As an entrepreneur or business professional, it’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of always being busy. Between long hours, endless meetings, and the constant pressure to perform, maintaining a healthy lifestyle can often fall by the wayside.
However, staying fit and healthy can actually provide a significant boost to your business. From increased productivity to improved creativity, taking care of your physical and mental health can profoundly impact your overall success.
In this episode, we discuss how staying fit and healthy can boost your business with Zac Mason, an online health coach helping CEOs and business owners stay fit and healthy.
Zac shares his insights on the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and how simple daily routine changes can significantly improve your productivity and overall success.
Whether taking a mid-day walk, practising mindfulness, or making healthier food choices, Zac emphasises the importance of making small, sustainable changes that can greatly impact your overall well-being.
He also addresses common misconceptions about fitness and wellness in the workplace and explains how taking care of yourself can help you to be a better leader and team player.
So, if you’re ready to take your business to the next level, join us as we explore the powerful connection between staying fit and healthy and achieving success in business.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL FIND OUT…
- What is a metabolic deficit? (03:32)
- How many steps should you be making each day (04:55)
- Why time is of the essence in fitness? (07:20)
- Three things to consider when it comes to health and fitness (12:45)
- The importance of consistency in fitness (15:25)
- How to get better sleep (17:12)
- The importance of eating healthy (20:35)
- Understanding how your metabolism works (23:12)
- Five steps to long-term weight loss (29:42)
- How to know if you’re eating enough calories (30:17)
- How to stimulate your body to get stronger (32:25)
- Including long-term goals (39:17)
QUOTES
“Your standards define your success.” -Zac Mason
“It’s about managing that emotional state. Our energy can change in a heartbeat. And motion moving your body is one of the quickest ways to change your emotion. -Carl Taylor
Get In Touch With Zac Mason
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/coachzachary
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachzac/
ABOUT ZAC MASON
Zac specialises in nutrition and working coaching online, and works 1on1 with CEOs and Business owners all over the globe, helping them to lose weight to get their fit, lean and healthy body back and maintain it long-term, without starving themselves and only doing 3 efficient workouts a week.
TRANSCRIPTION (AI-Generated and may contain inaccuracies)
Zac Mason (00:00):
You only need a small amount of dedicated time to maintain a healthy shape. And I think that’s where there’s a lot of confusion. And that’s why that list that we talked about before the popular things have somewhat convinced, busy people that they also need to be very busy trying to be fit. Whereas like you don’t?
Carl Taylor (00:29):
Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of entrepreneurs rising. Today, we have a really great guest, we have Zac Mason, who I met Zac, probably a little under a year ago, I’d say. But in that time, all of a sudden, he’s everywhere on social media, he seems to know every single person I know. Or for someone I know, is randomly commenting. And I’m like, how Wait, how do they know each other? And he’s just a really great guy. And he knows his stuff when it comes to health and fitness. Now, obviously, this is an entrepreneurship show, you might be like, why are we talking health and fitness because ultimately, you’re gonna build a business that can work without you, and you’re gonna build wealth, one of the most important parts of wealth is your health. And I know this is definitely true of me that I was lucky as a kid that I didn’t really need to focus on my health and fitness to stay skinny, then around the 30 year old Mark, I’m still fairly skinny, and I don’t seem to work have to work that hard to maintain it. But it did shift and it did change. And I’ve spoken to a lot of people who focus on their business, and the stress in their business seems to then impact their health and fitness. So that’s why I brought Zach on. And let me just tell you a little bit about Zac. Zac specializes in nutrition and coaching people online. And he works one on one with CEOs and business owners all over the globe. So not just in Australia. And he helps them to lose weight to get fit, lean and just healthy body back and not just get a healthy body back, but actually maintain it long term. And here’s the thing, he’s not one of those guys who’s like, you have to stick rigidly and starve yourself. And you know, you cannot eat these specific things. He really looks at it holistically and in a way that is maintainable over that long period of time. So Zac, say hi to everyone.
Zac Mason (02:18):
Hi, thanks. That was an awesome introduction. hit the nail on the head. You kind of already said all the important stuff. So we can just kind of chill now.
Carl Taylor (02:28):
Yeah, right. So podcasts. Don’t need to chat any further. You
Zac Mason (02:31):
just yeah, there’s my pitch thing. Nice. Nice to meet you.
Carl Taylor (02:35):
Let me tell you what prompted me to go hey, man, come out. Come on the show. You did a post. And I won’t read everything because I want you to talk about it. But you said you said this popular stuff people focus on to burn body fat, no sugar corn, carnivore diets ketogenic, low GI cleanse to butter and coffees good classes, apple cider vinegar, long bouts of cardio short term challenges, artificial fat burning supplements, and then you said unpopular stuff that actually burns body fat. So I won’t read those out. How about you take us through it, you know, this idea of we’ve definitely come from this big diet culture. And, you know, you think we need to need to be on the keto diet, or then I need to be on the vegan diet. And now I need to be now on full carnivore diet. And your post about saying no, actually the unpopular stuff that will get the results of these. Let’s talk a little bit about that.
