Are you one of those people that works out, but never loses weight? John Lesko, our guest this week on TKMC Podcast, was an avid swimmer, and relatively healthy. However, genetics and other issues came on in his early 20s, and his doctor said that his regular swimming was the only thing keeping John from going on blood pressure medicine. John shares his keto journey with us, including the loss of his parents and the birth of his son within a few months, and how he went from feeling a variety of physical challenges to crushing personal records, gaining boundless energy, losing his "hangriness" and mental clarity. Plus, John is Low Carb Papa, a food blogger... it's a fun, fast-paced episode to enjoy!
Are you one of those people that works out, but never loses weight? John Lesko, our guest this week on TKMC Podcast, was an avid swimmer, and relatively healthy. However, genetics and other issues came on in his early 20s, and his doctor said that his regular swimming was the only thing keeping John from going on blood pressure medicine. John shares his keto journey with us, including the loss of his parents and the birth of his son within a few months, and how he went from feeling a variety of physical challenges to crushing personal records, gaining boundless energy, losing his "hangriness" and mental clarity. Plus, John is Low Carb Papa, a food blogger... it's a fun, fast-paced episode to enjoy!
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0:03
Hello and welcome to the Keto Mans Club Podcast. We're glad you're here. We're each week to talk about men's health and lifestyle. We do so with the foundation of the ketogenic diet and lifestyle. If you don't know what keto is, stick around and you'll find out podcast will bring you real honest fun. Each week we strive to uncover the tips and tricks that you can use in your everyday life to maximize your overall health. Find the clearest path to becoming the best version of yourself that you are.
0:35
Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Keto Mans Club Podcast. My name is Chris and I'm one of your hosts. today. I'm joined by as always by Jim and Alberto. How's it going, guys? So far, so good? Yes. As you You are a little hoarse there. Alberto, how about you What's going on? Oh, we're doing good. We had a couple days of just what I would consider miserable weather for Texas, which really isn't that bad for most of the big guys.
1:00
But the sun decided to pop out today which always makes my job a little easier. So I got no complaints with that. Yeah, absolutely. And same thing here the The worst part about is that like duck it forms in my backyard my dogs go romping through it and tracking mud everywhere as best as they're able to. But that's why we have a couch cover and staying concrete because it's easy plane. So
1:26
that's Yeah, so what's what's new in your world, Jim?
1:32
Well, I have been doing some more job training, which has involved commuting and sitting in front of a computer all day. So a little bit off my game for the last week or so. But otherwise, you know, you just keep on grooving kind of thing. So if that's the worst thing, it's not so bad. Yeah, absolutely. Not too terrible. Alberto. what's what's new in your world. We're expecting something soon. I'm hoping
2:00
We haven't done it. I'm hoping that we were able to figure out a way to retrieve that something. working on it. We're gonna we're having a adulting scheduling issues with kids basketball games, and this kid doing that this could do in the other. So we're still working on it. Okay, everything's ready to rock. We're just not quite there yet. It sounds sounds like something that would be incredibly easy, but it's just we just keep missing each other. Yeah, it's all good. And for those listening, the answer to that is that what we're talking about is the shirts, the shirts are printed. They're ready. And as it stands, right now, we're just waiting to actually pick them up from the, from Anthony who did the printing. So with, with that being said, t shirts by the time this airs should be at least in the mail, because I have all the labels here and, and all of that, so that's gonna be gonna be good stuff. For sure. They look awesome from the photos I have. Yes, I'm very anxious to see that in real life.
3:00
To speak yep I got yeah I couldn't tell was it almost a metallic gray? Or was it just gray? You can't you really can't tell from the picture once we get our hands on it to be able to tell but I mean if it although the way I've gauged it is I bought three of his shirts of his crooked kings clothing shirts, I'm on three of his shirts two of them I bought on purpose just to check the quality of the last one I just really liked I bought that one and I honestly all three of them I'm very impressed with the quality very impressed with the quality the shirt itself very impressed with the quality of the screening on there. So I really don't expect anything different once we pick up ours. We just got to figure out how to make it
3:35
happen. Absolutely. Well we will do that. And as long as there's no sequencing on them, I'm in good shape. Yeah, so I'll I'll put my bead as literally
3:48
no way you have the shirts in Texas at my shirt coming to Indiana.
3:56
You know what, and now that I'm saying all of this, I should never have said anything.
4:01
Don't forget I have I have two daughters so that is in this house are aplenty it would it would be really easy to get some fabric glue and a little bit of yeah my in that comes you know I only know that because my mom is like the queen of all like she she could she could be Martha Stewart so you know it's hard crafting goes so well Berto your daughters are welcome to decorate my the envelope and everything on the outside all that they want
4:31
I'll compromise and give you that I will let them know you might get surprised with it with an individual drawings is made just for you to draw. That's perfect, totally perfect.
4:44
Well let's jump into shoutouts real quick and and all of that Jim How about we start with you. So I am I'm pulling it back out because I was looking I lost my I lost my page here on on Facebook. This gentleman just joined our group literally today. I think
5:00
This post is eight minutes old. So George is getting the shout out because he literally new member eight minutes shared his first post 41 years old flooring installer. April of 2019. He went to the doctor, he was diabetic with liver problems, high blood pressure,
5:17
and 404 pounds. He writes against my doc borders. I started keto because she wanted him to have gastric bypass surgery. He doesn't he wrote, quote, I figured failure like usual. In a week I went back and he had dropped down to 383. So a little over 20 pounds in 10 years for three more months. No more diabetic diabetes medicine, blood pressure was normal. And he has dropped 164 pounds. He's down around 240 now and he he wrote in the group that he's been in groups before and gets tired of seeing peasticks and FIM feminine discussion. I'll just abbreviate his
6:01
For the ladies who might be listening, including bertos mom, so
6:05
she's going to George on his 200 and or excuse me, 164 pounds lost and looks awesome and the side by side picks, so great job. Absolutely. And his results will be much, much better in the long run from any thing that he could have gotten from the gastric bypass. That's a bandaid on a on a wound in terms of obesity and all of that it doesn't fix the behavior that caused it. Yeah. What's what sides are behavior driven, of course, at all, in my personal opinion. So Alberto, who is your shout out for the week, mine's gonna be an oldie but goodie. Let's try not to be happy. I said,
6:43
but a little john Hawkes. You know he's a guy hasn't stopped hustling. You haven't heard from him a whole lot lately. You know, he still pops in now. And then I get text messages from him almost every morning and he's still out there working out doing his thing, getting his grind down, working harder. You know, he just posted a picture just over the weekend.
