Why You're Sabotaging Your Health (And Don't Know It) - Martin Silva

Most people trying to get healthier are losing a battle they don't know they're fighting. It's not a lack of information. It's not even a lack of effort. It's something quieter — the stories running beneath the surface, the environments they've stopped noticing, the split-second decisions that feel small until they're not.

Martin Silva has spent 20 years coaching people out of the patterns that keep them stuck. A former competitive natural bodybuilder who hit the aesthetic ceiling and found it hollow, he now works with high-achievers in their 40s and 50s — people who are disciplined in every area of life except this one.

In this conversation, Martin unpacks the real architecture of lasting change: why willpower always fails, how your circle quietly shapes your body, why doing less in the gym often produces more, and what it actually takes to stop starting over.

The information was never the problem.

BIG IDEA

It's way easier to avoid temptation than it is to resist it — and no one gets healthy by relying on willpower.

Martin Silva - Contact Info
Website: OptimiseYourBody.com
Podcast: Martin Silva Fitness
Instagram: Martin Silva Fitness

WEBSITE: Stay Off My Kitchen Table

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Theme Song : Rage Against
Written & Performed by Logan Gritton & Colin Gailey
(c) 2016 Mercury Retro Recordings

Any use of this intellectual property for text and data mining or computational analysis including as training material for artificial intelligence systems is strictly prohibited without express written consent from Dr. Philip Ovadia.

Transcript

0:59

Welcome back to Stay Off My Operating Table with Dr. Philip Ovadia. Today we're gonna talk to the future. We're literally talking to the future. Our guest is Martin Silva, who is somewhere on the other side of the planet. Where in Australia are you? I'm down here in Sydney. Sydney, Australia. Okay. So it's it's bright and early here, 7:00 AM on a Wednesday morning. Like you say, we're ahead of you, a day ahead of you. Life is good. Life is good down here. Awesome. Live about 30 minutes away from Bondi Beach, so I can't complain. Very good. Phil? Yeah. Martin Silva. Yeah, excited to have Martin back on. It's been quite a while, probably at least two if not three years since we had him on the first time. And I can't even remember how I originally came across Martin, but glad I did. I think he's one of the real great voices in the space talking about diet and fitness and exercise mindset, which is something that we really want to dig into more today. And it's always interesting getting the world perspective on some of these issues we talk about. We sometimes get a little US-centric but understanding, how metabolic health and fitness and nutrition is being is being experienced worldwide I think is useful for us as well. Like I said, excited to have Martin back on. And why don't you, maybe for people that haven't gone back and listened to that first episode just give a little bit of your background, Martin, talk about what brought you to the space that you find yourself in today, and then we can dig into the conversation. Yeah. So firstly, thanks for having me back on again, Phil. Really appreciate it. And yeah, just wanna just zoom back in on my camera here. Don't know what happened there. Zoomed out. There we go. So really appreciate you having me back on. I was on, I think it was three years ago now, so the time's flown there. And yeah, so I've been in this game now of coaching for 20 years. I've been in the fitness industry now. So I started actually out as a PT back in back when I was 20. I'm 38 now. So I've just coached a lot of everyday people, first of all as a PT for about 12 years, and now I transitioned about six years ago, during COVID actually, into helping people with the nutrition and health stuff, and doing that more remotely now, so doing it all online. What got me into it was I just used to play sports from a young age and fell in love really with lifting weights. I was fortunate that I got into lifting weights at the age of 17, and I actually experienced a bereavement. Someone close to me died as well at the time. So it was actually... Obviously, it was horrendous to go through that, but I channeled that energy then into the gym, and it was just, it was good timing for me 'cause I was 17. Testosterone levels are naturally through the roof at that age. Noticed some results, and then because I played sport, I noticed it carried over into rugby 'cause I'm from Wales originally in the UK. Moved to Australia like nine years ago. So in Wales, rugby's our number one sport. And yeah, I just noticed that I got a lot of benefits from it, and I was always... That was the only thing I was really good at in school was just the active stuff. All the other stuff, I just kinda didn't, I didn't put much effort into school, and then I just I was just always passionate about sports and then I got into training and just loved it. So yeah, the rest is history then really. But really, I transitioned into my 20s and stuff and then I got into the bodybuilding stuff, which I think we touched on last time, competing on stage as a natural bodybuilder. Never, never took anything performance enhancing or anything like that. And then yeah, just it really took me... we can touch on this as well. In terms of the nutrition piece to kinda crack that code and get to a point where I was eating right and I wasn't, kinda yo-yoing a little bit with my weight, which is what happened after, competing and stuff because it's not a healthy thing to do. And psychologically, you- it's not good because you're restricting so much and you're getting down to dangerously low body fat figures. After that, I had some battles with eating essentially. It was emotional eating and all or nothing mentality with food, and I was fluctuating a lot with, weekends. I would... I know a lot of people can relate to this and some might. And it's actually helped me be a better coach, so I'm glad this has happened because a lot of people will relate that actually, on the weekends or social events or when stressful life events happen, we could say for example COVID, when that happened, right? That's when people fall apart with their kinda behaviors because we rely on food a lot. We turn to food. We escape with food. We've