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163: How Eating Less Than 6 Times a Week Made Him Ripped at 43 · Harder Than Life

• 0:07
  I'm Kelly Siegel, and this is Harder Than Life, a podcast about self-love, self-awareness, business, and health. We tell outrageous stories and boil everything down to simple, practical advice you can start using today. Let's get living.
• 0:23
  Today's guest on 100 Life Show doesn't just push boundaries, he shatters them. Kyle Newell, known as the Panda Man, is a high-performance self-development coach, best-selling author, and fasting pioneer who relentlessly challenges mainstream norms. Whether openly defying government mandates, overcoming devastating injuries, or pioneering radical approaches like prolonged fasting, Kyle embodies his core belief
• 0:50
  Self-Mastery Starts Where Comfort Ends. Through his groundbreaking book, The Panda Diet, Kyle transforms how we understand fasting, discipline, and human potential. A dedicated husband and father of four, Kyle lives what he teaches, encouraging us all to embrace discomfort as a path to true freedom. Join me in welcoming a true warrior of the mind, body, and spirit, Kyle, the Panda Man Newell. What's up, Kelly? Thanks for having me, man. It's been a little bit since we spoke, yeah.
• 1:20
  it's been a minute and i want i know you but my audience doesn't and i love you so they will you call yourself the panda man tell us the story behind this persona and how it embodies your philosophy yeah so the panda man it's a funny story how the name came to be so there was a basketball player ron artest who was a big fan of you know i like the old school nba and he reminded me you know the older era with jordan those guys and
• 1:45
  I think it was 2013 or 14, he changed his name to like the panda's friend. And I was on his email list and got one of his hats, you know, and I started researching this animal, the panda. You know, it was kind of interesting because they didn't find it. Westerners didn't find it until about 150 years ago. It was thought to be a mythological creature. So I just felt like I connected with it, like the black and white, the duality. Fast forward to when I started the long form fasting.
• 2:11
  and trying to think of what to call the book. And I look down, I have a panda tattoo on my wrist. And I start a panda diet, right? So I look at it more like as a spirit animal. That was the name of the book. And then a couple of years ago, my Instagram account got banned. You know, it was under my regular name. And we're trying to think of, all right, what should come up with a new name? I'm like, what about the panda man?
• 2:31
  And it just kind of took off from there. So it kind of random. It came from Ron Artest. It became what I called the book. And then it became my handle on my social media. So I was doing show prep, but I heard that. And I'm like, so I'm from Detroit. And he was the one that incited the malice at the Palace. I was at that game. Oh, no kidding. Yeah.
• 2:51
  He's one of those players that just you want on your team, but you can't stand when he's on the other sideline. But I didn't know that about you. That's actually a really good story. It's pretty cool, right? Let's get right into it. Your book, The Panda Diet, emphasizes feeding the body, starving the ego. Can you unpack the deeper meaning behind this idea as well as tell us the story about your fasting because it is insane?
• 3:17
  It all began, I competed seven times in bodybuilding. The last time I competed was 2014. And I was getting ready for the show. My wife had never seen me compete. I was doing two shows that year.
• 3:28
  And I'm always researching, always reading, right? So about eight weeks out from the prep. Now, the way I was coached prior to that, I would basically develop what I would call metabolic damage. I would have to do these starvation type diets, you know, 15, 1600 calories for weeks, for months on end. At that point, I'm doing four meals, 1600 calories, and I'm reading about stubborn fat and the guy, real sciencey type of guy. And he says, listen, we have stubborn fat for men. It's typically our love handles, lower abdomen. It's different type of fat cell receptor.
• 3:56
  And if you ever touch those areas of your body, skin to skin, they're colder. They have a very poor blood supply, which is step one in fat loss. You got to get the blood in to get the fat transported out. And he said the only way you can really increase blood flow consistently to those areas is through fasting. So the next day, I hadn't heard of fasting before, but the next day I switched to your typical intermittent fasting. I took my four meals, condensed it down to two.
• 4:19
  And right away, I was like, this is a lot simpler. Same amount of food, but I was like, the hunger is much more manageable. My energy was better. And I did that for five years. Now, fast forward to 2019, I have a couple of gyms here in New Jersey, and we were doing a fat, the fat shredder contest at my gym. It's a fat loss contest. And there's a lot of young guys on the staff. And I said, okay, I've been doing this five years for intermittent fasting, but there's got to be another level. So I started researching long form fasting.
• 4:44
  And I remember being like, I'm going to go two days. I'm going to go two days without eating. And I felt fine. And I did three days. And that whole first summer, six years ago, I did basically a 72-hour fast every week. But what it did, and at the time I was still tracking my food, I kept upping my food. And I have a humongous appetite, right? So it was, I hated having to diet and all this to get lean, like cutting my food so much. Kept upping my food, weight kept coming down, body fat kept coming down.
• 5:08
  And it just became this great way for me to live where I have this feast that I look forward to. You know, when it's a feast time and I look at it as a blessing, like it's the best meal of all time. And I've been doing it now, like I said, six years. So the past six years on average, I've been eating slightly less six times a week. Put on muscle in that time. I feel great. You know, everything just feels good. And then I started teaching people how to do it.
• 5:31
  Did you guys hear that? Six times a week, this guy. Kyle, how old are you? 43. And what's your body fat? Just checked it the other day. It was down to five. So 5% body fat, ripped, big boy, 43, eats six times or less a week.
• 5:50
  First thing I think of, and I just, I was thinking about you this weekend, because I'm going to do my first ever true, like long fast. I'm going to do a five day fast, but it's fasting mimicking diet. I'm going to try something because I realized something when I met you.
• 6:06
  When I was a kid, I was starved. There was no food in the house. So my parents were alcoholics and gone all the time. So we didn't eat. So when I fast or when I don't eat, it brings me, it triggers me right away. So it's like, I gotta pick my battles. So I'd never did any amazing fast. I fasted one day for, or several times one full day for religious reasons.
• 6:32
  But it's hard for me. And it's not even the hardness. It's just that trigger. I avoid that like the plague. But I'm going to do a fasting mimicry night. Why is this such a big thing? And how do you love it so much? Because it just sounds painful to me. Yeah.
