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Being STRONG is more than just how much weight you can lift.
The Strong New York Podcast is dedicated to inspiring you to become your strongest self- in the gym, in business, in relationships and in life.
Join Kenny as he sits down with his strong as fuck buddies and shoots the shit on what it takes to be strong willed, strong minded and physically strong. Season one features everyone from entrepreneurs and local business owners to doctors and industry leaders in the fitness and wellness space.
With over a decade of experience, Kenny Santucci has made himself known as one of New York City’s top trainers and a thought leader in the health and wellness industry. After transforming his life at 15 years old through fitness, Kenny made it his mission to transform the lives of those around him.
Kenny has trained some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Jon Bon Jovi, Liev Schreiber, and Frank Ocean, and has been tapped as a fitness expert sharing his training approach with Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Runner's World, SHAPE, Well+Good, among other publications.
Kenny is the creator of STRONG New York, NYC's only Health and Fitness Expo. Strong New York is an immersive day of workouts, wellness experiences, panel discussions, and inspiring conversations with the best in-class wellness professionals, industry leaders, and change makers who are sharing their expertise on today's hottest wellness trends and first-hand experiences on how to optimize your overall health and life.
You can find Kenny at The Strength Club, his private training and group strength training facility in the heart of Manhattan located on 28th and 5th Ave in New York City.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Strong New York Podcast, powered by Celsius. I'm gonna crack one of these open and then I'm gonna introduce you. To, uh, a new friend of mine, uh, this gentleman hails in all the way from Florida. St. Pete's the most beautiful part of Florida, even though I've never been there.
I've heard only great things about it. Uh, Vincent Pins stick. Pitstick. Pitstick. That's right. Pitstick. Like, think Australian deodorant. Pitt stick just, there you go. You got it. That's actually a great way to think about it. Yeah. This man is, uh, responsible for helping thousands of people. Get into the best shape of their lives.
So we're gonna dive into that right now. What, what brings you up to, uh, the tri-state area? Uh, well first off, I mean, we have, uh, our highest volume of clients is in this area. Yep. Uh, here in la. So we come up here and try to interview their stories. Because people, people today want something that's real.
They, I know it's real. And then you can see a lot of success stories, you know, all over Google, wherever you're at. And so most of it's bullshit. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So we like to make sure, like we get someone down, speak to 'em for an hour, really tell their story. And it's like, alright, you're, you're not gonna fake that.
Okay. So I'm, I'm the first thing I'm thinking about. I've ran gyms now for 15 plus years. Yeah. Uh, I've been in the fitness industry for a very long time. What are you doing? To help them commit to. The commitment. Right? Like what do you, because there's a lot of people that like, you could give them the keys to the castle, but they still need to do the work.
They still need to be consistent. What are you doing that you are finding a lot of success with that people are sticking to the plan? Well, let's take a look at history of like weight loss in general. Mm-hmm. You know, I really got popular in about 1950 with like the leave it to beaver housewife, perf white picket fence.
Mm-hmm. Like people started dieting. As a commonality and it started becoming really popular in the United States, right? Mm-hmm. And it seems like the more we try to diet, the more unhealthy we get. Mm-hmm. Right? I agree. Conventional methods, 1980 fitness gyms start to get popular. Yet still, you know, we continue to get more unhealthy as a society.
You know, medicine gets bigger, more drugs, more doctors, more medicine, yet still, you know, and, and so part of what we're looking at is I think we're trying to solve the wrong problem. Oftentimes. Mm-hmm. And so like in our program, we're really big on when someone comes in and they're getting life and health coaching, right?
Mm-hmm. So we've got our. For our program, which is our mindset training, we get people into small groups virtually, uh, and then we have classes on that stuff going on while you're having your one-on-one health coaching. So part of it's the individualization of the relationship. That's why I still think one of the most effective people in someone's life is a personal trainer.
If it's in a gym. More because of the relationship than anything. Mm-hmm. Right. I think the relationship is crucial in order to development, develop, trust, and allowing someone to surrender to a process to actually follow it long enough. Right. Well, I think, I think, yeah, I think that's the personal side of it where they, they look at you as like an influence on their lives.
Yeah. And they see what you are doing consistently and. They're around you enough to start to pick up your habits a little bit. Same thing with the gym though. One of the other things that we realize today, I think that's more important than the rest of it is community. So that's the problem if, if you're in isolation.
So we do, uh, vital Coaching does both, uh, medical and fitness coaching. Mm-hmm. Right. So we're one of the first concierge medical fitness companies that has ever been created. Uh, and we see people globally. Um, and we have our own medical teams, coaching teams. We do everything for you. And this shows up at your door, right?