got more food available to us, than any other time in human history. So that was my story really. And then fast-forward, I managed to fix that. Took me about two years to, to, overcome that all or nothing mentality and the the kind of... At times it was binge eating, but it was more just emotional eating really on the weekends. And then yeah, fast-forward to now and really I'm really thriving now and I can... I help people who average age is probably 40 or just above 40 So my oldest client is like 67, our youngest client is 29. But generally the average age is people in their 40s, men and women who have a similar mindset to me as well, where it's kinda like the the type A personality, the the high achiever mindset. And they struggle, again, with those same things, with kinda like the all or nothing, and being able to maintain their body to be able to make good decisions with food when they're traveling with work,'cause half of my clients are business owners as well. And, traveling with work busy events a lot of them have kids. And being able to navigate those situations is what I think most people struggle with. And again, that comes down to the piece that Phil was talking about there was, which was the mindset piece. But went off on a bit of a tangent there, but long story short that's my story and and here we are today. We haven't, I don't think we've had a chance to dig in. We've had a few people on the show who have backgrounds in competitive, bodybuilding and fitness, but I don't think we ever really dug into talk about, what that's, I guess, r- that's a lot about aesthetics, we'll say, right? It's it's all about the outward appearance. And maybe talk about, how that might not be, healthy on the inside. But, also I do think there are a lot of lessons that come out of that world that do end up, helping people who aren't, don't have those goals. But it can still help us understand, what some of the things that it takes to become healthy are. From your perspective, having been in that world and been relatively successful in that world, from what I understand, what do you think was health promoting in there and what wasn't? Yeah, this is a really interesting and, I think, helpful talking point for your listeners because, let's be honest, most people from my experience, but I coached hundreds of people, about 80 to 90% of them, if not more, want to improve the way their body looks. Even if they won't admit it at the start, they'll say it's all about health, when you dig deeper, they do. They want to improve the way their body looks most of the time. And I actually met, to give you an example some of the people that I met in that world were the most imbalanced, unhealthy people that I'd ever met in my life- ... and they looked good. And when I say they look good, most of them look mainly good on Instagram, right? When you meet them in person, you could just see in their face they weren't healthy, and they had the... And I was, I kinda fell into that camp a little bit as well, as I mentioned. And really, people were so obsessed, a lot of my kinda peers at the time in that world, people who used to compete, they were so obsessed- With the food and with being lean, that actually they sacrificed a lot of other stuff in their life to to do that. And I talk about this this triangle of awareness to clients. It's very simple for anyone listening. Imagine you've got a triangle. On each three corners of the triangle, you've got aesthetics on one, performance on one, longevity on the other. When you're getting on stage, you're going right to the other end of that triangle, which is aesthetics. And to be shredded and get on stage, as an extreme example it's the maximal distance away from longevity, right? It's a lot of stress, and it's not good for you. Same for performance. If you were gonna do a CrossFit competition or if you're an elite athlete, no one cares about the athlete's abs, right? They get- they- the one thing they've got to do is win. So they've got to do everything they can to win, and that's different to aesthetics'cause you're not gonna be in a calorie deficit. You're not trying to get lean. Generally, you're gonna be eating more and it's again, maximal distance away from longevity. Just give people a bit of a picture there that it's not a healthy thing to do. And what happened then with me in particular, and again, the audience will resonate with this because a lot of people do have, I'd, I like to say body image issues, right? Challenges with their body, when they look in the mirror or might be even dysmorphia, body dysmorphia, which is actually more common than what we talk about even in men. And when you get obsessed with how you look, which is what you need to get on stage and to get to the high level like I did that if you didn't have any body image issues beforehand, you will get them once you've competed. So anyone who competes, I didn't really have any issues before that, then I ended up obsessed with my body. So it's never ever healthy for anyone, right? I'm gonna say that now because like I said, if you haven't got in- any insecurities with your body, if you're all good, you will have some after getting on stage and being critiqued against other bodies, food. So yeah, and then with the food piece, that's another animal. We can go there. I'd like to go to the... I think it's related, but just- ... as you're describing this- ... we talked about how important... You said mindset is 80%. And I'm gonna first- Yeah ... I'm fir- gonna first do a little critique. There's an awful lot of people who call themselves coaches who talk about mindset, and that's about all they have, is just get your thinking right and everything else will be hunky dory. I'm just gonna drop that in your lap and ask you to deal with it I like that. I like that because what mindset. It's so wishy-washy. When we say mindset, it doesn't really mean that much. There's not many people that wake up overweight, for example, right? They don't wake up overweight. There's not many people that are, 50 pounds overweight and they look in the mirror and they go, "I need to change my mindset." They don't think that. They think, "I'm overweight. I'm heavier than I wanna be. I'm fat," whatever goes on in their head, and that's all they think about and it stops there. So what I mean by mindset is, for example, again, what I used to battle with and what a