7:00
of the picture, it was at him with a couple different bands, and that he actually noticed the difference in how he looked. And there was a remarkable difference. And you know, that guy works unbelievably hard and has a goal in mind, and he's not gonna stop until he reaches it. So well again, shout out to Jeff. Yeah, absolutely. And he's an excellent example of somebody who's been working his butt off, but not necessarily losing a ton of weight. But you can see visually a body composition change and what he's doing and so a passionate fairy tale and encouraging moment to say, Hey, guys, that your weight hasn't changed a lot. How's the waistline? How's the shirt fit? How's the pants that are falling off? Those are those are better measures sometimes than just looking at the numbers on the scale. So that's an excellent reminder. I am going to shout out Nicholas walls. He posted a picture yesterday and he is 160 pounds down and he says about
8:00
40 to go and he's looking good. So shout out to him good job for him for him doing what he's doing. You start at 417. And he is aiming for about 220 according to this, so he's going to get there in no time, I'm sure. So congratulations to all of them. So let's talk about something here real quick because we're, we see a lot of folks and I personally am one of them, that get to a point in their weight loss side of things that they kind of get stagnant for me, I after regaining a little bit, I landed at about 230 and now I'm a very healthy to 34 my height, it works pretty well. And so and I'd say say this and have said this without issue quite a few times that I would I am and would continue to be perfectly happy to be
9:00
230 for the you know for the rest of my my life just because I feel like that's a good weight for me as far as weight goes, but I wouldn't mind getting down to about the 200 because I'm healthy now but let's change the body composition a little bit let's see what we can get as far as muscles go things like that. So let's go around the horn for it you can call it stall you can call it you know ways of finding the next lever. Well, let's start with Jim and and then I'll give some of my thoughts and then we can get our bear to slots too. So Jim, what would you say your your top 10 some trips that you've seen and heard would be for this for if we are in I apologize for that may have cut out for our individual stalls or for anybody going through a stall for anyone going through a stall that you know the things that
10:00
They could do to help make sure. Okay, just double checking. So I think one of the first things would be is to take a step back and get the high level view of what you're doing terms of what you're eating, what you're putting in your body, what you're drinking, how much water you're drinking, your exercise content, all of those basic things that, you know, if you start out on this way of eating, and you measure out portions and everything, and then after a month or so you kind of get into the eyeballing and thinking, Okay, well, this is where it is. And then, you know, if you start stalling when maybe your eyeball has your prescription has changed, and you may not be doing exactly what you thought you were doing before or something along those lines. So I think it's kind of that the first thing would be that high level overview of what you've been doing. And I think, and I apologize, I wish I could pull his name out of the top of my head here. We had a guest on a while back that was talking about how he and his wife would look at the
11:00
Food health and whatnot of people. And they also look though at like Christians that they were taking the medicines they were taking because some of those can be counteractive to losing weight and whatnot. So really putting it all on paper. And doing that review, I think is a great starting point to kind of rebalance re re examine. Agreed, agreed. I think that's a the thing that I've been hesitant to do just because I've been lazy, in my own style is really tracking what I'm putting into my system for a conservative amount of time. So that I can do sure that I can take stock calorically I underfeeding myself actually I've been feeling like I've been under feeding myself not over feeding myself lately. Potentially. Am I getting enough protein? Am I getting too little? Am I getting too much? And what am I possibly eating too much nut butter and then skyrocket.
12:00
My carbs, things like that. So tracking is absolutely something that I need to do and I just need to not be lazy in that regard. I've done it before I need to do it again. I think that that's a good thing. Let's see another thing that I've
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seen in some cases, and I think Berto would agree with this is that sometimes we actually need to decrease our activity level, not because we should do less, but sometimes we're over taxing our system, and it goes into akin to but probably not exactly adrenal fatigue, basically just our whole system ends up getting over driven because we're in the gym too much or we're working too many hours or just up too many times or drinking too much caffeine. Probably one for me that you know, our bodies so simulated doesn't get to really get into the restorative processes and drain away the things that no longer need.
13:00
And so that would be my tip. Alberto, what are your thoughts? I mean, this can go in so many directions. And just to just to start off piggybacking off what you're just saying about tracking everything, there's a up and downside to tracking. downside is it it is kind of a pain, you know, because if especially if you start making recipes and you have to start tracking recipes and entering recipes and entering serving sizes and all that, but the beauty of that is if you commit yourself to it, it really makes you think if what you're about to cook is worth the effort. And if what if what you're about to eat is not worth the effort of putting an entire meal and until your recipe into your whatever you're using for tracking then you probably don't really need it, you know, you can always default to steak and egg. And you know, steak and eggs are easy to track a ground beef and eggs are easy to track. So, like I always like to say is the juice worth the squeeze? Yeah, you can make this giant elaborate recipe that's going to be delicious. But if you can't track it, you know is like how bad do you really want it you want it bad enough to put that effort.
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And then on top of that, I think everybody at any point in time should absolutely figure out what their maintenance level calories are, even if it's just a caloric number, you know, eat men keep eating and then bump that number up little by little by little until you actually start to gain weight, then when you start to gain weight, and you know, you're probably just above your maintenance level, and you dial it back a little bit, and then you just got to try to ride it out for a few weeks, extended amount of time and and see if your weight doesn't change for a few weeks. And if your weight doesn't change for a few weeks, then then you know what your personal maintenance calorie level is. And you can make a very, very educated decision on what you want to do from that point forward. Very cool. And then you you had something that you mentioned to me while we were kind of off air there for a second. Oh, yeah, the Holy Trinity. And we all we all have our struggles with this one. We all talk about time it's a nutrition Kido. For the most part, we'll take care of that training and recovery which asleep. Sleep doesn't cost a thing.
