The Martell Method w/ Dan Martell
11 Health Principles To Transform Your Body (and Mind)
Fri, 21 Feb 2025
Get The Book (Buy Back Your Time): https://bit.ly/3pCTG78 Subscribe to My Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3W2tjp2 Ever wonder how to completely transform your body and mind—even when you’re always on the go? In this video, I share the 11 health principles that took me from a soft 20% to a shredded 6% body fat in just 90 days, all while constantly travelling as a busy entrepreneur. These aren’t just more fad diets or workout routines. These are proven strategies anyone can use to get fit fast. Discover the blueprint to lasting transformation and change your life
Chapter 1: What are the 11 health principles for transformation?
I'm going to share the 11 health principles to transform your body and mind. They're what I use to go from soft 20% to a shredded 6% body fat in 90 days. And keep it off while constantly traveling as a busy entrepreneur. Anyone can use these to get fit fast, even if you've tried every fad diet and workout routine out there. Welcome to the Martell Method.
I went from rehab at 17 to building a $100 million empire and being a Wall Street Journal bestselling author. In this podcast, I'll show you exactly how to build a life and business you don't grow to hate. And make sure you don't miss anything by subscribing to my newsletter at martellmethod.com. So here's how to transform your body.
Chapter 2: Why is nutrition more than just counting calories?
Starting with principle number one, it's not how much you eat, it's what you eat. See, a lot of people talk about calories. Let me tell you this, micronutrients is how you feel, calories is how much you weigh, but macros is how you look. See, most people think that it's about calories, but I'm telling you, you could eat the creepiest calories in the world. If you eat a bunch of Cinnabon,
or fricking Krispy Kreme donuts. You might hit your calorie goals and you might even lose weight, but you will feel like crap because you don't have the right micronutrients. You need the vitamins, you need the minerals, you need that to control your energy, to maintain good immunity, your mood, even your recovery post-workout is all about your micronutrients.
Macros is a completely different game. Your macros are your protein, your carbs, and your fats. And what's unique is you need the right type of macros for your specific goals to actually sculpt your body. If you don't understand how to do this, you can go into a cut, into a caloric deficit, lose the weight.
You actually have the ability on your reverse diet up if you've dialed in your macros to actually use that and your insulin to put on lean muscle mass. Most bodybuilders know it. Most people that are on a diet never get there. But it's not just about what you eat to transform your body. Let's get serious when you eat. Which brings us to principle number two, don't eat after 6 p.m.
Chapter 3: Why shouldn't you eat after 6 p.m.?
I first learned this concept from my coach, Alan, because I realized that I would make bad decisions after 6 p.m. Honestly, most cravings, most cheats, most moments of weakness happened after 6. And Alan just said, you shut it down at 6. So what do you mean? He goes, you just shut it down at six. At six o'clock, you stop eating. There's no discussion. There's no conversation.
You have to eat within that window. So shut it down. It's funny because if you listen to Brian Johnson, the blueprint guy who wants to live to like 400 years old, he says the same thing. He said, old Brian used to make bad decisions after four or 5 p.m. And I just decided to take that optionality off the table. You got to do the same thing. Here's why it's so powerful.
First off, if you look at your eating pattern, you probably follow the same thing. You snack at night, you eat cause you're hungry. Just take it off the table. It's the easiest way to ensure there's no calorie slips. The other thing is your digestive system follows your circadian rhythm and you need time to rest. You need the ability for your body to relax and recover.
If you're eating, you're literally kicking it back into high gear right when you're about to go to sleep. The cool part is it also creates a natural 12-hour fast without effort. Some of you, if you don't eat until 8 AM, you can get a 14-hour fast. The longer your body has time to actually feed off of its own energy source, the better you're going to feel mentally and your recovery.
Chapter 4: How does your environment affect your eating habits?
But stopping to eat late night meals and snacking can be really hard if you don't follow this principle. Which brings us to principle number three. It's easier to avoid the dragon than to slay it. When I was 17, I ended up getting in a lot of trouble and found myself in rehab. And I dealt with addictions and demons, and it was a tough period in my life.
