April 10, 2018 • 34 mins
Jake spends some time with his trainer Jeremy Hughes who has inspired him to make big changes in his life.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, this is Jake Going and this is Good Company.
Good Company. Welcome to Good Company, a podcast where we
talk about everything under the sun, friends, good times, and company.
Now here's your host. What's up, guys, is Jake and
(00:24):
I am back with my Good Company podcast as we
come to you guys every couple of weeks on a Tuesday.
And uh, this week, I'm excited to bring you, guys
someone that I spent a lot of time with and
um and I've been talking to him quite quite frequently
about joining me on this podcast. And that special person is, uh,
(00:46):
my friend Jeremy Hughes, my trainer from here in Paragon Fitness.
What do you what is the name of this place?
Paras Paragon Strength and Fitness. I was gonna have them
edit edit that in there, but but I feel like
that's fine, So I gone, Strength and Fitness is the
name of I. I just call it Paragon. But um,
Jeremy is an awesome dude, and and and we've come
(01:08):
to have come to know each other through uh through
the last few years in passing and then one day,
um on a quest for my own uh personal fitness
goals and journey UM where I drive by out here
in West Nashville. Every day I passed by this beautiful
building that have been renovated and remodeled, and it said
Paragon Fitness, and I thought, well, I'm gonna walk in
(01:28):
there and and just see what they've got going on.
So I walked in here and saw a bunch of
amazing equipment and this, uh, this beastly looking dude in
great shape and uh. And that's how I met you. Man.
So everybody say hello, this to Jeremy Hughes here at
the Paragon. What's up, Jeremy, Hey, how's it going. Thank
you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, man,
(01:50):
I uh, I'm excited to just chat with you really
on a lot of levels. Um. Most importantly, I think
UM for personally for me. I know, over the last year,
I guess it's been almost about a year since I
walked in here. Last year maybe not that long, but yeah,
coming up on a year. But I've made a lot
of personal changes and and uh and goals I've fulfilled
(02:13):
honestly in my life thanks to you and and you're
and your wife Kristen. Um. You guys have a beautiful
little girl Callie Um, which is is really cute for
me because as as little as I get to be
around my little girl Pearl. UM. A lot of mornings
I come in here and see Callie running around, and
it makes me smile because it reminds me of my
little girl. But um, man, I really I think what's
(02:36):
important today to talk to you about is is what
you bring to the table for people, not just like myself,
but but every everyone else that I see coming here.
I mean I I come in here in the mornings
every morning. I'm usually here by i'd say an average,
I'm here by seven o'clock in the morning. We used
to do a little earlier. Sometimes yeah, if it's seven,
I'm usually here by seven oh eight. There was a
(02:58):
while there though I was never late. I was always early.
Um lately, I don't know. I don't know if it's
just because you've been wearing me out or what. But uh,
but uh, I really man, I'm thankful for you. I
really mean that. UM. Over the last almost year of
changing my life, of just being more focused on on
my fitness and dedication to my health. Um, as we
(03:20):
all get older, it's it's not it's not easy to
stay in shape, but um, what's also not easy, I'm
assuming for you is to keep people's spirits in mind
up to the point where they feel like they can
continue a trek towards bettering themselves and in life, I think,
and that's really what my podcast is about. It's about
talking to people that are they're good people that uh
(03:43):
that inspire others. And I've talked to everybody from my
dad who inspires me, to good friends of mine. Um
and now you man, So if you don't mind, uh,
give me your background on kind of where, how you
like where you grew up and what got you into
being a train or here. Yeah. Absolutely so. I grew
up in western Kentucky. My dad was a Southern Baptist preacher,
(04:06):
and we, uh we traveled quite a bit, moved around
quite a bit. My mom was a stay at home mom.
I grew up in a very loving household, and but
I didn't get to see my dad a whole lot.
He always preaching, preaching a small to medium sized churches.
So he was the you know, he was the music leader,
he was the pastor, he was he had to do
everything himself. So unfortunately I didn't get to spend a
(04:26):
lot a whole lot of time with my dad, but
he he always made sure that I felt loved um.
But it was the moving around every two or three
years in the middle of a school year that I mean,
going through school as a kid, that's tough just in general.
But when you move and it's always in the middle
of the year, it's because about the time you made
some friends. Absolutely, So it was about after the second
move that it's it was just a tough transition for
(04:47):
me and I just it was I lost my ability
to really make friends because I figured as soon as
I made him, I was going to lose him again.
So the big thing with me was I kind of
turned to food and I was became very more obese. Um,
but that was my comfort. I found comfort in eating um,
and through that I became morbidly o beasts and morbidly
(05:08):
morbidly obese. I was in when I was in seventh grade,
I had about a forty three inch waist. I was
a hundred seventy five pounds and I was only like
five ft two, So I mean I had the front
butt thing and everything going on. It was I was
like a cuckle um. But you know it's funny. You
you've mentioned that to me before, which is one of
the reasons I I thought it would be interesting to
talk to you because now, I mean because those of
(05:30):
y'all that don't know Jeremy, Jeremy is an amazing shape
and and you're so dedicated to your fitness and your
healthy eating. Um that being a kid and and these days,
as you know, uh, kids are you know, people talk
about bullying all the time now, but bullying has been
going on for years. I mean I remember being a
kid being bullying in school. But when you told me
(05:51):
that day, and it blew my mind. You're like I
you said to me, you said, I used to be
the fact kid in school. And uh and I mean
were there times where you were in school and you
felt that way where you I mean where you felt bullied?
You felt like you know, it was it was I
guess it was motivation for you to to want to
change or what was that? What was that turning point? Yeah?
(06:12):
I was bullied a lot, and I love school. I
loved academics, but I hated going to school because every
day it was just who was going to make fun
of me? It was just made me feel worse about
myself every single day. I wanted to have a girlfriend.
You know, when it set with eighth grade, everybody has
girlfriends and not one girl ever even looked my way.
And that was very, very tough. And um, I remember
(06:33):
one memory that really stuck out was I was on
the basketball team. I love basketball, and I somehow I
would always get picked to be the skins. Everybody else,
all the all the lean guys would be sure, but
I would be picked for skins and the cheerleaders will
be on the side. I can remember it. I mean
it still plays my head all the time, and and
I just remember everybody looking at me, and at least
it felt like everybody was looking at me and just
(06:54):
looking down on me. And at that point, I said,
you know what, I'm not gonna do this anymore. I
saw a magazine with a bodybuilder on and I I
bet that guy has no issues. Now, looking back, that
guy has more issues than most average men. However, to me,
I was like, he hasn't made. Every girl wants to
be with him, all the guys want to be like him.
That's what I want to do. So what I did
to try to control things was I started myself and
(07:15):
became interrexic. So for about two months, I lost about
sixty pounds. Um, you could see all my ribs, and
my parents loved me and they but they said, hey,
look one more day. If you don't start eating. We
realized you can't eat like a regular person. But if
you don't start eating more than one fort ful of food,
which is about what I was doing a day and
working out two hours a day, we're gonna put you
in the hospital. Because we love you, we can't watch
(07:36):
you kill yourself. So I started battling back with that, UM,
and I turned to working out as a way to
control things. So I tracked all my calories, I tracked
all my workouts, calorie expenditure, I did everything. I read
as much as I could try to control that so
I would never go back to being fatty. What age
was this? That was? It was the end of seventh
grade and going into the eighth grade, as when I
(07:58):
lost about eighty six pounds in two months. So you're going,
I mean at an early age you were you were
noticing and feeling like yeah, insecurities and stuff like resolutely yeah,
complete emotional distress. So through that, I I started really
reading and researching everything I get my hands on. I
did the traditional uh, got the Arno encyclopedia and try
(08:21):
to copy all of his workouts and train chest about
eighteen times a week and every other body part. And
I just I didn't learn the correct way to do it.
But um, I think it was it was the things
that I went through early on that's allowed me to
connect with people on a way other than a lot
of trainers that have always been in shape or they're
younger and they've they've just never had to deal with
a lot of issues. And when people come to see me,
(08:42):
I can sit down and be like, honestly, you know what,
I understand it, or actually I understand eating disorders. I
understand all that because I've been there. I can show
you pictures and it's just it's really enabled me to
connect with a lot of people on very intimate levels.
