Ryan Cortez happy New Year do you know I hate being told happy New Year it’s one of my least favorite things to be told you’re only allowed to say to me on the first Monday of the year the first Tuesday of the year it’s January 2nd and you’re
Already spoiling the entire premise of this episode I get annoyed and it the second’s one thing I it infuriates me if I hear you say it to me on January 8th or January 10th which happens a lot like January 15th rolls around you go to targ people feeling festive about wanting to
Celebrate that it’s a new opportunity for all of us to re-evaluate ourselves to make resolutions to to where are you by the way speaking of encountering you you’re not even here right now yeah I’m at the home of one of the only exclusive parakeet 69 jerseys AKA my house because
You Pablo Tor got me sick that’s where I am I’m at home that is um slanderous um I did not get you sick sick uh you can’t prove that at least but you are in fact for the uh podcast audience not watching on YouTube or the DraftKings Network um you are in fact
Sitting in front of a parakeet 69 Jersey on a hanger and an autograph to Donis hlin Jersey and I have multiple parakeet 69 jerseys if you indeed would like one for your own I would not okay on the first episode of 2024 you are exactly
The way you have been for the last like 30 years of your life nothing about you has changed is what I’m to be specific okay so what I wanted to be specific about was what I’m excited about today on the show because despite you I wanted to celebrate the people who actually in
The world of sports seem to be the best as a category as a position as a tribe as a fraternity at becoming a better improved version of themselves and I’m talking of course about offensive lineman that was a deeply offensive intro where you accuse me of being the opposite of the best and
The opposite of somebody who wants to improve themselves Jesus but listen all I’m saying is that you are no Alan faka remember Alan FICA Alan faka was the Steelers Pro Bowl Center and the Jets that’s right yes and and the Jets played at around 316 PBS and now looks like
This okay this is a man who’s lost what like 70 lbs thereabouts and he’s not alone remarkable Cortez you’ve watched You’ watched ESPN and you’ve seen guys where you’re like who the is that guy and it turns out to be um you know Jeff Saturday oh yeah now Jeff Saturday is my
Classic example I mean I growing up I watched him be pton Manning Center and he was just huge he was a bowling ball and to see him just look like an entirely different person he was the start for me of like oh so when you stop playing football you might look like a
Whole different person yes 300 lb as a cult now a fraction of that and again it goes go down the list I mean Marshall Yanda with the Ravens he’s a totally different dude now played at 305 is now like you know running races and the pouncy brothers those terrible twins
They’ve essentially lost an entire pouncy brother collectively Russell oun I mean this was the most famous one most recent one maybe he was 310 with the Seahawks with the Panthers went on this crazy fasting diet and changed himself and all of it reminds me that we just spent 2023
Marveling Cortez on this show and elsewhere about OIC about wovi these pharmaceutical scientific solutions to weight loss and the entire time the most popular New Year’s resolution has been embodied pun intended by the bodies of linemen they have been on this in a way that makes me want to ask questions
About their secrets their Mysteries how are they doing this it’s infuriating that the offensive lineman gets to be thick with two C’s while they’re playing and then the moment they stop playing they get to be like Dad bod six-pack whatever like no longer fat guy can’t have both apparently they can yeah they
Have cut out the what what what’s that thing you eat you love eating you know they can’t eat the uh what’s that thing I love eating cettas croas yes they’ve cut out the cro I mean I presume but I don’t know for sure and so I Enlisted
The help of a very special Pablo Tor finds out correspondent a member of of this tribe that I am fascinated by who will give us the secrets The Untold secrets of how it is that all of these dudes are somehow embodying the best version of all of us that is my New
Year’s resolution I want to start with that uh that’s not your New Year’s resolution I just want to point out as someone who knows you well I can spot your New Year’s resolution and what it is is that you’re no longer wearing that silly blue cardigan that you wore 700
Times and now you’re wearing the Arthur outfit where you put your fist down and you look annoyed and I just want to say it is a great look for you you look fantastic it’s an upgrade of what you used to wear yeah yeah yeah this is not
A news resolution this is just another sweater I have it looks great all the what’s wrong with colors what’s wrong with colors in a wardrobe what’s wrong with colors is you used to wear a green Master’s jacket I’ll give the producers a photo it was embarrassing it had like
Sparkles in it spark okay it did not have sparkles in it the Sparkles were what people’s eyes had in them when they saw me resend in my Green Jacket let’s start the show we need to get the next Segment so Mike O Jr is here with me I’m thank you for being here in person no glad to be here I mean congratul ations to you I haven’t seen you since Pablo Tor finds out became the biggest Sports podcast in the world even though really sure if it’s a sports
Podcast it’s technically a sports podcast and this is technically uh an episode about sports what we’re about to do here yes but it is an episode Mike that I had at the near the top of my list when I was like figuring out what the this show is going to be and you
Were obviously going to be the guest and I just want people to understand why so if you’re are not watching on YouTube or the DraftKings Network just know that Mike gock Jr is looking just great I’m trying man I wore the v-neck for you today just to really drive it
