Mark Manson's Health Journey: Overcoming Obesity and Genetic Challenges

Mark underwent a transformative health journey, losing almost 60 pounds in 4-5 years, dealing with psychological challenges and genetic health issues.

### Mark Manson's Health Journey: From "Fat F*ck" to Fitness (Podcast Transcript)
* 🏋️‍♂️  Mark Manson discusses his health journey, losing **almost 60 pounds in 4-5 years** and dropping from **over 40% body fat to under 20%**.
* 🍔  The "**sad diet**" of his childhood in Texas led to **poor nutritional knowledge** and **unhealthy habits** in adulthood.
* 💔  A health scare in 2018, combined with a vanity-driven need to **lose weight before a speaking tour**, kickstarted his transformation.
* 🏋️‍♂️  Initially, he relied on CrossFit and basic lifestyle changes, **losing 15-20 pounds in the first phase**.
* 📊  Hiring a coach and starting to track his food intake was a game-changer, helping him **lose another 15-20 pounds**.
* 📈  The pandemic and a move to LA brought new challenges, with Mark **regaining weight** due to **lifestyle factors**.
* 🏠  Having a home gym in LA proved crucial, **removing excuses and making workouts more accessible**.
* 🤔  Mark's journey highlights the importance of **consistency, self-awareness, and adapting strategies** as circumstances change.

### Overcoming Health Plateaus: A Journey of Genetic Discovery and Lifestyle Transformation
* 💪  After moving to a healthier environment and adopting a new lifestyle, Mark's motivation shifted from **vanity** to **enjoyment of physical activities with friends**.
* 🩺  Despite consistent efforts, Mark faced multiple plateaus in his health journey, leading to **frustration and self-doubt**.
* 🧬  Realizing the importance of genetics, Mark discovered he had a genetic blood condition and a **double E4 gene**, which significantly impacted his health.
* 💸  Mark acknowledges the privilege of being able to **afford extensive health interventions**, which are often **inaccessible to many**.
* 🤝  Mark emphasizes the importance of a coach's perspective in **overcoming health plateaus** and **maintaining motivation**.
* 🍽️  Mark compares his past eating habits to addiction, highlighting the **complex relationship between food, emotions, and metabolism**.
* 🚶‍♂️  Mark's current health goals focus on **longevity**, optimizing **muscle mass**, and maintaining a **healthy body composition**.
* 🧠  Mark's perspective on health has shifted from focusing on **diets and workouts** to understanding **habits, lifestyle, environment, biology, and psychology**.

- So as you know, Drew, we've
gotten a lot of comments over the last year about how skinny I am. - We have. (Mark laughing) - That's such a weird
way to start an episode. Have you all noticed how skinny I am? Do I look good in these jeans? No. But seriously, so over the past year, dozens and dozens of people have commented and asked about the health
journey I've been on. For those of you who
have been longtime fans, who've been around for many years, you know that I used
to be a little chunky, a little bit of a fat fuck
if we're being honest. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I did plenty of
sugarcoating in prior years. I have lost almost 60 pounds
in the last four to five years. That's 30 kilos for non-Americans. I went from over 40%
body fat, which is like,

very like you're in the red zone in terms of body composition, health-wise, to under 20% body fat. My biomarkers are the best
they've ever been in my life. I've been on a very long
and intense health journey over the last five years. A lot of readers, and viewers,
and listeners have noticed, a lot of people have asked about it. I want to preface this episode by saying, I'm not a fitness guru,
I'm not a nutrition expert, I'm just a guy who was horribly unhealthy for most of his adult life. I fought tooth and nail
to get my shit together, over many, many years,
I tried a lot of things. Most of them didn't work, and so I just wanted to take
an episode to talk through the psychological process
that I went through, as well as the things that I did. There's going to be no,
there's no diet here, there's no exercise routine

there's no hot fad secret
process that did anything. Like, this was a long, arduous process. People keep asking me, like,
Oh my God, you look amazing. What did you do? And my answer is, like,
I did 25 different things over four and a half years,
and half of them didn't work. So I don't know how to
answer that question. So this episode is my attempt
to answer that question, to be very open and honest
about this side of my life and the things that I've learned, and hopefully give the listeners
some psychological tools to approaching their
own health and fitness in their own life and just have more
practical success with it. So that's what we're doing here. - Cool. Yeah, I think a really good
place to start this, Mark, is if you would kind
of give us a background on how you got so unhealthy to begin with. Like, where did that start?

How did that happen? What were some of the processes that went into that? - Oh, well, first of all, I'd like to apologize to my mom and dad for what I'm about to say. (Mark and Drew laughing) - This whole podcast is one big apology to your parents actually, yeah. - Yeah, sorry Mom and Dad. I mean, look, I grew up in Texas in the 80s. Like, I think my mom thought Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Puffs was healthy. - Right. - Like, that's what you're supposed to give your kid. And Domino's Pizza was like a normal dinner. You know, they call it the sad diet, standard American diet. I grew up with zero nutritional knowledge, eating tons of processed crap. You know, pretty much my entire childhood, I was a little bit overweight or out of shape. I was never athletic. And then once I got into my adolescent years in my 20s,