lot of my clients used to or still do in some cases and are working on, is getting out of their own way. So basically what happens is when ... Let's use weight loss as an example. People who wanna lose weight. One of the main reasons they don't lose weight, one of the big reasons why they don't keep the weight off, is because when they get on the scales, for example and the weight doesn't go down one week, which we all know most people do actually. Fat loss is not linear. It never goes in a straight line. It's, your weight's gonna fluctuate. And what happens is, this is a mindset example, people get attached to that number on the scales, and then when it doesn't go down or, God forbid, it goes up by a pound one week, their emotions get involved. So mainly with mindset, it's the emotional patterns. So they'll look at the number on the scale, then they'll, a lot of times, there's research on this, they'll turn to food then, right? They'll emotional eat , use the food to escape the pain of the scales, and that can become a vicious cycle. So it comes down to managing their emotions is one thing, and that, again is what I used to struggle with. I, I got in good shape, but I didn't have full control of my emotions. I was still eating out of boredom, for example, on the weekends. And that's a big piece there. It's people being able to manage their emotions and have other coping mechanisms other than turning to food, right? So emotional eating you could say is separate to mindset, but I would say it's definitely in that category. So that, that's one example Another example is people have what I call a self-sabotage superpower, right? Basically they either procrastinate or they will critique themselves mentally. They have self-doubts all these different things. And then because they haven't got coping mechanisms for those emotions, they will turn to other stuff, whether that's procrastination, perfectionism is another one, right? People might not be perfect, for example, in the week. This is all mindset, right? They might, "Okay, I've done well this week on my food. I was structured. I was on the ball." Gets to the weekend, they might have one meal which they didn't anticipate having, then they go, "Ah, just I'll get back to it tomorrow," right? So they'll hit the off button. And again, this is what I used to do. I'm speaking from experience. Hit the off button."I'll get back to it tomorrow." Sunday comes round. Might start the day well."Ah, I'm going on this social event now," or,"I have a few drinks. Let me start Monday." So it's those split-second decisions that people make that actually keep them stuck and keep them overweight because they're not getting out of their own way. They're not... instead of having maybe they have the one meal and they go, "Okay, that's okay. I'm not gonna be perfect. I'm gonna just eat. The next meal is gonna be good, and I'm gonna get straight back to it," they hit the off button and they essentially end up just, staying overweight, like I said. So that's all mindset related as well. That's like a self-sabotage mechanism. Because they're not perfect, they hit the off button, or turn to food for an escape emotionally then. It could ev- could even be procrastination, right? People will scroll on their phone instead of doing what they should be doing. So yeah. It's a broad one, but let me know if you've got any more questions on that. I'm just curious how you now today, with that background talk to people about, what should be your goals around body composition, around muscle building. Where is that balance between the sort of over-pursuit, that you talked about maybe goes into the fit- the stage world versus what might be reasonable, goals? And again, what are some of the strategies that have been good that maybe you learned from trying to get to those extreme levels that people who are not trying to get quite to those extreme levels can leverage as well? Yeah. Of course. So when I take people on, for example, they might wanna improve their body composition most of the time. In other words, build some muscle, lose some fat. And, the strategy looks obviously it's gonna be, nuanced in terms of the variables with each person, in terms of how we're gonna integrate that and build the structure so they can stick to it.'Cause that's the main thing I'm looking at. We can go into all the science and everything else, but the main thing is I'm thinking, how can I make this person stick to this long term? So the first point though is, it's obviously gonna be the sim- the simple thing if we go from a strategic level with nutrition. It's gonna be, it's gonna be protein intake. So I mean, not everyone has to track their food, but most people it is a good starting point. So most people I take on, I'll have them do that even if it's for just a couple of weeks. It might be for the first month, it might be for the first 90 days. It depends on the person. The goal is obviously always to get them eating intuitively and not relying on an app to track their food. But they'll do that at the start and just make sure that they're h- have an adequate protein. A common thing that I'll see with people, again, they wanna change their body composition. They're just having suboptimal protein intake. Particularly what I see with a lot of people is for breakfast, they might have... They might generally have a moderate amount for lunch and then in-- for dinner they generally people have more, generally. In the morning, they either skip breakfast 'cause they're rushing around, or they just have a extremely low protein breakfast, basically. And then what happens, they don't get enough protein in. They end up eating other foods then because, protein blunts your appetite. They end up ravenou- ravenous in the evening and just not making any progress. So that's a big one, is protein intake. And what I would... just a round number for the audience, it's kinda simple, but it always works, is if you just had a gram per pound of body weight, really. Like it's really hard to go wrong with that if you consistently did that. But then as we touched on before, Phil, as well it's the quality of food as well, right? Obviously, if you're getting protein through protein bars, right? A lot of people think, for example, protein bars, that's healthy. It's just marketing, right? It's basically you're probably better off having a chocolate bar, you know