• 6:50
  Well, I look back, right, and I get it, how it triggers you. But I look at all the years, you know, I started competing in 2004. So basically for 15 years until I really stumbled upon this, you know, and I love to eat, but I was always captive to my food, right? I had to measure everything. And I...
• 7:07
  If I ate more than 2000 calories, my wife, I remember she would tell me like, I don't understand the way that that you eat and the way you train. I think you would be leaner. And I was frustrated because I understood exactly what she was saying. I'm like, it doesn't make sense. I'm a big guy, you know, usually in the 220, 230 range.
• 7:24
  So to me, it liberated me because I can have when I when I feast, it's a huge meal. They're great. It's not it's not like, OK, let me have a little diet meal. It's a huge meal. And then I just reframed everything in my head. Like my energy is better when I feel hunger. One of the first things I teach people like I teach people, you got to think of hunger as an emotion. Right. You think it way people refer to hunger. I feel hungry. I feel hungry.
• 7:49
  Right. And hunger comes and goes. But when we feel a little bit of hunger, your energy is actually higher when you're hungry. Right. Take a hunter gatherer.
• 7:59
  And then I reframed it even before that when I was bodybuilding. When you feel hunger, I tell myself, this is what fat loss feels like. This is what it feels like. I'm supposed to feel this. And it's not chronic. Just a short period of time. If I said, hey, Kelly, you're going to be angry tomorrow for five minutes, you might be like, well, that sucks. It's only five minutes. And it's the same thing with hunger. Like people get tripped up by that. They feel a little bit of hunger. They feel it. And then they think they have to eat right away. And they don't. Right. So it's kind of me.
• 8:26
  The biggest part of the fasting, the symbology of the panda, the black or white, is you make a decision, right? You're doing it or you're not. There's no, let me see how I feel. Let me play it by ear. And it just opens up so much headspace and mental clarity. At 43, why keep doing it? Now, I know the answer for me. I want to hear why for the audience. The average guy that's like, that's insane. I eat...
• 8:53
  three meals a day, Kyle's telling me I need to go down to six or less per week.
• 9:00
  you know, why, and, and not only why, but at 43, how long are you going to do it? Cause I'm at 49, I'm going to be 50 this year. I'm doing a different type of hard, which is going to lead to my next question, which is, you know, I love putting myself through difficult, but the only thing that's just, and it's just, it, I can't do is the fasting. And I, and it's hard for me to say can't, because I don't believe in that impossible only describes the degree of difficulty, but I have to pick my battles. So having said that, why keep doing this at 43?
• 9:30
  There's a couple of reasons, right? I look at it more now, you know, the mental mastery that it gives me as far as the inner dialogue and
• 9:39
  You know, today I backed up my fast this week. It's Memorial Day, so I won't eat again until tomorrow night. It gives me a little bit of an edge. You know, the rare week when I don't do it, if I'm on vacation or something, I'm missing something. So it kind of gives me that feeling. And then I look at a health perspective. Basically, the root cause of every disease known to mankind is insulin resistance. That's really what we're controlling physiologically with the fasting is insulin. So gaining control over that and just...
• 10:05
  Every day I'm working that mechanism with the hormones and what the trickle down effect of insulin. And then also from just a cosmetic standpoint, once I got into this, it kind of was like,
• 10:19
  that's the way you always thought you should have looked. And I tell people, it's not an effort though. I'm not trying to cut my body fat. It's not a conscious thing. And I can't really fathom going back the other way. Even on a cheat day, if I have two meals, I usually just have one meal on my cheat day because I feel better. And then I look at the time. If the average guy, if they're eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and they cut out breakfast and lunch, I look at that as an hour of food prep, start,
• 10:47
  eating, stop eating, clean up, get back to what you're doing. If you cut down to just one meal a day, you're basically getting back 14 hours a week or 60 hours a month that you can use for whatever you want. Right. And you're going to see what like the fast thing, the energy actually goes up, the cognitive function. So to me, it's just, there's too many benefits at this point for me to not to go back to what I was doing.
• 11:08
  It's become your new normal. That's literally what I'm doing with my 500 workouts this year. It's I've my new normals. I don't take days off in the gym. I work out 360. I try to get 365, but just sometimes God's like take a couple days off and it's not because I'm trying. It's because there's no time in the day. But so I just decided, oh, let's add another 140 days where we're going to do dual is hard. So that's my heart. It's become my new norm at 50. And I think.
• 11:37
  High performers like us and the people that listen to this show have to do things like these ice baths, like like morning routines and just put yourself in the hard to make sure that you're alive. Thousand percent. Yeah, you have to. You know, it's a little bit of discomfort. It's that, you know, hormesis, that low level stress that we apply constantly. It makes us tell people, you know, you apply that stress consistently, it makes you harder to kill. That's the truth to be more resilient.
• 12:05
  It's true because that's literally what heart of life is about. It's the littlest thing can't throw me off. Even big things can't throw me off. So so everybody has their hard shoes. They're hard. Some people don't choose any hard. And that's why they're softer than life. But having said that, Kyle, what will your meal look like tomorrow night? Tell the listeners what that'll be.
• 12:24
  Yeah, so a big thing, the protocol that I teach people, I start with fruit. And it's about a four-pound bowl of fruit. So there's a ton of fruit. Yeah. Usually like five different kinds in there. Frozen grapes. I clean my grapes and freeze them. You know, apples, oranges, pineapple, mango. So I start with fruit.
• 12:41
  Then I go into the main portion of the feast. Now, tomorrow night is Wednesday, so that's Mexican night for us. So we do that every Wednesday. So that'll be a couple giant burritos, you know, white rice. Whether we do, you know, grass-fed beef, we have some elk or chicken. You know, put that in there, beans, corn. I'll eat that until I'm very content. And then on a regular night, you know, I'll make like a soaked oatmeal. You know, I'll put that in either raw milk or water.
• 13:08
  And I'll have that, you know, I'll do that at the end. Put some healthy cereal on top of it for the crunch. It's delicious. It just, so the audience knows, if they're watching this on YouTube, he's out in the woods, it's a beautiful day in New Jersey. But I assure you, he lives in a normal house. He's not some Paul Bunyan type dude. Yes, his toilet probably will be clogged after eating burritos.
