can't get there um like good luck and if you do i want to know what your secret is

[00:29:09] i want some of it well my wife she could go up there would work me over on legs i'll be crawling out of there right she's like hey you know i'm a little sore yeah she don't

[00:29:18] bulk up like me right no i haven't so if it worked back i would love for it to work that good because i wouldn't have to work half as hard as i have to get where i'm at right now i know i know what

[00:29:29] what does rest day look like um and there there are oftentimes um a different perception of what a rest day should be um some people think was absolutely nothing i'm just going to hit the

[00:29:40] couch and what net net Netflix and we're just gonna you know binge watch whereas other people they might go into the gym they do some stretching some rolling out they might have a sauna or a nice bath

[00:29:49] things like that what what do you do for rest day and what do you typically recommend for your clients yeah so rest day i just think of it like no weight training it's it's very few people

[00:29:59] i have to throttle back i got some people that are a little overzealous on activity right so i gotta i gotta bring them back down because if you're someone who's trained like five days

[00:30:07] a week and maybe the weekends are supposed to be off yeah and you're on some 1415 mile hike or something like that you're not getting that body to be down time to recover for what

[00:30:16] you did in the week right so it's like a constant beat down but for most people if you want to go you know two three mile walk keep the activity up sauna ice bath feel free to do

[00:30:25] that i'm gonna be absolutely fine with just don't hit the muscles you already hammered throughout the week right they've got plenty of reviews let them rest let them get the recovery

[00:30:34] focus on your nutrition some people get a little headspin so in that case if 20 or 30 minutes of cardio would satisfy you from where you can get that forward feeling you feel a little better do that

[00:30:46] before you pick up the weights again right you've already done the damage let them recover you don't grow while you're in the gym you grow after you recover outside the gym yeah no absolutely that's that's perfect um preferred diet now again we're in this kind of pool of

[00:31:03] um influence from internet social media every diet under the sun everything from veganism to carnivore a gazillion diets in between do you have a preferred diet whether it be you know is it

[00:31:16] whole food do you have cheap days um what are your thoughts on that if somebody's just wanting to become lean strong healthy improved body composition but they don't really know how to eat yeah so the first thing i would recommend to anyone is get the protein intake

[00:31:33] because protein is going to do a few things where we don't always have to focus on dieting so it increases the height so much to the point where if you just focus on eating the amount of protein

[00:31:42] you need to eat it first you would probably already be in a deficit and losing fat just from the food volume decreasing the next thing it's going to do you need it for lean tissues now we're

[00:31:51] going to ramp up that metabolism by putting on muscle the third thing is the digestive energy consumption of protein is 20 to 30 percent so we're essentially for some people getting stermaster burning calories just by switching that up and so people often favor extreme you know

[00:32:08] keto because you don't eat carbs fasting because you don't eat from here to here carnivore so you don't eat vegetables vegan you don't eat meat and the problem is every one of those has the key

[00:32:18] element of failure and that's restriction so restriction leads to rebellion and i know it doesn't sound sexy on social media because it's cool to do the 75 day hard and all these

[00:32:28] hard programs but you don't build sustainability with that and at the end of the day the turtle on the race it wasn't the hair like if you lose more weight than me in six weeks that's great

[00:32:40] but if i look better a year later you didn't win that race right because there's no end game when it comes to fitness so you have to get something that you can sustain so first step would be

[00:32:50] get the protein and take it into a level that's you know based on your lean tissues so if you're 150 equals to 150 grams 200 200 grams and etc focus on that if you're getting a weight loss

[00:33:00] you need fantastic if not drop some of the carbs or the fat depending on which is easier for you to reduce or give up so it still feels like it's not a punishment to do when you said that it

[00:33:14] just had a thought popped into my mind if if there's a like a delicate balance between macros hitting all of those macros and you are hitting your protein intake which i think is really important given the fact that carbohydrates are really demonized in the media at the moment

[00:33:36] wouldn't it be would it be more preferable to drop the fat because that's there's more calories in fat and consume the carbohydrate as opposed to being more in the kind of keto camp and

[00:33:48] dropping the carbohydrates if body composition is your goal and you want to hit those macros yeah there's there's always a balance to this though right so if we start pulling that fat too low

[00:34:00] yeah all hormones are lipid soluble so males have a lot more leeway when it comes to this now when you're working with females yeah those hormones will go bonkers so again i come from the extreme

[00:34:11] land of bodybuilding okay so if you look at say a natural bodybuilder they do a show and you look at their blood work when they're done they'll have an amazing physique right shreds

[00:34:20] they look great but their testosterone levels like 80 yeah in the tank six eight ten months later it's maybe up to three or four hundred and so their composition goes to hell on handbasket because

