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Transcript
- 06:20 About Nick Iadonisi
- 12:06 Nick’s Specialty: Fundamentals of Movement
- 16:28 The Long-term Goal
- 20:08 Challenges
- 25:43 Advice for getting back into shape
- 34:35 American Ninja Warrior
- 37:05 Contact Nick
Wendy Myers: Welcome to the Live to 110 Podcast. I’m your host, Wendy Myers. You can find me on myersdetox.com. Here is my co-host, General Leigh Lowery.
Leigh Lowery: Hi, everybody. And you know you can find me at GeneralLeigh.com.
Wendy Myers: Today, we’re going to be interviewing Nick Iadonisi, a contender for American Ninja Warrior. Basically, he’s about us. We’re going to be talking about how to work out using functional body movements. His goal is to increase the knowledge and mental awareness of proper movement patterns, which if not done correctly, can cause poor posture and workout injuries, which obviously you want to avoid.
Leigh Lowery: We do not want those. No, we want to keep working out hard. So before we do that, we must read this disclaimer. Please keep in mind that this program is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or health condition. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice. The Live to 110 Podcast is solely informational in nature. Please consult your healthcare practitioner before engaging in any treatment or diet or fitness regimen that we suggest on this show.
Wendy Myers: So how are things going with you? I heard you’re doing lots of online training and…
Leigh Lowery: Oh, my gosh. I’m having so much fun. I love my life. I left my executive career a little bit ago and it’s been awesome. I am training in the gym, which is great, but also for those who can’t train with me, I train online. You can find me at GeneralLeigh.com. I have a new group of people coming and starting with me in April. We do nutrition. I actually customize plans specific to them. So if they really want to do body weight or if they’re into strength training, I can customize accordingly. So I really try to help fit the athlete or person who’s just starting out. And I have a gal right now, I just want to say, I have a gal, she was 220 lbs. when we started. I’m so proud of her. She’s just under the 200-mark today and she’s six weeks in. I’m just so proud of her. Anyway, I got to give a shout-out to my online clients now because I’m loving it.
Wendy Myers: So your new sessions start in April?
Leigh Lowery: My new sessions are going to start up in April. I take about six people on online. And then the rest, I try to maintain in the gym. I also do food preps. So I’m doing a lot of competition food prep for people who are here local in Los Angeles, girls who are bikini and fitness competitor like myself.
Wendy Myers: Oh, okay. Maybe like for me?
Leigh Lowery: Yes, just like you or people who want to go into a bikini. I’m like, “I got you covered” because I love to cook. I don’t have a social life, but I’m really loving my life. It’s great.
Wendy Myers: And you’re going to have a new client soon.
Leigh Lowery: That’s right.
Wendy Myers: Me!
Leigh Lowery: You!
Wendy Myers: We’re training next Tuesday.
Leigh Lowery: That’s right.
Wendy Myers: Our mutual friend, Danny told me that when she worked out with you, she was sore for three days afterwards.
Leigh Lowery: That’s right. I don’t push people past what I think they can do and I don’t try to kill them upfront, but most people don’t realize what they’re capable of. I like to push people a little bit and of course, we’re going to get that lactic acid going in your system. You’re going to feel a little bit sore, but epsom salt bath…
Wendy Myers: Infrared sauna?
Leigh Lowery: …ice and infrared sauna.
Wendy Myers: I’m beginning my infrared sauna Tuesday night.
Leigh Lowery: …and you’ll be alright.
Wendy Myers: I actually like to be sore because I feel like I did something. So I’m not one of these people like, “Oh, I’m sore. I can’t walk…”
Leigh Lowery: If I’m not a little sore, I’m upset.
Wendy Myers: Because then, you’re not repairing any muscle.
Leigh Lowery: Yeah. What did I not do today if I do that?
Wendy Myers: Yeah.
Leigh Lowery: What about you? Tell me what’s going on with you?
Wendy Myers: Well, I had a fantastic week. I did an interview with Sean Croxton yesterday actually for the Second Opinion series on the thyroid sessions. It’s at theThyroidSessions.com. You can go up there, go on the site, theThyroidSessions.com and register for its totally free event. There’s about 30 different speakers including moi talking about how to heal the thyroid naturally. There’s all kinds of people. There’s physicians and acupuncturists, all kinds of people talking about how to heal your thyroid and what your doctors aren’t telling you. There’s a lot more you can do.
A lot of them are talking about natural thyroid supplementation because most people, that’s all they really know about, but I talk about healing the thyroid naturally so that it gets it producing hormones on its own and you don’t have to take any hormones.
