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The Good, The Bad, and The Accurate with Angelo Poli

Lace Gilger
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In this special episode, our producer Austin Fabel conducts his first standalone interview with Angelo Poli. They dig into the science behind a healthy diet and lifestyle and why most people fail to see their goals both in life and health.

Angelo Poli is an internationally recognized expert in fitness and nutrition. He has spoken at conferences such as TEDx and continues to be a Wellness Consultant for multiple universities and hospitals around the country. Poli has been featured for his specialty in Neuromuscular Re-education (Posture and Alignment) and weight loss sciences in major media outlets such as Men’s Health, Sports Illustrated, and The Wall Street Journal. 

Poli's latest venture, MetPro, is a concierge nutrition, fitness and lifestyle coaching company that specializes is unlocking your metabolism to help you achieve your greatest results.

  • What makes someone truly extraordinary?

  • What are the most common health goals for the average human?

  • Angelo’s personal story of recovery and coming back from a major injury. 

  • Why it’s so important to customize your approach to your goals around you and your unique profile. 

  • The biggest pivot Angelo has had to make in his life. 

  • How to go from one client to hundreds and scale in a measurable way. 

  • What is Metabolic Profiling?

  • The importance of Strategy, Confidence, and Faith. 

  • What are the first crucial steps to take when setting out to achieve your goals? 

  • What role does visualization play in your mind?

  • How to focus on what you’re NOT going to work on right now. 

  • What lifestyle changes can have the biggest impact on your health and diet right now?

  • What is the one critical secret you must know in order to succeed? 

  • We already know a lot of the science around goal setting and health, so why aren’t we all hyper-efficient and athletic?

  • How to we avoid plateaus?

  • How to baseline test and pivot accordingly when reviewing the results?

  • The Data May Be Good, It May Be Bad, But it Will ALWAYS be Accurate 

Thank you so much for listening!

Please SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE US A REVIEW on iTunes! (Click here for instructions on how to do that).

The Science of Success is brought to you by MetPro a world-renowned concierge nutrition, fitness & lifestyle coaching company. Using Metabolic Profiling, MetPro’s team of experts analyze your metabolism and provides an individualized approach to obtaining your goals.

Science of Success listeners receive a complimentary Metabolic Profiling assessment and a 30-minute consultation with a MetPro expert. To claim this offer head to metpro.co/success

MetPro’s team of experts will guide you through personalized nutrition and fitness strategies and educate you about how your body responds to macro and micro-adjustments to your fitness, nutrition, and daily routine.

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:04.4] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Science of Success. Introducing your host, Matt Bodnar.

[00:00:12] AF: Well, well, well. Welcome to another episode of the Science of Success. As you may or may not know listening to this, this is not your usual host, Matt Bodnar. No. This is a special episode with me, your producer, Austin Fabel. Matt and I have been doing a lot of planning about what's to come in 2020, and one of the things you can expect see a little bit more of me on the front of mic. 

In the past, I've been handling a lot of things like guest relations, postproduction. Matt and I are going to be doing a couple of additional things. We’re going to be tag-teaming interviews, and some interviews you'll even find are just going to be with me, Austin. I'm really excited that I opened up this dialogue with you all. I’m really excited to get in front of the microphone. 

As many of you may know, I've had a number of podcasts in the past, so being able to jump in to this world with the of Science of Success, that I'm so passionate about, is truly a huge honor and I can't wait to open up the lines of communication with you. 

So, welcome to the Science of Success, special Austin Fabel takeover. We are the number one evidence-based growth podcasts on the planet. We have over 5 million downloads in over 100 countries, and today, we had a very special guest, Angelo Poli. Angelo is an internationally-recognized leader in the fitness industry. He is a Huffington Post blogger and wellness consultant specializing in postural alignment and nutrition. His class has been featured everywhere, everything from the cover of Sports Illustrated, to Forbes. He’s been seen on MTV, ESPN. 

Poli’s latest venture is MetPro, which is an all-encompassing fitness system that can transform the way you look, feel and perform. We’ll get into that in here in a little bit. I would urge you to go sign for our email list if you haven't already. You’ll get a ton of free goodies including weekly curated content by me and Matt and our team, the articles, the podcasts, and videos that we've been listening to that had been really catching our eye and we’ve been learning a lot from, as well as a free course on how to create more free time for the things that matter most. Are you in the car right now? Are you at the gym and not in front of your computer? That's fine. Text “smarter”, S-M-A-R-T-E-R to the number 44222 and we’ll sign you up for the email list that way. 

[00:02:21] MB: Are you a fan of the show and have you been enjoying the content that we’ve put together for you? If you have, I would love it if you signed up for our email list. We have some amazing content on their along with a really great free course that we put a ton of time into called How to Create Time for What Matters Most in Your Life. If that sounds exciting and interesting and you want a bunch of other free goodies and giveaways along with that, just go to successpodcast.com. You can sign up right on the homepage. That successpodcast.com, or if you're on your phone right now, all you have to do is text the word “smarter”. That's S-M-A-R-T-E-R to the number 44222. 

[00:03:03] AF: Last week, we had a very special episode with Sean O'Meara. It's all about apologies and how we need to make apologies and what really the truth behind apologies are. I would highly recommend you check out that episode. For now, we’re going to dig in to Angelo Poli. I hope you enjoy the interview and I’m open to all of your feedbacks. Shoot me a message at austin@successpodcast.com and let me know how you like the interview. I cannot wait to experience more time in front of the mic bringing you great content and interacting with you. 

Without further ado, here's Angelo. 

[00:03:35] AF: Angelo, welcome to the Science of Success.

[00:03:37] AP: Thanks for having me here, Austin. This is great.