Zac Mason (03:32):
Yeah, so that list of popular stuff everyone’s kind of familiar with. And it’s not that that stuff doesn’t work it, it does. But it’s built on the fundamentals. It’s like, that’s the Click Funnels, on top of a very good offer. And the good offer is the stuff that actually works, which is, you know, not eating too much food. So being in a what I call a metabolic deficit, which means your body is burning more body fat for fuel, and not storing more of more of that fuel as body fat. Then simply focusing on how much activity you’re doing in a day. And an easy way to do that is to look at how many steps you’re getting. It’s like the easiest way to know if you’re actually moving enough or not moving enough. And that’s going to determine which way the needle is going to point on scale. At the end of the day, doing your three workouts a week, that a strength focused and include resistance training, that’s going to keep you strong, it’s going to maintain the muscle mass you have long term, and that’s what helps us maintain our youth and feel like stay mobile, avoid injuries and still be able to actually move around what we like 6070 and beyond. I was kind of broad, but that’s kind of where my mind went when you asked that question.
Carl Taylor (04:56):
Yeah, well in so in your poster you said 8000 Steps are more a day and I can typically we hear 10,000 steps is the magic number. So why for you is at 8000? The number that we’re aiming for?
Zac Mason (05:09):
That’s great question. So, reason I’d say 8000 is because it’s typically around 8000, that losing body fat, or at least maintaining a healthy body fat range is easy. Beyond 10,000 is diminishing returns. So to give an example, if someone’s getting 3000 steps a day, and they bump it up to 4000, percentage wise, that’s a huge increase in movement. But going from 10,000 steps to 11,000 steps, percentage wise, very small increase in movement. So my point of 8000 is like, if you’re getting at least 1000, then the problem is probably not your activity. It’s likely to be a diet. Yeah, there’s an imbalance between the two. So that makes sense. Yeah, definitely.
Carl Taylor (05:59):
And it’s true, I can speak from my own experience a couple of years back, me and some other business owners were in a group and we listed a challenge a six pack challenge to get six pack, and it’s when I quit drinking alcohol actually by and basically, we were given this exercise plan, we’re given like, here’s the here’s the rule, not rules, it was guidelines for eating wasn’t a strict diet. But one of the things that struck me was the guy we did it with said, you know, 10,000 steps a day, you know, just got, actually you didn’t even say was 10,000 steps, he said a 10 minute walk a day is what he said, and, and I remember being like, Oh, why he’s like, he’s like, you’ll probably burn more calories on that 10 minute walk than you would in a lot of your other extreme, you know, a lot of the other exercises that you think you need to do like just just if bare minimum, if you can’t get your workout in, go for a walk in that blew my mind to go Oh, you mean, I could actually, you know, shred down, get fit just with a 10 minute or eventually he then he had bumped it up to 210 minutes walks a day as we progressed. But it worked, you know, obviously did other workout things. But that was very mind blowing that. And I think it’s a good reminder for us as business owners, because I can imagine, tell me if I’m wrong, the number one objection resistance you get when working with a CEO or a business owner? Is I’m busy. I don’t have time for this. Or how do I make time for this? Because I got a family. I’ve got my work priorities, like if I’m not at the office or working from home or whatever your online, whatever your work is. And then at home with wife, kids family? Where do I fit in that time? Is that? Would that be a fair statement? Or am I off the market? Yeah,
Zac Mason (07:46):
definitely. Quick, like, in general, time is of the essence, the priority is not to be an athlete, or, you know, compete in any kind of competitions. However, that’s doesn’t matter. Because you only need a small amount of dedicated time, like you’ve just demonstrated to maintain a healthy shape. And I think that’s where there’s a lot of confusion. And that’s why the that list that we talked about before. So the popular things have somewhat convinced, busy people that they also need to be very busy trying to be fit. Where is it like you don’t? Yeah, we eat three meals a day, that it’s not going to change, like, you still eat two or three meals a day. It’s just the movement aspect is what needs to fit in the schedule. Yet. People often weigh overdo it, like you say, 10 minute walk, and someone’s like, that will do nothing, because they actually believe it needs to be an hour walk or a two hour walk because that’s what worked last time they tried to get fit. So they think that’s the only way if that makes sense. It’s like if you work 70 hours a week. And that’s the only way you’ve ever made money. And someone tells you Oh, you could do it in seven hours a week you can you feel like Nah, no way. You won’t believe that. Yeah, it’s definitely a mindset and a physical relationship going on.
Carl Taylor (09:10):
And do you think that that leads to a self sabotage where it’s like, oh, well, I don’t have the hour. 10 minutes isn’t worth it. So I just won’t do it.