But I learned something in rehab that's applied to every aspect of my life since then, which is my environment dictates my choices. And one of the ideas that they shared with me is that it's easier to avoid the dragon, avoid the temptation than to slay it. See, a lot of you guys try to focus on willpower and mental toughness. I would just take the option out of your house.
Most people sit there and they have family members that have pantries and cabinets and drawers full of junk food. For me, with food, I had to get rid of it. I had to make it the option that it's not even in the house. Why would I keep things in my house to tempt me that in a moment of weakness, I would make a bad decision?
So literally I'm asking you, go in there, grab all the crap food, all the bad decisions, all the leftovers. I know some of you guys are like, but I don't wanna waste food. Great, put it in a bag, bring it to the homeless shelter. I don't know what you wanna do with it. It just can't end up in your mouth. Your environment will beat your intentions every day. So here's how to avoid the dragon.
Number one, don't keep trigger foods in your house. The other day, my beautiful friend Ellie brought over homemade peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. It was the most beautiful cookie in the world. I had one bite and I knew immediately had to be removed from my home. Couldn't keep it around me, had to go.
At least I know, avoid the drag and don't keep it because those trigger foods are gonna cause me to make even worse decisions. Number two, don't go down the candy aisle. If you're at a grocery store and you're shopping, there is an aisle called the candy aisle. It's the sugar aisle. It's the processed sugar aisle. It's the place where all the bad decisions are made.
I know you got to go get gum, but ask somebody else to go pick it up for you. Don't go down that aisle. It is a bad decision. Avoid the dragon. Don't try to slay it. Number three, 20 minute rule. Eat and wait. If I feel inclined to make a bad decision, instead of just a hard no, sometimes I'll just set a timer. I set that timer for 20 minutes and I look at my phone and I say, look, I'm gonna wait.
When this thing goes off, I'm gonna then make a decision. Most of the time, I also eat an apple. because I figure maybe my blood sugar is a little low and I need to bring it up. So I have an apple, it's low in calories. I wait those 20 minutes. I would say nine times out of 10, I decide not to make a bad decision.
Using that 20 minute rule creates space between the emotion to wanna eat and the decision to actually put something in your mouth. And most of the time you will make a better decision. Number four, replace, don't remove. So if you have a sweet tooth, find something like protein chocolate peanut butter cups. I do that with the Quest bars. They have incredible options.
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Chapter 5: What is the importance of measuring your intake?
Don't have a whole bunch because you might find the whole bunch gone. Just replace them with healthy alternatives. I saw this incredible recipe the other day for cottage cheese chips. That's awesome. So if you're kind of a chip person, make some cottage cheese chips and all of a sudden it's high protein snacking all night long. Just don't eat after six. But it's not just about what you eat.
Before we get back to this episode, if you prefer to watch your content, then go find me on YouTube. I have this episode on YouTube. I'm Dan Martell on YouTube. Just subscribe to the channel, turn on the notification bell, because then you'll get notified in real time. It'll tell YouTube to tell you. We've got a new episode, so you'll never miss anything. Now let's get back to the episode.
Which brings us to principle number four, measure what matters. It's kind of funny because I always weighed myself. Wake up in the morning, jump on the scale, report into my coach. But the previous coach I worked with never asked me to weigh my food, to measure my food, to measure my macros, which seems obvious looking back because I was measuring other areas of my life, just not my food.
I love this Peter Drucker quote that is, if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. So measure your food. There's a few things that I do that keeps me on track. Number one, ensure that I get the right macros and calories. Like I said, caloric deficit is what I weigh, but macros is how I look. And I'm always trying to OD on protein.
So you gotta make sure you hit your macros, your proteins, your fats, and your carbs appropriate to where you're at. So measure those things. Second thing is I always travel with both scales. I travel with a food scale and I travel with a weight scale. First thing in the morning, I report in what I weigh.
Right after that, I eat, but I measure all the food so that I know exactly what to enter and track my macros. Number three, removes decision-making. The cool part is by doing it this way, I don't want to create decision fatigue. I want to set it and forget it. Every time I go to eat, I already know what I'm supposed to eat because I have meal planning. I don't want to think about it.
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Chapter 6: Why should you aim for hypertrophy for long-term health?