[00:03:40] AF: Yeah. It’s great. I’m glad we finally got a chance to do it. I'm looking forward to talking to you, and I would love to kind of start out really from ground one. Tell the audience, so who are you and how did you get kind of on the path you find yourself on today with MetPro?

[00:03:54] AP: I am a nobody and a series of unfortunate events and injuries in my personal life landed me on this path. By the path that I'm on, however, I think is something pretty special. I've really enjoyed being part of building a methodology, a means for people to reach their goals. We help people transform, and it’s what me and my team get to do every single day. Transformation can mean something different for everyone. 85% of people who reach out to us are trying to lose that last few pounds. But transformation can mean improving performance, having more energy, being more equipped for the sport of life. It can mean any number of different things, and we do believe that there is a methodology and a science to most effectively getting you from point A to point B, and that's what we help people do and I get to spend my days doing and I love it.

[00:04:47] AF: Yeah. That's incredible. I mean, some of the transformations are really just – I mean, they’re eye-opening. They're incredible. You’ve had clients been featured all over the place, from the cover of Sports Illustrated, to Forbes. I mean, the results will speak for themselves, and it's obviously a passion for you. I'm curious to know, was it like a moment in your life where you kind of decided you're really going to give you your physical health and your goal is the attention that they deserved?

[00:05:12] AP: There was one kind of longer-term event and then one earlier moment that created the passion or maybe [inaudible 00:05:19] described as obsession in me. When I was young, I got my first fitness training client just by accident and she was a gal in her 60s. She smoked. She was overweight. She wasn’t very healthy. We started working together and it was one of those fairytale stories. It was really inspirational. 

She lost 50, 60 pounds. She quit smoking. She married her high school sweetheart. I mean, it really couldn’t have been like – It was just like that perfect story. So she said to me, “Angelo, I have another individual, a friend, actually some extended family, who wants to lose some weight also. Can she join us?” and she was younger and healthier, but had a good amount of weight to lose. So we did the exact same things, same exercises, “Okay. We’re going to eat less sugar. We’re going to eat more of this.” She lost 5 pounds. 

I had one client lose 60 and another do the exact same thing who is younger, I might add, and only lose 5. At that point, I became obsessed with answering the question why? Why is it you can have two different people doing the exact same thing and having two different outcomes? That's why I just started on my journey that later led to education and teaching and critical evaluations of how we can identify the path that's going to be the most relevant for each person. That was really getting back to the root of answering that early, early question. 

I’ll leave this spoiler here. Everybody asks me, “I've heard about every strategy out there, every diet from ketogenic, to vegan. From intermittent fasting to small meals. From clean eating to –” I mean, you name it. There's every different program out there and which one is the best one? My answer is all of them work. I have seen every single approach work for someone. Now ask me which one is the best for you, and we can have a meaningful conversation. 

That all comes back to that experience I had very, very early on. I mean, I was probably barely 20, maybe 21 at that time, and that's kind of what set me on my path. Then my late 20s, I endured a fairly debilitating injury that forced me into a unique experience. You kind of hear stories of people overcoming certain adversities and how it grew into something larger. That definitely was unintentionally the case for me. 

Here I am, a personal trainer with a severe back injury. I couldn't even hand people 20 pounds dumbbells, but I didn't want to leave the industry, and this had gone on for years. I just specialized in the coaching nutritional science and strategy elements of fitness and transformations. For years, that's what I did. I traveled. I did seminars, and I educated on the topic of technical transformations. Then in my 30s, I was able to finally get better at some fortunate interventions medically and a lot of hard work, and between the combination, I was able to get myself healthy again. Here I am now a decade later from that applying the life lessons that were cast upon me in my 20s and I’m fortunate for it. I’m better for it, I think, and we’re having a lot of fun.

[00:08:47] AF: Such a fascinating story, and there're chapters there and there're lots to unpack. I think it says a lot that you were on this path in your 20s, 21, getting your first couple of clients, but then as life threw you different curveballs, it forced you to sort of pivot the way you approach it. You’re in a scenario where you're not even able to hand somebody 20 pounds dumbbells, but you still find a way to be engaged, right? You find a way to be doing something that's going to move your goals and keep you involved and your passions forward. 

It's interesting too how – I just discovered something we have in common, but those injuries in those moments really can define you. I remember, I was about 12 years old, I had a spinal fusion, and I was having these crazy – It was kind of when your foot cramps and it sort of tries to bend itself backward. That would happen to my back in the middle of the night random times. They found that I had jumped off a 60-foot cliff into some water and essentially just disintegrated one of the cushions between my vertebrates. 

[00:09:46] AP: Oh wow! What levels were fused?

[00:09:48] AP: I don't remember, to be honest. It’s in my lower back.

[00:09:51] AP: That’s a good thing.

[00:09:52] AF: Yeah. I’ve got them in in some files somewhere, but it's just funny, because before that injury, I didn't – I was very unhealthy. Of course, I was only a teenager, but I didn't really focus on health, whatsoever, or being active [inaudible 00:10:06] gym class. But, essentially, I was told that we could either fuse my back, which they didn't really recommend at the time because of my age, but we luckily found a doctor who had some new procedure that we could perform. But basically I was told that I wouldn't be able to like run a half marathon or like be involved in sports at 12. For a 12-year-old who’s all about Peyton Manning and football, it was crazy. 

When the procedure was done, I got really into sports and working out, became a wrestler, played football. Ultimately, about two years after my spinal fusion, was back doing more than I had in the past. It's funny, I just think hearing about your injury, like we definitely have that in common. I think it's such a common thread for people that are high-performers in life, not classifying myself in a group, but you certainly, that it's a point where you – A lot of people, you can sink or swim or you kind of bow out and find something else, but it shows real determination to stay on that path and moving forward. 

[00:11:08] AP: My experience with people – And like I said, Austin, I am so fortunate. I do. I have the best job in the world. I get people from all over the world reaching out and saying, “Here's what I want to transform. Help me get there,” and it is a unique and thrilling journey for every single one of them.

