Get Healthy Stay Healthy with Phil Catudal

george grombacher 0:01
Phil Catudal is a renowned celebrity trainer. He’s got a philosophy based on accountability, education and dedication. He’s the author of just your type, the ultimate guide for eating and training right for your body. Welcome to show, Phil,

Phil Catudal 0:15
thank you so much for having me, George. I appreciate it.

george grombacher 0:18
Yeah, excited to have you on to also talk about your personal lives more about your work and why you do what you do. You

Phil Catudal 0:25
got it? Yeah. So I’m a personal trainer and nutritionist kind of all around. Health, Nutrition Wellness guy, I keep adding to the certifications actively starting a PhD here soon, just the pursuit of human happiness and health is kind of inescapable. I have leukemia as a kid from age three to eight. So I can tell you about methotrexate and chemo and lumbar punctures when I was a little kid. And just in my whole mind, I was going to be a doctor forever. And then, unfortunately, lost my father to a different cancer when I was 11. And so my whole life has been just in and out of hospitals. And I guess as I’ve gotten older, the honest truth is between anxiety, PTSD, and not wanting to be back in a hospital, I made the decision, hey, I’m going to help folks stay healthy, stay happy, and either not go into the hospital or be healthier when they come out. Mental health, physical health. So I switched that route from pre med to as a personal training with a side of I speak a bunch of language, linguistics, international relations, I just love people. I want to help people maximize their life and be happy and healthy because I have lost people very close to me and myself been at death’s door. And I know what it’s like to have, you know, for lack of better word, a crappy quality of life, and also to wonder if tomorrow is going to come.

george grombacher 1:46
What a rough, I’m sure that your childhood was wonderful.

Phil Catudal 1:51
Right? Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s both it’s both people like, Oh, you’re, you’re successful. And, you know, I wish you could have this and that, and I want to be like, y’all this summer? If you have to go through the things I had to do to get here. I don’t think you’d say those same words. So excitedly.

george grombacher 2:07
Yeah, yeah. Well, we are cut from the same cloth. I’m interested in human flourishing. And helping people to do that. My my piece of that is money and personal finance, I think that there are so many commonalities, and through lines, because success with money and success with food and moving our bodies. I mean, I think we all intellectually understand what we’re supposed to be doing. But then the actual application, there’s just a huge gulf between those two things.

Phil Catudal 2:37
Executing is everything. Everyone knows what to do. Training, everyone’s like, I already know this. I know this. I’m like, Why haven’t you been doing it? For one year? Three years? Five years? 10 years? 20 years? You know, this, don’t you? Yeah. It’s so true. We all need a little help. And we all have strengths and weaknesses. And yeah, we help each other in our own fields, you and, and finance me, and health and wellness, people in therapy people and those people that and that’s the beauty of this world, if we were all the same person, it’d be very, very boring.

george grombacher 3:02
It would be it would be boring. That would be horribly boring. I would be interested in that. So getting people to actually I talk about literacy being what I know. And then wellness what I actually do. How do you how does how does your process work? You have to figure out somebody knows the stuff, they actually say it? And then how do we get them to actually do it?

