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

Want to build muscle and lose fat effectively? In my Fitness Friday episode, Ebenezer Samuel, the Fitness Director of Men's Health and Head of Training Innovation at FlexIt Fitness, discusses the myth of toning and getting shredded. We also discuss the concept of "calories in; calories out" and what it gets right and wrong. Tune in for actionable diet and muscle-building tips! Ebenezer Samuel, C. S. C. S., is the fitness director of Men's Health and a certified trainer with more than 10 years of training experience. He's logged training time with NFL athletes and track athletes and his current training regimen includes weight training, HIIT conditioning, and yoga. Before joining Men's Health in 2017, he served as a sports columnist and tech columnist for the New York Daily News. What we discuss: Intermittent fasting Calories in vs calories out Society needs more fiber Brown rice vs white rice How to build muscle as we age Toning isn't a real thing Thank you to our sponsor: AquaTru: Get 20% off any purifier at aquatru.com http://aquatru.com/ with code HUSTLE Therasage: Head over to therasage.com http://therasage.com/ and use code Be Bold for 15% off TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com http://truniagen.com/ and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www http://www/.magicmind.com http://magicmind.com//jen and use code Jen at checkout. Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com http://airdoctorpro.com/ and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. To learn more about Ebenezer Samuel: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ebenezersamuel23/https://www.instagram.com/ebenezersamuel23/ Articles -https://www.menshealth.com/author/217286/ebenezer-samuel/ Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hi guys, this is Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crash it.

• 0:06Jen Cohen?

  Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle Podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up.

• 0:29Jen Cohen?

  Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor Therasage. Their Trillight panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go. And I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammations in places in my body where honestly I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach cramps, shoulder, ankle. Red light therapy is my go-to. Plus, it also has amazing anti-aging benefits, including reducing signs of fine lines and wrinkles on your face, which I also use it for.

• 1:12Jen Cohen?

  I personally use Therasage Trillight everywhere and all the time. It's small, it's affordable, it's portable, and it's really effective. Head over to therasage.com right now and use code BBOULDS for 15% off. This code will work site-wide. Again, head over to therasage, T-H-E-R-A-S-A-G-E.com and use code BBOULDS for 15% off any of their products.

• 1:52Jen Cohen?

  It's not about what quote-unquote diet you're following.

• 1:56Jen Cohen?

  It's about, again, what I said, and that's why if I were sitting where you were and you were interviewing me, I would say that it does make a difference about the amount you eat.

• 2:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:08Jen Cohen?

  Not so mu- and what you eat is what I would say. Not exactly, not, not necessarily the time you're eating it and all that other stuff that goes with it.

• 2:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, like all of the, the, the time you're eating it has like, I, I think bodybuilders do, bodybuilders do multiple meals.

• 2:27Jen Cohen?

  Right, what I'm saying, the time, like, if you don't eat until noon, or whatever I'm saying. That I think the more that, that, those are also based on your body can't break down food, like we, we, we overeat and therefore we're stuck with all this food in us because we're not, we're not digesting it because we're eating so much of it. So like having enough time to digest your food is really good for your system.

• 2:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's interesting because to, to bring the conversation, um, full circle, that's like intermittent fasting is part of where you get the whole calories in, calories out idea. Cause it's like, oh, I'm gonna take my calorie, I'm gonna take all my calories in like two, in like two meals spaced in whatever it is, four hours, right?

• 3:06Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, four. I think eight's a beginning. I think eight for beginners, yeah, or most people.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I.

• 3:12Jen Cohen?

  I think.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  I, I believe it, I believe it's eight, you're, but, but, but, but that, and so that gets reduced to calories in. I think, I think calories in, calories out was a very me, it's like a well-meaning idea. And it was basically the way people are telling you to eat is so complicated. So it's like, let's just reduce it to this. But then, but then we get so reductive with it that it kind of, it, it becomes counterproductive in some way.

• 3:38Jen Cohen?

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

• 3:50Jen Cohen?

  Uh feel better and look better. What would be in your opinion?

• 3:54Speaker 03

  Um, how I I would say, I would say you wanna have like, like four meals a day, right? And each meal, you wanna aim for twenty grams of protein, okay, which is and try to get this from a natural source. Make sure you get something green on your plate, right? And then get, you know, three to four ounces of a carb. And if you do that, right? You and and then you wanna have, you wanna ideally have some kind of water on the side. Um, and if you do that, um.

• 4:26Jen Cohen?

  Not some kind of water. I had this one.

• 4:29Jen Cohen?

  BLK water.

• 4:30Speaker 03

  BLK water, but BLK and BLK water is actually perfect, right? Um, so I think you want to, I think if you do that, it checks a lot of boxes. Um, and then, and then, and again, there's a variety in there, right? Because your twenty grams of protein can be eggs or chicken or fish, right? Um, and your your green vegetable can be something different every time. You're checking a lot of boxes in terms of getting fiber in your system, which is really good. Um, you're checking a lot of boxes with um with the protein which your body needs.

• 4:58Jen Cohen?

