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Teo's amazing weight loss story is more common than you would expect. He is 6 feet 4 inches and was a steller high school football player. But once he went to college, he started gaining weight as his activity level dropped and he soon found himself topping four hundred pounds. After college, he helped found a technology company and continued gaining weight as he was sitting behind a computer most of the time. Because of his height and frame, he was always able to carry his weigh well and it took some time for him to realize that his weight might be holding him back from the family that he wanted to have. At 31, Teo found himself at 460 pounds and he was ready to make a change. In this episode, you're going to hear everything in his own words. What motivated him to start and continue his weight loss journey Why he decided to start working out and losing weight while visiting his native country of Romania. How he lost 180 in a little over 8 months You'll also hear him discuss his goals as prepares for skin removal surgery in January. Action Items Sign up for the Zero Gain Challenge Download Teo's Workout Plan and Progress Chart Visit Teo's page on Facebook (in Romanian) Give us a short review in iTunes

"Any exercise program will improve in direct ratio to the number of things you can keep out of it, that needn’t be there" - Pat FlynnIn this episode, I talk to Pat Flynn from Chronicles of Strength about Fitness Minimalism, Kettlebell technique and intermittent fasting.Pat's Official BioPat Flynn is the founder of Chronicles of Strength, publisher of the Chronicles of Strength Newsletter, and chief contributor to the Chronicles of Strength Inner Circle– a membership site dedicated to helping others grow strong(er) and get lean(er) through fitness minimalism.Pat is also the co-author of the upcoming books entitled Paleo Fitness for Dummies and Intermittent Fasting for Dummies (both due out next year through Wiley publications).But that is not the worst. Pat Flynn is also a certified Russian Kettlebell Challenge instructor, and other things of the sort. He talks mostly on how to chop fat and build muscle through kettlebell complex training.ResourcesPat Flynn's Website (Be sure to sign up for his newsletter) Pat's Inner Circle Newsletter  Pat on Facebook  Pat on Twitter 

Do you guys remember a video that went viral last year about Arthur, a 47 year old Disabled Gulf War Veteran that was overweight, on crutches and severely depressed. The video shows how Arthur got healthy, lost weight and began walking and running again thanks to a yoga program called DDP Yoga. DDP Yoga is named after for its creator, Diamond Dallas Page, a former professional wrestler who turned to Yoga after a career of getting beat up several nights a week for years. I put a link to the video on the show notes for this episode at fipodcast.com/005. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX9FSZJu448 I was skeptical of the claims in the video until I saw the results first hand from a friend of mine you may know as Scotty Riggs. Scotty is also a former Tag Team and Heavyweight Champion. I called up Scotty and asked him to come on the show and we was nice enough to take some time out of his day to talk to me. In the interview, Scotty is going to talk about his wrestling days and the punishment it put on his body, including multiple concussions, merited discs, spondylosis and a serious elbow surgery. You'll also here about how he got healthy by changing his diet and doing DDP Yoga, a great yoga program from another former wrestler named Diamond Dallas Page. Let's get straight to the interview with Scotty Riggs. I really want to thank Scotty for taking the time out of his day to sit down and catch up. I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. One of my goals for this podcast is to have interviews that will inspire and inform everyone listening. If you want to learn more about DDP Yoga, you can visit fipodcast.com/ddpyoga or go to the show notes at fipodcast.com/005. And please visit the website and post your comments about this interview. I'd love to hear what you think. And if you like this interview, you can always go to fipodcast.com/love to send a tweet to your friends and let them know about the show. Thanks again for listening and I'll be back next week with another exciting interview. Resources DDP Yoga Scotty Riggs on Twitter Scotty's Facebook Fan Page 

In this week's episode, you'll get an overview of Crossfit, some of the history of Crossfit, the differences between the Corporate Headquarters and Affiliate Gyms and a 5 Step System for being successful at Crossfit. All About Crossfit Olympic athletes and our grandparents both need to fulfill their potentials for cardiorespiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, speed, power, coordination, accuracy, balance, and agility. One is looking for functional dominance the other for functional competence. -Greg Glassman, founder of Crossfit I first became aware of Crossfit in about 2006. I had just completed the original Owen McKibbin workout and was looking for something new. For those of you who don't know who Owen Mckibbin is, he's one of the top male fitness models in the world and was on the over of Men's Health a record 19 times. He's also the author of The Men’s Health Cover Model Workout, Body Sculpting Secrets of the World’s Top Fitness Model. So - I had just finished Owen's workout and was looking for an alternative and I cam across Crossfit.com. I watched a couple of videos of women doing a workout called "Nasty Girls" where they were doing full body pullups on Olympic rings and Overhead snatches in a time based workout. I was blown away. The website also posted a new workout every day so I decided to jump in and started incorporating some of the workouts in-between my cardio training. It was a little bit confusing at first because Crossfitters have their own language and culture and it was a challenge to figure things out without experiencing them first hand. There were only a handful of Crossfit affiliate gyms at the time and none of them were close to me, so I was this lone guy in a corporate gym doing these strange workouts that combined barbell movements like snatches, squats and power cleans with high intensity interval training. I did find an area on the Crossfit site that gave modified versions of the barbell movements that I was not as familiar with, but it was really hard to keep up without someone to show me proper form for the barbell movements that were part of the core of the workouts, so what I eventually ended up doing was creating a list of all the non-barbell movements and creating my own series of workouts from them. Fast forward six years and there are now half a dozen Crossfit Gyms (called Crossfit Boxes) within 20 minutes of my house. I was little reluctant to sign up because there have been some stories in the

