Your Best Year Yet: 3 Life-Changing Fitness Hacks to Ignite Your 2024 Transformation

Thomas DeLauer is a Nutritionist and Expert in Diet, Cognitive Nutrition and Performance. He is motivated by a guiding ethos of integrated optimization: if you perform better, so does the world. Thomas reaches more than 15 million viewers monthly (on average) through his Youtube channel, where he translates experience and learning from his own health transformation utilizing intermittent fasting and other forms of nutrition into actionable steps for his dedicated community of 2.85 million subscribers. Nick Bare, Founder of Bare Performance Nutrition, shares his inspiring journey and valuable insights on how to optimize your physical performance. You will learn how to fuel your body for success, unlock your full potential, and achieve greatness in your fitness journey. Ethan Suplee, renowned actor and podcast host shares how he lost 250+ pounds. Ethan’s transformation story from struggling with obesity to achieving remarkable weight loss is incredible. Ethan also shares advice for parents on communicating about food and a healthy lifestyle with their children. In this episode you will learnSustainable workout routines that will change the way you think about daily exercise.3 non-negotiables you should have in your morning routine. How having routines can help you set better goals. Why you should be wanting to prove yourself right instead of proving others wrong. The easy secret to help yourself stay more consistent. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1549For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960Links to full episodes below:Thomas DeLauer - https://link.chtbl.com/1389-podNick Bare - https://link.chtbl.com/1387-guestEthan Suplee - https://link.chtbl.com/1025-guest Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Thomas DeLauer?

  If I inflicted pain upon myself and it was positive pain for a workout, I could flip this kinesthetic switch. I called it my pain switch and I would flip that pain switch. I can now push it harder. I realize why can't I apply that same thing to nutrition? This is an opportunity, an opportunity to move more, an opportunity to move tomorrow. And that's not having this transactional relationship again, because what you don't want to do is say,

• 0:19Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:44Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to this special masterclass. We brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in.

• 1:01Lewis Howes?

  For people that don't have that type of discipline, how can they be consistent on the nutritional intake over a lifetime? And make it their lifestyle and not just a diet?

• 1:14Thomas DeLauer?

  Yeah, I mean, it's such a basic, good question that people always want to bring it back to like tracking and things like that. I think that that doesn't, that that works, tracking works, but you're talking about it at a deeper level, right? Because I experienced the same thing. I can have the most steadfast meditator monk that I'm talking to, and they will still battle with this, right?

• 1:38Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:39Thomas DeLauer?

  And it's some to the point where we have so much things, so many things that are just available at our fingertips that are just

• 1:46Lewis Howes?

  Temptations.

• 1:46Thomas DeLauer?

  Not in alignment with how we've continued to evolve as, you know, it's like we just... Technology and food production and the food industry is growing at an exponentially faster rate than how we are changing, right? So we have these things that are available that just simply shouldn't, and outside of putting yourself in a locker and like away from these foods, a total echo chamber, like you are fighting temptation all the time. And we have to recognize that there's only so much power in your prefrontal cortex. There's only so much-

• 2:16Lewis Howes?

  So much willpower, yeah.

• 2:17Thomas DeLauer?

  Like it's a finite resource. So with that, you have to kind of change your way of thinking. And the way that, like this occurred to me like three years ago or so, when I had, I had a really, really bad like sinus infection. And I've always had them kind of recurring sinus infections ever since I was little. But I had one that was really bad and I couldn't taste or smell for like two months, right? And that was something where I realized like, why am I still craving these certain foods? I can't even taste them, right? And it was like this aha moment where I'm like, this is clearly a mental thing because something sweet hits your taste buds, it's not just the taste of it, it's what it's doing in the brain. So changing your relationship with food, changing your relationship with struggle has been a very big thing, right? So for me, I always had this kinesthetic awareness thing with my workouts, right?

• 3:02Thomas DeLauer?

  With workouts, it was like if I inflicted pain upon myself and it was positive pain for a workout, I could flip this kinesthetic switch that was like, I called it my pain switch and I would flip that pain switch and you know, as a, as an athlete, like that's sometimes just what you do and it happens inadvertently. Sometimes you visualize it, but visualization is huge. So for me, I'd visualize flipping the pain switch. The switch is off, I can now push it harder and push it past my normal aerobic capacity, anaerobic, whatever. I realized, why can't I apply that same thing to nutrition without becoming robotic, but becoming very, very aware? And so I've changed my relationship with how food makes me feel. So like, and that's taken a lot of work.

• 3:40Lewis Howes?

  What do you say to yourself? What's the conversation, the inner dialogue, the, the mental strategy you use to do that?

• 3:48Thomas DeLauer?

  As simple as it sounds, whenever I would eat something for about two or three months, I would simply say like, food is fuel. Food is fuel. And that sounds very, because you don't want to take the fun out of it. I still love food, right? So with, when you do that, but you have to train yourself to believe that- Like, okay, if I'm eating this sugar, that's okay, but remember it's fuel and I should use it. Right? Or if I'm, and that's the thing here. So if I want to eat it, make sure I move my body, go for a 10 minute walk, walk up the stairs, move it a little bit, just get it out. When you change the relationship with food, you're not abstaining, you're, you're changing the reaction. Right? So like. And I should never have a bucket of ice cream and then just sit around. That's, it's just the thing, right? It's like, if you're gonna do it. Eat it in the morning, eat it for breakfast, whatever.

