Ep 70: Tailor Your Physique for Aesthetics, Fat Loss, Performance, and Health with Cody McBroom

Today, I’m super excited to have Cody McBroom on as my guest to share his expertise, his philosophy, and some inside strategies with us today for looking like you lift. Cody and I will discuss how to use data to reach your goals more efficiently, how to balance training for aesthetics and performance to improve your body composition, and how to overcome plateaus and obstacles along the way. We’ll also get into Cody’s coaching and podcasting experience and how to maintain a balanced life.

Cody McBroom is a Trainer, Sports Performance Specialist, and Sports Nutritionist (CPT, PES, CISSN, MNU, PN2) and the owner of Tailored Coaching Method, a world-renowned online fitness and nutrition coaching company.

I learned about him through his Tailored Life Podcast, which I highly recommend following and personally listen to every episode, and my impression of Cody is that he is passionate about strength training and nutrition science and believes in using individualized and flexible approaches to help his clients get the best results possible.
 
Over the last 12 years, he’s worked with everyone from bikini and physique competitors to TV show actors and numerous WWE stars, but most of all he’s worked with everyday people just like you (and him), helping them FINALLY look like they actually lift.

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Book a FREE 30-minute call with Philip here.
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Today you’ll learn all about:
[2:21] Cody's transformation story
[8:35] Having true power and clarity in your life starts with physical mastery
[14:33] If you're not tracking, you're guessing
[20:55] The Tailored Trainer App
[26:04] Balancing health, performance, and longevity goals
[32:14] Hormonal and metabolic adaptation and weight regulation
[36:37] Strategies for breaking through plateaus
[45:36] When and how to implement cardio into your training
[47:42] Avoiding autoregulation against weight loss
[49:48] Most challenging case Cody has worked with
[55:01] How has podcasting made Cody a better coach
[58:00] What he is working on now
[1:01:40] Where can you learn more about Cody
[1:02:20] Outro

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Transcript

Cody McBroom  00:00

in different periods of my life, there's different things I'm tracking and when I track I'm literally guaranteed to be successful. And the reason I'm so common about that is because if I'm not moving towards the success I want, I at least have the numbers to tell me why and then I can adjust them so that I begin to move towards the success I want.

 

Philip Pape  00:21

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights podcast today I'm super excited to have Cody McBroom on as my guest to share his expertise, his philosophy some insights strategies with us today for looking like you lift coding I will discuss how to use data to reach your goals more efficiently, how to balance training for aesthetics and performance to improve your body composition and how to overcome plateaus and obstacles along the way. We'll also get into Cody's coaching and podcasting experience and how to maintain a balanced life. Cody McBroom is a trainer, sports performance specialist and sports nutritionist and the owner of tailored coaching method, a world renowned online fitness and nutrition coaching company. I learned about him through his tailor life podcast which I highly recommend following and I personally listen to just about every episode. And my impression of Cody is that he's a passionate guy when it comes to strength training when it comes to people and nutrition science and believes in using individualized and flexible approaches to help his clients get the best results possible. Over the last 12 years. He's worked with everyone from bikini and physique, competitors, to TV show actors and numerous WWE stars. But most of all he's worked with everyday people just like you and him and me helping them finally look like they actually lift Cody, I'm stoked to welcome you to the show.

 

Cody McBroom  02:03

Oh Lee said, Man, that was great. That was the best intro I've ever had somebody do for me, man. Thank you. That's awesome.

 

Philip Pape  02:10

And I appreciate that it's a high standard, I really appreciate that it's well deserved. Again, I listen to your stuff, and the listeners gonna gain a lot of value from this. So let's just dive in. We all have transformation stories. So So tell us yours. How did you go from being what you call a bit beyond chubby as a kid to competing in a bodybuilding show? And coaching celebrities and everyday people and then eventually creating the tailored coaching method?

 

Cody McBroom  02:36

Yeah, man. It's pretty crazy. It's a it's a wild, wild journey because I was always kind of like the black sheep of the family just in the sense of, you know, my dad he owned, he moved out and owned. I don't know how this work because he wasn't even 18 yet. He moved out at 17 and already ran a karate studio. So he ran a Korean karate studio with a black belt. He was doing street competitions. He was in magazines. He was very fit. And my mom was a gymnast and backpacker just outdoors person extremely fit her dad was an Olympic kayaker Olympic. He did the rings and the Olympics do so dude was jacked. My brother just naturally stay lean. He could just eat whatever and stay lean played soccer and stuff like that. And I was just a chubby kid. You know, I think looking back, it's funny because I'm different than a lot of people my family in many ways, just my personality type my attitude, like I love my family to death, but I'm definitely I stand out. And one of the reasons was as well because I was just always just a heavier kid. And the more I look back at it and kind of have studied genetics and all that stuff was definitely epigenetics. You know, at the end of the day, I wasn't a couch potato actually, my brother played video games a lot, but I was always outside. I was always playing I was always doing stuff. But I didn't eat the best when I was a kid and that ultimately resulted into it. So from being a baby, I was a big baby all the way to high school. I was just always heavier. In high school, I started playing soccer and skateboarding, snowboarding, do a little bit more I sort of lose a little bit way kind of hit a growth spurt leaned out a little bit. And then I tore my meniscus sophomore year in soccer, gained some weight after that came back junior year kind of recovered, senior year tore my ACL. And so in the same knee so like to injuries back to back kind of shot down the idea of going to my original plan was go to junior college and then get and then transfer to university play soccer. That was like my hopes that got shut down. So I ended up going to community college, I was overweight. I graduated at 17 years old, so I'm a little bit younger for my class. And so there was man I was 18 years old to knee injuries already surgery heavier than I've ever been. I'm five nine I think I got up to like about 210 But you know, not huge, but I will say this too at that point. I later really had not lifted a weight before. Like I wasn't the high school kid and weights cost, right? I did not lift like period if you're fat, and I just remember being like, man, like I have friends at college playing ball, I'm just kind of back home, going to school because my dad told me to go to community college, do business, study business one on one or whatever. I was just overweight, I was unhappy. I was sweating too often, I had no energy at a young age I was you know, partying too much stuff like that. And I just I don't know, I just had this lightbulb moment, one day, I will, like looked in the mirror. After getting a shower, I was butt naked, just look to myself and was like, Dude, you're pathetic. This like, not to shame yourself or make it you know, too negative. But I literally was like, Man, this is just unacceptable, dude, you got to make a change. So I took ownership of it made a big shift. And when I made that shift, I just man, I just literally went all in and I just completely transformed my body. Starting with everything that doesn't work, you know, just trying it all. And there was definitely some ups and downs with losing and gaining losing and gaining but eventually I found content and like tea nation and bodybuilding.com forums and started like reading from other people and learning from them. And I fell in love with blogs and content and writing and fitness books. Which led me to just digging deeper and deeper. I eventually changed my degree in school to the fitness program at the College, the junior college. My parents both said no at the time, because I was still overweight and didn't really know what I'm doing. But I forged my dad signature did it anyway, change my degree did that he found out later on, I ended up getting an internship at a strength gym in Seattle called vigor ground and just learned a ton man, it was like, it was just really cool. Like I just met a lot of cool people at a young age, I got into industry at 18 years old. And so I started with a really good foundation and dove headfirst and there was never a point where I was like, maybe I'll do this, maybe I'll do something else. It was like this is all I have, this is all I'll do, this is the only thing I want. And I never had a plan B. So I lost 40 to 50 pounds myself. And then that transformation went from losing 4050 pounds of fat to realize that now I'm just skinny, and I need to put on muscle. So then I started diving into building muscle. And you know, I was training people. And then I did a bodybuilding show which got me into nutrition. And then that led me to getting becoming a nutrition coach. And then you certify multiple times with that. And then eventually I became a sports nutritionist and I kind of went further with my credentials and certificates and long story short man I just kept just kept going, just kept going and going and go on until eventually I started my company, which is what we're at now.

