Crystal OKeefe: Welcome to the MetPro Method Podcast. This is your host, Crystal O’Keefe, and today I am joined by a special guest, my husband, Tom O’Keefe.
Tom OKeefe: Hello.
Crystal OKeefe: Hello. Hello. So, I have to give a little background for the audience. Angelo actually suggested this episode. And he suggested it because Tom is probably one of the more unusual people that have joined MetPro. And, we’re gonna talk a lot about why it’s different than your average person doing MetPro.
Tom OKeefe: Because I’m weird. Thank you for tuning in. Consistency is the key. Goodbye.
Crystal OKeefe: But is it weird? So let’s start at the beginning, Tom. What made you decide that MetPro could potentially work for you?
Tom OKeefe: Um, because Angelo put me on the spot.
Crystal OKeefe: Yeah, that’s how I remember it too.
Tom OKeefe: So, we have a podcast together about Peloton called The Clip Out. And Angelo came on as a guest to talk about MetPro. And we had already talked and you were going to go down the MetPro road with them. And then he started talking to me and I was like, I’m a weird eater and I think I might have some sort of disordered eating.
I’m not an eating disorder per se, but like I’m a weird eater. Like I only eat like meat, I don’t like or eat fruits or vegetables of any kind and haven’t for decades. I mean decades. I always say that I have the culinary palate of an eight-year-old boy at a theme park.
It’s like pizza, chicken, chicken tenders, burgers, like that’s what I eat. And Crystal, you’ve seen it like if we get pizza. And like a stray black olive, like a little tiny sliver, falls on the pizza, and I get it, I will know. Whenever somebody’s like, oh you can’t even taste it, I will know, and I’ll like gag, like I’ll almost throw up.
Like I can’t get it down. And so, when he was going on about MetPro, I’m like, oh that sounds like that would really work, but I can’t eat any of that stuff. Like what am I?
Crystal OKeefe: I always got the impression Angelo saw it as a challenge.
Tom OKeefe: Oh, for sure he did.
Crystal OKeefe: Hmm, I can make this work. But, I will say that he did have to kind of like, not change things, like he didn’t change how the program works, the tenets of how MetPro work, the same.
Tom OKeefe: But I felt like he had to make some adjustments based on the fact that like some very obvious things that he would probably normally tell people to eat. He knew I wouldn’t eat
Crystal OKeefe: Yeah.
Tom OKeefe: Yeah, like stuff like I know on paper like there’s nothing weird about eating an apple but I just can’t get it down. And so he made some adjustments. And so that’s why whenever I tell people about MetPro when they ask because I’ve lost a lot of weight over the-
Crystal OKeefe: Like 70 pounds.
Tom OKeefe: -last two and have kept it off. People want to know what I’m doing and I always like so I end up eating like the same thing every day like I eat the same thing for breakfast the same thing for lunch the same thing for dinner And I am fine with that and I always have to stress to people That’s not what MetPro will tell you to do because I know most people that would drive Insane, right?
And, and so I always want to make sure that people are aware of the fact that that’s a me thing, not a MetPro thing. MetPro is not going to ask you to eat the same meals every day for weeks or months or years on end. That’s, that’s my quirk. I’m owning it. So, I get my vegetable content basically entirely through ragu spaghetti sauce like he was super excited when I mentioned that I would eat tomato sauce. He was like, wait, what? That’s a game-changer.
And it’s funny cuz like I don’t eat as much as I should like on paper because the first time I had it it was like half a cup of ragu and I had never really measured it and I measured out a cup of ragu and I was like, sweet baby snow peas.
That’s a lot of ragu. I’m like, I’m calling Angelo. I’m like, should I be doing this? And he’s like, yeah, cups, probably a lot. He’s like, let’s just put on as much as you want, knowing that you could never have too much, right? Like you’re fine. And so now I just kind of put on what I want and go with that.
Crystal OKeefe: What I want and go with that. The first meal.
Tom OKeefe: The first meal I had on, which is still the same meal I have every day four egg whites and three eggs with, I think it was two or three corn tortillas, right? And I remember sitting down to eat this giant plate o eggs. And I like eggs, like, that’s not, scrambled eggs, easy peasy, not a problem.