And that's wonderful. So what, what, what's showing up at their door? What do, what do they, everything from their labs. Some are in home, some are by email, all their supplements, any biohack tools that they may need, their hormones, peptides that they need those. Okay. Everything's coordinated, choreographs done for them so they can just execute.
Mm-hmm. So that's one of the ways to help them stay on track for sure. But. The problem with you doing international service online is that where's the community and the connection, right? Because social media, this thing makes this, it's the biggest trick. 'cause it makes me feel like I'm connected, right?
No. Like there's so many people liking my stuff and commenting like, but really I'm tricking myself into more prolonged isolation. Yeah. And I would rather you stay in community than eat that spinach. 'cause the research shows you'll live longer. I, I, I literally say all the time, the two things we focus in on in the gym is.
Building muscle, but building friendships as well. Yes. In our gym, you never work out alone. We always pair you up with somebody or you have to work out with a trainer. There's never a chance where it's the only time of your day that you're gonna be forced or actually look forward to being with somebody else and interacting with them.
There are so many people now, we just did this event. We were just on, uh, the West Side Highway doing this event. 25 to 30-year-old kids. Everyone who was there wasn't there for the workout. They were there because they wanna meet somebody. 'cause they're like, I don't, yes. You know, I'm just looking for community.
I'm just looking for friends. I'm just looking for somebody to hang out with nowadays. I think you hit the nail on the head. I think you guys are fucking light years ahead of anybody else I've talked to about this where. People are like, well, I don't wanna drink anymore. 'cause it's unhealthy. But more unhealthy than drinking is sitting at home by yourself.
Yeah. Yeah. You meet, you meet almost the same problem when you look at the data. Yeah. Actually with isolation is like the, the, the most, the worst. Yeah. The worst symptom you can have. So when we, so when we look at this problem, so coming back to it. If there are people who are trying to get, uh, in more in shape, and that's great, but if you look at it as a general problem, what's the problem we're trying to solve for?
Because this is what I think the problem is. I think when you look at it from a doctor's office, they're looking at, I gotta get symptom management. How do I get weight down? Mm-hmm. And I think fitness falls into that same trap where it's like we're trying to treat the symptom and not the root. Mm-hmm.
And so that's why, for example, if, if you go into a doctor's office, this is why we do functional medicine, which is root cause, right. Uh, medicine. But if you go to a western medicine doctor, say like, doc, I got high blood pressure, you know? Okay. Well. You've got high blood pressure, I'm gonna diagnose it, that that's the root of the problem.
So I'm gonna treat you with a medicine to lower your blood pressure. Mm-hmm. Okay. Well the, the problem with that is, is that there are roots that were the origins to why your blood pressure is high. And you know, half of the population in the United States has high blood pressure now, right? Mm-hmm. And the reasons are primarily because of something called metabolic syndrome.
And that's where inflammation's risen up in your cardiometabolic system so high that you're starting to spring links. So if I put it, if I cover this symptom, three, others are gonna pop up. I really haven't solved much other than making sure that you don't die. Um, and so it's like I, well, what's the root.
So you've gotta take it back further. And for the way we believe is that what's happening is that people create neuro associations, which are dopamine pleasure responses to activities in their life. And because they're not creating enough stress in their life, positive stress through the gym, through challenging themselves in a career or whatever.
Mm-hmm. When, when they're not getting the dopamine from that, they're gonna go find it. The brain's gonna get what it wants. So neuro associations, so instead of. Getting it by working on the gym. I might be drinking a bunch of Mountain Dews and playing video games. Yeah. Or food or sex or pornography, like whatever.
It's, this is fascinating. Right. And so a lot of the field that I come from, so I was a really sick kid at seven years old, 20 years. It took me to get, well, I lived a boy in a bubble for 10 years. I had a rare condition called Pandas, uh, which is like. I would've said you were the guy I would've hated in high school.
'cause you were probably smart, handsome. Right? You're like the, it came on later. You're the guy I wanted to hate, but I like so much. 'cause you were smart and you like you, you wanna be, you wanna hang out with that guy but you probably hate him 'cause he's got everything you want. Man. I was the dork that just wanted no shit like me, man.
Really? For sure. We all got that. It all changed later. It all changed later. We all got that. No shit, you know. Um. Because I, because like I said, I didn't know how to socialize with people because I, boy in a bubble for 10 years. Like I lived in the house. What did you have? Pandas called? Pandas. So I lived on a farm, and this was at a time where you could just, I would be gone for almost a day and my parents wouldn't look for me because like, it was fine.
Like no one was around us, like, uh, but I got sick from chemicals on the farm, which suppressed my immune system. And then I got a bunch of rounds of really bad strep. That turned into almost like temporary psychosis, OCD, all kinds of other health issues. Oh, shit. Because what happens is, uh, these infections will then get to your nervous system.