 

Philip Pape  07:29

Yeah, for sure, man. I mean, your your passion and energy shines through that you said you went all in at a pretty early age. And I could relate to so much of your story, the difference being that it took me like 40 years before I could get to that point of figuring out but I'm also five nine and I understand what being too tenant five nine without any muscle is like exactly that saying that you are unhappy sweating, even at that young age. And then even just the consuming content, because there's so much misinformation and we're in a golden age right now, for better or worse. I say for better. I'm an optimist, that there's so much great information if you can find it. And guys like you, Cody and everyone I try to steer people to the books and podcasts are a fantastic, fantastic way to learn and grow today. So I love that story. And then you just kept going and going and going and building and people listening to this like check out Cody stuff because it's not just about fitness hear it's about it's about. It's about the hard work. It's about learning growing and and doing the heavy lifting. And there's a lot of business principles you talk about and a lot of, you know, you reference, you know, Socrates and stoicism, things like that in your stuff. So I appreciate all of that. Yeah, so yeah, so speaking of the, like the physical mastery, right, you've written I think there's only a website, that having true power and clarity in your life starts with your body physically. I agree with this 100%. But explain your thinking behind that premise.

 

Cody McBroom  08:50

Yeah, so this is, I used to say actually made shirts for clients way back years ago that said, your body is the fastest path to power. Or maybe the shirt just said your body is the path to power because it was big on the back. But like, that's always been kind of something in the back of my mind. Because I did not do good in school. I wasn't a philosophical person I didn't read I wasn't an intellect until I found fitness and I didn't. Fitness in the transformation I made physically it created a level of self mastery in so many other areas. Like it's what taught me discipline is what gave me grit and willpower and self control. It's what taught me purpose and meaning in life. It's what gave me more motivation to push. It's what allowed me to create more self belief and eliminate self doubt because I kept proving to myself what I could do and what I was capable of. It gave me more confidence, which gave me the ability to take action and take more risks in life, which led to more success like it just it opened up so many doors for me, and I've you know, I think some people will hear that and if you're a fitness professional, it might seem as if or if you're not a fitness professional, you might think that that only applies to fitness professionals because yeah, It opened up all those doors for me, because I'm a coach because I'm an industry. But I kept having all these clients experiencing the same things like they had better marriages, they found the girl or found the guy, or they got a raise at the job, they were able to start waking up early and meditating and journaling, they started doing other things that they wanted to do, because they finally had the energy, the confidence, the fitness, the everything, you know, the body image that they wanted, in their mind, like everything. And so I've always been that way. And once I went through a program years ago, called Wake Up Warrior, I'm not a part of it anymore. And truthfully, I like what they do is great, and all its things have changed for sure. Just I mean, what the way of the world today, everything kind of shifts and just gets kind of like a lot of stuff gets pretty extreme. And you know, once something small gets so large, it loses some of the meaning behind it when it started. So I use I say Wake Up Warrior carefully, because I just know that things are more polarizing today, you know, anyway, they had this thing called core four and core four stood for body being balanced business and body was your body physically, being was yourself spiritually, mentally, emotionally, whether that meant like your religious faith, or what you believe you believe in universal God, or it's just like your mindset, conference, whatever, it's just you personal development, right? balances your relationships. So if you have a spouse, your spouse, kids, whatever, or your family, your friends, just other people, and the business is your career, your finances, investments, whatever. And it taught me a lot about life, because those things are always connected. You know, like, the way I always looked at it. And I have some, I mean, I have a lot of tattoos now, but I have some tattoos that kind of like, represent this idea or the story of life. And it's this idea that, you know, you kind of have this quote unquote, kingdom, if you will, and your kingdom is your body, your life, your story. And it's standing on four pillars, and that's body being balanced business. It's these four aspects, those four aspects are the things we constantly think about the things that we constantly set goals for, they're the things that we are jealous of other people, when they have something that we want, it almost always fits into those categories. You know, when we think about goals we want to achieve in life, it's in those categories. When we think about a partner we want in life, and we want to see if they have the same mindset or or they want the same things out of life, so on and so forth. It's in those categories. And so they're all connected, and if one crumbles, the Kingdom falls, right. So if I'm crushing in business, I'm shredded, like very confident, but my relationship sucks, I promise it's only a matter of time before the rest of the ship falls apart, right. And if you have a great relationship, but your job is causing a lot of stress, or your you get laid off, or anything that's gonna cause stress elsewhere, if you're super out of shape, unconfident, unhealthy, always getting sick, that's gonna bleed into others, too. So there has to be this way to like, let them all survive and thrive really, right. And what I found was that they always had to go in that order body being balanced business, which meant you take care of yourself physically, then you take care of yourself Self mentally, emotionally and spiritually, then you take care of the ones around you. And the business, the career, the passion, the finances, it figures itself out, once those do, right. And so your body is the fastest path to power and all those. It's kind of the idea.

 

Philip Pape  13:10

Yeah, man. Yeah, there's so many themes like that in life, when you think of health, wealth, relationships, spirituality, right, or the virtuous cycle, or the fact that, you know, one thing leads to another and placing the body first if you think about it, that's that's our connection with the earth with people with the things we touch the things that we do. And if that doesn't exist, or in any healthy state, you can't do all the other things. So absolutely love that Cody. So body being balanced and business. It also reminds the idea of like, the self worth self worth, that you get from improving your body physically, then leads to the self confidence and now gives you the the ability to help somebody it's like in the airplane, you know, you have to put the put the mask on you before you help your kid, you know. Yeah, good stuff. So getting DPO coding as I expected.

 

Cody McBroom  13:57

Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's exactly it, man. You got to take care of yourself before before any of those other things kind of work themselves out. And I think that, it just, it became very obvious for me, and I've kind of used that. I mean, I went through a week of worry when I was like 20 years old. So it's been like a decade of me just keeping that in the back of my mind and letting that be my Northstar to direct me through the actions I take in life. And it's been it's been a game changer.

 

Philip Pape  14:21

Yeah. And honestly, who would listen to you or follow you if you hadn't gone through that yourself? Right? If you had mastered it, that's not like your ability to impact others is springs from that. Alright, so let's get a little bit more, more practical for a second here. On your podcast, you talk a lot about using data measuring, tracking, using feedback. And actually just today, perfect timing you posted on your IG account. If you're not tracking you're guessing, and nobody guesses their way to a great body. So this speaks to me because I have an engineering background engineering mind I think of like KPIs and measures and outcomes and I love to coach with my clients and that approach to people talk about tracking as being annoying or inconvenient. But I always say, Well, how inconvenient it is to not know what's going on and that never have results compared to the minor inconvenience of tracking. So what would you say differentiates that approach, which I think is pretty core to how you do things versus other methods? And then how that leads to better results?