Leigh Lowery: That’s great.
Wendy Myers: It takes times, but that’s pretty much what my whole schtick is, getting the body functioning how it’s supposed to be functioning so it doesn’t need any crutches and you don’t have to take hormones for life.
Leigh Lowery: That’s great. And you love to cook like myself and you’re a Paleo princess, so how’s your Modern Paleo Cooking Show going?
Wendy Myers: It’s awesome! It launched last week. And so I’ve got a couple of recipes, a couple of Modern Paleo Cooking Shows up on my YouTube channel, wendyliveto110. It’s certainly going. It’s to help people learn how to cook the diet that I propose, the diet that I recommend, which is a little twist on Paleo including a few more foods that are typically recommended or touted on a Paleo diet. The Paleo diet, the original one is pretty limited.
Leigh Lowery: Right!
Wendy Myers: I just tell people they can eat a little bit more foods and that and show them how to cook it. It’s a lot of fun.
Leigh Lowery: That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. And you have a website. Your website’s flipping over pretty soon?
Wendy Myers: Yeah. Actually, I’m designing a whole new website. I know that the website is looking nice right now on myersdetox.com, but we’re going to get a face lift. It’s very L.A. of us [inaudible 00:06:05]. We’re doing a whole face lift on the website and make it a little bit more functional for everyone and just make it work a little bit better for everybody.
Leigh Lowery: That’s right.
Wendy Myers: So that’s about it. So we’re going to get to our guest.
Leigh Lowery: Great.
Wendy Myers: Our guest, Nick Iadonisi is a certified personal trainer through ISSA, the International Sports Science Association. He’s worked with many professional athletes and Olympic gold medal winners. He runs BioMechanix Body Shop in Van Nuys, California. So you can go visit him there and train with him if you like what you’re hearing today on the show. This is basically a functional training center with safe and intense workouts designed around perfect form, movement and posture.
So Nick, how are you?
Nick Iadonisi: I’m doing well. I don’t know if I could put that intro better myself. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
Wendy Myers: You’re welcome. Well, Leigh, you’re friends with Nick…
Leigh Lowery: That’s right.
Wendy Myers: …so why don’t you take the reins? Take the reins. Why don’t you take the reins?
Leigh Lowery: Here we go! Here we go. I’ll just tell everyone…
Wendy Myers: Yee-haw!
Leigh Lowery: Yee-haw! Perfect. You know, we’re both of us over here are from Texas, y’all. So that’s right.
Nick Iadonisi: You, guys both from Texas?
Leigh Lowery: That’s right.
Wendy Myers: Mm-hmmm…
Leigh Lowery: That’s right.
Nick Iadonisi: Ah, my fiancé is from Texas.
Wendy Myers: Oh, nice.
Leigh Lowery: All good women – sorry for all you listeners out there, all good women are from Texas, I just got to say. No, I’m just kidding.
Nick Iadonisi: Use southern belts.
Wendy Myers: Yessir!
Leigh Lowery: We have a good time. Well, I know Nick. Just briefly, I’ll just state this that I worked out with Nick. Nick was training my next door neighbors. I have a next door neighbor who was a super excitable, awesome guy, super athletic. He knew I was really into it. He said, “Oh, if you want to train with somebody who’s like major, like mega, you’ve got to come to our house on this date at this time and we’re all going to get it on.”
I think he made us coffees and oatmeals. It was me. My sister did not have the guts to do it. But her fiancé and as well as the neighbors, I mean, man! It was an awesome experience. We used a lot of TRX, a lot of body weight, a lot of functional movements. But you know what was great about Nick? He corrected my form. As a trainer, to have somebody help you – because we don’t see ourselves. We can help others a lot of times, but to have somebody really push me through was great.
I watch him now. We both have YouTube channels and kind of bounce off each other and our Facebook friends and I just adore him as a person and his integrity and I am in awe at his ability.
So let me start by asking you a question. Nick, why don’t you tell a little bit to our listeners about our story.
Nick Iadonisi: First of all, you got me blushing over here. I’m happy you guys can’t see me. I appreciate all the kind words.
Leigh Lowery: It’s true.
Nick Iadonisi: And Leigh, I have to reciprocate. Likewise, you’re pretty incredible yourself.
In college, I wasn’t a fitness student, but I always played at the highest level of football. I played division 1 college football. I’ve really beaten myself up pretty badly with a whole lot of injuries in terms of – you know, I have about 30% cartilage left in my knees, I have herniated disc on my back, on my neck, dislocated both of my shoulders multiple times. I’ve had all these issues from football and from my crazy lifestyle of that.