Phil Catudal 3:24
Yeah, so for me, everything begins with what I call the date in in personal training lingo, they call it the park cue, or all these different things. Basically, it’s where you’re getting to know like the background of somebody, what’s your health, wellness injury? Are you cleared from your doctor all this you know, but I like to take the personal aspect of personal training, really important. So I’m currently on a tirade, railing against AI and chat TPT taking over everyone like it’s like, is it taking over your job or this and I’m like, no one has a personal connection with a robot telling Chet GPT to give you the perfect workout on paper, it’s not going to make you go do it. I’m not threatened at all. Because people want a human being asking how their days going, if they did it, what they’re doing. So that’s my whole philosophy. So me, ironically, I’m all about not what’s the best, not what’s optimal. I’m also kind of on this other tirade against this optimization culture, because that applies to the 1%. The people who are already sleeping eight hours working out five days a week eating healthy doing this. Newsflash, that is not the majority. It’s not even close to the majority of America, let alone the world. So I think about what’s digestible Can I get you to eat mostly healthy everyday? Can you not go to McDonald’s or not have alcohol or not have coke today? And then can we get you moving for 30 minutes today? So that’s, I start all my clients off 30 days of movement a day, and eating generally healthy. And at first, I actually don’t make them eat healthy stuff. I make them stop eating the crappy stuff. We do that for a week. All right, cool. Let’s add this. Let’s add this and rather than just giving them A perfect on paper plan on day one of here’s your vision board. Here’s your goal for the year. Hear them like you know what? Tomorrow, I’m going to text you at the end of the day. And if I don’t hear from you first, I’m going to follow up 24 hours later. And did you eat healthy today? Did you move? Did you walk for 30 minutes. And so I’m all about building habits like atomic habits by James clear stat. So standardize before you optimize, let’s get you healthy. Let’s get you walking, eating less crap. And then we’ll add strength training, exercise one and do this. And I want people to check off small wins, like, Oh, I did this today and feel good. I did this today. I feel good. Hey, Phil, good. What I did my three workouts this week, 30 minutes, three days a week. All right, let’s go to four days a week, let’s go to five days a week. So I try to meet people where they’re at, and actually get them to where they’re going. Rather than saying, Hey, you’re, you’re living a pretty crappy life, and you’re failing. And this is what you’re not living up to. And here’s the 20 things Andrew Huberman said you should be doing and you’re doing zero of them. You need to change that tomorrow, do all 20 I don’t think that’s helping anyone. I think the knowledge is incredible. I love Andrew Huberman. But his stuff applies to me. I’m the 1%, who has been doing this my whole life. It doesn’t apply to the vast majority of busy parents, professionals, people just trying to work two jobs, pay their bills, maybe date or keep a marriage together or raise their kids. And they’re just like, I just want to not die and be a little less fat. I just want to have some confidence. So that’s where I jump and that’s I get, I get my fulfillment on helping people actually measurably increase the quality of life not if they have a six pack or not.

george grombacher 6:37
You’re telling me that AI can’t do that.

Phil Catudal 6:41
Oh, my God, dang. So what I’m hearing is

george grombacher 6:46
I think that that makes sense. It makes perfect sense. I mean, I give somebody just the perfect plan based on David Goggins, meets Andrew Huberman, and the chances that they’re gonna follow through on it are very, very, very slim. So instead of doing that, let’s just stop doing the really, really super destructive stuff and just get moving for 30 minutes a day. That’s manageable for everybody. Everybody,

Phil Catudal 7:09
absolutely. And you know, I have a client, she has a very demanding schedule. Teenagers with mental health issues that her her children, she got this so we even break it up every hour, she goes for a five minute walk during her workday, so that by the time her workday of eight hours is done, she’s done 40 minutes of walking. So even if she does nothing else in that day, if she doesn’t have time, before or after work, because the kids and stuff, at minimum, she’s done 40 minutes of cardio, mixed into her workday. And then if she has extra time, she has a 25 minute home workouts you can do with just dumbbells at home. I make it so that everybody can find time to work out. And that’s what it is. We don’t want to exclude anybody. If you have a hard life, you’re not going to be the person watching some tick tock gym, bro, do an hour and a half thing on like, how can we you know, whatever, this doesn’t matter. It’s, again, we glorify the 1%. But the everybody, even most people watching that are never going to be that guy or girl. Sure, you can admire the body and get a little inspiration. But the application is you’re not doing what they’re doing. You need something for your level. Even for me, I don’t do half the crap on the internet. It’s just it’s all marketing. It’s all just people trying to make you get a view count on social media. So I think that’s important people realizing that you’re always being sold something even if you’re not being if you’re not being paid, or you’re not paying, you’re still being sold to social media is marketing.

george grombacher 8:34
Totally agree. We want and this is me too. I’m sure it’s you too. I would rather have things faster. Or when I want something. I want it now. And doing the things you just described walking for five minutes every hour, 40 minutes a day, cutting out the really damaging crap that we put into our mouths that will get you results. Not today. But it absolutely will. How do you help people that sort of get their brain around? It’s just going to take time?

