Welcome to the show. I am joined by MetPro coach Jesse Davis. She picked one of her rockstar clients to join us to talk about golf and MetPro. Jesse, tell us who we have here
He's pretty famous in our MetPro world. This is Sam. He has been with us since 2019. He has helped others and paid it forward. He has transformed his life and helped others along the way. He made golf look easy. I'll have to tell you, not just coming from him, but all the Navy buddies. Everybody is like, “He's got his snacks on hand. He's got a sandwich. He's ready to go.” When we thought about golf, I was like, “Why not get the best client that has navigated it for three years to do it?”
Sam is our golf MetPro expert. I love it. Sam and Jesse, I appreciate both of you being here. Sam, you play golf. Jesse, do you play golf as well?
Yes, I do. I am not as good as him and I have not been to half the courses around the world that he has.
Let me be transparent. I have attempted to play golf. It did not go well. I gave up quickly because it was not a natural fit for me. I don't know even the basics. How long is a typical game of golf? What I know is there are 9 rounds and there are 18 or 9 holes.
Typically, you play 18 holes. It should take you a little over four hours. Here's the thing. If you walk, it's about a 5 or 7-mile walk.
It's that many miles?
I was curious how many steps. Do you know offhand?
I can find the answer to that for you from friends of mine that count their steps. The better you are, the shorter the walk.
In theory, it goes right to the little hole. Is that what they call it?
Yes, the hole.
It's not that the golf course is 5 to 7 miles. It's all the walking back and forth between the different holes and where you shoot from. Is that what you say, shoot? I know nothing.
A golf course is 6,000 yards. That is about 3 miles in itself.
I didn't even know it was that big.
That is a fun fact. It is a big zigzag course. You go back and forth, whether it's on the same hole or on each hole.
Sam, Jessee said that you've been to golf courses all over the world. I've talked to a lot of marathoners and they like to do all the different marathon courses. Is that what you're doing with golf courses? Do you go to all the famous golf courses or do you just travel a lot?
There's usually a group of folks and someone comes up with an idea or runs into an opportunity. We went to Scotland and Northern Ireland. It was a friend of mine. His brother pushed together the trips. The trip came available when we went to some great golf courses in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Turnberry and Portrush are great places.
I've seen pictures of golf courses in Ireland. They appeared to be the most beautiful that I'd ever seen in my life. The ones that I saw had these giant cliffs behind them. There was this amazing golf course happening right in front of the cliffs. Is that one of the places you went?
We didn't go there, but you're probably describing this place called Old Head in Ireland, which is amazing. We went to some similar golf courses in Northern Ireland and Scotland.
That's cool. Do you make this a yearly thing that you go to different golf courses in the world?
I hope it is. Jesse mentioned something. Every year, I get together with a bunch of college buddies. It's 24 of us. We pick a course or courses somewhere and go for a weekend before Father's Day. Those guys saw me shrink from year to year on MetPro. Jesse got a lot of business from that
Your hard work paid off for me.
It paid off for me too. I got to show off a little.
Hopefully, it improved your golf game.
It did as well.
I'm curious about that. I want to talk about that. When you go golfing and you're out there for that long, do you take food with you? You should be eating on MetPro every 2 to 3 hours. I know. Do you take food? How do you make that work?
I typically play every Saturday at a local course. At the third hole, I'm hitting a snack. We're usually off at about 9:00. That's about 10:30 AM for me. I grab my apple and two pieces of string cheese, and then play the front nine. Usually, that's lunchtime. My go-to is a bag of carrots and a ham sandwich on a whole wheat muffin that has about 6 ounces of ham on it. It stays well in the bag. RXBARs are always your friend. In my golf bag, I have a box of RXBARs.
It's extra weight when he's walking.
It does double duty. It fuels him and adds a little bit of extra weight. That's great. Jesse is right. You make that sound easy. You’re like, “It's no big deal. I just pack a sandwich.” It's difficult to think about what your day is going to look like, especially on the weekend. We all want to relax on the weekend, so it's hard to be like, “I need to plan ahead. I need to make a concentrated effort to put food aside so that I can make sure and get that done.” That's cool. I love that you do that. How do you make sure that you stay hydrated while you're out there?
Where we typically play, there's a cart that goes around. I can grab water or sparkling water. It’s my go-to.
What's your favorite flavor, Sam?
I like orange. That's my favorite.
Does it taste like an orange Fanta? That's what I imagine. I want it to taste like an orange Fanta.
It is not near as sweet.