• 13:29
  Well, that's another thing I look at, too, in all honesty, is the digestion piece, right? With the fasting and giving the gut a break. Part of the reason with the fruit. But I tell my guys, I'm like, listen, if I only have one question to ask you, it'd be okay for your health. How's your digestion? In the ideal bowel movement, right? We shouldn't have to wipe, right? Can you think about that? Really? Yeah. And you think about animals out in nature, right? They're eating what they should be eating.
• 13:57
  And I've seen digestion with clients and all this just greatly improve, you know, greatly improves. They get in a regular cadence. It's smooth. They're not constipated because the gut has so many, the neurotransmitters, so much of the immune system or so much inflammation because people are constantly asking it to work. You know, so that's a big piece of it, too.
• 14:16
  I have heard some wild things on the Heart of the Life show, but that is the first. I can guarantee you I can see my producer on the other side saying, what is he talking about? So I just want to reframe what I just heard. If you're eating correctly and eating the right nutrients, you shouldn't have to watch it. Yeah, call it the ghost poop, man.
• 14:35
  All right. So if eating six times a week isn't challenging enough, you have this Indigo Panda Challenge. Walk us through it and what insights about human potential and spirituality do you gain through the extreme fasting experience? Yeah. So the Indigo Panda, I came up with, I think, in 2022. I was thinking, okay, there's got to be something else. Obviously, you could just hit a longer fast, you know,
• 15:03
  But I said, there's got to be some way to ramp this up more for the mental and the spiritual. So what I came up with was it was a two week program, five day fast. And at the time I was doing 75 hard. So I was already hitting two workouts a day. So I kept that part of it, two workouts a day during this.
• 15:20
  So five-day fast, you break with your feast. Then you go right into a four-day fast, you break. Then right into a three-day fast, break. Right into a two-day fast, break. So over the course of two weeks, two workouts a day, you're eating four times, and then you have to finish it with a 12-hour solo silent walk, right? And when I was trying to think of what to finish it with, I had that book sitting there, a 12-hour walk. And I'm like, that's it. You know, you do this right at the end. You'll be out there. You get all these downloads and insights, and you're already kind of in an altered state of mind.
• 15:50
  And yeah, it was amazing when I did it. It was kind of, it was what I was looking for as far as mentally and spiritually, you know, just confidence in certain areas, insights in certain areas. And I did my walk overnight because obviously we have the kids, the children. We're trying to figure out how not to disturb the family life. And I was going to a mastermind that week and my wife said, well, just go right from the mastermind, go right to the mountain. So I did it from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
• 16:14
  Up in the mountains, that added another element of it, you know, being up there in the dark by yourself. You look at the history of fasting, right? Every religion has fasting in it. You know, you look at Jesus 40 days in the desert and he was always tempted with food. Right. That's one of the devil's greatest temptations is food. Mm hmm.
• 16:32
  It's one of the hardest things to control what goes in your mouth. I mean, you, we, we can control a lot of things, but people struggle with that. I'm sitting here just shaking my head, dumbfounded. I, I, because five, four, three, two, one, and then end it with a 12 hour walk. Like I can't do anything for 12 hours. People are probably sitting there. This man, where did you get this guy? But I don't believe there are any coincidences. What, what.
• 16:56
  I got to do a better job of it. I will, I promise, is pulling out the funness of Kyle. He is a family man. He is not insane. I assure you, we've had many conversations. He travels, plays in Florida. I try to connect with you, and he's just an amazing guy. But I will say what I'm about to ask you, could be triggering. It's going to be funny, yet triggering.
• 17:19
  Your favorite movie is Halloween. What is scarier? Michael Myers or explaining your urine drinking routine at family gatherings? I would say for me, it's probably Michael Myers, you know, with the kids. Because the urine, you know, it's funny with the urine. I'm the type where I learned something. And just like that day when I read about fasting, the next day,
• 17:43
  You know, if it just clicks in my head, I try it. So with the urine, it was the same year as I created the Indigo. I'm listening to this doctor, you know, on this podcast and they're talking about at the time, you know, blood clotting and all this type of stuff, right? And he said, well, what's something that people can do to avoid blood clots? And he said, this is gonna sound very strange because there's compounds in urine that can dissolve blood clots like that. Now I've never had an issue with it, but I started researching it. I'm like, okay, what else can it do?
• 18:13
  Right. And I've had guys at my gym, some of the older guys come up to me and be like, man, you got to you got to stop posting that. Some parents are talking. I said, listen, I'm authentic, if anything. Like if if it's helping me and it can maybe help somebody else, I don't shy away from it. You know, I know it's it's people people get a chuckle out of it, you know, and but it's part of my protocol.
• 18:35
  You know, it's part of my protocol. When I heard his doctor talk about how it can dissolve blood clots, right? And he was talking about it that period of time, you know, 2021, 22. So then I started researching. So urine has over 2,800 enzymes, hormones, stem cells that are already filtered through our body. It's part of our blood that are bioidentical to our body because it's filtered it.
• 18:56
  It's antiparasitic, antiviral, antifungal, antibacterial. And then if you look at a lot of the Eastern philosophy, they still use this. If you look at snake charmers in India, they keep a bottle of urine next to them because if they get bit...
• 19:09
  It's fantastic for healing skin wounds and it's an anti-venom. So it does all these things. I'm like, okay, is this, I kind of equate it. It's all in this, I believe there's a lot of conspiracies in health stuff we've told to avoid. Maybe, hey, don't look over here because it has potential health benefits like fasting, right? I don't know if it'll ever become mainstream. So yeah, there was just too many things with it. If you look at women's healthcare products, skincare, the main ingredient is urea that comes from urine.
• 19:36
  It's fantastic. You start digging and you start realizing, okay, it's right there. I literally got... I've never heard this before. And I was doing show prep, just doing a final walk through a show prep this morning. And I heard that and I almost fainted. So I put it in there. It's disgusting. I'm sorry. I have to ask. Hey, it's all good, man. How do you gather it? And then how much do you drink?
