Episode 416: Ebenezer Samuel Shares No-Nonsense Advice on Building Muscle, Burning Fat, and Healthy Eating for Life

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle.
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Again, head over to therasage, T-H-E-R-A-S-A-G-E.com and use code BEBOLD for 15% off any of their products. It's not about what quote unquote diet you're following.
It's about, again, what I said, and that's why if I were sitting where you were and you were interviewing me, I would say that it make a difference about the amount you eat yeah not so much and what you eat is what i would say not exactly not not necessarily the time you're eating it and all that other stuff that goes with it yeah like all of the the time you're eating it has like i think bodybuilders do bodybuilders do multiple meals. what i'm saying the time like if you don't eat until noon or whatever i'm saying that i think the more that that those are also based on your body can't break down food like we overeat and therefore we're stuck with all this food in us because we're not we're not digesting it because we're eating so much of it so like having enough time to digest your food is really good for your system yeah it's interesting because to bring the conversation um full circle that's like intermittent fasting is part of where you get the whole calories and calories that idea because it's like oh i'm gonna take my calorie i'm gonna take all my calories in like two to in like two meals spaced in whatever it is four hours right yeah i think eight is the beginning i think eight for beginners yeah or most people yeah i i think i believe it i believe it's eight but but but that and so that gets reduced to calories in i think i think calories in calories out was in very, it's like a well-meaning idea.

And it was basically the way people are telling you to eat is so complicated.

So it's like, let's just reduce it to this. But then we get so reductive with it that it kind of, it becomes counterproductive in its own way.

How about like, what's the best, how about, not about this, what's the best way to eat if we want to build muscle and lose fat and just, you know.

Thank you. but not but this what's the best way to eat if we want to build muscle and lose fat and just you know uh feel better and look better what would be in your opinion um how i would say i would say you

want to have like like four meals a day right and each meal you want to aim for 20 grams of protein

okay which is and try to get this from a natural source make sure you get something green on your

Thank you. right and each meal you want to aim for 20 grams of protein okay which is and try to get this from a natural source make sure you get something green on your plate right and then get you know three to four ounces of a carb and if you do that right you and and then you want to have you want to ideally have some kind of water on the side um and if you do that...
Not some kind of water. I have this one.
BLK water. BLK water.
But BLK water is actually perfect, right? So I think you want to... I think if you do that, it checks a lot of boxes.
And again, there's a variety in there, right? Because your 20 grams of protein can be eggs or chicken or fish, right? And your green vegetable can be something different every time. You're checking a lot of boxes in terms of getting fiber in your system, which is really good.
You're checking a lot of boxes with the protein, which your body needs. We're not eating enough fiber, though, as a society.
So how do we – I mean, we should up that for sure for sure yeah i think it's interesting because i think we've come i think we've come a long way in the fiber conversation just and it's funny because i love white rice um which is i i can't i know i've seen you've had you've had it like five times since we've been here i mean to be fair i don't know if they have brown they probably have brown rice i probably could ask for it i've kind of enjoyed just getting away from brown rice but um i think by the way white rice supposed to be better than brown rice did you know that i haven't heard this oh this is it's a new it's um you should google it yeah you should do a story on it i have heard that uh that there's a whole myth about brown rice versus white rice i don't remember what the myth exactly is if is. I can Google it right now and talk to you.
But I had someone on here recently who told me about this. And it's pretty amazing, actually.
I'm going to Google it. White rice versus brown rice.
I was a brown rice person too i've I've heard, I have heard the thing that brown rice is overrated compared to white rice. Like it's not markedly better.
It's not markedly better. It's not.
Yeah, white rice tastes so much better too. I'm also Asian, so I'm kind of like.
I know. Well, I was going to say, I mean, you're naturally going to probably live to 177 because of just all the rice you're eating but hold on brown rice versus uh white rice okay if you look at the if you look

at the breakdown it's actually the fiber content in bright brown rice is like minusculely higher

but yeah it's basically a little bit higher um like between one gram and two grams more fiber um and then i'm not finding it properly right now i'm gonna i'm gonna look it up and then get back to you on that but from what i heard it's not that much different white rice is see again there's another i think what happens is something gets traction and then everyone just follows the you know follows that and this could be happening right now i heard something about white rice and now i'm following that whole thing so don't take my word for it i think i i could have sworn i heard someone mention that to me and i and they were like a doc they were a leading nutritionist. So I was trying to find that information.
But that's, again, why I'm big into like, it's like if you kind of loosely follow, if everybody loosely followed what I'm saying, right? They're covered. But choose your own carb.
Don't let the internet choose it for you right yeah choose your own choose