  We're not eating enough fiber, though, as a society, as a, as a. So, and how do we, I mean, we should up that for sure.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it it's interesting because I think we've come, I think we've come a long way in the fiber conversation just and it's funny because I love white rice. Um, which is, I I I can't.

• 5:16Jen Cohen?

  I know, I've seen you had, you've had it like five times since we've been here.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  I mean, to to be fair, I don't know if they have brown, they probably have brown rice. I probably could ask for it. I've kind of enjoyed just getting away from brown rice. But um, I think.

• 5:27Jen Cohen?

  By the way, white rice must be better than brown rice. Did you know that?

• 5:30Speaker 03

  I haven't heard this.

• 5:31Jen Cohen?

  Oh, it's a, it's a new attempt. You should Google it. You should do a story on it. I have heard that. That there's a whole myth about brown rice versus white rice.

• 5:44Jen Cohen?

  I don't remember what the myth exactly is if I would, I can Google it right now and but I I had someone on here recently who taught who told me about this and it's pretty amazing. Actually, I'm gonna, I'm gonna Google it. White rice versus uh brown rice. I was a brown rice person too.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  I've heard, I've heard, I have heard the thing that brown rice is overrated compared to to white rice. Like it's not markedly better.

• 6:13Jen Cohen?

  It's not markedly better. It's not.

• 6:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, white rice tastes so much better too. I'm also Asian, so I'm kind of like.

• 6:19Jen Cohen?

  I know. Well, I was gonna say, I mean, you're you're naturally gonna probably live to one hundred and seventy seven because of just all the rice you're eating. But hold on, brown rice versus uh white rice. Okay, if you look at the, if you look at the breakdown, it's actually the fiber content in bright brown rice is like minusculely higher. But yeah, it's basically a little bit higher um like between one gram and two grams more fiber. Um, and then

• 6:55Jen Cohen?

  I'm not finding it properly right now. I'm gonna, I'm gonna look it up and then get back to you on that. But from what I heard, it's not that much different. White rice is, see again, there's another, I think what happens is something gets traction and then everyone just follows the, you know, follows that. And this be happening right now with the, I heard something about white rice and now I'm following that whole thing. So don't take my word for it. I think I I could have sworn I heard someone mention that to me and I and they were like a doc, they were a leading nutritionist. So um I'll try to find that information.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  But so so that, but that's uh that's again why I'm big into like, it's like, it's like, if you, if you kind of loosely follow, if everybody loosely followed what I'm saying, right? They're covered, but choose your own carb. Don't let, don't let um, don't let the internet choose it for you.

• 7:44Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 7:44Speaker 03

  Choose your own, choose your own mixed vegetable.

• 7:47Jen Cohen?

  Like a sweet potato versus a white potato.

• 7:49Speaker 03

  It's like, it's like.

• 7:50Jen Cohen?

  Like a russet potato.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like at a high level, if you're like. Planning to try out for like, you know.

• 7:58Jen Cohen?

  Or like a competition or something, exactly.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  But then that matters.

• 8:01Jen Cohen?

  Right. So for the ever average person who wants to like look a little bit more lean and healthy and fit. Have white rice or brown rice. It's not gonna make it so nominally different. It's not, it doesn't make make a difference. Okay, let's talk about aging and muscle, like keeping, how do we do this and do it well? Cause we do break down more muscle as we age. So how do we?

• 8:25Speaker 03

  So, so, and that that's interesting, because the the older we get, the more precise we have to get with all uh with all this stuff. Like the healthier we have to eat. And yeah, I mean, so isn't uh building muscle when we're older? Like, I believe after forty, especially for men, um sarcopenia becomes like a major issue. I think the the two things, the two things we wanna do, um are, or there are three things we wanna do. First off. Um, and this is, this is kind of one of those things we're told, and it we're told by kind of modern fitness, right? Is you've got to do the um, the kind of big exercises, right? You have to lift heavy, okay?

• 9:03Speaker 03

  And older people should definitely try to lift heavy. I think every human on the planet should work up to being able to deadlift like their body weight. Plus at least fifty pounds, um and it's not unattainable, right? And you have to take your time to work up there. So I think older, older people shouldn't be afraid to lift heavy. They should do that um at least twice a week.

• 9:25Jen Cohen?

  Well, you say heavy though, right? Like, the other, the fear is that. Especially as you get older, like you're gonna pull your, put your back out, or you're gonna hurt, you're gonna injure yourself for like inju- injury prevention.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:39Jen Cohen?

  Um, so you're saying that shouldn't be something that we focus on?

• 9:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I I I think um, I think two things. One, I think for a lot of.

• 9:48Jen Cohen?

  Or do challenging stuff.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, exa- it it's mainly like challenge yourself, like get working up to that heavy part. But working, working up to say your, your body weight plus fifty pounds and then deadlift, you, you might wanna train you for that, right? Um, you want somebody around who can kind of help you um master your form. Or you wanna like watch like a clinic I'll give on the list online with you in like three weeks, right? Um, but um, I just, I just think, don't be afraid of, of heavier weights, right? And you, and the key is like, is the rep scheme, right? Is um, like, it's, it's like you learn, you learn with leg or weights, how to, how to kind of get your phone down. But then you, you've got like at some point, you want to um, challenge yourself, right? Um, and you're gonna keep the reps low, you're gonna do like one or two reps.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  And that's fine. I think a lot of people get caught up in, again, more work, right? So it's like, oh, I'm gonna do sets of like twelve and fifteen reps. I'm gonna tone, you know? Except Tony really doesn't, is kind, Tony doesn't really exist, right? And it's like, again.