Home it is um an intimidating angle the the I I see it just again you got to watch this but there like the the the The Whispers of of chest hair peeking out like a like a mircat from your V yeah just every once in a while reminding you there between the chest
Hair and the tattoos all poorly placed from the time in my life before that we’re going to spend a lot of time talking about today they’re good reminders I like to leak out every once in a while even though I have this baby body now I feel like we’re going to talk
About leakage at some point today um but I want to I want to actually talk about a photo that it feels like um you might have been mad uh if someone had leaked it actually cuz it’s the photo you know the photo it’s you it’s Tom Brady oh
Yeah the ideal male form there’s never been a photo that is better at illustrating almost like a before and after uh or like two ends of a spectrum if you don’t mind me saying so oh yeah with 100% sincerity I learned from my doctor what triglycerides were after a
Checkup around that time and I saw the scales tip at 315 for me for the first time in my life and what you see in the photo is Tom Brady’s palpable disgust at just how I arrived at that point yeah just so many angles on Tom Brady and
Just so many curves oh with you voluptuous truly Zig I believe they used to say in like the 1920s it’s it’s giving a lot of oldw world wealth in that photo um I want to establish though that your lineage here is I mean you’re not um new to this you are genetically True
To this yeah no come from a a a large family so my father and both of his older brothers all were Collegiate football players at Notre Dame my dad and my Uncle Bob both had you know my dad a nine-year NFL career my Uncle Bob a 14-year NFL career both of them
Defensive linemen who worked their way from being linebackers in college to defensive tackle in my dad’s case and to nose guard the final rung on the totem pole of large in the NFL was my Uncle Bob down there in the middle as he called it you’re the fire hydrant at a
Dog show and he had the size to show for it but you know they were 300 plus pounds my Uncle Greg who was the college football player on offensive lineman was 68 3 00 lb my younger brother played tight end at Notre Dame so we’re big
People so just give me the mental image paint the picture for me please of like um you know it was just the holidays give me give me the sense of what it’s like to be at the table as all of the as all of the goic are assembled it’s um
Have you ever you know in Game of Thrones The Battle of the bastard scene where Jon Snow picks up the sword and is looking at the oncoming horde that’s what the plates on the table see as we approach there they’re just drawing out in some attempt to like meagerly defend
Themselves against this oncoming horde of the hungriest people that you can possibly imagine who approach holiday meals with almost self-destruction in mind like I’ve always said if I don’t feel like a rib is almost cracked on the way out of Thanksgiving dinner I haven’t
Done the job well enough I need to be a little bit miserable yeah you want your own structural Integrity to be threatened yes we got to we got to flush the pipes to see where the cracks are that’s how I treat Thanksgiving Christmas we’ve only gotten started with
These Vivid uh mental pictures but wait so just to give people a picture of you now though now okay 3:15 was your Peak or so we’ll call it um what is what is what are you weighting in at now uh I probably walk around on any given day
Between 255 and 260 when I’m feeling my best and and when I’ve when I’ve really been dialed in which is incredible just as a matter of just the math right oh yeah it’s it’s insane to look around and do the math for me for my dad for
Buddies mind who I played with and to kind of see what’s what’s possible but every once in a while like we all get caught up in trying to be the best version of ourselves every once in a while I have to be like all right when
One of these pictures comes up like that used to be you and now you are much less of that and that’s a pretty cool thing well I want to get to uh the question of identity and who we really are as we go through this story but I just want to
Establish sort of the the metrics here the the sort of the standards the expectations for what it means to be a lineman in the NFL an offensive lineman because right now um the average weight is in fact 315 lbs my God so that is average right um and in fact the Elias
Sports Bureau cited by ESPN looked into this whole thing and found that it wasn’t always this way so when we talked about I mean you again you have relatives who played um dating back to these times but like in the 70s the average weight of starting offensive
Lineman was 254 lb so you kind of have lived in your own own just personal Journey the reverse evolution of the offensive lineman in the NFL I am I’m a oneman walking evolution poster of girth throughout the ages yes so 60 pounds heavier for the average oan 60 lounds
Lighter personally for you I Now understand the tree you come from I Now understand uh that it’s not always just genetics though sure well I I I think and that’s the one thing everyone kind of assumes because you’re right you look look at my lineage and you say surely
You never had a problem being big enough and if you look at me you know I’m 6’4 wide shoulders good frame is always the way people in sports when you’re identifying young Talent you always go oh like he’s got a good frame looking at a house and like it’s got good bones
Yeah or like a when you see a puppy with big paws you’re like oh he’s going to grow into those like you see a kid with size 14 shoes and big hands you’re like all right we got another one there let’s get his hand in the dirt but it is it’s
Always interesting because yeah you obviously everyone plays this sport at a high enough level has a certain level of genetic components you walked out of the hospital with enough to be invited to the party but then how long you’re going to stay and how many levels you’re going