And I just remember like, I’m breaking into a sweat halfway through this plate of eggs. Like, this can’t be right. I call him like, are you sure? Are you, are you sure this is right? That’s a lot of eggs. That’s like… Over half a dozen eggs.
Like I know that they’re egg whites, but still I’m like, that’s a lot of eggs, dude.
Like you, he’s like, nope, eat them. I’m like, okie dokie. And now it’s like, I eat them fine. But like the first couple of days.
Crystal OKeefe: I talked to a lot of my clients about this, but I think it’s important to note that like I had been saying for years, previous to you starting MetPro, you weren’t eating enough.
Tom OKeefe: I absolutely wasn’t. So like what I had been doing prior to MetPro was like a modified keto kind of thing, because since I didn’t like fruits or vegetables, me doing a low carb thing was I was pretty much already doing it.
So for me to take my diet and make it low carb basically meant eat what you’ve always been eating except stop eating potato chips and Cheetos and, and things like that. And so I had been doing a modified low carb diet whenever I wanted for 20 years. So I had done a weight loss study, uh, years and years ago in like 2001 through Washington University, a very reputable school.
They wanted to do it. Test how the body process glucose at different weight levels. And so they wanted you to lose weight really quickly just so they could get you into the, they needed to take muscle biopsies. It was a whole thing.
And so, um, they wanted you to lose 10% of your body weight and I lost it in two weeks on the plan that they had me on, which was, I couldn’t go over 900 calories a day and I couldn’t go over 20 carbs a day. And so, um. And I was really good at following that plan.
Crystal OKeefe: I have to say, one of the reasons that you have been so successful on MetPro is because you are an incredibly disciplined person.
Now I realize you do eat the same thing every day, but it doesn’t, not only does it not bother you, but like, even when you want something else, you’re very good about like, nope, this is what I’m supposed to eat. Me on the other hand, I’m like, there’s something else in the house I want. This one time won’t hurt.
And then I repeat that for two weeks at a time. Like, you’re really, really disciplined.
Tom OKeefe: I think some of that comes from my years and years of low carb because when you’re doing low carb, like if you’re, if you have your carbs cut really low and you’re in ketosis which I know is, was a dumb word I just feel weird saying it, but if you have your carbs cut low, when you do have carbs, it’s not like when you have extra calories in a day and you’re like, well, I can maybe offset that tomorrow or whatever.
If you have extra carbs, it screws you up for like a week. And so I really got in the mindset of it’d be nice to have this pizza that happened to show up in the break room. But if I do, I just screwed up my weight loss plan for a week and then it’s going to be a week to get back.
Crystal OKeefe: And that ketosi.
Tom OKeefe: And then probably another week to get the two or three pounds that I gained back off. And so I’m just like, it’s just not worth it. And so I really got in the mindset of just like, I’m not going to mess with it. And so that has benefited me on MetPro in terms of I can kind of keep my head down and power through those moments, I think in a way that I wouldn’t have been able to before.
Crystal OKeefe: Well, I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, that’s going to be different for everybody, but I just find that it’s difficult for me to be disciplined, there might be, like, oh, I’m having a craving, I might just be like, I want chocolate, I’m having a bad day, there’s like a million reasons I can go off plan, but I can talk myself into it, and I just, I’m always so impressed with how you don’t go off plan.
And when you do decide to go off plan, it’s also been amazing to watch you on MetPro, because you used to, when we went off plan, it would get crazy.
Tom OKeefe: Like the days of wine and roses, but with food?
Crystal OKeefe: The days of wine.
Tom OKeefe: Yeah.
Crystal OKeefe: And now you’re like, oh, I’ll go off plan for a meal or a day.
Tom OKeefe: I’ve gotten much better about that unless we’re on vacation. If we’re at Disney World, I’m kicking it old school, and I’m going to come back 15 pounds heavier.
But I also find that… I come back, I get right back to MetPro and I drop it pretty quick. I can normally, you know, get rid of it in a week and a half to two weeks and get back to where I was at or within a few pounds of it. So you know, I’ve also noticed that.