• 4:33Thomas DeLauer?

  And then go move all day. Exactly. It's, so that relationship, I mean, it gets much bigger than that, right? But that relationship with food is everything. And so many of us have a distorted relationship with food. And for me being, I've been on opposite ends of sort of the spectrum, right? Like when I was younger, I was practically, you know, as a runner, I was practically eating disorder category, the other direction. Like I have to be as light as possible. Oh, I don't want to eat that. I don't want to get fat. And then it kind of went the other way. It was almost like masochistic where I'm just like, I don't care. I'm fat already. Let's just go all the way. Okay, now it's kind of like fine, a little bit of that middle ground, but pendulum probably swings much more towards how I was when I was younger. Got to stay lean, got to say this, but I also have recognized that my food, food is still reward.

• 5:18Thomas DeLauer?

  And we were constantly told that food shouldn't be treated as a reward. Don't reward your kids with food. I call on that. The reason is, is because like food has always been a reward. Right? It's always been a reward. You get to hunt and you get the food. Yeah. You go gather, you get some food. Yeah. It's simple, right? It's, what you have to do is you just have to, once again, change the relationship with the feelings attached to food. Recognize that those feelings are there, but do something with them rather than just let them, let them be and consume you. If I am going to go and eat that ice cream, then I'm aware of what that's doing in my body. And I'm not going to let that turn me the other direction and get depressed and go eat more. I'm gonna say, you know what? This is an opportunity, an opportunity to move more, an opportunity to move tomorrow.

• 6:02Thomas DeLauer?

  And that's not having this transactional relationship again, because what you don't want to do is say.

• 6:08Thomas DeLauer?

  I'm gonna eat some pie and now I'm gonna punish myself by going on the treadmill. That's the exact wrong thing to do, right? But you do say, okay, I'm gonna eat this pie. Great, I've got full glycogen tanks. I'm gonna go work out. I'm gonna get the best work out of my life. Having kids has really made this apparent. Because kids are constantly, I want a snack, I want a snack. It's like they have five stomachs, I don't understand that. And like, how do you, like, if they're reaching for like a Lara bar or something that I would still consider healthy, but has a decent amount of sugar from dates and stuff, right? Like, they, kids just crave these things. And how do I teach them that you, yeah, you can eat that, but we should really get out and move? You know? And you know, it's kind of like, how I translate it to them is, hey, it's fun to feel good. It's fun to feel good, right?

• 6:52Thomas DeLauer?

  Like, you've got this energy from that bar, doesn't that feel good? Like, let's, let's get out and let's use that energy. Let's go have fun. And now it's to the point where my kids are like, can I have a Lara bar? I wanna go outside and play. I'm like, this is awesome, like, without actually, like, molding them. And in a year's way, I've helped them, like, light a spark to understand that, like, when they eat this, and at a young subconscious level in their brain, it's probably forming something that's beyond what we even know in research, where maybe they taste something sweet and now they naturally wanna move. Versus saying like, oh, shame, guilt, I shouldn't have eaten this, it's terrible. No, we're gonna go have fun, we're gonna play. And, but I teach them that with, not just sugar, I teach them that with, with fats too, because I think it's also fundamental to learn that all food is fuel.

• 7:37Thomas DeLauer?

  Yes. But be in touch with how it makes you feel. So, how I retain that discipline is the exact same way. It's like, how do I feel? What did, what do I feel after I eat this? Did I feel crappy? Okay, well, then that's probably a pretty good articulation of what that's doing in my body. And with that, it's, it's really turned into this intuitive eating. And that's like, I guess, I mean, it's a great segue to talk about how fasting has worked, right? Because fasting has allowed me to have more flexibility with my diet in the confines of still, like, appropriate discipline. Because I can flip that switch on and off a lot easier. Fasting, not fasting. Fasting, not fasting.

• 8:15Lewis Howes?

  And you're one of the, there's a few things I want to talk about here before I get into fasting. One is the mantra, it sounds like you had the mental switch, the mantra of food is fuel. So is that something you would think about right before you were making a decision of what to eat?

• 8:30Thomas DeLauer?

  No.

• 8:31Lewis Howes?

  You'd see something?

• 8:31Thomas DeLauer?

  Usually while eating it.

• 8:33Lewis Howes?

  While eating it. So it wasn't helping you make a decision of like, okay, here's a candy bar. Am I going to decide this is, is this going to help me and fuel me in a positive way or a negative fuel?

• 8:43Thomas DeLauer?

  That's too willpower-y. That's too, that takes too much energy.

• 8:45Lewis Howes?

  You would still eat the candy bar if you needed, or if you did?

• 8:48Thomas DeLauer?

  While, while, yes. And granted, this was happening three, three and a half years ago. So candy bars weren't really in the equation anymore.

• 8:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:55Thomas DeLauer?

  But that being said-

• 8:57Lewis Howes?

  Because of an apple or whatever.

• 8:58Thomas DeLauer?

  Yeah, or something like, because I would still crave fruit or, you know, whatever. But yes, exactly. It's like while I'm consuming it, it's like really trying to teach my body and understand like this visualization. You know the power of visualization, obviously, just yourself and the guests you've had on. It's like that visualization with eating something can be just as powerful.