They can, they can cause all kinds of havoc and other areas, kind of like how Lyme's disease can cause anxiety or like other things. And so now I'm dealing with a physical and a neurological issue. Well now because of this. I'm, I'm, I'm more of a obsessive compulsive, so now it's way more likely for me to get addicted to things.
So then I find street drugs that. Know an early age and that calms the thoughts. So I thought I'd found the solution. Right. And then, you know, through life I found all of these temporary things that were temporary solutions. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, like putting Bend, lemme tell you something. If you got a lot of emotional problems, cocaine is a great solution until it's not.
Okay. You know what I'm saying? Like if you, that's a hot take, right? I mean, I'm just gonna be honest with you. Yeah. Uh, you know, so. People will find whatever it is that makes them, like when we sip a coffee. Right. What's the first thing that you, your body does? What do you do when you sip a coffee? What's the first thing?
Ah, yeah. Mm. But it actually stimulates you. So why are you going? Ah, yeah, because caffeine is the dopamine drug. Dopamine is the certainty drug. Mm-hmm. It makes me feel safe and certain that I'm where I'm supposed to be and I can handle whatever's happening. It's so true. There are times we were just talking, I was just talking about this with my buddy Matt.
I was saying like, there's a lot of times I'll buy a coffee and just wanna hold on it. Yeah, there you go. I didn't take a fucking sip. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And so what people are looking for is certainty to meet that emotional need to get the, the, uh, they have enough of dopamine that they need. Mm-hmm.
And so that's why you see so much conflict on social media. Those people are not stressing themselves to get adequate amounts of dopamine for the day, so they're gonna get it through. Negative relate. You can meet your needs in unhealthy ways, for sure. So what happens? Ultimately what I'm getting at is the problem that we're trying to solve for in America to deal with health and weight issues is strictly an input issue.
Uh, food. Um, you know, maybe we're dealing with hormones training, and all of that is important. I'm not here to say that it's not what I'm saying. The root problem typically is though, is what we, what I call emotional addiction. We are addicted to things and create emotional habits and beliefs in our life that lead to unhealthy lifestyles that then lead to the symptoms that we're treating.
Mm-hmm. And so, in my opinion, you gotta have a bottom up and a top down approach. So a bottom up would be like. X's and O's and nutrition, fitness, we do that. You know, hormones, genetics, we do all that stuff, make all those profiles. But if I'm not also getting in your head, then I'm not really dealing with the root and it's bound to come back a hundred percent.
So when you have communities like gyms and people can stay there long enough, I. Um, it's called mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are like, what happened with a therapist? Or if I'm in a room, I'll start to mimic your behavior and also your thoughts on how you deal with problems. That's why proximity is so important.
Mm-hmm. Right? Me being close to you and observing the way that you handle situations, I will naturally start to pick some of those things up. Well that's why like they say, you are the five people you hang out with. That's right. Exactly. So that's why community is actually so important in changing some of what we call neuro pathways or my neuro associations.
I start to get acquired taste. I start to get pleasure signals that I used to from drinking. I. Something unhealthy. Jack Daniels or Right. Jack Daniels. And I actually get it now from being around people in the gym or, you know, hitting a new, uh, success in my, in my fitness journey. And so now I'm getting it from that.
So now I want to eat healthy. Now I want to do these things. We have to create hunger in people. Hunger's a thing that you can't buy. That happens over 90 to 120 days. And we know that because of addiction studies, so I, I've talked about this with a lot of people. One of the doctors that I've had on before, uh, Jamie Shearer, she's a good friend of mine.
We had talked about, she had said this years ago when I first started working with her, um, she said that most people don't have. An actual physical problem. Yeah. It's more of an emotional problem. That's right. And I always say, I go, I need to become that emotional trigger in a good way for people. Yep. I, one of the ways I explain it to the coaches is I was like, you need to convince them or trick them that this is more pleasurable than the o the other pleasures in their lives.
Yeah. So, for instance, and not in a bad way. In a good way for their own health, because a lot of people think like, okay, I'm gonna go out to eat. You get excited about your food showing up, you get excited about having a cocktail and it's fun, but it, it should be in moderation. You know? I think a lot of people think like, oh, I should be going out to eat every night.
Like, especially here in New York, of course, the average New Yorker. No, but I mean, I know very few people who cook at home. Everybody goes out to eat every night of the week. Yeah. So the the, the food they're cooking with is shit. But you're, you get excited. There's that dopamine That's right. Relief.
Exactly. You know, so, um, the, the, what we call it, uh, the a, there's no way in America that you're getting out of society without an emotional compulsion or what we call emotional addiction. Mm-hmm. Like today, ju the most addictive thing you can do is this. Did you know that they've studied? Uh, I know. How many times have we been here?