• 20:00
  It's just, I just want to gag. So I don't, but I have to ask how you get, you pee in a cup and then. Yeah. I keep in the cupboard in the bathroom and, uh, usually it's first thing in the morning. Yeah. I feel like that's the most nutrient rich and probably about two ounces.
• 20:17
  You know, it's not a lot, two ounces. But I can tell you, since I've been doing that now, you know, I do a lot of stuff for my health, but it's very rare that I get sick. Very rare. And our newborn, she's four and a half months now. Two, three weeks in, she was getting this, like, rash under her arm from just being wet and whatnot.
• 20:36
  So I told my wife, Devin, she knew what I was going to say. I said, well, try some urine on it. So did some urine on it. Dude, the next day she comes to me, she goes, you're not going to believe it. I go, what? She goes, it's gone. It's healed. You know, so it's one of those things that there's been very few converts I've had to it. Now there's people that they call, this is actually funny. They call loopers where everything they urinate out, they drink. I don't do that, right? I just use it as a medicinal thing, but the loopers recycle everything.
• 21:06
  Right. So it's every day. Um, not every day, but I would say, you know, four or five times a week. Yeah. Okay. That's something I will not be doing, but I, I, you had me, you had me intrigued. I, I heard a reel this weekend about somebody shared their first fasting experience and they did it off the beaten path. And they said that they fought, they saw God and they had a conversation with God.
• 21:32
  I have it in all my questions, but it just, it made me think about it. So talk about the spirituality of fasting in general. What is the most profound experience? We got to get off the urine subject. It's disgusting to me, and I apologize. So let's talk about something I do love, and it's God. So talk about spirituality and anything that has come about from some of your long fasts, and maybe even on your 12-hour walk. For sure, yeah. You know, it's funny because I didn't start fasting for that reason.
• 22:02
  What I found, though, is just everyday life, it's brought me closer to God. An example I'll start with is when we eat now as a family or any time I eat, I pray before the meal. Right. And it's it's something that I used to get uncomfortable when people would do that. And I'd be like, oh, you know, this is weird. We would just pray on holidays before a meal. And it's because of the.
• 22:26
  Each time I eat, it's not taken for granted, right? It's like this special thing to look forward to. And I feel like the way, you know, when you look at fasting, you're stripping away, right? You're taking away everything. Most people, they feel stressed. They feel anxious. They turn to food. Food is a drug, right? They turn to that. They use it as advice. When you're struggling with fasting, the only way you make it through really is if you hand it over to God.
• 22:52
  Right. Hey, I'm struggling right now. Can you guide me through this? And then also using it as, hey, I'm doing this for you. Right. And the Bible talks about it doesn't say if it says when you fast and when you pray, meaning it's implied that we should be doing this. It's not, hey, if you feel like it or if you do it. And then the funny thing about the fasting, you know, I've been doing it so long now.
• 23:17
  It's easy to get complacent, right? Like with my six meals a week. And I feel like a couple of times a year, God will almost tap me on the shoulder and plant the seed in my head. All right. Now you got to do the indigo or you got to do a five day fast or you got to do some dry fasting. And it's almost like, okay, you're getting complacent with it. You're losing sight of what it is. So now you got to do something harder. And I know once that talk comes into my head that I have to do it, you know, I can't ignore it.
• 23:43
  Keep going down that path, though. How does enduring physical suffering directly translate to that spiritual clarity and mental toughness? I would say the body is the gateway to the mind and then into the spirit, right? It's the temple. You can access those deeper layers of us, right? The mind and the spirit. So when you look at how Christ suffered, right, it was suffering, right? And how often do we actually have to...
• 24:10
  I like struggle as a better word, but how often do we have to struggle or most people actually struggle physically, you know, where they're making something uncomfortable on their body.
• 24:19
  And I think that's just a simple way to relate to, you know, look at Jesus getting crucified, right? Obviously, it's not to that degree, but it's okay. I'm going to back away from the indulgence of food, even though it's right here every day. I can have it at any time. We're blessed in that regard. And then you think, too, as far as the first time I did a 48-hour fast, it was kind of surreal because I said, there's people all over the world that have to do this, but they don't have a choice.
• 24:49
  You know, and it was kind of eye opening for me that there's people that just because they don't have the means, they can't eat every day. First time in my life, I went a day without eating that I could remember. And I think God has used me.
• 25:02
  to really teach people to fasting, right? Because again, most people come to me for, I want to change my body. Usually that's the initial impetus. And then once they get into it and they start living this lifestyle, you see it. They start talking about their faith more. They start getting, so it kind of just opened everything up. And I look at it, you know, you can give sermons in church. You can give sermons with your career, whatever you do.
• 25:26
  But I feel like God has placed this on me. Hey, you got to teach the masses this because it's making stronger bodies, stronger minds, spiritual warriors.
• 25:35
  the way I like to think of it. What would you say to someone who says, he's just making this stuff up and he's doing this for clickbait, for notoriety. When you see, I hate to give any names to this, but you see some of the thought leaders on the internet putting their kids out in front and talking about abs and just saying things to get a reaction. What would you say to the naysayers and the comments that we're going to have that says, this guy's insane. You don't drink your urine. You don't go on 12-hour walks. What's your response to that?
• 26:05
  I'm authentic. That's the one thing. I'm weird. You know, I openly, I think everybody's weird. A lot of people hide it, you know, and I wasn't, I didn't really feel free in my life until I just embraced that. Hey, I like different things. I'm curious about a lot of things. And I started embracing that, right. Instead of feeling out of place, you know, big introvert. And here's the thing too. I don't like attention. I'm extremely introverted. So having the social media presence to me, it's kind of a double-edged sword.
• 26:34
  You know, it's draining, right? Because I don't like being on my phone. I don't like any of that stuff. And I would say with any of those people, and I've invited them, I say, come, come stay with me. Come, come see what I do. This is just how, it's what I do. And it's, it's, I think that's why people connect with it too. People can pick up whether something's authentic or whether they're just doing it for clicks or they're doing it for notoriety. And I think that's really what resonates with people is the authenticity of it.
