Podcast Transcription: 5 Mistakes I Made Trying to Lose 30 Pounds While Running A Business

Ted Ryce: Do you see that thumbnail on my podcast? Do you see how lean I am? Well, today I'm going to tell you the story, because I went from 210 pounds to 180 pounds to look like that. And that happened at actually the midpoint of 2019. That's when I made that transformation. And by the end of the year, I was taking those photos, one of which ended up as the thumbnail for this podcast.

So if you ever wondered, like, “Ted, what did you do to look like that? And more importantly, what were some of the lessons that you can teach me so that I can have an easier time?” Well, that's what I'm going to talk about today. What is up, my friend? Welcome back to the show. Today is Friday. That means we have a Real Talk Friday for you.

This is the Legendary Life podcast, and I'm your host, Ted Ryce, coach to entrepreneurs, executives, and other high-performing professionals. And let's jump right in. Today, I'm going to tell you the five mistakes that I made in the process of losing 30 pounds. And let's jump right in number one, trying to out train my diet.

So back in 2016, I had this idea I wanted to get lean. I was doing a good job with my training. I was doing gymnastic strength training. I was working on handstands I was working out at my house, I was doing heavy dips, weighted dips, I was doing different types of pull ups and all this gymnastic stuff. I really loved it.

And it started to change my body. But I was working out really hard. Some of the workouts were 90 minutes long. And it was five days a week of doing this. And I started to think to myself, “Man, I'm already training really hard, but I'm not ripped. I can kind of see my abs and I'm doing a lot of abdominal exercise, but I can't really see my abs out well.”

So I had this bright idea, because I felt like I was doing a good job with my nutrition I and I thought to myself, maybe what I'm missing here is that I need to do a little bit more exercise and that'll take me to the next level. Such a smart idea. I know.

And what ended up happening was I started doing two days, on some of the days of the week. I started doing some cardio. I started doing a stretching workout, a flexibility workout for gymnastics in particular. And I remember I was doing this gymnastic stretching routine and my body felt achy already. I had already been doing two a day, working out in the morning and working out later on.

And I've been doing that. I just started it. But I had been doing it for maybe three or four days. So my body was aching, my joints were achy. But I was like, you know, more exercise is good for me, I need to push myself through that. And what ended up happening was during the stretching session, I felt my back. And I felt it and I went to go train clients because I would train clients in the morning, I would come back to my house and eat lunch and maybe do a little bit exercise.

And then would go train clients after their work. So around five, something like that, I would have a couple clients. And when I was training my clients, I was like, “Man, I really kind of feel my back a little bit.” And when I got home later that night, I had some dinner, and I started to do a little bit more stretching. And instead of the aggressive stretching routine that I did earlier, this was a bit more of like a relaxed stretching routine.

And I was doing the child's pose from yoga, if you're familiar with that. You're kind of kneeling on the ground and letting your upper body just rest and it stretches your low back. And I remember that it made my back feel worse, but it wasn't that bad. And I got in bed that night, not thinking too much of it. But when I woke up in the morning, I literally could not get out of bed.

That day, that morning started months of hell. And when I mean hell, I mean that is not an exaggeration. It was one of the worst times in my life. Because what I had done unknowingly, is I had herniated a disc during my stretching session. And then what I had done again unknowingly later on during that child's post stretch, was I made the herniation worse because if you know anything about disc herniations in your low back, you don't flex your spine forward because that's where the disk is already pushing out.

And so what I was doing was I was pushing it out even further. Now, in my defense, I didn't know I had a herniated disc, I didn't even think too much about it. It was a bad back pain, but I didn't go to the doctor. But in the morning, I could not walk and I had pain going down my left leg, pain that I still feel, the sciatica that I'm still dealing with, that I'm still feeling, back pain that I'm still feeling to this day.

That was in 2016, folks. We're talking six years later. But Ted, why didn't you go to physical therapy? Oh, I went through months of physical therapy. I worked with one of the top physical therapists in the world. In fact, I had to because I could not walk. My business, which was going well, if I can't walk, I couldn't train clients. And I couldn't train clients for, I don't know, I think it was close to two months.