15:00
Just time but for some reason it myself included and no one can ever get enough of it. The best thing you could do for yourself, regardless of whether you're trying to book whether you're trying to lean out of a and the best thing you could possibly do for yourself is the easiest thing in the world to do that nobody does enough of and that's just get enough sleep. Yeah, I am a chronic under sleeper. And so that absolutely is probably a factor for me. And for my my inability to kind of break through this, I had a rare for me like 10 or 11 hour sleep period, where I slept in really, really long and ended up getting on the scale, just out of curiosity. And sure enough, I was three pounds lighter that day than I was the other day, you know, the previous day or two, you know, and so these little little things make big changes. Now I've got back up that three pounds. So it's not like three, three pounds of true loss, but it shows that sleep was absolutely a factor and can be a factor in all that. So okay.
16:00
Well, that's enough of our banter. And all of that we do have it guests that we want to get into. JOHN Lascaux has joined us and we are so excited to have him on and get to talk with him. He. So john, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Chris. I just before we get into everything, I just want to thank all of you for having me on. I really love the group a lot. It's just like so so completely like impressive to me that you have a
16:29
be you social media that you have something out there for, for keto guys that just allows them to be like, sort of like a little bit vulnerable, I guess, to be able to share, like so many personal stories that are gonna help each other. So I know it's, it's certainly like helped me a lot and I'm very appreciative of its existence. So thanks for having me. Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about john what what's life like you what, you know, what is it that you do on a day to day basis, what's the family look like now? Things like that.
17:00
Well, I it was it was funny this we had some of us who could kind of talk for I joke around a little bit about being like a homemaker, I joke with my wife and say that I'm like the trophy husband or the man candy around here, just sort of like post, post, post weight loss, right? But ultimately that like day to day I do, I guess as far as professionally I would do. I said, I do two things. I have a food blog, a low carb food blog that I started about two, three years ago, that was just one of these things that in the process of me losing about 100 pounds, and I did it through the result of a clinic. I didn't really particularly like a recipe book and set out to just make things that I personally would want to eat. And so I just basically started to take these things and put them online and just created a blog out of it. And that's something that I've been able to do sort of like on a on a hobby basis, off and on, depending upon like what's going on at home.
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Besides that I I'm definitely like for lack of a better term like I'm I'm the chief homemaker here like in my money that we can all survive on that and we like to handle a lot of things ourselves like with the boys we homeschool don't really eat out restaurants a whole lot like everything is home cooked. I'm the primary caretaker for them for most of the time and so that's they're really like very much my life and what I spend most of my time on besides the blog when I have time for it. Absolutely. So let's get started into your health journey where the suck pre keto growing up what was what was health like to you? Were you active and, and kind of lead us up into but not necessarily in? Not into exactly keto sure as as a as a kid I guess I would say like I joke and say that I had a lot of like mac and cheese and hot dogs as a kid. Parents are great parents. My mom, dad, great
19:00
dislike the food was disliked not necessarily something that was really like focused on or that was was a strength I think it was like very much like a different time and so
19:12
we I was always like fairly a fairly skinny kid and fairly lychees I was definitely not somebody where there was there was any kind of like a weight problem to speak of. I was a competitive swimmer from about the age of like eight or nine. So I'm for YMCA and high school and then swam in college as well. Pretty Pretty like skinny throughout, maybe skinny to a point that like, I'm definitely somebody that falls into the category of being like a hard gainer as far as like muscle mass goes. And so
19:42
sort of leading up to when like how I got hooked up with keto, I was still in college and I was a collegiate swimmer. So like training volumes through the roof and and I had a
19:53
checkup with my physician, I think it was like before my junior year and my blood pressure was high and he said something that
20:00
Very much got my attention. He said, The minute you stop swimming, you're gonna be in here and you're gonna be on blood pressure medication. And like this is literally the only thing that's like keeping your blood pressure down. And I was I didn't think a lot about it at the time. And but that's sure enough what happened it wasn't immediately after I was done so many but it was pretty pretty soon thereafter, I immediately started to gain weight, like a lot of ways. Very quickly 122 was put on blood pressure medication, and basically told, don't bother trying to get off you're gonna be taking this for life. This is just how you are there's not nothing that you can do. And so that's that's basically what I had resigned myself to. And I just want to clarify, did you just say that you were 22 years old? Yeah, definitely. It was it was quite high. I it was it was like it was high enough. That was like 160 over 100 when I went to the office and took it and they basically didn't want me to leave the office without like giving me a script and getting me to fill it on the way home. So I quite cool
21:00
depressing. I mean, that's not, that's not really something that age 22 or 23, where you feel like this is something that people will happen to them when they're 40. Or they're 50. Like, I'm 2223 years old, and I'm already taking the stuff I took it for a long time.
21:15
And probably the worst thing to happen is is is what the doctor had said to me, which basically like absolutely, like, next any drive to to pursue a solution, outside of like, you know, pharmacological means of, of, of dealing with blood pressure. So, that's probably not what I needed to hear at the time. So, you know, I was coaching somebody at the time still trying to swim myself like on and on and off dealing with life being a 20 something guy
21:45
progressively like gain weight, like not dramatically all at once, but, you know, running into the same problems, I guess, fundamentally that everybody you know, a lot of us ourselves when people we know have run into like I'm eating the things that are supposed to be healthy are supposed to be good.
22:00
For me, I can't stop weight from going on and I used to be like a very active person and kind of what was happening to me and so that so I you know, I moved to Arizona and I get more heavily involved with with like masters something which I still do to this day. like okay, well this is great. Now I'm living somewhere where like it's very easy for me to work out, I can make room for it. There's a lot of pool availability like I'm really going to be serious and I'm going to I'm going to get really fit and I'm going to take this weight off and I definitely got fit and I was I was able to swim a lot and it was in great like aerobic shape. But the way to swing come off and I tried everything I tried to dabble with like vegetarian and vegan you dabble with gluten free you are really restrictive with calories workout like seemed like there was at one point the club that I swam for at the time. They offered three workouts today which is great. So it'd be morning, afternoon and
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And there was there was a point where I would swim all three of these workouts. And it would total at different points of the year upwards of, you know, 17 18,000 meters a day, literally swimming like 1718 kilometers a day, and the weight just barely would trickle off. So it's just very frustrating. You're like, I, I felt like I had really done everything. And I didn't really quite know what else to do. And so I got very shortly thereafter, you know, unfortunately, both my parents became ill and had issues with a heart and vascular disease. And they were back in Pittsburgh, where I grew up at, and we had, we had moved them out here to be by me. My brother had a young baby at home at the time, and my parents wanted to live somewhere that was warm, and so it just made more sense to to make that move when it was still possible to.