what I mean? But so getting that through whole meats, good quality foods primarily and the most nutrient-dense foods of course, which is animal-based foods is number one. But actually just, it the research is clear now on the percentage of protein as well. It's if you have, out of the calories that you eat, if you have like at least 30% of your calories from protein. And when you track, let's say you use MyFitnessPal or something. When you track your food, it'll pick up the percentages. It tells you, 30% protein, 40% carbs. It shows that for you. If you consistently had over 30% of your calories, ideally 35% to 40% if you really wanna get lean faster and stay lean, you won't go wrong. There's the... You'll just eat less and you'll lose weight. It's pretty simple. But yeah, gram per pound of body weight is what I like to get people to ideally, most people. It's very simple. Yeah, so that's the first one, body composition. Then obviously the strength training as well then. So I know we touched on this before, but a lot of people, this is very nuanced. I think people overlook the training stimulus piece. People go, "Oh, it's it's 90% nutrition or 80% nutrition." I actually disagree with that. The nutrition piece is very important, and without throwing percentages out there, the training piece, having them do strength training appropriately for their body is a big one. Especially as we get older, I think a lot of people fall into the trap of trying to do what they did in their 20s when they're 40 plus training-wise, and it just does not work. Even me at 38, I can't do anything near that I used to do in tw- at 28 and recover properly, and actually even fit that into my life. That amount of training when you've got more responsibilities is just... That's a big trap people fall into as well, so that's a couple of big rocks there. And then obviously, movement as well. Just, that's a big one. You made a... you gave a qualifier there on the weight training that I felt like there was more to it than just the qualifier of age. Are there different- Absolutely ... w- what are some of those... what changes the variables with weight training? Yeah. So it's the amount of stress that you're handling day-to-day, essentially. So it's a good point you make about age, 'cause I think people use that as a n- that one as an excuse a lot actually with the age. Really, metabolism isn't impacted that much with age actually. What they find is actually how much lean body mass you've got on your body, how much muscle you've got, has one of the biggest impacts on metabolism and metabolic rate, for example. But it's the amount of stress your body can handle, to answer your question. So if we look at the simple kind of bathtub analogy, you... or the stress bucket should I say. You've got all this stress coming in. It's all going into one bucket. So you might have work stress, you might have kids to take care of. Even if you had one night poor sleep, for example, most people don't optimize sleep, it's gonna fill that bucket up real quick. You add training on top of that as well, it's an added stress. And what a lot of people don't realize is they're stuck in that recovery trap. So that stress bucket's overflowing 'cause they've got all this stress coming in, and then the body is just not gonna recover appropriately because it's just stress overload. So you've got responsibilities in life, more stress. What else is gonna add to that? Obviously, age plays a part of course in terms of what your body can recover from. Then there'll be the way you're eating as well. A lot of people, going back to what we said, when they're trying to get in shape, they go to extremes. So what they'll do is they'll cut back calories. You know how many times you see this. Cut back calories, go balls to wall with training- I've got this special event coming up. I've got to get in shape. That's what most people do. That's another added stress on the body when you're restricting calories, when you're not doing that the right way. So people create a big calorie... Without realizing it, people try and get in shape. They go, "I'm gonna just move more now. I'm gonna watch what I eat." They do that. Even just doing those two things at the same time, they normally create a big calorie deficit, a massive stress on the body, right? If you add training on top of that as well, people just can't stick to it. It's not sustainable, I would like to... I wanna respond to the stress idea here. Yep. Because I just read this morning Winston Churchill's one of my heroes, and he suffered throughout his life from bouts of depression that he- ... would treat with bricks. If you visit his his home there in Kent there is massive amounts of brickwork, and it's well known from a psychological standpoint that physical activity is one of the best ways... I mean, this has been demonstrated in research. One of the best ways to deal with depression is physical activity. And it... m- so my thought is one of the best ways to deal with non-physical stress, the emotional problems that come with life the just y- you're, you have an intellectually challenging job that involves a whole lot of sitting on your butt. It seems like getting out and just picking up heavy things for a while would be, would actually reduce the stress. Now I'm neither a trainer nor a doctor, so what do I know? But most of my adult life has been dealing in intellectual white collar jobs that don't involve nearly enough picking up heavy things. I've had plenty of emotional stress as well. And it, my, my N of 1 says, all else being equal, if I can just go out and l- lift for 15 or 20 minutes, everything feels a little better. Comment please, Mr. Professionals Yeah, you nailed it. And I know Phil was saying last week on my podcast, he does like the two 15 to 20 minute band sessions to failure. And if I had it my way, Jack to answer your question in terms of the stress piece, because there's two things that's happening when you go to the gym, you lift weights. You've got adaptation, which is where your body adapts to the stimulus. Let's say for you, Jack, 15 to 20 minutes a day you basically it's a stress on the body. But what happens is your body adapts to that stimulus and it goes, okay, so there's a... we have to build muscle to deal with this little bit of insult essentially at the gym, right? So it tries to adapt, which is actually what you