To go through are for a lot of guys going to be dependent on what you’re willing to build on top of that there are certainly guys that are just big by birth that are always going to be bigger faster stronger and in the linan community there are plenty of those but
Then there are the rest of us kind of in that middle ground it’s like all right you’re pretty big but what are you going to do to get to that next level to make yourself the weapon you need to be to play this sport right so just again for
People who don’t know the NFL and it’s logic right like you can start from like the biggest picture perspective which is that let’s say the NFL wants offense so okay how do you get offense you need quarterbacks to have time to throw how do you have time to throw you need
Offensive linemen to protect him and give him more time and how do you get more time well make those guys into the biggest walls imagable yeah I I I’ve always said if football is violent 40 Wizards chest then offensive lineman are the giri pawns known to man and that’s
Not to be you know demeaning to the position it’s incredibly important and I want to emphasize when you’re watching offensive lineman in the NFL you’re truly seeing some of the best if not the best athletes overall on the field because what they’re capable of doing at that size is
Incomprehensible the first strength and conditioning book I ever had was just BFS it was bigger faster stronger that was my high school strength conditioning book and that was the idea for so long is all right in order to be able to do this job you got to put on enough armor
To go out there to both absorb and deliver contact because your job up front is to make sure your friends don’t get hurt like that’s the way I always phrase it it’s the most accountable position and what I think is the most accountable sport in North America
Because you have a group of people whose only job is to make sure I am both physically capable and mentally dialed in enough to make sure that my incredibly valuable friend the quarterback doesn’t get hurt and ruin everybody’s lives in the process so there’s a physical price to pay for
Everything that goes on but it starts with your physical ability to get that job done and we just don’t think enough about the pawns like what are the what are the girth pawns thinking and one of the things that I’m thinking as I hear you say uh you use the terminology of
The NFL as being invited to the party yeah um whether being a lineman who has to put on weight mhm right whether that’s actually a party because from afar it’s like wait a minute you guys just eat whatever you want again I I I just imagine you know there’s a homer
Simpsonian aspect to just like stuffing your stuffing your face perpetually but tell me what it’s actually like what kind of a party is it really I walked on to Notre Dame’s campus at probably 275 lbs and I knew that wasn’t going to be enough and so eating in addition to all
The working out you do all the time on the field becomes a part of the job description I used to call like lunch and dinner those were those were business meetings it was me and the food at a business meeting and we couldn’t leave until the job was done I had to be
Clean Plate Club on every meal and you learn all of these tricks on how to do it we started off a lot more rudimentary when I got to college like the party when I first got there didn’t have as much of the nutritional insight as we
See in the World of Sports now where Sports Science has become a part of this process at a level we never could have seen in 2008 2009 2010 but back then was hey I wanted to gain wait so my freshman year dorm room and I remember I roomed
With another athlete I red with a guy on the lacrosse team there who slept across from me who would always laugh because you looked over and on the wall taped to my bed was a calendar that had my eating schedule on it times when I was supposed
To eat what I was supposed to eat at those meals and then underneath my bed was the tub of Weight Gainer that you would see at like a GNC or any of those stores a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter cuz when all else fails
And you got to get calories in late at night or early in the morning before go and do anything else there ain’t nothing that’s going to hit like a Triple Decker PB Sammy and like people have the peanut butter jelly conversation I really grew to love peanut butter sandwiches because
It was just a means to an end at that point it was you’re trying to get to the right number at the end of your day to be in a positive you know caloric intake it’s an organizational uh discipline it’s an ambition yes that turns the space under
Your bed into yeah um there’s like there’s almost like a an apocalypse bunker aspect to this like you’re eating as if the world will end you’re you’re eating as if yes your survival in this world depends on that because to some extent it does like if
You’re trying to get on the field if you’re trying to impress relative to your other peers in that position once you’re there if you’re trying to do the job itself like my last year at Notre Dame we were you know undefeated we ended up playing Alabama in the national
Title game I was a starter for the first time day one for the entire season and I remember my offensive line coach coming to me in the middle of October towards November and my weight had dipped down I was like 285 on a good day at that point
And he’s like we need you to get that back up you’re quite literally not you don’t carry enough masks right now to do the job we’re going to need in November and beyond that one of the things we did um that I wanted you to do was assign
You to go and reminisce with some of your colleagues what was it like in the the NFL as per your reporting so the NFL is an even more disciplined high stakes version of that because now obviously it’s changed in college but in the NFL there’s a lot of money riding on all
This stuff there is the certainly the money for the franchise the hopes and dreams for everybody there required by that but also for you the personal gain once you get to that level that’s now attainable for guys it’s a winning lottery ticket if you play your cards