I eat the same thing every day, but when I was eating junk, I was also eating the same thing every day, right? Like I was rotating through the same things. I would like, okay, I’ll have fried chicken. Okay. Tomorrow. I’ll have pizza. Then I’ll have hamburgers. Well, then I’ll have fried chicken. Then I’ll have pizza. Then I’ll have hamburgers. And so I was from a food monotony standpoint, I was still experiencing food monotony. I was just eating food that was really bad for me, and I was really starting to put on weight in a way that I didn’t want to.
Crystal OKeefe: Yeah, I definitely agree that the way that you’re comfortable eating the same thing every day is definitely part of your success because I like to have all different kinds of flavors and foods and I get very bored with things and I have to, food wise, I have to really mix things up or I will get burnt out.
I can’t eat it anymore. I mean, I’ve tried to do what you do and it does not work for me and low carb did not work for me when I tried like doing the keto. Did not work. It was a disaster.
Tom OKeefe: And I always said that when you would ever mention, I was like, oh, this will never work for you, like,
Crystal OKeefe: I like my carbs.
Tom OKeefe: I was like, it’s just it’s a hyper-specific thing that’s gonna work for some people and it will work for anyone if they do it, but it’s difficult to stay on it for a lot of people.
Crystal OKeefe: And you noticed diminishing returns. Absolutely. Like you had been trying, like you said, you’d been doing it off and on for 20 years.
Tom OKeefe: And I had the diminishing returns because I kept cutting my calories, which is what Angelo talks about all the time, which is, you know, the problem is you cut your calories, you plateau and you cut your calories again. And at some point, you’re just on a starvation model and that’s no way to live.
And then you end up caving and you put on, you know, you lost 20 pounds and you put on 30 and, and so far it’s been what, two and a half years going on three and, and I’ve kept it off. And I will also say I look radically different.
Like, so white right now I weigh like 185 pounds and I weighed 190 pounds when I was younger on doing low-carb stuff. I was 190 pounds the day we got married and I look probably 15 or 20 pounds lighter than the day we got married and I’m five pounds lighter.
Crystal OKeefe: And I really think part of that is because of, we have to add in that you do a lot of tonal. Now you don’t like cardio at all. You hate cardio.
Tom OKeefe: Hate it. I don’t like to get my heart rate up. I don’t like to be sweaty. I, you know-
Crystal OKeefe: Everything about exercise.
Tom OKeefe: Yeah. And I don’t like strength training either. Like when people talk about like, Oh, exercise and cardio and endorphins.
And I was like, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I get none of that. And I don’t like sports. I’ve never liked any of that stuff. It’s always been just a miserable experience for me. And so I will also say that pro came along at the perfect time that I had started doing tonal. I’ve been doing it for about a year or so, but not super focused, like 23 days a week.
Like, I was having moderate results, but not crazy. And so Angelo was like, well, but also part of this is you need to work out more consistently. So I’m like, okay, so I up that to five days a week with the tonal. Okay. Um, and yeah, I think those two things working in concert have been an absolute game-changer for me.
Crystal OKeefe: There’s no doubt. There’s no doubt. And, and I think you also feel better than you did.
Tom OKeefe: I do.
Crystal OKeefe: You seem to like enjoy the amount of food. Like, I mean, you just would go all day and like have two meals a day before and they were like the saddest, pathetic meals I’ve ever seen. I was just like, how are you existing?
You don’t eat fruits and vegetables. All you have is diet Coke or Coke zero, whatever. And like two paltry little meals that like I would call-
Tom OKeefe: I think in a past life I was a pirate. I could apparently go years at a time without eating fruits or vegetables, but not get scurvy. It is amazing. I was like, I was gonna get, like I always said I was gonna die from something only pirates would get, like rickets. I don’t even know what rickets are, but it sounds like something a pirate would get.
Crystal OKeefe: Anything about MetPro that you were skeptical of when you first started, that you have changed your thought process about?
