Episode 60 | Drew Manning, Fit2Fat2Fit | He Lost 70 lbs in 6 Months…HOW DID HE DO IT?
To Listen, Just Click Play!
Welcome to On Health: The Art Of Living, where each week, I bring you the latest information on how to live a healthier, more vibrant, more passion-driven life. And on today’s show, Drew Manning...He went from fit2fat2fit…which is also the name of his New York Times best-selling book. In 2011, Drew did an experiment that went viral online, where he went from being in incredible shape…then, he put on 70 pounds in 6 months…on purpose. And in 6 months, he proceeded to take it all off. His journey of was featured on shows like Dr. Oz, Good Morning America, The View and many more. And, his experiment has since become a hit TV show, airing on A&E and Lifetime. Even though he gained and lost all that weight, what happened on the inside his body was even more fascinating…which we’ll talk about today.
In today’s show, you’ll discover…
• What happened to the outside of his body is obvious, but you won’t believe what happened on the inside.
• What are the dangers of inflammation, and what lifestyle changes can you take right now to reduce your levels?
• What specific foods help reduce inflammation?
• What blood tests are most important to pay attention to, and how can you easily understand these biomarkers to optimize your health?
Subscribe To On Health: The Art of Living
Like What You Heard?
If you like the show, I’d appreciate if you could please take a moment to leave an honest review and rating for the show on iTunes. They’re super helpful for ranking the show so more people can find it. And, I love hearing what you have to say!
And, remember to subscribe on iTunes to receive updates every Wednesday when a new episode is live!
Follow Along With The Transcript
Kathy Smith: Hi Drew. Welcome to the show.
Drew Manning: Kathy, thank you so much for having me on. I’m looking forward to this.
Kathy Smith: So we kind of have the same stomping grounds. We both live in Utah here. Do you have a favorite hike or a favorite place you love to go and get your morning workout besides the gym?
Drew Manning: Besides the gym. Actually, I live really close to some really good hikes just here by my house. My all-time favorite so far is Lake Blanche. Just a beautiful view at the top. It’s not too far of a hike. Maybe a couple of hours to the top. But a beautiful view of the lake and beautiful scenery up there. Have you been to that one yet?
Kathy Smith: No. But I’m going to invite myself on that one.
Drew Manning: We’re going to go. We’re going to do that.
Kathy Smith: This journey you went on. What prompted you to go and put on this weight? Why did you do it?
Drew Manning: Here’s the thing. I grew up in a family of 11 brothers and sisters, and I grew up my entire life in shape. We were all active kids. We all played sports. So I never knew what it was like to be overweight. Then in 2009, I became a personal trainer, and I thought it would be so easy to help people transform – give them the meal plans, give them the workouts. I’m like, “Look. Here’s the plan. It’s so easy. You just put down the junk food, you go to the gym and boom, you change.”
Then my clients would struggle following the meal plans. They would say, “You know, Drew. I kind of cheated last night. I gave in and had some soda,” or “You know what? I was really sore. I didn’t go to the gym like you told me to.”
I’m like, “Why don’t you just do it? It’s not that hard. For me, it’s easy. Why is it so hard for you?”
They would tell me, “Drew, you just don’t understand because for you, it’s always been easy. But for me it’s hard.”
I couldn’t understand that. So I was thinking of ideas of like, “Okay, how can I change as a trainer? How can I be a better trainer? How can I better relate to my clients?”
For whatever reason, Kathy, this idea popped up in my head. It was like a lightning bolt moment of like what if– this sounds crazy– but “What if you get fat on purpose to better understand where your clients are coming from, so you can understand a little bit of what it’s like to be overweight for the first time in your life? Maybe that’ll help you.” So this idea caught on, and I knew I was going to do it. It was almost like a calling.
So I eventually did it. And it was honestly one of the hardest, most humbling things I’ve ever done. I learned so many valuable lessons, and it totally changed my perspective of health and fitness and how transformation works.