People that reach out to me, it's interesting, because there seems to almost be this ugly shadow in the industry, fitness industry, medical community, where this is kind of belief that, “Well, someone doesn't have the body that they want, if they're not the weight they want, if they don’t have the health that they want simply because they're just not willing to do what it takes.” 

Don't get me wrong. I've been in this industry for 20 years and I have seen my fair share of that. But by and large, I large find that is false. I find that, really, a more accurate description is people without a strategy, people without a belief system that they can embrace and confidence and faith in a methodology working are the ones that are unable to see permanent change. 

It’s not that they're not willing to put in some effort. It's not that they're not willing to do some work. It's that they haven't been presented with somebody that's going to lead them there, give them the step-by-step and give them the return on that investment. Because there is nothing more demotivating than really trying hard for something and not seeing it work. Versus if when you go to the gym and exercise, when you change your diet, you actually see results. I don't mean overnight. It's not overnight, but you can see some measurable results. It is so motivating. 

More often than not, I find that people are willing to go the next mile, take those next steps. It's that there is a ton of stuff that you could invest yourselves into in the pursuit of better health, better physique, better self, but not all things return the same rate of investment. You got a CD that's paying 1.5%, 2%, or you have this other investment over here that's 10-xing your money, right? 

Most people just don't know which is which and they invest 90% of their time and energy into the items that are only contributing 10% of the results. At MetPro – MetPro is short for metabolic profiling. That's what we insist that we relieve our clients from doing. We insist on not wasting time on the items that are not going to do directly return on your investment and therefore motivate you to take those next steps. 

Maybe my perspective is unique, but I really believe that more people who believe they can have the ability to really and dramatically transform their body, transform their health, and see measurable results if they have the right strategy. I really believe that's the key.

[00:14:26] AF: It's something. I couldn't agree with you more and it’s something we’ve explored on the show for over four years now is this growth mindset, right? You're not just given a hand of cards and that's what you're stuck with. With the right strategy, with the right tactics and the right beliefs, you can make almost anything happen. 

I think too, I'm curious, you mentioned how not everything works for everybody, and that’s a been throughout our conversation, and I was fortunate enough, thanks to you all to be able to go through a pretty extensive amount of time with MetPro, and it was fascinating to me because I was – Obviously, this audio, I'm about 5’10”. I weigh about 210 pounds and I work out all the time, but I'm really not seeing any results at all. 

So one of the things that we really worked on that kind of shocked to me a little bit was I was eating more food, like twice as much food as I normally was. I mean, there were times where I like wasn't hungry, but –

[00:15:25] AP: You got to eat it. You got it eat.

[00:15:27] AF: You got to it. That’s when I would send in like my food and whatever and I was like, “Well, you got to eat some more vegetables, or more grains,” and it's interesting, because the point we’re making here is that it takes the right strategy and it takes the right learning, but you can ultimately reach your goals no matter what. 

I'm curious, my profile really kind of shocked me, but what is metabolic profiling? What is the process of seeing like, “Okay. You are X, Y, Z. This is how you behave normally. This is your body type. This is what she should do.” How do we go about breaking that down?

[00:16:00] AP: I break it into five very important categories. Now there's a lot more to it than this, but we can basically break it into five bullets. I'll just be briefly on each topic. Not everyone is going to have your experience. In other words, not everyone who goes, “Hey, I want to talk to these consultants, to these experts, and find out about myself,” are going to be told, “You need to go and eat more.” 

In fact, sometimes quite the opposite, is we’re being very structured and aggressive and manipulating and calculating what they're taking in. In your case, without looking in depth at your profile, clearly what your coach was doing was ramping up your metabolic rate. They were focused on creating contrast or leverage. So there is distance between what your intake is an then what we would then change it to. So they were identifying you need to eat more, and that's because at some point in the future, depending on what your goal is. I don’t know if you want to lose 20 pounds, gain 20 pounds, we have that leveraged springboard from. 

But everyone's leverage point is different. To answer your question, the first thing we look at is what is your body type and what is your goal? Body type, we can talk about ectomorph, mesomorph, endomorphs. We can talk about how each person is a sliding scale and you're not just one or the other, but you could have traits from multiple. Really, when I say body type, I'm talking about what is your genetic predisposition. Are you predisposed to gaining weight? Are you predisposed to carrying a lot of muscle? Are you predisposed to having skinny legs like me? What is your genetic predisposition? 

Once we identify that, then we want to talk about your goals. I want to clear up what effective goal setting. Effective goal setting is about deciding what you're not going to work on right now. That's effective goal setting, and here's why, because everybody calls me and basically says the same thing, “Hey, Angelo. I want to get a little bit more energy. I want to drop a few pounds. I want to perform better and I want to transform and get leaner.” I know. Because who wouldn’t, right? We want all of those things. 

Now, the reason that you haven't achieved those to the degree that you would like in the past is likely because we were lacking enough specificity in any one particular area to dramatically force your body to adapt. There are people that they’re naturally genetically gifted and they can just dabble in a little bit of this and a little bit of that and see progress across the board. If you are that person, more power to you. 

I’ve worked with a few like that. They’re amazing. But if you’re like all the rest of us, all the rest of us especially over 30 or over 40, you're going to find that just a little bit of dabbling here or there doesn't always produce as dramatic of a result. What we have to do is we have to specialize. It doesn't mean that we don't care about your performance, your strength, your energy, your mile time, how much you’re bench pressing, how much you’re dead lifting. It doesn't mean we don't care about that. It simply means that if we determined that our initial focus is going to be dropping 15 pounds of body fat, everything about your meal plan design, your exercise design, your time management and your overall strategy should be indicative of that goal. We’re going to hit that goal. We’re going to check it off the list and then we’re going to move on to, “Okay. What's next? What's next? What's next?” 