• 27:00
  Yeah, I agree. I've had several conversations with you as well as been on your show. And I can vouch for you that you are and you're not doing this for anything other than to pay it forward. And and you're already successful. I don't mean successful like.
• 27:16
  you know, multi-million dollars, but you're, you're, you have a multi-million dollar heart and a family. So to me, if you're loved and you're giving out love and you can provide for your family, that's success and you're living it. So I had to ask that question because we're 25 minutes into this thing and people are probably like,
• 27:33
  What are these two clowns talking about? And really what we're talking about is the reason why I had you on is because the discipline, how hard this is. How did your identity shift when you moved from being a school teacher to entrepreneurship and opening your fitness facility? You know, it was...
• 27:52
  I was doing both, right? So I started, went back to school, started teaching in 2006. And that 2007, I started my gym, my business. Wasn't a gym yet. And I would always tell the kids, my students, you know, K to four, you know, elementary school age.
• 28:13
  I would always say, guys, okay, what do you want to be when you grow up? When we go through this a couple of times a year and baseball player, blah, blah, blah. And I would always tell them, I'm like, if anybody ever tells you you can't do that,
• 28:24
  walk away from them. I said, you guys can do whatever you put your mind to. So when the time came for me to resign, obviously a lot of the students were upset, right? The third graders, fourth graders. So I had to give them 60 days notice. And I remember telling them, I said, guys, what do I always tell you? I said, I told you, if you have something you want to pursue in your heart, you got to go for it. And I said, that's what I'm doing. I said, this is the greatest example I can give you guys. Now, as far as the shifting, like a big shift was,
• 28:55
  teach, go back to the gym, train people. But it was always, okay, what am I gonna be capable of? What can I actually take this to? And will I be able to figure that out if I had that safety net? And I didn't think I was gonna be able to do that. So then I had to work through the fear component where I'm giving up this great job, right? This coveted job. And I started really breaking down fear in my head and I realized, okay, if it doesn't work, I'm not dead, right? So what is, it's not dead. And what is fear? It's based in the future.
• 29:25
  The future doesn't exist, right? It's only now ever. The future is just part of our imagination. So then I realized, okay, the future isn't real. What does that tell me about my fear? It's not real. So stepping into that full time allowed me to really just grow my craft of like, I love marketing stuff. I love copywriting. Like I love studying that, like doing this full time, managing people and, you know,
• 29:49
  Leading people I love doing, I don't necessarily like managing people, right? So it's like, okay, figuring this out, what do I want to do? And then it's been an evolution where I opened the second gym in 2018. And that was part of a different plan, a different part of my life when I wanted to open 10 of them. That's no longer my plan.
• 30:06
  That's no longer what I'm pursuing. So it's just been an evolution of being an entrepreneur. And I had a lawn care business when I was like 10 years old, me and my brothers. And it was always in my blood to go kind of just be my own boss and create stuff. I love creating stuff. To the identity shift, yeah, I never felt like even in the teaching world that I belonged there.
• 30:30
  You know, I remember trying to get out of the teachers union and my principal was like, you can't do that. You're going to be blackballed. I'm like, I don't care. Why do I have to be a part of this union that, I don't know, I don't feel like I'm a part of it.
• 30:42
  You are definitely a nonconforming guy. So I love how you say discipline is love in its highest form. So how do you personally maintain discipline without falling into self punishment? Yeah, that's a great question. I look at the fasting as the anchor, you know, for pretty much everything else. Stuff can happen in life, right? You can get sick, you can get injured, your child, you know, and the fasting to me, I'm like, no matter what happens.
• 31:10
  I can fast because I'm not, and it's unique as far as nutrition goes in that I'm not telling you to do more stuff. I'm telling you to do less, right? And the way the brain forms habits, we need simplicity. We need less stuff to do. So I'm like, that's always my foundation. I can hit a fast. And then once I do that,
• 31:29
  I'm not going to go blow it and, you know, have donuts tomorrow night. Right. It just doesn't. And it's kind of just like this internal guidance system and then doing this stuff, you know, you're doing the 500 workouts. I think that's awesome. I do stuff throughout the day, like snacking on fitness. Right. And it's just always these little anchors. Okay. Change your frequency, change it.
• 31:50
  your state of mind, you know, hit on a simple stuff, right? A hundred pushups a day. It's not, I'm not going crazy with stuff, but it's like throughout the day, I'm consistently doing something, doing my walk every day.
• 32:01
  And once you start doing that, it's discipline. I think two people hear the word and they think it's restrictive. And I'm like, it gives you more freedom when you're disciplined, right? It truly does. Gives you more time, gives you better health, gives you better relationships. I thought you were gonna go with your workouts because you've got some pretty intense, crazy workouts that you do too. So besides fasting,
• 32:22
  What single daily habit overlooked by most people has transformed your life most dramatically? The two that I would say, obviously, daily prayer. You know, that's something I've gotten pretty good with, and I do that on my walk. But I love the cold tub. You know, I hate getting in, but I love doing that. The way I feel, you know, afterwards, overcoming that mental barrier. And reading. You know, reading is a...
• 32:47
  That's like my main thing is learning. You know, and that's why I like to teach because I learn when I teach. And if there's a day that goes by where I don't get to at least read a couple pages, I feel hollow. And it's a simple thing. Like anybody can carve out five minutes. You don't have to read a whole book in that day. But I would say that those are, and as far as like my workouts, I do something every day. I'm only hitting the weights, you know, two times a week at this point. You know, and usually backload the week where it's Friday, Saturday.
• 33:16
  But yeah, I would say the reading and the cold tub and the prayer, like those things that are more mental, spiritual based. Is the two workout, I'm sorry, the two weightlifting sessions because of your two knee injuries? No, no. My knees feel great now. My knees, you know, and I coach a lot of people on that, the patella tendon ruptures. And I think part of that's the fasting. Like my knees feel perfect. I go to jujitsu. I do play basketball.
• 33:40
  It's really just with the schedule, right? I've got a lot of different businesses. And sometimes I'll just take the sled up to the street, you know, and hit that, right? Because I look at, okay, traveling. And I look at the workouts. It's something to look forward to as far as, you know, there's a couple guys I work out with Friday, Saturday. And I'm getting the results I want. Obviously, there's Ben Tom's.