Right and so for a lot of guys both that incentive of it but also just self-preservation to day for the same things I mentioned you’re going out there and doing battle with I mean defensive linemen in the NFL are some of the biggest physical freaks planet earth
Has to offer horrifying and as an offensive lineman your job is to go backwards and do a bunch of very unnatural things skill setwise to try and stop them and so you’ve got to be pretty big and strong and capable to do that but you also then have to maintain
The speed along the way and so that’s where some of the advancements in the way you go about putting that weight on started to become so important so for people who are aren’t watching the NFL every Sunday uh Gojo who are the people at top your metal stand of beef like
Just like the the the the dudes who you even you Marvel at and say that that is a big boy oh yeah I always say it’s the nothing this big should move this well brand of offensive linemen guys like uh Mike mcglinchy who plays for the Denver
Broncos now who was after me at Notre Dame who’s like 68 325 330 lbs Daniel fele the former Minnesota tackle who now plays for the Baltimore Ravens who is listed at 68 379 dwan Jones yes 68 379 listed here according to 375 excuse me on his Wikipedia page just these
Effortlessly large mountains of man so I should say as somebody who weighs approximately 165 and wears it well and you know it’s well my cholesterol levels May disagree um inside it’s it’s it’s it’s rough um but I want to get to the sense of you’re like cramming peanut
Butter sandwiches late at night um this sounds kind of miserable on some level to me and I just want to know how much fun it actually was like when did it when did it really start feeling like work not just for you but for people who
Go on to do this for years and years in the NFL yeah I I I think as you get a little bit older like you first get to college and it’s like anything else excess is fun but after a while you start to kind of feel the cumulative effects of it on
Your body you know the jar of Tums in a football locker room is Hallowed Ground it’s something that everybody knows the location of because that’s kind of the battle you’re constantly fighting you know I got to talk to Joe Thomas for this who you know accomplished the
Highest goals that you could want to as an offensive lineman all right uh I think we’re ready to roll here uh I’ll count us in we’ll get rocking and rolling Joe appreciate it man cool yeah of course no problem he’s the Pinnacle he’s what most people think is one of
The consensus best players of all time and for him the Journey of all right when is Big too big when do I need to dial it back what are the things where all of a sudden the way I’m getting to this point to do the job starts to
Become a negative for the job in a way that I have to address once I got to about 320 325 that’s kind of where I felt like I I was sort of topped out and it was not not only the speed issue but it was limberness like when you got this
Huge Tire around your waist it becomes a little bit harder to get down to the positions that you want to when I was playing pyc sponsored the New York Giants offensive line after they won the Super Bowl and I was so upset about it because I was like if anybody needs PRC
It’s me I’m taking this stuff like it’s candy like I’m eating it after Halloween like a 12-y old kid because I had uh stomach acid in my throat from heartburn like 247 I just thought it was normal all I knew is that I had to feel stuffed
Like I just pushed myself away from the Thanksgiving table at all times and it it actually gave me stress if there was any times where I didn’t have that feeling because I knew if I wasn’t overly full and if I wasn’t bloated that I was going to be losing weight and that
My coach was going to have my ass the next time we wait in probably next on Monday describe what just the regimen would be for Joe and I I guess what I’m curious about too is not simply okay um like what is breakfast lunch and dinner but also like what are the Unseen
Consequences of your breakfasts and your lunches and your dinners being this um extreme well I I mean you have like the very like funny bass level stuff of like you’re just sweaty all the time you know you’re constantly having to shop at a very different section of the clothing
Store I have a vivid memory of walking into an Urban Outfitters looking up at one of the store employees him seeing me and just immediately shaking his head no and going back to folding clothes you’ve got that but like you know your joints start to feel the effect of that after a
While the heartburn that most guys carry usually borders on acid reflux is something that some guys end up you know diagnostically so dealing with and just the cumulative effect of all of the blows and physical contact you’re taking as a player then adding up because when you’re done going out there and doing
The job you’re still carrying around that armor that you’ve put on this entire time and in some cases more than your body naturally wants to carry that makes me uh concerned Mike like the idea of maybe people were not meant to be this big yeah there’s I I think definitely a
Reality to that for some guys and I I think like anything else it’s kind of the cost benefit analysis that each of us can do you know if you’ve got the opportunity to go and do this for me you know I got my college education paid for
I I got to go and have these experiences playing a game that I loved you know trying to uh uh mimic a man I revered and my dad and do all these things live out so many dreams and had the opportunity to try at the NFL level that
Didn’t work out but for a lot of guys they can change their lives and their family’s lives forever by going out here and saying all right in the short term this is going to be potentially uncomfortable I’m not going to feel great I’m going to withstand all the
Physical damage that the sport comes and then I’m going to also deal with some of the discomfort in those other areas physically joint wise all the inflammation all the acid reflux that we talked about knowing that my end goal is something that feels worth it when most