Zac Mason (09:17):
Yes, definitely. Self Sabotage. Like in the lead up before someone works with me, like for example, like typically my clients have been fit before. So it’s not a case of they don’t know what to do just what they know to do, won’t work within their schedule anymore. So they keep putting it off putting it off, which is indirect self sabotage by not doing anything, waiting for the perfect time, where they can magically do five workouts a week for an hour and drive to the gym and have a sauna and a shower and talk to the locals in the gym and have a protein shake. It’s like come on, that’s like fantasy world. That’s not going to happen anymore. worked well in your 20s it’s not gonna happen now. You have kids Why if a team of 20 3050 staff clients you want to it’s like, things have to change. So that’s where the self sabotage slips in. It’s like not deliberate, but indirect. Yeah. And
Carl Taylor (10:13):
I think I think it’s interesting what comes up for me, as you’re saying that too is, I’d say that there’s potentially two or three camps of business owners listening to this, there’s those that being fit and healthy is a really high value set. And you’re possibly as busy as all of us other people who are saying, well, we’ve got wife, kids, and yet, you’re making the time to do your workouts five times a week, because it’s a high value set that you’re able to prioritize that in that busyness, right, it’s a, it’s a no brainer, where there are some of the others. And I’m definitely more in this in this camp, where I liked the idea of health and fitness, it is a value of mine. But it gets trumped by a lot of other values. And that means that at the end of the week, I might go on like, really didn’t hit my like one of the things that my wife and I we we talk about is, at the end of the week, we review our week based on certain values, values that we have. And one of mine is health and fitness. And often that’s one of the ones that I’m going like, I just didn’t get my workouts in this week. I didn’t do my meditations this week. I want to work on that next week. So that’s what we’re looking at. And it’s so it’s a value, I want to do it, but it does get bumped down the line. So I think there’s some of us who are listening going like what what are you talking about, just make the decision, you can do it you can fit it in, then there are others are like I want to do it, I truly do. But I keep prioritizing other things. And then there’s probably another case where they’re like, Well, I just haven’t even prioritized my health and fitness at all. Probably a good idea, but I haven’t done it. I imagine that’s the three people listening. So I’d say the people who are good at getting their fitness in if you’re listen to this, this is probably just gonna reaffirm and maybe help you realize you could do less than maybe what you’re doing if you want to do. But let’s talk to those other two. And in particular my style where I might go, Look, I want to do it. And I’m not even going to a gym like I’m more of I get up. And the intention is I wake up in the morning, and before I’ve even like got dressed for the day, like I’m doing a bodyweight workout at home. That’s on a good day. If I if everything’s going for plan, that’s what happens. But some mornings, I’m getting our daughter up the mornings. And it’s been a rough night sleeping, and I wake up and it’s, you know, I’m exhausted. And so I’m like, well, and all our slept in a bit. So I’m running late for a meeting. So I just go and make breakfast and I skip the workout. And I seem to find that once I’ve started my day going back to a workout just doesn’t seem to ever really happen for me. That’s why I do at the beginning. So what would you say to someone like me? Not necessarily me specifically, but someone like me who’s it is a priority. They do want to do it. But they’re struggling to fit it in just the high level? What are some of the key things and I want to make sure you mentioned sleep, because I know that was one of the things that was on your post about on popular stuff that actually burns body fat. So what would you say to us busy business owners want to do it? But we’re not finding time?
Zac Mason (13:02):
Yeah, so there’s kind of three main points. The first one is expectation of when it shouldn’t be done, or when you mentally prefer to do it. So if you don’t get it done in the morning, if you’ve had that expectation that you were going to do it and you didn’t, then that’s almost like this, like diminishing returns. It’s like, Ah, it’s like it’s not going to be the same. It’s like, you know, I mean, you’ve already failed. So we’ll put it put off the next day. That’s a common thing
Carl Taylor (13:29):
is like the day it’ll start tomorrow.
Zac Mason (13:32):
Yeah, yeah. Well, I’ll definitely do it tomorrow. And like, I’m not perfect. And the reason I say is because I used to have that expectation that, okay, I’m gonna go to the gym at this time, on these days, and that’s my thing. But we want people in business, it just doesn’t go like that. I mean, if you want to have that rigid structured lifestyle, then we would probably just be employees, because that’s the best structure you’re gonna get or just joined the military. That’s gonna be very structured, right? So, way to flip that is like, well, what actually matters is, did you do the workout? Not when, or a specific time or whatever, it’s just did it get done? And that’s where the results are going to come from. It doesn’t come from doing it at 6am or 1105 or 8pm. At night, it just comes with doing it.
Carl Taylor (14:20):
Would you say with that, like just getting it done? Is that also taking away expectation of how long you work out for like, even if it was like you just did 10 Push Ups kind of thing. Could you go? Yep. Cool. All right, you’ve at least done something you’ve moved your body or how do you how do you think about that?