Kathy Smith: When you say it was the hardest, what was hard? Was it hard to put on the weight?
Drew Manning: From a mental perspective, yes. Because my identity was based on my six pack and my body. Once I’d lost that, I freaked out. I’ll be totally honest with you. I went out in public– or wanted to go up to strangers and tell them, “Hey. I’m not really overweight. This is just an experiment. This isn’t really me. Here’s my before picture. Go to this website.” Because I didn’t know how to handle being overweight. So from a mental perspective, it was really hard, for the first time, to be overweight.
Putting the weight on, I would say it was easy. It was kind of fun. I’ll be honest with you. To go to the grocery store and skip the produce section and to go down the cereal aisle and the soda aisle was just like heaven for about two weeks. Then I got sick a bit, but I stuck with it for six months. It’s more hard mentally and emotionally than physically. Physically, it was hard to breathe, walk up the stairs, bend over and clip my toenails, and bend over and tie my shoes, and it affected my energy levels, it affected my mood. There were a lot of valuable lessons learned, but it was very, very humbling.
Kathy Smith: And no exercise? Were you still exercising or no?
Drew Manning: No. No exercise for six months. That was really hard too.
Kathy Smith: Well, I was going to say. Because you played sports, you’re a personal trainer. I can’t even fathom that. What withdrawals did you go through?
Drew Manning: It made me realize how obsessed I was with working out. At first, it was kind of fun to have this “sense of freedom” to not have to go to the gym and say, “Oh, I’m free to do what I want.” But it really messed with my head. I would get jealous to see people outside running or going to the gym.
And that’s why I actually stopped training people, because I knew if I was in the gym, I would be tempted to want to work out. So I said, “Okay. I’m not going to train people, because otherwise, it’s going to make me even more depressed, because then I can’t work out.”
But really, it just helps me step into their shoes a little bit. Not completely but a little bit of what my clients go through – and most Americans that are sedentary – it gets very comfortable living that way over time – year after year after year of not really moving other than getting up and walking to your car, or walking to work, or walking to the bathroom, or the refrigerator, and that’s pretty much your only exercise. A lot of Americans live that way, so it really opened up my eyes to just what some people go through on a mental and emotional level.
Kathy Smith: So it gave you that empathy. You’re right. Through my career, everybody will say to me, “Oh, you can’t relate to what I’m going through, because you’ve never been there.” So I love that you did this, but now, you mentioned some of the impact that it had on your body. What were some of the not so obvious things that happened that maybe we’re not thinking about.
Obviously, you gained weight. You mentioned in one interview, you got the man boobs, you got the belly. Maybe you were a little short of breath, but were there other psychological, emotional, or any other things that you were going, “Oh, my God. I never realized that this was going to happen?”
Drew Manning: Yeah. 100%. There were so many of those, but I’ll kind of shorten it for this podcast. There were a couple of incidents. One of them was when I was at a grocery store. I was checking out, and I had my shopping cart full of your standard American food: cereal, soda, chips, cookies, crackers, granola bars. And there were these three women behind me, and I could kind of tell they were looking at my belly, looking at the food. Because I had a shopping cart full of this stuff. I wanted to tell them so bad, like, “Hey ladies. I don’t really eat this way. This is just an experiment.” But I didn’t say anything to them. I just kind of kept my mouth shut and kept doing what I was doing.
I don’t know if they were judging me or not, but I felt judged. It really clicked, letting me know this is what my clients have to go through on a daily basis sometimes. Feeling judged, whether or not people are judging you, you don’t really know. But you feel judged. And it was a powerful moment for me of just how much of this journey was becoming more mental and emotional.
Then one more thing was playing with my daughter – trying to play with her after work one day. I was exhausted and tired, and she wanted me to chase her around the house. She was two at the time. I kept up with her for about a minute, but then I had to sit on the couch because I was so out of breath. And she was trying to pull me off the couch and she started crying.