Guys do the math out yeah I do worry also about what your roommate’s experience was let me tell you what the smells the the smells of the things that go in because you learn along the way as an offensive lineman there are a lot of tricks if you’re a guy that’s trying to
Gain weight like something that Joe and I talked about was heavy whipping cream we would drink these uh basically milk fat malt shakes that were like 10 ounces and they were a th000 calories and basically all it was was milk fat and they added like chocolate mold powder and like some
Extra sugar in there uh so there was like a free thousand calories that You’ just shoot like a shot in the bar after your workouts uh and then of course you know you’re eating cheese curds and you’re eating burgers and pizza late night and kudoba and chipotle and
Drinking plenty of beers so there’s a lot of calories going in your system what that turns your body into is essentially just a mass production machine for sulfur so imagine a whole apartment that smells like sulfur on a good day just because of what’s coming
Out of your body yeah so sulfur if in case you you’re not familiar with the smell is like it’s it’s rotting eggs is yeah the worst smelling farts on planet Earth like let’s let’s let’s just lay it all on the table I believe it’s what people once refer to as Brimstone yes it
Was there was no fire but plenty of Brimstone in our apartment so we would come back and we would have like these big we call the all Aman American breakfast come back high protein breakfast bacon eggs heavy whipping cream and shakes to finish it off all
That stuff and then when we would get done you would sit around for a couple hours the digestive process would do its thing and all of a sudden whether it was noises or you know the silent varietal which as we know is always uh infinitely more dangerous right right right I am
Imagining like a Magic School Bus episode where someone goes inside of uh Mike Go’s body at Notre Dame and Miss Frizzle um that’s a that’s a that’s a that’s like a horror that’s a horror movie that’s like uh the Willy Wonka tunnel but full of like dessert remnants
And at that point a fair amount of booze yeah and so the club of people who who um who enjoyed or at the very least um ate a lot of uh of the whipping cream stuff um you and Joe Thomas um what was your reaction when you saw him looking
Like this turn around let’s see the front there look at this look at this that his abs that his shoulders that his arms that is everything traps yo that looks like like a competitive bodybuilder that is amazing so for people who again aren’t watching on YouTube or the DraftKings Network that
Was TMZ yeah uh reveling in how unbelievably hot Joe Thomas is now there are a lot of us that lose weight that is also a reminder that Joe Thomas is in they talk about the Hall of Fame like there’s the Hall of Fame and then there’s the Inner Room of the Hall of
Fame Joe is inside the Inner Room even in another room for the exclusive highend accomplished fat guys of all time that they are some of the greatest athletes on Earth and when you just strip away a little bit of that outer layer that’s what’s underneath one of
The greatest left tackles to ever play football but the reason I even had the idea to talk about all of this to see under the hood of all of this see under the bed of all of this is because I keep on seeing stories that are like Joe Thomas it’s remarkable Mike
How often people in your cohort your colleagues who played along on the offensive line show up looking like they are you know they are participants in a talk show makeover program for so many guys there is that feeling as you get closer to the finish line of your career
Whenever it is of okay I’ve been big for a long time and in the case of me and the group of linemen that had to work to get there I had to make that an active decision every day I had to wake up with
Gaining weight on my mind it had to be a conscious effort 365 days a year or I wasn’t going to be able to do it and there’s a relief on the other side when all of a sudden you don’t have to live like that anymore and then the thought
Crosses your mind of oh my God like maybe some of these things that I’ve normalized for so long about how my body feels how it looks and the things associated with that now that gets to change now I do get to shop at Lululemon and buy stuff off the rack now I might
Not look at a flight of stairs and just look fondly over at the elevator to take to the second floor anymore like all of these things can pot potentially change and there is a little bit of relief at the End well I come to you for the secrets of how to do this stuff how to transform your body because we live I mean this past year 2023 has been the year of weight loss drugs OIC we GOI we’ve talked about this some on the show people are looking for a scientific
Solution to a problem that now seems to be understood more scientifically but the offensive lineman of the NFL who show up um as part of this uh reinvented tribe of retired fat guys who are no longer that big why what is the through line here
Why can why can you people do this so effectively I always thought of as a hammer and a chisel meaning you do a little bit of work work every day over time and you can make something great and what that requires is discipline and comfort with monotony it’s all of the
Things that make you an offensive linemen that are inherent to the psyche of the position is again you go backwards and you do the most unnatural skill set in the sport and try and block the best athletes on the planet and so to do that you rep the same things over
And over again every day and none of them are fun none of them are cute it’s not like the stuff that you see DBS and wide receivers putting on Instagram in the offseason there’s no oine version of that that sells there’s just the work there’s just quite literally putting
Your hand in the dirt and this is what Joe Thomas had to say about that typically linemen you see a lot of those guys they go one way or the other right if they were huge guys and they had to lose weight to play on the offensive