 

Cody McBroom  15:15

Well, you know, I think that it kind of depends on what other methods we're looking at. Because to say that Trump would never say, you know, and it depends, if we're just specifically talking about tracking macros, a lot of people read that, and that's what they assume I'm talking about, which for the most part, it definitely is, it falls in that category. But if you are trying to reach a weight loss goal, you better be tracking your weight, whether you're tracking macros or not. If you want to reach a new business goal, you better be tracking KPIs and sales and leads and conversions. Yeah, there's a lot to it, you know, if you are recording a podcast like this one, and you want to be successful with it, where are your downloads at? How many episodes a week you're doing, where's your demographic? Where your listeners, what time? Are they airing, like there's a lot to it. So growth in anything requires metrics. And that's the big point, right? You can't guess yourself to a great or a great result or successful anything, really. And so the nice thing about macros specifically is that it does take that guesswork out of it. And it allows us to be sure that we're heading in the right direction. Now, everybody knows that. There's more than one way to skin a cat, you can create a deficit in many ways. And a deficit is ultimately what leads to fat loss. So, of course, as you can imagine, I get people that comment on that. And they're like, Well, what about this? What about this? And it's like, hey, is there a deficit being created? Yes. Okay. At first, you might be able to do that without tracking. But what happens when you plateau? How do you create a bigger deficit without tracking something, even if you are falling an old school meal plan have zero idea of what you are eating on a caloric or a macro basis within the day, you have to measure your food to know how much you're eating so that you can adjust that food because if you're eating a cup of oatmeal, you got to make it a half cup when you plateau to drop carbs, therefore calories and therefore create a bigger deficit, to lose more weight and break through the plateau. So the big thing is like, it's metrics are our GPS to success. And if we're being intuitive, we're guessing and intuition only gets us I wouldn't even say that I wasn't saying intuition only gets us to success after we've done it multiple times. But even then, intuition only allows us to sustain or maintain the success we've already achieved. Because if you are able to, you know, we talked about like Eric Helms and stuff before we started going, he he did a full bodybuilding prep, I don't think he tracked his macros the whole time. I heard him say, and maybe he did at the very end or something like that. And that takes a lot of experience to be able to do, especially a bodybuilding prep, however, I don't think you can say that he was eating intuitively, you know, we might say that because it's just easier to explain. If you say eating intuitively, nowadays, we just know that he wasn't tracking. But realistically, he was being very intentional. And in his mind, he knows how much he's eating. That's the point is he can do it without macros, because he knows the macros in his head.

 

Philip Pape  17:51

Yeah, he's turned himself into a food blogger in his Exactly.

 

Cody McBroom  17:53

So like, even at that point, you still have metrics. So I think my big thing is, and I'm a very data driven guy, too, is I look at metrics with everything man, I look at metrics for, even if it's simple, like habits and more tracking, right, I want to track my habits, I want to track my scores, I want to cross things off the To Do lists, I want to track my weight, I want to track my macros, I want to track my biofeedback, my happiness score, HRV energy, like, not all of these things all the time every day, but in different periods of my life, there's different things I'm tracking. And when I track, I'm literally guaranteed to be successful. And the reason I'm so common about that is because if I'm not moving towards the success, I want, I at least have the numbers to tell me why. And then I can adjust them so that I begin to move towards the success I want.

 

Philip Pape  18:41

Yeah, let's Yeah, no, it makes total sense. Let's repeat that. Right? When you track you're guaranteed to be successful. Because you have two options. Either you take that data and adjust or you take that data and deliberately not adjust. And then either way, it's in your control. So I think that's great for people to hear.

 

Cody McBroom  18:57

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the big thing, right? Is the control. Like if you're if you're, if you're not tracking stuff, you're not controlling whatever it is you're after. So it's, I mean, people always laugh when I make ridiculous analogies, but it's if you're driving a car and there's no gas meter and you're like I know about when my tank is empty, screw that like you're good luck you know, it's it's idiotic. If you want to save money to do something, and you're like, I'm just going to intuitively save or I don't need a savings account. I don't need a budget. It's just dumb. It is literally dumb and it's hot people people constantly try to like shit on tracking macros as if it's this obsessive or OCD and the reality is it can be but so can paleo so can carnivore so can training so can bodybuilding. So can budgeting so can advertising so can business so can marriage. So can religion. Anything can become neurotic, overwhelm overwhelming too much if you let it get there. So it's not about the modality it's about the person utilizing the modality and how they're using that. Right so if you are that type of person, you need to be coached specifically, or you need to choose a different route that is less likely to cause that behavior. But I do believe if you go into it with the right education and the right mindset, it's never going to cause that for you. It's just going to give you a shot plan to getting where you want to be.

 

Philip Pape  20:14

Yeah, yeah, I like that. And if if something is a barrier to your tracking, look at what it is right? Like, if I get a lot of clients who say, Well, I tried food logging, but it was just really tedious. They said, Well, what app we're using x, okay, let's try Why all of a sudden, that was the barrier to their ability to track and it's not really about the tracking, right. It's about the method, the process, the tools, the things. I mean, at this point, having done just what you said, I didn't track my whole life. And then three or four years ago, when I started my own transformation, I did it thinking this is gonna be tough. You know, within a few weeks, you get used to it. They're like, Man, this just makes everything easier. This makes everything else easier, because I have data, you know, and I know what the heck I'm doing. So we keep reiterating that for folks, because it really does make a difference. So then, I mean, you have an app, right? You The Tailored trainer, how much does that will tell us about the app? Like what makes it unique? And does it tie into this approach?

 

Cody McBroom  21:04

Yeah, so I don't know when this will air. So as we're recording this, the new app isn't live yet. So we have it's kind of funny, because I basically closed the doors to the the current app that we have. People who are in the app can use it as function, but I enabled people's ability to actually sign up. And the reason it does, because we're transitioning where I've been developing an app, because I use the third party, which is great. Like when you get started in the app world, there's no point in investing $100,000 in the app, and trying to figure it all out, because you don't know what you're getting into yet. You don't know if it's gonna work, I haven't tested it. So I went the route of like, Hey, I'm gonna, you know, start a membership kind of thing where people can buy programs for super cheap. And it's basically like, we did it so that the people who did nutrition coaching with us can find affordable programming. So they weren't doing dumb shit in the gym, they could actually have a good training program. But like having a random web portal with Excel sheets just isn't a business, you know. So once I was like, Oh, shit, people really liked this, and they're actually signing up, then I was like, Okay, let's go to true coach. And we'll like, figure out a way to manage that. And then it just got too busy, because there was too many people in there. And then we were trying to get them in and get them out and do all this stuff. And it just, it didn't work. And then I hired a company who is basically like a third party, they are the app company, and they white label for fitness people and was like, Oh, this is perfect, way cheaper, so expensive. But I can just use theirs. And then after a while you realize, like, there's so many things that I wish this app had because tech people created it, not fitness people. And so I decided to start investing in my own app. And so we should be done. Actually, technically, it'll be done this month, in April, as we're recording this and and then we're going into like beta mode, where we test it with some people and stuff to make sure all the kinks are out. And we're good. But the app itself is just strictly training programs. So we do a lot of coaching, where we there's a lot of data driven coaching for both training and nutrition, primarily nutrition with people. And then the app is like, basically your daily workouts. And there's only so many things that we can do inside this right, like so, when we're looking at training, and we're looking at tracking metrics, there's obviously progressive overload. So how many reps you do and how much weight are you lifting? Right? We need to track that. Because if you come to me, and you're like, I've been following this program for four weeks, I'm like, Oh, cool. How much weight have you added to XYZ lift? Like, I don't know, like, Well, do you know if it's working? Like, are you getting better? Like, I think so. And if you're a natural lifter, like, are you building muscle, I think I don't know, it's only been four weeks I like the only guaranteed way to know is to measure or to track your progress the gym because if your eight rep benchpress is going up, you're probably building some muscle, you know, a bigger muscle has that capability being a stronger muscle. So you got to be one of those. And you probably should be measuring too. But so the app obviously will allow us to track that it'll allow us to track our AR, which is reps and reserve. So basically, how far are you going how many leaving a tank, there's a lot of features and functions that we haven't fully committed to because we're in the development stage. So I'm not going to, you know, say what they are, because some of them will be there from the beginning. And some of them will be like features that we add as we go. But there's I mean, when it comes to training, I think the biggest thing is that you gotta be tracking your progress in the gym, you know, and if you're doing that alongside your body composition, measurements and weight and things like that, that's going to be the best way to ensure that you're actually making progress.

