Crystal O'Keefe: Welcome to The MetPro Method Podcast. I am your host, Crystal O'Keefe. Today I am joined by MetPro client Mitchel Ashley and we are going to be talking about Mitchell's journey. Mitchell's been working with Angelo Poli, the founder of MetPro for a few years now, 2016, and has had quite the journey.
So I understand you've changed your approach to fitness quite a bit, and I'm very curious to hear about that. Welcome, Mitchel.
Mitchel Ashley: Well, thank you. Absolutely. I've changed my approach. My favorite thing about Angelo, and I tell him this all the time, is, you know, he's the drug dealer. His drug is exercise, and he made me an addict.
Crystal O'Keefe: He made you an addict. So, did you exercise before MetPro at all?
Mitchel Ashley: I did. In fairness to me, I had done triathlons in, 2003, 2004, 2005. And then work became much more intense and I found myself sitting at the desk much more which caused my pants size to go up quite extensively.
Crystal O'Keefe: Yeah, that'll happen.
Mitchel Ashley: It was the right place, right time type of advertising that Angelo does or you all do. I saw it on Facebook.
Crystal O'Keefe: I was curious how you found MetPro, how you decided on MetPro. So it was like a Facebook ad that popped up and you were like, this I gotta do.
Mitchel Ashley: Well, it was a Facebook ad. I had struggled with personal trainers in the past and as I like to say, my personal trainers all became my friends, but I ended up having dinners and drinks with them more than we were really getting something done in the gym.
Crystal O'Keefe: Oh, so you charmed them out of the gym instead of them charming you into the gym?
Mitchel Ashley: A hundred percent accurate statement? Yes.
Crystal O'Keefe: Oh, okay. So, what were you like MetPro will be different. What convinced you that would be the case and has whatever convinced you that would be the case? Has it been the case or was it something totally different?
Does that question even make sense?
Mitchel Ashley: It makes a lot of sense. What turned me onto them was this concept that they're a concierge fitness program and that it was really going to be one-on-one with what my issues were and what the plan would be. And to be honest, considering for me, I live in New York, you know, Angelo is in Northern California.
Crystal O'Keefe: Little bit of difference there.
Mitchel Ashley: Yeah. And there are no, at least as far as I know, there are no MetPro trainers, actually based in New York, but I am not the only client in New York.
Crystal O'Keefe: Yes, that is accurate.
Mitchel Ashley: So, we spoke on the phone. We, I had to take pictures of myself.
I had to send them all the measurements, everything. And it's not only the exercise that he's made me aware of, but it's the eating, the food. And the reality is you're not going to lose weight just by exercise alone. And I proved that many, many times.
Crystal O'Keefe: Yeah, because if you were doing triathlons, you were probably working out quite a bit, right?
Mitchel Ashley: Constantly and I didn't lose weight.
Crystal O'Keefe: Yeah, it's funny just so you know, Mitchel, I was in the same boat like I found MetPro, through talking about Peloton all the time. They were like, oh, let's work together to get people who do Peloton to know about MetPro. And I was like, well, you know, how is this different than a diet?
You know? Tell me more. Because I was like you, I was working out six days a week. I was only eating like 1100 calories and I wasn't losing weight. And I was like, what is happening? What was your experience like?
Mitchel Ashley: You're being kind with the eating. Not awful.
Crystal O'Keefe: Okay. Okay. So, you were eating awful, is that what you're saying?
Mitchel Ashley: Not, I mean, not awful, but my life as an attorney forces you, especially as the business forces you into a lot of social circumstances, which means, you know, dinner's late at night cocktails with dinners.
Crystal O'Keefe: Lots of wining and dining.
Mitchel Ashley: And it's just not all that conducive to a particularly healthy lifestyle. And Angelo, more than just the exercise. I mean, he had me sending him everything I ate on a spreadsheet, and we would go over it every week and he'd say, what did you do on Wednesday? You can't have a breakfast of pancakes, a lunch of a roast beef sandwich, you know, and a dinner of like linguini and white lamb sauce. Like, you can't, that is not a meal. It might be delicious, but you can't eat that way. And that was, I mean, I had days like that. I don't anymore.
Crystal O'Keefe: Yeah, it can be very eye-opening because, I think socially we're trained to eat around all of these events.