It shouldn't. That's fair. When you're golfing with other people and they see you pulling out your snacks and your lunch, are they also eating or are they just waiting? Are they like, “What's wrong with you?” or are they like, “That's great.” What kind of feedback do you get?
I talked one friend into the program, so we used to do that together for a while. He's off of it or moved on. He knows what I'm doing. Typically, there's a comment or two. The fun one is about the carrots. I like to eat raw carrots with a sandwich. I get asked if I'm in second grade again, which is a good comment.
I would agree. At least it's not some kind of Bugs Bunny comment, so that's good. Jesse, do you have Sam do particular workouts that are specific to golf? Do you ever work on that?
I would say that he knows golf is the best exercise for golf. You can't mimic those things unless you have specific equipment. What MetPro does is the whole body. We're doing full range of motion. That's what you need for golf. You need a full range of motion when you're working your shoulders and your legs. Whether or not I have him doing a three-day split, cross-training or circuit training, all of those workouts combined are going to have the impact that we need. Stretching is huge, which he knows he could probably do a little bit better with. He's always running out of the gym. I'm like, “Did you get those stretches in?”
She knows. Warm-ups and stretches, I have problems with them.
Both are important.
Working with Jess, initially, I lost about 50 pounds or a little bit over. I put some of that back on. I put it on the right way with muscle. My range of motion increased dramatically using the program.
That's awesome.
It changed my swing a bit. We were kidding before. It got a little worse and now it's better.
Is that because you lost weight that you had to find your new center of balance or was there more to it?
Yeah. Without all that weight, you get more comfortable winding up and stretching back. It changed the swing a little bit for the better.
That makes sense. I assume you add strength to your workouts at some point?
Yes. I enjoy lifting weights. Jess was saying the three-day splits. I enjoy doing those.
I'm sure that helps with your golf too, with the power and everything.
Arm strength, hip strength, and core strength are three components of a good swing.
That makes sense. You want everything to be tight whenever you're swinging. Congratulations on losing 50 pounds. That's no easy feat, especially over time. We make you work for that whenever we have all the ups and downs that we do.
Everyone knows it is not a quick process.
How about injuries? You were talking about you have to have core strength and hip strength. Are there certain injuries that golfers are prone to?
Back injuries, for sure. Losing weight and stretching help with that. Knee injuries are common. If you talk about pro golfers, they probably have back injuries. With us older guys, we're worried about our knees, joints, and stuff like that. We talked about walking. Walking helps you warm up and stay warm going around. That helps preclude injuries.
That's a great point about walking. I know a lot of people want to drive because it's quicker, but if you think about it, you probably will have a better golf game if you are walking. You are warmed up. Think about it.
I am thinking about it. That's interesting.
In Scotland, most of those courses were caddied and you had to walk. The guys that play real golf that invented golf do it with a walk.
That’s how you do it.
I didn't know that. The only golf I see is whatever is in movies. I see the little golf carts. I've heard many a story of alcohol on the golf course that did not end well in those golf carts.
Talk about that peer pressure, Sam. What kind of peer pressure do you get on the golf course, and how do you maybe minimize the damage when you feel pressured?
Do you mean with the eating?
With eating or drinking. I call it the nineteenth hole. What happens after the eighteenth hole?
That's a problem. I have a private club and I have an arrangement with the bartender. He knows to hand me soda water with lime.
That's awesome.
They’ll make my ham sandwich for me too if I forget. There's that too.
That's great.
Use what you've got around you. People are there to help.
Sometimes, you want to drink. I might go to the vodka and soda if I'm sitting around and want to have one and break the rules. I try to record it when I do. I had to confess when I was over in Scotland or Ireland to Jess that I had a Guinness or two after eighteen holes.
I don't know what Jesse said, but I was going to say, if you're in Ireland or Scotland, you got to try the local fair.
It tastes different over there.
It does. That's what I've heard.
I'm not saying anything but it's like having a Sierra Nevada at the Sierra Nevada brewery in Chico. There's nothing like it.
Rumor has it that it has 95 calories, the Guinness.
You do get the comments and a little bit of peer pressure. You have workarounds. Some people, you've clearly educated because you've brought them on board to MetPro. It sounds like you have a lot of tools that you use when you're out there.
I've been doing this for a while. It's not new news to people. I used to be pulling out my carrots on the ninth hole and pulling out my RXBAR on the third hole. Quite honestly, that's how I time it. I don't even look at a watch. I know the third hole is 10:30. I know the ninth hole is around 12:00. That's when I pull out the goods.