If you would like to lose a few pounds, if you would like to lean out a little but really your main priority is PR-ing your mile time or PR-int your marathon time, then we can dabble in the others, but your training, your nutrition, your lifestyle and your strategy should all pinpointed, reflect that our goal is to PR our marathon time. 

Deciding what our initial goal structure is is critical because we don't have enough hours in the day, and biologically we don't have the ability to recover from unending demand. With finite recovery capacity and finite hours in the day, we have to figure out what it is we want to achieve and apply enough focus on those items to force them to adapt, to progress, to move. That's the first item; body typing goal. 

Did I make sense there?

[00:20:30] AF: No. Definitely. Yeah, I’m taking notes here. I mean, I think there's a lot of things I want to unpack. 

[00:20:37] AF: Hello everybody. This is Austin Fabel with the Science of Success, and this podcast is brought you by our partners at MetPro, a world-renowned concierge nutrition, fitness and lifestyle coaching company. Science of Success listeners can now receive a complimentary metabolic profiling assessment and a 30-minute consultation with a MetPro. To claims offer, head to metpro.co. That's MetPro, M-E-T-P-R-O.CO/success. 

MetPro’s team of experts analyze your metabolism and provide individual approaches to obtaining your goals. MetPro’s proprietary science technology and techniques have helped thousands of executives and business leaders learn how to optimally manage their health and achieve their associated performance goals regardless of extensive travel schedules and demands on your time. It's really incredible and it's backed by science. That’s why we love it at the Science of success. 

I personally was using MetPro for several months and got down below 200 pounds for the first time in a long time. You may not know this or can see me. I’m a little bit a bigger guy. What’s great about it is it uses the science of your body to help you reach these goals. For me, I found that I was eating more food every day, but I was eating the right foods, and the results happened instantly. It was great. 

Once again, Science of Success listeners receive a complimentary metabolic profiling assessment and a 30-minute consultation with a MetPro expert. Even if you don't go long-term, take advantage of this offer. Learn more about MetPro and get your metabolic profiling assessment today. The 30-consultation will add extreme value no matter who you are, no matter how much you work with MetPro. 

Again, go to MetPro. That M-E-T-P-R-O.co/success to redeem this offer today.

[00:22:30] AP: The next one is lifestyle. People will sometimes be taken back. If they reach out to any of our team and any of our professionals, we say, “We’re going to do a one-on-one consultation with you.” They’re expecting to say, “Okay. Here's my weight. Here's my BMI. Here's my current exercise program.” We’re like, “That's good. I got it.” But really what I want to know about is what's your work hours. What time do you go to bed? Are you married? Do you have family inside the house? Do you take meals with your family? Do you take meals out? Do you take meals socially? How often do you travel? In your travel schedule, do you eat out at –” 

We end up talking even more about the lifestyle elements, because that's really the battleground. People asked me often, because they know that I'm a big fan of snacks throughout the day and people say, “Well, science has shown this. Science has shown that.” I'm like, “Yup.” Then ask me, “Why do you do snacks?” Because people don't take snacks socially. They take them by themselves, and I love foods that people eat by themselves because there’s no peer pressure to eat something wrong. 

Honestly, that's the reason. That's the reason I do it. All the other reasons are metabolically it will boost and you can control blood sugar and there're other benefits. There are pros. There are other cons. All of those other reasons, they are dwarfed by the functional, practical application of I can make Johnny eat exactly what I want. If I want them to have some Greek yogurt, half an apple and a handful of almonds at 2:30 in the afternoon, I can get them to do that consistently. If I tell him that I want him to eat this, this and this at dinner when he's out with friends or workmates or cooking with the family, that might be a little harder. So I will take what I can get. So, practical application. 

Then people would say all on this kind of topic of lifestyle and knowing someone, I’ll do these seminars, executive retreats or things like that and people say, “Mr. Poli, I know of the celebrities you work with, or this athlete that you've worked with. What's the secret to success? What do you have them doing in the gym, or what do you have them eating?” My response to them is always the same, it's you're asking the wrong question. 

It's not about the gym. It's not about your food. It's about time management. It is really about time management, because the gym and the food and all of your best intentions don't happen without time management. People say, “Oh! Yeah. No. I know how to do that. I know how to food prep and I know what’s good to eat and what's bad to eat.” I believe you. I know you do. My job is to help you execute on what you already know fast. Speed is king. 

If you can execute quickly, if you have an expert in your corner, a consultant, a coach who is teaching you the skillset of executing on just the right strategies for food prep, on just the right strategies for what you should and shouldn't be doing in the gym. It is all about speed, because the number one reason someone didn't get to the gym, someone didn’t what they were supposed to, someone didn't follow through with their strategy. The number one reason, “I ran out of time. I got too busy.” That's the number one reason. It is all about lifestyle. That's really where the strategy component comes in. 

Then identifying, kind of leaving that. That was the second category. Then going into the third. This has to do with the evaluation process for someone, and you can do this at home. I mean, this isn't just for someone who's thinking about working with one of our professionals. I want everything we talk about to be applicable tomorrow for you. I’ll always try and put that slant on it. Are you strategic or metabolic? This is a little pulling back the curtain and giving you the insights on how our experts work. 

This is what our experts are looking to determine about you in the first phone call with you. Are you strategic or metabolic? Here's a hint. You're both, because everyone is both at different times. But roughly, are you the type of person who with the right exercise and with decent nutrition sees progress, or are you the type of person that despite dialed nutrition, despite consistent exercise, you've experienced the plateau, because that is two different strategies. That is two different programs. For one, we have to manipulate your metabolic circumstance. We have to actually challenge your metabolism to speed up and then create enough contrast and leverage, which we’ll talk about in the next point. 