• 34:03
  training for shows where I was in there seven days a week. So I look at it in cycles, you know, where it's, and I've got toys at the house. I keep dumbbells outside. I've got a mace, you know, and it gets snacking on fitness throughout the day. But I, you know, right now, it's been like that a couple of years where I'm just really hitting two, as far as like hard workouts in the gym twice a week.
• 34:20
  I'm stealing that snacking on fitness. I like that. It's good, right? So I think I'm snacking on brain food all the day. I love reading. I love taking in information. You know, there's, you know, people may never fast like you, but they'll understand that how important fasting is. Just do a 16 hour fast or you'll start. And it's easy because you're sleeping eight of those hours. So just push back your next meal. Take one thing.
• 34:49
  from Kyle and I'm sure you know this guy's winning so um I wanted to go into the knee injuries a little deeper because you called them you considered them gifts yeah how can pain and injury become our greatest advantages so the first time you know it was 2012 and uh I was just coming off a really bad case of pneumonia you know I was still teaching at the time running my my gym as well and I was burning
• 35:15
  Candle a boat dance, you know, really putting in work through my body was starting to tell me, Hey, slow down. So I was playing in a men's basketball league and sprinting down the court, right late on a Thursday night. And my leg for lack of a better term, it felt like somebody shot it. Like it was just, boom, went down.
• 35:34
  All I know, the guys were coming over in the league and they're walking away covering their eyes. And I'm like, man, whatever it is, this was bad. So they took me to the hospital in the ambulance. Right away, they're like, it's a rupture patellar attendant. Being in this field, strength and conditioning and all that, it's such a rare injury. I never even really heard of it, but I just knew it was bad. And my livelihood was training people and being a phys ed teacher. So I actually started, as soon as that doctor told me the ER, I started like tearing up and crying. So I was like, this is bad.
• 36:04
  Now, there was nothing out there on the injury at the time and patella tendon ruptures. You couldn't find everything was your typical ACL, PCL type submeniscus. So I was just in a funk. And then I connected with who I'd already spoken with previously, but Louie Simmons. And Louie had done it, you know, of Westside Barbell. Louie had ruptured his patella tendon in the early 80s.
• 36:25
  So he became a mentor for me in that as far as, okay, here's what you got to do. And, you know, and one of the things that he told me, he said, Kyle, you could have full range of motion. You can be pain-free, but if you still have fear of injury, you're not healed. So with that first injury, and it was the patellar tendon, you know, usually in a tendon snaps, it comes off the bone, right? An avulsion fracture. And there's not necessarily a lot of pain with that. You think that Kobe Bryant ruptured his Achilles, he was able to shoot the free throws.
• 36:52
  My tendon snapped into four pieces in the middle, IT band snapped, three ligaments, knee capsules. It was just freaking gruesome. And so what I did, though, I used that and I said, okay, there's nothing out here on this. I'm going to write a book on it, right? So I documented everything, outlined my recovery protocol, wrote a book on it. And then right after I competed in that show where the two shows where I've discovered fasting,
• 37:19
  Three months after that, I did the same exact thing to my right knee. You know, and I'm looking at, okay, God really wants me to be the expert in this. You know, so I went through it. And my wife said at the time, she's like, I'm going to give you five minutes to feel sorry for yourself. And then you know what you got to do.
• 37:34
  And I remember the surgeon, same surgeon, he was just distraught. And I said, it's okay. I said, I know what to do. You know, I remember he wanted me to come speak to the group of surgeons because right before he put me out, he kept apologizing. I said, it's okay, doc. I said, I understand it's mental, you know, and he said, what did you mean by that? I said, well, it's just, it's mental. That's all it's, you can either go this way or that way, you know, and I chose to turn it into a blessing. Yeah.
• 37:59
  Silver lining. And now I coach people all over the world with that. I've sold the book all over the world. So it came from a deficit. I believe all strengths come from a deficit. I just realized, I just had an epiphany, that everything that you do is a mental game. So I coach physical mastery that goes to mental fitness. And that's exactly what you're doing. Exactly. Now that you can look back, hindsight is 20-20. Now that you can look back and you had those back-to-back knee injuries, what was God doing?
• 38:29
  telling you? I think there's a couple of things. He was telling me that I had to slow down a little bit. At the time, we didn't have children yet, but I think that that was okay. So, because after the first one, we decided, okay, I'm going to resign from teaching, which was, I love that job. And it was probably the hardest decision of my life. But I looked and I said, okay, I've got a certain path and I got to figure out what I'm capable of. I can't do that
• 38:59
  know all the years training as a teenager and you know just working on a mindset and this if you don't actually get to test it out you know what's it for so i believe god was saying okay
• 39:12
  You're giving, I'm giving you these, you're going to slow down. You're going to learn, right? You're not going to take your legs for granted, right? You're not going to take your ability to be mobile for granted and you're going to teach people, right? And it's just like with the fasting too, right? Selfishly, you know, I created the book, right? I was like, okay, there's got to be something out there. You know, this can help.
• 39:32
  I was sick of doing things the way I was doing them without getting results. Right. So selfishly is like, OK, I put together these protocols and hey, guess what? That worked. Let me teach them to people and see if they work on a larger scale. I think God uses me as a teacher. I want to reiterate what you just said, because you guys just hear that. What he just said, God slowed him down to get him out of his comfort zone and then sped him up. If you pay attention,
• 39:59
  The signs are there, people. It's happening to me right now. Every single time I am meditating, God's voice says to me, slow down. And I know it's to prepare me for what's next. We're trying to take the podcast number one. We're launching a massive coaching program. We got book number two coming out. And he's like, slow down. And it's counterintuitive to all of my survival skills. Okay.
• 40:22
  Everything I've been taught, work harder, work harder, grind, grind, grind, go, go, go, go. Hence the 500 workouts. But if you pay attention and listen, God, universe, source, whatever you want to call it, will tell you exactly what the path is. And then I want, I don't know if you're into the numbers. I keep seeing repeat numbers everywhere. I saw them all weekend long. And my girlfriend was with me. She looks, she's like, what is going on? And I was like, we look, you look it up. It's God telling you you're on the right path. Yeah.