want. You want your body to adapt by getting stronger, by getting better at the movements, and by building muscle. Now, if you do the same thing for, let's just say longer than six weeks, you were doing the same kind of training stimulus, if you like, or training phase. You get diminishing returns then generally because you've adapted a bit too much and the body then is, just to put it simply, is too used to what you're doing. Then you've got the other piece, which is recovery, right? So what a lot of people do is they get stuck in that recovery trap because then they're training with too much intensity a lot of the times. So again, it's that all or nothing. I go to the gym, and what a lot of people do, and I used to be here too, where I used to like overtrain, but I could get away with it in my 20s. Where people- Because you were young and- Because I was young. Exactly. There we go. So people will go, they'll go balls to wall, and essentially they're chasing that feeling that they get, and I call them cortisol junkies, right?'Cause they're chasing that feeling of going hard, sweating. How many times I've had clients saying, "Oh, look, man I didn't break a sweat today. Do you reckon I did it hard enough?" And it's yeah, this is not just about sweating, right? And no, that's fine you didn't sweat because the goal here is to lift heavier and get stronger and have enough rest in between your sets, and do the f- 30 or 45 minute session or one-hour session, whatever it is. Not do more than that. People always wanna add more and do more, but because they're chasing the feeling, they like the feeling when they're in there. But what that does then is that keeps them in that recovery zone. So it takes... Even if they're not necessarily, it's not always about being sore either after your workouts. It's, you'll, without realizing it, your nervous system is still trying to recover and then it's, it can only do one of the two. It can only recover or adapt. So it's trying to recover for a day, maybe two days, three days. Where if someone like yourself or Phil you're doing it smart, you're doing the small doses of 15 to 20 minutes, which I would say is better anyway,'cause it's harder to cross that line then with the, and get stuck in that recovery phase. Then you just get results faster because the body can... I- if it's either trying to recover or it's adapted, so if it's recovering, then and it's spending longer recovering than it needs to, it's gonna slow down the adaptation and therefore slow down the results. And you just end up... people have got, people with responsibilities and stuff, right? You end up burnt out, even at my age, I find the less I do, the better. So but for that reason- there's our soundbite for this episode. The less I do, the better. Exactly. Less is more. But no, I, if I had it my way though, just one more point on that. If I had it my way, it's what you said, 15 to 20 minutes a day. Doing it frequently, actually frequency is one of the most important variables now when it comes to getting results, is the training frequency, how often you do it. So doing something every day is way better for most people. The 15 to 20 minutes, if you do it properly, sometimes 30 minutes, it's way better for results because it's harder to cross that line, and yet you're doing it more frequently. So the body loves frequency. You're sending that muscle building signal every day, so pe- most people get better results doing that, but it's really hard to actually get people to do that and stick to it. So I find, say, three, four bodies a week, for most people, maybe 45 minutes, an hour generally is what most people will get better results from and stick to, phil, what's been your experience? You've done... You've been moving to this Dr. Ben's band exercises here in the last couple of months, where you were doing weight training with iron before. Have you noticed a difference in recovery? I think the pacing of doing it twice a week, right? And, I do other stuff on the other days, but, doing this specific protocol twice a week and, being those short sessions I haven't noticed any issues, being able to recover, right? Being able to be ready for the next one. A- and that is different than what I see with a lot of people that are out there thinking,"I gotta be in the gym every day, and I gotta be, really working at it every day." The magic happens during the recovery, right? We talk a lot about or there's a lot of kinda science around, right? Most of our muscle building actually occurs while we're sleeping. For instance, and you need to get the stimulus in the gym, right? You're not just magically growing muscles when you sleep. But if you've had the proper stimulus, at the, doing your workout, you've given your body the inputs, right? The protein. When we sleep is when the body's able to bring that all together and say, "Okay, this is when we're making muscle." I agree on the importance of all of that. So what do you do- You nailed it. Yeah, the magic happens in the recovery. That's it... what do you do to optimize, is optimize your body? I can't- That's right. Yeah ... optimize your body. What do you do to optimize sleep? Oh, bloody hell, what don't I do? I do too much. I got the I got the Eight Sleep thing. I've got the Oura Ring to track it, which, which does help. Obviously, the Eight Sleep, by the way, I've done... W- why am I giving them adverts here? They should be paying you guys, man. What am I doing here? Anyway, Eight Sleep is is the thing you put on your mattress. It's like a, it's like a cover that you put on there, and it cools the bed down. It's got the AI thing on there. Anyway, so I have that which, which seems to help a little bit with my sleep, and I track it using the Oura Ring as well, just so I can be aware of it. So that's one thing that has actually been really helpful over the years. It was, like, maybe five, six years ago where I started tracking my sleep. I started off with one of those Whoops, then I got the Oura Ring, and it just made me aware that actually when I was... I thought I was getting maybe eight hours sleep, 'cause I, let's say, would go to sleep at 10:00, wake up at 6:00 AM. But you don't realize until you track it that actually you're not sleeping for that whole time. So you wake up without realizing it, 'cause you're still semi-conscious. And I was like, "Oh, wow, so I'm actually awake for 45 