For the other person, it's not so much about, “Okay, we have to speed their metabolism. We have to alter their chemistry.” No. It's simply about we have to create enough time and strategy for them to be consistent with clean eating and regular exercise. Here's how we’re going to do that. Are you strategic or metabolic? Then that dovetails really into answering your ultimate question; how do you transform someone? How does someone see success? The answer, I believe, is baseline testing. 

Austin, I have literally dieted 20,000 people. I’ve have been doing this for two decades. I have learned from that experience that I do not know what you have to eat to lose weight. I’m using weight loss as the example. It could be anything. But 85% of people who call us up struggling to lose weight. So I'm going to use that as our vehicle for today. I don't know what you need to eat to lose weight. The reason I don't know is because it is different for every person. That's why it makes complete sense that there are literally a thousand different strategies and Gurus saying do this and do that and they all contradict one another and there is no standard. Medically, there is no standard in the fitness industry on what you should or shouldn't do nutritionally to lose weight, because all approaches can work for a subset of people. 

Not all approaches have been optimized or tailored to what you need. That is an answerable question, until we baseline test. If we baseline test, then I can actually say, “Here is where your body is today metabolically.” I can't promise good news or bad news. It might be great news. It might be terrible news. What I can promise you is I can get accurate news, and at least armed with that accurate news, then I can lay out your options. 

To illustrate, our baseline testing process, years ago, when it wasn't called MetPro. It was just Angelo Poli coaching Johnny. That was it. But years ago when I started developing kind of a process in place, what I learned is that I had to create leverage and not everyone has the same leverage point. I would baseline test. 

I put someone a meal plan. I'd have them follow it, and then after a period of time following the meal plan, doing an exercise program, I would be able to assess how their body was responding and what changes we would need to make. It used to take me 4 to 6 weeks. I mean that was a bummer. That sucked, but that's kind of the industry-standard, “Here. Go follow this diet or this meal plan or this workout regime. Do this for 4 to 6 weeks. Come back. We'll talk about your results and then make some changes.” That was just too long. I wasn't feeling that. 

Over time, I wrote the book, Metabolic Profiling, checklists, and we were able to get that process down from 4 to 6 weeks down to seven days. Now, go follow this strict protocol. Do this, do that, the other. In seven days, granted I don't have all data fields, but I have a good indication. Then with iteration, time marches forward, we’re able to introduce some technology. 

With that aid of tech and algorithms, now we have that process down to about three, four days. Usually about 72 hours. Now, I know there's going to be some naysayers out there, some listeners, some people maybe in the fitness industry that are like, “Oh! You don't know what you’re talking about. You don't know if something working in three days,” and you are right. You do need more time for a full evaluation. But in 72 hours using technology and our algorithm and baseline testing, we’re able to identify enough markers to where we can begin making new recommendations with confidence in the 90 percentile accuracy just looking back at historically here's what we have recommended, and over 90% of the time 92%, 94% of the time, it was the right recommendation given the data feedback we get in just 72 hours of engagement. On the times we were off, we catch it in the next 72 hours. So it's not like you two months later we figured out we made a misstep. No. That's where the technology has really come of age. 

Practical terms, now you went through at least a form of baseline testing. Didn’t you, Austin?

[00:32:01] AF: We did. Yeah. We made a couple of pivots in my diet. First of all, which was I had to stop drinking Guinness. But that was probably the most difficult pivot, but we did go through a couple of the times adding in – Actually, I think there was more carbs, but they needed to be the right kind of carbs, obviously.

[00:32:19] AP: That's interesting. You would be among the – I’m going to say – I mean, that's not unheard. Probably 25% to 30% where we actually end up increasing first step, but here's what I – Full disclosure; if you love drinking Guinness, if you love this, it’s not that you can never have that stuff again. 

[00:32:35] AF: Sure.

[00:32:36] AP: I am going to ask for baseline testing purposes. You have to give me three perfect days.  That means doing without the booze or without this, or without the sugar for three days. If you can go three days, then I can get enough baseline. Here's what that looks like. Basically, we’re going to put you on a meal plan. That's straightforward. It’s been used not by just one or two people. This is a meal plan that of course is matched to your age, your gender, your demographic, athlete, mid-30s circumstance, but has also been used to baseline test thousands of others, and that's relevant. 

The reason that's relevant is because then I can take the data that I've gotten from them and say, “Okay. On this exact intake,” and I know your calories, your macronutrient breakdown per meal, the glycemic load of meals, the intervals of time between them, we have everything measured. Now when I get your results, I can compare your results to thousands of others who have done the same test and I can say, Based on your average, male, mid –” Whatever the case may be, female, mid-40s, whatever you land in, the average person loses 1.2 pounds in your demographic on this intake. You lost 3 pounds, or you gained half a pound, or whatever the case is. We’re going to get a data point, and that's where it's neither good, it’s neither bad, it's just honest, and it's not debatable. It's not, “Well, my opinion is this or that.” I'm talking past tense. Not what I think is going to happen. I'm looking back at what just did happen, and what just did happen was empirical data. 

So now we have that data and we’re going to say, “Okay, based on your data, we need to make this, that or the other change in order to drive you towards your goal of building muscle, or your goal of losing 50 pounds, or whatever goal it is that you have. In that evaluation process, we reveal some pretty critical truths about your personal metabolism. We figure out if you have leverage, you've probably heard about the debate between – What is it? Calories or carbohydrates? Have you ever had that conversation with anyone, Austin?

[00:34:57] AF: I haven’t. No.