Tom OKeefe: Um, I mean, I guess I was just skeptical about all of it, just because I had done plans and stuff before and they, you know, they’ll work for a little while. And then, yeah, they were never anything that you could really do long-term.
I think the closest I had got, I had found was low carb. And I think really, I don’t know that low carb is realistic for most people. It really worked well for just the weird quirky way I eat. It, it, it leaned into that in a way that I think for most people is not sustainable. I feel like this is something that I can do for a long time.
Like I, I have been doing it now for going on three years and I’m not ready to be done. Like with low carb, I’m like, I was ready to be done with, you know, especially like when a vacation was around the corner.
You know, I don’t think I finished my thought before about like eating the junk food, but eating the same stuff over and over again.
I find now when I go on vacation, by the end of vacation, I’m ready to be done eating that way. Where before when vacation was over, it was like, Oh, I really didn’t want to eat that. I didn’t want to stop. You know, where now it’s like, okay, it was nice to have burgers and fried chicken and stuff again. But, um, but I’m kind of bored with it and it’s making me feel blah.
And so. If I’m going to be bored either way, and bored is overstating it, but I might as well feel better, right?
Crystal OKeefe: Yeah. And eating clean does really make you feel a lot better. I always notice it I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to stick to because I always feel better when I do it like it’s not a difficult thing.
Tom OKeefe: Junk tastes good going down.
Crystal OKeefe: Sure.
Tom OKeefe: That’s why it’s so popular, right? Like that’s, I mean, I don’t think you’re the only person to be suffering with that.
Crystal OKeefe: No, no, I’m definitely not. I just, I get frustrated because I am still suffering with it. But, I also think that part of the reason you don’t get super bored with MetPro is that, because you go up and down with your meal plans, you’re not necessarily changing. You, specifically, are not necessarily changing up the foods you’re eating, but you have, it doesn’t feel like restriction all the time, like a diet, a quote-unquote diet does.
Tom OKeefe: I’m never hungry. Yeah.
Crystal OKeefe: Even on our lowest plans, we’re never hungry.
Tom OKeefe: I mean, I am like never hungry. So, um, yeah. Like, where before, I would be. I’d be like, I am ready to eat dinner now. And, uh, and honestly, there’s a lot of times where I’m eating on MePro when I’m like, I’m eating because I know I need to for it to work for the science of it to work. Right? They want that rhythm of, you know, I eat like five times a day and that’s what kind of helps even things out.
So there are times when I’m eating when I’m really not even hungry, but I know that like from a fuel standpoint, I need to, if I don’t, then in an hour I’m going to be ridiculously hungry and apt to do something dumb.
Crystal OKeefe: Mm hmm.
Tom OKeefe: And so, or dumb is harsh. But make a choice that I’m not making from a proper headspace, right?
Like if that defers to further my fitness goals. And there are certainly times when I’m eating because like I’m eating because it’s time not because I’m hungry, but that’s what stops me from being hungry.
Crystal OKeefe: Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you feel people should know about MetPro?
Tom OKeefe: Yeah, I guess I always, like, the first thing I always say to people is, like, you don’t have to do it like I do. Obviously, that’s a point that needs to be made when I’m talking to people one on one because, like the people I work with, they see that I eat the same thing every day. And I always have to make it clear, like, no one’s making me do this, right?
This is how I’m choosing to utilize MetPro. This is not their idea. But I think you can zoom out on that and say that MetPro is very customizable, you know, in that it’s deaf like you can make it be what you need it to be within their structure. Like there are lots of different ways to get to where they want you to be and that ultimately, I mean.
It’s gonna sound kind of mean but if it’s I feel like in most cases if it’s not working for you It’s because you’re not doing it, you’re caving and making choices you shouldn’t.
Crystal OKeefe: You’re not doing it right. You’re caving and making choices you shouldn’t make. Always, because of choices that I’m making, not because it’s failing, it’s because I am choosing to not be 100% on track.
And so, I would definitely say there’s some truth. There are some exceptions to that. There are some people that have hormonal things to that.
Tom OKeefe: But chances are it’s because you’re not doing the things that cause it, it can be a culture shock if you’re not used to it.