And through that, it's people listen to you and they
respect you, and it's allows them to say, hey, there's
light at them. The tunnelhul changed their lives as well.
So yeah, man, and and honestly, that's why I was
(09:04):
excited to talk with you, because I've seen personally just
being here, um, all walks of life, walking that front
door and be inspired to better themselves. You know, um,
from from high school kids that are coming in here
trying to get strong before college. Uh to um, you
know how old's Harvey? Harvey's seventy eight, seventy eight going
(09:27):
on about twenty years old. It's amazing. And you've seen
him when he first came in. Yeah. So so, I mean,
I I hope Harvey's cool with us talking about him,
but I mean I'm super proud. Yeah, Harvey, Harvey, Harvey,
you are now on the podcast. But our buddy Harvey
comes in here every morning too. I mean it seems
like he's here at least three or four times a week. Uh.
(09:48):
And um, Harvey's how old? Seventy eight? Harvey seventy eight
years old? And when he walked in here, you said,
you gave a good explanation. He was kind of well,
it was funny. He walked in the door, him and
his wife, and they tried a bunch of things and
they they're coming from the y m C. And they
came over here, and Harvey was actually shorter than his
wife when they walked in because of sciatic It was
so bad. And he has been over so far. Um,
(10:10):
he had a lot of body fat on him, and
he just he just didn't know what to do. So
we sat down and we got him going. We've at
now at this point, we've almost like tripled his calories
that he started with. You got to build the metabolism
sciatic was gone. Um, the man just he's talking about
he's near. He was never athletic in early years. And
he said the biggest thing to me was, he's like,
you're giving me a chance to relive my life of
(10:32):
all the things that I wanted to do was young.
And he goes, so, I am just I'm so grateful.
I'm just I'm doing all kinds of things I never
could do when I was younger. And it's that's so great.
I mean, that's gotta get that's gotta be pretty fulfilling
for you to give that sort of feeling to someone
else and and give them, when you were talking about
insecurities earlier, to feel secure about what you look like
(10:54):
and how you feel, and especially at that age. Um,
but I see it as well for for these kids
that are coming in and out of here. But speaking
of Harvey's kind of funny too, I might have to
take a little bit of credit on this one. Uh,
Harvey would come in and say, Jake, Jake, where'd you
get those shorts? Man? Those are good looking shorts. That's good,
I said Harvey, Man, I got this hit Lulu Limen. Man,
these are Lulu Limen shorts that before you know it,
(11:16):
I think Harvey's bought the entire Lulu Limen story. He
comes in here now every morning and he's decked out
and Lulu women. I remember he was frustrated about that
because he went out that day and he said he
was trying to go out to Lulu and something came
up and he couldn't make it that day. So he
was so frustrated. The next day when he came in
he said, I'm getting down there today though, And yeah,
he bought a bunch of Lulu clothes and then there
(11:36):
was about seven other people that followed in suit. So yeah,
you definitely should have got some commission or from Lulu.
Lulu should shout out a nice package to your house.
Shout out to Lulu Limon on that one. I Uh,
I think, um something that it was speaking on my
behalf man that I bring me into this for a second. Um,
you know, one of the reasons I enjoyed talking to
(11:59):
so many random people on this podcast. Is that there
are people that in my life, like I said earlier,
inspire me, but hold me accountable too for um, for
being the person that I need to be. Whether it
be my mother I talked to last week, you know,
I told her I was going to move to Nashville
almost you know, fifteen years ago and chase a dream
(12:20):
of playing music and um, and and she supported me.
And so what was my responsibility at that point was
to hold myself accountable for for for fulfilling this this
sort of promise that I told my parents. Now, whether
or not I would have made it or not, my
mom and dad would still be proud of me, you know,
(12:42):
but I would never be able to look back and
be happy with myself if I knew that I didn't
give a hundred percent at what I was doing. And
so I think that goes back to what you do
is people come in here. I've seen them, I mean
I've seen it happen man. And and for those out
there listening, maybe you are one of these people. But UM,
people come into a gym a lot, and they have
(13:03):
high expectations of I'm gonna walk in this gym and
in the next two weeks, I'm gonna be in the
best shape of my life. And that's not necessarily the case, right,
that's that's never the case. Uh. The thing about us
that really separates us is when people come in here. One,
it's very private. I created a niche environment to where
people could come in and be completely private and feel
completely comfortable, no matter if they're a pro athlete or
(13:24):
it's a it's a stay at home mom who's never
worked out in your life. Um, that's very important one
for people. But two is when people sit down here
the first time, they think we're gonna talk about sets
and reps and and all that stuff. And that's the
last thing that's that's the last thing that I care about.
Because the thing for people, when any walk of life,
no matter what you're doing, business, relationships, it's you've got
(13:45):
to figure out your why. And so you gotta set
some goals, and you've got to figure out what's going
to keep you motivated when nobody's looking, when you're tired,
life didn't go great that day. You just got to
figure out what it is that's going to keep you
moving forward, no matter what it is. So When we
sit people down, I don't talk sets and reps. I
talk what's your goals for the next year? Where do
you want to be? And they always start with their
(14:06):
physical of course, because they're coming to me for training.
But I get that, but let's talk beyond that. What's
this physical gonna do for you? Is it going to
give you the confidence too, if you just went through
a divorce to get back out on the dating scene.
Is they going to give you the energy to be
able to enjoy your kids, UM and levels and you know,
be successful like you want to throw a ball whenever
you're sixty years old, if you if you want UM.
Some of the sadas part because we have a kind
(14:28):
of a niche clientell here. These people are very dedicated.
They come to me and it's not just your average
gym goers UM. But the big thing with people when
they when they come to see me is there, you know,
very successful people, but they're at the point in their
life where they've worked their butt off and for thirty
years and they want to go out and travel now
enjoy themselves. But they've they've neglected their health for thirty
(14:49):
years to work hard, and now they're at the point
with their health that they can't enjoy themselves like they
want to. So the big thing is is I like
to teach balance, but you've gotta understand what your goals are.
And then once you set those goals, then what's why
is that important to you? What's the most important thing
you want to achieve? And then you also got to
talk about what's been holding you back. So once you
can kind of line out those and set those goals
(15:09):
and you know year long goals for yourself where you
want to be, then everything else falls in place. It's
that mental acuity to be able to stick to what
you're doing and be consistent, because it doesn't matter how
good a program is. If you can only do it
for four weeks, that's it's not going to do you
any good. So you need to play something you can
create a lifestyle with and be able to do consistently.
And I think what you said, they're setting goals, um
is a big deal because I know my dad always
(15:31):
said that if you don't set goals or don't know
where you're going and how you're gonna know when you
get there, And UM, for me, I know that when
I walked in here last year, UM, I've been I've
been working out for a lot of years, and I've
I've been trying my hardest to always stay in shape.
But I think a lot of those out there, they're listening. Um,
(15:52):
it's hard, really hard on the road as as much
as I'm on the road and night after night and
not sleeping well and and and you know where most
people's bed is is completely still at home every night,
mine's moving eighty miles an hour down the road. And
and I can feel every every bump we hit, and
every time the bus driver slams on the brakes because
somebody pulled in front of them. I mean, it's it's
(16:14):
a different kind of lifestyle. But I wanted to get
myself on more of a routine, Um, not just waking
up in the morning and going to the gym, which
I've done before, but really being strategic on my on
my meals. And you tend to know a lot about
the nutritional side of staying fit. And so I was
gonna ask you, uh, for anybody that's interested out there
(16:37):
and what you might offer um to them as far
as someone's wanting to change their lifestyle without necessarily stepping
into a gym. Right now, but really wanting to to
to get a head start before they think about starting
to pump iron right, what would be your biggest, uh
(16:57):
piece of advice for those people, It's arn't moving. That's
the biggest thing, is just to start moving. What you
see with a lot of people is it is paralysis
by analysis. It's it's analysis by analysis. I had that.
I had that in the gun Hoster I was I
was waiting to use that. Yeah, absolutely, analysis by analysis.
