How I Got Into The Best Shape Of My Life At 40 Years Old - My Workout & Meal Plan With Fitness Coach AJ Simms

I had a goal this year to get into the best shape of my life by my 40th birthday. And I'm proud to say that on May 19, I accomplished it! I did this for two reasons... One, I've been working out since I was 15 years old, but I wanted to see what would be possible if we really dialed in the diet and the workouts. And secondly, my daughter was going to be born around my 40th birthday so I wanted to redefine what it meant to have a dad bod.

I've received A LOT of messages and emails asking what my diet looked like or what my workout plan looked like -- and we'll get into all of the nitty-gritty details during this episode, but I started at 202 and over the course of these 90 days I ended at 177 -- and I did it with the help of a world-renowned nutritionist and fitness coach AJ Simms (@cementfactory) who has trained wrestling stars like Bobby Lashley, LA Knight, EC3, Johnny Gargano, Apollo Crews and he's the guy who got Tommaso Ciampa looking like a beast recently.

I did this all naturally -- although hey, I appreciate all of the comments from people accusing me of taking PEDs or doing TRT. That is honestly the best possible compliment for you to think this kind of result isn't possible without drugs. Hilarious!

I hope you enjoy this episode with the one and only AJ Simms!

On changes Chris made to his diet:

“Yeah, so that's a huge misconception that the general public has that when they think of diet, they think of the most boring foods for some reason and very little of it. Now really, at the end of the day, it's all about calories in, calories out. Specifically, what is your energy output according to what your body is burning on a daily basis. So naturally, what I try to do is set you up when you came to me, you were on a quote unquote bulking phase, so you were eating a pretty good surplus of calories, which was great, because it was all it allowed me to come in, kind of tweak the diet to what I like to do, and then customise it after the first two to three weeks based off what your your body's responded. And then we implemented the cardio and then my products, and then we were just basically calorie cycling throughout the entire process. So if you remember there was some days you had your baseline training day menu, your off day training day menu, and then we worked at two refeed days where you're eating you know, one time I think was In and Out Burger and Rice Krispies and cereal. And you actually look even tighter about one to two days after that, which is essentially the entire goal, we're feeding the metabolism while we're pushing your energy output a little bit more. And what you learned throughout the process was the more steps you were getting in, which is called NEAT, non exercise aerobic thermogenesis, basically moving the body and just walking outside, which is great for everybody. There's so many benefits to doing that. Just getting sunlight, moving the body in between meals, digestion, insulin sensitivity. And again, just moving the body is just fantastic. But you learned, the more you did, the quicker you were dropping. And I think we started having big drop offs after you were doing about 12 to 15,000 steps a day. I believe that's where we got.”

On the meal plan:

“Yeah. So basically, the goal is to always hit macronutrients. And Everybody pretty much knows what that is: protein, fats and carbs if you don't. But also your micronutrients making sure we have enough fibre, insoluble fibre micronutrients from the fruits, greens, powders, or green deep green vegetables. So you want to be able to feed the body, the proper nutrients to fuel it, not only for your training, recovery, but also fuel it for digestion, fuel for sleep optimization. And there's a lot of things that I had in there supplementation, natural supplements, again, the absolute supplements aiding gut health, fat burning effects. But you were also doing a cold plunge on a daily basis, which is going to do so many benefits for you not only neurologically, but also induce sleep optimization and also increase brown fat, which is the good fat that you want. It's the fat that keeps you warm. And the white fat is the fat that you don't want, that's what we're getting rid of throughout the process. So the more brown fat stimulation you have, the quicker the white fat gets burned off. So again, it was all the things that you were doing as a whole communicating with me doing the diet. And the diet, basically what I tried to do is figure out okay, what works best for Chris. What does he digest the best? What does he feel the best on? And I think we started in the mornings, I believe with a cream of rice and then we switched over to the Ezekiel bread, because I think you enjoy that. And that's what I try to tell people when we figure out what's working for you. macronutrient wise at the amounts you're eating. Let's find out what foods you actually enjoy. So that you can add here to the diet. I mean, if you look forward to every morning, you know berries and Ezekiel bread with some eggs, that's a great breakfast, man. You know you're getting that powerful spread from the Ezekiel and then there's a lot of hacks that I don't even think we got into. You can learn how to make that into French toast with the egg whites, which is a great recipe. So, you know, those things were very simplistic. You know, we had your lean meats, and then your chicken, your 99% turkey, some fish or shrimp, some jasmine rice, and basically just figuring out how much you needed, when you needed it, and then just going along with the process. And then getting those refeed days in where we're just hitting a surplus of calories, where I think the biggest refeed we gave you was, man, maybe 4500 to 5000 calories, because I think I gave you a crumble cookie too one time.”

On it all being about consistency: 

“100%. And that goes for anybody with any type of fitness goals, you have to be consistent. Whether it's just starting to go outside and walk like we said, you know, set a goal. 7,000 steps a day has been shown to reduce all cause mortality by I think over 70%. So just getting 7,000 steps and then working your wake up, set a goal for 10,000 steps and then set a goal to go to the gym twice a week and then set a goal to go four times and then start fasted cardio. And once you get into this routine of building your fitness, and then when you start seeing results, and the motivation from just seeing your body change week to week or every month, it's incredible. And it keeps you grounded in life, to be able to do it in every aspect of your life. You're a new father, so congratulations by the way, beautiful baby girl, one week old today. And now you're able to take that discipline that you have in those 90 days, and do it across the board. I mean, we already know you're a hard worker, look at the audience you've built up, the success you've had in what you do. And you were just able to implement that into your fitness. You told me on our phone call, I want to get in the best shape of my life by 40. And I said let's churn buddy, it's time to do it. You took it on and you did it. 100% man. And that's the key is when you go in, you got to be all in.”