 

Philip Pape  24:26

Yeah, that's what it's all about. Yeah, no, I have some community members who wanted me to ask you about the app. And you know, I'm not a personal trainer and nutrition coach. So I always like to find, you know, really good trainers or people who have programs to point them to so it's good, good that we know that this will probably be coming out in a few weeks. So it'll be you know, yeah, for now.

 

Cody McBroom  24:45

Yeah. So we even we actually dropped a program for technically two programs for guys, two programs for girls. It's like a four day and a five day men 45 Day girls and train heroics. You can go to TrainerRoad comm just search my name. And I basically came out was something in there and just made it cheap, 12 week program, like, let me just make this cheap just so people have something to use until the app launches, because I can't fully commit to a date. It'll be out the summer, but I can't say exactly what day we're going to launch it because I don't want to, you know, I don't want to. But, yeah, but um, but that was gonna be epic. I'm excited about it, man, it's gonna be really cool to have my own app. And my goal is actually what you just said too, is to have trusted nutrition coaches have a resource as well that they can send their clients to that is an app that is it's all virtual. I mean, it's, it's, there's no coach in here. It's just, it has great programs written by me, it's done for you. You can track your metrics, you can see what you're doing. And it's cheap, super cheap. It'll be $29 a month, and it's like done for you.

 

Philip Pape  25:40

Yeah, love it, you love it. Because that's, I mean, as a coach and my clients, there's, there's a lot of frustration when it comes to tools, the you know, we live in a digital world. And even from a nutrition coaching side, there's, there's, there's no one thing that does everything you want, just like you I wish I could just leap forward in my business and like investing in my own custom app, I know the 100 things that it needs to do, and nothing does that. So you do your best to work around it. So alright, getting back into the lifting nutrition, since you brought that up, people do want to look and feel better. They also want to lift and perform like an athlete. Sometimes these goals are in conflict, right? And this is why we use periodization, both from a training side and from a nutrition side. So how do we do? How do we strike that balance? What's your philosophy, when we talk about someone comes in says, I want to optimize my body composition. But I also want to be the healthiest I want to live long and I want to perform.

 

Cody McBroom  26:30

Yeah, it's you know, everybody wants the perfect trifecta. I think it's absolutely possible as long as you're not living in any extreme. And I think that's the conversation has to be has educating them on the negatives or the downsides that come with going to any one extreme. So for example, I'll be competing in men's physique in October. So my prep prep hasn't really started yet, I got a solid month, maybe two at most of just trying to continue to put on a little size, stay at least that maintenance calories, keep my body healthy. And then once my prep start, it's all go right. Now if I have let's say 20 pounds of body fat to lose, to get to prep. For me personally, that first five is going to be healthy, I lose five pounds of fat, I'm gonna be healthier. After about five, I'm just getting to a point where I'm telling somebody like I can see my abs I'm already leaner than the average person. So this is the point is that when you break through, and get into that extreme range where you You're, you're so lean, that it's no longer functionally healthy. That's where she's me, there's downsides to it, right. And these downsides are essentially hormone dysfunction. So if you go too far, and extremes you're gonna have if you're a female, you might experience reds in the female try out where you know, you haven't been Rhea, maybe some bone loss issues, osteoporosis, things like that. Obviously, immune system crashes, cortisol levels gonna be chronically elevated, which can lead to more stress, typically, your thyroid hormones gonna get suppressed. If you start having a lack of T 3d T for conversion, which is your thyroid hormone, your metabolism is going to metabolically adapt, like that's part of it right? All this is really part of metabolic adaptation. For guys, testosterone is going to lower for women as well, but it's just not going to be nearly as big of a deal. And eventually, for women, the menstrual cycle can potentially stop happening because they take it too far. And their sex hormones continue to drop. US that only happens when you're getting like contest lean. But the point is, is that if you want like there's difference between getting lean and getting shredded, and I think that's where like this happy medium is, because for a lot of people getting leaner, so like let's take guys with testosterone, for example. You know, if we die, it, just ASAN is going to drop, but like if I put you in a calorie deficit, within days, your testosterone is going to drop, but it's suppressed because of the lack of intake of your food. It's not permanently suppressed. So if I give you a refeed day, boom, it's right back up, right. We're not reversing metabolic adaptation here with a refeed. But we're also not compromising testosterone by eating less calories for a few days. It's a short term response. Same reason why they say if you're gonna get your bloodwork done, do it fast in the morning after sleeping, don't go train or go eat because those things can cause a drop in testosterone numbers. It doesn't mean training lowers testosterone fact, it's the opposite. So it depends when you're reading it. But the point is, is that when we talk about like long term wise, the only way we're going to see a significant drop in testosterone for guys is if we take a diet too far or too aggressively, or we do it too frequently, right. And these are like I always call them the dieting dials. We have intensity, frequency, and duration. If you diet for too long, that long term diet fatigue is going to stimulate long term hormonal adaptations like cortisol being too high. So the stress hormone, testosterone being too low in section one for guys. If you go too aggressive at the diet, you might experience those if you diet too often you're going to experience those so we kind of have to balance these three dials or meters in order to find this happy medium because for a guy who has 40 pounds of body fat to lose, the more body fat you lose the healthier your testosterone is gonna get because that body fat is causing lower testosterone levels. However, if you go, if you lose 60 pounds, when you only had 40 lose, because you're gonna step on stage, once you get past that 40. Now, you're on the other end of it, you're getting leaner and leaner, and it's getting lower and lower. So there's this happy medium. And in, you know, as far as performance goes, it's very similar. It's just that if we have a lower energy intake, because our we're in a deficit, obviously, our performance is going to take a hit, if we are not taking as much calories, it's gonna be harder to maintain muscle, which makes it harder to train. It's it's commonplace, you know, for sure. So it's kind of balancing these things, you know, I think that the smartest thing to do is periodized them so that you can focus mainly on one thing at a time. And then for everyday individuals who have a considerable amount of body fat to lose, which I would say is, you know, 20 plus pounds of just pure body fat to lose. I see no reason why they can't consistently get healthier, build muscle get stronger while losing body fat. Yep, and you know, that's recomp and maybe say recomp, impossible, but it's really not. They see it all the time in research, especially if you have a lot of fat to lose, or you're brand new to lifting. But even somebody who's just hasn't been serious about it for a while, you could possibly return to it. Yeah, yeah, I see it all the time. So yeah, there's definitely a happy medium, I think it's just when you take it any, any which way to extremes, like if you want to be the healthiest person that lives the longest, you're not setting yourself up to get the most jacked or the most ready to perform the best. If you want to be the strongest powerlifter, you're also not gonna be the most shredded or most healthy. So like, You got to find out where the happy medium is for you. And if you want to take it to an extreme everyone smile, more power to you.