Like, I should stop doing this. Why am I still doing this? Let me tell you, stop doing this right now. Uh, I'll, well, that means I'm gonna stop in two minutes. I'm gonna keep going for a minute though, 'cause I can't seem to. Alright, I'll stop. But now what I do, I'll check it. I'll put it down. I'm like, I'm done with it.
And then my, it's like second nature, I am like, I'm checking it. I go, I just fucking checked it. There's nothing there. You want it, but you don't want the phone. You want the dope. No. Yeah, yeah. Right. That's what it is. So it's, I could give a fuck. Listen, I, I know honestly, people are like, you're addicted to social media.
I go, no, I'm addicted to. What I could potentially win from putting it out there. Yes, yes. I put so much content out there. Yes, that's right. Same. I'm trying to build my business. Same if somebody tomorrow could be like, Hey, listen, you don't need the phone anymore. You could build your business just by doing the things you love.
I'd be like, great. I'll throw the fucking thing away. Yeah. But, but aha. This is why community is necessary. 'cause as soon as you put this thing down. Which is a great decision. It can take somebody a long time to make a decision. Mm-hmm. Right. But once they make the decision, how do they keep making that decision?
Every single day. Because the problem is your brain is going to get what it wants. Mm-hmm. And so now it needs to get that dopamine from somewhere else. Now entrepreneurs, they'll just do more. Right. We'll do more. We'll work out. We keep it moving. That's why everybody in New York's moving all the time.
Yeah. They might, they don't even know where they're going, but they gotta move. In order to get the dopamine that they need. She's laughing because you're, you're, you're talking to a mirror. Right. And so the reason this is, and the only reason I know this is 'cause I've worked with some of the world's best in addiction for myself and then for others I know.
What was your drug of choice? Oh, cocaine. It's a hell of a drug dude. Yeah. Oh yeah. But I also just, I also suffer from, if I like it, I want more of it. Mm-hmm. The addiction of more. So I have a nonprofit called Emotional Freedom Fellowship, where it's high level entrepreneurs that struggle with always just chasing the next thing.
Is that, is that intuition or is that the dopamine? And it can be hard to tell the difference because some is the right calling and some of you is, is just more. Right. And so I have to be careful 'cause I have seven businesses, 120 staff, all the things. 'cause I'm trying to change the world. 'cause I have, I have to chase a goal so big.
I never reach it because if I reach it, that would be the, that would be the worst thing that could ever happen to me. Mm-hmm. Right. It's not getting the thing, it's the pursuit of the thing. Right. And so I'm being aware of that. You like the adventure, you like Yeah. The journey. That's right. Yeah. Yes. So ultimately there's a condition for this.
There's a name for it, and it's called anhedonia, and it means pleasure, deafness. It means that I cannot experience joy or feel almost everything just in this moment, like sitting here with you right now. I'm enjoying this moment. Right? But there are many people in the world that because we're overstimulating ourselves, are dopamine receptors, just like doing cocaine.
Okay? So if you're doing cocaine every day now, that's a bit more extreme 'cause of the level of dopamine that it creates. Mm-hmm. But because of sugar, because of everything that we're doing. We're our dopamine receptors begin to denature. We have less of them on the cell, very similar to if I expose myself to too much sugar.
The body is this adaptive, amazing, uh, machine. Right? What's again, an ecosystem. It's not really a machine, but it's an ecosystem. It's always adapting. Mm-hmm. So if I pound sugar. If I tried to take all that sugar in at one time, it would kill my mitochondria and it would damage my cells. So your body's like, guess what I'm gonna do?
I'm gonna stop sending sugar transport vesicles by releasing inflammation to the surface, but I'm also gonna reduce some of my insulin receptors on the cell wall. Mm-hmm. Your body does that with dopamine. There's plenty of studies that show this D two receptors get cleaved off if you're doing too much dopamine or you're getting too, you have too much trauma, or you get really ill.
So that's why this person that's had too much trauma in their life or is a, or is a high risk taker, or as an entrepreneur or someone who's been sick a long time searching for the solution. Mm-hmm. Or someone who's done alcohol or drugs, they actually all have the same. Thought processes, the same neuro pathways, and it's like if I actually try to sit down and I try to be still, and I try to have gratitude, the minute that I do that, I'm not meeting my dopamine needs.
Guess what starts to happen? Well, now I don't have enough dopamine to feel okay. I. Now I start feeling anxious. I feel restless, irritable, and discontent. Like what's wrong with me? And then I start looking for things outside of me that are wrong because I assume that if I feel something, it has to be being caused by something outside of myself.