On accusations that Chris was on PEDs:

“Yeah, I think it comes from a lot of self doubt from individuals. And not to put anybody out there but I think when they see somebody do something incredible like what you did in 90 days. The mentality that the majority of people have will go straight to well, there has to be some sort of cheating involved and there's no way that he just stayed like this, went for those 90 days 100% out there. I mean, I remember you even went into WrestleMania and you were texting me, what can I eat? And I said, Send me the menu. Because there is food there and, you know, I said here, this is what you can eat, and that's what it takes to reach your fitness goals. And I can tell you guys that if Chris can do it at his young ripe age of 40, new father, husband, super busy businessman, you can do it too. It just takes adherence, compliance and just working hard.”

What was Chris’ workout:

“So I think what we had you on was more of a higher volume, high frequency intensifier type training. Where we're not focused on so much what's called progressive overload, where you see guys go in, and they're just super, super heavy training, you know, where you're going to risk an injury, doing three or four repetitions. I'm more of the believer of what's called time under tension, putting the muscle under as much tension as possible, under a specific period of time with a specific type of weight so that you're getting a lot of stimulation, but you're also avoiding, you know, tearing something, or hurting yourself or your joints and your ligaments and your tendons. Remember, this is a lifestyle, we're trying to go for longevity, we want to be doing this at 70, 75, you know, God willing at 80 we're just still churning and looking great, you know. So the type of training you did was more of a higher volume, higher frequency, you know, where you were in the gym five, six times a week. And but you know, it's just incredible that you're the way your body shaped up, you know, and I was looking at it, I was like, man, you know, I know he doesn't have time for this. But I can put this guy on stage in a men's physique show because you have that natural shape of a bigger chest, wider shoulders, great midsection. And if I would see something that maybe lagged a little bit during the process, you know, throw in and do this movement, or maybe throw in this body part extra throughout the week. And again, it's all about building a programme for an individual customised on what their body needs and when it needs it. But yeah, the training, more frequency, more volume, and you really keep yourself away from getting injured. It's the same thing I do with all the wrestlers, all the boys, my style of training, and I try to take them away from doing super, super heavy stuff. Because we know if they tear something in the gym, they're off work, they're out of the ring, that's the last thing they want. So, you know, one of the guys I've been working with recently, Bobby Lashley, and he's a beast in the gym. I mean, the dude is just an absolute animal, genetic anomaly. But when I sent him my style of training, he really enjoyed it because it was a different feel to the muscle, as opposed to again, the super heavy progressive overload.”

Who has AJ Simms also worked with:

“Let's see. EC3, Buddy Matthews, I don't know if he goes by that anymore. And there's a long laundry list of guys that I actually have worked with. LA Knight. Yeah! Just man, a lot of guys. I should have written it all down because it's a long list. I remember getting, we call him Spud, Drake Maverick. But he was texting me backstage at Raw and he's like, Dude, you literally work with almost the entire locker room. Everybody's talking about cereal right now. And I was like, that's great. If that’s what I brought into the industry. That's awesome. So yeah, no, it's great. I love you know, I grew up a wrestling fan. A lot of people don't know this. But the reason I got into bodybuilding is because I wanted to be in WWE eventually, one day, it was just not in the cards for me. And funny. I took a couple bumps, like a year or two ago, for the first time in a row. I never did it before, ran the ropes. And I was like, Man, I got a newfound respect for you guys. The first bump I ever took that knocked the wind out of me so hard and then ran on the ropes. You know, on the laps, I had nice marks, red marks on there for a couple of days. And I was like, Man, this is some cardio, I got blown up pretty good.”

On starting to change: 

“I think the biggest thing is it starts with the mind, right? Everything starts with making a decision in life and everything that we do. You change your mind, you change your life, you know. So you have to make that decision. And it doesn't take time, it's an instantaneous decision that I'm going to do something no matter how uncomfortable it is. It's kind of like you have a cold plunge that you understand your mind will tell you the first 10-15 seconds to get out of this thing, you're dying.”

On the meal plan being cost effective:

“It's actually a lot cheaper to eat this way than to go to Starbucks every day and get your you know, 1000 calorie drink with the foam on top right. So you know you again, it's a mindset thing. There's a lot of misconception and misinformation out there, and people kind of get set into that there's no way I could afford to do that. I can't eat healthy, I can't join a gym, there's gyms out there that are $9 a month now. They've made it pretty much affordable for everybody. So it's changing your mind. And it'll change your life guys. So just be encouraged to get the body moving, and you've seen Chris's transformation. And you'd say, well, yeah, he wasn't, he already was in shape. Yeah, he was already in great shape. But he took it to the next level, he did work that he's probably never done before. And you can always look back on those photos, and you know exactly what you did. And if you ever want to do it again, you know what, you know what it takes. And the cool thing is, is you got your wife watching you, and you have your daughter who's going to be watching you now. And you have that mentality, that beast mentality, you know, when you need to turn it up, man. And then you know, you don't even make excuses, and you're a busy guy, you're travelling all over the place, putting out content left and right. But you still get it done. It's because you changed your mind.”

What is AJ Simms grateful for:

“My family, for you Chris and that I am able to move my body.”

Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV at http://thecoldplunge.com

Quote I'm thinking about:

"Health is the crown on the head of a well person that only the sick person can see." - Robin Sharma

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