I said, “Look. Daddy needs to take a break. I can’t. I’m really tired.” She didn’t understand what I was doing, but she wanted me to play with her. I told her, “I can’t play with you. I’m exhausted.” And she didn’t understand.
To see her cry, it broke my heart. Because how many millions of people can’t play with their kids or their grandkids not so much because of their weight but because of their health and how bad that must suck inside not to be able to do that. And it just helped to realize how much of this journey that people are on is way more mental and emotional than we think. It’s not just about eating less and working out. That’s a part of it, but it’s so much more mental and emotional than we think it is.
Kathy Smith: What a great growth experience for you and that idea of stepping out of judgment. Because you’re right. At all stages of our life, whether it’s weight gain, whether it’s being out of shape, or a category that I’m falling into now which is aging. And people start to pass judgment on other people because of the way they look when they get older, and how to step back and see a whole person and what they might be going through on the other side.
Maybe you were in the middle of– you have a lot of anxiety or depression or something else is going on in your life, and that’s why you’re eating, kind of peeling away those layers so we start to look at the total person and maybe not just the fat layer on top.
Drew Manning: Yeah. Unfortunately, our society judges people based on their physical appearance, and that’s why there’s so much pressure to look physically attractive that we think that we’re defined by that. And when we put so much pressure on ourselves and there’s a lot of self-hate and self-esteem issues especially among women in our society of social media, and movies, and TV. And it’s sad because we’re in this age of comparison all the time. And we think we’re less than because of our physical bodies. But we have so much more to offer this world than just how much body fat we have.
I want people to realize that, yes, it’s important to be healthy. But it doesn’t have to be defined by having a six pack or being skinny. There’s more to health than just that.
Kathy Smith: Well let’s switch over to that, because I think that’s the important part of your journey that we’ve talked about the outside of you now for the entire podcast. But it seemed like your aha moments were about what was happening inside. So can you tell us what happened when you went for your bloodwork? And at any point, did you ever think, “Oh, my God. I’m destroying my health here.”
Drew Manning: No. It was very eye-opening. I remember I was on the Dr. Oz show and he did my bloodwork. I also had a doctor monitor me throughout, just so people know, just to make sure I wasn’t going to die. It was really scary how quickly your body could change. Even though I was in shape for 31 years of my life, in just six months’ time of letting myself go, your body could go really quickly, which was really eye-opening for me.
But I was on the Dr. Oz show and he was showing a comparison of healthy liver versus my liver, healthy kidneys versus my kidneys. It was so eye-opening because so many of us focus on weight gain or weight loss. Like if I eat this cheeseburger, and fries, and soda, I’m going get fat. Or if I eat this salad and drink this water, I’ll get skinny. What we don’t look at is how this is going to affect us on the inside, what it’s doing to your organs, what it’s doing to your bloodwork. And that’s where it can get scary, because most of us – even for me. I didn’t feel like I was going to die. I just felt like, “Oh, I feel fat and healthy.”
That’s the problem with our mentality is we drink soda, but it’s not like our liver or kidneys instantly hurt. It’s not like, “Ow, oh, my body. That’s doing damage to my body.” You don’t feel it instantaneously. It creeps up on you over time, which is scary. Because then, boom, something happens, you have Type 2 diabetes or a heart attack or something scary happens, then you’re like, “Okay. Now I need to change.” But if we would’ve just prevented it in the first place, we wouldn’t have to go through that. But that’s the problem is we only focus on the outward appearance. So that was one of the lessons I learned.
One other thing really quick was that I realized when I switched over from eating 5,000 calories of mac and cheese, and soda, and Pop Tarts to 2,000 calories of real, whole food, it was so interesting how my body fought back and wanted the high from these processed foods. I never experienced that before. And I only ate this way for six months. My body was going through these withdrawal symptoms, feeling miserable even though I was eating spinach, and kale, and broccoli, and all the healthy food we know we’re supposed to eat. I was eating that way but yet I felt miserable. My body had to detox first.