Mm-hmm. So I start looking at my relationship, where I'm at in life. I get on social media and I go it, 'cause I don't have the boat, the house, the friends, look at this guy, he is so jacked, he's got all these things. This is why I'm feeling this way. Mm-hmm. And it's like, no dude. It ain't got nothing to do with any of that.
You've been getting way too high, chasing different things in life, not realizing it. In fact, you were getting so high, you were getting anxiety, so you try to step back from things. You try to be calm and now something feels really wrong. You start getting intrusive thoughts like, I'm not enough, like all these things.
That is called anhedonia or an hedonic dysregulation, and we're all slightly on the scale of dysregulation. This experience, this human experience is natural to an innate in all of us, and there's nothing wrong. You're just going through a high dopamine saturated world because of capitalism, consumerism go, go, go.
Be more, do more. Three more reps go hard. Go home. You know all the things which are very good things. Technology is wonderful, but if you don't know what you're dealing with, then all of a sudden you start dealing with this roller coaster of being depressed and then on a high and depressed and on this high.
And really all that's happening is your body's trying to restabilize itself and, and its dopamine levels, and that's why. In our program. So if someone tries to start a diet now they're not getting their dopamine from the diet, and so then they're gonna start looking for reasons why they shouldn't do it.
'cause they're uncomfortable on the inside. Mm-hmm. And the strongest force in the human psychology is to be consistent with how we feel. So like. If, I feel like if I start having these thoughts that are like, oh, I don't want to do this anymore. That's not what's gonna come up first. It's gonna be like, it's gonna be like, oh, making meals is hard and like following this thing is hard and like, I don't have time.
You're gonna start looking for all the evidence for why this is. Yeah. So I'm gonna come up with this list. I'm gonna go to the judge and go, judge, look at this list of how could I possibly ever continue to do this? I mean, look at the evidence. It's so vast. I'm like all my reasons. And it's just like, Ugh, I just can't do it.
And the reality of what's happening is the brain is trying to give you reasonable justification to go back and get what it wants. Yeah. So that's what happens in addiction, by the way. Like when you try to stop the drug, it's not the drug. The drug was the solution. That doesn't work anymore. The ism, like alcoholism versus alcoholic.
And alcoholic is someone who continues to drink. When you stop drinking, you're still left with the ism, which is the original problem. Which is the Is the ME problem. Yeah. Yeah. Solving the me problem. So, and I don't, if people have a negative association with the drugs and alcohol and all that stuff, I understand that, but every one of us has this dopamine.
Connection. And so that's why it's super important for people to get into communities, to have a coach, to stay in positive uh, environments because it takes about. Short-term, an hedonic dysregulation could be as simple as taking a day to chill. Mm-hmm. But when you've been really unhealthy and really not eating right, or never been in a stable situation like that, or you're really trying to overcome something big, it's a 90 to 120 days.
And the research shows brain scans show. That you'll regrow dopamine receptors by 20 to 30% in, in 90 to 120 days. So what I'm trying to tell everybody is the entrepreneur, when you start something new, the person who starts a diet for the first time, the person that gets into the gym for the first time or commits to something, just know that you're gonna feel uncomfortable.
You're gonna have intrusive thoughts. You're gonna, it's gonna tell you in your head that something's wrong or something's missing. You need connection. You need community. You need someone to hang on to. As these thoughts roll through and you need to communicate how you're feeling and it will pass, and then all of a sudden you're gonna start getting new neuro associations, positive dopamine responses to things that you hated.
Now, I love salads. Now I love going to the gym. Now I'm a, I'm this new person. I'm expressing myself. I'm happy again, just sitting, watching a sunset talking to you. That's because the real use starting to come out that was buried under all that dopamine and food and toxicity of people, places and things or whatever you were doing prior to trying to get well.
And so I just try to get people to hold on. 'cause all we need is just a little bit of time. Mm-hmm. And you're gonna be a totally different person and you don't even know it yet. And so that's why community is so important and that's why stabilizing food and stabilizing your lifestyle. So that way you don't get as much chaos going on.
'cause the less chaos, the faster your dopamine receptors grow back and the real you starts to rise and then you get real powerful and you get on a roll. And so that's what I always talk about. So that's why in our program, that first 90 days, while we're doing nutrition, we're doing all cool stuff, we do your hormones.
Sure, sure. Great. But really it's on that mindset. All we gotta do, we gotta gotta get you 90 days, baby. So how do you help people find community? Like you deal with a lot of people online, all over the world. Yeah. Right. How are you helping them find community in a. One, we start by working the nervous system when we get 'em into small groups, which is people that they have to text every day, so their coaches meeting with them, talking to 'em by email and weekly, then meeting with them biweekly.
Then we have our groups where we teach mindset tools and we teach science about new science, and we get people together sharing wins and stuff. So we have group classes that are going on all week. Do people get a dopamine response from that, from like sharing their story? Yes. So they gotta talk, they gotta share their shit.
