One thing I wanted to ask you about: You have your own wrestling school now, the Black and Brave Wrestling Academy. I was curious how much focus you put on nutrition for the people who attend your school when they’re first coming in?

"I don’t need to go find olive oils or coconut oils—which are fine—or something like that to get the fat. I find that if you, for example, use a chicken thigh as opposed to a chicken breast, you’re going to be able to get a more flavorful chicken."

That’s one of the main questions I get from my students when they first come in. Now, mind you, these are mostly young kids—18, 19, 20 years old. A lot of them, to be fair, have not participated in athletics before. They’re just wrestling fans that want to give it a shot and see what it’s all about. But they usually come in undersized. And again, they’re still young kids, so they’ve got a lot of size to put on. They’re also usually poor kids that are just trying to make ends meet. They don’t come in with a bunch of money that makes it easy for them to find good foods all the time. So my general advice to them is to eat a lot. They think they know what eating a lot is, you know? And then they’re like, “Why can’t I gain weight?” Well, chances are you’re not eating nearly as much as you think you are. What I always tell them to do is track how much they actually eat for about a week and just see how the calories lay out. Nine out of 10 times when they do that, they’ll find that they’re not eating nearly as much as they thought they were. So my first bit of advice is to just max yourself with food because you need the sustenance as a kid. Being as young as they are, they’ve got a metabolism that’s probably pretty high and the workload that they’re putting themselves through at my academy—they’re doing a lot of work. Far more work then they’ve probably ever done in their lives over the course of three months. So I just tell them to eat and eat and eat until they can’t eat anymore. For someone who is already in good shape or has the size already, then I can work from there to help mold them into what they want to look like. But, for the most part, the guys just don’t eat enough and they need the sustenance if they want to grow.

Spitball a number to me for an average kid who you see come in. How many calories are they usually in taking versus how many they really need to be?

I would say they’re probably eating half of what they need to be eating. They’re probably putting in 2,000 to 2,500 calories, which is pretty normal. If they’re really trying to gain size, they could probably go up to 4,000 calories. Which sounds insane, but if you really want to gain weight and put size on, that’s really the only way to do it. Calories in versus calories out.

Part of the problem, too, is with my program, what they’re doing in the ring and what they’re required to do in the gym, they’re burning a lot of calories. They’re burning a lot more than what they’re used to.

You and I have spoken about this in the past, but you’re huge into CrossFit. Because you’re putting yourself through pretty demanding, high-intensity workouts on top of everything else you do, I’m sure you’re putting an even bigger emphasis on making sure you’re getting calories in.

Yeah, I feel like it’s a never-ending process of tearing yourself down and building yourself back up. I sort of see fitness in that sort of way, making little strides along the way. I think people are impatient with their fitness and their bodies. They’ve got to understand that it takes years and years to get yourself to where you want to be. It’s not an overnight thing. There’s no quick fix. It’s just a matter of being disciplined and working hard. For me, since I found CrossFit seven years ago, my metabolic output has been a lot more than when I was not doing CrossFit. I’m burning more calories, so I need to eat a little bit more. Which is good for me. It lets me play around with my diet a little. That way I can enjoy my food as opposed to hating what I eat all the time.