[00:34:32] of the formal levels at that point and most of them because it's sexy a bodybuilding right when you can eat the high carbs and be lean but they drop the fat so low that it probably

[00:34:42] is playing a much more significant factor to that so i don't like to demonize one or the other there's always a balance to it and i personally know as soon as i get that fat too low when i'm

[00:34:51] dieting energy levels go through the floor it doesn't feel good body feels achy carbs i can write it out you got to refill it replenish it at the right times if you're doing weight

[00:35:03] training so that would be like your cheat meals your carbs spikes etc and if you get the timing right on those you actually get a fat loss benefit from them while expediting your progress of fat

[00:35:13] loss as a whole yeah that makes sense so if you had to then label each macro with a benefit say protein muscle fat hormones carbohydrate would be what muscle tissue so we got that glycogen we got

[00:35:28] muscle fuel muscle so that's right so if those carbs get lower i'm sure you've had gym sessions where you get up there you're like man i feel good that first set goes amazing and then you're

[00:35:39] like five six and it just feels like somebody came down and painted your chest you're like yeah where's my reps go i just got 10 yeah we'll think that like if you're you know might my folks grow up we

[00:35:49] had old school trucks with the two two tanks well we went to switch that second tank and it was bummed right so you have to go to your carb tank and it's puttering out and that's because

[00:35:58] you don't have any glycogen so at the same time if you carb loaded that day went to do that same work out the next week you'd be able to rep those reps out and this is where tracking the strength

[00:36:06] and tracking the reps will give you more data because now you can see like man by Tuesday i'm just fading on all my sets so maybe you're pushing the diet into hard words if you did a little bit

[00:36:16] more carbs the day before or even that pre-workout meal you could crank the intensity up and it might even speed your fat loss up at that point because you're running in such a deficit prior to

[00:36:26] okay and and timing for that i i've got lots of friends and they like to go they like to train fasted i just don't i like to have the biggest breakfast possible and then i'll get straight

[00:36:38] into the gym and just i feel invincible um what are your preferences on that and do and where do you sit on that um protein window after exercise conventional um advice would say

[00:36:53] you've got that 30 minute window you've got to get that protein in and i've read studies that said it just doesn't matter as long as you're hitting your protein intake over the 24 hour window what do

[00:37:01] you think so i'm more of that thought process i used to be and i still do a shake after i work out right yeah it's not that hard but that's not worried about not putting on muscle is because

[00:37:11] i have to eat so much food throughout the day it's just easier for me to have a shake here then to like wait an hour and try to eat down 10 12 ounces of chicken or something like that right

[00:37:20] but i don't like fasted workouts so usually if you're doing a fasted workout you're also going up there and dehydrated say two so it's kind of a double whammy when it comes to it because if

[00:37:31] you're dehydrated as a little as three percent it can affect performance 10 20 so your training capacity is limited just by fluid and so maybe get up and you hydrate but unless you're drinking

[00:37:41] you know some like pink and milan sea salt you don't have anything to pull that fluid in so it's not even highly functional at that point right if anything is diluting your electrolytes

[00:37:51] you don't have anything to pull it in the muscle so carbs i'm a huge fan of at least pre-training i don't like going up there with nothing in the tank if you're someone who you got to wake up at

[00:38:00] four 800 at the gym at 430 you probably going to lose your lunch if you eat your meal and try to do that so what i recommend in these cases eat like a rice cake or two in the car on your

[00:38:10] way to the gym it's usually light on the gut it'll give us enough carbs at least get some of that workout in they make powder carbohydrates not like a multi-dex trim but like a highly

[00:38:19] rancid liquid something light on the gut that you can actually push in new 20 30 grams in a in a shake or something before you head to the gym so now we got some fuel in the tank to get that

[00:38:29] performance we need but if we go up there fast we are the fuel yeah so you don't have enough for chestache and you're going to fast it's gonna pull something and muscle tissues the

[00:38:40] easiest thing to oxidize at that point for glucose and it will gobble it right up oh the irony in that it's just insane um if i if i decided that you know what i'm going to work out on a Monday and a

[00:38:54] Wednesday and a Friday um and i might do some like walking on the Tuesday and Thursday and the weekend's just going to be a rest day or rest days would you recommend that i do three full

[00:39:05] body workouts or should i just work specific muscle groups on those different days i would do muscle groups for a hybrid of those the problem with full body workouts like on Monday Wednesday

[00:39:17] Friday comes down to that intensity level so if we're looking like a 24 to 48 hour window to recover unless you're going up there and doing like a 60 to 80 intensity your legs aren't going