So basically what it is is if people don't have
(17:18):
the perfect scenario, they're like, Okay, well, I'm gonna eat
five meals a day, I'm gonna eat these perfect meals,
I'm gonna work out so many times a week, and
they're always waiting for that perfect time to start their plan.
And most people never started because they never have that
perfect moment. Life. It's not perfect. What about the people
though that that say I ate good today, but I
only ate two meals. It was I ate a salad
and some yogurt, And I mean like they're basically because
(17:40):
there there's different That's what I've learned over the years.
And I question you on this now, putting you kind
of on the spot, but you know, there's the theory
of eat multiple times a day, uh to keep your
metabolism higher. And then there's those that feel like they
do better by eating once or twice today. Because I
hear the people all the time and say, oh, I
(18:01):
don't eat breakfast, man, I need a breakfast person. But
what I've come to realize for my life, and I
mean I think maybe you could attest, is that breakfast
is a really important part of the day. I mean,
you fasted basically all night long by going to sleep,
you wake up and you've for eight or ten hours.
If you've got eight or eight hours sleep, you haven't
put a piece of food or liquid in your body.
(18:22):
So did not eat breakfast and get your day started
the right way? You're you're essentially starting up your car
with no gas in it and trying and trying to
drive downtown. Yeah. So the big thing is with that too,
is every diet works and every diet doesn't work, and
usually the best plan for you is the one you're
not doing. So if you think back to hundreds of
(18:42):
years ago, the way we ate it was in seasons,
so you didn't eat the same food every day day
and a day out, it's you would maybe eat called mills.
You you know you gotta kill, you would eat tons
of you eat whatever you went out and killed that
so and so you didn't eat the same food every
season for the spring and the fall, everything and kind
of change. So I think rotation is very important, and
(19:03):
it's there's no perfect diet. It's what with What we
do with our clients is we start them on a
basic foundational plan that I think it's gonna be pretty
good for them, depending on what their goals are, what
their life is like. UM One, Like we said, it
has to be a plan that you can stick to
day in and day out. If it's so strict, but
it's the best, maybe the best diet. But if you
can only follow it three weeks, that's not gonna get
you anywhere. So one is the plan that you can
(19:24):
be the most consistent with. And two is most people
under eat. It's every single client that's came through the door.
We've increased their calories, no matter what their goal was,
to lose fat, to put on muscle, just to feel good.
It's most people under eat. So you've got to build
your metabolism. UM As far as meals, usually usually it's
like four to six mills. It's if you're gonna eat
like two thousand calories and you eat it in one
(19:46):
meal versus four meals, say you're gonna be able to
digest it a lot better. It just comes down to it.
So more saying, if you if you eat four meals
that total two colories as opposed to one large meal, Yeah,
you'll be able to do bodies be able to digest it.
You have, you have a better slower release of energy.
You'll feel a lot better. But it just depends on
your goal. It's as people come in. And I had
(20:06):
one guy I worked with a long time ago, and
he could eat pizza every week and still get into shape.
So it's you know, you gotta gotta give people balance
in life. Um, if you try to make them be
so strict that they're going to end up falling off
the plan. So it's it's just balance. It's and every
plane can work. But here we do body fat every
week on people every two weeks and to see how
their body changes. You've done it, yep, And based on
(20:29):
that that's how we change their plans. So it's a
plan needs to constantly change. Is your body evolves, Um,
there's just there's no one set plan. Keto works. I
know people that do keto and that works. I know
people that eat tons. Well, I have one guy that's
two hundred ninety that eats about six grams of carbs.
So everything works and everything stops, just a matter of
staying consistent to it and and then knowing how to
(20:49):
change the variables as you move forward with that, which
gets back to when I said a minute ago about
people walking in their store and think that overnight they're
gonna they're gonna change. Um, I can tell you from
me personally. Um, I'm one of those people. You know,
I'm impatient. Everything I want, I want it now, and
but yeah, yeah, right, Uh. I just I'm that kind
(21:11):
of person. I mean, it was the same way when
I left college to move in Nashville to chase a
dream of singing on the road. Like I didn't want
to come up here and wait four or five years
to get going. I mean, I wanted to work at
it once I got here because I wanted it to
happen the next day. I I thought when I moved
to Nashville, I was going to be a touring musician
on the road. The following week, and it doesn't happen
(21:32):
like that. Without consistency, like you just said, and a
goal which I had, and working towards that goal, you
eventually get to where you want to be. And um,
where I am now not just in my my personal
business life, but in this physical realm Uh. I feel
pretty good, man. I feel like over the last year,
(21:53):
I feel like I've this this year, I've pretty much
worked harder than I've ever worked as far is trying
to get myself in shape, which is weird because I'm
the oldest I've ever been, which is an odd thing
to say. I'm thirty five years old, thirty six things.
I'm the same age as you are, so things kind
of change once you get past that big three zero. Um,
(22:15):
but what's your assessment for those out there that are wondering?
And I'd like to I'm a fly on the wall
at this point, but if someone was like, Hey, I
see Jake goes to your your gym, what's your assessment?
You don't don't hold anything back. I want your honest opinion.
I've never asked you that, but here you are, on
on on record, about to give the jaco an assessment
(22:36):
you work out very very hard. And the first part, though,
is with a lot of people, is you got to
fix what's wrong. So when you came to me, you
had a lot of kind of nagging injuries. Um from
the diet plan that you've done before. You didn't have
a lot of lean, lean muscle on you. Is you
had died to a lot of the muscle and the
fat off your leaner lean You didn't have much muscle.
And because of that, you had a lot of nagging
(22:57):
injuries that were so bothering you. So my first goal
was to get you healthy, and we did that by
putting on about fifty pounds of lean mass. And that's
the big thing that people don't do is that's right
lean mass, um paragon mass. You put on paragon mass,
it's ah, you know, you got to eat more. And
most people they don't put enough value on string training.
They try to do a lot of cardio in a
(23:18):
lot of diet, and you know, cardio bumps up your
your calories mandature for a couple of hours. But if
you really want to burn more calories, put on some muscle,
because the more muscle muscles, because that's the that's the
the misconception I hear a lot, especially from females. Um
let's say I don't I don't know. I don't really
want to lift weights. I don't want to get all,
you know, muscular. And the first thing I tell him
(23:41):
is like, you know, I have men that have been
working out with me for years that aren't anywhere near
where they want to be, So don't worry, You're not
going to do that. But it's the string training, and
and you know that it's taxing your body and your
muscles in order to where they need the nutrients. You
you you completely handled macronutrients, you handle carbs better, um,
you burn calories twenty four hours long on more more
fat burn. It's just the string training completely changes the
(24:04):
look at the physique and it makes you healthy, prevents osteoporosis,
a lot of things. So it's you gotta If people
put more emphasis on string training versus cardio and they
had it just a good sound diet, they get ten
times better results than what they're getting now. Most people
just wear themselves out with tons of cardio and not
eating enough. So it's I remember one of the things
you said to me when I walked in here the
first time was you said, I don't believe and uh,
(24:27):
what was it you said, I don't believe in and
over working out. I believe in under eating. Was that
it I said, I don't. I don't believe in overtraining.
I believe in underreating. And very few people overtrained. They
just don't train hard enough for that enough times in
the weeked overtrained. But they do under eat. And that's
why most people don't lose fat. It's because they've slowed
the metabolism down by well, if I want to lose weight,
(24:47):
I'll just eat less. Well, yeah you will, but most
of the time you all you lose is water and muscle.
You don't lose a lot of fat. And you've slowed
your metabolism down. And once you've done that, you become
a fat hoarding machine. You just store fat like crazy.
It's your job, So it's you get you kind of
like you as a it a whole lot more like
me as a kid. Absolutely, I always sat way too much.
What do you do? You have any piece of advice
for any kids out there that that listen to my podcast,
(25:09):
that uh, that might be wanting to get in shape.
I mean, I know that we've talked about this Already's
kind of about advice you have for people out there,
But there's all walks of life that listen to me
out there. And I was telling Jeremy this before we
started my podcast today that I just I'm blown away
that with all of the things and choices that people
have out there to listen um or watch or be entertained,
(25:31):
whether it's with YouTube, or whether it's with all the
other podcasts are out there, or television or you name it,
that those that are listening to this genuinely are interested
in whatever it is that I have to be talking about.