your own mixed vegetable like a sweet potato versus a white potato it's like it's like a russet potato yeah it's like at a high level if you're like planning to try out for like you know or like a competition or something exactly but then that matters right so for the effort average person who wants to like look a little bit more lean and healthy and fit have white rice or brown rice it's not going to make it's so nominally different it's not it doesn't make make a difference okay let's talk about aging and muscle like keeping how do we do this and do it well because we do break down more muscle as we age so how do we so so and that's interesting because the the older we get the more precise we have to get with all with all this stuff like the healthier we have to eat and yeah i mean so isn't building muscle when we're older like i believe after 40 especially for men um sarcopenia becomes like a major issue i think the the two things we want to do, or there are three things we want to do. First off, and this is kind of one of those things we're told by kind of modern fitness, right? Is you've got to do the kind of big exercises, right? You have to lift heavy, okay? And older people should definitely try to lift heavy.
I think every human on the planet should work up to being able to deadlift like their body weight plus at least 50 pounds. And that's not unattainable, right? And you have to take your time to work up there.
So I think older people shouldn't be afraid to lift heavy. They should do that at least twice a week.
Well, you say heavy though, right? Like the other, the fear is that, especially as you get older, like you're going to put your back out or you're going to hurt, you're going to injure yourself for like injury prevention. Yeah.
So you're saying that shouldn't be something that we focus on? Yeah, I think, um, I think two things. One, I think for a lot of challenging stuff.
Yeah, yeah, it's mainly like challenge yourself, like getting working up to that heavy part, working up to say your body weight plus 50 pounds on a deadlift. You might want a trainer for that, right? Um, you want somebody around who can kind of help you um master your form

or you want to like watch like a clinic i'll give on the deadlift online to do in like three weeks

right um but um i just i just think don't be afraid of of heavier weights right and you and the key

is like is the rep scheme right is um like it's it's like you learn you learn with legger weights

how to how to kind of get your form down but then then you've got like at some point you want to challenge yourself, right? And you're going to keep the reps low. You're going to do like one or two reps and that's fine.
I think a lot of people get caught up in, again, more work, right? So it's like, oh, I'm going to do sets of like 12 and 15 reps. I'm going to tone, you know? Except toning really doesn't, toning doesn't really exist, right? and it's like, oh, I'm in these sets of like 12 and 15 reps.
I'm going to tone, you know, except toning really doesn't.

Toning doesn't really exist.

Right.

And it's like, again.

Don't talk about that.

I think you don't realize.

You and I may think that, but most people don't realize that.

So why don't you talk about that?

I don't.

It's called toning myth.

That's a myth.

Yeah.

I honestly don't even, I barely even know what the word means.

Right.

It's not.

It's not.

And it's funny because when you read. Women women's magazines do women's magazines say it i don't read that's all they say is like you know tone your you know upper body toning your arms the word tone or toning is like synonymous with uh you know abs you know what i mean like it's a very common word it's interesting because we because we literally I'm actually trying to think back to the last time I used in men's health I've been in men's health for four and a half years now and the answer is never yeah because women use the word toning I don't think men ever use the word toning yeah I think it it's it's almost like i feel like it got caught up in in in societal kind of you know it because of um because of that whole oh well well we can't say we can't say build muscle to women right and we can't and bulking freaks them out right so here we're gonna get them lifting weights because it's gonna tone them whatever i don't i i honestly don't know what the word means uh it means like yeah not like kind of like it's like again the opposite of flabby would be toned i guess i don't know these are all like this is exactly my point and that's why i wanted to talk to you and have you on is because i think so much of of everything is all marketing and branding and and it not it's not necessarily accurate or true yeah it's just what we've like been conditioned to think because we see it and hear about it all the time and especially with social media and every ding dong now on social media is a fitness expert which is a problem yeah because most people are getting paid for everything that they're doing or um or they have no clue what they're doing so either option's terrible so having someone who's a trusted resource like you who actually takes it super seriously and like learns about this constantly is i think a really important thing to talk about because yeah you get like you get like analysis paralysis on and overwhelmed at all the different information that's out there yeah and I think that is what that is what yeah you're right it is so much kind of like marketing and and spin and it gets it gets confusing for people that's why i'm confused

this is what i do for a living practically you know what i mean i don't even know anymore i'm like i'm like i don't know maybe that maybe i'm like the brown rice white rice thing yeah i'm even confused because i'm like okay well i mean this trusted resource told me and then i look and now i can't find it but then i'm sure if i i don't have the time right this second but you if you dig Dig around long enough for anything.

You can back up that resource, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because the internet is a treasure trove of confirmation bias.
Exactly, exactly. Yeah.
Toning is, but I think toning is like the woman way. And don't take that the wrong way.
But it's kind of weird. Get off my podcast.
I'm just joking it's i mean it sounds like it's in all the women's magazines so it's basically like because i feel like we i feel like guys try to like cut rip shred it's basically the equivalent to that it is cut rip okay so for guys it's cut rip shred built yeah women it's tone what else? Chisel, maybe.

It's mostly just tone, isn't it?

Tone.

Yeah.

Tone or burn.

Yeah.

Burn.

Burn's a big one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like burn fat.

Tone your midsection.

Yeah.

So they're like, it's like, yeah.

Yeah.

The guy terms, if you will, are just edgier versions.

Yes. Yeah.
But the men's magazines do have way better workouts that are more effective i will say that that's why you know i have you here today because the truth of the matter is i do know enough to know that lift women are kind of like kind of shown and taught to be lifting lightweight very lightweight and they actually or no weight and they believe that's actually going to get them to their goal

when the truth of the matter is you do need to lift heavy and heavier and challenge yourself