What We Covered

This truly was one of my favorite episodes to record.

Was it because of the fantastic content? Yes. Of course the content was wonderful and for many, the concepts we covered will challenge your current training approach and lead to significant and results boosting action.

But it was more than the content... it was the guest.

On today's episode of the Life By Design Podcast I had the opportunity to speak with 6x CrossFit Games athlete (including finishing as the 12th fittest man in the world in 2016) Marcus Filly.

Marcus is a husband, father of 2 daughters and the CEO and Founder of Revival Strength and Functional Bodybuilding, and creator of Awaken Training Series.

What I loved about this episode was the value systems and principles that make up this functional bodybuilding model. The amount of crossover with Life By Design lead to a detailed dive into what works in the functional fitness real world and what doesn't.

What We Covered

• The journey that lead Marcus from a high school athlete to Division 1 athletics to the CrossFit Games and eventually leaving CrossFit altogether to create a more logical approach to functional fitness.
• The pitfalls of Traditional CrossFit Marcus witnessed while coaching in his own facility...including the secret to behind the "I look too bulky" statement heard from many women.
• The 3 fundamentals of Functional Bodybuilding that highlight a massive shift from most program design within the functional fitness world.
• How to move athletes from trying to hit PR's and burning out to consistently, frequent, recoverable training that yields results over time.

Beware the health halo.

The health halo is a term or in this case, group of words, that are often associated with a particular outcome.

For example, when you hear the term organic what comes to mind? Most likely, your brain jumps to fresh, healthy, crispy, colourful, etc.

Now, what if we mentioned that both cocaine and heroin can be by definition organic?

Health halo terms also include "natural, drugless, vegan, vegetarian, paleo, keto" and the topic of today's episode "plant-based."

Recently, and it's unknown if this is correlated or coincidental, but a change in Canada's food guide toward a more 'plant-based' diet (their words not ours) has seen many fast food chains jump on board and begin offering 'meatless, beyond meat, and plant-based' options to their customers.

Of course, since we love business and free enterprise, it's lovely to see companies meet (meat would have been a pun) the needs of their customers. The issue, in this case, is that these products are promoted as (or at least assumed to be) healthy. We would argue that this might not be the case.

The purpose of this podcast is to discuss halo health terms and why understanding your body's requirements is the key to knowing what you should be eating.

Here's what we cover

• Thinking in principle - why it's the most crucial step to being able to make your own health decisions.
• Your body's macro and micronutrient requirements.
• The best way to fuel your body whether you are vegan or choose to eat meat.

• Issac Newton said, "The reason I can see so far is that I've stood on the shoulders of giants." Role models are an excellent shortcut to help you become the person you want to be in order to achieve the things you want to achieve.
• Choose your role models carefully and you can even be selective in that process. It's OK to look up to and admire someone, that's human nature, but you don't have to accept all of them. You can pick and choose which parts you like and which parts you don't like. Tiger Woods would have been an excellent golf role model; not so much in the relationship department.
• Role models are art in motion. As a human being you need art to survive. Your role model - in a very real example - embodies that. Be very careful who you choose.