Zac Mason (14:35):
Well, yes, this ties into consistency. So if someone’s like, Oh, I did 10 Push ups today. I’d be like, great, but how is that relevant? Like, did you do 10 Yesterday, we get this is the first time ever you’ve done 10 Or if it every week you doing 10? Like it’s you got to zoom out and go Well, if you’re doing 10 Push ups every day. Anyone can do that. Like we can literally just pause this now for 15 seconds and do 10 Push ups, right? But if you’re doing that every day, fantastic, but if it’s just like, Oh, I did it now, but I haven’t done it for two and a half weeks. It’s like, so what? So where I’m going with this is that, yes, start with less, make less so consistent and part of the routine, that it becomes easy to do just a little bit more. So instead of like, doing it yourself, like alright, I’m going to do this 6am On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and it’s going to be part of my routine and new year new me whatever, instead of just be like, you know, what? Could I could I actually commit to doing 20 Push Ups a day, Monday to Friday? You know, can I actually do that? Let’s prove it to myself that I can do it. You don’t have to post about it on Facebook, you don’t have to tell anyone about it, just do it. And then if you can prove that you can do 20, then it might be like, Okay, well, maybe I’ll add some situps, maybe I’ll get a set of dumbbells and do some bicep curls. Like that works. But it works. If it’s consistent. It’s much like business. So you don’t just post on Monday, and expect that leads to turn up, you got to post every day or follow up, you got to do all those things. Right? It’s it’s a consistency game. Same with fitness, which is why I love talking about business and fitness because they really go hand in hand from a long term point of view, when everything averages out. Success is defined by your standard. So yeah, bringing you back to that point, it’s like well, don’t place these expectations that it has to be done a certain time. And if it’s not done at that time, it doesn’t matter. It absolutely matters. You know, 20, push up to 6am is still 20 at 12pm. Still 20 6pm Still valid, then that ties into the sleep thing, which is also in that list. The reason I put sleep in that unpopular list of things that actually work is because we all know if we have a bad plate, we’re tired, and there’s absolutely nothing that you can do. Or take, that’s going to fix crappy sleep, it’s just impossible. And even drinking six coffees, or having a pre workout or two cans of Red Bull is just a quick fix of stimulation, which only going to push you further into the hole of fatigue. So my point is, we should all be prioritizing sleep because it’s only getting harder to get quality sleep with all lights, social media stress, we’re really stressing about things that we shouldn’t be stressing about that we just do. Because that’s the reality of life and attached to sleep as well as when we’re tired. There are studies that have shown that, you know, they’ve had three separate groups, people would have slept eight hours, six hours, and then like four hours. And as the time reduced for each group. The groups who have the least amount of sleep obviously, were the most tired, but they will also most all likely to underestimate how much food they ate. Interesting. So they were almost in a ways unconscious or would forget and misjudge how much food they ate by by hundreds of calories. And they would be more hungry. Because they’re lacking energy. We have to want we want it from somewhere else we want to eat it. Whereas if we wake up feeling energized and feeling great. Well, yeah, we’re like we need food, but we don’t really need it until we need it. So the more tired, you are the hungry, you’ll be less likely you’ll be to misjudge what you’re eating that as well. Just mood recovery, muscle maintenance. There’s so many things attached to sleep,
Carl Taylor (18:24):
less likely to work out like if you’re tired. It’s easy to be there. I’m too tired today. I’ll do it tomorrow, like yes, you say that the flow. And one thing I do want to point out to listeners, there is something that I have found if I’ve had an amazing great sleep. It’s not a magic pill that fixes it. I’m still thinking about the science of this, but I do have it do use it. It’s a tool called New calm. It’s an app on your phone, plus a little thing you stick a little sticky stick on your your wrist by a signaling device, supposedly. And when you put this on, you can do like a 20 minute nap, which supposedly this 20 minute bio syncing audio in your head is the equivalent of two hours of sleep so you can catch up on it and my partner and I we used it religiously with a young baby even before that, but definitely. So if you are someone who is struggling with hard sleeps, maybe you’ve got a young child that is the closest thing I found I don’t drink coffee. So I can’t speak to coffee. I don’t think that’s the best idea. But this this new calm app is pretty good from that point of view. So I just wanted to jump that in there for people who might be struggling with sleep
Zac Mason (19:31):
Yeah, there’s there’s a lot of cool gadgets even on YouTube. There’s one that I even use today it’s called a hyper net. It’s 20 minutes using binaural beats you have to wear headphones and the frequency is slightly different in each year and it creates dislike looping effect, but they slowly lower at every minute. And you can you can feel your heart rate dropping your temperature dropping your brainwaves dropping and it puts you into like this short sleep And that brings you out of it towards the end that 20 minutes and you feel kind of refreshed coming out of it. So yes, naps, the valid, they do matter and they can definitely help bridge the gap if you’re having consistently below average sleep. How would you know if you’re having below average sleep, you would use a device like an aura ring Fitbits Garmins is endless amount of fitness devices. Whoop.
Carl Taylor (20:22):
Which is another big popular one too.
Zac Mason (20:24):
Oops, fine. I’m definitely a more of a diehard or ring fan just because of its simplicity. Its minimalism.
Carl Taylor (20:30):
Probably I had an aura ring until it died on me. But yeah, it was it was great. One thing I think is worth touching. I’d like to know your what your thoughts are. Because I know a big part of what you do differently to a lot of other personal trainers and fitness people is you don’t have the same rigidity of eating even though you talk about a metabolic deficit. You don’t have the whole thing of like, No, you can’t eat that thing yet. So let’s talk about food. Because, you know, I think one of my resistances to getting healthy before I did that six pack challenge was healthy food sucks. Doesn’t taste good. I like my sugar. Yeah, so let’s talk about so eating healthy.
Zac Mason (21:14):
Yes, eating healthy. Look, we all know what healthy food is. We all know what less healthy food is. And I don’t wanna go down a rabbit hole on that, because you could argue that this food has more vitamins and minerals. This one has less. It’s a micronutrient battle of, of what’s more nutrient dense, and what’s less processed foods like bread, crackers, anything that comes in a packet is going to lack I was going to have less nutrients and something that’s fresh and hasn’t been tampered with. Obviously, we should all know that.
Carl Taylor (21:49):
I remember years ago, someone on stage can’t remember who it was. But he talked about, you know, stop looking for low GI foods and start looking for low hai human involvement. So like the less human involvement was in production of this food, the better it probably is for you.