• 10:50Jen Cohen?

  Don't talk about that. I think people don't really, you and I may think that, but most people don't realize that. So why don't you talk about that?

• 10:56Speaker 03

  I, I don't.

• 10:57Jen Cohen?

  Called toning myth. Is that, that's a myth.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, I honestly don't even, I barely even know what the word means, right? It's not, it's not, and it's, it's funny because when you read um.

• 11:06Jen Cohen?

  Women's magazines.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  Uh, do women's magazines say it? I don't read.

• 11:10Jen Cohen?

  That's all they say is like, you know, tone your, you know, upper body, to- toning your arms. The word tone or toning is like synonymous with uh, you know, abs. You know what I mean? Like it's a very common word.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  It's interesting because we, because we literally, I'm, I'm actually trying to think back to the last time I used it in men's health. I've been in men's health for four and a half years now, and the answer is never. Yeah.

• 11:39Jen Cohen?

  Cause women use the word Tony. I don't think men ever use the word toning.

• 11:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it, it, it's, it's almost like, I feel like it got caught up in, in, in societal kind of, you, it. Because of um, because of that whole, oh, well, well, we can't say, we can't say build muscle to women, right? And we can, and, and bulking freaks them out, right? So here, we're gonna get them lifting weights because it's gonna tone them, whatever. I don't, I, I, I honestly don't know what the word means.

• 12:05Jen Cohen?

  Uh, it means like.

• 12:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:07Jen Cohen?

  Not, it kind of like. It's like, again, the opposite of flabby would be toned, I guess. I don't know. These are all like, this is exactly my point. And that's why I wanted to talk to you and have you on is because I think so much of of everything is all marketing.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:23Jen Cohen?

  And uh branding and it not, it's not necessarily accurate or true.

• 12:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:30Jen Cohen?

  It's just what we've like been conditioned to think because we see it and hear about it all the time. And especially with social media and every ding dong now on social media is is a fitness expert, which is a problem.

• 12:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:44Jen Cohen?

  Because most people are getting paid for everything that they're doing or um or they have no clue what they're doing. So either option's terrible. So having someone who's a trusted resource like you, who actually takes it super seriously and like learns about this constantly is, I think, a really important important thing to to talk about because

• 13:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:08Jen Cohen?

  you get like, you get like analysis paralysis and overwhelmed at all the different information that's out there.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I I I think that is what that is what it, yeah, you're right. It is so much kind of like marketing and and spin and it gets it gets confusing for people. That's why.

• 13:24Jen Cohen?

  I'm confused. This is what I do for a living practically. You know what I mean? I don't even know anymore. I'm like, I'm like, I don't know. Maybe that maybe I like the brown rice, white rice thing.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:32Jen Cohen?

  I'm even confused because I'm like, okay, well, I mean, this trusted resource told me and then I look and now I can't find it. But then I I'm sure if I I don't have the time right this second, but you if you do go around long enough for anything, you can back up that that that uh resource, right?

• 13:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, e- exactly. Yeah, because the internet, the internet is a is a treasure trove of confirmation bias, which is.

• 13:55Jen Cohen?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a toning, toning is, but I think toning is like, toning is like the woman way and don't take that the wrong way. But it's kind of.

• 14:03Jen Cohen?

  Get off my podcast. I'm just joking.

• 14:05Speaker 03

  It's it's, I mean, it sounds like it's in all the women's magazines. So it's it's basically like, because I feel like we, I feel like guys try to like cut, rip, shred. It's basically the equivalent to that.

• 14:13Jen Cohen?

  It is cut, ripped. Okay, so for guys, it's cut, rip, shred, filth.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:18Jen Cohen?

  Women, it's tone.

• 14:21Speaker 03

  What else?

• 14:23Jen Cohen?

  Um, chisel, maybe?

• 14:26Speaker 03

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

• 14:27Jen Cohen?

  Tone.

• 14:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:29Jen Cohen?

  Tone or burn.

• 14:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:32Jen Cohen?

  Burn, burn's a big one.

• 14:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, we are.

• 14:35Jen Cohen?

  Like burn fat, tone your midsection.

• 14:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, so they're like, it's like, yeah, yeah, the guy terms, if you will, are just edgier versions.

• 14:45Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it's.

• 14:46Jen Cohen?

  But the men's magazines do have way better workouts that are more effective. I will say that. That's why, you know, I have you here today because i- i- the truth of the matter is, I do know enough to know that lift, women are kind of like, kind of shown and taught to be lifting lightweight, very lightweight and they actually, or no weight, and they believe that's actually going to get them to their goal. When the truth of the matter is, you do need to lift heavy and heavier and challenge yourself because that's how you get results.