I started drinking a lot,
partying a lot, traveling a lot, working a lot, never
took care of my sleep, never paid attention to what I was eating, drank all the time, and
just. I basically exercised just enough to, like,
keep myself thin enough to remain attractive to
the girls I was dating. That was the entirety of it. I had no strategy. I had no long-term goals. I had no fitness regimen
or a long-term plan. It was just like, oh.
I gained a few pounds. Let's go run a bunch so I can
keep drinking and going out. - And you were able.
that worked for you for? - I mean, in my 20s. Yes. - Yeah. - So I had enough of a
metabolism that worked until it didn't. And- - Common story. Yeah.
- Yeah. So this funny thing happens.
is you age. and as you age.

your body starts telling you,
no, you can't do that anymore. So once I got into my 30s,
the metabolism slowed down, the wear and tear that it
developed on my hormones, on my organs, on my metabolism. Like it all started to come to a head. Probably over 50 pounds,
from like 30 to 35, I gained over 50 pounds. I was already technically overweight. And then you just add another
50 pounds of body weight, probably all fat on top of that. So by the time I was in my mid-30s, I was, by a clinical definition,
obese and in bad health. - Yeah. And that was due to lifestyle
for the most part you think? I know you were working a
lot, you were traveling a lot. Was it mostly lifestyle
stuff at that point, do you feel like? Was there any indication
that it was something bigger at that point? - So that's what triggered all of this.

In 2018, I was working on
two books at the same time. I don't recommend that. I was probably 235 pounds,
something like that. Stressed out of my mind, drinking three or four Red Bulls a day, eating burritos and pizzas for every meal. And I started having chest pains. And I have a history, my family
is history of heart disease, and so I freaked out
and I went to a doctor, got all the heart scans, chest scans, all the stuff that they do,
and everything came back clear. But doctor sat me down and
he was like, by any chance, have you been stressed lately? I was like, oh, God. He was like, how's your sleep been? I'm like, oh, God. - I remember that, Mark. You were like, your eyes were. Yeah, I remember. - I used to do interviews
in videos back then, like, if you go back and
look at videos of me in 2018,

people used to comment, saying like, are you okay, dude? you need to sleep, like I had these big black circles under my eyes. - [Drew] You were going hard. - Anyway, the doctor told me pretty bluntly, you know, and we didn't know a whole lot about my genetics and stuff at that point. But like he told me, he's like, look, you're overweight, you're unhealthy, you're stressed out of your mind, you're not sleeping, and you have a family history of this stuff, he said, you're a ticking time bomb, like you should probably figure this stuff out. And so that kind of scared me straight a little bit. And I'm not going to lie, there was a little bit of vanity to it as well. I finished my book, Everything Is Fucked, A Book About Hope, end of 2018. It was coming out in spring of 2019.

The publisher and CAA booked
a world-speaking tour for me. I was going to do 27 speaking events in like seven different countries. So I knew I was going to be on stage in front of thousands of
people, and I was like, Oh, fuck, like I need to lose some weight. Like, I'm a mess right now. I'm a total mess. So it was a combination
of the vanity and like, I don't want have a heart
attack and die at 42, that I started trying to lose some weight. And initially, as we
go through this story, it's like this story
happens in a series of there's like a burst of progress,
and then there's a plateau that goes for like six or eight months, and then change a bunch of things, burst of progress and
then another plateau, burst of progress, another plateau. And it's kind of like
four different phases. And in each case, the thing
that works in the beginning

stops working at a certain point. And then you have to
like go a level deeper. And so this first level is
just like the classic, okay, stop eating desserts,
drink a little bit less, and go for runs, and
start exercising again. And that's what I did. And that got like the
first 15 or 20 pounds off. And that got me through the speaking tour. And it got me, you know,
through that whole book launch and everything. But the lifestyle didn't change,
the workload didn't change, ultimately, like, my habits
didn't really change. And so I hit a plateau,
you know, 15, 20 pounds. And then I was just stuck. And I'm like, still overweight,
still feeling like shit, still not sleeping well. That plateau lasted for probably
like six or eight months. - I wanna step back just
a little bit though too. So this was 2018, 2019, right?

- Yeah.
- So you're 34, 35 at that time, right?
- 35, yeah.
- Yeah, okay. But you were saying you gained a lot of weight from 30 to 35?
- Yes.
- The Subtle Art came out when you were 31 or 2, if I remember right?
- 2 yeah..
- You're 32. You've mentioned before that there, you know, you've written about these things.
- Yeah.
- And like, there is this whole thing, we know what we should do and we still don't do it. Right?
- Of course.
- What's the connection there with, you know, the book, the success that you had, you've talked about kind of the aimless nature or the aimless kind of wandering you did in that period too. Was there any connection to your physical health with all of that?
- So I think this actually gets into like probably the first

really salient psychological point of this, which is that I was delusional. And I think most people who are unhealthy are delusional. Like, I knew I wasn't in shape and I knew I was overweight, but I didn't understand the extent of it and how bad it was. And I deluded myself into believing that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. So when I look back at that whole period like, yes, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck would say it's like, look, you need to give a fuck about a few things and care about them very deeply. And those things should be like very personal, important. They should pay off in the long run. Health is obviously one of those things, it affects everything else in your life. You get one body like if you fuck it up, that's it. I should have been giving a lot more fucks about my health

than I was, but I didn't because I was essentially
just lying to myself and telling myself it wasn't that bad. Now, part of this too, is
like coming from like how bad of a health background. I came from the fact that I ate a
salad like twice a week. - Yeah. - I'm like, well, I'm healthier
than I was five years ago, you know, like, the fact
that I actually went to a gym occasionally with some friends. I'm like, well, I'm exercising like I didn't do that ten years ago. So in my head, I'm
actually, I'm being healthy because my bar was so low and
my expectations were so low. So part of it is just
like a complete ignorance of what a healthy lifestyle
actually looks like. And then part of it is delusion. It's just lying to
yourself and being like, yeah, it's not that bad.