I don't want to sit there and look at a menu and go like, I should eat this, but maybe I'll order that. That's where you get yourself in trouble. But to transform your body, it isn't just about eating right. Which brings us to principle number five, aim for hypertrophy. This one evaded me for a long time because I always thought that to look good, I just had to lose fat.
But what I've learned since then is that the whole point is to build muscle. Why? There's this thing called sarcopenia, which is the body's process of eating muscle the older you get. Have you ever touched an old person and their muscle feels like a bag of milk, just the skin and there's nothing in there? That's what it is.
And usually around the age of 35 to 40, you start to have your body do this. So if you don't put on lean muscle, then it's not there later in life. And the crazy part is, is most old age injuries are directly correlated to a lack of muscle. They trip and they can't brace themselves on the small fall. And all of a sudden they go down and they twist their knee, hurt their ankle.
Then it's a game of operation to operation. All of a sudden they haven't been moving for six months. And I've seen it over and over and over again. If you don't put lean muscle mass on when you can, the older you get, the quality of life goes down. The cool part is muscle also increases your metabolism, meaning, fun part, you can eat more without gaining fat. That's just a fact.
Your muscles burn more calories than lack of muscle, so the more muscle you have, you put on, the more space you have in your macros to be able to have some fun throughout your week. And I got to tell you, it's just a great place to get where you've got the stability, the strength to be able to feel good about yourself and also show up and put out some power.
Like if you got to defend yourself, you don't want to be easy to kill. The whole point is to be hard to kill. H to K means you need lean muscle mass. But now how do you build that muscle? Which brings us to principle number six, lift the same, look the same. I also heard my trainer, Alan, say this all the time. Lift the same, look the same.
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Chapter 7: How can changing your workout routine alter your physique?
If you're lifting the same week over week, don't be surprised if you don't look any different. And it's funny because you go to the gym, you see all these people working out, sweating, doing the thing week over week over. I've seen people years in the gym and they haven't changed their body composition or their physique at all. See the same effort, same outcome. So how do we change everything?
We need to understand this concept called progressive overload training, which is essentially you wanna increase your volume and you switch body parts. So you may be in a six week block and you'll focus on certain types of movements to hit different body parts. And you wanna max out every time you go to the gym, You wanna figure out, are you in the rep range of 12 to 15?
If you're easily getting 15, increase the weight. Log it. Next time you go back, are you able to get 12 to 15? No, you can only get 10. Cool, stay there, but lift harder. Last few reps, try to go 11, 12. Once you get back up to that 15, increase the weight. That is progressive overload. And the cool part is you safely increase weight week over week.
you don't just go in there and go like a cowboy and put a bunch of plates on the bench press and then try to push something and impress all your friends and pull a muscle and then you can't work out for three months. That's literally the thing that takes people out from making progress is injury. So the whole idea for me and how I train my clients is to avoid movements that could cause injury.
If you do that, you stay in the game to get the game and your body adapts to stress. You need to increase it. If you don't increase the level and volume of stress you put on it, the weight, the strength, effort, then you're not going to increase your ability to lift more and change your body. But to gain muscle and strength, you need the right fuel.
Before we get back to the episode, if you actually want to know what my real life looks like and see the people and the businesses and the companies I buy and my family and just like how I make it all work, go follow me on Instagram. Dan Martell, 2LZMartell on Instagram. It's where I show the behind the scenes, the real deal, real time. I'd love to see you there. Have an amazing day.
Which brings us to principle number seven, travel with your food. See, most people give up their gains when they travel. I've seen client after client go on vacation, come back, put on three, five pounds. And I'm like, why? Have you ever considered that you could go on vacation and actually come back leaner, come back healthier? It's actually not hard.
I'm going to tell you how to do it because most people don't believe me, but I just did it. I got back from Australia and Bali with the family, came back leaner. Well, I learned this the hard way when I did this thing called Project Visible Labs. And the whole time I was doing this for 90 days, essentially cutting my whole body and changing my composition, I traveled.
I did like six trips, vacations, family stuff, the holidays, because I didn't want anybody to go like, oh, it was easy for you. You just hibernated in your basement and did your thing. No, I went and lived and still got fitter. How did I do that? I got good about my meal prep. So how do you find food when you're out there traveling?
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