And when you're, like you said, when you're the business getter, you're out having these conversations all the time. So, you have to have a lot of meetings that revolve around food. What has that process looked like for you to change your food? Because obviously you still have to go get the business.
So, what did you do differently?
Mitchel Ashley: Well now if I'm out for dinner, if I have the choice, I choose a seafood restaurant so I can get a piece of fish appetizers. I'm no longer going in with the fried this, fried that and you know, I am having like a tricolor salad. And also Angelo, he opened my eyes to a lot of it.
And then that forced me to learn more about what he was talking about. And so I read a book, after working with Angelo for a while, that further opened my eyes to my own nutrition. It's written by this woman who calls herself the glucose goddess, and it has to do with if you have sugar issues but Angelo started the process.
I never would've read that book three years ago.
Crystal O'Keefe: Yeah. Yeah. All right. You start with MetPro and he starts going over all of your food with you. And at that time, you had done triathlons. What did your exercise program look like when you did join MetPro?
Mitchel Ashley: Mostly I was just a cyclist, riding around the neighborhood, the park, stuff like that, once in a while to a gym, but not all that often.
I had said to Angelo, I wanna get back into some sort of routine. Like, what can I do? And this is, I joined, I'm pretty sure it was before the app even existed. The app now. Makes it so much easier.
Crystal O'Keefe: I bet. No wonder you were sending him all your food in his spreadsheet.
Mitchel Ashley: Oh, I still do that.
Crystal O'Keefe: You do that? You still do that. That's great.
Mitchel Ashley: Oh, look, it's the gray hair can show you. Although on a podcast, no one can see that. But, I'm a little old fashioned, so I still do the spreadsheet.
Crystal O'Keefe: Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. If it works, if it's not broke, you might as well not fix it. Right?
Mitchel Ashley: Correct. Correct.
Crystal O'Keefe: So how did he get you on a program? How did he get you to, how did he help you find time to exercise?
Mitchel Ashley: That's one thing about him is he's not an in your face kind of trainer, nor is he like a shame kind of trainer. He's realistic kind of trainer.
He's like, Mitchell, look, give me 10 minutes of walking today. That's how he was. Yes. Realistic. About what I could and couldn't do on a day-to-day basis. And if I would say to him, look, Angelo, I'm in the middle of a trial. He's like, okay, but after dinner, give me 10, 15 minutes of walking. And I think that's really how we started.
And then to be honest, covid changed everything.
Crystal O'Keefe: Ah, right. I'm curious being an attorney, I've heard kind of horror stories about like how you had to start doing trials online and things like that, but there were so many, there were so many timeframes that you got to work from home.
So was that a good thing or a bad thing for you?
Mitchel Ashley: No, COVID uh, health-wise was a blessing for me.
Crystal O'Keefe: Because you had more time.
Mitchel Ashley: much more time and for me there, trials online didn't start right away for us, for what I do, we really don't have trials online because I do all jury trials. There are, we are back trying cases now, but at a much lesser pace than we used to.
Fewer courtrooms are in service, but I don't, I dunno if you, I'm in New York City, so, oh, I think I said it earlier. You know, as you'll know, COVID hit us pretty hard.
Crystal O'Keefe: Absolutely. It did, for sure.
Mitchel Ashley: And so, I found myself with time and I wanted to be outside and so I talked to Angelo about starting to run and he encouraged it.
Crystal O'Keefe: Yeah. Okay, so, so you got into running.
Mitchel Ashley: I am, I do not call myself a runner. However, that being said, with my run today, I'm up to 366 miles for the year.
Crystal O'Keefe: Mitchel, you're a runner. That's a runner.
Mitchel Ashley: That's what Angelo tells me.
Crystal O'Keefe: Yeah. That's true. Let me pull out my calculator because I don't do math in my head. How many miles is one?
Mitchel Ashley: It's nearly 1.1 miles a day.
Crystal O'Keefe: You have to count that. So that's like six miles a week or something. Seven miles a week. That, that's, yeah. You have to count that. That's incredible.
Mitchel Ashley: My goal was 400 miles for this year. I'm not sure I'm going to make it because I struggled with, you know, here's a perfect example.