I can have another burger. - Yeah. No, I was shocked, like when
I was doing some research for this too. When you go on YouTube or whatever, and people are giving their
transformation stories, weight loss stories, and
everything, and, you know, they'll be severely overweight. - Yeah. - Pre-diabetic or diabetic,
all sorts of health problems. And a lot of them say, you
know, I'm not that unhealthy. - Yeah. - It's insane. It's insane to think about. But I get it, like when you're in that, of course, you're not going to sit there and think about yourself as being somebody who's that unhealthy, right? - Well, and I mean, we'll
get into this more later. But the bar is so low,
especially in the United States, that like, I went to doctors
later who ran blood panels, and they're like, well, I've seen worse.

- [Drew] Right? - And it's like, actually,
if you look at what a healthy person should be at, a healthy person in his
30s should be at, you know, my panels were terrible. They're like atrocious. But we'll get to that in a minute. - Okay. When you first started
out, was there anything that you thought, This is
definitely going to work, and it didn't? Or vice versa
too, like what early on, in those early stages, what did you find was
most successful for you? - The one thing that is good about me is that I'm able to endure a lot of pain. And so some friends of
mine got into CrossFit, and I joined a CrossFit
gym because I was like, well, if I'm going to work out, I might as well do the
hardest workout possible. And I still had this kind of naive notion that if you work out extra hard,

the results are proportional
to how hard you push yourself, which is not true at all. So I started going to this CrossFit gym and just like murdering
myself multiple times a week, just destroying my body. And then, of course, going out, and having like a four-course meal, and drinking a bottle of wine,
and going to an after-party, and drinking cocktails, and
fucking sleeping till noon, you know?
- Right. - So like undoing all of the positive work that I was doing at the CrossFit gym. So I think that's a very
common newbie mistake that people make. Is they're like, oh, if
I want progress faster, I just have to suffer more quickly. And no, it's a consistency thing. It's a compounding thing
over a long period of time. - No. Yeah. Yeah, I've been to a CrossFit too. Definitely. Like when, I'll intentionally
like reduce my weight

that I do or reduce
intensity of the workout because I know I'm like, it's
more about the consistency. Just show up. That's what I found too. - [Mark] Yes.
- Definitely. - For sure. - [Drew] Yeah. - For sure. - Yeah, okay. So that was kind of the first phase. What was the second phase
you kind of got into or what was the next phase that you found? - So we get to like into 2019. I've been trying to lose
weight for over a year. I lost 15 pounds in like
the first four months and then nothing for the
eight months after that. And I was stuck for so
long and so frustrated that finally I was like, I
finally had the humility to say, I clearly don't know what I'm doing. And the things that worked in my 20s are not working anymore. So I hired a coach and,
shout out to Dan Go.

He's become a big influencer on the interwebs. Dan changed my perspective on a lot of things. The first thing was the consistency thing. He was actually the first person who told me, he's like, you shouldn't be sore after a workout. Because if you're sore, that means you don't have energy to work out the next day. Like it's better to have like light workouts consistently than to go fucking kill yourself and then just be dead for 48 hours afterwards. But the big thing that Dan did for me is he got me on tracking. It seemed like such a minor, obnoxious thing. I was like, okay, I hired this guy. He's gonna make me do all these apps and shit, like, I guess he wants to just make sure I'm doing the thing. I had no fucking clue how big of a deal tracking is. It's a complete game-changer. And this is why.

The first reason is that it actually allows you to spot your own bullshit. So there was so many times in the past that I would go to a restaurant or something, I'd order a salad, and in my head I'm like, well, it's a salad, so it's healthy. I didn't think about the ingredients. I didn't think about how it was made. I didn't think about what was in the dressing. I was just like, well, it's a salad. It has grilled chicken. Like it's healthy. When you actually have to sit down and start tracking every ingredient, you start realizing like, oh, well, that dressing has a shitload of sugar in it. And, well, yeah, there's like a cup of bacon thrown on top. There's two ounces of cheese thrown on top. There's like three eggs in it, like, oh my God, that salad is fucking 1,200 calories.