Line which does happen like they kind of migrate that way right uh because that’s just their genetics right um but a lot of guys they end up do losing a lot of weight you mentioned Russell okung myself Nick hardwig is another guy that I think about Alan FICA ran marathons
When he retired um but that’s because offensive linemen are used to being in the weight room we’re used to watching what we eat paying attention to the food reading whether it be guys like me who was trying to gain that weight so understanding how that food handled in
Your body how your body treated the signals the medicine that you were giving it um we love to work out like that was like the Brotherhood that we formed in the weight room and so it was easy for us to transition maybe it was different workouts than when you were
Playing but still it was it was part of your routine it was part of something that you love to do whereas I never met a skill guy that liked to be in the weight room I never met a DB that you didn’t have to chase his ass in the
Locker room to get in there and to work out because those guys hated it and they never watched what they because it didn’t matter right these guys are running seven to n miles of Sprints every day in practice that’s outrageous like no wonder they have torn hamstrings
All the time this part of the mentality the idea that if you understand the offensive lineman as somebody who made himself into this who had to be disciplined in his eating in his diet in his scheduling in the in the construction and renovation of his body you’re saying that you called upon that
Offensive lineman in retirement call upon the same wiring that they had sort of honed and perfected as a player to now do the exact opposite in terms of summoning the discipline 100% it it is it’s the same level of discipline and really a lot of the same tools that you
Understand about diet and the way that your body responds to things that was one of the fascinating parts of talking to Nick Hardwick okay so you should know that Nick Hardwick is a legendary figure in this world he played 11 years at center with the San Diego Chargers he was a pro
Bowler in 2006 he was playing at around 300 lb listed at 305 I believe thereabouts and then he retired in 2014 and pretty promptly he lost 85 lb in 4 months it was something he was so good at the losing of all of this weight that Nick Hardwick then decided to devote his
Entire life to it he’s become someone who trains others who helps them lose weight I tell all of my clients when they’re getting in I said weight loss is a math equation with a lifestyle problem so we it’s our job to figure out what we can do with our
Lifestyle and what you’re willing and able to do to fit that into the math equation cuz we have to make the numbers work out when I started losing weight I ate at the same times of day like your body you was eat every two two and a
Half hours you eat when the clock says not when you’re hungry not when anything else matters like that you’ve got a certain breakdown of things that you want on your plate nutritionally but for me it was all right the number one I was training to get ready for my pro day was
5,500 to 6,000 calories a day and so now I just took that number and I cut it in half and it’s comfortable at first because you are eating until you feel sick more often than not when that’s the case and so now on the other side it’s
Taking that same process and the level at which you’re working out you’re still used to being in the weight room throwing around weight you’re used to doing the things that again the vast majority of the population has never been asked to do physically to push themselves that hard for that long so
All these guys that are wired like that just take that system that’s already built into them and then they take it and just assign different number values to it yeah I am I am laughing at how little we appreciate the amount of weit room time that you guys put in while
Also being like you know the pudgy joke of like you know oh you’re a human you’re you’re a human wall you’re a girthy pawn yeah and that’s and that’s why videos like what you saw there with Joe Thomas or seeing Nick Hardwick now who’s another guy like an offensive
Lineman that walks around with abs that’s what’s underneath so many of these guys like you don’t get to the point where you’re squatting like some of these guys 500 and 600 lb and benching 400 to 500 lb you’ve got a ton of muscle under there you just need a
Little bit of cushion on top to be able to go out there and take the pounding and do that over time and when you chip that away I always said cutting open an offensive lineman like if you were to cut the Yoke up here in the shoulders to
Me it’s the part that former athletes y o k in this case yes yes the Y ke there not the y k that you were eating a lot of during that time that leads to the I won’t spell out cholesterol problems right now but you get Brimstone yes the
The brimstone in there but yeah if you cut into a Yol seeing an offensive and it’s like the Rings in a tree you can see the years where they put on the most weight and kind of go back and diagram their entire existence when you talk to
Nick Hardwick who is who is now a guru of sorts he seems to specialize right in training um o linemen to lose weight as a specialty well he specialized in training people to lose weight the same way an O linan does those same principles that we talk about so he
Tried to transcribe all that stuff to help people who never got to live what he did who never had the resources that he did for how they can still replicate that process in their life but it’s also you know the the identity shift that comes with that too going from football
Player to civilian and trying to find my purpose trying to find a new identity trying to find what’s going to get me out of bed in the morning and just Stoke my fire like football did to be honest I think that identity piece is what most football players struggle with when they