• 9:17Lewis Howes?

  So you would say this as you're having a bite of the apple or whatever it might be, be having an internal conversation, food is fuel, and then having a positive relationship with something that might be looked at as negative before. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

• 9:31Thomas DeLauer?

  Precisely, yep.

• 9:32Lewis Howes?

  And training your body to appreciate the food and to say, okay, I'm going to go act and move my body after I eat this and it's going to help me, it's not going to hurt me, and I don't need to be shameful about eating this. Is that kind of the process?

• 9:44Thomas DeLauer?

  Yep.

• 9:45Lewis Howes?

  Because a lot of people that eat something and they, they feel good because it tastes good, then they feel shameful.

• 9:50Thomas DeLauer?

  Yes.

• 9:51Lewis Howes?

  And that doesn't help them because then they have more of that to have the good feeling and then feel shame again. And the cycle continues.

• 9:57Thomas DeLauer?

  Because what is happening here is much different than what's happening here.

• 10:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:01Thomas DeLauer?

  And, you know, in our world, we get this instant gratification from food, especially like the translation of, I see a direct correlation with my time scrolling social media and my addiction to my phone, direct line item correlation to how much I crave snacking and things like that. It's the same firing, you know, right? It's like that same dopamine itch that needs to be scratched. And just in the same way I get addicted to looking at my phone or checking my email, that usually correlates with how much my addiction to food is at that point in time. But like you don't just say like, I am going to like resist the urge to check my email. I'm going to resist the urge to check my email. Sometimes it takes like, what is the response? Like a lot of times, you know, you'll, you'll check your email first thing in the morning.

• 10:46Thomas DeLauer?

  You'll get a negative email and you, it hits you then you're like, this is how I'm starting my day? Like this is what I'm gonna do? Like screw that. And that's your catalyst. But like with food, you eat a Snickers bar and it feels so good up here. You feel like you're doing the right thing.

• 10:59Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 11:00Thomas DeLauer?

  Everything is telling you in that immediate moment that this was a good decision, Louis. Like you did the right thing.

• 11:06Lewis Howes?

  Your belly afterwards is like, oh, why is it digesting weird? And now I feel like lethargic and yeah.

• 11:11Thomas DeLauer?

  And you go out and you move and you try to do something with it. And yeah, you're going to have some fuel, but you're going to be like, you know what? It's crazy enough. That didn't feel as good as when I had that apple. And you start creating this internal like checks and balances, if you want to call it that.

• 11:27Lewis Howes?

  When was the moment that was the make or break moment for you? That you said enough is enough or never again, or I gotta start this journey the real way? Like I'm going all in. When was that moment?

• 11:38Ethan Suplee?

  There was a period in 2002. I, I had fallen in love with this girl when I was 16 and we were really, really good friends. She says we were best friends and she had zero interest in me romantically.

• 11:53Lewis Howes?

  You were in the friend zone.

• 11:54Ethan Suplee?

  I was in the friend zone. Fine.

• 11:57Lewis Howes?

  16 years old.

• 11:58Ethan Suplee?

  16 years old.

• 11:59Lewis Howes?

  What was your weight like then?

• 12:01Ethan Suplee?

  I was heavy, but I wasn't quite as heavy as I had become.

• 12:04Lewis Howes?

  200, 250, 300?

• 12:06Ethan Suplee?

  You know, I wasn't, even then it's like I wasn't getting on scales often. I certainly wasn't 500 pounds. I actually have a picture of us from when we were 16 and we were hanging out. And I'm a heavy guy, but I'm not morbidly obese. We became romantic in.

• 12:27Ethan Suplee?

  Two thousand and two and and it there was just a moment where I was like, oh, if I'm gonna make this work, if if this really has a shot at longevity, I gotta change because she likes to do stuff like take a hike and spend the day at the beach and go to museums and I can't do that, you know. So that was kind of it. It was like how I want I want to have this relationship with her. So I must change. It was a bizarre kind of counterintuitive conversation that I had with her too, because having it, I was scared like if I have this conversation,

• 13:08Ethan Suplee?

  she'll know how that I'm overweight, like that I'm obese as as if

• 13:14Lewis Howes?

  She didn't know.

• 13:15Ethan Suplee?

  As if she didn't know. It was like this thing. If I show her that this is something I want to change, not just like this masculine thing of like I'm showing weakness. It wasn't that. It was, this is the hardest. This is this thing is so unconfrontable. I never think about it. I I I push it away. It's it's almost become something subconscious. So if I bring it to the forefront and I say, let's address this. That's a very scary and narrow path to walk because failure, I I I figure life is failure at that point, you know.

• 13:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So that was two thousand and two. Is did you start going all in? Was it dabbling a little bit? And kind of lost weight and went back off the wagon? What was that like for the next eighteen years till now?

• 14:04Ethan Suplee?

  I went all in and I'm a I'm a sober guy too. So I went all in in a very uh in a similar fashion to achieving sobriety, which was admit that I'm powerless and turn my problem over to somebody else and go like, I am incapable of figuring this out right now. I'm gonna do exactly what you say until we get to the point that I can take over. And she was like, great, here's what you're gonna do. I've went and found a guy who has a liquid diet. You can do it for up to two months. Why don't you do that? You don't have to do it for two months. You can do it for one month. You can do it for two. Let's see how this goes and I crushed that.