[00:34:58] AP: Okay. That's a big – I mean, there is 101 different strategies out there. But most diets fall into one of two grandfather categories. They either fall into calorie control or they fall into carbohydrate control. There is a whole genre of everything from aggressive ketogenic to something more like the South Beach or Mediterranean diet, which are applying carb management. All the way over to, whether you realize it or not, intermittent or cyclical fasting, that is calorie control. Whatever brand or breed or style of the hotness of the month, diet is out there. It usually falls into one of these two categories. Now which one is better? That is a flawed question. That's like walking into the car mechanics garage and saying, “Hey, what's better? The screwdriver or the wrench? Because my neighbor really loves his wrench and it's working good for him.” It's a ridiculous question. Whatever tool is going to work for the job you have, and the job you have has to do with leverage. Leverage is where you can affect the most change. 

This probably isn’t a shocker to anyone, but here're all the secrets. Here're all the secrets. If you are used to watching carbs and you are trying to lose weight, simply cutting a few more carbs out of your diet is unlikely to produce dramatic results. It's going to be marginal? Why? Because your body is already used to watching carbs. If you are used to restricting calories in any way, shape or form, simply restricting a little further is likely to produce unremarkable results, because it's not dramatic enough. 

What we’re going to do is we’re going to look at where do we have the most leverage, and maybe it's a combination. Wherever we have the most leverage is likely going to be the path that’s going to produce the greatest results and it's not you go down this path and it’s once for all time. It's we’re going to leverage this tool now until we start to get diminishing returns, because we track everything. As soon as we begin hitting diminishing returns, which is survival mechanic. Your body is going to hit a plateau. That's what keeps you alive. It happens for absolutely everyone. We’re going to pivot and implement another strategy and then pivot again and again so that way we continue to shock and force your body to adapt. That is the process of baseline testing. We just start with a very pointed and sharp baseline testing 72 hour period and then we move into larger, more general reassessing and reevaluating periods as we continue to march towards your goal. 

[00:37:47] AF: It’s fascinating. There's a lot to unpack there, and it’s definitely a very thorough process, and having been through it, I can attest to everything you're saying. I'm curious too, when it comes to achieving our goals in general, something that rally stood out to me and something that I know is it's backed by science and whether trying to quit smoking, whether you're trying to develop a new habit or break a bad one, is there's always this thing that's lacking when people lose – They don't follow through on their goals. They don't get where they want to go. I feel like majority of time, that's accountability. When you get up to go to the gym, it's really easy to press the news and just turnaround and not go, unless you have someone waiting on you, someone that’s going to go, hold you accountable. It's really easy to say, “Screw it. I’m going to have a smoke break,” unless you’ve got that coworker across the hall or the other desk who’s also trying to quit with you. 

One of the things that I think so crucial to hitting your goal no matter what it is is accountability. That plays into your overall system in a really, really heavy way. How important is accountability when you're trying to either break a bad habit or start a new routine?

[00:38:51] AP: I love where you're going with that, because that's very much our belief system at MetPro, and we have proven out the fact that everything you just said is accurate. It is indisputable. You will let yourself down before you'll let someone else down. that's just the fundamental human reality. We just react. We respond that way. 

That accountability factor is huge, and that actually dovetails beautifully into the fifth area of evaluation, and that the psychological profile. Now, we’re not psychologists, but we pride ourselves on being expert motivators, because that really is what it takes. But what we've learned interestingly is that not everyone is equally motivated by the same stimulus. Everyone is motivated by accountability. Everybody is empowered by leadership and a coach and companionship on the journey. 

With that said, there is quite a bit of diversity in the style and breed of motivation that really resonates with some people. For example, some people really thrive under a highly mentored program where they really feel like they have a support system. Someone who’s taking an interest in them. Someone to pick them up when they fall. Someone to really walk hand-in-hand with them through the process. 

Others we find, while that always helps, is less concerned about the outside stimulation and more concerned about having someone to teach them the why. In other words, “Sure. I'll do that exercise. I’ll eat that. I’ll do what you're asking me if you can explain to me why you're asking me to do that. Why specifically that instead of something else, and then what you're planning on having me do next.” Those people thrive under more of an instructor relationship where someone is imparting to them more detailed knowledge and teaching them the why behind the strategy. Then there's the third kind, and I know a few of the listeners are going to be nodding their head going, “Yeah. Okay, at least one of these relates to me.” The third kind is the type that, “Hey, I want to know the why and I want the support, and that's all great. But you want me at my best for better or for worse? I needed challenge. I need to be invited to meet your challenge.” That's a whole breed into its own. 

What are coaches try and to do is really figure out – Now, it's not good to change the science. The science is very data-driven, but it is going to change the vehicle that we use. I have some clients where I’m like, “You know what I'm going to do tomorrow? I'm going to the track and I'm going to run. I'm going to the gym. I'm going to do this work out. Here, I'm sending you right now. You’re going to get it in your app. You’re going to get it. I’m going to send you the exact workout I’m going to do. We’re going to do it together. You’re going to tell me how much weight you used, your reps, and I’m going to tell you mine.” That's that person who wants that companionship and that support, versus I give the exact same assignment to another client. Exact same assignment, “Hey, here's the workout I did today. Here’s the reps I did and the weight I did. Let’s see if you can keep up.” It’s the same thing, right? 

[00:42:17] AF: Sure. 

[00:42:18] AP: But it’s just how it's presented. So that's where the art – I believe, the art of coaching and the science of coaching really comes to play. Something really interesting. For years, before developing my own company, what I did was I consulted for wellness programs and larger health clubs all up and down Northern California. What I would do is go in and I would coach anyone involved in their personal training program and I would actually assign personal training participants to specific coaches. I would give them their meal plans. I would do their overall program design. Then the personal trainers that worked at these gyms would take them through the workouts. It always – Rather, I should say, it never cease to amaze me how you could have the exact same program; nutrition, workout layout program design, and someone could thrive under the mentorship of one coach and struggle under the mentorship of another even when the program was the same. 