Get out it’s it’s finding who they are what was that like for Nick it was a really emotional process for Nick and he was really candid when we talked to him one about his shift back to being a much smaller body which is part of it but
It’s also kind of a proxy for you’re you’re saying goodbye to this old version of yourself and for so many guys and and for Nick in particular it was the classic case of how an athlete grapples with with losing the part of them that’s defined their life for so
Long and Nick was very candid about the Dark Places that that took him to when we talked to him what I realized two months into my retirement was I was miserable and I actually like told my wife I said I came inside crying it was a Saturday
Morning and I said baby I’m I uh I don’t know what’s going on with me and I’m going to give you all of our money accept a million dollars and I’m going to go to Nicaragua and I had no idea what I was saying at the time and I
Don’t know why I chose Nicaragua I’d never been to Nicaragua but essentially it was my way of saying I’m going to leave you with everything and then I’m going to go to Nicaragua and kill myself I had everything in my life straight right I had made a ton of money I had
Saved all of my money I had two beautiful boys that were three in one I had a wife who cared for me regardless of what sport I played I had a career going I had everything you could ever want here I am saying I’m going to kill myself right
So what I realized after years it was that I was heartbroken I had never been heartbroken before I had never had my heart ripped out of my chest and just put on the curb and stopped and that’s what that feeling was that I had lost my teammates I wasn’t really allowed to
Hang out with my best friends all day every day anymore you know I lost my purpose in the community my identity I lost all those things so I realized that identity is just such a massive component to physical health it’s a massive component to mental health and I
Don’t really know if you can separate those two the way that people like to separate them I think they go hand inand I I had never um heard Nick talk in so Stark terms like that about his own search for identity yeah how did he go
About trying to find it the things that he missed that you heard him talk about there was he had a community of people that needed him and that he needed right you rely on each other for everything the level of trust that you’ve got with your teammates is really hard to
Replicate elsewhere and he had a goal he had a purpose and he talked about that a lot every day and what we realized with now the community that he’s built is that he’s found a lot of those same things in this next version of himself because he’s created this community of
People that he’s got a purpose to them they need him and he needs them to help in the weight loss Journey for these people who are trying to transform themselves he’s built a community out of people who are trying to change their bodies for the better with that purpose
Of living healthy lives now of being the best version of themselves of what it allows them in terms of being the best you know spouse or partner or whatever they’re trying to do outside of that and we realize that it’s a lot of the same core things in there a community of
People trying to change themselves for a select purpose that they can all help each other with along the way it had a lot of the same tenants of his life as a football player now as the leader of a different Community I don’t think it’s surprising that he would share um such a
Thing with you as a member of this tribe as well how much pride do you take when you see these stories of transformation that seemingly annually come up now with o linemen who have yeah found a new version of themselves that they seem really happy about yeah I I I think it’s
Pride on a number of levels it sort of is a sigh of relief because you do worry about what everyone’s going to do with that next step of your life you live so much of your life not as a football player not as an offensive lineman so there’s that and then there’s obviously
The health component of it too you know longterm being that big is not sustainable it’s not good for everything inside you you can feel that so knowing that guys are also setting themselves up to be here longer after the fact because we see far too many guys that you lose
Early for any number of reason you know for me very personally like I I look at my dad who different position position different mindset a lot of those things but my dad was a 300 lb defensive lineman in the NFL for 9 years when he finished he ballooned up to like 320 lbs
And dealt with type two diabetes that was exacerbated by that well Mike I your dad I grew up watching him yeah and his character his his sense of self was a guy who would literally be like stuffing Donuts into his mouth and it was amazing everyone in
Here old D wake up the echo yeah Play the song Right some music here we go you get a fight song got two left after it was one of the best bits Mike and Mike had was my dad shoving multiple Donuts in his mouth reading a sentence and then opening up
The caller line to see if people could guess what he was saying to win a prize in and again very lucrative like all these things and it was it was who he was to an extent but he had to learn like like everybody else all right how
Much of that me can I take with me how do I balance that with a me that also wants to make sure that physically I’m around here longer I’m healthier and I’m all these things and so watching my dad go through that now get down my dad is
Probably 230 lbs at this point man and knowing what it’s done for him healthwise and just from someone who wants their dad around as long as possible and who for the rest of these guys who lose weight want to know that they’re going to be able to give
Themselves the best chance possible to be there with their families and live the life beyond playing that they want there is something that you’re very proud to see this for everybody yeah and just the idea of I thought of myself as something because I was incentivized to