 

Philip Pape  31:34

Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights. If you're finding value in the content and want to stay up to date with all our latest episodes, be sure to hit the Follow button on your favorite podcast platform. By following you'll get notified whenever a new episode comes out. And you won't miss out on knowledge and strategies to level up your health and fitness. All right, let's get back to the episode. Yeah, I'm always wondering about that. Because you know, four or five years ago, I'd never would have thought I could I could even see muscle definition, let alone go to an extreme. And I haven't done anything like what you've done to tour the show, but I'm very keenly interested in potentially doing it. So you know, people are listening, you talked about having extra weight to lose as kind of a starting place. Or if you're D trained, I see it as like, you come down into that that range, that healthy range where you could potentially live there for the rest of your life but like you said, then you can period eyes it to get down lean, maybe going into the the seasons, like into the summer season where you go to the beach, maybe bulk during the winter up here, you know, we're all in our jackets, and you know, it's cold, eat a lot of food, and then push the extremes. So speaking of that, you know, you talked I think recently on your podcast about how you're carrying like, I don't know 10 1015 pounds more something like that from four years ago to now for similar level of leanness for your show, something like that. I think it was like 10 pounds. What is the well in terms of these hormonal and metabolic adaptations you talked about with reproductive hormones and thyroid and everything else? Is the depression level? Is the adaptive adaptation The same for the same amount of weight. Same amount of body fat Cody, if you're heavier versus if you're lighter. Do you know what I'm trying to say? Like now that you've got more weight on your body? You don't have to go to a lower weight, but your body fat percentage is still gonna get in the same range. Is it the same adaptation?

 

Cody McBroom  33:19

It's a really good question. I don't think I don't think we know because I don't think there's been research they would have to do. Let's say they would have to follow up with participants in a med, who were in a metabolic adaptation study, and then do another study after they've done a successful gaining phase for a year. You know what I mean? Like it would be very difficult, really cool. I would love to see that. Yeah. I do have some thoughts on it, though. I think that number one, the thing we have to remember is the primary driver that we know of for metabolic adaptation is weight regulation. Now body fat regulation. And I say that lightly because there are a lot of hormonal adaptations that are caused by body fat. So there's plenty of times where people you know what I mean, if you're too lean, it's your body fat levels that are causing amenorrhea or extreme, you know, with women in extreme cases or men, testosterone, if your diet is super low and saturated fat or you're extremely lean and don't have much body fat, your body, your testosterone levels are going to take a hit. So there's definitely something there. But if we look at like early stages, especially of metabolic adaptation, it's kind of like the whole thermostat thing and it's based on your weight. This is why they James Krieger did that case study research study, where he took somebody through a bodybuilding prep and every pound he lost, he added that weight back onto a weight vest and the guy wore like this basic. It's like a weighted shirt. And so he lose a pound he had a pound and he lives in he had to wear it to work. Thankfully he owned a gym so people don't think it's too crazy. But you would wear it to the gym. He'd wear it while you train, he'd wear it to the score store. If you think about it, like I'm wearing a shirt and then you know next week I check in with my coach. I'm down a pound and I just put a little pound on it. It's really not that big. do after you lose 30 pounds for PrEP, I'm sure it's weighing you down, but you acclimate to it kind of like the whole like Mila with a calf on his back, you know, progressive overload. So they saw that D diminished metabolic adaptation, he was able to diet on way more calories. And it made it tricky on the reverse diet, obviously, because part of the problem is, is that you kind of can trick your body into getting there, from a metabolic perspective, meaning your maintenance calories. However, if you're that lean, you're still going to experience those negative hormonal adaptations. The problem with that is that if you didn't have to diet super low, you don't really have to bring your calories have super high after the show. But if your hormones are suppressed, because your body fat levels, we got shredded, but your calories really high. Where do you go? You know, it's like, that's right, you need that bump up? Yeah, yeah. So it can be tough, because you got to put the body fat back on after show to recoup some of those hormones. Now, for a normal person, that'd be great. Because they don't want to put body fat back on. However, they also don't want to wear away, I guess you

 

Philip Pape  35:58

could just stop moving all together, right?

 

Cody McBroom  36:01

So, but it just kind of goes to show it's an interesting case study, because it kind of tells us like, okay, like weight is the primary driver of this Metabolic adaptation. And maybe body fat levels on your body are the primary driver for hormonal adaptations, especially the sex hormone specifically. So, you know, where does this leave somebody like myself, who has put on a lot of muscle over the years after doing a show and stuff like that? I don't know. Because I think that equally, you know, I could say, Yeah, I'm probably going to be better off maybe able to diet, on less calories, so on and so forth. But on my body mass is bigger, so it's not going to feel any different. You know, what 1500 calories felt like to me when I was 20 pounds lighter is what 2000 calories gonna feel like to me now that I'm 20 pounds heavier. So it's, it's very hard to say yes, it's all relative.

 

Philip Pape  36:48

Yeah, I was just curious, ya know, it just popped into my head. Like, I nerd out on this stuff. And hopefully, you know, hopefully, I don't lose a listener. I know they don't they they stick they stick through with these conversations, because I love this stuff. So speaking of so metabolic adaptation, then leads to the discussion of plateaus as well, right? Because you talked about tracking data, we talk about macros, we're tracking all that you hit a plateau, likely due to adaptation and other things. Having that data lets us push through it. At least that's part of it. And it goes both directions, right. So when you're gaining, you might think you're a hard gainer. We know we know that some evidence shows that hard gainers, they burn like half the half the amount of extra calories that they start eating and so they kind of have to keep cake keeping up with it. What are your some some of your favorite strategies then for breaking through all of these kinds of plateaus?

 

Cody McBroom  37:36

Yeah, you know, it's before I say what a good strategy would be I just I do you want to preface like the tracking thing is it goes so much beyond macros, because you know, if we're one of the biggest will be the word one of the biggest things essentially, that happens during metabolic adaptation is your meat drops off your knees, your non exercise Activity Thermogenesis like that, how much you step, how much you stand, how much you walk, me moving my hands while I talk to you. That's all neat. It's not an exercise. I'm not intentionally doing it, but it's happening, and it's burning calories. So that drops off a lot. And then we have to look at that and go, how much of that can we even control? Really just steps? I mean, obviously, I'm not going to like, okay, like, rewatch this and see how much I move my hands and how many times I blink and fidget and then try to replicate that or as I die, like, it's not gonna happen.

 

Philip Pape  38:21

And you're also gonna add muscle overnight, because that's the only other way Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So

 

Cody McBroom  38:25

if we know that steps are the only thing that we can control, we do have to try to track those. And that's going to help a lot, too. So when we look at this, and this is this is the same reason why if you look at a bodybuilders diet, and it's they just eat the same thing every fucking day. And the reason is because it controls variables. So if they know for sure, even if they're inaccurately tracking it, if they eat same thing, every single day, when they drop 25 grams of carbs, they know they're dropping the same amount, and it's from a control variable. So it's not sustainable long term, but during a diet phase, it can be helpful. So we control these aspects. So now the thermic effect of food is the same, because it didn't change unless my calories change. I'm keeping my steps up. And what I might do is if I go into a deficit, I might add 1000 steps, not because I want to necessarily burn more calories from those steps. But if I'm just adding 1000 I'm probably just burning as much because once At first I'll burn more. But once adaptation, which usually from what I know takes about three weeks, that's what I asked that to our chief science officer was like How long does it take for metabolic adaptation actually kicks in and starts to have an effect and he said, usually about three weeks, and so in three weeks, my knee starts to take off but I increased my steps at about that point, so that I burned more calories through steps while I burn less through blinking, fidgeting, twitching

 

Philip Pape  39:38

movement, so it offsets people need to understand it offsets otherwise, it would be much bigger drop.

 

Cody McBroom  39:42

Exactly. So when I track these things, I can control them and therefore I can prevent the plateau to an extent right it's gonna happen eventually anyway. But the reason this is so important is because if you do that, it means that when out of metabolic adaptation takes place and you do hit a plateau. It's actually a sign of success, because met bulk adaptation is taking place because you lost five pounds. And when you're five pounds lighter, your mass is smaller and your mass requires less calories to sustain. And that means, guess what? You won. And so now that you're five pounds later, the reward you get is you have to eat less to break the plateau. So

 

Philip Pape  40:17

it's true, because you just fought that battle with your body and your body's like, alright, take it to the next step.