It just gives credence. It lends its support to the belief system that the mind and the body are connected and things that motivate us, people that motivate us really do make a difference, which is one of the core five things that we believe in and we hang our hat on and build our philosophy and methodology upon at MetPro. I am huge on the accountability piece. 

[00:43:52] AF: One of the things you said a little while ago that I thought was pretty insightful was the secret to success is time management. I'm curious, even outside of your fitness goals and running a business, obviously, there’s lot of demands on your times. But how do you go about managing your time and managing your routines? What's a typical day for Angelo look like?

[00:44:12] AP: Well, I don’t want to bore you with the details of my typical day, but I want to give you examples of what time management looks like that I think would be applicable for our listeners. Here, I have lists of like, okay, top 10 destructive behaviors. They all have a theme. They’re behaviors that are disruptive in a good way to your lifestyle. They all have a theme. They save you time. 

One of the examples – Of course, I apply this in my life as well. One of the examples is can you eat breakfast? That's a simple question. Can you breakfast? If somebody says, “Yeah, I can eat breakfast.” “Well, then great. Here's what I want you to do. While you're eating breakfast or making your breakfast, I want you to pack some of that breakfast as an afternoon snack.” Why is that highly disruptive? Because you can't back out of it and say, “Oh, I don't have time for that,” because we just eliminated time as a barrier. You're already making breakfast. You can use the same ingredients or just reach one shelf higher to grab a different ingredient. It doesn't add any measurable amount of time to your day to throw something in a sack lunch bag, take it with you and you have an afternoon snack. It’s disruptive, because now you've committed to two things, not one. You've committed to eating breakfast and you've committed to an afternoon snack, which is committed you to basically a structured timeline without even realizing it. Now you’re going to have breakfast. You’re not going to miss your lunch, because when you eat breakfast, believe it or not, you actually have a little bit more appetite for lunch. So now you’re going to have your lunch, but you’re not going to overeat at lunch, because you know you've committed, “Hey, I promised to Angelo I'm going to have this afternoon snack.” So you’re going to eat reasonable at lunch because you’re going to have that afternoon snack coming. Now you've already eaten three times by the middle of the day. So it's unlikely that you're going to have low blood sugar when you get to dinner and accidentally overeat. 

At dinner, though you may not eat perfect, you're more likely – You're setting the stage for statistically favorable outcomes in your food decision at dinner, which means that because you’ve kept your blood sugar stable, you've eaten throughout the day, you're less likely to binge eat on sugar and chocolates and ice cream before you go to bed at night. One tiny little act has disrupted your entire day in a good way. Time management, number one reason why somebody will – They will either live or die by it. When somebody fails to reach their objectives, it is not a flaw in willpower. 

I mean, you could almost say that it is a statistical margin of a rounding error is willpower. Don't get me wrong. Willpower is something we cultivate. In other articles and sessions, I talk a lot about the value of having values over goals, having character over willpower, but all of that aside, the time management and your ability to execute on time management always ends up being the deciding factor, and here is why. Are you going to have this – Now, mind you. You're trying to be healthy. You’re trying to eat good. You're trying to have a healthy strategy in your life. I'm going to give you two options. You can have this grilled chicken salad. It's delicious it's freshly made, or you could have this greasy cheeseburger, and I'm handing you both. Which one are you going to eat? If it was simply a matter of willpower, then that means you'd always go for that greasy hamburger. But guess what? I bet every single person listening is going, “Oh! I’d take the chicken salad. I'm wanting to be healthy. He's making it for me. It's right there. I'll eat the chicken salad.” You know what I found? Coaching about 20,000 people, is 90% of the time people will take chicken salad. 

Then why aren’t people eating the chicken salad? Because life isn’t giving you those two options. It's 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the boss is calling you. You're behind on your deadlines. You got to pick up kids. You’re running late. You haven't even gotten to your lunch. Now your body is saying, “You got to eat something now or I’m going to revolt. Your blood sugar is taint. You’re starving and you can just grab that delicious smelling hamburger that's going to cost you a nickel and all you have to do is turn right, right into the drive through. Not even get out of your car and they’re going to hand it to you. 

Option B is you can stop what you’re doing in the middle of the day, drive home, put on your apron, get out your chopping board and start cutting and slicing tomatoes and dicing onions. Now, which are you going to do? When you look at it like that is it really is it willpower? Is it really? It is willpower or is it really time management? 

[00:48:51] AF: Right. That’s an interesting example. I love how kind of laid that out. I think I’d probably fall in the camp of eating the chicken salad and having a bite or two at the burger.

[00:49:00] AP: Fair enough. Deal. Fair enough. Yup.

[00:49:03] AF: I’m interested too, you mentioned something about sleep, and sleep the something that we've dug into a lot on the show. How to have a better night sleep? What sleep science says around that? What do you think is the optimal amount of sleep for us to get and what roll does sleep play in your life? Being a business owner, I'm sure you've got all sorts of constraints on your time and things going on. What role does sleep play in all these? 

[00:49:23] AP: Oh, man. You’ve been spying on me. You’ve been talking to my wife. You hit me in my weak spot. Sleep, I have struggled with that for years since I was a teenager. I never was a good sleeper. That said, despite that, I can tell you, I function just fine on significantly less sleep than my wife functions on. Just from a practical standpoint, I can tell you that different people need different amounts of sleep. 

That said, don't use that as an excuse or an enabling. There is nobody out there that, “I have three hours of sleep at night. It's all I need. I function great.” Yeah. Bull crap. It’s guts garbage. Everybody needs at least some threshold of sleep and quality sleep too is so important. I would even lump sleep in with a bigger category, and that is simply recovery. I get some people that are really gung ho about they love their fitness routines and they sleep every night, but they just don't give their body rest from the battering and recovery. Recovery and sleep all factor into what your body needs. 