Do it because I was pressured because I was taught because I wanted it right I don’t want to take away agency from any of the people in this story right but the idea that now I’m GNA be something that is trying to be the opposite and that
How do you reconcile who you really are when you’re sort of caught between two Extremes in a sense yeah that was that was also really interesting talking to to Nick and to Joe about was I always say like the the pope speak so many languages and I always want to know for
People that are multi-lingual what language do you dream in because that feels like the one that’s most who you are at your core and so when you’re a re when you’re an offensive lineman you know how do you see yourself who is the real you this version of me is who I was
As a kid and who it’s who I was until I was 18 and it was really only not me when it was manufactured right when I was doing those things as far as you know chugging the milk fat with malted chocolate syrup in it and eating crazy
Pizzas and ice cream before bed like that me that was huge fat Joe as my kids called me I never really fully identified with that guy because I always just looked in the mirror and I thought of myself I dreamed as a normalized 66 you know former
Professional athlete I guess if there is such a thing I think it’s like anything else as you grow older you learn which pieces you can take with you and you learn how to make sure they best serve the person you want to be going forward we all want to grow and change you’ve
Just quite literally gotten to do it for so much of your life that now you get to figure that out both from a physical standpoint you know what are the things I like to do workout wise how do I when do I feel like my best like I went
Through a stretch last year where for 6 months I was like I need to move weight again and so I went back and started lifting free weights cuz I wanted to feel a little bit strong again I needed taste of that because mentally that put
Me in a place where I felt like my best self a little bit so you figure out things like that that work for you physically as you go along that also hopefully give you the best mental byproduct possible as you try and grapple with all these other things that
Are more higher level existential you know conversations we have about athletes taking that next step this is where I also established that part of your bonafides on this topic are that I saw you recently tweet about cookie dip oh man let me tell you dipping cookies into just mashed up version of more
Cookies was actually absolutely the fattest like even like people in my life and I am my Father’s son I have also made part of the living I’m the Duke’s Mayo Bowl guy cream filled cookies here you first take a Dip it’s a really interesting blend of flavors thumbs up for me a pioneer of gluttony on the grandest stages the language you dreaming when you’re asleep is cookies 100% with some donuts and heavy whipping cream mixed in there as well well that’s the thing at the end
Here that I’m laughing about is I’m so glad that you and your dad and all of these guys have found like sustainable yeah seemingly sustainable personal Transformations that I think go well beyond just simply losing the weight but it’s about the discipline and the commitment to change and become a better
Version of yourself and now you are stuck with the Catch 22 of like oh wow my dad is going to be around and he’s really um objectively hotter than me the zatty phenomenon was not something I was ready for like my colleagues openly thirsting for my 60-year-old father as he has shed weight
And gained facial hair he looks so good and again it’s great but it also like has turned around now and every day where I feel like oh maybe I won’t go work out today I’m like are you really going to let your dad be hotter than you
For this much longer there’s a photo of him where he was doing a uh a panel discussion yeah it was it was with stat in New York yes the photo of your dad it looked like he was like uh working on a Vineyard like tanned like a curlicue in
His hair just like oily in the best ways oh yeah he’s slightly bronzed he’s looking at the tannins and the glass and the sunlight as they glisten there grapes behind him in the distance yeah no it’s he’s he’s transformed into his own Sports Talk version of the most
Interesting man in the world world now with this wonderful salt and pepper look so he has got both the hair that is both full Rich dense and now packed with Grays and the body that is Slim enough to fit in European cut clothing yeah God
I didn’t have um the story of the goolag family ending for now with European cut clothing but um you guys are a remarkable species uh it’s it’s truly aspirational I I grew up EMP I grew up certainly trying to be like my dad in a number of ways as a football player and
As a man I never thought that in my mid-30s I would have to try and emulate his body type in order to become more appealing to potential Partners here that wasn’t a card I had in the bingo card I am so glad though it is the card
You’ have played for me today uh Mike gock Jr uh thank you for doing this man happy New Year happy New Year Pablo [Applause] Okay so as I hover over my keyboard here at the dawn of 2024 I’m finding out something very important already in the same way that Pablo Tori finds out is not really a show about sports it’s hard to break it to you today’s episode isn’t really a show about weight loss
I mean it’s technically that obviously but at the beginning of the new year I do find myself contemplating some sincere form of lasting personal change and I just want to acknowledge here that it can be really hard to change who we are really hard I mean listen to Nick Hardwick on
This as he was explaining to Mike gool Jr it’s a question of our most fun fundamental identity sometimes it can be so hard to change ourselves but I guess the point of today’s episode is just to remind us that we really Can this has been Pablo té finds out a metal AR media production thank you for kicking off your new year with us and I’ll talk to you Soon
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