It was one of the darkest periods because it was such a huge setback. And I was making money at the time by training clients, all because I tried to out train my diet, all because I had this dumb idea. Again, looking back, this dumb idea that I was already doing five days a week. And a couple of the workouts, like I mentioned, were 90 minute workouts, but I thought maybe if I would just do a little bit more, I'll get shredded, get down to maybe 12% or even 10% body fat.

And that dumb idea, it cost me so much. It costs me money. It costs me quality of life. I mean, I was miserable. I couldn't sleep at night. That's actually when I started meditating. That's the story, I'm not going to tell it today, but that's the story of how I got into meditation. I was in pain. And let me tell you, if you've never experienced nerve pain, there's nothing you can do about it.

You can take ibuprofen until your liver explodes, and it does nothing for you. I had to take Tramadol, I had to take opiates to get the pain to go away. And guess what happens when you take opiates, get a little loopy.

I didn't form a habit, thankfully. And I was able to figure it out with the help of Chad Waterbury, that top physical therapist, one of the top physical therapists in the whole United States, maybe even in the world, because of his strength training and background and in addition, going to the top physical therapy school in the US.

But the point is, that's what I did to try to get lean. I tried to out train my diet. I didn't want to do the work, and I paid for it dearly. I paid financially, I paid in quality of life. I paid in so many ways. I wish I could go back. I missed Christmas that year. I was on the couch, I couldn't move. Giselle had to take time out of her day to drive me to physical therapy, I couldn't even drive, I could barely walk.

I was walking, and then I had to stop and lay on the street. All because I tried to outrank my diet. Now, this is an extreme story. Maybe you're not as psycho as I am. But if you are, and you're starting to get some aches and pains, let me tell you, stop it! You are fat or having trouble losing fat because you are not doing the right things nutrition wise.

Or don't listen me and end up with a blown out knee or blown out back or whatever else, whatever else might happen to you. But please, heed that story because it was horrible. It was, again, one of the worst…People think like, you know, some of the tragedies that I've been through. That was a tragedy. It was tragic. I was afraid of losing everything financially, as Gisele was working on the business, and who's going to hire a coach that can’t even stand up or even sit in a chair, had to lay down all the time?

So don't try to out train your diet, folks. Learn from me. You want to learn from mistakes, but you don't want to learn from your mistakes. You want to learn from other people's mistakes. That's one of the regrets I have. Sometimes people say you don't regret the things you did, you regret the things you didn't do. Oh, I regret that. I regret that. I wish I could go back and redo it.Again, still challenged by the back situation. Now it's better than it's been in a long time. But I paid dearly for it.

Number two going on extreme diets. So after I recovered a few months later, from that back injury, so now we're talking the beginning of 2017. I spent, again, the holidays laying on a couch. People came to see me, though. That was nice. But I got invited to do things and I couldn't go do anything, just laid on the couch. But I did get better, and I got back. I found some exercises at that time to help get my function back.

And so I was like, “Man, I'm not going to do that again. I'm going to address my nutrition.” Except what did I do? I started an extreme diet. I started doing what's called a Protein Sparing Modified Fast, and it was working. It worked well. It was a bit extreme, but it worked well. And then I hit a wall and it wasn't working for some reason. And looking back now, I know why. It's because my behavior changed.

I started doing things differently. I wasn't exercising as much. So I instead of trying to troubleshoot the right way, I tried to go more extreme, like a lot of thick skulled people do. It reminds me of a story of a guy who went keto, lost 40 pounds, and then went carnivore, and actually put on 20 more pounds. So he put 20 pounds back on.

I always remember that story. He thought going more extreme was the answer. And I can't judge him too harshly because I did the same thing. So I went from having protein and veggies to just pure protein. And I started having massive issues, I started having issues with electrolytes, I was hyponeutremic, most likely. So hyponatremia is when you are…it's an electrolyte problem, without going into too much detail.