Going back to willpower, cravings, blood sugar, all of that is affected if you're not getting enough sleep. If somebody – If we’re seeing, statistically out of character, deviations in somebody's weight history. I want to qualify that. That was a mouthful. What that means is if you find that you’re the type of person where every day you could gain or lose a pound, you're completely normal. That is everyone, even people losing weight, and on a good trajectory, they'll bounce up and down, up and down. 

We've tracked people on different regiments and different routines. We’re just hardcore. We know bite for bite what they’re eating. Day by day, how they’re training. Even if they are rapidly losing weight or if we have them on a rapid gaining progression, it's always a zigzag. You’ll be up a pound or two, down a pound or two. That's completely normal. 

Now, if over 7 to 9 days we know what you're taking in. Metabolically, your body is indicating that it should be in a downward trajectory. Yet that's despite some bouncing and minor fluctuation, you are not progressing or seemingly going up when there is no statistical reason for it. One of the first things that our experts will look at is sleep patterns, because that will throw off the body chemistry. It'll alter how much – I mean, just think of nights you don't sleep good. You wake up the next morning puffy. I mean, that's just the common sense stuff. It will absolutely influence water retention, how your body functions, stress hormones, all of those things. We’re always looking at habits that will help you sleep better. 

Possibly, doing a lot of intense brainwork right before you go to bed, or a vigorous workout right before you’re trying to sleep and then scratching your head going, “I wonder why I'm not sleeping so well,” or simply not having a consistent schedule. All of those things are what we have found to be the largest influencers on whether somebody's getting good or bad sleep.

[00:52:41] AF: Yeah, I think regularity is really key in there. Then, of course, I think everybody in the world has an issue with looking at their devices before they go to bed, which science has shown is probably the last thing you want to do. For me, I mean, I was very similar to you and like I would stay up till 1 AM before I had children, a kid, excuse me, just because I could. Now I find that I wake up at like 4:30 in the morning but I'm in bed usually asleep by 9:30. 

Man! Angelo, this has been great. I really appreciate your time. I’ve got just like one or two kind of last little questions that I want to dive into and then I'll let you go here. But I'm curious, you seem like someone who is an avid learner, someone who's constantly trying to grow, take a look at the science. What book have you read in the past year that’s really kind of made you stop and think and has you implement something new in your life.

[00:53:29] AP: Oh! Okay. What I’ll do is I’m going to give you a recent one just because I've just recently been reading it. Recently, I have been reading Extraordinary by Michael Dauphinee, and his take and his look into how we think what our strengths are and our vocabulary to express and identify personal strengths and weaknesses is brilliance and. He is an acquaintance of mine, a friend of mine, and his newest book I have absolutely been loving. I would give that my highest recommendation. If you're interested in psychology and motivation and how our brains work, you'll probably really enjoy it. 

[00:54:13] AF: What’s one piece of homework you’d give the audience listening today to start to implement in their lives tomorrow when they wake up to help achieve their goals?

[00:54:20] AP: Oh! I'm glad you asked that. Of course, anybody is welcome to reach out to us, and we would love to talk even if you’re in an info gathering state. But if you were going to have one assignment tomorrow, go home, write down what you're currently doing. If you are participating in a health and wellness, in a fitness, in a weight loss, in a strategy in your life, write down what you've been eating this week and what exercise you've been doing. 

I want you to take it to someone in your life, not an expert, not a trainer, not a nutritionist, just taken to someone who you think is intelligent and reasonable. Show it to them and then ask them, “Based on this, what would you guess my goal is?” If they cannot give you an answer, reevaluate your priority hierarchy. You have to become more specific in your efforts. 

[00:55:19] AF: Man! That some good advice there. I've never thought about doing that. It's interesting. I've ever heard doing some similar things on how we take feedback and how we kind of get a full assessment of who we are kind of as a human under stress, asking people like, “Who do you think Austin Fabel is that at its best?” and having them kind of tell you what you look like at your, because you may not know. 

Looking at what you eat, it's crazy, because I mean even for me I think, I ate like half a cup of candy popcorn last night. Didn't even think about it. But if I had to actually write that down and show it to somebody, I’d probably like, “Oh! I shouldn’t have done that. It’s not worth the shame.” 

[00:55:56] AP: Don't get me wrong. I mean, I love candy popcorn. I'm not one of those guys that I think all sweets or treats or desserts are evil. I’m one of those guys that says, “Hey. Look, Austin. You called me because you said I want to achieve X, Y, Z objective. While that doesn't mean never indulging in those things, I’m going to make sure our strategy is dialed in specific enough to where if I'm going to put my name to it, you better believe, we’re going to hit those objectives. That's what it's about.”

[00:56:26] AF: I love it. Angelo, where can people find you if they want to learn more?

[00:56:30] AP: Austin, thank you so much for doing this. We’re going to do a special consultation offer for your listeners if you go to metpro.co/success. That’s metpro.co/success, then we’ll know that they came in from your channel and we’ll give them a free consultation to actually talk with one of our experts.

[00:56:54] AP: Yeah. It’s such a generous offer. I can't recommend it enough. Definitely encourage everyone in the audience to at least take advantage of this 30 minute consultation. If anything else, take some of the things that Angelo has been talking about today and then act them in your own life. You’re going to definitely going to see results. I’m not going to attest to that. But, Angelo, I’ll let you go. I know you're busy. It's been great talking to you and thanks for coming on speaking with the audience. 

[00:57:15] AP: Thanks so much. 

[00:57:17] MB: Thank you so much for listening to the Science of Success. We created this show to help you, our listeners, master evidence-based growth. I love hearing from listeners. If you want to reach out, share your story, or just say hi, shoot me an e-mail. My e-mail is matt@successpodcast.com. That’s M-A-T-T@successpodcast.com. I’d love to hear from you and I read and respond to every single listener e-mail.

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