Zac Mason (22:03):
Yeah. And that is way more powerful than a low GI median Gi Gi because I see I still see people debating the difference between Oh, brown bread, whole wheat bread, brown rice, and that all tastes like crap. But they’re justifying it because Oh, so LGI like, did you ever check the calories, white bread versus brown bread, very similar calories, sweet potato, white potato, very similar calories, brown rice was very similar calories. So from like an equal energy point of view. You can still lose body fat, lose weight and maintain a healthy weight eating practically any type of carbohydrate, or any type of fat. If the energy balance matches your your output, and matches your activity level,
Carl Taylor (22:52):
I guess that’s leading us into this metabolic deficit. So there’s a lot that we’re going, Hey, there’s assumptions here, we know what’s healthy food, what’s not. But let’s break this down like a metabolic deficit is effectively consuming less than you’re burning, right?
Zac Mason (23:06):
Yep, that’s how I define it. And people may define it differently. And that’s okay. But a common thing that I hear is, once I reached my 30s, there’s this point where they noticed their body felt different, something changed, the weight gain became easier, their energy levels dropped. And the common phrase is something around my metabolism slowed down. And now I feel like I can gain a kilo just by looking at a pizza type of vibe. From from what I’ve heard, and the conversations I’ve had, the general understanding is that this is like some kind of natural phenomenon that happens like, Oh, you just hit 30. And things go down naturally. But no, that’s not the case. Because if you have a look at Lifetime averages have a basal metabolic rate, which is just the amount of energy we burn, despite being alive. Like if you were to lay on the ground or down to nothing, you would still burn 60 to 70% of your total metabolic output for the day, just just by your body being alive. So that is obviously at its highest when we’re born. And it it rapidly drops and plateaus out in like our late 20s to mid 30s. And then starts a very, very subtle decline until we’re no longer conscious and breathing. So it’s everything above the line that we have control over that changes, which is why people think their metabolism has slowed down, but really, it’s just their behaviors changed. So to give you an example, if someone in their 20s, you know, didn’t have kids wasn’t as tired as they are in their 30s wasn’t sitting at a desk for eight 910 hours a day. They’re naturally going to have more steps. Let’s assume they were getting 12,000 steps a day. Fast forward a few years now they’ve got two kids, business for staff. That more tired they’re sleeping Six hours instead of a seven and a half eight than they used to get, and there’s more commitments, more stress, and all the stuff that comes with being first world adult, as a result of that their steps are now 5000 6000, it’s already 50% less than what it used to be. So they have control over that yet, it’s dropped by 50%. So their daily burn rate, the amount of energy they can burn a day is less than what it used to be. So of course, it’s going to feel like your metabolism is slowing down, because you’re doing worse. So it’s kind of like, if there’s a 10 ton truck, and you just unload four tonnes of cargo now that that truck is going to be a lot easier to drive around, it’s gonna burn less fuel less energy, right, whereas if you attached four tonnes of cargo, it’s gonna have to burn a lot more energy to move around. Right. So that’s kind of a difference that happens. And then as life changes, guys often lose muscle very fast, a lot faster than we build it. So if if someone had four or five, six kilos of muscle in their 20s, now in their 30s, they might have lost most of that, but they’ve replaced it with 10 to 20 kilos of body fat, which body fat doesn’t burn much energy at all, it’s very easy to store it. So it’s not a it’s not exactly a case of like, you know, my metabolism naturally slowed down, this is a case of things change. And now we need to flip them back around and get get your metabolic rate backup to a healthy level, above the average, so that you feel great, look great, fit, slim, and have a good base of muscle mass so that you actually feel young and you know that you can do things that you want to do with your physical body.
Carl Taylor (26:47):
Yeah, and you reminded me that that was another thing that when I learned it, and understood it, it kind of blew my mind that building muscle actually helps me burn more energy when I’m doing nothing. Right? Like, you think, oh, I need to lose weight, I need to go and spend ages on a bike or a treadmill, where it’s actually like, no, actually, if I could build my muscle mass, then just while I’m sleeping, and while I’m just sitting around, I can actually be burning more than I normally would just because I built that, that muscle mass. And I think that’s, you know, an important thing. If you’re listening and you define your health based on what your scales say, it’s a dangerous thing, whether you’re a man or a woman, I think it’s a dangerous thing to do. Because muscle weighs more than fat. So you’re going I want this number to go down. It doesn’t necessarily represent if you’re building muscle that’s not necessarily representing what’s actually happening to your figure. So yeah, I don’t know why that just came into my head is something I think it’s worth worth mentioning to people. And as someone who is what you’ve referred to, you know, in my 20s, and pre, I’ve never really been a big workout kind of guy, I’ve never done a lot of exercise. So I wouldn’t actually say my exercise has changed dramatically into my 30s. So I think there is there is an element of my body changed, hormones changed muscle mass, maybe naturally starting to decline. That changed. But you there you want kids come along, definitely there is a there is a shift. And you know, you think when you’re if you’re a single versus in a relationship, when you’re single, you might be going out to clubs, and you might be out partying, and you’re up late at night, you might not be getting amazing sleep, but as you said, you then might be sleeping in till 10am The next day, whereas you gotta business your kids, you probably waking up at four or five, six in the morning. Unless you’re lucky like me and have an incredible partner who does the morning shifts and lets me sleep in. But like you’re so right, that there are these things that happen and it’s very easy to just get all of my bodies changed because of my age, my body’s changed, and it’s changed. But with it we can be so let’s say we’re quick it but it can be so easy to forget that our behaviors have changed. That’s probably the biggest thing I’m hearing from you is going on. Well hold on. Let’s also look at what behavior shifts have changed, which are influencing our sleep, our activity, our muscle mass. And so maybe kind of just to bring us home and start to wrap us up like let’s say someone is their business owner right now. And they start you know, they were a bit active in their in their youth, but they can see it. They’re listening to this going yeah, you know, I’m not going to I’m not where I was, I know I’m capable of it. But I’ve just started going oh well things have changed because I hit this age. What is like the five steps apart from hiring and working with you which we can get to that can be like step by step. So if there were five steps that they could take, what what would you be saying to that like do this then do this then do this?