And I'm so flattered by that. But with that platform
that I have, I'm always looking for ways to inspire
those out there. And so I thought, by talking to
you and we've got a few minutes left here, just
(25:53):
to kind of leave people with some advice on if
they're thinking about this is the year like here it
comes till about summertime. It's pool season, man, Like, this
is the time I want to get myself in shape. Um.
A lot of folks I've heard before say, man, I
don't know, I don't have time for the gym. And
I've always said something I've heard before is that no
one has time for the gym. You have to make time, right,
(26:16):
nobody has time to be athletic or be put fitness
in their life, but you have to make time for that. Um.
So for those out there that are looking for a
little bit more piece of advice from from someone, where
they're getting some pretty good free advice from you today. Uh,
what do you have anything to leave them with that
you think is valuable? You know? It's talking about the kids.
(26:39):
It's the big thing is I say, you gotta love yourself.
I never loved myself. I always thought there was something
wrong with me growing up because of the things I
went through. So the kids, love yourself and don't focus
too much on that time because life gets better. I mean,
I never would imagined i'd be where I am today,
back when I was at more Blue Obi's kid getting
made fun of. But it's awesome, dude, it's awesome to
(27:01):
see it. And I'm not I didn't just choose you
to talk to you on this podcast because I just
thought I'm gonna fill some time with you. I genuinely
wanted to chat with you because I see what you've
done for my life and how much better I feel,
And I think when you feel better, you perform better
in life in all aspects, not only that people see
you feel like. You can see when someone's feeling good.
(27:22):
You can see when someone suspects every aspect of your life,
your relationships, you're at work, the way you do things.
It just it's everything. This is the foundation to happiness
and whatever area life you want. So I would say,
you know, for the older, the more adults, the big
thing is one. Don't don't beat yourself up too much
if you're not dead on, just do your best every day.
(27:43):
If you can do your best every day and you
hit of your goal, I ate a her She's chocolate
kiss last night. I'm surprised it's just one. There's probably
more to the story on that. Now. I only had one.
I have a little my my little girl gave me
some and uh and I just date one. We'll make
you do twenty more squats before you leave them. Will
work Often't worry about that, but too, it's just set
your goals down and you gotta make it a priority.
(28:05):
Like you said, people say they don't have time. People
have time to do what they want to. I have
people that come in here and you I think there's
no way they could afford this, this service, And it's
an investment. It's an investment in your health and those
people they find a way. If you want something in
life bad enough, you'll find a way to achieve it.
So the goals is huge. Sit your goals down to
understand why you want to do something, even get a
(28:25):
dream board, put up things, pictures that remind you of
what you want to achieve, and don't focus on the
day to day. Focus on that end. Go focused on
the light at the end of the tunnel and just
envision yourself being there. And the people that are willing
to work hard and go after whatever they want, they
usually get it. It may all come easy, It's never
come easy for me, but it just makes it that
much more amazing when you achieve it because you have
(28:48):
to work for it. It's well, I think a lot
of people look at my life too, and they think,
oh man, it's just it's it comes easy forever this
and that, and it doesn't. It really doesn't. I mean
I genuinely do. I mean you think I enjoy I
mean I get here at seven am. So in order
for me to get here at seven am, each morning,
I'm up by five five, usually have to leave my
place by six thirty ish, UM to get here, and
(29:11):
I don't. I'm gonna be honest with you, Man, I
enjoyed seeing you. You bring a lot of UM, positive
things to my life. But I don't love getting up
every morning. But once I get here and I get
going and I finished the workout, I'm able to go. WHOA,
I feel good and let's start this day to day.
And UM, I've watched you over the last year. Man
inspire a lot of people, including myself, and UM, I
(29:34):
really appreciate it. And I appreciate and I appreciate you,
uh giving your advice and expertise to those out there
that I think are just as interested and and UM
for anyone out there that's that's looking to uh get
yourself in shape. I mean, it's never too late to
do that. UM. I'm on the journey with you, and
I'm always on a fitness journey to uh to better
(29:56):
myself and just feel better. I want to live as
long as I can and and be as healthy and
happy as I can. So you're on the fun phase two.
We've done the bulk and we've put on the lean mass.
Now we're gonna get so by bringing myself into this,
I was gonna say that. I mean, there's been days
where I complained to you or I'm like, oh I
feel fat, man. I'm like, I just want to get
rid of this little this fat right here on my stomach.
And and I like your research too. Every time you
(30:18):
come in you're like, I read this, which is good.
I like people that challenge and want to understand things
that um but a lot of people that have the
same problem you asked me to kind of assess where
you're at the same problem. You know, you get start,
you start doing something for three or four days, and
then you see something else. It's like squirrel, you know,
and you try to change and people they flop around
way too much. I have really bad attention deficit disorder. Anyways.
(30:39):
So we get going about three or four days and
then you read something that somebody else is doing something else,
and you're like, well what about this? And and it's
just pick something and stick to and figure out what works.
Feel that's the way. If you're always switching every three
or four days, it's something new, You're never gonna know
what's gonna work. So it's just stick to something, don't
don't you know, make things too hard on yourself, and
just be positive. But you know, the big thing I
(31:01):
think with a lot of people as well, is people
get comfortable and being unhappy. It's people don't want to
push themselves and it's easier to be comfortable and not
be happy than to try to push yourself out of
that comfort zone and the possibility of failing. Don't be
afraid to fail. And everybody, everyone on earth has failed
multiple time, absolutely so, so fell fast as it fell,
(31:22):
as fast as you can, so you can learn from
those lessons. But you know, the people that I could
see people all the time, and those are the ones
that don't sign up, it's because they go through it.
They just they're just comfortable being unhappy and they interesting
they would rather do that. That's really interesting to think
that you're what you just said is very true. There's
a lot of people I know that are just comfortable.
(31:43):
But they're comfortable and their unhappiness and they can never
be disappointed. To think about how comfortable you can be
in in happiness, being happy. Yeah, well, those are the
people that win, the people that take chances that people
that push themselves. They go the extra miles right now, dude,
I got here this morning and I brought my microphones
with me. Um So, I don't always have to do
my podcasts from our studio, but um, I brought these
(32:06):
microphones with me, and we had a great workout this morning,
and I told Jeremy, I was like, you mind after
the workout if we, uh, if we chat a little
bit for my podcast. So dude, I appreciate it. Man,
It's been an inspiring conversation this morning. I hope everyone
out there that's listening. Um. By the way, a friend
of mine that listens to my podcast said, he said,
I don't know if you should always reference the people
out there listening it like, but I I don't. I
(32:29):
don't want to feel like I'm just talking to you.
You know we are. We're talking to a lot of people.
This This podcast reaches a lot of folks out there,
and um so, I do say that a lot to
those listening and those out there, but I'm so appreciative
if y'all that tune in and listen. Um, We're always
coming to you with a bunch of random ideas and
people to talk to. But the common consistent point of
(32:49):
this podcast for me is to always find put people
that but that I can talk to you that inspire me,
but we'll also inspire others. And that's exactly what you are. Man.
I appreciate everything you've helped me do and when pleasure. Yeah,
and thanks for giving your advice to those out out
there listening. Uh, But I'll see you tomorrow at seven am. Yeah.
And people if they want to get ahold of me
(33:10):
of anyway, Yeah, how do people get ahold of you?
Paragon strength dot com. They can go to our website
and fill out email for him. And you know, maybe
in the future too, if people want to write in
and have like a couple of questions they want to
ask you general fitness related and maybe we could do
like short little videos every once in a while for
him and just answer people's questions. That that way we
can kind of help people in a more detailed you know.
Yeah tech. Yeah, and anybody that's here and that's ah
(33:33):
in the Nashville area that listens. Um, it's looking for
a great place to come and and train and and
get the most out of your your life and fitness.
Come see Jeremy and Kristin over here. At paragon Um
off Highway one and uh Bellevue. So appreciate you guys.
Thank you, Jeremy, I always say it. You are a
good company as those the others that have been on
(33:54):
here before. And uh, well, I'll see you tomorrow seven am,
working out hard and I'll make sure to go eat
a lot today. I'll see you at seven a week.