• 40:50
  And it does not feel like it right now. It feels like nothing is working, but you got to keep going. So here Kyle was in his comfort zone, a gym teacher, and he loved that job and he wasn't going to leave. And God said, okay, dummy, you're not going to listen to me. My powers are mighty. I'm going to give you a knee injury, slow you down. And then you didn't get it again. And he gave you another one. So you, you finally, uh, that was how my not drinking was guys.
• 41:17
  So if you pay attention to things that are going on in your life, probably God's work. I've said it before. God works in some crazy, crazy ways. Get out of the way and let him cook. Yeah. What's the biggest fly the fitness and dieting industry keeps selling people? And how is your approach fundamentally different? Expand it from just the fasting because there's so much more dynamics of the spirituality and
• 41:41
  And the mentality and the physicality of everything that you do. Yeah. Well, man, there's so many. I always looked at from the early days of, you know, when I was training people in fitness and nutrition,
• 41:57
  the, you know, and I call them like the fake fitness experts, right? It's a little thing I use. This need for complexity, right? And a lot of them, it makes their clients or students depend on them. And my mindset from day one was always, I should be able to teach you what you need in a month, where if you want to go on your own, you got what you need.
• 42:16
  Right. And he's teaching the people how to fish. So I think as far as nutrition, things I've tested that I don't believe at all. Like when I was bodybuilding, I was eating three, 400 grams a day of protein. Now, if I eat that on the entire week, that's probably, you know, the average week or maybe even a high week. Right. So I look at it. The pendulum has swung so far with like carnivore and things of this nature where I've tested where I've gone a month. Vegetarian. Right. Didn't lose any muscle.
• 42:44
  Right. So I play around with stuff like that. I'm like, okay, the, the propaganda, I believe that that's taught to these people at universities and their certifications, they just continue to repeat it. Meanwhile, if you look at the clients and the results they're getting, and I'll tell some of them when they, you know, they, they, the trolls and all that, I'll be like, show me a client that you've had for two years. That sustained what you're teaching. If they haven't done that or have a large amount of people that have done that, what you're doing is not working.
• 43:12
  It's a temporary change, which anybody can do. So I think there's overemphasis on things like protein, right? And protein is more anabolic, right? But how much do you actually eat? Is it a good energy source? So like that's a big one. I think on the flip side of that, people have been burned into their brain that they have to fear carbohydrates. Your body prefers glucose, right? It's going to convert to glucose. Even if you just eat protein, gluconeogenesis is going to convert it to sugar, to glucose.
• 43:42
  So, yeah, there's good carbs, there's bad carbs, but it's – you look at how unhealthy everybody is, and a lot of people are trying to follow recommendations. Get their protein up. Keep their carbs low. I think fat, if there's one villain, you know, I think fat would be something that, okay, guys, take your fat intake down because the fat that you have has the fat in it that you need. You don't need to be consuming a bunch of extra fat for your hormones. You already have it. Like, you have it. You've got to give your body a reason to tap into it.
• 44:11
  People love to focus on the macros and it could serve you, right? It's served me when I was bodybuilding, but it's the simple approach. I would say the raising up protein and the vilifying of carbs is like a huge thing in the fitness industry, I don't think is correct. Keep going with that because you know, I think who's taking over the done spot for carbs is sugar. What's the whole...
• 44:38
  knock on. I mean, I just read a whole book on how sugar is literally to be avoided at all costs. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting. Some good buddies with Mark. I don't know if you've seen Mark Bell stuff with the sugar diet. And you know, these guys are running with that. And I love it because it's making people think, right. And you've got this cognitive dissonance where you see somebody that's just doing straight sugar for months. Now ripped lean body fat's coming down. And I think the problem, you have refined sugar,
• 45:08
  Right. But then you have when you combine the sugar with the fat. Right. This is where I think a lot of people run into issues. Right. When they if you were just going to have your honey and your fruit and all this. But then if you're adding in 100 grams of fat on top of that, it's almost in my mind, the body is saying, all right, wait a minute. I've got two protein sparing macronutrients, two energy sources. What do I do?
• 45:31
  And then you get fatty liver type of stuff. I think sugar by itself, because again, you take the fat out of it, and you look at what going back to insulin, what fat, and there's a lot of interesting research even on protein, how it disproportionately raises insulin levels and can mess up insulin sensitivity. And where did the message come? I always look at this. Where did the message come that...
• 45:56
  and I'm not saying go eat candy bars, but where did the message come from? That sugar was to be limited into that. It's bad for you. Right. And I always look at if the mainstream told us that just like the news, I tell my boys, I'm like, whatever the mainstream is telling you, you know, the premise that I teach you guys to start from is that's not the truth. So you just start there. Right. And you start there and then you, you start, you start figuring it out. And I think I really do. I mean, I think, uh,
• 46:24
  I look at everything with health. If everybody was healthy and everybody was fasting, what would happen to the whole system? Everything would collapse. So do the powers that be actually want everybody to be healthy? I don't think. It's much easier to control somebody that's sitting on the couch, eating six times a day, junk food, watching Netflix. They're like zombies.
• 46:45
  Right. And, uh, some button with what I do with the fasting, you have so much leeway and flexibility with what you eat because you're already largely controlling insulin for majority of the week. And that insulin sensitivity goes up and then something I call calorie partitioning. Where is that food going when it comes in more insulin sensitive, we get much more likely to go to the muscles rather than the fat. So you have a lot of leeway with that. Um,
• 47:11
  Yeah, so I don't buy into that sugar is necessarily bad. And again, if you look at a lot of candy bars and stuff, what's it combined? Sugar and fat, right? Sugar and fat. And you look at what the kid, you know, I've got four young kids, the three that, you know, elementary school age. What do kids naturally gravitate towards? Sugar. It's quick energy. So how do you put that into energy?