• 14:49Lewis Howes?

  Two months liquid diet.

• 14:50Ethan Suplee?

  Eighty pounds.

• 14:52Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 14:52Ethan Suplee?

  Two months.

• 14:53Lewis Howes?

  This is not like drinking cokes all day liquid diet.

• 14:55Ethan Suplee?

  No.

• 14:56Lewis Howes?

  No sugar liquid diet.

• 14:58Ethan Suplee?

  This is like, I mean, the calories were so low. It was like three weird protein shakes with some green powder and a ton of supplements that were, I think, mostly fiber and some vitamins and as much water as I could drink and that's it.

• 15:14Lewis Howes?

  Eighty pounds, two months.

• 15:15Ethan Suplee?

  Eighty pounds.

• 15:16Lewis Howes?

  But that's still in the 400 zone.

• 15:18Ethan Suplee?

  Yeah, but.

• 15:19Lewis Howes?

  But you must.

• 15:19Ethan Suplee?

  I will say this. Of all the weight I've gained and lost, I never dipped back into those 80 pounds. Never once. So that, that I, it was such a prize that I've never gotten close to like back into that zone and I followed that up with, um, I don't even know what the diet's called. It might've been like a blood type diet or something and it was kind of on that where I realized like, well, I'm gonna have to try different diets. And I tried basically every diet that exists.

• 15:55Lewis Howes?

  What worked the best for you?

• 15:57Ethan Suplee?

  The easiest thing was keto.

• 16:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:01Ethan Suplee?

  Because I just didn't have to think about anything.

• 16:03Lewis Howes?

  Eat lots of meat, it just eliminates certain things and eat as kind of as much as you want of other stuff, right?

• 16:08Ethan Suplee?

  Yeah, and I think, and that worked to a degree. As I had less and less weight to lose, I found that I had to like mess around with what I was eating. Cause I, you know, when I first started, it was like, you can eat bacon and Swiss cheese all day long. Like, okay, well, that's easy. And I, I would and I'd lose weight and I'd be like, this is a magical diet. I'm putting mayonnaise on everything and I'm losing weight. How is this possible? You know, my little salad would have four cups of salad dressing on it. And, you know, no sugar, but like a ton of fat.

• 16:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:43Ethan Suplee?

  And that did work and I was able to do it and it was super easy for traveling. You just rip the bread off stuff and eat steaks and, you know, it's, it's actually, I think, uh, designed to be easy to get around the world and eat this way.

• 17:00Ethan Suplee?

  Once I got really close to, there were, there were two periods. There was a period in 2012 where I was super into cycling and I got really, really much smaller than I am now.

• 17:12Lewis Howes?

  Was it like 190 or something or 1?

• 17:13Ethan Suplee?

  I was just about 200, but that's tiny for me. And you know, you think about 200, that's still, you're a big dude, but that was really, really small for me. And I just know, noticed that if I was eating only fat, I was suffering on the bicycle. Like I wasn't as efficient on the bicycle. So some sugars, gels.

• 17:37Lewis Howes?

  Carbs, yeah.

• 17:37Ethan Suplee?

  Some carbs entered my diet and like I would fly up hills, you know, which was really cool. Then I had a bad accident. My wife told me that I wasn't ever gonna make a living riding a bike. You know, I thought we were rich and that I could retire and just ride my bike at like 35 years old forever. That was not the case. She said I had to go work again. So I went back to acting and the bike kind of fell away and I started doing like CrossFit and rowing machines. I was, I could crush a full marathon on a rowing machine, no problem. And then at some point I was kind of having trouble finding

• 18:20Ethan Suplee?

  work and kept hearing like, well, you're not the big guy, the heavy lovable guy anymore. So there was a point where I was like, okay, I'm just gonna eat and lift weights and see what happens. And I ate whatever I wanted for about a year and lifted weights and got pretty near 400 pounds again.

• 18:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:39Ethan Suplee?

  Yeah.

• 18:39Lewis Howes?

  You gained 200 pounds within a year?

• 18:43Ethan Suplee?

  Yeah.

• 18:43Lewis Howes?

  Close.

• 18:44Ethan Suplee?

  Well, no, it was really from like 2003 years. It was three years. Yeah.

• 18:49Lewis Howes?

  Now, how long were you, how long did you pause from acting?

• 18:53Ethan Suplee?

  Two thousand ten and pause is not quite the right word. I did a few pilots that didn't get picked on.

• 19:01Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 19:02Ethan Suplee?

  Um, but I was putting no effort into it. It was like if they called me and said, please come do our pilot, I would do it.

• 19:09Lewis Howes?

  Right. But I'm not going on auditions, you're not.

• 19:11Ethan Suplee?

  No, I was really just riding my bike.

• 19:13Lewis Howes?

  When you've been in, how many movies you've been in and TV shows?

• 19:16Ethan Suplee?

  I've never counted. I actually have no idea.

• 19:18Lewis Howes?

  Fifty plus, you think?

• 19:19Ethan Suplee?

  Yeah.

• 19:19Lewis Howes?

  At least, right?

• 19:20Ethan Suplee?

  Yeah.

• 19:20Lewis Howes?

  When you've been in that many movies or shows, do you have to audition anymore?