In this episode, which is part three of three on How to Get Fit, I'll tell you the four characteristics of a great workout and then give you my recommendations on the best workouts for men and the best workouts for women."Set it, and forget it." Listener Questions from Last Week's Episode on Diet Before we get to our main subject for today, I just wanted to respsond to a few listener question about diet from last week. Q1. The guide contained a lot of information. is there an easy way to remember what to eat and not to eat. A1. Yes, I was listening to an interview with author and Olympic Athlete Dan John, who mentioned what he was told by his Olympic nutrition expert on his first day of training: Protein, veggies, and water. If you eat protein and veggies only with every meal and drink lots of water, you'll be fine. Q2. From @Cpelli - Do you have any good meal plans/snack idea sheets you could send me?  A1. Just follow the advice above and eat protein and veggies with each meal. For snacks I recommend plain beef jerky, macadamia nuts, soaked almonds and baby carrots. Q3. What about about Gatorade or other energ/sports drinks? A3. I would avoid Gatorade and most energy drinks. Most of them are just a bottle of chemical that cause havoc with your hormones. Gatorade and other sports drinks contain about 90% of the sugar as a regular soda so they will put you into th sugar additiction cycle that I discussed in last week's podcast. Q4. Sgarcia81 - Was venting about being on day 3 of strict paleo. A4. I didn't go into many deatails about this last week, but there are a couple of side effects you may experience when you start a Paleo lifestlye. On about day 3-4 some people people get itchy skin or a bad taste in your mouth as their body starts releasing ketones. Others maybe even a little light headed. Don't give up! Set it and Forget it. What I look for in a Workout Program Now, back to Ron Popeil. For those of you who don't know, Ron owned a company called Ronco and was the father of the infomercial. He was the first person to videotape a product demonstration for a home product, The Veg-o-matic. He also came up with some of these memorable quotes:"But Wait, there's more.""Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to show you the greatest kitchen appliance ever made.""Hey, goodlookin', we'll be back to pick ya up later!" Set and forget was for the Showtime Rotisserie and was one of the last big products he marketed before selling his company for $55 Million and retir

In this episode, which is part two of three on How to Get Fit, I do a review of the three most popular diets and give you my five tips to sticking to the diet I recommend, along with a link to download the best diet to help you keep you healthy and fit. “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” - Hippocrates From Wikipedia Hippocrates was an ancient Greek physician, and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is referred to as the father of western medicine in recognition of his lasting contributions to the field as the founder of the Hippocratic School of Medicine. Hippocrates is credited with being the first person to believe that diseases were caused naturally, not because of superstition and gods. Hippocrates was credited by the disciples of Pythagoras of allying philosophy and medicine. He separated the discipline of medicine from religion, believing and arguing that disease was not a punishment inflicted by the gods but rather the product of environmental factors, diet, and living habits. Leading Causes of Death in 2010 Heart disease: 597,689 Cancer: 574,743 Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080 Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 129,476 Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,859 Alzheimer's disease: 83,494 Diabetes: 69,071 Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,476 (diseases and failure of kidneys) Influenza and Pneumonia: 50,097 Intentional self-harm (suicide): 38,364 (source: Centers for Disease Control) 4 of the top 10 causes of death are directly related to diet and there is evidence that some of the others can also impacted by poor nutrition. But prior to the year 1900, there was almost no heart disease to speak of. The only heart problems were related to congenital birth defects and were a small percentage of the heart disease we see today. So what's changed in the last 113 years? Sedentary lifestyle - Prior to 1900, people primarily work in manual labor jobs and on farms. Today we work in offices and travel in cars and buses. Processed Foods - In the 1800s food went from farms into the home in 48 hours or less because most people didn't have refrigeration or the space to store food. Today we buy processed food or eat fast food that has little to no nutritional value. Refined Sugars and Carbohydrates - Previous generations regarded sugar as a luxury and it was unrefined. Today almost every snack food and drink is high in sugar or a corn based sugar su