It sounds all right, ze y'all.
Hey, this is Jake Going and this is Good Company.
Good Company. Welcome to Good Company, a podcast where we
talk about everything under the sun, friends, good times, and company.
Now here's your host. What's up, guys, is Jake and
(00:24):
I am back with my Good Company podcast as we
come to you guys every couple of weeks on a Tuesday.
And uh, this week, I'm excited to bring you, guys
someone that I spent a lot of time with and
um and I've been talking to him quite quite frequently
about joining me on this podcast. And that special person is, uh,
(00:46):
my friend Jeremy Hughes, my trainer from here in Paragon Fitness.
What do you what is the name of this place?
Paras Paragon Strength and Fitness. I was gonna have them
edit edit that in there, but but I feel like
that's fine, So I gone, Strength and Fitness is the
name of I. I just call it Paragon. But um,
Jeremy is an awesome dude, and and and we've come
(01:08):
to have come to know each other through uh through
the last few years in passing and then one day,
um on a quest for my own uh personal fitness
goals and journey UM where I drive by out here
in West Nashville. Every day I passed by this beautiful
building that have been renovated and remodeled, and it said
Paragon Fitness, and I thought, well, I'm gonna walk in
(01:28):
there and and just see what they've got going on.
So I walked in here and saw a bunch of
amazing equipment and this, uh, this beastly looking dude in
great shape and uh. And that's how I met you. Man.
So everybody say hello, this to Jeremy Hughes here at
the Paragon. What's up, Jeremy, Hey, how's it going. Thank
you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, man,
(01:50):
I uh, I'm excited to just chat with you really
on a lot of levels. Um. Most importantly, I think
UM for personally for me. I know, over the last year,
I guess it's been almost about a year since I
walked in here. Last year maybe not that long, but yeah,
coming up on a year. But I've made a lot
of personal changes and and uh and goals I've fulfilled
(02:13):
honestly in my life thanks to you and and you're
and your wife Kristen. Um. You guys have a beautiful
little girl Callie Um, which is is really cute for
me because as as little as I get to be
around my little girl Pearl. UM. A lot of mornings
I come in here and see Callie running around, and
it makes me smile because it reminds me of my
little girl. But um, man, I really I think what's
(02:36):
important today to talk to you about is is what
you bring to the table for people, not just like myself,
but but every everyone else that I see coming here.
I mean I I come in here in the mornings
every morning. I'm usually here by i'd say an average,
I'm here by seven o'clock in the morning. We used
to do a little earlier. Sometimes yeah, if it's seven,
I'm usually here by seven oh eight. There was a
(02:58):
while there though I was never late. I was always early.
Um lately, I don't know. I don't know if it's
just because you've been wearing me out or what. But uh,
but uh, I really man, I'm thankful for you. I
really mean that. UM. Over the last almost year of
changing my life, of just being more focused on on
my fitness and dedication to my health. Um, as we
(03:20):
all get older, it's it's not it's not easy to
stay in shape, but um, what's also not easy, I'm
assuming for you is to keep people's spirits in mind
up to the point where they feel like they can
continue a trek towards bettering themselves and in life, I think,
and that's really what my podcast is about. It's about
talking to people that are they're good people that uh
(03:43):
that inspire others. And I've talked to everybody from my
dad who inspires me, to good friends of mine. Um
and now you man, So if you don't mind, uh,
give me your background on kind of where, how you
like where you grew up and what got you into
being a train or here. Yeah. Absolutely so. I grew
up in western Kentucky. My dad was a Southern Baptist preacher,
(04:06):
and we, uh we traveled quite a bit, moved around
quite a bit. My mom was a stay at home mom.
I grew up in a very loving household, and but
I didn't get to see my dad a whole lot.
He always preaching, preaching a small to medium sized churches.
So he was the you know, he was the music leader,
he was the pastor, he was he had to do
everything himself. So unfortunately I didn't get to spend a
(04:26):
lot a whole lot of time with my dad, but
he he always made sure that I felt loved um.
But it was the moving around every two or three
years in the middle of a school year that I mean,
going through school as a kid, that's tough just in general.
But when you move and it's always in the middle
of the year, it's because about the time you made
some friends. Absolutely, So it was about after the second
move that it's it was just a tough transition for
(04:47):
me and I just it was I lost my ability
to really make friends because I figured as soon as
I made him, I was going to lose him again.
So the big thing with me was I kind of
turned to food and I was became very more obese. Um,
but that was my comfort. I found comfort in eating um,
and through that I became morbidly o beasts and morbidly
(05:08):
morbidly obese. I was in when I was in seventh grade,
I had about a forty three inch waist. I was
a hundred seventy five pounds and I was only like
five ft two, So I mean I had the front
butt thing and everything going on. It was I was
like a cuckle um. But you know it's funny. You
you've mentioned that to me before, which is one of
the reasons I I thought it would be interesting to
talk to you because now, I mean because those of
(05:30):
y'all that don't know Jeremy, Jeremy is an amazing shape
and and you're so dedicated to your fitness and your
healthy eating. Um that being a kid and and these days,
as you know, uh, kids are you know, people talk
about bullying all the time now, but bullying has been
going on for years. I mean I remember being a
kid being bullying in school. But when you told me
(05:51):
that day, and it blew my mind. You're like I
you said to me, you said, I used to be
the fact kid in school. And uh and I mean
were there times where you were in school and you
felt that way where you I mean where you felt bullied?
You felt like you know, it was it was I
guess it was motivation for you to to want to
change or what was that? What was that turning point? Yeah?
(06:12):
I was bullied a lot, and I love school. I
loved academics, but I hated going to school because every
day it was just who was going to make fun
of me? It was just made me feel worse about
myself every single day. I wanted to have a girlfriend.
You know, when it set with eighth grade, everybody has
girlfriends and not one girl ever even looked my way.
And that was very, very tough. And um, I remember
(06:33):
one memory that really stuck out was I was on
the basketball team. I love basketball, and I somehow I
would always get picked to be the skins. Everybody else,
all the all the lean guys would be sure, but
I would be picked for skins and the cheerleaders will
be on the side. I can remember it. I mean
it still plays my head all the time, and and
I just remember everybody looking at me, and at least
it felt like everybody was looking at me and just
(06:54):
looking down on me. And at that point, I said,
you know what, I'm not gonna do this anymore. I
saw a magazine with a bodybuilder on and I I
bet that guy has no issues. Now, looking back, that
guy has more issues than most average men. However, to me,
I was like, he hasn't made. Every girl wants to
be with him, all the guys want to be like him.
That's what I want to do. So what I did
to try to control things was I started myself and
(07:15):
became interrexic. So for about two months, I lost about
sixty pounds. Um, you could see all my ribs, and
my parents loved me and they but they said, hey,
look one more day. If you don't start eating. We
realized you can't eat like a regular person. But if
you don't start eating more than one fort ful of food,
which is about what I was doing a day and
working out two hours a day, we're gonna put you
in the hospital. Because we love you, we can't watch
(07:36):
you kill yourself. So I started battling back with that, UM,
and I turned to working out as a way to
control things. So I tracked all my calories, I tracked
all my workouts, calorie expenditure, I did everything. I read
as much as I could try to control that so
I would never go back to being fatty. What age
was this? That was? It was the end of seventh
grade and going into the eighth grade, as when I
(07:58):
lost about eighty six pounds in two months. So you're going,
I mean at an early age you were you were
noticing and feeling like yeah, insecurities and stuff like resolutely yeah,
complete emotional distress. So through that, I I started really
reading and researching everything I get my hands on. I
did the traditional uh, got the Arno encyclopedia and try
(08:21):
to copy all of his workouts and train chest about
eighteen times a week and every other body part. And
I just I didn't learn the correct way to do it.
But um, I think it was it was the things
that I went through early on that's allowed me to
connect with people on a way other than a lot
of trainers that have always been in shape or they're
younger and they've they've just never had to deal with
a lot of issues. And when people come to see me,
(08:42):
I can sit down and be like, honestly, you know what,
I understand it, or actually I understand eating disorders. I
understand all that because I've been there. I can show
you pictures and it's just it's really enabled me to
connect with a lot of people on very intimate levels.