 

Cody McBroom  40:22

Exactly. Right. So even they have, they did a meta analysis on a bunch of research studies. And there was a correlation between sustaining fat loss and metabolic adaptation. And what that means is the people in these research studies, these weight loss studies that they looked at those who were the most successful at sustaining the weight loss that they loss, long term, had the greatest amounts of metabolic adaptation still present, which we never want to wet. But if you think about it makes sense. Because if you lost 30 pounds, and then you kept it off, that's 30 pounds of metabolic adaptation happening, and it's gonna stick around. Now you might have been able to reverse diet, you might have been able to kick things up, but there's still going to be a thermostat based on your total weight that's regulating off of the weight that you're at currently, right. And that's going to show the signal of metabolic adaptation, which shows us you kind of one, you know, and if, if somebody is listening this and they have 40 pounds to lose, I promise you that having a lower maintenance, calorie intake is definitely worth losing that weight because it won't feel lower. Because at that point, it's normal for your body weight now, just like the higher intake was normal for your body weight, then it's just that you see a higher number.

 

Philip Pape  41:26

Your hunger signals are already regulated at that level. Yeah. And so on. Yep.

 

Cody McBroom  41:31

Yep. And if you think about to like, a lot of times, when people go through great weight loss, there's plenty research sport, that the most common factors with these people, you know, usually they they weigh in pretty regularly, they strength train, like there's a lot of different things, but a lot of it too is they eat volume is foods, they eat high fiber carbs, like so they're, they naturally shift to healthier habits that keep you fuller anyway, they drink more water, so on and so forth. So you won't even notice it. But I preface all that because we're controlling what we can control. And then when a plateau rises, we go, okay, we've controlled all the variables that we can control. And we're at a plateau now. And it's primarily because maybe metabolic adaptation is kicking in, but it's because I lost weight. So if you're listening to this, and you hit a plateau, and you haven't lost weight, it's because you didn't control the factors properly. But it's simple, it means that somewhere in your need dropped, you got to bump up your steps, you got to bump up your movement, your diet stopped working for you, which means maybe that you are eating less volume as foods and thermic effect of food drops, maybe you're not eating, you're not timing your nutrients, or eating the right carbs, or protein, or whatever it is to have enough recovery and energy to be in the gym and train hard, which means you're burning less calories in the gym, which you can't track accurately like I'm on an Apple Watch. But that doesn't know like, Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  42:38

well, you can track the symptoms of your recovery, your energy and mood, right? So bingo,

 

Cody McBroom  42:42

yeah, and you can see progressive overload the gym and you can rate your perceived exertion after you did some sprint intervals and tell it like, did you really go hard? Or was it dragging ass like, so if you're controlling things, right, you will only hit a plateau if, you know metabolic adaptation kicks in, and you just you stop losing weight. And so at that point, you drop calories, or you increase energy expenditure. And so increasing energy expenditure is it more difficult adjustment to make when you reach a plateau. And the reason it's more difficult adjustment to make is because there's no like, I don't know, like people could say, You know what, with calories, for example, if I'm gonna adjust your calories after we've already started, I'm gonna adjust at least five upwards of 10% calorie reduction, if I just start you on a diet, so like, if you're at maintenance, and I'm putting you into a deficit to lose fat, I'm going to go much higher than that, because we're trying to get you out of that maintenance range and start losing. And if I do it, right, I won't have to just those again for a little bit, because it's going to work for us for a while. So I might adjust at least 15, upwards of 25%, let's say, you know, there's plenty of research that even shows 3035, which is a good amount. So it's harder to adhere to when you're not in a controlled study. But 15 to 25% is a good marker. And then when you plateau, I'll just drop your calories by five to 10%, usually just five, because it just gives you another notch down and you start losing again. And then another notch down, you start losing again, with energy expenditure, editor, energy expenditure through cardio. And activity, it's hard because I can bump up step count by 10 to 20%. But at a certain point, you don't want to keep adding steps because beyond 15, your body adapts pretty easily 50,000 steps a day. So with cardio, you know, you kind of just gotta guess it's like, Alright, we're going to add 10 minutes per session, we're going to add another 30 minute cardio, you know, and usually at that point, you don't want to be using hit because you probably don't have the energy. So fatigue is higher at that point. And so

 

Philip Pape  44:28

the trade off is not worth it. That's good for people to know, too. Yeah,

 

Cody McBroom  44:31

I usually use hit cardio at the beginning of the fat loss phase, and then I'll transition it to lists or I just never use it to begin with, which is usually honestly the better bet if they have the time to do low intensity and just focus on steps. It's usually better. But you know, so for example, if I'm prepping somebody for a physique show, like if you come to me and we get you we're getting prepped for a show and we're training five days a week or six days a week. You're gonna have one cardio day, if you're doing five, no cardio days, you're doing six and we're just so that way you're training six days a week, basically one rest day step count every day when you hit a plateau and it's time to To implement cardio, you got to kind of make a dent in it. So I would say at least two if not three times a week, 30 minutes walking on a treadmill four to six hours away from your training session, so it doesn't interfere and have that interference effect with your performance of gym. And we're doing low intensity or just to burn calories, 30 minutes, and then you hit a plateau. Guess what? Now we're going to four days a week, love this week. So like, you don't have to go that route. But if you're trying to maintain muscle and you you like your food like most of us do, sometimes you'd rather spend 30 minutes walking on a treadmill or going for a walk with your dog then dropping calories further.

 

Philip Pape  45:29

Totally. Yeah, I'm telling clients that all the time, like we just walk a little more, so we don't have to cut that 50 calories this week or that calories.

 

Cody McBroom  45:36

This is this is an interesting aspect of it too. With regard to metabolic adaptation, everything. There's a lot of research to support that if you implement cardio, you will naturally eat more calories throughout the day. And you will naturally drop your knee, your body is really, really smart. It's the same reason why people will say like, Well what about fasted cardio? Well fasted cardio does burn more body fat for fuel, however, your body will upregulate its ability to use carbohydrates and glycogen throughout the day to for energy, if you use most of the fat in the morning. And so it offsets regulates balances out and you just you're at the same net calorie, so it doesn't matter. And it's so hard to trick your body with this. But the only way you can trick your body with the cardio thing. If you're tracking macros, then you know for a fact you're not going to overeat calories as long as you have the discipline to not do so. And you're you have awareness there. And then with the cardio, or the need, if you're tracking your steps. And what you should do is track your steps. And then when you go to do that programmed cardio, it's not neat, because it's intentional. Take the step counter off, do the cardio, and be sure to still hit that step count without that cardiac

 

Philip Pape  46:42

go. Because if you don't What about when you lift? What about you when you lift? Because that counts of steps to do you take it off,

 

Cody McBroom  46:48

you can if you want. So I don't, I don't personally because it's an easy way to get steps and I pace. I'm like, I'm just gonna keep getting steps. You know, so that won't change. And I'm always gonna lift. The reason we take it out with cardio is because cardio is something that's going to come into the picture when we want to ramp up calories and break your pot towel, and it's gonna go away, well reversing out, right. But that's a way we can control it to make sure metabolic adaptation doesn't do what it does and cause us to step less or eat more, because we're tracking the variables instead of just guessing. You know, and they have research through that, too. So it's,

 

Philip Pape  47:20

but you know, this is really because I was because my other question was coming to mind if your knee is adapting downward as you're in the deficit, and then trying to move more is step count, still a good proxy? So it probably is good enough. Right? And like you said, if you take it off for intentional cardio as well, just to keep that variable out of it. It's close enough, right? Would you say?