I don't know if you could, sorry if it I curse. You gotta, if you don't share it, you gotta carry it uhhuh and don't carry it alone. That's heavy lift weights not, don't carry the emotions. Mm-hmm. Right. So there's a lot of times where like I've been to Masterminds and men's groups and all these things, and.
Yeah, it does feel good to like kind of get it off your chest and be in a room full of other people who are kind of dealing with some other stuff. Um, I think more, I try to encourage more people to do that. Uh, actually a guy I had on the show not too long ago, uh, Dave Regina guy up in Westchester, he invited me to this men's group.
There were 50 guys. Every guy was in pretty good shape. Everybody goes to the gym, works out the amount of shit. That people were dumping outta themselves, you know, like problems with their wives, problem with their families, you know, drug addiction, whatever it may be. I think it, those groups, those meetups are so important.
I think having a gym community. What do you say to people who can't afford these things? Like how do you, how do you help them? Because my thing when I. With my event and stuff, I always try to make like a, some element, element of it free so that it's accessible to everybody. Yeah. Like what do you say to somebody who's like, I can't afford that guy though?
Uh, we trade our power away to circumstances and people, and the first thing is if they say they can't afford it, you, you don't get what you want. You get your standards. Mm-hmm. And there is always a simple step that is usually a free version or something that they can do to get started. Health in many ways is free.
Mm-hmm. It starts that way a hundred percent. And, but we, that's why I have E, FF is free for anyone to attend virtually online, get into community. Like there's no, there's no, uh, there's no reason that you can't. Yeah. And, um. We also have free versions on our apps and stuff like that. There is always a way, and in today, you know, obviously I know there are many people that are, uh, not as doing as well as others.
And, and you know, the economy is not as great, but it's every time when somebody says, I don't have time or I don't have money, um, there they're not out of resources. They're out of lack of resourcefulness. Yeah. And they are emotionally, uh, exhausted. They're not actually. Resource. They're, they're not actually out of resources.
Well, I, I say that all the time. You know, I figured out I was a, a fat kid, so I was awkward and stuff as a kid as well. And for me when I was 13 years old, I grew up in Newark, New Jersey. My family had no money and I wanted to get in shape. Now, nowadays it's like you turn on your phone, there's a thousand people giving great information.
There's knowledge everywhere. There's an influencer every on every corner that could tell you a hundred different ways to work out and do what you need to do. I had to like grab magazines and stuff, but I think where there's a will, there's a way, and I found, especially in my own business, I would definitely, I would love to do what I do for free if it.
Still kept a roof and stuff over my head. The problem is, I think a lot of people don't appreciate it until you charge them, until there's a big price tag on it. Yeah. There's no value. The, the val value of something is what you assign it. Mm-hmm. And so, I mean, we've done, we've done small case studies, you know, we see a thousand people at any one time and our one-on-one clients, so we, we took 20 people that spent eight k.
We charged 'em the max that we could and we gave 20 people it free. And the 20 people that we gave it free, only one completed it. Mm-hmm. Of the 20 we charged at the eight K, everyone did with flying colors. Yep. Right. So, un unfortunately, the amount that you invest is the value and is the guarantee that you will succeed.
But if you're in a, if you're in a, if you're emotionally exhausted in a negative mindset, you cannot see that. And so that's why a lot of times it's just best to get people shoved into communities. Where there's a gym, just something that's lower ticket. Try to get 'em around people, because ultimately what people are doing are finding.
BS attachments as a pacifier for real connection. That's the reality of it. And then they get, they get attached to foods, people, places and things. They start down unhealthy lifestyles. They start getting further and further away from themselves. It starts changing their personality, their neurotransmitters, their hormones, everything change.
And then 2, 3, 5 years down the road, they don't like a symptom, but they don't know how to get out and they don't know. That they're actually not who they're supposed to be. Mm-hmm. Meaning that they're in a place where their true self isn't coming out because your physical life changes your, your personality and everything about you and how you see the world and you don't know it.
And that's why people don't realize how good life could be. Oh, I, yeah, that they just started with the health program. They get themselves a coach and they don't let go. Yeah. I think there's a lot of people out there that'll say it's, it's a cultural issue or it's a family thing or whatever it may be.
But I think there's so many answers out there and there's so many people like you who are doing this. Yeah. That could make their lives so much easier. Yeah. If they were willing to kind of make that next step. So what are you guys working on? I, I'll have, uh, we have a book on a lot of this coming out. You got seven businesses.
Yeah. They're all tied together into a health network, I was guessing, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you can't, yeah. You just do C minus work, if you, well, when people are like, oh, I have the, I have multiple businesses and all these different things, I'm like, well, you can't, it's so hard to be good at one, let alone 12 multiple businesses.