- The sugar in the
dressing, yeah, yeah, yeah. - It is pure calories. And the eye opening way that, you know, between understanding what's in the food, and then also understanding
situations where, you know, in the past, I would lie to
myself and be like, you know, I ate light today, I could have a snack, or I can go have a dessert, or I can go out with some
friends and have a couple drinks. You know, you open that
app, and you're like, oh no, I can't, I can't have a snack, and I can't go have some drinks. - Yeah. That sounds torturous to
some people, I imagine. - Some people hate it. Like my wife - - Yeah, what is it with
the tracking with you that you like so much? - I don't like it. If I were to like list in order the things that had the greatest impact,

it was one of the most
impactful things for me. Just because I am really
good at lying to myself, that is something I discovered
through this whole process. I am an excellent
bullshit artist to myself. Like I can convince
myself of fucking anything, and that tracker doesn't lie. It just stares you back at in
the face and is like, nope, two chocolate brownies are
still two chocolate brownies. Like it doesn't matter if
they're gluten free, dude. - [Drew] Yeah. - Like you're eating a shitload of sugar. It's one of those things,
it's not pleasant, but it is necessary and honest. And also it's a good practice because in the process of doing it, it forces you to learn about food. You learn how many calories
each type of food has. You learn how much protein
is in each cut of meat. You learn which vegetables
are super starchy.

and which ones are not. You start learning like what
has sugar in it, what doesn't, which dressings are
good, which ones are not. These are all things that I had no clue. Absolutely zero clue. But just through the process
of tracking for multiple years, it forced me to. The second thing about
tracking is that it, for somebody who's like very
competitive or like likes games like me, it gives you
something to try to accomplish or a goal or like- - Gamified kind of yeah. - It's a score you're
trying to beat, right? So- - See, I think you like it, I
think that's why you like it. It's a game to you and I think
that you do actually like it. - With the workouts, for sure. - Yeah, okay, okay. - Like I fucking love, like
one of my favorite things is to go into the gym,
I did it this morning.

Go to the gym, look at what I squatted last week and be like, I'm gonna do one more rep than that. It gets me fired up. It really gets me fired up. But again, if you don't track your workouts, you can't really. You can't have that experience. You just kind of wander into the gym, you're like, Well, I squatted last week, I guess I'll squat this week again too. You know, there's no framework that you're working within or a clear goal that you're chasing after. So tracking was huge and that had an immediate impact. It unlocked kind of the next jump in progress. I probably lost another 15 or 20 pounds that year. The pandemic made it easier. It removed a lot of the lifestyle obstacles. But then jump about six or eight months after that, I kind of got down to a healthy weight for the first time in probably seven or eight years.

And Dan said, Okay, this is great. Like, why don't we focus on adding some muscle and not cut the calories so low, like, you know, eat at maintenance or maybe a slight surplus. And that switch over combined with the pandemic, you know, everything opening up from the pandemic, the lifestyle coming back, the travel coming back, going out, seeing friends, all this stuff, I ended up putting most of that weight back on. And you were living in New York at that time, is that right? - [Mark] Yes. - Yeah, okay. - I was still in New York and that weight came back fast too, I think I gained like 16 or 17 pounds in like three months or something, like it was. - That's got to be just demoralizing. - [Mark] It sucks. - Yeah. I've never had to deal with that. I've been fortunate, I think genetically or whatever.

- Yeah. Just never had big swings in my weight. But especially after you've worked so hard to put that. And that's a very common thing that people see too. - Absolutely. It's like, I believe if you look at the data behind the average diet, it's actually negative progress because even people who lose weight, they put more back on afterwards. It was demoralizing. It sucked. It really sucked. But it forced me to confront a couple really necessary questions. The first and biggest one being lifestyle. I had to have some like really hard questions with myself of like, you can't keep going out as much as you're going out. You can't drink as much as you're drinking. You can't- - Eat whatever the hell you want. - You can't eat whatever the hell you want. Like, even If it fits your macros, right? Like I started to notice at this point,

I've been tracking long enough
that I noticed that, like, sugar fucks me up. Like, even if I'm not eating
an excess of calories, eating a bunch of sugar, I wake up and I weigh more the next day. It undoes five days' worth
of progress if I go out and eat a bunch of sugar. Same
thing with alcohol, you know, even though my calories
are within the right range, I put on weight that week. And so I started to just
notice some really basic things about my metabolism, which is that not every
calorie is created equal. Like some stuff affects, like it creates knock-on
effects or chain reactions within your body, and you have to be aware of that stuff, like you have to pay attention to it. So that coincided with the move to LA, and I've talked quite a bit about how having a healthier lifestyle out here is just so much easier, and
how much of a game-changer.

that's been not going out all the time, not drinking all the
time. Had a gym at home, which was amazing. Now, I have no excuse to not work out. The lifestyle stuff had to get
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and use the code IDGAF as in I don't give a fuck, for 20% off your one-time purchase. - Does having a home gym is that- - Bro. - You really like that? Really?
- [Mark] Dude. - 'Cause I've tried that
before too, and I just- - Really? - Like, I needed to leave
for some reason to work out, for some reason, I don't know why. - Oh my God, it's a game-changer 'cause A, you have no excuse,
you have zero excuse, like. - It's those weights are staring at you.

- Yeah. You know, how like it's a busy day. You're sitting around, it's like 7 p.m. after dinner. You're like, ah, I didn't work out today, but I don't want to get in the car, and drive down there, and all this stuff, like, you kind of talk to yourself out of it. When you have a home gym, there's no excuse. - [Drew] Yeah. - It's like, dude, it's right there, like, get your shit together. - I do notice that, if I don't get my workout in by mid-day, it's a real struggle. - Yeah. - [Drew] Yeah. - Yeah. It's like, go pick up the weight. - Okay. Okay. - I also like it, too because sometimes I'll just like walk by and I'm like, I wonder how many pull-ups I can do.