 

Cody McBroom  47:39

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And again, it's, none of these things are perfect, even macros aren't perfect, but they're the closest thing we can get to trying to control all the regulating systems of the body, you know, and if we can control those regulating systems, we can avoid them, basically auto regulating yourself out of losing more weight. And that's what they're here to do. They're here to try to now grant again, like, if you have somebody who's 5060 pounds overweight, it is far less likely to happen in the beginning, because they're still in that stage of they lose more, move more, they're also getting healthier, so their body's not going to fight them as much. The leaner you add, the more like quote, unquote, stubborn fat you have, the more you got to kind of fight your body and know this stuff. But almost everybody gets that point, it's at one point or another because if if somebody is listening this and they do have 40 pounds to lose, you still got to know this stuff. Because your body has adjusted to be like your new homeostasis is 40 pounds heavier, right. So when you try to lose 40 pounds, when you're 20 pounds down, you're so far out of the norm for your body that it's going to start to fight a little bit, even though you don't think you're at the place you should be. It'll fight back, I promise.

 

Philip Pape  48:45

That's, that's a great thing you said, because I was thinking, the listener might be thinking, wow, this is all this is all great for optimization, great for athletes, great for people who are further along in their journey. You want to know this stuff, right from the beginning, and track this stuff and either either do it on your own, that's kind of the approach I took. And obviously you took when you were younger, or working with a coach or an app or whatever it is. Because that'll get you the results most effectively.

 

Cody McBroom  49:09

Yeah, yeah, going, you know what to like, at the end of the day. We can't say this, for sure. But maybe it does happen. Those people who have 40 5060 pounds lose just to a far lesser degree. So if you know this stuff, and it's as simple as we're an Apple Watch tracking macros, what you got to do anyway, just make sure you don't let that regulate regulating system take over. Maybe you lose that 40 pounds, you won't lose even faster, because the first 20 pounds goes quicker, easier, simpler, faster, because you understand this stuff.

 

Philip Pape  49:34

It's true. It's true. And I've seen it with clients, I had a lot of weight to lose, you're right, especially when they're D trained. It's that that initial phase can go really good can go really well since you've got these things dialed in. Yeah, you have a few a few minutes more. Yeah, we're good. Okay, so speaking of you know, optimization, I know you've worked with some elite clients, maybe actors physique, competitors. Maybe what's the most challenging case you ever had? You don't have to name names but like the goal What was the process to get there and what you learned from that experience as a coach?

 

Cody McBroom  50:03

Ooh, yeah. I mean, truthfully, to be completely transparent with listeners and everybody, I've worked with some really cool people, and they're the easiest people to work with. I mean, I've worked with some, some, some professional athletes and that they're freaks. You know, you shouldn't be impressed by my ability to get a jacked athlete even more jacked and athletic. You know what I mean? Like, it doesn't take so like, if somebody just does what you tell them, right? Exactly. Yeah, they're disciplined. They're, they're motivated, they make money by being better and fitter. Like, come on, you know, I even tell people that about me, it's like, hey, like, Don't compare yourself to me, because I like we're in I'm in the podcast studio right now, as we're recording this on the other side, as well as the fucking gym, I would have to like literally, like sneak out and avoid the gym to not train, it's right in front of me. And I do this for a living, like, I have a lot of accountability. So granted, I didn't once upon a time, and there's a lot of hard work and other areas of my life. But I've fallen in love with the gym. And it's very easy for me. So you know, it's it's, I don't know, I said it should all time that I'm like the person that trains. Like, let's say LeBron hires a new trainer, I'm not going to be impressed by him, you know, because making LeBron a better one is probably gonna happen. He's already fucking great in that, too. It's like, what I mean, what can you really do like, now, whoever trains the guy who is like the, like, bench rider at a, like a small college that got to the NBA, or like some, like, that's totally different, you know, or 50 pound weight loss. So yeah, I've trained a lot of people. So a couple of things that I think of that come to mind that are difficult. So like, the web people I train and work with, from a training perspective, easy, nutrition, not so easy. They're traveling all the time, they got to eat what's there, they got to get on planes, I gotta eat at a Starbucks, like, it's, it's difficult. For some of them. Highly motivated, it's just a little bit more technical. And you got to figure out more options for them. I think of one of my clients, and really good friend. Now I've gotten close to him over the years, Jake Lewers, who is the singer of August Burns Red, which is a metal band, he his was difficult to because he's not a fitness guy. He was a metal singer, you know, but he wanted to get in shape and continue being able to do what he does. And he travels around the world on tour. He also owns a nonprofit, and he owns a gym as well, actually, with full staff trainers who I mentor now. And like that's a wild lifestyle to try to figure all this out and balance it and stuff. So that one was difficult, but really, really cool. I've put people on stage for bodybuilding bikini. It's cool. But again, they're extremely motivated, easy to work with they, they're just robots with it, which is awesome. I love that. But yeah, it's hard to say man, the person that comes to mind the most and is somebody who we won't get into the whole story. I actually tell it on we're coming out of the second podcast called The Daily transformations podcast, which is where we interview our coaches and our clients. And one of my coaches hosts it and they we just tell the stories of the people that have been a part of this company. And I tell the full story there. But long story short, she, she came to us when I was a personal trainer at a gym, she had a lot of PTSD from an abusive relationship as well as abusive past. There was, I mean, not to get like more of it, but it's pretty crazy, like, gang rape, big like getting beat in it started in a weight room with football players. And so she came in and she had PTSD, around football around gyms around men, and she came in wanted to work with me and I was like 2122 year old trainer, and maybe 23 I was pretty young and she wanted to lose weight, make the pro women's football team out here in Washington State. And she wanted to be comfortable training in a gym with other men. And I'm like, Okay, this is going to be difficult. So we worked together for a few years actually, she lost 30 pounds she made the the pro women's football team play for a year and then stopped she was like I just I did what I needed to do. I believe she still remember at the gym. I mean, she she went through the whole transformation that was probably the most difficult, insane growing process I've ever been through. And I've worked with a lot of people I've helped people lose over 100 pounds more than once. I've helped again, get people on stage who II I say low level, but they're an actor. So like, sitcom stuff like that, like not head roll Brad Pitt shit, but like, you know, really cool people, man. And that one was something that just, it changed the way I processed the world for sure,

 

Philip Pape  54:23

man. Yeah, I mean, you never know who you're going to work with. And like you said, it's, you know, a big name is whatever, it's the person, the individual their challenges in life, probably a lot that you can relate to, even if you had didn't have that specific experience. And when someone comes back to you a few months later and says, you know, yeah, I got my physical transformation. But look at all these other things that are better in my life. That that has made you feel great.

 

Cody McBroom  54:45

Yeah, it was really, really cool, man. It was like it was life changing for her and for me, honestly. Yeah, I

 

Philip Pape  54:51

think I think you told that story on on your podcast before. I think it sounds familiar. Like a few months back.

 

Cody McBroom  54:55

They were almost at 900 episodes.

 

Philip Pape  54:57

I know. There you go. No idea. That's Hello. Yes. So how's podcasting made you a better coach than?