I started training as a pretty traditional trainer. I fell in love with it after someone gave me their first testimonial saying how I’ve helped them out so much. It really was just the most rewarding thing out of the stuff I’ve done that I fell into.
And then I moved out to California. I just came back from Russia. I was working with an Olympic gold medal boxer, with a heavyweight boxer. I came over to California, [inaudible 00:10:03], “Hey, I’m going to come out to California and tear it up.” It was kind of like going from high school to the big leagues. You know what I mean?
Wendy Myers: Yeah.
Nick Iadonisi: So I really had to step up my game. In terms of stepping up my game is really my education, my knowledge. It was hard for me at first because I had all these injuries that I kind of was like, “Oh, man! I’m cursed with all these injuries,” but I didn’t quite take it into consideration.
I had rehab from some of the best doctors in the country, so I started developing a program based around the common people. A lot of people, a lot of my clients come to me with knee injuries, tight lower backs or lower back injuries, shoulder injuries, wrist injuries. I’ve had all of the above, so I can really relate to a lot of them.
So I really started developing a program based around injury prevention, prehab, rehab, flexibility and it was all knowledge-based. I don’t want to just tell you what to do. I want you to understand how to do it, how to teach other people and then how to recognize what you’re doing throughout the day that might cause these tight muscle groups, which will cause you to compensate in a direct that maybe cause an injury, not now, but potentially in the future.
So that’s what led me into this posture/movement area or niche of training.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, what you’re saying really resonates with me because after I had my baby, I started working out again like I always did and bam! I immediately injured my back doing yoga (of all things) and I had back injury literally for two years that I had to do physical therapy for. It was unbelievable. I did rehab from it, but you had to work out to rehab it ironically.
Leigh Lowery: That’s right. That’s right.
Wendy Myers: So I think a lot of people, they get a back injury and they just stop working out and that’s the exact worst thing you could be doing.
Nick Iadonisi: Yup.
Leigh Lowery: That’s right. It freaks them out. It freaks you out when you have an injury. You just want to stop and not re-injure it because you know that initial pain and dysfunction that it’s caused. So yeah, absolutely.
Nick Iadonisi: Yeah, I agree.
Leigh Lowery: So Nick, a little bit more about your training style. Why the specialty that you’re in? What about it that you love?
Nick Iadonisi: This is great. I really probably could go on about this forever. I’ve worked with some professional athletes and it’s so crazy to watch some of the coaches with some of these top-notched athletes that I’ve known or I’ve worked that the coach is always, “Hey, the fundamentals, the basics.”
I just feel like as a global community, we have somehow lost touch with the fundamentals and the basics of movement. I feel with the increased technology that we have, it’s only going to get worst, we’re like de-evolutionizing our body. We’re tightening up muscle groups.
We used to be hunters and gatherers. You talk about going back to the Paleo way, it’s sort of that same way with movement. You know what I mean? We used to be hunters and gatherers, up-looking, turning, rotating and now we’re sitting hunched over and driving and all these certain things that just bring us to overall tight, balled up, crunched up body and it’s just only getting worst.
So I just want to try to get people to understand the importance of moving correctly, counterbalancing what we do so much throughout the day – and I would say that for a lot of us, it’s sitting down.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I had to go to a physical therapist to get my writing/computer hunch.
Leigh Lowery: Mm-hmmm… mm-hmmm…
Wendy Myers: I do.
Nick Iadonisi: It’s everything. I just want people to understand we all have different lifestyles – the stay-at-home mom that’s carrying their kid around, the construction worker, the guy that’s sitting on a desk all day doing computers, the cashier that’s standing. They’re all different overused muscles. You know what I mean?
I have an issue with mothers. They always carry their kid on their hip and that turns into this big hip pop out when they stand. We all develop these habits. I just want people to understand how to 1) be conscious and recognize those habits that we develop and understand how to counterbalance.
Most of them are very easily counterbalanced with the persistent development of a habit. If you sit down, every hour you sit down, you should stand up and stretch for just one minute. You know what I mean? Things like that. They’re just little tips that I want to get into people’s minds to help them basically live a longer life.
I mean, I can kind of relate to you, Wendy with “live to 110.” I really like that.
Wendy Myers: Thank you, thank you. Live to 110.
Nick Iadonisi: That’s really cool. And you know what? People are doing it. People are doing it, but there’s got to be – blood flow circulation is a huge one and people don’t get that you have bad posture, you have overused muscles, you’re diverting blood flow. So we can’t get nutrients and oxygen and iron and vitamins to where they need to go so our organs and everything can function properly.
There’s a lot more to it, but I just feel like it’s really going back to the fundamentals of movement and what we do throughout the day and not allowing time to become an issue.
Leigh Lowery: I love what you said about just being conscious of our movement patterns. I know with working with specific clients I have. In a lot of moms, it’s which side of the body that they’re carrying their child on, as well. Simply that they carry a child on one side of the hip, they stay on that one side as well.
Where they carry their purse, the same side of the body. What leg they step up with when they’re taking the stairs? They step up with the one leg. It’s funny how dominant people are on one side because we’re not conscious of those movements.
So I love that you’re bringing that to the forefront too, just being more conscious of what we’re doing.
Nick Iadonisi: That’s right. It’s pretty wild. I mean, even myself as a trainer, I preach this stuff and here I am, sitting and I didn’t realize – you know, it took me a little while to realize myself. At the end of the day, here I am, picking up all my dumbells on one side and here I am demonstrating all my movements to one side. Even as a trainer, I have to counterbalance all those things to really [inaudible 00:16:07].
As a trainer, it’s really important stretching my clients. The way I do it – you know, I used to do it on the floor. And then I was like, “You know what? I got to get a massage table.” I got a massage table and like my back has just been so much better from not sitting here bending the whole time. It’s little things as a trainer as well. So it’s really things that I apply to my life that I just want to share with people.
Leigh Lowery: I love it.
Leigh Lowery: Alright, can you tell us a little bit about the long-term goal and how do you plan on getting there.
Nick Iadonisi: My long-term goal – sometimes people look at me like I’m a little crazy when I say this. I’m one of those guys that believe that I have all the tools in front of me to change the world, to get the message out to the world about technology and posture.
My end goal honestly is as the global community improve our knowledge, fitness levels and understanding of posture and how easy it is to really live a longer life.
People look at all these advertising and all these different forms of working out. Some of it is intense and you know what? That’s great for those people. There’s other things for other people – you know what I mean – that work for them as well.
Leigh Lowery: Absolutely.
Nick Iadonisi: So my overall goal is to really shift the mentality of our world and where we’re going because it’s only getting worse. The technology is only getting the worse.
I do a lot of research on Google and other companies and they’re catching onto it. They’re starting to create things like the Google Glass. I listened to this TED Talks and it’s, “Hey, I’m sitting here hunched over my phone the whole time. This is not how we’re intended to be.”
So ultimately, I’m just trying to get – it’s not just about posture. You know, I’ve got a great guy on my team, Ben Hawkins. He’s opened up my eyes a lot too in terms of nutrition and what’s going into our food.
On the blog, I just want this one just basically junkyard of great information of fitness all over – from nutrition to posture, from exercises to everything. If you look on there now, it’s livebiomechanix.com, there’s exercise videos for pregnant women, there’s exercise videos for people that sit in a desk. I’m just trying to make a global hub for education and knowledge on fitness and nutrition and awareness.
Leigh Lowery: I love that. I was on your site just the other day. You sent me some video links, but I kind of went back in there and it’s great! It’s great for trainers. It’s great for people who are dealing with – like I have clients specifically that have back issues and knee issues and prenatal.
So it’s wonderful for them when they say, “Leigh, what do I do when I’m not training with you?” Sending them to your site is a great place because it’s informative, but it’s also demonstrative. So you’ve got live videos for free showing you what to do.
I think we talked about this in private at one point, just about being open with what knowledge you have to the world and giving it away because you get what you need back. I feel like it’s a blessing that you do that and give to others in that way.
Nick Iadonisi: I always say (and people always question me on this and I’m okay with that) I’d rather have a million views and a million people inspired than a million dollars. That’s kind of how I started this whole thing. And even at that blog, it started as like just – I didn’t mean to post that up that one point. It was just basically a place where I could put all my videos and start organizing them. I think I might have to do like a big makeover because it just went a different direction and I want to make it more goal-oriented for people like, “Hey! I have an injury. Where do I go? Hey, these are my goals. This is where I want to go.”
These takes time to develop. I’m having a great time doing it. I’m just recently starting to get a great reaction from people. Like I said, my end goal is to just inspire as many as I possibly can and max out my potential in terms of what I feel like I’ve been put here to do.
Leigh Lowery: I love it.
Leigh Lowery: Can you tell me – not to speak on the negative too much because I don’t even like to talk about negative, but I’m going to ask you just about some of the challenges that you’ve had so far and any of the difficult things that have occurred just being a trainer?
Nick Iadonisi: You know, I got to be honest with you. This is something that’s been coming up a lot in the past six months with me just because I’ve been making such a push on social media.
And you know what? The results are [inaudible 00:20:35]. I’m starting to get more followers and more views, but it begins to compromise my personal health because I’m so caught up.
I don’t have a video editor right now. I don’t have all these things that these companies have that are putting out work like the Men’s Health or all these health magazines. They’re putting out these videos. I don’t really have a team like that.
And so I film all my workout, I try to film some of my clients and it consumes me. I’m so passionate about getting this next video up for someone that might need it. It’s so crazy. I just never thought it would be like that.
I just get consumed with it. By the time I know it, I got to start my workout. I’m ten minutes into it and all I can think about is, “I’ve got to film this. I got to ge the next video. Where can I set a camera up?” whatever it is.
It kind of gives me anxiety because I get so distracted for my own personal workout program that it doesn’t even get done at some point.
Wendy Myers: I know. Having a health website is not very healthy.
Leigh Lowery: Yeah!
Nick Iadonisi: Honestly, that’s something I’ve really struggled with lately because I just have so much I want to do and I want to benefit as many people as I can and I’m just like, “Alright! Nick, time to shut it off” and it’s like, “Yeah, right.” You know what I mean?
I go to work out and it just pops right back. “I got to do a video about this. Let me take a note. Let me write this down. I don’t want to forget.” By the time I notice, I’ve worked out for 20 minutes and I’ve got some great ideas, but I barely worked out at all. You know what I mean?
Leigh Lowery: Yeah.
Nick Iadonisi: I just feel like I put a lot of time. I put a lot more time to my clients and my business or my interactive following than I do myself, so I feel like that could be something a little bit difficult. It’s just sheer exhaustion. People are like, “Oh, you’re a trainer. You work in a gym. You can work out whenever you want.” It’s not…
Leigh Lowery: It’s not like that, yeah.
Nick Iadonisi: You know what I mean? For me, anyway, it’s not that simple. People have these perceptions of what a trainer is – some of them are right, some of them are correct, but for me, it’s not that way. I mean, I live in my gym. I’m live in here all the time. I sleep four days a week just to get up at five, trying to edit a video or do some yoga before I get going because I know I’m not going to get it done.
So that’s definitely one of the challenge that I come across as a trainer. What I’m trying to do is really neglecting myself.
Leigh Lowery: I think Wendy just wrote a book and is finishing up. We have this conversation all the time. I wrote this book about basically your health and helping others and I’ve never been more stressed out in my whole life, see?
Nick Iadonisi: You know what I mean? I can relate to that, lady.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, I know. I want to stay up late and work on it and so I don’t get enough sleep. Because I’m working on it, I don’t go out in my infrared sauna as much as I should.
Nick Iadonisi: What’s the name of your book called?
Wendy Myers: It’s called The Modern Paleo Survival Guide.
Nick Iadonisi: I have to check that out.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, it’ll be out soon. Hopefully, I’m hoping August 1st on Glamazon. That’s going to be out. It’s all about eating the most nutrient-dense, the most nutrient-dense foods on the Paleo diet and how if you’ve adopted to new food that have arrived since our ancestral times like dairy and things like that (if you can tolerate them, you can eat those) and how to figure out if you tolerate them or not, if they’re making you sick and all kinds of stuff like that.
Leigh Lowery: That’s right. And I saw you post that thing on deodorant and aluminum the other day, Nick. I was telling Wendy because she’s all about – she does hair mineral analysis to judge levels of mercury, aluminum and other toxic chemicals in your body and so I just said, “These two little science people are going to get along so well… science of the body, science of the body, okay, connection.”
Nick Iadonisi: I love physiology. I just think we’re put together so masterfully. At this point, we’re starting to put so many other things into our bodies unknowingly and it’s just super scary. And so what I want to do is just raise awareness.
Because it’s really funny because I’m engaged right now, I’ll definitely try to get married soon and you start getting into that realm where it’s like, “Alright, I want to have kids… this and that…” and then I start really thinking about the world we live in and it’s like, “Man! It’s only going to be harder when I have kids.”
When I think about Jackie, my fiancé and myself, we just started this cleanse program from Genesis Pure and it’s basically just coming back to what you’re saying when we’re just so vitamin-deficient because of the food in the soil that we planted – it’s just kind of a crazy, crazy world we live in right now. I just feel like education is the hub of where we need to be if we’re going to survive at some point.
Leigh Lowery: Absolutely.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, that’s what my site is all about and definitely yours sounds like too. It’s how to navigate all the problems in our food supply and all the toxins in our environment, how to navigate that to be the healthiest person you can be.
Leigh Lowery: That’s right.
Nick Iadonisi: Yes.
Leigh Lowery: And so back to a little bit about fitness and the basics of fitness, I get (and I’m sure that you get) a lot of people who are trying to get back in shape. A lot of our listeners really want great information. So what advice would you give somebody who’s trying to start working out and get back in shape?
Nick Iadonisi: That’s a pretty good question there too. Like I said, I just think it’s hard to sift through all of the – I don’t want to say garbage. There’s a lot of good stuff out there. It’s just hard to find sometimes. It’s not easy.
There’s the P90X’s and the Insanity’s, which I have to be honest, they’re great programs. I think they’re incredible, but some people are just not ready for them yet. You know what I mean?
Leigh Lowery: Absolutely.
Nick Iadonisi: People jump into them, their injury rates are higher than the people who have finished. You know what I mean? So what I’m trying to create, just like I said, is an understanding of where you are actually are. I think that people, before they really get into a workout program, they need to assess themselves. They need to really understand where they’re at. They need to understand their nutrition. I say create a food log for a week. Carry a piece of paper around you, write it on your phone. “Monday at 7 a.m., I had this.” No matter what it is, how bad, be honest with yourself.
Leigh Lowery: Be honest, yes.
Nick Iadonisi: At 10 a.m., I had this. I didn’t eat anything until three. Really, that’s the first step. Get a food journal. Start that. Assess yourself. Whether you have to go to a doctor or fitness professional, however you’re going to do it, figure out what injuries you have, look at your previous injury history. You know what I mean? What other medical conditions do you have that you have to address. Are you on medication? You know what I mean? Those will come into – which is my next thing…
What is your goal? You know what I mean? Before you just jump in to working out or, “I want to do this program because I want to lose 50 lbs.,” say, “Why do you want to lose 50 lbs.? What is it? Are you unhappy? Do you have pain? Are you on medication that you want to get off?” Figure out really what your goals are.
That said, I would say assess yourself thoroughly, seriously thoroughly. Find out what your goals are and then talk to a professional. Unless you really have a good background on it for some reason, talk to a fitness professional and really do your research before you get started.
Don’t just jump into it, any old workout program because it might not be best for you. And then also, don’t look for this instant gratification. I just don’t believe that developing a human body is an easy process.
Some people just want the quick fix. I hear people say that all the time. But if you want long-lasting, sustainable results and a long-lasting, sustainable lifestyle, it’s going to come over a time period. It’s not just like, “Hey, I’m good. I’m going to switch and here I am.” You know what I mean?
Leigh Lowery: Yeah. I love it.
Nick Iadonisi: [Inaudible 00:28:42] I’m pretty conscious of what I eat, how I eat, but I’m not perfect. I’m definitely not. Right now, I’m in this process of switching over. I’m very inconsistent with ‘not organic’, ‘not GMO’. I’ll be good for a month and bad for a week and just want to purge and binge.
Like I said, I don’t know if it’s the wedding coming up soon, I’m thinking about really cleansing my body to be a better influence for my fiancé to cleanse her body (that’s a part of it), but I’m trying to be more consistent with understanding, “Hey, there’s bad stuff in our food. I’ve got to switch. I got to make this change,” but it’s not like tonight. You know what I mean?
This whole month, I’m cleansing. I’m mentally going over it, increasing my education on it. The more I learn about it, the more I want to be better at it. I think research and understanding what you’re trying to do is a big part of it. Assess yourself, set a goal, do the homework. Then I would say, basically, mentally understand that it’s going to take some time if you’re going to do it right.
Wendy Myers: You know, I think the hardest thing is about beginning to work out again, at least for me, was having to feel my flab jiggle on my body when I was working out. I just couldn’t take it.
Leigh Lowery: And I have a lot of clients who come in and Wendy is not overly flabby. So don’t let her talk behind this microphone and…
Nick Iadonisi: I see a little picture over here.
Wendy Myers: Speak for yourself.
Leigh Lowery: She’s doing alright.
Wendy Myers: No, I was talking about after I had my baby, I had a significant amount of flab. I gain 75 lbs. for pregnancy.
Leigh Lowery: Sure.
Wendy Myers: I didn’t like that sensation of the jell-o jiggling when I was working out.
Leigh Lowery: Yeah. And I have a lot of clients – I mean, I love what you said, Nick. I feel like 1) let me just promote 2) apps that are free on your phone. I use My Fitness Pal myself in order to track my food every single day – that is if I eat ten pieces of cake (because like you said, nobody is perfect) or if I eat perfectly that day. I track it so I can see on a regular basis.
It also helps me see things that create a binge sensation. If I’m having a sugar binge, I can see where it started. And if you start tracking, when you see that you fell of somewhere, you can kind of go back through your daily diary and go, “Okay, here’s where it started. Here’s where it ended. As a woman, is it PMS-related? Is it emotionally-related, stress-related?”
There’s so many causes and conditions for why we reach for food that are bigger than food.
Nick Iadonisi: I think that’s a – I don’t mean to cut you off. I think that’s an awesome point. I just wanted to get this in, that preparation goes such a long way and arming yourself. Again, to my knowledge, like you said, going to find out, “Hey, is it PMS? Are my hormones…? What’s going on? What is it?” If you’re aware of it, it’s easier to arm yourself and be prepared for it when it comes.
If you’re going to a party or a gathering and you know there’s going to be junk food, make sure you have your meal before. Don’t go in there hungry. You know what I mean?
Leigh Lowery: Right.
Nick Iadonisi: Preparation is such a big deal. And there could be so many levels of preparation. Sorry, I had to jump in there because…
Leigh Lowery: I love that! No. I have my clients call me. If they feel a sense of urgency to call me, leave a message or talk to me in person if I can about walking into a party for the first time. So I absolutely do think it is all about planning. And then when you fall off, you don’t fall of the deep end. Do you know what I’m saying?
Nick Iadonisi: Yeah, extremes. Don’t get to extremes, yeah.
Leigh Lowery: Yeah. So anyway, I absolutely love what you had to say there. That’s 100% my belief system. So again, there’s My Fitness Pal is an app that you can get on your phone. And also, you can go online to a place called FatSecret.com and enter – I don’t really love the name of FatSecret.com, but it’s a great – I told my girlfriend, she goes, “What do you mean ‘Fat Secret’?” It is a log where you can diary your food that’s just available through your computer.
So those two are options. And if you start doing that, you really get to see where you’re at on a daily basis. I highly, highly recommend that.
Nick Iadonisi: I’m actually in the process of developing a mobile application myself with such a huge database of workouts like just, “Hey, you’re a beginner. You have this equipment and you want to work these muscle groups, boom! It’s just going to generate a workout.” They’re going to be similar to the videos that are on my website. So it’s going to be – I’m hoping to create an app that’s nothing like what’s out there right now.
Leigh Lowery: I love that. That’s so great. More stuff for people who are looking to get out from behind their computer, out from just doing their construction work and going home exhausted, the ability to do something quickly at their fingertips is great. Technology is kind of ruining us in some ways, we can make it work for us. So that’s a great point.
Nick Iadonisi: I do think it’s great. Just like I said earlier, as long as you’re responsible enough and conscious enough to counterbalance it, there’s nothing wrong with it. You know what I mean? I just think that there needs to be disclaimers. There’s so many different disclaimers for everything these days, it’s like it’s only a matter of time before someone sues Apple or some other software company for creating a piece of technology that has caused them to sit down all day. You know what I mean? It’s only a matter of time. I feel like these things need to have a disclaimer. When Apple sells something, why don’t they have on the back like a little stretch chart or like a little thing – you know what I mean, like stuff like that I think is a big deal. If anyone has an idea at the end of this, feel free to reach out to me and I’ll give you my contact information. I just think it’s important. Technology is great. I will not be able to do what I do today without technology, but there needs to be a message with it.
Leigh Lowery: I love it. I love it.
Leigh Lowery: So to wrap it up, just a little bit, I want to talk about American Ninja Warrior. You did submit a video. So when do you hear on that? Do you know when that might be?
Nick Iadonisi: You know what? I got to be honest with you, I haven’t heard anything yet. I know there’s trials going from March and April, so there’s still some time. I’m hoping they get back to me soon. I don’t know what’s going on with that.
Leigh Lowery: Well, my question is what is American Ninja Warrior?
Wendy Myers: Oh!
Leigh Lowery: It’s so great. It’s the elite athletes. Nick, you explain it.
Nick Iadonisi: You know what? Honestly, it’s really funny because I used to watch the show. American Ninja Warrior was the show years back on Spy TV or something. It’s like this cool show with this little obstacle course.
Wendy Myers: I think I vaguely remember that.
Leigh Lowery: Mm-hmmm…
Nick Iadonisi: Yeah. I was like, “Man! This is so cool” and over the years, it’s just developed and they brought it back. I think now NBC picked up the show. It’s this huge obstacle. There’s a series of competitive obstacle courses. I mean, I think ‘obstacle course’ is an understatement there.
Leigh Lowery: Right.
Nick Iadonisi: Some of them are like near impossible challenges, but it’s really a great test of endurance, upper body strength, mental ability, mental focus. Some of the stuff is absolutely just mind-boggling.
Leigh Lowery: Yeah. Speed, agility, I mean, it’s got everything.
Nick Iadonisi: It’s fingertips strength, core strength, breathing, controlling lactic acid and blood flow. It’s a really cool – for me, that’s how I look at it. I’m like, “Man! You’ve got to have some serious understanding of this stuff to get involved.”
And for me, like I said earlier, I had a difficult time training for something or finding time for myself. As soon as I – I haven’t even really watch the show. I haven’t had TV in years. In about a series of a month, I’ve had like ten of my clients be like, “Nick, I’m watching this show. You got to try it. You’re perfect for it.” Literally, in the two months, I had 10 to 20 people tell me, so I’m like, “Alright! Let me check this out.” And before I even checked it out, somehow I must’ve gotten on a list and they sent me an email. I’m like, “Alright! That’s a sign. Let me check this out.”
So I made up a video, submitted it, but I haven’t heard anything back yet. So who knows?
Wendy Myers: Well, regardless of…
Leigh Lowery: Well, regardless, the video – hopefully, we’ll post that up. I’ll post it on my site. I posted it on my General Leigh Nutrition and Fitness site because it’s so inspiring. He does like a push-up, flip, push-up – I don’t even know.
Wendy Myers: We’ll put it on the blog post too.
Nick Iadonisi: Thanks.
Leigh Lowery: It’s incredible. So wait until you see the abilities of this man.
Leigh Lowery: And then where else can our listeners find you? Tell us everything you’ve got going right now.
Nick Iadonisi: Okay, I would say my most important would be my blog/website. It’s my video-based website with just hundreds of free workouts and information. That’s Live BioMechanix (the ‘biomechanix’ is spelled with an x). It’s L-I-V-E-B-I-O-M-E-C-H-A-N-I-X.com, livebiomechanix.com.
And then, YouTube, it’s the same thing. You can check on there, YouTube, biomechanix and my channel will pop up. Please feel free to subscribe.
If you’re in the L.A. area, please feel free to check out BioMechanixPersonalTraining.com. Again, that’s with an X at the end.
And then, on Facebook, I’m under Bio Body Shop if you can’t find my gym or friend me personally, N-I-C-K-I-A-D-O-N-I-S-I.
Those are pretty much all the places. Instagram, I actually Instagram. On Twitter, I’m under nickdowork. That’s pretty much what I try to get everyone to do, max out the potential and do work.
Leigh Lowery: Well, I’m going to come down. I told Nick I’m going to come down to the Bio Body Shop and do some work outs that I’m going post over the next couple of weeks. I’ve already worked out with him once. I’m going to get my butt kicked. I’m so excited. I love it!
Nick Iadonisi: It’s a jungle gym in here. Ever since I started working for American Nina Warrior, I got 25-foot high ceiling, I put a rock climbing wall, I got ropes hanging from the ceiling. I’ve got all sorts of stuff in here. It’s kind of a big kids’ jungle gym. I think you’ll enjoy it.
Leigh Lowery: Oh, I cannot wait. I’m super excited about that. Well, we loved having on you on the show.
Nick Iadonisi: Thank you, guys so much. You’re awesome! Wendy, I just friended you on Facebook. Let’s be some friends. I kind of want to pick your brain about some stuff. It’s unbelievable.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, let’s be buds. Let’s do it! Well, everyone, thank you so much for listening. If you want to learn all about detoxification and the Modern Paleo diet (or how to cook it) and heal your health conditions naturally, you can go check out my site, myersdetox.com and you can find me on Facebook and Twitter at iwillliveto110.
Leigh Lowery: That’s right. And if you want to learn more about me, the General Leigh, you can find me on Facebook at facebook.com/generalleighfitnessandnutrition or under Leigh Lowery. I also have GeneralLeigh.com. I am taking new online clients starting in April, so I’m really super excited about that. You can find me on Instagram. My IG name is genleigh, G-E-N-L-E-I-G-H.
And if you liked what you heard on the show today, please give the Live to 110 Podcast a review on iTunes. We need those positive, positive reviews.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, we would appreciate that so much. We need reviews to get into the search engines and get people finding us when they search health or detox.
Leigh Lowery: And finding great people like Nick and those free videos he’s doing out there on fitness.
Nick Iadonisi: Hey, thanks, guys. I really appreciate you having me on here. Thank you so much.
Wendy Myers: You are very welcome. Thanks for coming. And listeners, thanks for tuning in. We will see you next week.