23:48
And it was, it was it was very distressing to see, I guess what I would call like the worst possible consequences happening in front of me of my current trajectory as far
24:00
Myself and my trajectory, despite like my best efforts, I mean, this is not a case where, you know, I'm a couch potato, I'm just eating anything. I was like, aggressively trying to like, figure something out, and nothing works. And so I basically got to a point that within about a year, I lost both my parents, my dad, sudden very suddenly and then and then my mom, which was maybe a little bit more expected based upon like, sort of her prevailing health the time and then became a father three months after that, to have a lot of this like, very traumatic personal experiences, the trauma of losing my both my parents, sort of the distress of them not getting to see my first son. And the just like, the moment where you're like now I have this person who depends upon me and to no small degree. As a parent. You know, your health is very much your family's health and your kids health because it's your energy that drives every
24:59
year.
25:00
wellbeing describes everything in your household. And I remember it was one of these like middle of the night labor's and birth was like three in the morning think when when Finn was born and I was laying on like the sort of pullout cot that they had in the room so exhausted. And all I could think about was, this is day one, like, this is literally the easiest This is ever going to be. And I'm in no kind of shape to deal with this and to be a dad. And so I have to just anything that I have to try whether it is surgery, whether it's medical in some way, like I just have to resume this fight and find a way to kind of get back to some like reasonable fitness and an energy level. And so at the time, I talked to my doctor a little bit and I had some friends who had been through a clinic here that was a low carb clinic, a low carb clinic, although I didn't know that's what it was at the time, who had a lot of success and it's basically run by retired interventional cardiologists in the area.
26:00
And it's like sort of no BS, like, it's no no shots like no pills. It's like straight, a straight low carb. And they you're in there, you know, every week and sometimes more, they do a number of tests and lipid panel and EKG on inbound and they repeat those at six weeks. And they have a great reputation and they have such a great reputation that insurance actually pays for hair, which is quite impressive. And so that's what I ended up giving a try to. And and I try that and was drawn to it. Because of all the things that I had tried over the past call it like that, like a decade, the things that worked were, you know, the first parts of an act inside the first part of a South Beach diet. I was like, well, this like makes a lot of sense to me because this is basically Atkins phase one for forever. Like this is the only thing I really truly like lost weight on. And so you know, sort of long story short, I went in there and was not really on any exercise plan at all at the time. We had a newborn
27:00
Baby. And I was down 60 pounds in the first four months of that, unlike no workout at all, just basically like being dead was off of blood pressure medication and about that same timeframe like totally off, which was it was very helpful to do it through there because they were having medical oversight of doing keto or doing the sort of the pre keto revolution it was, I guess I would call it more low carb, but having medical oversight and backing you out of medications, because when you're on blood pressure medication for was about a decade at that point, your body kind of gets lazy on the inside. And so it can be difficult to wean you off of these things when your body is so used to taking them every single day of your life.
27:42
Yeah, to the point of like, I would have low blood pressure moments where I would almost pass out. So it's definitely like very arduous and then going through that. very appreciative of having them being there to help me. And I'm actually I was like discharged from all that continued to lose weight and
28:00
up about down about 100 pounds
28:03
was 174 175. But my leanness but like, as a lot of people who lose a lot of weight, find out you don't, you don't have as much muscle as you thought you did. And so from that point, it just became a battle to try to reclaim my fitness and to get back in the water and to try to regain the muscle that I guess I had once and that I thought I still had, but I didn't have at that period of time. Would you say? How heavy Did you get at your heaviest now to 80 to 85 Oh, yeah, that's that's a heck of a swing. It's a huge, it was a huge swing. It was it's interesting when you lose that much weight quickly how how people treat you? And I think some of it is I mean perhaps there's there's jealousy amongst people but I think like it's so jarring to a lot of folks to see somebody that they haven't seen in really maybe like six months, eight months that it like literally as a whole
29:00
lighter. I mean you I actually had a remark made to me by a fellow that I swam with on my old club team that he literally told me flat out that I look like a concentration camp victim. And it's just like really like truly shocking and I just think he must have just blurted it out I don't I don't fault him for it because I was incredibly lean like I'm
29:24
174 pounds and change it six to three that's really thin. But But I was just that thin because my body fat had gone that low. And it was just it was just really like no muscle to speak up under it and it all had to be rebuilt. So keep going with this of this whole swimming thing around because you and I have a little little little history together. And you know you were in and when in previous podcasts when I referred to we have a world class athlete. This is exactly what I was referring to. This guy posts his workouts and they are absolutely insane. I mean the him that's just a workout but like you swim miles every
30:00
single day, and you are ripping through prs that you had years ago, like, and you're only getting faster and faster and faster. So what did we adjust? And what do we change that made the big difference for you thus far? Well, well, my, my first round of big drops basically came like, you know, pre boot camp, when when I had lost all that weight, because I guess like, oddly enough, it makes you faster when you're 100 pounds lighter. So that was kind of nice to get get that whole round, but I was still, it's still I guess, is is impressive, in the sense that I was 10 years older, and setting prs from obviously, when I was heavier, but you know, the years between 30 and 40, like you definitely start to slow down and feel your age a little bit when it comes to like really stressful physical activity like competitive swimming.