I love the routine. That's fantastic. What about when you were traveling and when you've traveled in the past? Do you take your snacks with you? Do you find things at the airport that are compliant? How do you handle that?
The meals are tough. A box of RXBARS has been my friend, apples and string cheese. If the string cheese doesn't keep, you can find cheese locally. Apples, cheese, and RXBARS are my go-to snacks. The meals, you got to work with. Sometimes, you can make your own on the road. At other times, you got to work with the halfway house on the course or the clubhouse on the course to see what you can get. In Ireland or overseas, it wasn't bad. There was always a seafood dish available with a vegetable side. You guess at the portions. The hardest thing over there was the vegetables. They think potatoes are a vegetable in Ireland.
You had mentioned, Sam, how this is part of your lifestyle. As soon as you learned it, you were hooked. You were like, “This is how I'm going to golf.” Why was that? Share with the audience what it was that made that consistency of food important to you.
I saw the results. Weight, staying in shape, and staying healthy have always been important and challenging to me. To go back even further, I was in the Marine Corps. I was in great shape. I started living a lifestyle without the constant working out that the Marine Corps provides and got a little out of shape. I found a way through MetPro and Jesse to manage that. I saw the results. It's not hard to continue the routine once you see and feel the results.
That makes sense.
That's important for people to realize. It's not anything crazy. It's not like you're looking at it saying, “I'm going to do this for three days,” or “I'm going to do this until I reach my goals.” It's like, “I’m going to create a new lifestyle for myself where I feel better and I have energy. That sometimes means I have to plan ahead and I have to take snacks on the golf course.” The audience knows who I'm saying out there that's saying, I’m golfing today. I can’t have my snacks. I think of Sam and I’m like, ‘Sam can have them.’
That's a great point. Jesse, I'm curious. You have worked with Sam for three years. That's a long time to work with a client. How is your coaching of Sam evolved over time?
It is way more hands-on when you get started. In the first year, I'm bugging him every day to make sure he is taking care of business. As he has attested, he takes care of business, then it’s more of me keeping him accountable and making sure that he's taking those snacks. That's probably the thing he probably gets the most sick about me. I’m like, “You got your snacks on you?”
It's so interesting because that's the easiest way for somebody to be interested in his new lifestyle or his new way of eating. All of a sudden, Sam has been eating snacks all the time. He's losing all this weight and looks great. He feels great. He's got this zest to him again. That's important. I tell people, “If you can't do anything else, pack a snack. Have that on you no matter where you're at in your day. Plan ahead and it will make you feel better. I promise.
That's true. Sam, have you always been a planner? Have you always been a person who thinks ahead about what you're going to be doing?
In terms of food, absolutely not. In terms of work, yes. Seeing the results and repeating the process that gives you the results is not a hard thing once you know it's going to work.
I’m being the devil's advocate here. How did she convince you to try it before you had the results? What made you think, “I'm going to go ahead and give this a shot.”
I saw and met another client. I saw what he ate for lunch and asked the question, “What are you doing?” I knew him before and knew him after. Pre-COVID, I started the program. I come out of COVID and see everybody six months later. I'm 75% of the size that I was. A lot of folks say, “What are you doing? What is that?” Meanwhile, I'm eating apples, cheese, grapes, and ham sandwiches. Folks are like, “What are you doing?” This is a sustainable, predictable, and doable process. I saw somebody that had results and people saw me have results. As Jesse said, paying it forward is fun.
It’s cool to see the positive effects that the chain can bring. You've brought all these people to MetPro. I'm sure they've brought other people to MetPro or educated them about what it is they're doing. Have you been a person who has struggled with your weight in the past, or were you the type of person that never struggled and all of a sudden, you were struggling?
It's been a lifelong struggle for me starting when I was a kid. In the military, I was a runner. I workout all the time. It was less of a problem during that period. You work out like crazy when you're in the military, especially in Marine Corps. When I got out, I don't have time to workout 3 hours a day, 2 hours a day, or whatever it was. It started coming back on. I've tried multiple things to manage it. This one is sustainable and it works.
What do you think is more sustainable about MetPro than other programs you've tried?
The energy level that the eating program gives you. In others, you’re just cutting out carbs. Somebody who tried that and did that. It works in the short term, but you have no energy to keep up with your workout. This was an amazing recipe to me for how this can work. I know Jesse and I talked. The goal was 85% or better. If you’re hitting that 85% and you're missing here and there, you can get right back on the bicycle and keep going. That is unique about MetPro.