- Just pop out a couple
of quick curls, yeah. - Totally. I totally do that. I totally do that. I don't know, like, I'll
literally be walking through my house and I'm like, let's do some goblet squats. Let's just see how many,
let's see if I can do 15. - Okay. Okay. So environmental setup. That's like a really big one. That's a big one for everybody. - Dude, environment
matters so fucking much. - [Drew] It's everything. - And we talk about this a
lot, you know, in the pod, and the books, and everything. We like to think that
it's about willpower. It's about discipline. It's about staying fucking hard. Dude, environment, it's
such a huge factor. - [Drew] Yeah. - The place you put yourself in, the things that are in your house,

the people you surround yourself with, it has as big of an effect
as is anything else you do. - [Drew]: Right? - Honestly, getting out
of New York was like just, I think it was crucial for me because so much of my personality is just I want to do the things, right? And when you put me in an environment where the things to do
involves consuming stuff, I'm going to go consume the stuff, right? Whereas like here I'm in in an environment where the things to do are all
very physical, and healthy, and outdoorsy, and the people
you're hanging out with are super healthy. The peer pressure is positive. - Does the environment
change the motivation to? Now, you said when you started out, the motivation was really
kind of your vanity. I want to lose weight,
I want to look better, that kind of thing. How has your motivation
changed over those periods?

Does environment influence that a lot to do you think, have you found less superficial motivation, I guess? - Yeah. - And how much does that matter for you? - I think the environment has made it more fun. I tend to associate exercise today more with just being enjoyable. - Okay. - And I think part of that is just doing it long enough to like see benefits, and get the satisfaction, and know how good my body feels when I do it. But part of it is like I'm in an environment where like, dude, like have my friends out here, the thing we do for fun is hike, surf, or go to the gym, go for a run. Like those are like the things you do with your friends here. - Right, saunas and all that. Yeah, yeah. - Saunas, cold plunges, all that shit. And it's, so yeah, I mean, it's the all-fire together wire together.

Like, you start associating
physically strenuous activities with fun, like socially
rewarding, entertaining, enjoyable things. At this stage, it was just very much like, physically, I'm starting to feel better than I felt in a long, long time. You know, I was still overweight, I was still technically kind
of weak and out of shape, but like, at least I wasn't obese, I wasn't just like this
exhausted fat kid that I had been for the previous few years. And so, yeah, the lifestyle
stuff was a game-changer. - [Drew] Okay. - But it's funny because
that really, you know, that undid some of the weight gain. But at this point, you
know, we're probably what, early 2022? I've been working with
Dan for like two years. - You just moved to LA? - Moved to LA like six months.

I mean, and at this point,
I've been doing everything. I cut way back on alcohol.
I hadn't quit entirely yet, but cut way back on alcohol. I'm eating right. I'm tracking everything. I'm exercising like four
or five times a week. I'm sleeping really well. I'm not working like a
crazy person anymore. And technically, I'm still
kind of in the same spot I was a year and a half before,
and it started to feel like, it felt like I constantly had a headwind. And by this point, too,
I had had other friends who lost a bunch of weight
or tried to get in shape. And you watch them do it. They do to it in like six months. - Right. - And you're like, well, what the fuck? Like, why is it so easy for him? Like, how did that? You know, Dan starts posting
other clients of his like,

oh, so and so lost 40 pounds
in eight months, and like, so proud of him. I'm like, well, fuck that person. Like, what am I doing wrong? I'm doing everything. I'm literally doing everything. And it was at that point
that he was like, hey, man, you should go get like
real blood work done. Like, not this bullshit. You
know, basic labs at a doctor. They'll just look at it and be like, well, you're not diabetic,
and you're not dying, so you're fine, like, go
find somebody really good. And so at that point, I went and found a
functional medicine doctor, and for people who don't know, functional medicine is like, it's more integrative, it's more holistic. And they look at the body
more as like a system. And it's more about optimization of health rather than just like, well,
you're not going to die.

So, you know, normal
medicine is preventative. It's like you come in when you are about to have a heart attack, and then that's when they treat you. Whereas like functional
medicine, it's more like, let's do the things that will make sure you never have a heart
attack in the first place. - [Drew] Right. - So I went to a
functional medicine doctor, did this massive set of
bloodwork, results come back, and the doctor, I remember
I sat down in front of her at her desk and she
like, held up the results and it had my birthday
in the top right corner. I remember she covered the
birthday and she was like, she was like, how old are you? And I said, I'm 37. And she said, if these results did not have your birthday on it, I would guess that you were 60. (Mark laughing) - Shit.

No subtlety there, huh? - Yeah, no, and I was like, okay. And she was like, your hormone profile is that of a 60-year-old man, like a healthy 60-year-old man. But you're 37, so this is not healthy. - Right. - My testosterone was like 290. The free testosterone was like, five, five and a half. - What should that ranges have been for you at that point? - So, like, an elderly man should be around 3 to 400. - Okay. And you were below that. - I was below that. - [Drew] Yeah. - Like a man in his 30s should be five, 600, probably, like double what I was. I was technically pre-diabetic. My A1C was just over the line. She was like, technically, you're pre-diabetic. And this is after I'd lost like 20, 30 pounds, right?