• 47:36
  The nutrition plan where it can provide you energy, even a traditional diet where most people, when they go on a diet, traditionally, what would they do? Cut carbs. What happens to their energy? Their energy starts tanking. But what if you kept the carbs high, right? It's closest thing to, you know, it's got to be broken down into sugar, but it's an easy conversion. What if you kept that high, right? And you cut some of the other stuff. How would your energy be? Would it be more tolerable and sustainable? I think so. Mm-hmm.
• 48:01
  You know, I tell everybody this. Everybody asks, I want to lose weight. What should I do? Less...
• 48:08
  more reps and less weight and more cardio. I always tell you, you have to figure out what your body is. My body is tremendously used to pain. And if I don't shock my body, nothing changes. So it has to be disruptive. So if you're trying to figure something out, use the baseline. But I will say when you talked about the system,
• 48:33
  keeping you where you are. It's they want you dependent on it. And I agree with that. It's it's follow the money. If you're sick, you have to go in and you have to get a medications. And if you get overweight, then they, then they can prescribe you. Oh, Zempick. And then they can, then the side effects of that. So.
• 48:52
  Doing these things, doing hard things and fasting and working out and drinking lots of water keep you healthy and keeps you out of mainstream stuff, keeps you away from the doctor. So I urge you, take some of this stuff and run with it. I can't get out of here without talking about your children. How has becoming a father of four influenced your views on discipline, leadership, and this aforementioned self-mastery?
• 49:19
  It's huge. You know, we got, we just had our fourth, she's four and a half months. So we, so we went back into it. You know, we weren't sure if we were going to go for a fourth. And, uh, it's so big. Like we have our family core values on a wooden plaque in there. You know, something that I took from business. Right. I'm like, okay, well, I have these for the business.
• 49:39
  This makes no sense not to have these for the family. Like that's the most important organization. What are they? So we got shark habits, which is basically if something can be done within a minute, like a dish, you got to wash the dish, put your shoes away, do it. Because if you let it compound, you're making a lot more work, right? So we have shark habits. Have fun. Stay fit. The golden rule.
• 50:02
  and respect the home, right? That's what me and my wife came up with. We kind of listed ours combined. It's okay, let's tweak. And we use that language all the time with them. They have a sticker chart. Okay, Emma, do you put your shoes away? And you got on, you get a sticker, you get a shark habit sticker. And it's just like any organization. If you're not speaking that language constantly, it doesn't mean anything.
• 50:25
  Right. And now the boys, my boys are nine and eight. They're getting to that age where I'm coaching them. And I know that doesn't matter necessarily what I say. They're watching me. And that's part of why with the fitness, they'll see me doing pushups. They'll see me. I invite them for a run. I'm just constantly inviting them. But I know they're watching, you know, and I know that with my daughters, the way I look at it, they're probably going to grow up.
• 50:50
  to marry a guy like me, you know, and I hope it's the good traits and the discipline. And my sons more than likely will grow up to be like me. So I'm like, okay, it matters what I'm doing every day. Even if I'm not talking to them, they're seeing what I'm doing. They're seeing the work I'm doing. They're seeing, you know, just that type of thing. So it's awesome. And I look at the word paternal, you always look at words and the meanings of words. We're the paternal figure in the family. That's patterns. We're to set the pattern for the family.
• 51:19
  You know, and that's what we're doing. And I tell dads, I'm like, it doesn't matter what you're telling them. It does matter, but they're watching you. That's the main thing. That's how they're learning. So it's been a blessing. You know, it's been a blessing. It's my most important job. And there's so many ways that I can get better at it, you know, but I'm trying.
• 51:36
  You get humble and calm and quiet when we talk about your children. I love that. And Ed Milet says things are caught, not taught. I keep sitting here thinking the whole time, like, I'm getting the Liver King vibes. But I know you. And I know that you're legit. And I know that all of a sudden it's not going to come out that this is fake like Liver King did. So, which is just, I mean, the whole world knew that he was taking steroids. I don't know who the hell he was lying to. But things are caught, not taught. What's the golden rule? That's the only...
• 52:05
  the only one I didn't know. And that's one that's in all my businesses too. Just treat others like you want to be treated. Love it. I thought it was to be honest. Yeah. Yeah. And that would be included within that. But that to us is like, that's maybe the most important one. We actually, actually at the gym and my other business, we have it as the golden rule. We actually, now you say it, we reframed it for the kids. It's be a good Samaritan. Be a good Samaritan, but the same thing. Yeah.
• 52:32
  I want everybody, the listeners to understand that everything you just said literally translates to business. That's what people don't understand. We talk about this home and professional balance. There really isn't. It's one and the same. It's physical and mental fitness is everything.
• 52:49
  That's the balance you have in life. And it translates. So you said you have core values. We have core values at NTM. I have core values in my personal life. They happen to be very similar. And I manage those core values every time somebody does somebody good. Guys, this stuff he just gave you. Now, I'm not saying go out and drink urine and fast and walk 12 hours. Okay.
• 53:11
  but do your hard. That's what this is about. So I want to end it. Final question with, what does the phrase harder than life mean to you personally, Kyle, and how does it guide your everyday actions? That's a great question. You know, I always look at you as an inspiration. You have to be harder in life, man, because it's the ultimate competitor. You know, you know that you wake up in the morning.
• 53:35
  life showing up, whether you're going to show up or not. Right. And this goes down to what we said with the daily disciplines. You have to be up for that battle. You're going to get knocked down, right? You're going to get knocked down every day and being harder than life means being resilient, right? You get knocked down, you can stay down and you're going to get back up. Right. And you got to get back up. And that's the way I view it and everything that you teach and stand for.
• 53:58
  is you need to bring that mindset, right? You need to bring the mindset every single day. I love that. And I really enjoy this conversation. We've gone all over the place and you're, I just find you very authentic and easy to do
• 54:13
  easily digestible, no pun intended. I'll let you know how my fast goes, but I hope the audience enjoyed this as much as I did. Follow Kyle. All of his stuff will be in the show notes. He's very reactive when you message him on social media. This is paying it forward. This guy's living life the right way. So hopefully you enjoyed the show and you take one thing from this, just one thing and say, thank you.
• 54:37
  Thank you. Until next week, be harder than life. I love you all. Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit trustntm.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.