But that’s what so many of my clients would tell me when I’d try to get them on a healthy meal plan. They’d be like, “The food tastes gross. I feel awful. I want just those foods that make me feel good.” It’s almost like we’re addicted to drugs in a sense. That’s what I experienced, and that’s where I have the empathy for people that struggle with food addictions.
Before, I looked at them and was like, “Oh, you just lack willpower. It’s not that hard. You just push through it and it’ll get better.” But, man, it was so much more powerful than I thought.
Kathy Smith: So the cravings are real, the addiction is real, and it takes a while to break the habit. And it’s interesting that part of what I found when I listened to one of your podcasts, which I think it is brilliant. For people listening, Drew has a successful podcast called the “Fit2Fat2Fit Experience”. He recently reached a million downloads, so congratulations on that.
Drew Manning: Thank you.
Kathy Smith: One of the podcasts I listened to was with– I think I’m saying this name right – Dr. Khaleghi – where you really started talking about blood testing. I’ll tell you why I think blood testing, knowing your biomarkers, knowing what things mean, and getting educated every three months, six months, or a year, whatever you decide to do, because this information and knowledge is power.
Once you know what’s going on, then when somebody tells you the keto diet’s good, the vegan diet’s good, this one’s – the Mediterranean – diet’s good, whichever one is good, you start to find out what is good for you. So I am passionate about getting more into what you’re doing because most people that listen to my podcast know that I have heart disease in my family. I lost my dad of a heart attack when he was only 42. And I’m genetically predisposed to higher cholesterol, etc. So let’s switch gears here and talk about why you think it’s so important to get bloodwork done and know your biomarkers.
Drew Manning: Yeah. I love that you’re bringing this up. I think this is what’s going to change the game in the health and fitness industry rather than just focusing on calories in versus calories out and going off of what diet makes you lose the most weight. The only way to know what diet works best for you and is the most optimal for you is to do your bloodwork.
So many of us look past that. We don’t realize that. We just think, “This diet works because I lost weight.” But guess what? Any diet where you’re restricting calories, you’re going to lose weight. But that does not mean you’re becoming healthier. We think if we’re just losing weight and we’re skinny, then we’re going to be healthy. That’s not how it works.
Unless you get your bloodwork done, you don’t know what’s optimal for you. So whether that’s keto, or vegan, or paleo, or whatever, you have to get your bloodwork done. I think a lot of Americans just overlook that, because we are obsessed with our outward appearance. So sometimes, your version of healthy might not look like that Instagram model that you’re seeing on social media with a six pack and stuff like that until you get your blood work done.
So for me, I’m a huge proponent of it. I’m glad you’re talking about this, Kathy. Because I think that it’s something that’s huge. And I tell people all the time, “If you’re getting your oil changed more often in your car than you get your bloodwork done, then you’re doing something wrong.” And you’re going to wait until something really bad happens before you start making changes. And so I’m a huge proponent of it, and now it’s so much more accessible.
There’s companies that you don’t even have to go to a doctor’s office anymore. Companies will mail you the tests for you to do at home and send it off to a doctor. They analyze, they email you back your results. It’s so much easier today than what it used to be.
Kathy Smith: I know one of the companies that you talk about is Everly Well. Because, again, I think one of the things that I’ve done every year is my yearly checkup, and I go in for my bloodwork. Then you get a long printout. I happen to have a good doctor, so we go through it. At the same time, I find that for myself, a year is a long time to go. Let’s get back, for me, my cholesterol levels tend to go high – my LDL, which is your not-so-good cholesterol. Yet, if I have to think about a change that I might be doing for a year, I’m not sure if it’s working or not working, whereas this idea that if you get something that’s inexpensive and at the same time convenient, then you could start a program and three months later check. And right there is the proof. Is it working or not working?
So tell me what have you learned or I guess what is the biggest aha moment for you as far as your bloodwork?