minutes to an hour, so I'm actually getting seven hours. Some nights six and a half." So that, that simple thing there, what gets measured can get managed, that was really helpful for me. And also, what I really picked up on with that was the food thing as well. It made me really tighten up on not eating even within within three hours minimum before bed, but four hours is the sweet spot, 'cause I like to have quite a big meal in the evening. So giving it four hours for me before bed means I don't get any y- my heart rate would go up, and it would impact recovery. So that's a big one with the digestion piece. I just have a pretty good bedtime routine where I just, no electronics at least an hour before bed. Ideally 90 minutes. So I like the I like the 3, 2, 1 method, which I, talk to clients about, where it's no food at least three hours before bed. No fluid at least two hours before bed. One hour is normally suffice for people as well with that. And then no blue lights, so no phone, no laptop, ideally no Netflix at all, at least an hour before bed. So three, two, one. So that's something I go by. But yeah, that's, that bedtime routine is where most people fall down, because the cognitive stimulation before bed is... it seems to be the biggest thing that disrupts, REM sleep and stuff. If you're on your phone, you're doing work stuff especially- Yeah stress-related stuff, no good. So that's it really for me with the sleep. It's the awareness, the bedtime routine, and then just, yeah, going to bed at roughly the same time. I think that regularity seems to be the most important thing. One of the most important things, going to bed at the same time. What do your clients most struggle with? What category of fitness problems do they struggle with the most? Ooh. I'm thinking about, the stress, sleep food, exercise, and I don't know, there's probably one more. I'd say the big one- What are the what are the biggest categories? You know what? The big one, which we haven't actually talked about, is environment. So if you look at social influence, they... i'll get into the client stuff, but basically if you've got a friend who's obese, you've got, give or take, about a 50% higher chance of being obese yourself, right? That social influence, we know who we're surrounded by. Even if you've got a friend of a friend who's obese, you've got a 20% higher chance of being obese yourself, right? So that's the biggest cha- one of the biggest challenges for my clients is what they've got going on at home, their circle. We have our community which helps them a lot, but their immediate circle that they live in every single day, for example, they might have, let's say they've got a partner who isn't necessarily on the same path with getting in shape or getting healthy- and everything else. That can be a tough one to navigate there as well because then they constantly have got the temptation of different foods or the social events to compete with. And I always say to clients it's way easier to avoid temptation than it is to resist temptation. Willpower cannot be relied on. All right? No one gets super healthy and in shape by relying on willpower. So that's the thing. And I explain to them on that note as well that, where they fall down is they don't have a system in place. So I like to almost think of discipline as like a system. So they will ha- let's... A simple one is where they could fall down is by keeping certain foods in the house, right? Or whatever. So you could keep food in the house, you're prompting yourself to fail essentially, right? You keep processed foods or snacks in the house- y- you're not gonna be able to rely on willpower. You're probably gonna eat it at some point, and you're gonna fall down. You take it out of the house that's a bit of a system now, right?'Cause you've got that barrier in the way. You've got friction in the way, another client, for example, tracking food helps a lot of my clients, and they struggle with maybe making good decisions with food, of course. They'll have a... One of them had a prompt on their phones, which just remind them each day to track their food. Simple stuff like that's a system as well. So I think not having a system in place and not having that structure with what they're doing, especially with food. So we've got the weekends, where they'll go into the weekends and they won't have an idea of "Okay, I've got these social events coming up." And if they don't plan ahead, even if they're going to a restaurant, for example, looking at the menu in advance, right? Simple stuff like that, where they don't pre-plan, that's something that they would struggle with as well. Or even going into their week or going on a work trip. Pack a gym kit, right? Th- this is all ideas of a system and prompts to help you win, and that's where people fall down. They don't have those simple prompts, and they don't plan ahead, and they don't just really apply that discipline to to succeed, yeah, great points. And one of the barriers that I think that oftentimes comes up from people or one of the excuses maybe we'll call it is time, right? Yeah. And everyone's I don't have time. I don't have time, I don't have time to prepare and find good food. I don't have time to, put the ex- do the exercise." So how do you... I think what you said just applies well, right? It's really about, getting the system in place so that you do have the time, the... but what are some of the tips that you oftentimes are are using with people to help them recognize where they have time, they're just not prioritizing it perhaps correctly? Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that, 'cause now we're getting into the real stuff of mindset. Just real quick what you said then, an example."I don't have time." So this is everything wrapped up in mindset. It's the beliefs people have and the stories they tell themselves. Anyone listening to this, if you are stuck and you're thinking,"I can't break through this," the main reason why is the story... Yeah, obviously we could talk about systems and all the stuff we did, but it's the story you're telling yourself."I don't have time" is a common one, right? Or I just... They might look at someone who's, compare themselves to other people who are in shape and say, "Oh, I just I love my food too much," right? That's one I hear. I just love my food too much. I can never do that." But that's etched in the subconscious mind, so they believe that- So they have to like rewire that in a sense. So sorry, you were asking then about when people say they don't have time, for example, h- how to get people to overcome that and factor it in. So that then is just a, it's a pattern interrupt, right? So what people do is, yes, the beliefs, they don't believe they can do it. They've told themselves they haven't got time. But also it's they haven't got realistic targets to hit, a lot of people, and they're not being... They're... It's just it's not a smart approach. They might think with time, a common thing is people think they've got, they actually think they've got to, go to the gym most days of the week. Most people, "I gotta go to the gym every day. I gotta make sure that I overload my body." And they look into all the science of training to failure and doing an hour every session. You don't need to do that. You actually need to train smart, and you can actually do way less time in the gym to get the results. You actually don't need as much time as what you need, number one. Number two then, now the food piece, it can get a bit more tricky with that because let's be honest, if you're preparing meals and stuff, that's gonna take time. So either, A, rather than going into your week, going with the flow into your week like some people do, it's just getting ahead on the weekend, right? On a Sunday, very simple, just get some of your main meals together. And I also think with the piece there that you mentioned in terms of essentially like excuses and stories we tell ourselves, having the same meals, there's nothing wrong with keeping it extremely simple. And I like to get clients, and even myself, to have three to five or four to six staple meals that you just rotate, and you keep it extremely simple doing that rather than trying to, be over, overcomplicate with things. So that, and I think there was a recent study that found people lost like 35% more weight by basically eating the same foods every day. Now, obviously you want to make sure you're having the nutrient-dense foods that we touched on, the animal-based foods and everything, but even just having protein available as well. It can be that simple of planning your week. What days am I gonna train? And I think another one with the time piece is actually putting it in your calendar. So I get clients that actually... 'Cause everyone puts their meetings and everything in their calendar, the stuff that matters to them. And if you look at someone's calendar, that's what you prioritize. It's as simple as that. So if you prioritize your health, why not put your workout in there or something? Add your workout in there, even if you've... Sometimes even when you go on a walk or whatever it is just add it into your calendar, at least your workouts, so you're planning ahead. Yeah, so I think that's the important piece, and just having lean protein available. An example of planning is as simple as having meat available to eat. Just have some meat in the fridge or, have some meat available to eat when you're going to work. Very simple stuff. It's like it's not rocket science, but people overcomplicate things, and then once again they tell themselves they haven't got time or whatever it is. That, that makes me happy, makes me feel good simply because- For lunch today, I had a cold leftover steak from last night. We had a, we had, did two podcasts today. I had a brief amount of time I could eat something. I wanted something good, and I remembered, oh yeah, I've got that steak in the fridge. I'm telling you folks, cold steak is pretty awesome. It doesn't have to be hot It's gotta have, it's gotta have some fat on there though. I love a cold steak if it's got a little bit of fat on there, you know what I mean? Like a nice scotch or rib eye. Definitely. Yeah. It, whatever it was, a little salt on it, I was a happy man. I absolutely was. I like the cold- What's one of, what's one of your favorite stories? Favorite stories? Yeah. Any story or how far do we wanna go here? Let's make it, let's make it health coaching related. Okay, cool. I'll think of one now. Just a quick one on that. You touched on something which I don't wanna skip over actually- Okay about having meat that you cooked the night before available in the fridge just like you did and had for lunch. I get clients to do that. It's so simple. And another thing then on top of that is if you keep the food from the night before when you cook your dinner, keep some leftovers, and have wh- what you would eat for dinner for breakfast. If you're someone who doesn't eat breakfast and you fast, cool. But if you are, then do that. It's very simple. Having what you have for dinner for breakfast actually works wonders 'cause you're having more of a complete meal, it blunts your appetite, and it's a great way to start the day. So I wanna get that one in there. Let's get into the the story. Let me think of a story. Oh man, I've got so many. I think really powerful ones are the ones where people really reverse diabetes. This has happened a lot of times where I had one client, and he was 51 at the time, and basically he was pre-diabetic. And within, I think it was three or four months, he completely reversed that. So he was completely out of the range. He dropped a pretty significant amount of visceral fat, and he was just blown away. He was just like, "I can't believe how simple that was." And in his defense, he was someone who was already disciplined with training, so he trained for years lifting weights, so he had that piece covered. But it was like, okay, let's just dial in the nutrition. Once again, he was undereating protein, overeating sugar, and just overeating food in general. We switched that up so he had more protein, more animal-based foods, especially more grass-fed beef and stuff. And m- he walked a little bit more. He actually, I actually got him to do, believe it or not, this is, might be count a bit of a weird one. A what's it called? The controversial one. Got him doing less cardio- He was overdoing the cardio piece, and I think a lot of people do that too, where they go in hard with cardio. But as Phil has said before, it's ineffective for fat loss. It's good for... It's a good tool for health, but he was doing that. So we just did more strength training, more protein. Naturally, when he was eating more protein from wh- this is