- Right. - And I was exercising
and I was eating well. So, I was just like,
Jesus Christ, man, what? Like, what did I do? What did I do? Come to find out, I mean,
I've since found out there's two contributors to this. One is just the lifetime
of eating garbage. Horrible lifestyle. The second one is that I
have a couple of genetic, I just have shit genetics, like so I have a thing
called hemochromatosis, which means that my blood
accumulates a ton of iron. - That runs in my family too, actually. - Yeah, it's a Scottish-Irish thing. - Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah. And if it goes unchecked, like it can cause significant
cardiovascular problems, it can cause metabolic problems. So, like, my iron levels
were two and a half times the upper limit of what
you're supposed to have, which you basically just think about,

it just makes your blood super thick and causes a bunch of issues. You really shouldn't drink with that either, too. Oops. And the other thing I have is, it's a thing called he double E4 gene, which I didn't even know about this. I read Peter Attia's book. Maybe one day he'll come on the pod. Apparently, Chris Hemsworth has it. But it was really funny, I was reading Peter Attia's book and he was talking about, he was like, you know, there's an E4 gene and it increases the likelihood of Alzheimer's by like 400%, and also leads to insulin resistance, and you're more likely to be diabetic and pre-diabetic, and accumulate fat, and have trouble losing it. And then he was like, and then there's like a very rare subset of people who have a double E4 gene, which means both their parents have an E4 gene.

and you just got fucked
in the genetic lottery. And he was like, oh, these
people like 600 times more likely to get Alzheimer's, and
your metabolism's super... Anyway, long story short,
I had the double E4 gene, and Attia says in his book,
he's like, if you have this, you really need to start
intervening in your early 40s. - [Drew] Yeah. - Like this is an all-hands-
on-deck type of situation. So I'm discovering this
stuff at like 37, 38. So I've got this blood condition, this genetic blood condition
that is working against me. I've got this fucked-up gene
that's working against me. And I've had an entire
lifetime of awful habits. And I have heart disease
that runs in the family. So, like, I'm sitting there
and I'm realizing that if I had just kind of continued
at my previous trajectory,

I'd probably be dead at like 50, 55. That was probably if I had
just not changed course at all. So this was the first realization, that scared the shit out of me. Second realization was that
this is non-negotiable now. Like, I'm late 30s about to hit 40. I've got all these genetics
working against me. I've got an entire lifetime
of bad lifestyle choices working against me. Like this
is not, there are no options. Like the margin for error,
I have a much smaller margin for error than most people do, and so I decided to kind of
go all in on the health thing. - You know, you keep
hitting these plateaus and it seems like each one
is a little bit rougher. - Yes. - Than the previous one. And I think that's really hard
for people to get through. I think people, they'll
give up at one of those

or whatever it is.
- [Mark] Yeah. - You seem to have pushed
through in a number of cases. You also have access, you
know, like functional medicine, stuff like that, although
that's becoming more accessible for more people too. Online, you get these online
panels done, you know, they send you a tube, you put
some blood in it, send it off. But that is, again,
it's just demoralizing, I think, when you hit those plateaus. And especially in this
case where it's like you're working out four
or five times a week, you're eating right, you're
still not getting that off. What? Go into that. How do you? - [Mark] Dude. - How do you address that? - I mean, there was a lot
of periods of like anger. So much frustration. And it gets weird too. You
like start getting gaslit by your own body.

Right?
- Yeah. - Because it's like, you know, Dan would have me do DEXA
scans every six months, and then we would set goals, right? It's like, okay, hey, your next DEXA scan, we're going to try to lose
like, you know, 6 or 7 pounds of fat and maybe put on a pound of muscle or something like that. And I go and it's like,
I would make progress, but it'd be barely any progress. And I was just like, what am I fucking up? And then the come back to
lying to yourself thing. Am I bullshitting myself? Like, I think I'm doing everything right? Like am I just fucking, am I still lying, like
three years into this? - Right, 'cause you did it once. - Am I still lying to
myself about all this stuff? - Yeah. - Like how is this not working?

How is this not progressing? And I think a lot of people,
they hit that plateau, they hit that point, and it
gets hard. It gets tiring. They feel defeated. And I imagine, I think at that moment, it's really important what
story you tell yourself. And I really think this is where the value of the coach comes in. Right? Because if I had been
alone, I'd probably be like, well, yeah, I tried. It just didn't work. That didn't work. Maybe I go try another thing,
you know, a year from now. The coach has the perspective
to say like, wait a second, you're doing a lot of the right things. Like, let's look at something else. Like, don't give up yet, right. It's more complicated than this. I was very fortunate in that fact. I mean, kind of an unspoken
thing through all of this. You mentioned it is access, right?

Like none of this stuff is cheap. None of it. A gym membership's not cheap. Much less buying healthy
food is not cheap. There's all sorts of data
on how healthy food costs like three times as much as junk food. Healthy food's not cheap. A trainer or a coach is not cheap. Getting the lab work done is not cheap, especially if your insurance blows like everybody in the US's does. - Right. - A functional medicine
doctor's definitely not cheap, you know? And then even once you
figure that shit out and you work with that doctor, like the stuff that that doctor prescribes is not going to be
covered by your insurance. So you're paying out of pocket. So that's not cheap either. I mean, it's like, I'm not gonna lie, I probably spent north of,
definitely tens of thousands. - Yeah. - Easily tens of thousands over
the last five years on this. And that's not available to everybody.