• 19:24Ethan Suplee?

  Yeah, sure.

• 19:25Lewis Howes?

  You still have to audition?

• 19:26Ethan Suplee?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 19:28Lewis Howes?

  Really? Even if they've seen all your work, they know what you can do?

• 19:32Ethan Suplee?

  Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's just a matter of the director wanting to see if you're exactly what he wants for this specific project. Or now that I'm physically different, what is that gonna look like, you know? But yeah, yeah, I still have to audition.

• 19:50Lewis Howes?

  What was the, when you look back, what do you think the, the thing is that drew you to eating as a, as a, a bad habit? Or an addiction or a mind numbing process that was a part of your life for so long? Was there a number of events? Was there moments? Was there something that connected you to that?

• 20:12Ethan Suplee?

  I've tried to do like self psychoanalysis on this. And I get to a, a point where I'm five years old, I go to visit my grandparents in Vermont and their reaction to me. And if I look at a picture of myself as at five years old today, I see just like a normal, healthy kid with maybe some chubby cheeks, right? Their reaction to me was like, oh my God, what are your parents doing to you? You, you have gone to crap, right? This is out of hand. We need to get this under control. And my favorite food was lasagna, which my grandpa would always make me, yeah. And he had it cooking as I arrived, I could smell it.

• 20:57Ethan Suplee?

  And I'm there visiting them for the first time without my mom or dad in Vermont, like, super excited. Their reaction is this, and then they basically were like, we're not, you can't have a second helping of lasagna. So in that day. Was the first time that I snuck food and it was clearing the table and eating food off their

• 21:19Lewis Howes?

  At the same time, like clearing it and like

• 21:21Ethan Suplee?

  Yeah, just stuffing in a few bites because I was not allowed to like I reached for a second helping and got my hand patted like

• 21:27Lewis Howes?

  At five?

• 21:28Ethan Suplee?

  Yeah, that's off limits. You you eat what we tell you to do and then the next day they weighed me first thing in the morning, which I've never been on a scale before and I'm being weighed and then it was like, okay, we're going on a on a on a one mile walk that is for your benefit and this did a number of things. It developed the sneaking food habit. It developed the habit of wanting to eat privately and and the idea that people witnessing me eating was not good. And it also created a weird barrier to me just naturally wanting to be outside and active

• 22:09Ethan Suplee?

  because at five I was very active, running around. But when it was enforced, when it was this point of like

• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  A punishment almost.

• 22:18Ethan Suplee?

  Yeah, this is we're not consulting how willing you are to do this. We're not saying, is there something you'd like to do outside? We're saying you must go march on this. It was like a mile to their mailbox and a mile back and like this is not for fun. This is for because you have gotten so overweight. That really pushed the idea of physical activity into another punishment type thing where I just didn't want to do it anymore. So it was kind of this wild confluence of um new mental structures that I built where it was like, well, I'm gonna sneak food now and I'm gonna not do activities.

• 23:04Lewis Howes?

  How insecure were you about your weight when you got older and started recognizing it or seeing maybe someone make fun of you or realizing like, oh, I can't go on a hike with my my girlfriend or my friends and do these certain activities? Did you feel insecure about it ever? Or was it more of just this is who you are?

• 23:21Ethan Suplee?

  I definitely felt insecure about it. I also got into a lot of fights as a kid and and was like, you know, There were a few times in elementary school where like some preschooler would say like, "Wow, look how fat he is." And that, I'm obviously wasn't gonna fight a little preschooler and you come to learn like, "Well, avoid little kids at all costs because they just say, they see something and they just talk about it." And I didn't, that made me terribly uncomfortable. But if like another ten-year-old said something like that to me, we would just have a fight. And then people would know like, "Oh, he's like not a nice guy." In that circumstance, we're not gonna say that to him, you know?

• 24:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So, how did you get into acting and being such a successful actor? While also having this kind of insecurity or knew that you stood out in a different way than most of the other actors in Hollywood?

• 24:19Ethan Suplee?

  There was like, uh, I, in school, there were, I didn't really like school either. I didn't, I grew to really dislike anything done from a point of authoritarianism. It just was not for me. So if it's like you're going on a diet, or you have to do sports, or you have to study, I was not into it. Which is really bizarre because now I love nothing more than a diet I find for myself and studying something I'm interested in and finding a sport to be interested. Like I can become obsessive about these things and do them a hundred and ten percent if it's my own determination. But from a point of authority, it just didn't fly.

• 25:02Ethan Suplee?

  And I noticed a couple of things. I was never like a class clown, but we had an actor in my school. And so much more attention was paid to the fact that he was an actor than any of his physical attributes, any of his other accomplishments in school. It was like this, this distraction. This like, here's who this person is, but like, here's this weird identity that actually has nothing to do with him, that we're all gonna focus on that. And, and there was something kind of magical about that, like, I can't- Like kill people with jokes. That's just not what I do. But what if I had that too?

• 25:41Lewis Howes?

  You're not super sexy and attractive with a six pack?

• 25:44Ethan Suplee?

  Yeah, but I could create this other identity that would distract people from how fat I am and talking about that or poking fun at me or even wanting to talk to me about it. Cause like I'll just show them this. What if I do this? So there was, and it got you out of school. Cause this dude would leave school for weeks at a time and go hang out on sets and like, guess what's on a set? Craft services on a set.