30:49
And so beyond that, I guess, like I got to a period where I was still progressing and that kind of had stalled a little bit but I was having a lot of trouble with I guess just my
31:00
energy level, because I didn't really like change my macros a whole lot from what got me all the way down to, you know, 174 pounds, it was still, you know, anywhere from between like 1700 and 2000 calories a day, which worked great for me for a long time. I just was very sleepy was very like low energy at meats. I just felt like I didn't have a lot of get up and go. And in general, I would be better during workouts I guess then than I would be during meat since I just wasn't really quite sure what the problem was. I tried reduction of like my caffeine intake. I tried playing around with like the small carbs over periods of time and you know, the smartest candies in the dextrose system, like small amounts, just anything to kind of shake this tired feeling that I had all the time. And it's so funny. I my wife gets tired of me talking about this now because I just think it's so funny. I don't I don't want to like paraphrase what you said, but essentially we were having a conversation
32:00
Over over Facebook and and what you said was such an amazing simple insight because but it was right on and you said, you know what I just flat out don't think you're eating enough. And it's just really that simple. Like you're you're burning through an amount of energy that like way, way way way outstrips what you're taking in and to be sure, like, you know, your your, your body is going to learn to mobilize fat reserves and I still had some of those certainly, and that will backstop some of that. But it was I was just in like, such a monstrous calorie deficit every single day of my life, that it's just, it's some point you just can't be mentally tough enough to overcome that. So the thing that was done is we bounced my calories up by about maybe like six to 800 calories and immediately felt better and and started to adjust it to the greater amount of fat certainly, and that was that was tough for a couple days started to set prs but and wasn't really losing weight that was visibly leaning out. And so basically kept going with that and there have been a few others.
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two periods since then where we've raised it. And so now I think I'm up to about 3300. Over the past couple days have definitely still, I'm still visibly leaner way to starting to trickle off a little bit, but I'm just like, crushing prs and in practice, like I haven't really in a long time to the point and even beyond just the fact that I'm crushing prs, like I've had some like nagging injuries for a really long period of time. I tore my rotator cuff a few years ago and it just never wasn't really a candidate for surgery, but it just never really healed right and it's never really healed right to the point that like swimming freestyle would be rough. I just would not have the kind of shoulder stability I would I would need to move at race speed and not have it be painful at all that has started to go away. It's it's been really amazing. I mean, I we joke around we call it like the reverse Game Changer effect, where you know, these guys that go vegan and then they magically get injured like when I raised my calories, like hugely and I'm still very likely in 1000 to 1500 calorie deficit
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Daly still, but everything started to heal. And all of a sudden, I'm like, Well, I can swim freestyle and I some ways and I'm not in pain, I don't have like ice on my shoulder at home. And so that's, that's kind of been every day, I try to do like a little bit more and do it a little faster, I track everything, like very meticulously
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everything that I do is done, like at race speed, that's just the training regime that I follow. So there's definitely a lot of stress to join. And it's, I'm just gonna keep going. I mean, I just got a Fitbit. And so just to kind of get a gauge of like, truly what my my PDE is, and I'm still probably like under eating by at least like 1000 calories. So there's, that's encouraging to me. I mean, that tells me that I have a lot of room left to grow and left to ride this out of having this mentality of basically burned off everything that I need to burn off. And I bet but from where I'm at right now, I'm not going to be able to essentially starve myself into high performance and into rebuilding the muscle that
35:00
Lawson into better health. JOHN, you've talked you've talked a lot about the physical side of things. Talk to us about the mental benefits that you found of being on keto.
35:11
Oh, I mean for sure like I've definitely experienced the the mental clarity that comes with that and and i think not only just the mental clarity but
35:21
having like sort of boundless energy all the time. I just, I guess I just feel like
35:29
I'm somebody who would definitely get hangry a lot. You know, are you just like you're Moody, I haven't eaten and to me the main benefit is that that's a that's a swing away. So you're just you know, not crabby at times because you've had any hadn't eaten or you hadn't had enough carbs. It's a very mellow, very even keel all the time. What about you mentioned your your friend or colleague, whatever was that, that comment about how skinny you have gotten? were other people recognizing this change.
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And new and were they seeing physical and personal emotional changes as well or was it pretty much just a while you shrunk kind of thing?
36:09
largely people were very encouraging. And I guess I'm like very I'm very lucky in that regard. Wife very, very supportive. Like this wants to see me healthy and happy.
36:21
You know, people who are like we're like other swim team teammates very, very excited. I was just kind of like this one person and and again, like, I don't mean to bring that up like I'm, I'm complaining or that somebody was was mean to me. I think a lot of times this is one of these things where, you know, when people people come at you sometimes they're always going to come at you with something that's this may be mean, but it's the truth. You know, I've heard it described as like getting whacked in the head with like, a nugget of gold because at the end of the day, I I look back at pictures of me now and I'm like, that was maybe like in politics, put it that way, but I definitely was like, very, very, like scary.
37:00
Not intentionally and it certainly was way healthier than 285 pounds. But, you know, I guess fair point taken and some of that has been the, you know, the striving factor of like, okay, now I need to I need to put on muscle
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and kind of like go from there. So nobody else, you know,
37:20
would say I got taken down by anybody else names or anything like that. So let's let's talk about your family, your immediate family more more actively, you say that most everybody has been supportive? Has your family taken on keto as well? Or what that what does that look like for you guys?
37:41
Sort of, I mean, what I'm the primary caretaker around here, I'm the one that cooks all the meals and that's probably as my wife would tell you a good thing. She's been either pregnant or breastfeeding for like a lot of that period of time. And so
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I would say is eating cleaner and maybe something but as always looks a little bit more like a like a paleo kind of diet. So like the junk food is not around probably flesh fruit.
38:10
But But what I eat is very much the backbone of what everybody else see it's very meat heavy. I have, you know, like carbs for the boys. They're very tall, very lean, really, like they're nowhere near a medic vault metabolic issue like I have, and so I don't really see any great need to restrict them unnecessarily. And in fact, like my, my eldest, was, was, when he was an infant, we actually had quite a lot of trouble just getting weight on him period, to the point that he was breastfeeding, and we're supplementing with formula and the formula was being mixed to like, like a thicker consistency to kind of get more calories in the head. And he's really somebody that only truly started to gain weight really well, once he was weaned, and he got on real food. And he's still to this day, like very, very tall, like he's four years old. He's
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45 inches tall so he's quite a tall kid but very lean as well so there's really no there's no I don't I personally do not see a need for it unless we there'd be any kind of like a metabolic issue or body mass issue and there's just neither neither of the two boys are anywhere near that. So what about your your family like I know your parents have passed away as you mentioned, but what was their brothers and sisters anything like that were you kind of the oddball was everybody you know have a bigger size What was that like?