And that's fucked up. It should be. - [Drew] Right. - Right. - So I don't know what to say about that, but I do want to be transparent about that, that this is like definitely a big part of this process is privileged. - Well, there's also a, we wage moral judgments against people a lot, you know, for their weight or whatever it is. And I think the more I learn about this, and I think you would agree with this too, the more I learn about it, the more I realize how much genetics plays a role and how much we just can't. There's a floor and a ceiling to all of this. How do you think about that now? How do you think about approaching something that's, you know, genetically based now? - It's definitely giving me a lot more sympathy for people, right? Because you realize not everybody's starting at the same starting line.

- Definitely, yeah. - And also, it works the other way, right? Like I remember reading stories that there was a story about Allen Iverson who, like, when he went to the NBA, they put him through a physical. This dude didn't practice, never trained. - Notoriously, yeah. - And then like, they put him in the physical and part of that was like a VO2 max test. They put him on a treadmill with an incline. They speed the treadmill up, see how long he can go. They said that he went for so long that they didn't actually like, they ran out of measurements. Like, he literally broke the test because he just ran on the treadmill for so long. - Right, yeah. - And then he came off and the doctors, like, asked him, they're like, you know, do you run marathons or something? And he's like, marathon? He's like, fuck that shit.

You know, literally like just went back to the club, start drinking again, you know. So it's like some guys, you know, the same way some people win the talent lottery, some people win the intelligence lottery, some people very physically attractive, some people are born with a great metabolism, very athletic, a lot of natural strength. Other people get completely hosed in terms of like, you know, biologic functioning and everything. So it's definitely changed my view on that. I mean, the other thing it's giving me sympathy for is that there is like a little bit of a feedback process, right? Like one of the things I learned is that when you become extremely overweight, like there's a feedback loop that starts. Like as you put on body fat, you gain something called visceral adipose tissue, that squeezes your internal organs, it makes them function less efficiently. That creates like a hormonal cascade.

So your hormones get worse,
your organs are less efficient, which then causes you
to feel less energetic, causes you to feel hungry more often. So you eat even more food, which causes you to gain more body weight, which causes your metabolism and your different organ functions to function even worse after that. And you get caught in the cycle and like working against that
cycle is extremely difficult. So like I discovered that I had something
called insulin resistance, which is like my body
doesn't produce insulin in the capacity that it needs to, like if I eat a bunch
of sugar or something, like that sugar spike will
last in my body much longer than it'll last in somebody else's. And it's just because
I've eaten so much garbage over so many decades that I broke that part of my metabolism. And it is unfortunate
that we have a tendency to judge skinny or fat
people purely based on it being a flaw of discipline
or flaw of willpower.

I would compare it more to an addiction. Like it's 100%. Yeah. It's akin to, well, I don't know if I want to call it akin to alcoholism, but yeah, it's more of an addiction. And I've noticed myself, I have a lot of compulsive eating habits, that again, I was not aware of until I actually tried to, like, stop, till I tracked everything and tried to stop. I was like, yeah, I only had six chocolates. Right? And then I like, start counting. I'm like, oh fuck, I had 14. Oh, God. How did that happen? Like, how the fuck? I literally don't remember eating the other eight chocolates. Fore sure. You put sugar in front of me and it's gong down for sure. Yeah. It's like- What were you triggers for that though, was it like boredom?

I know boredom's one for a lot of people. - For sure. - [Drew] Yeah. - Boredom and anxiety are the big ones. - Okay, yeah. - I ate when I was bored, and I ate when I was uncomfortable. It was like something to kind of pass the time. I also drank when I was uncomfortable, border-uncomfortable. - Yeah. So, okay. What are you doing now? What are some of your health goals now? How are you approaching that? How do you see this whole process at this point? - I'm optimizing for longevity. So right now I'm actually trying to add some strength and muscle. I'm officially in my 40s, so I think that's probably going to be the biggest long-term payoff. But it's also just, you know, so at this point it's adding a certain amount of muscle while maintaining a healthy body composition. I have no aspirations.

I don't want to, like, I
don't need to have abs. I don't need to be
fucking jacked. You know, not like trying to win a
bodybuilding competition or anything. It's just like, I just want
to be healthy, and active, and fit, and set up my body in a place that it feels relatively
optimal for the long haul. - Yeah. You talked about kind of the
vicious cycle of the other way. Do you feel like you've kind of entered into a virtuous cycle now where, you know, you skip a workout and you
feel it, and you're like, oh, I really need to get back out there? - [Mark] Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah, for sure. You get hooked on the
on the good feelings. It's a different good feeling. The same way you get hooked
on the good feelings of, like, I don't know, having a drink
or eating a really good meal.

a big meal. You get hooked on the
feelings of exercise, being outside, eating
super clean. You know, it's like now, if I go out
and have a burger and fries, I'll enjoy it. But like an hour or two
later, I'm like, oh man, I need some vegetables. - [Drew] Yeah. - I can feel my body like
craving the nutritional value. So there is another
spiral on the other side. But it's hard. Like the compulsive thing, you know, I still run into it. We went to a Brazilian
steakhouse last night. Man, I crushed so much fucking steak. - Oh, they're the best. - So many fried bananas. Oh, man, I was going crazy. I was like, man, I need to chill. Like, I finally hit a point. I'm like, cut me off. Like, just don't let me go anymore.