[00:39:28] to be recovered from Monday or Wednesday so you either have like a very light leg version on Wednesday and doing the upper arm Monday and Friday but what was what we usually benefit

[00:39:39] you the most would be doing like a leg day Monday upper body on Wednesday and then you could do a full body on Friday and now we're hitting everything twice a week upper body usually has a little bit

[00:39:51] better recovery yeah now your guy uh you probably don't want to do legs twice a week so you might want to like the bro split like back and shoulders chest and arms that your legs

[00:40:01] maybe a little bit of fluff pump up stuff at the end yeah that's where you get the upper body and a little bit more frequent but those would be the ways i would split it i'm not a fan of full

[00:40:09] bodies usually past the beginner intro or maintenance stage of the game just because when you start splitting up that many body parts and breaking into it's it's rough i mean that's a lengthy intense workout you feel white everything's higher so i'm not a not a huge

[00:40:27] channel those past like those the intro phase is like week two to four for a client coming right okay i know many people that don't really train legs properly in terms of no squats no deadlifts no

[00:40:43] lunges etc from your from your professional opinion would not training legs to your full capacity impact muscle growth for your upper body yeah so you would get some downsides to it and

[00:40:59] you know you're on that camp legs are my least favorite muscle group three i'm a little top heavy but doesn't look at any less effective on cocktail and so you're going to get a huge growth hormone

[00:41:10] spike yeah that that itself is going to get improved muscle gain when it comes to it but the other thing too you got to figure from a medical standpoint most people are fighting

[00:41:20] putting onto my body fat they need more metabolism that's half your metabolism from muscle right there so it's one of those things like even if it sucks the training it'll mean that cheeseburger

[00:41:30] don't stick right so we can build up that lead tissue right a couple more pieces of pizza week is not making yet gaining on that summit i think it's a fair exchange when it comes to effort

[00:41:41] right so suck it up for that one day a week right make them grow get those glucose sponges developed and then you should be a little bit smoother shale in the afternoon oh boy yeah there

[00:41:50] are very few people that really do revel in leg day it's done properly that's for sure it's mostly the ladies too like guys avoid like the plague they're like i want my boots looking good and

[00:42:00] they run circles around guys all day hey guys are like i would do a couple sets of squat leg curls leg extensions that's good arm day they'll be up there 30 sets cranking it out right

[00:42:09] everything under the sun i do yeah i'm often piled in comparison there are a number of females in the gym that i go to and boy they are so fastidious on all of the glute stuff that they do

[00:42:20] and the legs and the squats and deadlifts and i'm just thinking boy you are like you're strong and you're consistent yeah and i'm for you i'm feeling ashamed well and a lot of it too like

[00:42:29] some of the glute motions like guys gotta choke the ego up because it's kind of fluffy like you don't get up there and start doing a barbell hip thrust as a male and feel super confident

[00:42:38] right now this is kind of an awkward lift that's right at the corner and so i think there's a lot of that they come in anytime you're going up there it's just old school male ego if you're up

[00:42:49] there doing glute kickbacks it's a great muscle building exercise for the glute but your buddy's walking the gym when you're doing that they're gonna be like really yeah this is what you're doing up

[00:42:59] here that's right exactly right i thought you were counting right and so that's easy when i'll just want to look i want to look good in the new gym sharks exactly right what's like with me i'm like

[00:43:09] i make sure i have to hit them because my wife's like you know i'm like okay well i'll prove you wrong i'm getting nitpick right here so i love it um we're kind of coming up on time but

[00:43:23] there's one question i wanted to ask you uh and potentially it's kind of a silly question but unconventional tips to shed weight and people have often said you know you've got to eat more

[00:43:34] to lose more things like that are there any anything that perhaps springs to your mind that people wouldn't necessarily think of a great tactic if they want to lose weight quickly um because typically

[00:43:47] you might think well i'm just going to pull back my calories um and i'm just going to hit the there master uh while i watch tv or something like that i think where most people are going to fail

[00:44:00] with this is they they look for very complicated changes because again like everything's sensationalized these days you got to think of fitness progress kind of like a bow and arrow you don't just push

[00:44:13] the arrow forward right you've got to load it and so if i get slower results on the sale but better results for the long term i'm going to take that back every single time so the three

[00:44:25] areas where people should focus before they start doing any crazy diet any crazy exercises you make sure your basics are checked right like you wouldn't go out and get in a race car and just start

[00:44:35] driving it before you make sure they're tired on it right like so let's make sure we get those so get your moving up right certain amount of steps so if you're only at 4 000 increase a little bit