39:30
You know, I my my father had a lot of like classic markers for heart disease where he was like, almost like the skinny fat in some ways, like he had like, you know, pretty pretty, pretty lanky, but had like a lot of the abdominal fat and the gut. They're both smokers for a really long period of time. And so that was definitely not not helpful for their health. Right. So not not really like an obesity issue with either that I would necessarily say and I mean they did live into like their their early 70s
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So they weren't very young when they passed but it was it was mostly like this, this trauma of having them see them go through it were my final destination was going to be if I didn't like somehow get ahold of my trajectory so what's next for john? We know you're coming to Quito con, you promise you're gonna you're gonna make me some food and we're gonna have a What do we call it a meat off a meat?
40:23
Well, we need to pause right there. First of all, there are several of us going to Quito con Alberto. So I'm hoping that this love extends to everybody that will be venturing they will have to have judges if they're going to there has to be judges. So yeah, yeah, we are we're gonna bring we're planning on bringing our fifth wheel out. And so I have I have enough room in the basement of that fifth wheel to get my my electric smoker in there. It's actually like kind of a little bit of a funny story I bought I bought two tickets for keto con right when they went on sale. And so I have the two boys and I have my wife but she was also pregnant at the time.
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Still is and the babies actually do. In fact, we may have the baby by the time this podcast gets published. So I bought I bought tickets for all of them, like even our unborn child, right? And I forget, like what I put for the age, I think it was zero or maybe I didn't fill anything in and I didn't fill in a name. So I get like an email from from somebody, I think it might have been the head of Kido Khan, specifically asking like, kind of like, what, what this is like, we're going to need a name. And essentially, like, I'm not sure she thought it was as funny as I did at the time as well, I can tell you that because
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the child the child hasn't been born yet. And we don't know what the name is. And so I'll definitely let you know when when the time comes. And I didn't I didn't get a response to that email. So like I said, I'm not sure she thought it was necessarily as funny as I did when I was writing it. So yeah, so we're, it's exciting to hear that you're gonna come to Quito con, it's gonna be an amazing time to get to hang out with you and everybody for that matter. Um, let's talk about
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about resources that you found and have used throughout this journey. What's kind of been your go to? Do you have some some resources that you reference regularly whenever you've got a newbie that you're trying to get started, things like that, other than your own video other than your own blog, of course. Sure. I mean, as far as my own blog book goes, I guess like I, I very much, like, I'm not a clinician, and I very much try to kind of stay in my lane. I think.
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I try not to be pushy with it with people, I guess. I don't want to get in get involved in people's own personal health decisions. I don't want to tell them what to do. Like I have a friend who's who's a heart patient, who's, you know, been largely put on, I guess, like a vegan diet and who has struggled with it a little bit. And it's very hard to kind of sit back and maybe like, disagree with with, you know, advice it's being given but also understand that it's almost like getting in
43:00
in somebody else's marriage and giving somebody advice, like it's just not somewhere that you necessarily want to put yourself like, you almost want to wait till they they come to you and say, What are you doing? Like, can you point me to something?
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I in choosing like a direction for that?
43:17
I mean, I guess like, I asked them an easier path would be to ask them to simply just Google it and to and to come to me with questions about like, what what keto is and what keto isn't, because, you know, again, like I'm not I'm not a clinician, I don't necessarily know like, what's going to work well for any individual person. I just basically recount my story to them very much like how I did with you.
43:43
And say, like, first off, before you do this at all, like I had the benefit of having medical oversight, and and I feel like in the keto community because a lot of a lot of people have been through the experience of a doctor who is maybe like, not very good.
44:00
keto friendly, or maybe overtly hostile, there's, I think, a prevailing feeling of a little bit of physician hostility, like it's almost expected. But for me, it was very beneficial. And so I guess my first and foremost, my advice to people would be, really, really try to leave your doctrine. Tell them what you're doing. They might not be for it. They might be agnostic, which my personal physician was at the time, who, like didn't really understand it, but couldn't really argue with the results. And then, and then just take to Google, because I'm, I've been at this for about five years now. And I've maintained very well and so the resources that I would have used maybe three years ago, I don't even necessarily know if they're the right ones now, or if there's anything better.
44:48
So I prefer to kind of sit back from people a little bit and let them figure things out for themselves and ask me questions because that's largely what I did once I was discharged from this low carb diet.
45:00
Back here where I live very cool. How did your How did you get into the food blogging? world? JOHN? I mean that's something that's pretty unique. Where did that come from? I say unique because it's from a from a guy and I don't mean that right in any other way but you typically no no no weapon so no No, no offense, man. I mean, it's really terrible to have to like deal with women all the time and like to be in that world but that was a joke, of course,
45:29
was kind of shut up because
45:33
the guests may not reflect those necessarily
45:37
being like a male cheerleader or something like that would be great.
45:42
That's horrible. Right? And so I'm somebody that I've just always I've always really enjoyed food. And definitely, you know, write a dream and like still in college like you just don't really have a lot of money and it was just really more economical for, for me to cook my own food and cook well.
46:00
To eat out at restaurants all the time so it was really like always this hobby and you know, especially the grilling and the and the barbecue that's something that's been like a very serious hobby for a long period of time and so
46:12
it was a little bit I guess of a natural fit because I wanted to do something that was like more professional that would work well with our family situation here. And it was I had already developed recipes just just for things that I was I was like wasn't remember this is about five years ago now and so like a very different world as far as these pumps and resources and recipes and a lot of stuff as far as substitute dishes has has been figured out a lot of that didn't exist four or five years ago when I was going through this and and losing all my way and trying to figure out now like all this stuff has to go away like the potatoes and the rice and the breads all this the fruit all this has to go away and how do I come up with something that I would actually wants to eat every day? And so I say the very first set of recipes it was
47:00
Very easy, because this is the stuff that I had done anyhow, certainly like, you know, a lot of like steak and this kind of thing. And that actually kind of leads into a little bit of a funny story about what I went through this diet clinic. And the moment that I knew that like, this was really going to work out very well. They do like an intake day where they do, they run a bunch of tests, and they take blood for a lipid panel and have an interview with one of the nurse practitioners there. And they walk you through, you know, your your eating plan, and what you are and aren't allowed to eat. And basically, the way this was spelled out to you is, is they would say you can have X amount of protein per meal, and it was listed by mass. And I looked at this and like, so like, what protein? She's like, oh, it doesn't matter, like so, you know, for instance, I could just have like ribeye for every meal. And I was like, Okay, now I've got her right, because there's no possible way that that's going to be permissible. She's like, yeah, wouldn't matter like, well, that's horrible.