And it can potentially be dangerous. So my brain was all a mess. And what ended up happening, by the way, I stayed on this for a while. And I pushed through the discomfort. And I started having panic attacks. And one of those panic attacks sent me to the hospital because I thought I was going to die. My heart's beating uncontrollably, my blood pressure’s through the roof. My heart's maxed out. I think I'm going to die. Go to the hospital, $9,000 later—and yes, I did have insurance. But at the time, I wasn't making that much money, so I had a higher deductible. So for that, I paid $9,000 for this lesson.

I should actually do “The $9,000 lesson I learned about extreme diets”. And guess what, when I went to the emergency room, guess what they did? They made sure I wasn't having a heart attack. They checked my cardiac enzymes. They did an EKG, everything was normal. They didn't even give me some Xanax to calm my ass down. No, nothing.

They ran some tests, and $9,000 later, no answers, no nothing. It's just, “Oh, sorry, that happened, but you're free to go now.” It wasn't a heart attack. It's terrible, $9,000 lesson. And even worse, it took a while to recover from it. And I actually consulted with different people. Again, I was financially very stressed because I just spent $9,000, making payments to the hospital.

I think I tried and talked them down. Of course, you can do that, by the way, if you don't know. If you have outstanding medical debt, you can talk them down. But the thing is this: I mean, I consulted different people. And it seemed like when you cut your calories so aggressively, it drives up stress. And stress causes problems. And I started having problems.

So again, extreme diets are not the answer. Number three, believing in the BS health influencers. I mean, so much BS. Now, I hurt my back in 2016. That's when I tried to out train my diet. 2017, I'm a little less dumb, but still making dumb decisions. And man, I've been in the industry for so long. I feel ridiculous about this, but this is the truth.

I tried that extreme diet, ended up with a bunch of problems, and a $9,000 medical bill from an ER visit. And then three, I started realizing something was off with the information that I was getting for people. And let me tell you this: extreme sell because people think you need to do something extreme. So health influencers, 90, I don't know, 9% of them are full of shit.

They're marketers, they've never worked with anybody. And even if they have sometimes, it's like, they're just doing what sells. And this became even more apparent because in 2018 after a hard year of learning these lessons; the end of 2016, so 2017 was a hard year for me, just pulling myself back together.

And then 2018, February 14, Gisele and I moved to Thailand. And so as you know, one of the big beliefs in fat loss is that you’ve got to cut carbs. And that's why I believed in extreme diets, like I’ve got to cut carbs. I believed in a lot of the BS that was pushed on me and are put in front of my face. Although, in defense of – there were other people to learn from, but I thought there was a secret. I thought there was something extreme that needed to be done.

And by the way, that's an emotional problem. And we'll talk about that in a bit. But when I moved to Thailand, it's like going from the US, where the obesity in the US is out of control. I don't know how much you travel, but let me tell you: go around the world. Nobody has the big people like we have. It is out of control. And people are trying to normalize it. It's insane, especially because the data is really clear.

I mean, there's no…even the arguments that people make that being overweight or obese can be healthy. I mean, there's holes in the arguments, but yet, they argue it because of political activism. It is so messed up in the US. But now I'm in Thailand and everyone…There is an obesity problem in Thailand, by the way, an obesity crisis. But when you get there coming from the US, you're looking around, like everybody looks skinny to me. It isn't near as bad.

I've been all over the world. It isn't near as bad as US, except in Mexico. And of course, Canada, UK. I haven't been to Australia. But I'm in Brazil right now. Not close to the US, although they might be on their way too. But here I am in Thailand, and they're all skinny, and they're all eating noodles and rice. And I was like, “Mm, there must be something here.”

And after living in Asia for two years, you're like, “Man, these people are idiots.” And I mean, the influencers, not you for believing in them. But I'll tell you this: people in the US, we get mind fucked by health influencers, by the diet industry telling you all this stuff, telling you, you’ve got to cut carb. You don't have to cut carbs at all. You can eat nothing but rice, nothing but sugar water.