[00:44:45] five or six water intake make sure you're checking that box 96 to 128 ounces three or four liters for you guys over there uh third protein intake so go for a grand per pound lean tissue or a grand per

[00:44:55] pound body weight that's easier for you if you do those three things the sale the mirror your clothes will do something and unless you were doing everything perfect prior to changing those

[00:45:08] which is highly unlikely from there you can get more advanced get deeper in but i'm a bigger fan of doing the least amount of work for the most amount of output right so i can get more results

[00:45:20] for less in 100 what i'm going to do if you want to go spend six hours a week in the gym two hours a day on the stairs and not making any progress eight more power to you i appreciate the ambition

[00:45:30] but if i could sit there drink water eat protein and maybe work out once or twice a week you can get better progress i'm going to take that back yeah i uh i yeah i share that sentiment absolutely

[00:45:40] um okay so final question um top three tips and you may have already actually just said that but but could make the biggest impact on our overall health and it may be things perhaps that you do

[00:45:56] every day that sit outside of just the training principles it might be something to do with sleep something to do with relationship something to do with alcohol perhaps i don't know oh yeah

[00:46:08] well top three right so i'll get three number one yeah alcohol will not help you reach your fitness well and i won't get any like praise for saying this right it's just the way it is but alcohol

[00:46:19] inhibits the body's ability to burn body fat so the problem is if you're in a body you want to maintain perfect you can have it empty you're not trying to lose body fat but if your goal is to actively lose body fat and you're throwing alcohol you're

[00:46:32] you're pushing pause on the on the on the record right like it's it you're stuck so we want to make sure you reduce or don't want to make that any bit you can alcohol also has a tendency to allow

[00:46:42] people to overeat so okay let's reduce if you're going to do it right instead of cutting out that's fine just you're taking the time horizon out make sure you're not in taking excess calories

[00:46:52] with it when people drink it's usually like cheesy fries burger right all the bad things come in the other thing we got a society now it's really rich in gut health but they praise drinking a glass

[00:47:02] of wine or two at night which is ironic because if you get a wound what do you do you clean it with alcohol to kill the bacteria yeah yet you drink it down and your gut bacteria is all hanging out

[00:47:14] there so what does alcohol do to gut flora it doesn't have a thrive right so it could do an assortment of negative things from that so alcohol won't be your best friend the second when it

[00:47:26] comes to it you have to have a proper resistance training plan in play i would not do cardio before resistance training any way shape or form it just is not going to benefit you from a bone density

[00:47:39] perspective from sarcopenia happens so muscle loss due to age after age of 30 one to two percent every year so if you're four to your 50 you lost 10 15 20 percent of your muscle tissue you got to

[00:47:50] focus on getting that back so you can age more gracefully right and so gravity's not as uh demanding on you you find everything else the third and i don't think people put enough focus on this

[00:48:02] and this is the mental side of it so we and this kind of goes down like the hippie road a little bit right but it is what it is like i do it right i don't have my red locks it just is the way it is

[00:48:13] but with people in a mindset if you don't control where your mind is looking it's going to find negative because that's what it's prone to do from a survival mechanism so if you

[00:48:25] go into a weight loss regime it's going to find every reason why you shouldn't do it every reason why it's challenging every reason why it's difficult so what you have to do is you have to program in

[00:48:35] the positives so then what it's going to end up doing is you've hammered it with this and it's it's a man he's really annoying he's making me think of 10 positive things with this and

[00:48:46] all day it's going to gravitate towards finding that so equivalent of if you got up in the morning and sub your toe the rest of your day would go to the hell on handouts right you're like this day

[00:48:55] sucks there's traffic on the way to work whatever it is right versus if you get up and you start that day good there's a lot there's a lot more likely likelihood that it's going to go a lot

[00:49:04] better so what i find most effective for this is ampm one the other one holds journaling and it's like writing down a list of things like you already have them and that you're appreciative for so if you're if you're trying to lose 20 pounds i'm so happy and grateful

[00:49:21] to be 20 pounds lighter than i started my fitness journey and you're going to be like this is baloney i can't believe i'm writing this down i'm lying myself good do that because if you do that long

[00:49:32] enough the brain's not going to think of a reason why you can't do it it's going to think of a reason why you should because it wants to shut you up be like baby he's so annoying he rises

[00:49:40] not every morning like i'm just going to get in there so i could shut him up so it's like having a steering contest with the donors that work right those don't help me reach my 20 it's always on the

[00:49:49] front of the line yeah and that mental shift goes a long ways when it comes to it it's got to be pen paper it can't be tight right there's a mechanism to it don't try to meet the brain it's a caveman