Zac Mason (29:53):
Yeah, okay. So Well, the most important thing number one, is that you If weight loss is a goal, whether it’s shopping 510 15, even 50 kilos, if that is a goal, then it’s only going to happen. If your body is burning more energy than it is storing, therefore you must be in a metabolic deficit, which means your daily activity supersedes the amount of calories that you’re actually eating. How would you know that you’re doing that? Well, you need to track your food, you need to understand how many calories you actually are eating. And whether it’s too much or too little. The best way to do that is to use like My Fitness Pal, which is the most popular nutritional tracking app. And it’s very simple. But it’s also one of the things it’s the so easy to do this easy not to do. But if you do it, it’s very powerful. It’s like a daily habit like tying your shoes, it’ll teach you so much about what you’re eating, and what the impact of that food is having on your body. So that’d be number one is called nutritional accounting. Second thing is, you want to have a consistent activity level. So looking at data every single day, for years and years and years now, I can tell you that you don’t have to be a marathon athlete, you just have to be consistent. So if you’re only getting five to 6000 steps a day, sure, you’re not going to be running any marathons, you’re not going to be the fittest guy on the block, who cares. But if you keep it five to 6000 steps a day, and there’s very little variance, then it’s gonna be a lot easier for you to eat the right amount of food consistency and have a predictable drop in weight week after week after week. Whereas if you have 15,001, day 2000, the next day, three and a half 1000 10,000 2000 You’re burning heaps of energy, but then you’re likely eating too much, which is going to fill the body up with food and weights, you’re not going to be burning off that energy that you over eat on that day in the scale is going to be bouncing around, it’s going to be very motivating. Because you one day, you’re going to be like Oh, I lost a kilo next day, you’re gonna gain a kilo and a half because you’re full of carbs, water inflammation, like, The more consistent you are, the easier it is. So pick a step target and stick to it doesn’t have to be 10,000. But ideally, above five, if it’s if it’s below five, you’re going to have a hard time because your food intake will have to be so reduced that you know you’re going to be hungry. And it’s just not a pleasurable experience. It’s not fun. Third thing would be do some kind of resistance training, which means lifting weights, you won’t look like Arnold, I’ve been trying for 10 years and I still don’t look like Arnold learn how to listen weights. But you don’t have to do a lot of it. You just have to do it consistently, every week and progress, whether it’s by one extra rep. So if you did 10 Push Ups last week, do 11 Next week, this week, and then do 12 Next week, just increase it slightly every week. That’s how you stimulate your body to get stronger. And as the body gets stronger, it says okay, well we need more muscle here so that we’re prepared for the next time this is going to happen.
Carl Taylor (33:02):
Yeah, I think what we’ll touch on quickly that I think it is worth mentioning to people that you know, lifting weights, while we say lifting weights doesn’t always have to mean you have now go out and buy all these expensive gym equipment. You can literally I’m proof of this, you can find these great bodyweight exercises. And, you know, it uses your own bodyweight and there are all sorts of things you can change your angle, like I can use my bed and put my feet on my bed when I’m doing a push up. And that changes the muscles that I’m using but also changes the weight distribution so don’t feel like Oh but wait exercise I had now another excuse. I can’t get started today because I’ve got to go and buy all this equipment. No, no, no. You have wait, it is you. You can go online, you can find tips. I’m sure Zach’s got some too, that just will tell you here’s what you can do. But if you I’m sure you go on YouTube, a bare minimum you can find something to get you moving. So Alright, so we’ve we’ve talked, we just recap we’ve we’ve talked about tracking your calories. And one thing I want to check in is are you saying this is something for the rest of our life? Now we need to be tracking this or is this more like a snapshot just to get into the habit and understand what what food is? What, what are we talking here from a tracking point of view.
Zac Mason (34:09):
Think of it like learning how to ride a bike. At first, it’s going to feel clunky it’s going to feel like you’re screwing up and that’s good because you need to make mistakes to learn. But eventually we take the train training wheels off and if we see it why can we want to use a bit hop on a ride? So my point is ultimately, you want to get to a point where most of the time we’re eating the same foods every day and every week. People kind of way way way overcomplicated. Most breakfasts are going to be the same most lunches are going to be one of three options. Most dinners are going to be one of five options. Right unless you are Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsay and it’s your job to taste different food all the day, you’re gonna be eating the same kind of stuff. So once you’ve done your tracking for a couple of weeks, you already know like, Oh, two eggs Yeah, that’s 140 calories slicer total. 80 calories banana that’s 90 Chobani I get oh, that’s, you know, 160 calories. It’s just gonna be there so that you can then eyeball it and do the math in your head. That would be the ultimate goal, if we want to get to. Yeah, so no, it shouldn’t be a lifelong thing. Unless you enjoy doing it. Some people like to do it. And that’s totally fine, too.