One mission. Yeah. Yeah. It should all be the same direction. Yeah, for sure. Right? Absolutely. So right now, uh, I'll have the, uh, a book called The Flush Method of the, the title. Still a, a Work in Progress that, uh, talks about how I want to break diet culture and, um, I think diet culture is one of the reasons that people have the issues that they do today.
Mm-hmm. Um, and so I've got that book coming out and then obviously. Uh, we've launched our new medical company, uh, called Vital Med. Um, it works with coaching companies, gyms all over to do protocols with them and work with their clients to make sure that it's synergistic, that it's inter, that we wanna create our own inner network mm-hmm.
Of gyms, coaches, uh. Then medical providers that can get 'em, whether it's the prescriptions, the hormones, peptides, but it's in unison together, uh, so that people are getting complete answers because they're going 17 places and getting 17 different answers. Mm-hmm. And that has to stop. So we're trying to create our own interconnected, uh, network.
So Vital Metal almost only works with referrals of. Clients and members, it's a trusted network. Yes. A trusted network. And they're trained to make sure that they're, that they're doing protocols that work alongside whatever's going on. Uh, at the gyms or wherever, so that it's universal and that it's synergistic.
That's great. I mean, listen, it sounds like a logistical nightmare, but I'm sure you guys have started doing it and we've figured it out. We already figured it out, right? We, but we've been doing it now for the last about five, six months. It's scaling incredibly because everyone loves the fact that they're sending 'em someone that they can trust, um, and that it.
It's in alignment with what they're doing. Mm-hmm. And we have, we usually have meetings with the partners and say, what, what's your, what are you guys doing? And what would you like us to do for you? That enhances their experience without us getting outside of ethics. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, I'm not gonna just load 'em with treading testosterone.
Like that's, that's not what we're doing here. It helps some people. I get it. So, yeah, so that's a lot of it. And then we have our university, our university is scaling where we're teaching people our methods, coaching methods, um, to use, you know, our four F method we use to heal people in our practices is using over 1500 practices across the world and reaches the a hundred thousand people a year.
And we're really excited. We wanna keep that movement going. So what's your protocol? What are you doing as far as like exercise longevity? Yeah. Yeah. So, so we, I, I was, I was the um, uh, consultant. I. I was the guy, the like, the closer, I was the guy you would send in medical practices if I had an issue with my practice not scaling, if it was health, functional medicine, weight loss, whatever it was.
So they would send me in as a consultant and I worked with some of the biggest doctors across the country and I would consult on their cases, I would help build out their practices, stuff like that. And I saw how every different doctor tried to solve the problem of weight loss. Um, and so by doing that, I kind of cherry picked all the best stuff.
By sitting in on cases and helping programs grow, I learned all the technologies that existed, nutritional, hormonal, supplemental, all the stuff, and I, I put it all together into a simple four F process that anybody can follow, whether it's a coach or a doctor or whatever, to get great results. And ultimately, I.
Uh, in the beginning I do not like crushing their calories really low and having 'em do a bunch of cardio and all of that. Mm-hmm. Because the reality is working out in the gym is only responsible for 5% of your total daily energy expenditure. Yeah. So you can do whatever you want there. But what if I was to tell you, and we're studying my diets at the University of South Florida right now, like, are these programs, what if I were to tell you that where everyone is, wherever.
If anyone is right now, whatever your caloric intake is, it could be 500 to a thousand calories more than what it is right now, and you not gain weight. If you, if you stimulate your body in certain ways, optimize, uh, get rid of cellular inflammation, feed yourself up just the right way. And that's what we had to teach practices to do.
'cause they were all doing metformin, HCG, phentremine, Fen, uh, glp, whatever they were doing. And the problem is it works until it doesn't work. And then what do you do with the body that doesn't work anymore? And so we figured out how to upregulate the metabolism without them gaining weight. That's what my book is all about.
Because we need to have the first diet that allows you to lose the weight and then eat the pizza without gaining it all back immediately. Mm-hmm. Right. And that's the problem. 'cause a lot of people, once they get down there where they want to be, now they're in a prison. Yep. Right. That's not a choice.
Right. And now it's a whole new lifestyle for them. Right. Like, you either conform to the lifestyle or it's gonna fall apart. And I, and, but I don't believe that I, I think you can have your, literally have your cake and eat it too. Mm-hmm. But you wanna live, uh, of course a, a new life, um, with general rules and principles.
But it, but a lot of people don't realize that when they start getting into fitness, their metabolism now doesn't have accident forgiveness. I don't know if you remember, you know, maybe guys that had built muscle aren't having this problem, but a lot of people are having the problem where before when they were maybe a little bit frumpy.