a really magical, simple thing that happens. When people eat more whole meats whole food and protein, they naturally just have less desire to eat the other stuff, and they naturally stop eating the other stuff. I remember he went to the shop on his birthday, and he was like, "I went on my birthday to get these things, like these sweets I used to eat." And he's walking around the shop. He's "I don't want any of those things anymore, I just, I have no desire." So yeah it's mad. It's crazy what people can do in terms of metabolic health, like reversing s- and that's happened several times, and there's loads more stories. Even hypothyroidism as well. I had one girl do like reverse dieting, which is essentially just eating enough to build muscle, so actually building muscle, and she maintained her weight. Her weight went up a tiny bit actually, and within four months she reversed hypothyroidism as well. So when you take the right approach and when you eat to build muscle and you make some other lifestyle changes and nutrition of course, it's crazy what can, what the body can do, what it can repair. Amazing. Phil, how long did it take you to lose that 100 pounds? Initially it was probably close to two years, I would say. A year and a half, two years for the initial to come off. If you knew then what you know now, do you think it would've been faster or about the same? H- honestly, I don't think it necessarily should be faster, right? I think what we oftentimes see is faster weight loss is usually less sustainable. Yeah. I would tell people if you have that much to lose, you should plan on it taking, a while. Because if you find some, whatever it is that, m- that might make you lose it faster, you're probably not losing it in a healthy way, and the natural... it's not going to sustain. I think that would be advice that I would give. As we're wrapping up, I guess I'd love to hear from Martin what you're seeing over there in Australia in terms of the conversation around food and health. Here in the US- we've had a, a renaissance we'll call it, right? We got a new food pyramid. It's in the conversation, now health and wellness. I think, it's in the societal conversation. And, while I have my, I would say, cautious optimism that we're really gonna be able to turn this ship around, and I'm just wondering what you're seeing in Australia around that. Yeah. So we're just so far behind, from what I can see, which is nowhere near... Obviously you guys got the, the new government, you got the food pyramid, you got, JF Kennedy making change. JF Kennedy it isn't it? No, Robert Kennedy. Robert Kennedy. Robert. Robert, not JF. Robert Kennedy making changes. But here we haven't really got much action going on with the government, to be honest. There's not much going on here. It's the usual stuff. Actually, people are definitely getting o- more overweight here, for sure. And with we're not on America's level, of course, with obesity, but we're not too far behind, I believe. So where I live in a little bubble here in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. So for anyone else, it's like where Bondi Beach is, right? The famous beach. And everyone here is in... It's crazy because you forget that you're living in the 1 to 5% of Earth. Because everyone here- Yeah... when you walk around are fit and healthy, and in shape. So on a whole, we're way behind. We're not making much progress as far as the government goes. That being said, we have a lot of great podca- That's the great thing with the day and age we live in nowadays. We have a lot of great podcasts out there where people in Australia are tuning into from all over the world. We have some good Aussie podcasts here as well in the health space. So thank God for that really,'cause people are getting the right information now. But again, the information is it doesn't seem to be working either, right? People got the information, but they're still, most people are still not doing it, that's where the behavioral piece comes in and all the stuff we talked about, that, that kind of environment piece, like for e- an example- Yeah ... is being around here, the environment you're in, even if it's subconscious, everyone's fit and healthy, it's easier to be fit and healthy, whereas when people live out west, like they go further west, loads more people are obese and overweight. And again, it's their environment again, which plays a big part in that, that's a really good point. It's easier to stay fit when you're around fit people, and it's probably easier to be not when you're not. Absolutely. I'm certainly hopeful that, it, it was the lousy nutritional advice coming out of the US that got most of the world into this problem. There we go. So hopefully we'll be able to lead the way and, people will follow our change of course as well. And like I said, there's still plenty of work to be done here, but I am optimistic. I was just this past weekend at a large carnivore-focused conference here in the US. And I was talking to a number of Australians and I know they said they have some conferences and stuff coming up as well. Hopefully you'll see the groundswell that we are seeing here. Awesome. It's been great catching up with you yet again. Let people know where they can find you, find out more about everything you're doing. Yeah, sure. So you can find me on Instagram. It's @martinsilvafitness. It's where I post a lot of my stuff. But the main one is definitely the podcast to wanna go check out. And on YouTube it's just, my name is Martin Silver Fitness on there, but I post the podcast in video form on there. And then it's just Optimize Your Body is the name of the podcast on like Spotify and all the the audio platforms. Yeah, and then just optimizeyourbody.com is is my website basically. And I also have a free metabolic assessment on the website as well, and I think you'll find that on most of the podcasts as well. It takes two minutes and it gives them a metabolic health score and bit of a plan as well, which is free. So go check that out. Very good. All right. Our guest has been Martin Silva. Apparently the future is bright, at least 14 hours into the future. It is bright. Bright and sunny. For Dr. Phil Ovadia, this has been Stay Off My Operating Table. Thanks for joining us. We look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks for having me on again, guys. It was an absolute pleasure.