Angelo's not here in New York, right? But I start to have problems with my feet and I called him up. We text a lot and we speak at least once a week. I told him what it was. He says, Mitchel, you have plantar fasciitis. This is what you have to do. And I started doing it. I was still having problems. He's like, all right, now it's time to get yourself to a doctor, which I did. And we solved the problem.
Now, you know, the plantar caused me to not run for a few, you know, about three weeks I took off. Um, and then that led to a knee issue, which is resolving, but he's even good with that. He's just, you know, he really knows his stuff and he guides me through it.
The doctor said all the things he said and you know, it just, it eventually cleared up.
Crystal O'Keefe: Yay. Yeah. Plantar fasciitis. It's great that you went to go get it, resolved right away and got to a doctor because if you, if you don't, that can last a lot longer than a few weeks, so that's great.
Mitchel Ashley: It did last a while, but he said, he goes, Mitchel you're a runner now and it's a common running injury.
And we talked then about how I, at the same time as being a runner, I'm also, I still ride my bike. And he said, switch to the bike. And that's what I did. As I said, he has me running, uh, to a good amount. But I also, through my biking last summer, I rode the, it was called, um, Cheesecake to Cheese steak. I rode New York to Philadelphia.
Crystal O'Keefe: Wow. How many miles is ride? That's a really long way, right?
Mitchel Ashley: Yeah. It's a two day ride. I think total miles is, I think it's 140.
Crystal O'Keefe: Wow, that's incredible. Congratulations.
Mitchel Ashley: Yeah. So, that's Angelo too. And even we were just talking the other day, I said to him, you know, because of the issues with the legs and you know, I'm 57, running is not low impact, right.
Uh, it's work, it’s impact. I said, I really think I have to start swimming again. And he's like, Mitchel, that would be a good idea. He goes, it's not a weight loss thing swimming, but it'll be, it's a fitness thing.
Crystal O'Keefe: It's a good stamina thing.
Mitchel Ashley: Yeah, it'll help. Yeah.
Crystal O'Keefe: Well, I'm sure Angelo also talked to you about your shoes, how often you replace your shoes for running too, right?
Mitchel Ashley: Yes.
Crystal O'Keefe: Okay.
Mitchel Ashley: It's funny you say that because the shoe store didn't have the sneakers that I've been wearing for like four or five years now, and they had me switch to another brand. and that's when I started to have these like knee issues. And then after about six weeks, I went back to the shoe store and now they had my old brand.
So, I bought them, even though the new sneakers are still relatively new and the knee issue went away. And I called Angelo and I said, Angelo, you know, I don't know what it's, he goes, Mitchell, absolutely. That could be it. It could be a subtle difference in the shoes. He goes, let me tell you something. Go back to the store and buy two, pair the same shoe and keep the other ones in the box until you're ready for 'em.
Crystal O'Keefe: Yes, yes. That's good advice. I have a little bit of pronation with my feet and my knees, and so I have to use like stabilizing shoes, you know. Yeah, I, I don't know how important the color of shoes are to you, but I find that I am motivated by beautiful shoes and, uh, so I always go into the shoe store and I always look at the wall, you know, they have that beautiful wall of shoes and I'm always like, oh, look at all the colors.
And then they're like, you get this one. I'm like, I'm always so sad.
Mitchel Ashley: Now, can I say the shoes I wear?
Crystal O'Keefe: Uh, yeah, absolutely.
Mitchel Ashley: I mean, I, I wear Brooks. Adrenaline. They always pick what color happens to be out at the time. So, my shoes have been neon yellow. They've been black the current ones are blue.
It's whatever they have available. Yeah, I mean, the first year I think they were white, but you just go with it. Shoe the color is what it is.
Crystal O'Keefe: I might be a little picky. I don't know, but I know what you mean. And if you're used to those and the gts, uh, Brooks Adrenaline gts, they do have stabilizers in them. So if you were used to those stabilizers and you went to a shoe that didn't have the same stabilizer and it, yes, it absolutely can mess with your knee cuz I've been there
Mitchel Ashley: And he, he also turned me onto, I mean, you know, things I never knew of. I mean, in a million years I wouldn't have known what a foam roller was.
Crystal O'Keefe: So do you use foam rollers like after your workouts now?