• 26:11Lewis Howes?

  Free food all day.

• 26:12Ethan Suplee?

  And you got a trailer. Like you can fill your pockets with food and go back to your trailer and eat it. Like it's this wonderful place. It was like-

• 26:19Lewis Howes?

  Unlimited food supply.

• 26:20Ethan Suplee?

  Oh my God. And then there was also like always gonna be like some grip who had a prescription to Percocet that you could like give a wink to and you know, like your, and by the way, it always started legitimately. Like my feet hurt, my ankles and my knees hurt. Like these are real things.

• 26:40Lewis Howes?

  You're on set 18 hours a day.

• 26:41Ethan Suplee?

  Standing like, none of it is just irrational.

• 26:49Lewis Howes?

  How do people get to consistency where they're not in blame mode? They're not in beat up mode when they fall off track, when they miss a workout or a meal that they know is healthy for them? And how can they actually make it their identity and a lifestyle? As opposed to something they do once in a while?

• 27:08Speaker 03

  My running coach, his name is Jeff Cunningham. He's based out of Austin. And he has this thing that he says, it's, it's better to be consistently good than occasionally great.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  And you can apply that to, to fitness, to your goals, to your diet.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  Where you see a lot of people fail is they go 180. They decide today's the day, I'm cutting everything out. I'm going, they attach to it, they attach to a, a training style or a diet. Today I'm going all keto.

• 27:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  Today I'm going all carnivore. Today I'm going vegan. Today I'm just doing CrossFit. Today I'm just training for a marathon. They eliminate everything else they were doing that was possibly working for them. Because they flip it 180, they go all in on something. And then they realize it's not sustainable.

• 28:01Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 28:01Speaker 03

  They burn out. They don't enjoy it. There's no passion. There's no fun.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  So how do you become consistently good rather than occasionally great? Maybe, maybe I flipped 180. I started a new training program and a new diet and I lasted for five days. Those were great five days. But then for the next 360.

• 28:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  Nothing. So how do you become consistently good? It's a small implementation of changes that compound over time. And what happens with consistency is it compounds to become greater and greater and larger and larger greatness. So maybe next week I'm going to add one extra run into my, my week. See how that feels. Maybe next week I'm going to eliminate soda or processed foods. Just see how that feels. I'm going to change my breakfast. I'm going to change what time I go to sleep. You, you slowly start incorporating adding these positive benefits in your life.

• 29:06Speaker 03

  And they become part of your routine over maybe three, six, nine, 12 months, but not overnight.

• 29:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  I think that's where a lot of people miss.

• 29:15Lewis Howes?

  But when people struggle with just being consistent on those things, even if they add like a small thing or eliminate one small thing, why is it so hard for people to be consistent with one thing? Let alone, you know, everything. And how can people learn how to be more consistent? I feel like that's a skill in itself. Just doing something every week for a year is a skill.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  I think part of it is like, what are you choosing to be consistent with? You actually care about what you're doing.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  You know, we just entered a new year and a lot of people will set New Year's resolutions. And I bet you most people that set these resolutions are choosing things that they don't actually want to do or care about. One of the best ways to be consistent is choosing things to be consistent with and about that you can stick to and that you want to. Don't choose running if you hate running. Maybe you like hiking, maybe you like walking, maybe you like going to the gym. Choosing things that you want to be consistent with is the first step, I believe. And then why? Are you doing it to prove others wrong? Are you doing it to be healthy or are you doing it for your family?

• 30:26Speaker 03

  Do you, you know, is your baby due in a month and you want to be a better parent for them? Is that the reason why? I think those are the first steps.

• 30:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  Are we doing things to spin our wheels or are we doing things to be intentional? Because lack of intentionality leads to a repetition of what is easiest and it's easy to be inconsistent.

• 30:48Lewis Howes?

  It's very easy to be inconsistent. What are three skills you wish you would have learned before entering the Army?

• 30:55Speaker 03

  The power of true delegation and elevation. You know, being a doer, wanting to lean in and work on things that you can do because you believe in yourself. It's great for the short term, but it's unsustainable. Now, I've had to learn that in business over a long period of time that there is so much power in delegation and empowerment. When you empower people to do a job, give them more responsibility, more accountability, people thrive. They thrive in empowerment. That is, that is part of building an amazing team, culture and brand.

• 31:39Speaker 03

  Delegation elevation is, is number one. I'd say the second skill is patience.

• 31:48Lewis Howes?

  How much patience do you have?

• 31:50Speaker 03

  How much patience and? How do you handle that in front of yourself and in front of others? Do you have a lot of patience? I do now. You didn't then? In certain things I do now. You know, building a business has taught me a lot about patience. Running marathons has taught me a lot about patience. You're not gonna get there fast. You're gonna take it slow and steady, yeah. You know what's funny is when I first started running marathons,

• 32:19Speaker 03

  if I had a seven mile easy run for that day, I'd go run that seven miles as hard as possible. Running marathons, you can apply to a lot of parts of life.