I would also say that one of the things I find the deeper I get into MetPro is that I find myself less and less focused on the scale every day. Um. Obviously, I still weigh in every day because the app wants you to and that’s how, you know, that’s a nice easy metric. I know the scale isn’t always the best metric for health.
Like I get that, but it’s also kind of a very easy, easily quantifiable metric. So it’s, it’s a place where people start, but I find that the longer I’m doing this, the less I’m just like. I’m 185, I’m 187, I’m 184, whatever, like I, I know that if, if I’m doing the things that MetPro wants me to do I have almost no real emotional connection to the scale anymore.
I’m just like, it’s going to say what it’s going to say. I know I’m doing the things I know I’m working out. I know that I’m eating properly and that I look better than I’ve ever looked. Like, and I don’t mean that in a vain way. I mean, I feel like it’s kind of quantifiable.
Crystal OKeefe: It is. I’ve seen a whole lot of pictures of you throughout your life and you look amazing.
Tom OKeefe: It’s just interesting for something that I think a lot of people come to, thinking it’s a weight loss program. And I think, initially for most people, it probably is. But long term, you’ll find that if you stick with it long enough, I don’t really care what the scale says at all anymore.
Because I realize now that it doesn’t really… That’s not really what matters long-term when you’re really doing things properly. Um, it matters a lot in the beginning, but now it’s like, I saw what I looked like at 190 when I wasn’t doing MetPro, and what I look like at 190 on MetPro was just ridiculously different than what it looked like when I basically like white knuckled my way to 190 for 45 minutes,
Crystal OKeefe: Mm-hmm. I just remember the time we ate maple sausage or whatever that was for like… A week straight before the-
Tom OKeefe: Oh, yeah, we were. I was trying so hard to lose weight with this turkey sausage with sugar-free Maple syrup because it was like it was almost no calories and we were both trying to lose weight and that is an awful way to try and-
Crystal OKeefe: So terrible. Don’t do that.
Tom OKeefe: And it’s been like almost a decade and neither of us has ever eaten that way again, and I used to eat that a lot because it was low calorie. It was low carb. I could have a lot of it, and so it was filling, but it was, but yeah, I haven’t done it since because it was like we did that I think I had that for every dinner for like three weeks leading up to the wedding. It was just like no more. and that is not a recommendation. Do not do that.
Crystal OKeefe: No, that’s what not to do
Tom OKeefe: It’s a bad way to lose weight.
Crystal OKeefe: Your point was that like you were white-knuckling it. We both were to get to what we wanted to be for the wedding. And Angelo says it all the time, you have to earn your weight. And we were not earning our weight. Like sure we hit that number on the scale, but we weren’t healthy while we did.
Tom OKeefe: No, not at all.
Crystal OKeefe: We didn’t stay there.
Tom OKeefe: No, no, I mean, as soon as we came back from the honeymoon, I’d probably gain 10 or 15 pounds and, then I probably lost five of it over the next, you know, three or four weeks. And then it took me like six months to try to even get close to 190 again.
Then, when I go off on a vacation now, and I come back, even if I am up 15 pounds, I drop it much more quickly and it doesn’t show on me the same way. It’s like my body like it knows what to do with that excess.
Crystal OKeefe: Yeah, because your metabolism is so much.
Tom OKeefe: As long as I don’t keep shoveling it in for another two weeks, right? Like it, you know, you should get back from a vacation and be like, well, I don’t really have time to, oh, I guess I’ll go ahead and eat that way tonight. What’s one more day, you know, and then two weeks later, I’m still eating like that.
Crystal OKeefe: Yeah, yeah, weeks later, I’m sleeping. Yeah, and it’s been a lot of MetPro. Well, Tom, thank you for your time today. I really appreciate
Tom OKeefe: Very welcome.
Crystal OKeefe: Well listeners, that is all for this week. I will be back next week. Don’t forget that you can check out all episodes of The MetPro Method anywhere that you get podcasts or you can go to MetPro.co/podcast. You can also go to MetPro.co to find out more about MetPro. Don’t forget, consistency is key.