Carl Taylor (35:17):
Yeah, I’m one of those people where it’s like I would I would do it probably for a week or two. And then I would, I would probably hate myself, I kept doing it. So if you’re someone like me, you know, I think it’s yeah, you do use it as a learning. Don’t don’t see it happening to be like a jail sentence if that if you view it that way. And then so then the second thing you said was getting in steps, minimum 5000. As many as you can kind of get to, you did say at the beginning earlier, like going over 10,000 diminishing returns. So yeah, 5000 to 10,000. Sounds like that’s the sweet spot. And then number three, was about the resistance training the lifting weights, that could also be bodyweight. So let’s keep going. What’s number four?
Zac Mason (35:55):
Number four would be to use some kind of fitness tracking device. Because if you don’t, then you will hit a plateau at some point, and you won’t know what’s keeping you stuck there. So by using a fitness tracking device, you will then know, okay, is a step problem? Is it a calorie problem? Is it a sleep problem? You can very quickly see those trends just on your mobile app. So you know, I would I would rather you take a data driven approach, versus an emotional guestimation. Speak to random people and get all bits of confusing feedback, versus just looking at the facts and be like, Oh, okay, well, I did a 300 calories more on Saturday than I should have. So that’s probably why my weight is up half a kilo on Monday. Cool. Let’s relax. No need to stress out.
Carl Taylor (36:47):
It’s interesting you say about the data driven to versus emotional driven, like, it’s very easy. I had this when I had my aura ring, my partner has an aura ring. And I know she can be like this, you know? It can easy to be like, Oh, I had a bad night’s sleep. And then you go back and look at the tracking. And you’re like, actually, I slept for like eight hours. And it’ll had like, 30% deep sleep, okay. Like, the data is telling me I didn’t have that, that asleep. So if my energy is off, maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s my, you know, I’m low in a certain vitamin, or maybe I have an exercise like, so it’s true having that data, rather than just going oh, yeah, I haven’t slept very well, for the last few nights from your emotional experience versus what the data tells you could be different.
Zac Mason (37:29):
Yeah. And it can’t like emotions play on our, on our energy as well. Like, funny example that I learned from Michael singer is, if someone if someone’s extremely tired, and it’s, you know, 1am in the morning, and then you knock on their door and say, oh, sorry, it’s so late. But congratulations, you’ve just won the jackpot. lotto, you’ve got $20 million, instantly, you would be ready to do a backflip with energy, because you’ve got so the basic so yes, emotions do tie into it. And you’ll notice that if you train for long enough in the gym, specifically on the average or below days where you like you genuinely are tired, but you’re just going through the motions, I do recommend doing that training on the tide days and just doing what you can. Even if it’s 10% less, it still counts. Some of the best sessions I’ve ever had were days that I was actually genuinely tired and how to shoot sleep. As weird as that sounds.
Carl Taylor (38:25):
Yeah. Well, it reminds me like, you know, I’m a big fan of Tony Robbins. I’ve done a lot of his events, and he talks about your emotion is energy in motion. And if anyone if you’ve listened, if you’re listening right now and you’ve attended a Tony Robbins in person event, or you know he’s virtual events that go for long, we’re talking started at 8am. And you’re still going at three 3am in the morning. And you’ve had maybe very barely had a food break. Yet? How do you can you still be jumping around at 3am in the morning, it’s about managing that emotional state. So it’s a good reminder that our energy can change in a heartbeat. And motion moving your body is one of the quickest ways to change your emotion. So yeah, those down days, good time to exercise. All right, so number five, is with number five, Zach.
Zac Mason (39:15):
So the number five, I wanted to add in was more like to zoom out and look at all those four steps from a long term point of view. So if you have so a client of mine, Randall, he recently hit the 103 pounds down, which is I think about 47 kilos down. Wow. But when we started, we said, Look, we’re not doing it like you used to do it with all the different challenges and boot camps and be rah rah rah, one pound a week. That’s all I want to see. Just give me one pound a week and I’m happy coach and you’re a happy client. And he did exactly that. So if you do the math, that’s 100 weeks. Right? But here’s the catch. He hasn’t regained it. And he’s a completely different person to the point where we actually forgot what he looked like when he started, we had to go back through our archives and find the photos and all of us were blown away, like, holy crap, that was you what? So my point is, take the long term approach, don’t set expectations that you need to be ripped in. Like you see people posting on Facebook, like I’m down 10 pounds. And last two weeks, yeah, check back in with him in 10 months and see where that 10 pounds is guarantee you, it’s probably back on nine times out of 10.
Carl Taylor (40:27):
And that’s that key sustainability, right, that the sustainable I like that. And that long term approach, guys is the same thing we talked about when we’re building wealth. You know, if you’re going in going, I’m just looking to make a quick cash, it’s very different to real wealth building is about going I’m investing over a 10 year period. So with this long term view, I mean, you talked about 100 weeks with your client, Randall, what would you say is the minimum to be thinking as long term when it comes to health kind of goals?