If you don't believe me, give this a try. Don't argue with me. Put your money where your mouth is, take some action, try the Master’s Cleanse. You will lose weight. Now you'll put it back on because you don't know how to keep weight loss. That's another conversation. But everyone can lose fat. Go on them and do it. Nothing but drinking sugar, Master's Cleanse.

Look it up, do it for five days. And then talk to me if you disagree with me. Again, it's okay to disagree with me. I want you to be skeptical about me and everyone else in this business, because it's full of liars or full of marketers who, they might even think that they're telling you the right information. Even Thomas Dillard, you know who that is, the guy who on YouTube who was like, “Bananas have sugar and they crushed,” you know, and he's super jacked and ripped.

Even later, he's like, “Man, I really regret making that, because that was not true.” He said that years later, actually, when he interviewed Layne Norton on his YouTube channel, he said that. And so all the people that listened to him during that time, were like, “Oh, my gosh, can't eat a banana.” You’ve got to stop listening to these people.

You’ve got to find the right people. The people who don't say insane things that you need to do, these ridiculous things, make ridiculous claims. Like you can't eat fruit? Really? Fruit? Fruit’s not the problem, folks. It's the bullshit health influencers. You just travel around the world, like I have, and it becomes even more clear.

Even though we have plenty of research to back that up, but it gets even more clear when you travel around the world, especially in Asia where 50% or more of their calories come from carbohydrates. They eat less calories than you and they move more.

Number four - thinking that my stress didn't affect fat loss. Not only did I start to realize that living in Miami, you know, when I moved from Miami, where I had lived all my life, to Thailand, Miami is a stressful city. Oh, what? Really? Because I love Miami. Yeah, you're there on vacation, drinking... What do you drink? Mojito is there, Caipirinhas, maybe, getting some Ropa Veija, some Medianoche sandwiches.

Miami's a stressful place to live. People want to kill each other, and sometimes do kill each other on the road. Lots of accidents, lots of fighting, very stressful. It's not a good place to start a business. Hiring help is very difficult. People make their money other places than move to Miami. Or they're in the club business or restaurant business and maybe involved in organized crime too. That's Miami for you, or banking.

So anyway, when I moved to Thailand, my stress levels just dropped. All of a sudden, I was getting Thai massages. I was getting two a week. And it's like $5 a massage. So even though I didn't have much money, I left Miami with about $20,000 in my bank account, and no idea how I was going to make money. When I got there, Giselle and I had no idea what we were going to do.

We had done some coaching programs and did some other things. But we just knew we needed to leave, we needed a change of pace and, man, being in Bangkok, even though it's a stressful city of its own. It just the culture shock there. It just destroyed a lot of my ideas of what I thought the world was. That's what happens when you travel. And it also destroyed my stress levels.

All of a sudden, I was staying in a nice place for like $400 a month. I was eating well, the food's delicious there. I was going on these adventures to seek out Thai temples, the palace in Bangkok, the Golden Mount, these famous temples, and going to Chinatown in Bangkok. It was just an incredible experience. And we also went other places in Thailand. Phuket.

And my stress just plummeted. And I felt like I was on the right path. I felt like I was really living life. I had made an incredible decision, an amazing change in my life. It was really tough to move, but we did it, we sold everything. And while the stress levels were high during that move, when I got there, man, it was incredible. It was great.

And what I noticed was, I wasn't eating my feelings. My hunger levels, all of a sudden, were less. I lost weight. Now, some of it was from diarrhea, from eating in some of the places. Actually, I got it from the mall a few times. The food courts in the malls are amazing, but you’ve got to watch out for the curries that have been cooked in the morning and staying there, just sitting for a while. You’ve got to watch that.

So just kind of a joke there, but kind of not a joke. But I lost weight just by being in Thailand. And it's very common to hear that by the way, and you feel like you're eating more, but you're not, you're just not as hungry because your stress levels are low. And so that got me a little bit further. But it wasn't until my fifth mistake, thinking that I could do it on my own.