 

Cody McBroom  55:03

Man? It just, it's, it's a form of I mean, it's one of my favorite platforms. You know, it's it's the, I think it's allowed me to articulate topics really well, because you can authentically work through science and coaching application, like better than any other platform, you know. And it gives me it gives me a platform that I can do so without a time barrier, you know, because I can turn on the mic out here. And I can talk on topic for an hour. And I know that I'm not doing a client check in or on the phone with somebody or in a meeting that has a time cap or has somebody, one person on their screen that is on a time crunch. Like, it's not specific to one person, so they don't need this answer right now to figure shit out, right? It's something I can just teach. And so it's made me a better teacher and communicator, without a doubt, which in turn makes me a way better coach, it's taught me to study better, because if you're gonna talk on topic, you better study at first, you know, so I've really had to learn how to find research, find information, study it, educate myself, and then learn how to interpret it in my own way. And then, I'd also say more than anything, it's made me a better content creator, but more than you think it was, like, the, to me, at least I feel like it was, it was made for me like, this is the perfect platform for me and how I am as a human. So I was very grateful to get into podcasting, because it allowed everything else I do to just resonate with people better and hit people better because they can, they can listen to the real me talk for an hour. And I don't know, I've always said like, if you can talk on a topic for an hour, you're probably you probably know what you're doing. You know, it's a good sign for people to learn how to trust you, and to really get a good sense of who you are. And it allows me to authentically and transparently like talk about who I am as a person. And that I don't know, that translates into people's headphones in hit Tom so well, for people.

 

Philip Pape  56:51

I'm feeling you mad 100% Because if I had to write articles, or, you know, do social media reels, and that was the only way to get to people, it just I couldn't it couldn't happen. Like just being able to, like you said, think through things. And even even the research people get you. I know you do q&a episodes all the time. I'm sure every single one of those questions comes in part of the answer, you know, and part of it's like, let me go just double check, or let me do some research or, you know, and it's just learn, learn, learn, like, you know, just accelerates it. So, I totally feel you, man, and you can't be fake. I mean, we're here just having this conversation. You never know where it's gonna go. This couldn't happen. 20 years ago, I always like to ask because it's, it's pretty cool.

 

Cody McBroom  57:28

Yeah, it is really cool. And you get to meet connect with a lot of cool people. Because like, for sure, I used to pay for consoles all the time. And maybe like, right, so like, what's your goal you want to I'm like, I just wanna talk to you, man. I just want to like pick your brain. Shit, you're more experienced coaches wanna talk to you? And then podcasts came? I was like, Wait, so I don't have to pay for this anymore. I can just I can just say,

 

Philip Pape  57:49

you know how much I just got from asking you these questions today, right, then now is going to help me with my clients and their future episodes. So

 

Cody McBroom  57:55

and it makes me a better podcaster. It gets me far more people. It's a win win all around. It's so great. I love it.

 

Philip Pape  58:00

Yeah, yeah. So all right, maybe one or two questions, and then I'll let you go. What are you working on? Now? That's like, besides your app, and stuff like that, the industry industry is changing a lot, even in 10 years? Like, are there trends? Are there advancements? Are there technologies that you're really excited about? Or experimenting with? That? You know, you want to talk about?

 

Cody McBroom  58:18

Honestly, no, man, I think that there's, there's been so many things to come out. But nothing has really stood out to me as and we tried a lot of things. But there's, I'm yet to find anything that is like, groundbreaking, I think that at least in the tech world, you know, like I'm working on a lot. I mean, we're always improving our systems. Right now, I'm really working on building the business from, like a role structure perspective. So like the people on my staff, making sure that we're on our own roles we have, we know who reports to who, for what and who's in charge of what and like just working very organized in efficiently so that we can grow at a better rate. Um, I'm working on reaching out to other communities and doing seminars. So I'm actually like in the process of seminar here next month, and then Portland, hopefully next month in New York in September, we're working on something in San Diego, hopefully, so really traveling and get in front of other gyms and in communities and stuff like that. But now that's tech, you know, it's I mean, the apps tech but I'm not doing anything, right systems and people exactly. So the app is something I'm working on that I'm in meetings with developers all the time just to prove things and make sure it's moving in the right direction. The apparel stuff took a pause because we had to restructure we had some trademark issues and we had to kind of go back and kind of get our ducks in a row it's a new industry so we're going to be coming out with a new line here next month and then another one in the summer and so getting that back rolling is gonna be exciting. Yeah, and just just more of everything man I just I love I love creation. So anything business wise that allows me to be creative? I love it

 

Philip Pape  59:45

that's that's your you're in everything man that you're in everything. It's always an inspiration. Man, I hear you doing all this because you know, it pushes pushes the rest of us who want to get there someday to to keep going. Because I always look at it as like I want to be surrounded by people who who are beyond me that that push me to the next level. So Good. Yeah, good stuff. Okay, so I always get asked this question of all of all guests, and that is what one question Did you wish I had asked? And what is your answer?

 

Cody McBroom  1:00:11

Yeah, that's a good question, man.

 

Philip Pape  1:00:14

I don't know. It's paid off a lot.

 

Cody McBroom  1:00:17

It was a really good podcast. I mean, we covered a lot with with just training and nutrition and everything, man, I think that. Had you stumped me on that dude. I don't know. I don't ever like that's the funny thing is because like, it's, as soon as we got on, I was like, I know, you said some topics. I don't remember what they were, I didn't really look at them. And I do that because I like to just go in and just like, let's just authentically talk and you know, be so to me. I don't ever have expectations, except having a good time. You know, so to me like this, this is perfect. We're shooting the shit. We're talking about stuff we love. And I just hope that like, I mean, I guess the only question I would say is, what do you hope the listeners get out of it? You know, and because I was about to say that anyway. And I just hope that I hope somebody learned something, I hope somebody gets value from it to me, I'm like, I have a big mission this year. Like, every time I talk to somebody on video, every time I talk somebody on the phone, every time I see somebody in person, every time I have somebody asked me something, any interaction that I have any single day of my entire life, I've made this commitment this year at 23 hit I was like this is what I want to focus on is I want them to leave with more value than they came to me with. I want them to leave in a better mood, I want them to leave with a new piece of like knowledge, just a little nugget that can help them improve. I want them to have more positivity, more self belief, confidence, anything like I want to be the person that puts energy and other people, you know, when they step in room with me, so I just hope everybody listening gets that. Like that's more than anything, you know?

 

Philip Pape  1:01:43

100% they did, because I did and I know everyone listening, you know, is here for that reason to have that growth mindset. So thanks a lot, man. Where can listeners learn more about you?

 

Cody McBroom  1:01:53

Yeah, so Instagram at Cody McBroom. I post every day there. Everything else is on tailored coaching method.com We write articles almost every week. Tailored live podcast is on there as well. We have three episodes that go out a week we're starting another podcast soon we got YouTube every other week. Like we're pumping shit out like crazy. And it's all free like obviously we coach that's what we do for a living otherwise we couldn't do it for free but we got a lot of a lot of great content for free so go check any of that out.

 

Philip Pape  1:02:19

Yeah, man your purpose is clear, you know in the world here and the stuff this stuff means a lot to a lot of people out there so I'll put your your IG and tailored coaching method.com in the show notes. Man, you brought so much value today for a fact. Thanks again for coming on.

 

Cody McBroom  1:02:34

Yeah, absolutely, man. Thanks for having me.

 

Philip Pape  1:02:38

If you've been inspired by today's interview, and are ready to take action and build momentum on your health and fitness journey, just schedule a free 30 minute nutrition momentum call with me using the link in my show notes. I promise not to sell or pitch you on anything, but I will help you gain some perspective and guidance so we can get you on the right track toward looking and feeling your best

Philip Pape

Hi there! I'm Philip, founder of Wits & Weights. I started witsandweights.com and my podcast, Wits & Weights: Strength Training for Skeptics, to help busy professionals who want to get strong and lean with strength training and sustainable diet.

https://witsandweights.com
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