• 32:30Speaker 03

  And my triathlon coach, her name was Natasha, based on Austin, she would respond to my stories before I started working with her. And she would say, "You're running too fast. You're running too hard. You're not gonna get faster." Interesting. So, I decided to work with her. I said, "Well, help me get to where I wanna be." So she's telling you need to run slower in order to be faster? Right. So we sat down, we talked, and she said, "I understand what you're trying to do. You know, you wanna get from point A to point B as fast as possible. And you would think that running those seven mile training runs as fast as possible will correlate to running a really fast marathon, but it doesn't.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  What you need to do is you need to run below your max aerobic heart rate. You need to run truly easy. You need to be in an aerobic state. You need to run slower to get faster." Why? Because you're building this foundation. You're building a strong foundation that you can build a house upon. If you lay no foundation, no aerobic foundation, you can't get faster. All these track workouts, and these speed workouts, and these tempo workouts, they mean nothing. In a marathon? In a marathon. Because you're not building it on top of this foundation. Twenty-six point two miles is a long time to hold a certain heart rate and a certain pace. Yeah. So, to run slower,

• 33:58Speaker 03

  you lay this foundation, you lay this base, and it's strong. It's bulletproof. Then you build upon it. That is patience. That is having the patience to run slower in order to get faster. You're taking a step back to get two steps forward. You apply that to Everything. Your life, everything. You know, now having a kid and being married and leading a team. Without patience, you're you're struggling. Yeah, I like that. Okay, so patience and a third skill. The third skill.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  It is similar to the two. And it is. That you can go really fast alone.

• 34:43Speaker 03

  But you can go so much further together.

• 34:47Speaker 03

  I learned this by leading a platoon. I learned this in Ranger School. You learn a lot about yourself. You learn a lot about other people.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  You know, a few years ago, I did the Leadville 100 Ultra Marathon in the Rocky Mountains of Leadville, Colorado. It starts above 10,000 feet of elevation. And it's a brutal course. And that's one of those races that.

• 35:14Speaker 03

  Certain people can do by themselves. But me, I needed support. Yeah. I had a crew that would go from checkpoint to checkpoint. And they would tape up my ankles. Wow. They would feed me. They'd fill my water. And we titled that documentary More Than the Miles. You know, those 100 miles in an ultra. Yes, it's going from point A to point B. But what you don't see is what gets you there. It's the support. It's the people. It's the distance that everyone else. Achieves and goes through. That was a pivotal point in my life. To realize, and I think.

• 35:58Speaker 03

  A lot of people realize at some point in their life that. You can go really fast by yourself. And early on in building my business, I had to. I had no choice or option. By yourself as fast as possible gets you to a certain point. But for longevity, for endurance, for durability.

• 36:22Speaker 03

  A group of people will go so much further. Yeah. If, you know, I apply that now to building my family and building my business and team. And it pays off because there's no way I could get my business now on the point it is by myself. Yeah. I got it off the ground. I got it to a certain point, but it's here now because of the people involved. Absolutely. So you said it was more than the miles, is what you said? It's a documentary that we released about. Miles, yeah. It's our team going to Leadville, Colorado. It was a, it was a great experience. That's cool, man. So when did this mantra of go one more come about? It's 2018. And at the time, my wife and I lived downtown Austin.

• 37:05Speaker 03

  And I was on a training run for a marathon. And that day I had to do 18 miles. This is early on marathons. This was not like me current day endurance conditioning. So 18 miles for me, sitting at 230 pounds. Lot. Being this bodybuilder.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  It was a struggle fest. It was a pain cave. Clydesdale's up in here, you know? Yeah. And there was this one day that I was running down by Lady Bird Lake in Austin. Beautiful course, 18 miles on the schedule. And I got to mile 10. And I was like, today's not the day. I'm calling it quits. So I started walking back to our, our house. Today's not the day to do 18. Right. Just not feeling it. Started walking back to the house and I'm, I'm in my head thinking, if I quit on this training run, what else would I quit on in life? The way you do one thing is the way you do everything. So I went back on the course. I finished the run for the day. I went one extra mile. I went 19 that day. Wow.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  And I came back to my, my house, took my hat off because I always wear a hat. And I wrote one more under the bill. Took a picture of it, posted on social media. And I went nuts. People were taking their hat. They were writing one more on the bill. They were taking photos. They were posting it. So in my head, I was thinking, well, this struck a chord with a lot of people. There's something here that is pushing people beyond what they believe they can achieve and do. That turned into Go One More. I got it tattooed on my arm.

• 38:44Lewis Howes?

  Let me see.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. And then now there's hundreds, if not thousands, of other people who have Go One More tattooed on their body.

• 38:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:54Speaker 03

  Because of the message that it creates. And it's not just one more mile on a training run. It's not one more rep in the gym. That doesn't do the, doesn't do it justice. Doesn't describe how powerful it is, but when things get tough and challenging and you hit obstacles and resistance, as you will throughout life, it's pushing past that obstacle. It's pushing through that resistance to get to the other side and realizing how much confidence that brings, how powerful it is. You do that over weeks, months, years. The power and that consistency of going one more, it compounds and puts you well beyond where you ever thought you could be.

• 39:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I just think one of the greatest things that any human can do for themselves is give themselves more belief in themselves. And the way you build more belief is by doing the challenging things and overcoming obstacles and following your mantra of going one more consistently. And when you do that, you feel bulletproof, like you said. You feel unstoppable. Even when there's pain and chaos, you feel like, I can handle this because I've always done one more. So I love that mantra, man.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  Well, the reason I put it on my arm here is it was before going into a big endurance training blocks. Ironmans and marathons.