And they went ahead and had a big weekend. They put on a pound, wasn't too much. It kind of stayed at this weight, but when they started getting into fitness and they've been in it for a while now, that same, that same pizza makes 'em gain five, six pounds. So your metabolism has this adaptive ability that isn't as well studied, but we know exists, and it kind of goes away.
The thermogenic effect of food, you're neat. Your, your, you know, your, uh, eat, you know, your exercise activity, thermogenesis. Those start to downscale when you get too stressed. Training all the time, undereating for too long, or you're cutting too often. And, and so that's why, but you can upregulate that.
Again, that's a nervous system thing that you can upregulate. And that's all in your book? Yes, that's in the book. And that's what we do through our four F method. So we turn your metabolism back onto its max potential. Then we like to use what are called feast fast strategies. We don't, we no longer like, and more data's coming out on this.
We don't like lowering your calories and then leaving you there for 24 months or 16 weeks, or 24 weeks. Mm-hmm. No, I want periods of high calories and then I want periods of really low calories, short intense bursts of intentional. Caloric restriction. And what we've found is body composition is so the best that you can do in like bodybuilding fitness.
If I were to take somebody and go high protein diet, um, I'm gonna carb cycle them or something. Um, and, but I'm gonna reduce their calories by a certain amount, put their protein at 50%, maybe have 'em train four or five days a week, maybe you have 'em do 20, 30 minutes of cardio. Okay, great. The best you can do on a natural body is that the weight loss that I have right outside of water.
Let's take water out of it. Um, 70% of it can be fat. That's the best you're gonna do unless you have a genetic freak of an individual. Mm-hmm. Okay. Now, if you add steroids to the mix enhancements, stuff like that, you can get close to 90. 95. What we're seeing is if you use walking with just some training in your intense burst.
Now a a, a trained a a, a a person who's, who's athletically trained or someone who's a resistance trained individual for a long period of time can actually train through this. Mm-hmm. But someone who's not, doesn't want to do that. But walking lots of walking mixed with intermittent periods of really intense low calorie.
So like under 500 or below. Um, or fasting even. Mm-hmm. Right. We like a 36 12. If you can get good enough, we condition you long enough. It's like you, you eat one day, you don't eat the next day. Wow. Right? Um, and what that does for disease is incredible. By the way, I believe in that too. I just told my buddy to do that.
Yeah. I was like, fast. He was like, oh, he was dealing with some gout. I go, dude, fast for the next two days. The Bible mentions fasting somewhere around 88 times for a reason. We, we like that we, and when we look at the BIA studies like our BIA tests or we look at a dexa, we're in some cases we're getting up to 90, 92% fat loss.
Wow. When done correctly, you gotta turn the metabolism back on first. 'cause I don't want people to hear this and go, oh, I'm supposed to fast. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. 'cause then people are already not eating enough nourish nourishment now. Yeah. They're not eating correctly now. So let's like teach you how to feed your body.
Let's get your micros right. Let's learn macros and eat enough food. And that's all true. It's good. That's what the flush is about. Stimulating, getting everything back up, saturating your body. Mm-hmm. And then short, intentional bursts of really low calorie. You will love your life. That's how you should also build.
You should be building and then intermittently. Go to fast and go keep going. We're getting way better results that way. Even if we work with fitness competitors, that's what we're doing now, but it's the same thing. I would work if somebody had a disease and was trying to lose weight or an obese person.
Oh shit, we've totally abandoned Standard Fitness Nutrition. Not that I don't like it, and it's not that it doesn't work. We find this preferable. Wal, what's the book called? Uh, it's gonna be called The Flush Method. It's uh, you know, by the time you drop this, I'm like, I'm assuming it'll probably be a couple more weeks.
It's probably gonna drop in, uh, August. We might have to have you at a I come back up. Big event. Oh yeah. Yeah. Love it. Signing books. That'd be awesome. Hearing more about this. This is great. I wish we had more time. I'm sorry we ran out of time. It's all right guys. Definitely. Uh, where could they find you, Vince?
Yeah. Um, go to Vince Pitstick again. It's Pit and Stick. It's Australian deodorant. You can't mess it up on Instagram or you can go to Vince Pitstick YouTube or you can check out, uh, if, if you need a life change, you wanna check out some of our work. We have courses, we have little programs you can do for cheap to test us out.
Um, if you wanna do something bigger, go to Vital V-I-D-A-L. Vidal lidle coaching.com, or if you wanna learn these methods and change lives for yourself, go to our university metabolic mentor.com and you guys can check out all of our certifications. You got the whole market kind of planned out. I love it.
Guys, thank you for checking out another episode of Strong New York podcast. Do not forget to like, share, and subscribe and grab yourself a Celsius stay fit, and I'll see you guys very soon.