Drew Manning: That’s a good question. Actually, for me as a fitness professional, getting it done and putting it out there in the public eye is real important. It’s scary sometimes because sometimes you feel like in the fitness industry, and you’re one of the leaders, you’re supposed to have optimal bloodwork all the time. Well, guess what? Sometimes we struggle with finding what’s optimal for us.
So I’ll give you a specific example, Kathy. I switched over to the ketogenic diet three and one-half years ago. It was awesome. I felt amazing, my mental clarity and brain cognitive function was through the roof, and I felt really good on this diet. I went from eating six meals a day to twice a day. I was doing great, and my bloodwork was good. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good.
Then it slowly started to go downhill where my hormones were starting to be affected, and I’m like, “Okay. What’s going on here?” And I was kind of scared to post about it. But I did it anyways. Then I started to tweak some things. I started to change some things, started to do some research and up my protein a little bit and up my carbs higher than what they were in the beginning. The way I do keto now is totally different than the way I did keto three years ago. I just did my bloodwork I want to say about three months ago, and it was the best it’s ever been.
But guess what? I was eating things like potatoes and sweet potatoes. Even though I was still eating more ketogenic diet where I was eating higher fat, I was not strict ketogenic and that’s when I found out what was optimal for me.
Now, is that optimal for everybody? No. That’s the problem is people will look at you, Kathy, and think, “Well, I want to eat what Kathy eats,” or me and they go, “Oh, I’m going to do what Drew does because I want to look like that.” That’s not how it works. Until you do your bloodwork and know, on the inside, what’s going on.
Kathy Smith: Yeah. I know. I went through a similar experience where I started on a higher fat, little more protein, less carbohydrates, and I did go have my bloodwork done. And it wasn’t a positive experience for me. The idea that I could eat saturated fats like people are talking about did not work for me.
And it’s a cautionary tale, because I think the weight– you said it before– the weight may be dropping off. You might be slimming down, but what’s happening inside the body is so much more important. So this idea of shifting your diet, getting some bloodwork, understanding and then understanding what these biomarkers mean and what are the markers for inflammation? What are your vitamin D levels? Just getting baselines of that, because once you do, every year, every three months, six months, year, whatever you decide, you can add to your body of knowledge.
Okay. So let’s switch gears and go into we talked about putting it on. And it sounds like you had kind of good time for a bit of it. Tell me, what was the cereal that you loved eating, by the way?
Drew Manning: Oh my gosh. Cinnamon Toast Crunch is by far one of the best foods out there. It’s amazing. I can’t have it because I’ll eat a whole box of it. So I loved having that almost twice a day sometimes during this journey.
Kathy Smith: Say it again. What was it?
Drew Manning: Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Kathy Smith: I’m going to take a picture of it the next time I go.
Okay. So let’s go. Now it’s time to get it off. How did you start that process?
Drew Manning: I did have to do it cold turkey because I was under a time crunch. I had six months to lose 75 pounds. So I had to start cold turkey. Like I said, I went from eating 4,000 to 5,000 calories of these processed foods to 2,000 calories of real whole foods for over about five or six meals.
But here’s the thing: I actually skipped exercise for the first 30 days. All I did was focus on nutrition only, because I wanted to show people the power of nutrition and being consistent with that. Plus, I didn’t want to go right back into the gym and possibly hurt myself after six months of no exercise.
So I just started stretching every day and changing up my diet. The first month, I lost 19 pounds, which is cool. But more importantly, all my bloodwork went from being in the red with my lipids and my hormones to being in the green. So it just goes to show how resilient your body can be.
For example, my blood pressure was 167/113 at its highest. It went back down to 120/80 just after 30 days of eating healthy. My testosterone levels which were in the low 200s, which is not good as a 30-year-old male, they more than doubled in just one month of eating healthy without any exercise. So they went from about low 200s to 450 in just that one month.