I remember I was in Phuket, Thailand. And I'm not sure if this was…Of course, I know when it was. This was in 2018. This was 2019. So after having lived in Southeast Asia for a year, now it's like a year and a half. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, after coming back, we had spent some time, we had spent a couple months in Bali. And I just knew that I had to do something.

And I had an idea that hiring a coach—and I had already started my coaching business—hiring a coach was what I needed to do. And that's when I started working with Eric. And Eric got me to track my calories. He got me to report to him. He held me accountable. We had discussions, we had coaching calls on about what I needed to do differently.

He helped clear up some of the misinformation that I had about nutrition, about fat loss, he helped me to track the calories that I was eating, when I would go out to restaurants, which I did. I ate out when I was living abroad. And I still, I mean, I went out this morning. I'm in Brazil now. But I went out this morning to eat. I would eat out frequently.

I think I did get Dengue Fever during that time. But I still got better results working with him than I did on my own. And thinking back, that's one thing I wish I would have done earlier. I could have hired someone, instead of paying $9,000 for the emergency room, or trying to out train my diet and hurting myself, I could spend thousands of dollars hiring a coach to help me, and I still would have saved money.

And what I want to tell you is this: I was already, what I would consider an expert, and I could get results. I was talking about getting super lean here, right? Ripped. And I wasn't able to do it. Even though I had been in the industry for 20 years, I wasn't able to do it on my own. I didn't have the accountability, I had some issues with what type of strategies I needed to do. I didn't have the right mindset, either.

And Eric did, and Eric taught me those things. I could have saved so much time, so much stress, injuries, ER visits, getting confused by not knowing who to believe, if I would have just hired someone to help me. And that experience, let me tell you, not only did it change my body, I'm getting lean again.

And when I say I'm getting lean again, I mean, I'm getting back to that point where I was at the end of 2019 and 2020, where I was like, “Man, I could see veins on my abs,” and I was going out to eat. I felt like everything was sustainable that I was doing. And I felt like I was having a good time living my life and still staying lean. And I really loved where I was.

And I would have never been able to get there on my own. Or maybe in 5 or 10 years, maybe. And it changed everything for me. And I also change the way I coach my own clients. I'm like, “I'm doing this with my clients now.” So Eric not only helped me change my body, but he changed my business. And now my clients get insane results. Not only do they lose 20 to 30 pounds in a four-month timeframe, they feel like they've mastered fat loss on a level they never have before. I get people coming from other coaches and joining my program, people who are considered good, and I wouldn't say that the other coaches were bad. I've been doing this for a long time. You know, just been doing this for a long time, I have a different perspective about it. And I've made a lot of mistakes that taught me lessons that other folks haven't learned.

But this whole thing of thinking I could do it on my own, I take it to other areas in my life. In fact, I've got to end this right now, because I’ve got to hop on a coaching call with my business coach. I'm in a business coaching group. And you better believe I'm having record months of not just income, but clients getting results because we're creating a better experience for them.

People are joining. I'm running the business better. I'm a better leader, all because I have people with the knowledge, experience and coaching prowess to help me achieve what I'm trying to achieve. And those are the five mistakes that I've made. So just to recap real quick, and then I’ve got to jump: number one, trying to out train my diet. Number two, going on extreme diets. Three, believing in BS health influencers. Number four, thinking that my stress levels had nothing to do with fat loss.

And I mean, behaviorally, not the, “Oh, the cortisol goes up and causes me to be fat.” Starving people are in South Asia and they don't have enough food and you better believe their cortisol levels are high, and they're still starving to death, okay? That goes back to the believing of the BS health influencers. And number five, thinking I could do it on my own. I would ask you, out of those, which one resonates the most? And what do you need to change, looking at your own results?

And that's what I'm going to leave you with, my friends. There's a better way to do what you're doing, if you're not getting the results you want, or if you're running into some of the same challenges that I ran into, but you're going to have to shift. So think about that. That's what I want to give you. Hope you have an amazing weekend. Love you lots, and I'll speak to you on Monday.