47:57
So there's like no possible way. This is going to work.
48:00
If I knew like at that point like this was something that ultimately was going to be was going to be pretty doable from like a recipe standpoint, and there would at least be like some way of dovetailing that in with my interest in cooking and of sort of recipe creation. And so it basically went from there. And it's been, it's been a little bit like scattershot like we go through periods here where there's just too many other things that require my time around the house that we're into, you know, whether it be with helping my wife or travel or homeschooling with the boys. And so hopefully now like, I'm at a point where we'll get past birth of child number three, and my wife will be off for a little bit of my mother in law in town to kind of assist with things. And I'll get some, like bootstrap into like creation of new content and to be able to move forward there. It's pretty awesome, man. I mean, the fact that you're sharing your story in a number of different ways, and it's not just like what we've talked about here tonight, but how you've adapted them.
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And found ways it's really remarkable. So kudos to you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, absolutely. And add the whole homemaker thing to that. That's just awesome. Like, I'm slightly envious over here. You know, my wife talked about all the time, you know, she stays home with the girls, and you'll really appreciate the effort it takes. And it's a very unspoken hero type of thing that was a stay at home with the kids to make overall life better than men much respect and love it. Yeah, you know, the way I look at it is I would we love those boys more than anything. And I would do dig ditches. I was really anything I if it was the thing that would that would benefit them the most and benefit our family goals the most. And just right now, that happens to be what it is, I mean, just because like I cook pretty well. I've sort of taken charge of like the homeschooling with the boys. And that's something that, you know, maybe not the right decision for everybody. But for us. It's very much just the direction that that we want to go. And so that's what the family needs. And so that's just simply what I do, and
50:00
We'll try to hopefully the food blog will will go somewhere and we're going to try to try to make that work. But at the end of the day, it's just it's just the needs of the family and of the family's goals. And so that's just what I'm going to do. Do you have one of those cool cameras that you sit over your your up and so it like the straight shot down as you're cooking and whatnot, those things fascinate me for some reason. Oh, you mean like, You mean like the Alton Brown like camera and the oven like, I don't know.
50:27
Where you you put the camera like over the burner, and then you do although it's like the perfect angle and everything like I wish I got later that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, somebody already asked those. They're actually not not that expensive. Like I have a tripod that basically does that where it's like, it's fairly heavy and
50:49
on the can goes up and then we'll like teeter totter over, and it's it's got enough kind of ballast to her and you're not hold the whole thing over and so you know, when when I need
51:00
Like that, like as I beginning to start to do more video like that's, that's a very like easy way to get into the real thing. So not not that complex at all.
51:10
You could have built it up a lot bigger and
51:14
you know what?
51:17
I'll try to link it up a little bit more
51:21
rerecord. Yeah, those things are, you know, so rare and look what I've got
51:27
that you know, it's crazy I forget who I was talking to, but they were telling me that you know how they have the over the range microwaves there obviously I'm over your range atop your stove. They're making those with cameras built in that are facing down and the microwave is a touchscreen. Wow. or something along those lines. It's a suit I forget exactly the details the story was but I do recall her saying that there's a camera built in the bottom microwave so you can record and take pictures of what you're cooking in that exact that exact position. Well, then why probably. Go ahead, john. I say my wife is like very tolerant.
52:00
Like all of my cooking gadgets and it's just because I feel here is like she turns a blind eye to like not we have like pretty much every gadget like, I'll turn a blind eye to like all your purchases so long as like we can eat healthfully at home and we don't have to pay to go out to eat and get you know, like all the poor health that comes along with that and the considerable expense but I have a feeling like if I would ask him over the cooktop microwave with a built in camera, she would probably like that. I'm sorry, that's just not gonna happen. Yeah, that's uh, that that would be a hard sell around my house. I just feel kind of Jetsons to me like yeah, that there's going to be two arms that come out of the microwave bottom and you're you're watching this from working like okay, microwave, stir the pot and you're watching this and everything. Well, it's all done by the time you get home. Well, you have you seen the oven that has the camera in it that you can like say make toast or make meatloaf and all you do is put the meatloaf fan and it
53:00
We'll cook it and have it ready for you with sensor. You know, it knows, like, internal temperature of what it's doing, you know, all that stuff. It's It's insane. Chris, I still have ice cube trays like I have to manually I'm old school. I'm not cool up here in Indiana. So I don't have that I myself, but
53:20
I don't have that myself. But I have seen it on a few things. And it's kind of impressive and kind of like, do I really want to go to my iPhone to make food? So Oh, wait, that's not far off from a pellet grill. If you think about it true. Have you got a peligro Wi Fi capability you you can do the exact same thing, leave a brisket outside cooking with the probes in it. And it'll tell you when the probes hit temp and you can turn it down and you can do everything from wherever you're at. So me personally, I'd much rather have it in a smoker. But I mean, it's it doesn't surprise me it's out there. No, not at all. And it's come a long way since since the first iterations of that so okay, well any other
54:00
parting questions guys I think we're, we're we're definitely hit our time limit and so what anything else to cover? The only thing that I don't think we asked john is what is his favorite keto meal taking steak out of the equation? So so no steak that like barbecue is allowed
54:20
we will allow that will allow it yeah but if you say like you know barbecue steak well that's not gonna fly so
54:27
I think my favorite my favorite keto meal and definitely my favorite piece of barbecue hands down it's got to be like, like barbecue beef ribs. And it's the kind of thing where like, it's got like, not always like too readily available at barbecue joints like you generally only really the on weekends and we were talking before about, you know how, you know this this idea of like food blogs and social media has changed things a lot like that is something that I feel like is definitely influenced by by food bloggers, because it's only
55:00