It requires vigilance still, but it's, I don't know, personally, I look back on this period, and I just think it's interesting having gone through this process and then like, turning around and looking at all the same health and fitness stuff that I saw in the beginning, like in the beginning, I guess if I were to like, summarize how my perspective has changed. It's not about a diet, it's not about a fitness regimen. There's no workout online that's going to solve this shit. It's about habits, lifestyle, environment, and biology. And a lot of it is understanding your own biology and adapting to your own biology. It's also psychology, understanding your psychology. Understanding that like, yeah, when I get angry, I soothe myself with ice cream. You know, it's like, break that link, sever that tie that you have in your brain. We all, I think most people have some sort of link

in their brain between an
unhealthy consumption habit and an emotion that they're
trying to avoid in some way. - Right. And I think that's a good reason why you don't give a whole
lot of specific advice around this because it's
different for everybody, right? And what you do isn't going
to work for everybody. And I found that with myself too. - Totally. - Like I have very specific
things I need to do that probably wouldn't
work for anyone else. - Absolutely. And honestly, like, I mean,
the actual workouts themselves, like almost don't even matter. - Right, yeah, just showing up. You know, it's like just do something. - [Drew] Yeah. - Just fucking be active. - Yeah. - Like that's really the
20 that drives 80% of it. Even if it's just going for walks, like walking was a huge part of- - Yeah, getting your steps in.

- Yeah, like steps was a
huge part of it as well. But, you know, on the food side, yeah, it's about learning yourself. It's about learning your
tendencies and habits. What keeps you sane, what sort of patterns
your body falls into, how you respond to certain foods. And you really don't learn that
unless you're like tracking, keeping some sort of food
journal, setting goals, and metrics, and like
tracking them over time and, you know, measuring yourself. - Yeah, yeah. Well, Mark, you're looking good. You've got tons of energy. - Thanks, buddy. - Yeah. No, it's been really, really fun to watch you go through this. - Yeah. - Even when it wasn't fun
for you, maybe, I don't know. Yeah. - I'm glad you liked it. Yeah. It's been wild, man. It's been a wild ride, so.

- Well, that's all I got.
- Yeah, there it is. Drew Birnie in the flesh, in the studio. Obviously, be sure to like
and subscribe to the show. We are going to be back next
week with a new podcast guest, so stick around. (upbeat music)

How I Lost 60 Pounds and Started Giving A F*ck About My Health

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Mark Manson

Mark has undergone a significant weight loss, dropping from over 40% body fat to under 20% over the course of four to five years.

His unhealthy lifestyle, including poor diet, excessive drinking, and lack of exercise, led to a drastic decline in his health as he entered his 30s.

A wake-up call came when he experienced chest pains and received a warning from the doctor about his high stress, poor sleep, and family history of health issues, prompting him to make a change for the sake of his well-being.

The speaker felt the need to lose weight before a world-speaking tour due to both vanity and health concerns.

His weight loss journey consisted of bursts of progress followed by plateaus, with different strategies working at each phase.

He realized that his delusion about his unhealthy lifestyle and low standards were contributing to his struggle with weight loss.

The Misconceptions of Pushing Hard in Fitness

Pushing too hard in workouts and then overindulging can undo the progress, leading to a common newbie mistake.

Consistency and compounding progress over time are more effective than quick, intense suffering.

Hiring a coach helped in understanding the importance of light, consistent workouts and the game-changing impact of tracking food intake, which not only reveals the truth about one's diet but also turns the process of learning about food into a game.

Overcoming Weight Fluctuations and Building a Healthier Lifestyle

Tracking workouts and setting clear goals is crucial for progress in fitness.

Lifestyle changes, including reducing alcohol and sugar intake, were necessary to maintain a healthy weight.

The transition to a healthier lifestyle in LA, with a home gym and better habits, was a game-changer for consistent workouts.

The Significance of Environmental Setup in Motivation and Health

The environment plays a crucial role in shaping habits and motivation, often overshadowing willpower and discipline.

A positive and healthy environment can make physical activities more enjoyable and the transition to a healthier lifestyle more sustainable.

Realizing the impact of his environment, the speaker sought help from a functional medicine doctor, whose extensive bloodwork revealed the significant toll of the environment on his health.

Health Struggles and Genetic Realizations

A man in his late 30s discovers he has the hormone profile of a much older man, as well as pre-diabetic levels, due to a lifetime of poor habits and a genetic predisposition to high iron levels.

Realizing he has a much smaller margin for error than most people, he decides to fully commit to his health.

Despite working out and eating well, he experiences frustration and anger at hitting weight loss plateaus, leading to self-doubt and feeling gaslit by his own body.

The Importance of Self-Story and Privilege in Overcoming Health Challenges

During tough times, the story you tell yourself is crucial, highlighting the value of a coach's perspective in not giving up.

The process of overcoming health challenges is heavily influenced by privilege, as it requires significant financial resources.

Understanding the role of genetics creates more sympathy towards others and their health journeys, emphasizing the unequal starting line for everyone.

Prioritizing Longevity and Health in Middle Age

The interviewee is focusing on building strength and muscle in their 40s for long-term health, rather than aiming for a specific body type.

They have transitioned into a virtuous cycle of craving exercise and clean eating, while still struggling with occasional compulsive overeating.

The key to their health journey has been understanding personal habits, biology, and psychology, rather than following a specific diet or workout regimen.