And through that, it's people listen to you and they
respect you, and it's allows them to say, hey, there's
light at them. The tunnelhul changed their lives as well.
So yeah, man, and and honestly, that's why I was
(09:04):
excited to talk with you, because I've seen personally just
being here, um, all walks of life, walking that front
door and be inspired to better themselves. You know, um,
from from high school kids that are coming in here
trying to get strong before college. Uh to um, you
know how old's Harvey? Harvey's seventy eight, seventy eight going
(09:27):
on about twenty years old. It's amazing. And you've seen
him when he first came in. Yeah. So so, I mean,
I I hope Harvey's cool with us talking about him,
but I mean I'm super proud. Yeah, Harvey, Harvey, Harvey,
you are now on the podcast. But our buddy Harvey
comes in here every morning too. I mean it seems
like he's here at least three or four times a week. Uh.
(09:48):
And um, Harvey's how old? Seventy eight? Harvey seventy eight
years old? And when he walked in here, you said,
you gave a good explanation. He was kind of well,
it was funny. He walked in the door, him and
his wife, and they tried a bunch of things and
they they're coming from the y m C. And they
came over here, and Harvey was actually shorter than his
wife when they walked in because of sciatic It was
so bad. And he has been over so far. Um,
(10:10):
he had a lot of body fat on him, and
he just he just didn't know what to do. So
we sat down and we got him going. We've at
now at this point, we've almost like tripled his calories
that he started with. You got to build the metabolism
sciatic was gone. Um, the man just he's talking about
he's near. He was never athletic in early years. And
he said the biggest thing to me was, he's like,
you're giving me a chance to relive my life of
(10:32):
all the things that I wanted to do was young.
And he goes, so, I am just I'm so grateful.
I'm just I'm doing all kinds of things I never
could do when I was younger. And it's that's so great.
I mean, that's gotta get that's gotta be pretty fulfilling
for you to give that sort of feeling to someone
else and and give them, when you were talking about
insecurities earlier, to feel secure about what you look like
(10:54):
and how you feel, and especially at that age. Um,
but I see it as well for for these kids
that are coming in and out of here. But speaking
of Harvey's kind of funny too, I might have to
take a little bit of credit on this one. Uh,
Harvey would come in and say, Jake, Jake, where'd you
get those shorts? Man? Those are good looking shorts. That's good,
I said Harvey, Man, I got this hit Lulu Limen. Man,
these are Lulu Limen shorts that before you know it,
(11:16):
I think Harvey's bought the entire Lulu Limen story. He
comes in here now every morning and he's decked out
and Lulu women. I remember he was frustrated about that
because he went out that day and he said he
was trying to go out to Lulu and something came
up and he couldn't make it that day. So he
was so frustrated. The next day when he came in
he said, I'm getting down there today though, And yeah,
he bought a bunch of Lulu clothes and then there
(11:36):
was about seven other people that followed in suit. So yeah,
you definitely should have got some commission or from Lulu.
Lulu should shout out a nice package to your house.
Shout out to Lulu Limon on that one. I Uh,
I think, um something that it was speaking on my
behalf man that I bring me into this for a second. Um,
you know, one of the reasons I enjoyed talking to
(11:59):
so many random people on this podcast. Is that there
are people that in my life, like I said earlier,
inspire me, but hold me accountable too for um, for
being the person that I need to be. Whether it
be my mother I talked to last week, you know,
I told her I was going to move to Nashville
almost you know, fifteen years ago and chase a dream
(12:20):
of playing music and um, and and she supported me.
And so what was my responsibility at that point was
to hold myself accountable for for for fulfilling this this
sort of promise that I told my parents. Now, whether
or not I would have made it or not, my
mom and dad would still be proud of me, you know,
(12:42):
but I would never be able to look back and
be happy with myself if I knew that I didn't
give a hundred percent at what I was doing. And
so I think that goes back to what you do
is people come in here. I've seen them, I mean
I've seen it happen man. And and for those out
there listening, maybe you are one of these people. But UM,
people come into a gym a lot, and they have
(13:03):
high expectations of I'm gonna walk in this gym and
in the next two weeks, I'm gonna be in the
best shape of my life. And that's not necessarily the case, right,
that's that's never the case. Uh. The thing about us
that really separates us is when people come in here. One,
it's very private. I created a niche environment to where
people could come in and be completely private and feel
completely comfortable, no matter if they're a pro athlete or
(13:24):
it's a it's a stay at home mom who's never
worked out in your life. Um, that's very important one
for people. But two is when people sit down here
the first time, they think we're gonna talk about sets
and reps and and all that stuff. And that's the
last thing that's that's the last thing that I care about.
Because the thing for people, when any walk of life,
no matter what you're doing, business, relationships, it's you've got
(13:45):
to figure out your why. And so you gotta set
some goals, and you've got to figure out what's going
to keep you motivated when nobody's looking, when you're tired,
life didn't go great that day. You just got to
figure out what it is that's going to keep you
moving forward, no matter what it is. So When we
sit people down, I don't talk sets and reps. I
talk what's your goals for the next year? Where do
you want to be? And they always start with their
(14:06):
physical of course, because they're coming to me for training.
But I get that, but let's talk beyond that. What's
this physical gonna do for you? Is it going to
give you the confidence too, if you just went through
a divorce to get back out on the dating scene.
Is they going to give you the energy to be
able to enjoy your kids, UM and levels and you know,
be successful like you want to throw a ball whenever
you're sixty years old, if you if you want UM.
Some of the sadas part because we have a kind
(14:28):
of a niche clientell here. These people are very dedicated.
They come to me and it's not just your average
gym goers UM. But the big thing with people when
they when they come to see me is there, you know,
very successful people, but they're at the point in their
life where they've worked their butt off and for thirty
years and they want to go out and travel now
enjoy themselves. But they've they've neglected their health for thirty
(14:49):
years to work hard, and now they're at the point
with their health that they can't enjoy themselves like they
want to. So the big thing is is I like
to teach balance, but you've gotta understand what your goals are.
And then once you set those goals, then what's why
is that important to you? What's the most important thing
you want to achieve? And then you also got to
talk about what's been holding you back. So once you
can kind of line out those and set those goals
(15:09):
and you know year long goals for yourself where you
want to be, then everything else falls in place. It's
that mental acuity to be able to stick to what
you're doing and be consistent, because it doesn't matter how
good a program is. If you can only do it
for four weeks, that's it's not going to do you
any good. So you need to play something you can
create a lifestyle with and be able to do consistently.
And I think what you said, they're setting goals, um
is a big deal because I know my dad always
(15:31):
said that if you don't set goals or don't know
where you're going and how you're gonna know when you
get there, And UM, for me, I know that when
I walked in here last year, UM, I've been I've
been working out for a lot of years, and I've
I've been trying my hardest to always stay in shape.
But I think a lot of those out there, they're listening. Um,
(15:52):
it's hard, really hard on the road as as much
as I'm on the road and night after night and
not sleeping well and and and you know where most
people's bed is is completely still at home every night,
mine's moving eighty miles an hour down the road. And
and I can feel every every bump we hit, and
every time the bus driver slams on the brakes because
somebody pulled in front of them. I mean, it's it's
(16:14):
a different kind of lifestyle. But I wanted to get
myself on more of a routine, Um, not just waking
up in the morning and going to the gym, which
I've done before, but really being strategic on my on
my meals. And you tend to know a lot about
the nutritional side of staying fit. And so I was
gonna ask you, uh, for anybody that's interested out there
(16:37):
and what you might offer um to them as far
as someone's wanting to change their lifestyle without necessarily stepping
into a gym. Right now, but really wanting to to
to get a head start before they think about starting
to pump iron right, what would be your biggest, uh
(16:57):
piece of advice for those people, It's arn't moving. That's
the biggest thing, is just to start moving. What you
see with a lot of people is it is paralysis
by analysis. It's it's analysis by analysis. I had that.
I had that in the gun Hoster I was I
was waiting to use that. Yeah, absolutely, analysis by analysis.
So basically what it is is if people don't have
(17:18):
the perfect scenario, they're like, Okay, well, I'm gonna eat
five meals a day, I'm gonna eat these perfect meals,
I'm gonna work out so many times a week, and
they're always waiting for that perfect time to start their plan.