Phil Catudal 9:09
Yeah. So I’m a really big guy on metrics I do. It’s funny. On the one side, I’m talking about feeling better doing this, but then I’ll tell the people, Hey, you’re paying me X amount of dollars, whether it’s my online clients all around the world, I have clients in Dubai and Norway in Australia, it’s cool. And then in person in Atlanta, where I live. I don’t force people to do the same metrics that I want. But I pick four categories, right? So they’re checking the scale weight, they’re checking their body fat percentage. They’re tracking their calories and macros, and they’re tracking their weights in the gym. So I tell everybody, when we start out, I want you to pick two out of the four. And not to sound sexist, but just statistically speaking about 70% of women that I trained, they don’t want to check the scale, and I get why I’m like if it’s gonna mess So you don’t, okay, so that takes that out. So I’m like, Okay, well, let’s take measurements of your body instead. So the hips to this, and that, you know, and I’ll track the weights in the gym, because I want to know that I’m getting stronger. And so they report that data to me. Now, I know the connection between those things. So as I see the inches go down, I’m gonna go, I’m not going to tell them to mess with the brain. But when they’ve lost an inch from their hips, and half an inch from their chest, and two, three quarters into your, I know, when they’re about five pounds, 10 pounds, 12 pounds, 14 pounds, like, there’s a certain range, so I can be okay, you’re doing great. And if things aren’t changing, or if the strength isn’t going up. So I think it’s important to have metrics because if you’re just doing something arbitrarily, you get to the end of a 12 week program, or six months, like, how do you compare the before and after? Because what happens a lot of times, is clients, they won’t necessarily feel that difference, because that’s their own mind. That’s their negativity, their dysmorphia talking something. But then if you I mean, I had one woman who she’s like, I changed 10 pounds, but I’ll feel it the before and after photos were stunning. She’s like, holy crap, I can’t like I didn’t, I didn’t think, well, it was sad and amazing. I didn’t think I looked that bad, which kind of broke my heart a little bit. And then wow, look at me now. And I’m like, Yeah, that’s 10 pounds on the scale. But realistically, she probably lost 15 pounds of body fat and gained five pounds of muscle. So her body looks and performs differently, more important. She plays with the kids, she can do a chin up for the first time in our life at 42. So I like metrics. I like tracking because on days where you feel like crap, and your inner voice or your mental health is just saying now you’re not good enough, not enough. The numbers which don’t lie, and have no feelings tell you you’re kicking ass. So I think it’s important to track because it will tell you the truth, even when you’re not feeling like it might be there. It you can’t, you can’t deny it.

george grombacher 11:56
I love it. That makes a ton of sense. Your for lack of a better term, your why is extremely powerful. Born out of horrible pain and suffering and stuff like that. Other people, maybe they know somebody who got sick, they themselves had a heart attack or whatever that causes them to move and change. For folks who are just interested in getting healthy. How do you how do you think about that? How do you help them figure out what is going to pull them or push them to do the things that they need to do consistently?