From there, the next five months, I did have to work out, so I did start working out at the gym. That was so humbling. In my book, I kind of talk about being on top of this mountain of fitness. Here I am one of the leaders at the top, in shape, and my clients are down there at the bottom, and I’m yelling at them from the top like, “Hey, it’s so easy. You just own the path. Here’s the path for you. You just keep coming. But stop falling back down. You keep falling back down and having to start over again.” It looks so easy from the top, but now, here I was at the bottom where my clients were, and looking up was a totally different perspective. That climb up that mountain was so much harder than what I thought it would be.
So yes, to make a long story short, I did get back to fit. It was by far one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I did hit plateaus. I learned many valuable lessons along the way. So at the end of the day, I got my body back, I got back to fit, but inside, I was a different man because of this experience.
Kathy Smith: So you went from 190 to up to 260 or something? Is that correct? And then back down?
Drew Manning: Yeah.
Kathy Smith: Then back down to 190. You had lost a lot of muscle, I’m assuming in the six months. What was the last body part to kind of snap back into action? What was the hardest body part to get back?
Drew Manning: That’s a good question. No one has ever asked me that before. It was my midsection – my love handles and my lower abs. Those were the hardest part to get back. But once I got back down to probably around 10%, if I had to guess, that part kind of went away. That’s where I gained my weight first is in the love handles area and the lower ab section, and that was the hardest part to get off.
Kathy Smith: That’s usually the way it works. The first place you gain the weight is the last place for it to come off. So in your circumstance, you gained the weight in your tummy first and that’s where you lost the weight last. I’m curious, what’s your body fat now and is that a number that’s important to you?
Drew Manning: That’s a good question. It’s still probably hovers around 10 to 15% on the high end, but here’s the thing: I’m not as obsessed about those numbers anymore. Yeah, I like to look good, but I’m coming from a place more focused on longevity and health. So health to me isn’t being 7% body fat year around. I’m cool with being 10 to 15% because I have two little girls, and I like to have balance in life. We’ll go and have pancakes or pizza every once in a while, and I want to be able to participate in that rather than go to a place and have a Tupperware container of chicken and broccoli.
Kathy Smith: That’s an exceptional message to send out there, because you’re right. That’s what it’s all about is living life to the fullest and taking advantage of all the fun opportunities and everything we get to do with family and socially in every which way and not to become obsessed.
But let me ask you, did the whole process, going through it, make you a little more obsessive because you’re thinking about it every day? Was there a period of time where this is your life, my life is to get the weight on, get the weight off? And are you kind of glad that you’re kind of through that period now so you don’t have to be thinking about it?
Drew Manning: I’ll be honest. During the process, I did have to think about it every single day, because thousands and thousands of people are following me on this journey, so I had to perform. I had to put it out there, because I knew there was going to be a big reveal on TV and with my book launch. So I had that pressure on me.
But now that I’ve lost the weight with where I’m at now, I’m so glad I don’t have to do that anymore. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and that’s why I have the TV show where other trainers have to go through this process now instead of me, and I’ll be their coach. I’ve learned what I’ve needed to learn, but I want to pay it forward now by taking other trainers that used to think like me and not really have that empathy and put them through this process so that can be more empathetic towards their clients, have more respect, and a better understanding.
But like I said, it’s not a complete understanding, it’s not exactly the same as someone who grew up overweight, but at least they can come out of it with a better understanding and more respect for their clients.
Kathy Smith: On your TV show, do you have trainers of different ages I ask because I’m also wondering– it’s something I was thinking about when I was reading your journey– if there’s a certain age where you might not want to go through this process. For instance, as you said, you were 30 then, 31 or whatever and young, vibrant, healthy, strapping. Would you say a 65-year-old person going through the same thing would have– maybe the effects would be more detrimental and the comeback would be harder?
Drew Manning: I would agree with that 100%. We did have, I think, Steve from season 1 was 44 and Carrie from season 2 was 42. Those, I think, were our oldest trainers on the show. Most of them were in their 30s, maybe late 20s. But yeah, I do think obviously the older you get, the harder it would be 100%. Your hormones change and our metabolism changes over time as well, and so it would be way harder for sure. I don’t plan on doing this even though some people ask me to. “Hey, when you’re 50, try this again.”