And most people never started because they never have that
perfect moment. Life. It's not perfect. What about the people
though that that say I ate good today, but I
only ate two meals. It was I ate a salad
and some yogurt, And I mean like they're basically because
(17:40):
there there's different That's what I've learned over the years.
And I question you on this now, putting you kind
of on the spot, but you know, there's the theory
of eat multiple times a day, uh to keep your
metabolism higher. And then there's those that feel like they
do better by eating once or twice today. Because I
hear the people all the time and say, oh, I
(18:01):
don't eat breakfast, man, I need a breakfast person. But
what I've come to realize for my life, and I
mean I think maybe you could attest, is that breakfast
is a really important part of the day. I mean,
you fasted basically all night long by going to sleep,
you wake up and you've for eight or ten hours.
If you've got eight or eight hours sleep, you haven't
put a piece of food or liquid in your body.
(18:22):
So did not eat breakfast and get your day started
the right way? You're you're essentially starting up your car
with no gas in it and trying and trying to
drive downtown. Yeah. So the big thing is with that too,
is every diet works and every diet doesn't work, and
usually the best plan for you is the one you're
not doing. So if you think back to hundreds of
(18:42):
years ago, the way we ate it was in seasons,
so you didn't eat the same food every day day
and a day out, it's you would maybe eat called mills.
You you know you gotta kill, you would eat tons
of you eat whatever you went out and killed that
so and so you didn't eat the same food every
season for the spring and the fall, everything and kind
of change. So I think rotation is very important, and
(19:03):
it's there's no perfect diet. It's what with What we
do with our clients is we start them on a
basic foundational plan that I think it's gonna be pretty
good for them, depending on what their goals are, what
their life is like. UM One, Like we said, it
has to be a plan that you can stick to
day in and day out. If it's so strict, but
it's the best, maybe the best diet. But if you
can only follow it three weeks, that's not gonna get
you anywhere. So one is the plan that you can
(19:24):
be the most consistent with. And two is most people
under eat. It's every single client that's came through the door.
We've increased their calories, no matter what their goal was,
to lose fat, to put on muscle, just to feel good.
It's most people under eat. So you've got to build
your metabolism. UM As far as meals, usually usually it's
like four to six mills. It's if you're gonna eat
like two thousand calories and you eat it in one
(19:46):
meal versus four meals, say you're gonna be able to
digest it a lot better. It just comes down to it.
So more saying, if you if you eat four meals
that total two colories as opposed to one large meal, Yeah,
you'll be able to do bodies be able to digest it.
You have, you have a better slower release of energy.
You'll feel a lot better. But it just depends on
your goal. It's as people come in. And I had
(20:06):
one guy I worked with a long time ago, and
he could eat pizza every week and still get into shape.
So it's you know, you gotta gotta give people balance
in life. Um, if you try to make them be
so strict that they're going to end up falling off
the plan. So it's it's just balance. It's and every
plane can work. But here we do body fat every
week on people every two weeks and to see how
their body changes. You've done it, yep, And based on
(20:29):
that that's how we change their plans. So it's a
plan needs to constantly change. Is your body evolves, Um,
there's just there's no one set plan. Keto works. I
know people that do keto and that works. I know
people that eat tons. Well, I have one guy that's
two hundred ninety that eats about six grams of carbs.
So everything works and everything stops, just a matter of
staying consistent to it and and then knowing how to
(20:49):
change the variables as you move forward with that, which
gets back to when I said a minute ago about
people walking in their store and think that overnight they're
gonna they're gonna change. Um, I can tell you from
me personally. Um, I'm one of those people. You know,
I'm impatient. Everything I want, I want it now, and
but yeah, yeah, right, Uh. I just I'm that kind
(21:11):
of person. I mean, it was the same way when
I left college to move in Nashville to chase a
dream of singing on the road. Like I didn't want
to come up here and wait four or five years
to get going. I mean, I wanted to work at
it once I got here because I wanted it to
happen the next day. I I thought when I moved
to Nashville, I was going to be a touring musician
on the road. The following week, and it doesn't happen
(21:32):
like that. Without consistency, like you just said, and a
goal which I had, and working towards that goal, you
eventually get to where you want to be. And um,
where I am now not just in my my personal
business life, but in this physical realm Uh. I feel
pretty good, man. I feel like over the last year,
(21:53):
I feel like I've this this year, I've pretty much
worked harder than I've ever worked as far is trying
to get myself in shape, which is weird because I'm
the oldest I've ever been, which is an odd thing
to say. I'm thirty five years old, thirty six things.
I'm the same age as you are, so things kind
of change once you get past that big three zero. Um,
(22:15):
but what's your assessment for those out there that are wondering?
And I'd like to I'm a fly on the wall
at this point, but if someone was like, Hey, I
see Jake goes to your your gym, what's your assessment?
You don't don't hold anything back. I want your honest opinion.
I've never asked you that, but here you are, on
on on record, about to give the jaco an assessment
(22:36):
you work out very very hard. And the first part, though,
is with a lot of people, is you got to
fix what's wrong. So when you came to me, you
had a lot of kind of nagging injuries. Um from
the diet plan that you've done before. You didn't have
a lot of lean, lean muscle on you. Is you
had died to a lot of the muscle and the
fat off your leaner lean You didn't have much muscle.
And because of that, you had a lot of nagging
(22:57):
injuries that were so bothering you. So my first goal
was to get you healthy, and we did that by
putting on about fifty pounds of lean mass. And that's
the big thing that people don't do is that's right
lean mass, um paragon mass. You put on paragon mass,
it's ah, you know, you got to eat more. And
most people they don't put enough value on string training.
They try to do a lot of cardio in a
(23:18):
lot of diet, and you know, cardio bumps up your
your calories mandature for a couple of hours. But if
you really want to burn more calories, put on some muscle,
because the more muscle muscles, because that's the that's the
the misconception I hear a lot, especially from females. Um
let's say I don't I don't know. I don't really
want to lift weights. I don't want to get all,
you know, muscular. And the first thing I tell him
(23:41):
is like, you know, I have men that have been
working out with me for years that aren't anywhere near
where they want to be, So don't worry, You're not
going to do that. But it's the string training, and
and you know that it's taxing your body and your
muscles in order to where they need the nutrients. You
you you completely handled macronutrients, you handle carbs better, um,
you burn calories twenty four hours long on more more
fat burn. It's just the string training completely changes the
(24:04):
look at the physique and it makes you healthy, prevents osteoporosis,
a lot of things. So it's you gotta If people
put more emphasis on string training versus cardio and they
had it just a good sound diet, they get ten
times better results than what they're getting now. Most people
just wear themselves out with tons of cardio and not
eating enough. So it's I remember one of the things
you said to me when I walked in here the
first time was you said, I don't believe and uh,
(24:27):
what was it you said, I don't believe in and
over working out. I believe in under eating. Was that
it I said, I don't. I don't believe in overtraining.
I believe in underreating. And very few people overtrained. They
just don't train hard enough for that enough times in
the weeked overtrained. But they do under eat. And that's
why most people don't lose fat. It's because they've slowed
the metabolism down by well, if I want to lose weight,
(24:47):
I'll just eat less. Well, yeah you will, but most
of the time you all you lose is water and muscle.
You don't lose a lot of fat. And you've slowed
your metabolism down. And once you've done that, you become
a fat hoarding machine. You just store fat like crazy.
It's your job, So it's you get you kind of
like you as a it a whole lot more like
me as a kid. Absolutely, I always sat way too much.
What do you do? You have any piece of advice
for any kids out there that that listen to my podcast,
(25:09):
that uh, that might be wanting to get in shape.
I mean, I know that we've talked about this Already's
kind of about advice you have for people out there,
But there's all walks of life that listen to me
out there. And I was telling Jeremy this before we
started my podcast today that I just I'm blown away
that with all of the things and choices that people
have out there to listen um or watch or be entertained,
(25:31):
whether it's with YouTube, or whether it's with all the
other podcasts are out there, or television or you name it,
that those that are listening to this genuinely are interested
in whatever it is that I have to be talking about.