It's not really profitable compared to brisket. And so I think that's one of the reasons why you don't really see it in barbecue joints a lot other than on the weekends. And its purpose is only to look awesome on social media because it was like Brontosaurus ribs just look amazing. And they taste amazing as well. So it's just I love it because this whole experience the big honking piece of meat on a huge bone that looks like it came from a dinosaur or something on your plate. I think that is the ultimate keto meal for me. Well, and when you get to Austin, Texas, you can have that at the barbecue place across from the convention center because they serve that every day of the week. So yeah, when I was I was there last I was there a lesson here and yeah, and and I had about a day we've been through Austin for and we've been to Franklin and a lot of the barbecue joints there. So I was like, I guess reasonably familiar. But I wanted to go to someplace that I hadn't gone to before. And so I ended up having a lot of time the next day before I caught my flight and so I went out to Taylor, Texas. Oh there
56:00
And what to Mueller's, that's, it was who Franklin learned from so a man he is it is good. And so it was amazing. This was a Monday. And they had they had beef ribs, maybe leftover from the day before, as far as I know. And so I ordered one and the guy not really realizing that I'm keto, and I could eat like almost an endless amount of like protein and fat. Like, you know, it's two pounds, right? I'm like, it's not a problem. He's like, You're sure of like, it's really not a problem. And
56:31
this two pounds of rib, you know, it's like maybe maybe like a pound and three quarters when you take away like the enormous bone, the rib bone, and, and I feel like every worker in that restaurant would would walk by my table like once every three minutes to like, see what my progress was to this two pound beef rib. And I did manage to eat the whole thing. I didn't really eat anything the rest of the day until I got my plane and flew back. But I did finish that before if it wasn't a problem. That's funny. I will actually
57:00
Have a gift certificate to Louie Mueller as a Christmas present from my mother in law that I have yet cash in so I will probably get a big beef from them with that very soon. Sounds Sounds yummy. Okay, well let's get your contact information where people can find you all that type of stuff. JOHN, you're obviously in the group but like where else can people
57:29
get I am I am in the group and you can find me on there but it's actually very easy. I'm low carb pop up pretty much everywhere on social media like some some probably like posting more consistently than others. Definitely more like Instagram and Facebook and I may be like the only person with a Y chromosome that is on Pinterest, you know talking about like a lot of you know, a male in a world of like female food bloggers. I am on Pinterest as well at this low carb Papa everywhere. Very cool gym.
58:00
Other than group where can people connect? Find me on instagram Jim and men j are and Berto the group we all know that I'm in the group kiss you and figure that out and on Instagram it's l dot Quito children. Very good and I am at duck man keto on Instagram. And that's me. You can connect with the podcast itself by following Keto Mans Club Podcast on Instagram, and you can get all of our social links personal and podcast by going to our website Keto Mans Club Podcast. You've got lots of links there from affiliates to to all of our socials to the Facebook groups to the from the Facebook groups to the Facebook page for the podcast. We haven't really talked about this episode the beginners group continues to grow and it
59:00
We're so seeing lots of great interaction amongst the men that are joining that group and, and lots of great questions being asked. So definitely, you know, if you are just starting keto, or don't yet know what keto is, but you're interested to learn more, that's the place to go. If not, if you're a veteran, or at least past the beginner phase, feel free to go ahead and apply to join the main group at
59:30
the Keto Mans Club, Podcast. Facebook, we'd love to have you as part of our community if you're not there already. A lot of great men 3300. At this point, we are just under 3300. So by the time this airs, we will be at 3300 Yes, just amazing. That's just absolutely amazing. And what and one thing that I will throw in real quick is the fact that we've done a lot of work as a membership of sharing about the group but it's kind of cool that Facebook is now suggesting as different
1:00:00
bulk who are looking at keto online. So it's kind of become an organic thing with the Facebook world. Like if a guy searches for keto on Facebook, it's popping up without us doing anything. So thanks Facebook. Yeah, absolutely. And I look at some of those guys in the groups that they're in. I'm like they're not in other keto groups. So they must have just been doing as a basic search or it may have popped up on the side like they'd talked about or they had enough people on their feed talking about keto and it popped up and shriek triggered their their interest really really cool stuff seeing that that that type of growth coming along so should we should we place a bet now as to where we will be when we get to Quito con in a couple months?
1:00:43
Because John's gonna be there. Yeah. Or maybe that's now that we've had john the podcast or number is going to explode. I know seriously. Yeah. Well, you're gonna have like a lot of women probably listening is
1:00:55
still like, I would say like, despite the fact that that's, that's some
1:01:00
thing where I felt there was a need for it. And I really wanted to focus on things that would be interesting to a guy because I was a guy that just just kind of naturally, I guess who my followers became with us is really where the interest was at the time. So they're all still there. And so hopefully we'll have some of them will will start to come your way as well, because though, like they are women, and it's the keto man's club, they still have husbands and sons and grandfathers and uncles. And I think, you know, ultimately, if they want to sort of turn them on to keto and get them started, they're going to realize that now you the need is maybe a little bit different. True, very true. Yeah, absolutely. Well, there's one other way that you can or two other ways to make podcasts that I hadn't gotten to yet. You can email us at Keto Mans Club podcast@gmail.com or you can leave us a voicemail at 512-518-6161. Call it leave a voicemail. We'd love to hear any comments, suggestions, questions, ideas, whatever
1:02:00
feedback that you have for us. The last ask from us, if you would is go to Apple podcast, and leave a rating and review if you would. That goes a long way to help the algorithm the same way that Facebook is helping find our Facebook groups on on Facebook, we want people to be able to find us in their podcast app easily and feed that we have to do ratings and and we get comments and things like that. So definitely get in there and do that. If you would please that that would go a long way. JOHN, once again, thank you so much for being with us. I really appreciate you taking the time awesome story and definitely an encouragement to everyone for us to be able to, to that they can do it too. That that the that it is possible. And that's that goes a long way. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it, guys. Absolutely. Well, that's it for this week. Until next week, make sure
1:03:00
To eat me lift heavy sleep and repeat.
1:03:04
Thank you for joining us for the Keto Mans Club Podcast. Your support means the world to us. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Would you help us spread the word about the Keto Mans Club Podcast sharing with your friends family? We're available on all podcast platforms. So just search for Keto Mans Club Podcast find us if you would like to connect with us you can do so a number of ways. Our web address leads to our Facebook group, the Quito man's club.com that's th e ke to mA ns co ub.com. You can also follow us on Instagram at Keto Mans Club Podcast. Lastly, if you have any comments or questions, feel free to reach out via email to Keto Mans Club podcast@gmail.com. Thank you again for joining us today and we look forward to hanging out with you again next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai