Habits and Hustle
Episode 416: Ebenezer Samuel Shares No-Nonsense Advice on Building Muscle, Burning Fat, and Healthy Eating for Life
Fri, 17 Jan 2025
Want to build muscle and lose fat effectively? In my Fitness Friday episode, Ebenezer Samuel, the Fitness Director of Men’s Health and Head of Training Innovation at FlexIt Fitness, discusses the myth of toning and getting shredded. We also discuss the concept of "calories in; calories out" and what it gets right and wrong. Tune in for actionable diet and muscle-building tips! Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S., is the fitness director of Men's Health and a certified trainer with more than 10 years of training experience. He's logged training time with NFL athletes and track athletes and his current training regimen includes weight training, HIIT conditioning, and yoga. Before joining Men's Health in 2017, he served as a sports columnist and tech columnist for the New York Daily News. What we discuss: Intermittent fasting Calories in vs calories out Society needs more fiber Brown rice vs white rice How to build muscle as we age Toning isn’t a real thing Thank you to our sponsor: AquaTru: Get 20% off any purifier at aquatru.com with code HUSTLE Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. To learn more about Ebenezer Samuel: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ebenezersamuel23/ Articles -https://www.menshealth.com/author/217286/ebenezer-samuel/ Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements
Chapter 1: What actionable advice can help me become healthier?
Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits & Hustle podcast where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up. Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor, Therasage. Their tri-light panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body.
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Again, head over to therasage, T-H-E-R-A-S-A-G-E.com and use code BEBOLD for 15% off any of their products. It's not about what quote unquote diet you're following. It's about, again, what I said. And that's why if I were sitting where you were and you were interviewing me, I would say that it does make a difference about the amount you eat.
Yeah.
Not so much. And what you eat is what I would say. Not necessarily the time you're eating it and all that other stuff that goes with it.
Yeah. Like all of the time you're eating it has like... I think bodybuilders do, bodybuilders do multiple meals.
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Chapter 2: How does intermittent fasting affect calories?
Right. What I'm saying at the time, like if you don't eat until noon or whatever I'm saying that, I think the more that, that those are also based on your body can't break down food. Like we overeat and therefore we're stuck with all this food in us because we're not, we're not digesting it because we're eating so much of it.
So like having enough time to digest your food is really good for your system.
Yeah, it's interesting because to bring the conversation full circle, that's like intermittent fasting is part of where you get the whole calories and calories that idea. Because it's like, oh, I'm going to take my calorie. I'm going to take all my calories in like two meals based in whatever it is, four hours, right? Yeah, four.
I think eight is a beginning. I think eight for beginners.
Yeah.
Or most people.
Yeah. I think so. I believe it to eat. And so that gets reduced to calories in. I think calories in, calories out was a very, it's like a well-meaning idea. And it was basically the way people are telling you to eat is so complicated. So it's like, let's just reduce it to this. But then we get so reductive with it that it kind of, it becomes counterproductive in its own.
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Chapter 3: What is the truth about calories in vs calories out?
How about like, what's the best way to eat if we want to build muscle and lose fat and just, you know, feel better and look better? What would be in your opinion?
I would say you want to have like four meals a day, right? And each meal you want to aim for 20 grams of protein, okay? And try to get this from a natural source. Make sure you get something green on your plate, right? And then get, you know, three to four ounces of a carb. And if you do that, right, and then you want to have, you want to ideally have some kind of water on the side.
And if you do that... Not some kind of water.
I have this one. Okay. BLK water.
BLK water. And BLK water is actually perfect, right? So I think if you do that, it checks a lot of boxes. And again, there's a variety in there, right? Because your 20 grams of protein can be eggs or chicken or fish, right? Um, and your, your green vegetable can be something different every time you're checking a lot of boxes in terms of getting fiber in your system, which is really good.
Um, you're checking a lot of boxes with, um, with the protein, which your body needs.
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Chapter 4: How can I build muscle and lose fat effectively?
We're not eating enough fiber though, as a society, as a, as a, so, and how do we, I mean, we should up that for sure.
Yeah. I think it's interesting cause I think we've come, I think we've come a long way in the fiber conversation just in, and it's funny cause I love white rice. which is, I can't remember.
I know, you've had it like five times since we've been here.
I mean, to be fair, I don't know if they have brown rice. They probably have brown rice. I probably could ask for it. I've kind of enjoyed just getting away from brown rice.
By the way, white rice is supposed to be better than brown rice. Did you know that?
I haven't heard this.
Oh, you should Google it. You should do a story on it. I heard that there's a whole myth about brown rice versus white rice.
Hmm.
I don't remember what the myth exactly is. I can Google it right now and talk to you. But I had someone on here recently who told me about this. And it's pretty amazing, actually. I'm going to Google it. White rice versus brown rice. I was a brown rice person, too.
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Chapter 5: What are the differences between brown rice and white rice?
It's not marketably better. It's not.
Yeah, white rice tastes so much better, too. I'm also Asian, so I'm kind of like... I know.
Well, I was going to say, I mean, you're naturally going to probably live to 177 because of just all the rice you're eating. But hold on. Brown rice versus white rice. Okay, if you look at the breakdown, it's actually... The fiber content in brown rice is like minusculely higher, but yeah, it's basically a little bit higher, like between one gram and two grams more fiber. And then...
I'm not finding it properly right now. I'm going to look it up and then get back to you on that. But from what I heard, it's not that much different. White rice is... See, again, there's another... I think what happens is something gets traction and then everyone just follows the... you know, follows that.
And this could be happening right now with the, I heard something about white rights and now I'm following that whole thing. So don't take my word for it. I think I could have sworn I heard someone mention that to me and I, and they were like a dog, they were a leading nutritionist. So, um, I was trying to find that information.
So, so that, but that's, that's again, why I'm big into like, It's like if you kind of loosely follow... If everybody loosely followed what I'm saying, right? They're covered. But choose your own carb. Don't let the internet choose it for you. Yeah. Choose your own mixed vegetable.
Like a sweet potato versus a white potato.
It's like... Like a russet potato. Yeah. It's like at a high level, if you're like... planning to try out for like, you know- Or like a competition or something. Exactly. But then that matters. Right.
So for the average person who wants to like look a little bit more lean and healthy and fit, have white rice or brown rice. It's not going to make, it's so nominally different. It doesn't make a difference. Okay. Let's talk about aging and muscle. Like keeping, how do we do this and do it well? Because we do break down more muscle as we age. So how do we-
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Chapter 6: How does aging affect muscle and fitness?
Um, but, um, I just, I just think don't be afraid of, of heavier weights. Right. And you, and the key is like, is the rep scheme, right. Is, um, like, it's, it's like you learn, you learn with lighter weights, how to, how to kind of get your form down. But then you, you've got like, at some point you want to, um,
challenge yourself right um and you're going to keep the reps low you're going to do like one or two reps and that's fine i think a lot of people get caught up in again more work right so it's like oh i'm going to do sets of like 12 and 15 reps i'm going to tone you know except toning really doesn't is kind of toning doesn't really exist right and it's like again don't talk about that i think you don't really you and i may think that but most people don't realize that so why don't you talk about that
The whole toning myth. That's a myth.
Yeah. I honestly don't even, I barely even know what the word means, right? It's not, it's not, it's funny because when you read... Women's magazines. Do women's magazines say it? I don't read them.
That's all they say is like, you know, tone your, you know, upper body, toning your arms. The word tone or toning is like synonymous with, you know, abs. You know what I mean? Like it's a very common word.
It's interesting because we literally, I'm actually trying to think back to the last time I used it in men's health. I've been in men's health for four and a half years now. And the answer is never.
Because women use the word toning. I don't think men ever use the word toning.
Yeah, I think it's almost like I feel like it got caught up in societal kind of... Because of that whole, oh, well, we can't say build muscle to women, right? And bulking freaks them out, right? So here, we're going to get them lifting weights because it's going to tone them, whatever. I honestly don't know what the word means.
It means like... Yeah. Kind of like... It's like, again, the opposite of flabby would be toned, I guess. I don't know. These are all like, this is exactly my point. And that's why I wanted to talk to you and have you on is because I think so much of everything is all marketing and branding. And it's not necessarily accurate or true.
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