Zac Mason (40:56):
Well, from a weight loss point of view, I say the the safe and sustainable pace to progressively lose body fat without starving yourself doing stupid strict diets without having to work out five, six days a week, actually, you know, eat normal food and live a normal lifestyle, you should be aiming for about half a kilo per week, that is a safe sport. So one pound, half a kilo, very manageable. And that way, you can just chip away at it. And know that as long as you’re getting close to that half, half a kilo, we’re just above like some weeks might be kilo, others might be point 2.3. The average is half a kilo. It’s smooth, and it’s not a burden. So if you can just do the math, 10 kilos, give yourself 20 weeks, plus a buffer, give yourself an extra four weeks because you got birthdays, Easter’s kids might be sick, you might have new staff coming on board, and that chews up all your spare time, like things happen. So always give yourself a bit of a buffer and just chip away at it. Whereas that’s like a weight loss goal. If you have like a strength goal, that’s going to be even longer again, because we can build muscle as fast as we can lose body fat. So you can easily lose a kilo of body fat a week, but you will struggle to build half a kilo of muscle in one month, depending on how experienced you are with training that have diminishing returns as well. So yeah, regardless of Titan long term approach, beyond that is well who am I becoming? What’s what identity do I want to build around this fitness because at the end of the day, you can lose 100 pounds, you can do 100 chin ups, and do whatever. But if that doesn’t become part of like your identity, eventually it will, it’ll just fall away. And you’ll default back to your original habits, because that’s who you identify us. So
Carl Taylor (42:44):
yeah, I put my hand up and say that to me, you know, I did this health and fitness challenge got a six pack, I was one of the few who actually achieved it and had the six pack, I was ripped, I was strong. And I was doing it for a long period of time. But there are elements of that. That became my identity, I became someone who stopped drinking alcohol, I already given up coffee years before. So there are elements that have stuck in my identity. But that that every It was basically every day workouts that fell away in my identity. So this is a good motivation to be like yeah, why do I want my identity to look like on that? On that side? Again? Look, Zack, I really appreciate you coming on, tell us a little bit more about how our listeners can find you. If they want to work with you engage with your free stuff, like you put out really good stuff on social. So that’s one thing I’ll say is you should follow him on. I follow him on Facebook. That’s just where we’re connected. I know you’ve got a big LinkedIn audience as well. So maybe just we’ll make sure all your socials are linked in our show notes. But where would you say is the number one social media place they should interact with you?
Zac Mason (43:49):
I’d say LinkedIn is the best. So pretty much like everything about me on LinkedIn at LinkedIn is basically my website. So if you go to just sack Mason, it’s a yellow profile picture. And I’m wearing half a suit and a half singlet slick the only profile picture you’ll ever see, that looks like that. That’s me and you. Yeah, everything needs to know about me is on there. There’s also a link to a free training I made some time ago, which, you know, gives you some tips that go deeper into what we’ve talked about today. And also give you an indication of you know, if you wanted that one on one, support and coaching, you know, tailored to suit your lifestyle and your goals, what that might look like. And you know, conversation can always progress from there. So and who is
Carl Taylor (44:30):
an ideal client for you? Who do you typically work best with? Yeah,
Zac Mason (44:35):
so it can vary. So you know, I have clients in their early 30s, who have four kids and multiple businesses. I have clients in their mid 50s, who have multiple kids who are in their 20s everything in between. But in general, it’s genuine business owners who are wanting to good things in the world but they’ve just you know their health has fallen behind. They just want to bring it back up to match the level of success that they’ve achieved in their Relationships, the wealth, the business that success and lifestyle. So it’s just like that lagging annoying thing in the background, I just want to bring it back up to match everything else in life.
Carl Taylor (45:13):
Well, it sounds to me like that’s our listeners, you know, we are entrepreneurs rising. It’s all about rising the tide and being entrepreneurs who are up leveling consistently in various aspects of our life building businesses for freedom, building our wealth. And this is our first episode that we’ve gone a little bit off wealth and business topics. And we hope you expect more because there is more to come. I think that building wealth is a lot more than just about money in the bank assets in our business. It’s about our health, it’s about our relationships. It’s all those things that Zach was just mentioning. So thank you, Zack for being the first guest to talk about a non business topic but something I think super important. We’ll make sure that the links to all the socials as well as LinkedIn is on our show notes up you can find it rising dot show that’s writing dot show. Also, if you liked today’s episode, and you think there’s something in here that could really help a friend, a family member, someone you personally know, please grab the link in whatever app you’re listening to this, find that little dot, dot dot and the link that you can share and send it on, send it to a friend so they can take a listen as well. And if you really liked the show, and this is your first episode, then subscribe and check out our backlog of episodes too. It’s really great show. Obviously, I’m biased being the host, but we have great guests like Zack as well as me sharing little 10 minute tactics every week. So thank you so much that it has been an absolute honor to have you on the show. I look forward to chatting to you again maybe in a future episode. And everyone guys just keep up that journey of building your business. Till next time. Have fun. You’ve been listening to entrepreneurs are rising. Thank you, dear listener for tuning in. I appreciate your time and look forward to connecting in future episodes if you would like show notes or any resources from today’s episode, you can find them at rising dot show rising dot show. You can find a show notes for this episode and all other episodes as well as links to socials and or the ability to reach out and connect with me make your suggestions for future episodes. Until next time, keep up the journey.
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