I’m like, “I’m good.”
Kathy Smith: Well, here’s the thing. I just want to congratulate you, but thank you for doing the journey. Because here, it’s given us such valuable information. As I said before, not just about how to drop weight but about what happens inside your body when you put the weight on and when you take it off.
And you mentioned it a few times today – and I appreciate you bringing it up – and that’s what happens to your hormonal levels, which we again don’t talk enough about for men or for women, and the idea about what exercise, what weight training, what cardiovascular training, what you eat, how it impacts your hormones for the ones that you mentioned for a man who you want your testosterone levels high when you’re young. You want them high when you get older.
And if you realize that your diet is cutting those numbers almost in half for somebody your age, you’re thinking, “Wow. Imagine what this is doing to a 45, a 55, a 65-year-old man. The same is true for women. So good point to think about not just cholesterol and lipid profiles but hormones.
Let me ask you, just because I know we have to wrap it up. Tell me what you’re excited about right now. What are you doing, and what’s turning you on?
Drew Manning: Yeah. Thank you. So season 2 just aired earlier this year. We’re waiting to hear back about season 3, so I’ll keep you guys posted on that. I’m working on my second book. Fit2Fat2Fit launched in 2012 and became a New York Times best seller. I’m working on book number two, which will launch in early 2019. So be on the lookout for that. And I recently just started my own supplement line that are a keto support line of products, and I’m super excited about that among many other things.
But there’s a lot of stuff going on in life that I feel super grateful and blessed to be at a place where I’m at now. And who would’ve thought that this crazy idea would’ve taken off? I had no media connections. I had no marketing strategy to make this thing go big, but here we are seven years later, and I feel super blessed to be able to help people with transformation, more so on a mental and emotional level, also helping them out with the physical but trying to focus more on the mental and emotional side of the transformation.
Kathy Smith: Thank you for being on the show.
Drew Manning: Thanks, Kathy. I appreciate it.
Kathy Smith: So my big take away is to shift the focus away from the number on the scale, because it’s really not the best measurement of overall health. Just because you’re losing weight doesn’t mean you’re becoming healthier. So instead of the focus being on what’s happening on the outside of the body, think about what’s happening on the inside of the body and more importantly, how you’re feeling. It’s easier now than ever before to get blood tests so you can check your biomarkers on a regular basis and really get a snapshot of what’s happening internally.
Now checking these numbers on a regular basis and understanding the impact that your eating and your exercise program that you’re doing right now, that impact that it’s having on your body, it’s truly revolutionary for your health.
If you want to learn more about Drew’s journey, check out his New York Times bestselling book. It’s called Fit2Fat2Fit or you can listen to his podcast, which is the “Fit2Fat2Fit Experiment”.
If you enjoyed this episode, I’d really appreciate it if you’d join me on Instagram. All you have to do is go to Kathy Smith Fitness. Keep an eye out also because I’m going to be posting some fun, new giveaways. And I always look forward to hearing from you guys and what you’re up to and any questions you might have.
Also, as a quick reminder, these podcasts are great to listen to when you’re getting ready to go out, when you’re cooking dinner, when you’re driving, or of course when you’re working out. And there’s so many of them now. There’s dozens of episodes, so you could find new ones to listen to or just refresh yourself on some of the ones you listened to before. But you want to just really get the information whether it’s about the keto diet, or how to quit sugar, or why bone broth is so good for you.
Now, the show is available wherever you can listen to podcasts. All you have to do is search for “On Health: The Art of Living”, and of course you know my name – Kathy Smith. Whether you’re on Apple Podcast, or Stitcher, or Spotify, you can find all the episodes. This episode wouldn’t be complete without giving a big shout out to Nick from Podcast Monster. Thanks, Nick, for everything you do.
Okay. Thank you, guys. I always love being with you. Here’s to your health.