I agree. Jesse, what about you as far as coaching Sam? You talked about how you evolved your coaching with him. Everybody has a different style of things that motivates them. Was there any key to your coaching that you found super helpful for Sam as a motivator?
I hope to think I asked the right questions to make him become more aware of his choices and how they were leading to a better golf game, weight loss, a better range of motion, more energy, and all these things. He's very fortunate to have seen quick weight loss right out of the gate to get that, “I'm going to keep doing it.” Not everybody sees that. I know the audience is like, I haven’t lost any weight,
but you feel better. I guarantee you, every single person out there has started eating better and has started their breakfast, snacks, and all these simple clean foods. It doesn't have to be complicated unless you're a chef and you want it to be. To each their own. That's what I would say.
Jesse told me a couple of things. One that had me on the hook was, “We're going to get you eating again.” My eyes popped open. I was like, “More food.” It was true. I was eating the wrong way and was not eating enough. Learning that was tremendous. Jesse has a great way of letting you know what's coming. She was like, “Get through this and you get to the next step. Get through this and we'll get you on the weights. Get through this and we'll get you doing more cardio.” Knowing what that goal and the next step are and continuing to see success and progress was great.
Jesse is an awesome coach. That's great. Jesse, I like that you explain things to people. Some people need to know the why, but they also sometimes need to know what's coming so they have that hook of, “Keep going. Don't give up.” It's good to use both of those. It's awesome.
We talk about the big picture a lot. We talk about trends and where we were a few months ago. That's why it's hard to look at the day-to-day data, especially for women. Women are going to be more volatile on that scale than men. We have to take it in that big picture, see it, and be like, “I got it. This is what I'm going to do.”
We cycle at MetPro. For those that are not familiar with MetPro, we do carb cycling where we go up and then we drop you. That's where we create our contrast. If you can understand that and say, “You're going to be eating a ton and not losing weight. I know you're paying us because you want to lose weight.” They’re like, “We know that.” Everything is going to work out. You got to keep on eating. That's why helping educate and paint that bigger picture is helpful sometimes. It’s a good point.
Taking it back to golf, you said you noticed a change in your golf game. Did you notice an energy change? Were you ever exhausted when you were out on the golf course and then you started eating with MetPro and there was more energy? Was there any other change like that?
Yeah, with golf, over time. Golf is a sport you could play for your lifetime. When I was younger, it was always grabbing the clubs, going out, running from hole to hole, and then walking. It is then maybe, I’ll take the cart because I don’t feel that good.
As I progressed in MetPro, I had less pain in my knees, feet, and those sorts of things. I felt better about walking the course than taking the cart. That's probably the biggest change. The swing is a little different because I have a bigger range of motion. I'm still learning to control it, but that's a lifelong thing. It comes and goes. To your point, there's energy left at the end of a round, which I'm not sure was the case a few years ago.
Walking that much, swinging, and using all the energy for at least four hours, that's a lot of energy to expend. That's great that you have energy left over.
Think of that stamina from when you were in Scotland. You were going back to back on those courses too. The recovery that we have to have to continue to push ourselves only comes from our food. How else are we going to recover?
Were you on a high-carb cycle when you went to Ireland? Did you have lots of carbs?
She put me on a high-carb cycle going into Scotland. As we talked about, I put a little bit of weight over there. It was a lot less than I would've suspected given the number of Guinness that I chose to have. I was able to get right back on the cycle when I came back.
That's awesome. That's a very powerful piece of the puzzle as well. It's that cycling of everything that we do. It’s seeing the ups and downs you get a break from. You don't always have to be restricting. Whenever you do, do something that's off-plan. If you have a little already built up, it's not nearly as detrimental to what you're trying to do. I know I was blown away the first time I saw that happen. I was like, “What?” Is there anything that we've missed between talking about MetPro or golf that either of you wants to make sure the audience knows about?
The program works. It's doable. Going out and playing eighteen holes of golf is not an excuse to come off the cycle.
If anything, I encourage people to walk. Put that cart away and walk. If you are hurt and you can't walk, call us.
Are you going to take them out there? Is that what you're saying?
That would be so sweet if I could take my clients out personally. I would not be the one to instruct golf. I would make sure they have their snacks. I'd be the caddy with the snacks.
Thank you both so much for your time. I appreciate it. That's all for this episode. You can find all of the MetPro Method episodes anywhere you get podcasts. Please be sure to follow the show, and rate and review. That lets other people know what they can expect. You can learn more about MetPro at MetPro.co. I will be back next time. Until then, remember that consistency is key.