And I'm so flattered by that. But with that platform
that I have, I'm always looking for ways to inspire
those out there. And so I thought, by talking to
you and we've got a few minutes left here, just
(25:53):
to kind of leave people with some advice on if
they're thinking about this is the year like here it
comes till about summertime. It's pool season, man, Like, this
is the time I want to get myself in shape. Um.
A lot of folks I've heard before say, man, I
don't know, I don't have time for the gym. And
I've always said something I've heard before is that no
one has time for the gym. You have to make time, right,
(26:16):
nobody has time to be athletic or be put fitness
in their life, but you have to make time for that. Um.
So for those out there that are looking for a
little bit more piece of advice from from someone, where
they're getting some pretty good free advice from you today. Uh,
what do you have anything to leave them with that
you think is valuable? You know? It's talking about the kids.
(26:39):
It's the big thing is I say, you gotta love yourself.
I never loved myself. I always thought there was something
wrong with me growing up because of the things I
went through. So the kids, love yourself and don't focus
too much on that time because life gets better. I mean,
I never would imagined i'd be where I am today,
back when I was at more Blue Obi's kid getting
made fun of. But it's awesome, dude, it's awesome to
(27:01):
see it. And I'm not I didn't just choose you
to talk to you on this podcast because I just
thought I'm gonna fill some time with you. I genuinely
wanted to chat with you because I see what you've
done for my life and how much better I feel,
And I think when you feel better, you perform better
in life in all aspects, not only that people see
you feel like. You can see when someone's feeling good.
(27:22):
You can see when someone suspects every aspect of your life,
your relationships, you're at work, the way you do things.
It just it's everything. This is the foundation to happiness
and whatever area life you want. So I would say,
you know, for the older, the more adults, the big
thing is one. Don't don't beat yourself up too much
if you're not dead on, just do your best every day.
(27:43):
If you can do your best every day and you
hit of your goal, I ate a her She's chocolate
kiss last night. I'm surprised it's just one. There's probably
more to the story on that. Now. I only had one.
I have a little my my little girl gave me
some and uh and I just date one. We'll make
you do twenty more squats before you leave them. Will
work Often't worry about that, but too, it's just set
your goals down and you gotta make it a priority.
(28:05):
Like you said, people say they don't have time. People
have time to do what they want to. I have
people that come in here and you I think there's
no way they could afford this, this service, And it's
an investment. It's an investment in your health and those
people they find a way. If you want something in
life bad enough, you'll find a way to achieve it.
So the goals is huge. Sit your goals down to
understand why you want to do something, even get a
(28:25):
dream board, put up things, pictures that remind you of
what you want to achieve, and don't focus on the
day to day. Focus on that end. Go focused on
the light at the end of the tunnel and just
envision yourself being there. And the people that are willing
to work hard and go after whatever they want, they
usually get it. It may all come easy, It's never
come easy for me, but it just makes it that
much more amazing when you achieve it because you have
(28:48):
to work for it. It's well, I think a lot
of people look at my life too, and they think,
oh man, it's just it's it comes easy forever this
and that, and it doesn't. It really doesn't. I mean
I genuinely do. I mean you think I enjoy I
mean I get here at seven am. So in order
for me to get here at seven am, each morning,
I'm up by five five, usually have to leave my
place by six thirty ish, UM to get here, and
(29:11):
I don't. I'm gonna be honest with you, Man, I
enjoyed seeing you. You bring a lot of UM, positive
things to my life. But I don't love getting up
every morning. But once I get here and I get
going and I finished the workout, I'm able to go. WHOA,
I feel good and let's start this day to day.
And UM, I've watched you over the last year. Man
inspire a lot of people, including myself, and UM, I
(29:34):
really appreciate it. And I appreciate and I appreciate you,
uh giving your advice and expertise to those out there
that I think are just as interested and and UM
for anyone out there that's that's looking to uh get
yourself in shape. I mean, it's never too late to
do that. UM. I'm on the journey with you, and
I'm always on a fitness journey to uh to better
(29:56):
myself and just feel better. I want to live as
long as I can and and be as healthy and
happy as I can. So you're on the fun phase two.
We've done the bulk and we've put on the lean mass.
Now we're gonna get so by bringing myself into this,
I was gonna say that. I mean, there's been days
where I complained to you or I'm like, oh I
feel fat, man. I'm like, I just want to get
rid of this little this fat right here on my stomach.
And and I like your research too. Every time you
(30:18):
come in you're like, I read this, which is good.
I like people that challenge and want to understand things
that um but a lot of people that have the
same problem you asked me to kind of assess where
you're at the same problem. You know, you get start,
you start doing something for three or four days, and
then you see something else. It's like squirrel, you know,
and you try to change and people they flop around
way too much. I have really bad attention deficit disorder. Anyways.
(30:39):
So we get going about three or four days and
then you read something that somebody else is doing something else,
and you're like, well what about this? And and it's
just pick something and stick to and figure out what works.
Feel that's the way. If you're always switching every three
or four days, it's something new, You're never gonna know
what's gonna work. So it's just stick to something, don't
don't you know, make things too hard on yourself, and
just be positive. But you know, the big thing I
(31:01):
think with a lot of people as well, is people
get comfortable and being unhappy. It's people don't want to
push themselves and it's easier to be comfortable and not
be happy than to try to push yourself out of
that comfort zone and the possibility of failing. Don't be
afraid to fail. And everybody, everyone on earth has failed
multiple time, absolutely so, so fell fast as it fell,
(31:22):
as fast as you can, so you can learn from
those lessons. But you know, the people that I could
see people all the time, and those are the ones
that don't sign up, it's because they go through it.
They just they're just comfortable being unhappy and they interesting
they would rather do that. That's really interesting to think
that you're what you just said is very true. There's
a lot of people I know that are just comfortable.
(31:43):
But they're comfortable and their unhappiness and they can never
be disappointed. To think about how comfortable you can be
in in happiness, being happy. Yeah, well, those are the
people that win, the people that take chances that people
that push themselves. They go the extra miles right now, dude,
I got here this morning and I brought my microphones
with me. Um So, I don't always have to do
my podcasts from our studio, but um, I brought these
(32:06):
microphones with me, and we had a great workout this morning,
and I told Jeremy, I was like, you mind after
the workout if we, uh, if we chat a little
bit for my podcast. So dude, I appreciate it. Man,
It's been an inspiring conversation this morning. I hope everyone
out there that's listening. Um. By the way, a friend
of mine that listens to my podcast said, he said,
I don't know if you should always reference the people
out there listening it like, but I I don't. I
(32:29):
don't want to feel like I'm just talking to you.
You know we are. We're talking to a lot of people.
This This podcast reaches a lot of folks out there,
and um so, I do say that a lot to
those listening and those out there, but I'm so appreciative
if y'all that tune in and listen. Um, We're always
coming to you with a bunch of random ideas and
people to talk to. But the common consistent point of
(32:49):
this podcast for me is to always find put people
that but that I can talk to you that inspire me,
but we'll also inspire others. And that's exactly what you are. Man.
I appreciate everything you've helped me do and when pleasure. Yeah,
and thanks for giving your advice to those out out
there listening. Uh, But I'll see you tomorrow at seven am. Yeah.
And people if they want to get ahold of me
(33:10):
of anyway, Yeah, how do people get ahold of you?
Paragon strength dot com. They can go to our website
and fill out email for him. And you know, maybe
in the future too, if people want to write in
and have like a couple of questions they want to
ask you general fitness related and maybe we could do
like short little videos every once in a while for
him and just answer people's questions. That that way we
can kind of help people in a more detailed you know.
Yeah tech. Yeah, and anybody that's here and that's ah
(33:33):
in the Nashville area that listens. Um, it's looking for
a great place to come and and train and and
get the most out of your your life and fitness.
Come see Jeremy and Kristin over here. At paragon Um
off Highway one and uh Bellevue. So appreciate you guys.
Thank you, Jeremy, I always say it. You are a
good company as those the others that have been on
(33:54):
here before. And uh, well, I'll see you tomorrow seven am,
working out hard and I'll make sure to go eat
a lot today. I'll see you at seven a week.
It sounds all right, ze y'all.
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