Phil Catudal 12:30
Yeah, I think one thing, so I don’t work in finance or anything, but I do. I worked for three weeks for Thomson Reuters and I do have an MBA, I tried the career path, very quickly quit and realize that did not bring me joy. But I’m grateful I have that learning in that background in finance. So I treat it like compound interest. Right? So it’s just an absolute fact, like, if you invest $100 A month starting at 15, holy crap, you’ll be a millionaire by the time you’re 6525, great 35. But every year, let alone five years, let alone decade every year, that compound interest, because it’s all like Nananana. And then towards the end like that exponential growth increases, because the number is so big. Okay, so in health, it’s very much the same way. The earlier you start, you’re not you’re not 70, trying to now combat diabetes, high cholesterol and your second heart attack, right? If you start at 20 Well, guess what? Your triglycerides and your cholesterol never get high enough to cause the blockage. And your blood pressure is never enough issue to require the medication, which also saves your life but has this side effect x about neuropathy or the hands and knees, you know the pins and needles and your hands and feet or so if you don’t have a problem today, that’s awesome. I’m genuinely stoked for you. I don’t have a problem today. But everybody will have health problems at some point. And the mental and the physical are inextricably linked. So it might start with pre diabetes or high blood pressure, or might start with just being a little out of shape overweight and realizing your knees and lower back hurt and you can’t play with kids. And you’re going to be a parent for the first time like holy crap or grandparents. And doesn’t matter why but your body and your mind give you signals, it might start with anxiety or some depression, like I’ve never had this in my whole life. It’s all connected, right? And that’s your body saying we need to change. So rather than get there and go to the doctor when you’re sick and dying, which is what all of us do help help er, er, it’s there will help you no questions asked. But there is a way to lessen the chance you get there at all in the first place. Or to get you there when you have a cold or the flu on day one instead of being on a ventilator with COVID on day eight because you had 10 coborn comorbidities right so I kind of explained it to my clients that way or anyone that your body is the bank and the earlier you start investing, the more your health is going to grow. It guarantees nothing. My father passed away from lung Cancer and he never smoked or drank a day in his life. He was a bodybuilder and a runner he was 46 total freak disease. I had leukemia different cancers No relation. However, however, the doctors diagnosed it at stage four. It was metastasized everywhere. They said they couldn’t believe he was not dead. And they gave him three weeks to live. And he told the whole family I’m going to make one more birthday for each of the four kids. He made it through all four and died the day after the last birthday of my sister just sheer sheer willpower and body power but he could do that he could hold on because he was so fit going into it. And it’s almost like we joke or like Yeah, yeah, we should make a Disney movie for dad but it’s true. That’s exactly how it went down. vivid memory him he sat down told us all we’re like what’s happening is that told me three weeks to live doctors are wrong. I’ll make it a year one birthday more kid. Next day coma dead, you know, I can we can smile about it now with the family. But there’s no way he could have done that at all. If and guess what? 46 also, he had the foresight to start his life insurance at 25 The only reason we went to college and had a life and my mom was okay is because he got the payout of whatever, you know $2 million dollars because he was so healthy never had an issue. You know, like everything as absolutely crappy as it was worked out for the best because he was a physically and financially responsible guy. So he’s always our role model like all of us siblings, like oh man, like, wow, like no one does that who did that? Like dad was such a responsible and like, he never knew he didn’t think he was gonna get sick and get cancer and everything that can go wrong did go wrong for him. But because he did the right things, he taught all of us how to have a good life and took care of us after it’s pretty crazy what he did.

george grombacher 16:43
Incredible guy.

Phil Catudal 16:45
Yeah, so that’s yeah, all four of us. I’m the baby of four siblings. We’re all fitness freaks. And we’re all trying our best to balance being present and doing fun stuff in life because you never know when it’s going to end truthfully. And also be responsible because it might last a really long time and you don’t want to be old and working at 85 So we try to tow that line between responsibility and hedonism

george grombacher 17:10
Amen to weird problem and think about how to sleep rough to die before you’re supposed to but then it’s also rough to live a lot longer than then than you expect so it’s wise and prudent like your dad to plan for both will feel thank you so much for coming out where can people learn more about you? How can they engage with you?

Phil Catudal 17:29
Yeah, thank you so much for having me George everything is trained by Phil so trained by phil.com I’m way more responsive on Instagram so at trained by Phil I do Q and A’s every Monday so you can ask whatever you want I make videos answer questions I do online training, complete with nutrition workouts everything all around the world coupled training group periods I have a lot of online options and more than anything Yeah, I just love community engagement I love the question and answer I want to help be a force for good more than anything to cut through the BS of all the stuff out there where you’re like what about this this this I want to simplify okay, what are the actual takeaways so yeah, come find me at train by Phil can’t wait to see you guys there.

george grombacher 18:09
Love it. If you enjoyed as much as I did, she’ll feel your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to trained by phil.com check out everything he’s working on and then follow him on Instagram at trained by Phil and take advantage of all the help that he is spreading out into the world and like we all need to start moving closer to that version of ourselves that we truly want to be. Thanks again fell.

Phil Catudal 18:39
Exactly. Thank you so much. So yeah,

george grombacher 18:42
till next time remember, do your part by doing your best

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.