• 40:12Lewis Howes?

  You gotta look at your watch. You gotta look at it every moment.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  Ultras. Yeah. So I knew, you know, this is the ultimate, for me, ultimate placement of accountability.

• 40:22Lewis Howes?

  Just running it up. There it is. There.

• 40:24Speaker 03

  When things get hard, like, you know, you have no other choice than to push through.

• 40:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Who are the, uh, the two or three most inspiring people uh, in the, you know, mental toughness, physical fitness world right now in your mind? That you're inspired by or you respect or you feel like they're living a, you know, a lifestyle that you really. Can watch and be like, that's inspiring. It pushes me to do one more.

• 40:51Speaker 03

  To be honest, it's it's my team.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  At BPN. You know, what's so powerful about the culture that we've created there is. You know, we're a health and performance supplement company. But everyone's living and breathing the lifestyle and the motto. You know, we went out last weekend. We supported Jordan, my media director's wife. At a ultra marathon in Banderas, Texas. We have another one of our employees, Austin, is doing a hundred mile race in Huntsville, Texas in two weeks. Someone's always training for half marathon, marathon, ultra. Someone on our team is training for an Ironman right now. I think being surrounded by that team, people who are constantly pushing

• 41:39Speaker 03

  in their professional and personal life. Motivates me.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  You know, my mom, like I said, was a huge foundation.

• 41:54Speaker 03

  In my life and she applied going more to every part of her life. My mom was diagnosed with cancer in 2019. Stage four ovarian cancer. And it was one of those things that I thought. Oh, my mom's gonna get chemo and she's gonna get through it and she'll be living down here in Texas in six months. That was the plan. That was the year she was gonna retire, move to Texas and live the rest of her life with her boys. And she got cancer. She got diagnosed. It was extremely aggressive. She passed away six months later. But she never gave up fighting. You know, even when she was in the hospital, even when she was in hospice, it was

• 42:37Speaker 03

  looking up and saying, what can I get you, boys? Like, Mom.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  You're good. Just chill out for a second. You know, she applied that to her work with special education, coaching, Special Olympics, helping the community.

• 42:54Speaker 03

  If there's one person I respect in this world. It's my mom. 100%.

• 42:59Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful, man.

• 43:02Lewis Howes?

  Why do you care so much about your business and what you guys are creating?

• 43:07Speaker 03

  It's more than a supplement company.

• 43:12Speaker 03

  I've poured my heart and soul into this business for the last decade of my life. I mean, everything. I think any entrepreneur can relate that when you start something you're so passionate about, you become what it is. You don't know who you are without it to a certain point. And we do a lot of in-person events. We do pop-ups. We host athletic clubs in Austin for our community. We celebrated 10 years in business this past August. We had a big event in the city. And it's when we get to meet the people.

• 43:53Speaker 03

  You know, like I said, it's more than being a supplement company or mission-driven or community-driven. And you meet these people who, by watching the content, by attaching to the brand, by going more tattooing their body, they've lost 100, 200 pounds. They've become a better father. They've become a better husband. It's hearing those stories in person. There was a story that I heard when we were celebrating our 10 years in business that forever changed my life. And it was a single mother. She's probably my age. And she had a daughter with her who was probably seven or eight years old. And they pulled me aside because they wanted to talk for a second.

• 44:38Speaker 03

  And the mother said, you know, my daughter doesn't have a father figure in her life. I'm a single mom raising my daughter. And because she doesn't have a father figure in her life, I show her the content that your team produces. The videos and the podcasts, the interviews. She uses that content as a mentor and a father figure for her younger daughter. That, for me... That was heavy. Or this is the responsibility that we have. These are the lives that we have the ability to change. This is who's listening to this content. We have to be a role model in a space that is notorious for not being role model worthy.

• 45:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:20Speaker 03

  That's my guiding principle now.

• 45:22Lewis Howes?

  That's cool, man. Yeah. Inspiring. People can learn more about it at bearperformancenutrition.com, right?

• 45:27Speaker 03

  That's correct.

• 45:28Lewis Howes?

  You also got great content on your social media and your show as well that people can check out. It's all linked up with the website, right?

• 45:34Speaker 03

  It is, yeah.

• 45:35Lewis Howes?

  Before I ask a couple of final questions, I gotta acknowledge you, Nick, for your your commitment and consistency over the last decade. For your service, not only with the military, but also your service to helping people transform their lives. I think that's one of the greatest services that people can have when they're in service to helping people impact, grow, overcome, and become healthier. That's the highest currency is our health. So I acknowledge you for how you've used your, some of your biggest obstacles to be an opportunity to serve. And how you've used, you know, the lessons you've learned from your parents and unfortunately, your mom passing and using that finding meaning to serve other people and be open-hearted and generous and giving.

• 46:20Lewis Howes?

  It's really inspiring to see your journey from, you know, the first time I saw you reached out to me to where you were then, making, you know, a couple thousand a month and now being a massive business in your business. So I acknowledge you for the consistency for showing up and for the journey you're on, man. It's really inspiring.

• 46:35Speaker 03

  Thank you. I appreciate that.

• 46:36Lewis Howes?

  Of course, man. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.