Lyle McDonald Interview
In this episode, I sit down with Lyle Mcdonald, hands down one of the smartest authorities on fitness and nutrition that the world has ever scene. Lyle is notorious for his uncanny ability to make even the most complicated concepts become simply understood and internalized, by anyone.
Moreover, Lyle is also one of the first people to point out that most of the training and diet advice we are exposed to is sublimated to marketing. Being one of the first evidence based writers on the scene, earned him an amazing following and credibility.
Matter of fact, Lyle is the expert who the experts follow and when I was first breaking free of all the myths and nonsenses in the industry 4 years ago, I was heavily digging into Lyle Mcdonald’s site bodyrecomposition.com – as well as his extremely thorough research based books.
Lyle is an absolute brilliant mind and I was extremely fortunate to be able to do an interview with him since he rarely does these.
Funny enough, as soon as the interview was initially published on youtube, all the big names in the fitness industry started sharing it like crazy, including Alan Aragon and Dan John. Within a couple days the original video amounted 5000+ views.
If this doesn’t tell you something, I don’t know what will.
A Podcast Of Epic Proportions
In this podcast of epic proportions I pick Lyle’s brain for over an hour. During the course of the interview, we cover how to get lean, deal with psychological stress, bust through plateau’s and build muscle. More importantly, we cover where our focus should be moving forward to breed a society of fit and lean people.
I recommend fastening your seat belts for this episode – Lyle Mcdonald’s brain is on a whole other level and everything he was spewing during the podcast could be printed into a very well written book. In fact, I felt like I was sitting down with the Mike Ross of nutrition and fitness (Suits reference, anyone?).
Here’s the full blown list of what you’ll discover:
- How Lyle Mcdonald became one of the most sought after fitness and nutrition experts in the industry
- The evolution of the nutrition industry over the last half century
- The real advantage of low carb dieting and how to eat carbs and lose just as much fat
- How to break through a fat loss plateau by asking yourself the one question that actually matters
- How to reprogram your eating habits to get lean
- The satiety index and how to use it to your advantage to stay full on a diet
- Why some people lose fat faster on low carbs and other people lose fat faster on high carbs
- The central question you must ask yourself to lose fat effortlessly
- Commonalities between successful dieters and yo-yo dieters
- Why you should be process oriented not goal oriented
- Why doing aggressive diets initially can lead to better long term results
- How to use psychological releases to make dieting enjoyable and effortless
- How to use control systems to eat what you want while reducing calories
- How steroids and drugs have covered up many training and nutrition mistakes
- Why lifting heavy with low volume works better than high volume workout routines
- How to use the concept of adaptational reserves to reach your training goals
Watch the Video
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one of the best podcasts ever
Really enjoyed the discussion about how to get people to make long term behavior modifications in relation to diet.
My personal experience and observations over the last 40 years leads me to believe that in order to have sustainable habit change you need to change the internal landscape in a fundamental way.
Outer depends on inner.
There are a number of studies that have shown how meditation makes it easier to change your behavior.
I lived in a small town for 21 years that had a high percentage of meditators, and it was easy to spot the ones who meditated. They invariably were leaner and more energetic than their non-meditating counterparts. And they tended to stay that way over the two decades I was
watching.
I think most would agree that lasting change begins within. My observation is that meditation makes that process easier.
I actually agree with you Joe and believe meditation can be infinitely powerful.
I really enjoyed this episode. Lyle McDonald is brilliant. I’ve heard of him for a number of years, but never read any of his books. Maybe I will pick one up.
BTW, he was referring to a very popular diet from a number of years ago, where one would be low carb during the day, almost fasting, and eating carbs at night. He might be referring to the carbohydrate addict diet, written by the husband/wife team of doctors. I recall that their last name was Heller…
Hey Greg awesome episode I have a questions :
I’m currently following your greek god program to gain strength but I also have the superhero bulking program and was wondering what strength level should I get to before switching for the following :
– Incline BB and DB press
– Standing shoulder and seated DB press
– Pull ups and chin ups
– Sumo deadlifts and back squats
Also, I just finished my first month of the program and it was some of the best gains I’ve ever had for a small period I gained 2 kilos and all my lifts have shot up 10 or more ( I could’ve probably even gained more if I had been used to working with kg instead of lbs and could’ve jumped right into the program without having to figure out how much I should use again) and my waist has gone down a quarter if an inch, but I was wondering I’m 6ft1 and my waist used to be 29.5 in and is now 29.25 in with all my other measurments going up and was wondering if this was a sign of a recomp and whether it’s good that my waist is going down even though it’s already fairy small in other words if I could achieve say greek god measurments but instead of my waist being 44-45 % of my height it being 43 % would that be better or worse than if I had the larger waist measurment.
Thanks for the awesome content sorry about the long question
Yeah some people will have a smaller waist. Different structural build. It’s not bad being under the waist measurement, it can be good provided that you’re building enough strength and size.
I’d suggest getting your incline BB press to around 1.3x bodyweight for 5 reps minininum. Standing press around 0.9x bodyweight for 5 reps. Maybe 0.85x boydweight if it’s after doing incline. Pull ups around 50-60% of bodyweight for 5 reps. Sumo deadlifts 2x bodyweight for 3 reps.
I really enjoyed this conversation with Lyle McDonald. Thank you, I felt I was able to understand his stance about Flexible dieting. I remember reading his original online posts & thinking he was just a total CKD person.
Hey Greg!
A few questions I’d like to ask you:
1. How can we add a little quad dominant work to the Greek God Strenght & Density routine while still performing sumo deadlifts?
2. Which progression model do you find the most effective for strenght gains in RPT: Greek God’s alternatively adding 5 lbs to the sets (I’m not going to mention microloading because I can’t do it) or Superhero’s going up a rep range and then adding weight once the top is hit? If it’s the former, can we do it on the Superhero program instead of the latter?
3. What do you think of using the Chest Dip as an alternative to the Flat Bench Press? Is it OK to replace the Flat Bench with Chest Dips in the Superhero Program?
Thanks!
1. Do sumo deads and super set them with leg extensions.
2. Both work well. I find greek god of alternating adding 5 lbs to the first or second and third set is easier in the long run. You can do this in the superhero program for sure.
3. Yes that’s fine!