[00:50:00] brain right we gotta go old school it doesn't know what a typewriter is it doesn't know what a keyboard is you gotta you gotta do some some pen and paper type solid but if you can do that

[00:50:09] switch that focus it works out really good and there's a study on this and it's uh mindset matters and you can look at all paraphrase the numbers on that event but it'll be pretty close to what it is in studying they took like 50 house cleaner like made people

[00:50:23] out of a hotel they took half the group and they said hey what you do if it's a natural accreditation for exercise standard basically what they did is healthy they took the other group and they didn't tell me anything and then they watched it for three months

[00:50:34] the group that they told them that the work that they're doing you know dusting and cleaning all that stuff fits exercise standard lost like six pounds versus a control group wow and only thing

[00:50:44] they did different was tell them what they were already doing was healthy yeah causation or correlation it's still there right whether they started being healthier because they were told they were being healthy or whether they just lost more weight because of that whatever it is I still

[00:50:59] see they lost more weight than the group that didn't so I'm gonna try to shift my brain in a matter of something to help me reach my goal rather than hurt me reach my goal that's brilliant

[00:51:08] that is brilliant I think that that is the best answer to that particular question I've ever had there are so many little gems in there that people can really especially the um alcohol yeah you I've never actually pieced those two two pieces of information together you're

[00:51:22] cleaning a wound with alcohol because you want to destroy the bacteria yeah and of course we drink it ethanol yep it's same stuff exactly so like your liver literally your body shuts down the

[00:51:35] ability to burn body fat it goes I have to get this toxin out yeah let me get rid of it and like I come at this I I'm sober right so I don't drink it all and that I think a lot of people because

[00:51:47] they make socially drink and stuff like that they won't hit it on all those points because they have an emotional attachment to it and the only thing I'm emotionally attached to

[00:51:56] is the results right are you getting what you want if not let's call it out of half it's there I personally I've seen way too much destruction from it to think it's like productive I've had

[00:52:06] you know a couple family members died from it we had a buddy it was uh recovering over a whole like little less uh yeah wisdom I remember he was dead like two weeks after he was out on his own

[00:52:14] right like it's it's a rough it's a rough thing on the extreme socially it's not going to do much for you like nobody's gonna have a social drink and like kill over the next day right so

[00:52:23] I'm not saying that but from a results to benefit perspective you just gotta wait if it's if it's bringing you towards or away from your goal and look at like that fantastic that is absolutely

[00:52:33] brilliant wow this has been a fantastic conversation and we have so many gems here that I really cannot wait to share this with our followers because I know that they're

[00:52:41] going to get so much value from it so what's next for Cody Watkins what have you got I mean obviously we're coming up to the holiday period have you got plans for the new year to do

[00:52:50] anything um perhaps that you haven't told us about at the moment well I got something that your listeners were probably like so yeah I put some together some of my best works on this and so

[00:53:02] this is a whole program system that you can go through it'll have it'll help you figure out where your macros are at what you need to do give you the ideas from that got some

[00:53:11] real recipes in there too to give you some ideas on what to eat and it's packaged all together so all you gotta do for that is if you find out in scram Cody Watkins Fitness just

[00:53:19] deem me of the word freedom 22 and I'll see the link for that over hopefully get you some clarity so you can you know make it through this new year with a little bit more momentum and things like that so

[00:53:29] we take a little bit of pain out of the process that is often far more painful than it needs to be yeah no that's fantastic well we will pop that link in the show nuts as well

[00:53:40] so how can we get more of Cody Watkins you mentioned your Instagram is like is that the best place for everybody to find you yeah Instagram would be the best place I have a

[00:53:48] my Facebook as well I'm much more active in my personal Facebook and the business one but it's Cody Watkins Fitness on Facebook for the business Cody Watkins fit for me I don't do anything but fitness so it's kind of my thing right so that's absolutely it's

[00:54:04] definitely a thing boy you've you've answered all my questions I have today impeccably and so much more and taught me a lot as well which is always the objective I love it fantastic so Cody very appreciative of your time cannot wait to share all of the information

[00:54:19] everything we've spoken about we're going to show notes and really look forward to sharing this with our audience so thank you so much mate it's been fantastic fantastic thank you awesome thanks for listening to our show the health sessions if you would like more

[00:54:47] information on anything health from our blog free ebook or podcasts simply visit www.180nutrition.com.au also if you have any questions or topics you'd like us to see cover in future episodes we would really love to hear from you simply drop us an email to info at

[00:55:06] 180nutrition.com.au and if you listen to us through iTunes and enjoy the show we really appreciate a review in the review section so until the next time wherever you are in the world have a fantastic week