Mitchel Ashley: Oh, yes. Yeah. I mean, there I am on the floor with my foam roller because the reality is running is not easy on the body and you know, I'm not 20. You have to be a little more careful and no doubt about it. The foam rolling helps
Crystal O'Keefe: Well, that's fabulous.
I'm really curious, I love New York City. You said you live there. Where do you work out? Where do you run, where do you do your biking? Like Central Park? Are you that close to, I mean, I know it's all relative.
It's like you have to realize I live in Missouri, so like everything on the East coast is like all one area.
Mitchel Ashley: Well, I actually live in Brooklyn, New York.
Still, you know, it's still New York City. For your listeners, uh, when you're in fourth to third grade here, growing up in the city, which I did. You very quickly learn, the City of New York is five boroughs, uh, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, Staten Island, and Manhattan.
Right. So I live in Brooklyn.
Crystal O'Keefe: Okay. Okay. Do you go to a gym? Do you run outside? How do you do?
Mitchel Ashley: I run mostly outside. I really prefer it. I have used the treadmill at the gym once in a while, but I really prefer outside, even in the winter I run, uh, I live near a park named Prospect Park.
Which it was built by the same people who built Central Park. And in fact, built after Central Park. Brooklynites always say they refined all their problems and fixed it with Prospect Park. So, uh, but the funny part about it is I really, I find running to be a very mind clearing activity.
And I prefer to be alone with just my headset. And so I through. A lot of times my run is through an industrial neighborhood where there's not a lot of people underneath the Brooklyn, Queens expressway. Um, it's neighborhoods where there's just not a lot of people walking.
I just prefer it. So, I mean, I don't run at five in the morning. Maybe I would run these neighborhoods at five in the morning. I don't run late at all, my schedule allows me often to run during the day. And then, you know, I also, um, run out on, we have a place out on Long Island, so I run out there. I just, here's another bit of Angelo Wisdom.
Okay. During the summer, I thought it was great that I sit on the beach and I go for a run. Yes. Fantastic. Right, right. But to me, it was a great idea to run without my shoes, without socks in the harder sand near the water. So I say to Angelo, my feet are really hurting. He says, yes, because that's a horrible way to run.
He goes, he goes, that's just not good, but someone who has a foot problem, that is not a good way to run.
Crystal O'Keefe: Did you have to stop running on the beach?
Mitchel Ashley: No, now I run on the beach in my shoes.
Crystal O'Keefe: Very nice. Very nice. I was curious because, I've only been to New York City a few times, but when I have been limited almost exclusively to Manhattan just because of events that I'm going to.
So that's my knowledge. It's all, it's all Manhattan in my head. Um, and, uh, but it's so many people, like, it's so many people. And so I just can't imagine like running through all those people. So it sounds like you don't have to deal with that same issue. Okay.
Mitchel Ashley: No. And I mean, I've run around Central Park Yeah.
And I've run around Prospect Park and yes, there's a lot of people. And of course I realize, you know, how very slow I am when I do that. I mean, the other day I'm running in Prospect Park and Prospect Park has a big hill towards the end of the loop that most people run. And I'm the, I'm running up the hill and a woman who had to be in her twenties is pushing a double stroller and she passes me going up hill. That is humbling.
Crystal O'Keefe: It is, it is humbling. Yeah., I am in my forties and I did a duathlon before the, it was before the pandemic, it had run, bike, run.
That's the way they had done it. So I, yeah, I had done one. And so I'm in the last leg of the run and I had, I was really coming off of like being sick, but I was feeling okay that day. Uh, and I think I started a little too hard, but my last like three miles. Everybody passed me, including the 80 year old women that were just like jogging along and I was literally the second to last person to finish.
And that was also very humbling. I mean, somebody's gotta be last, somebody's gotta be first. But it's, it's, it's humbling to be that person.
Mitchel Ashley: Oh, look when I did triathlons, I did them with a group called Team in training. I don't know if you have that organization in Missouri.
They raised money for the Leukemia Society and uh, as a lawyer, two of my big cases dealt with children who had leukemia. And uh, so I wanted to help them and raise money for them. So, the first year I'm doing a triathlon. I was really, had been a couch potato, before that, and they teach you everything. They get you into the training and all this and they pride themselves that one of their people is going to be the last one to finish the race. And like I was second to last.
Crystal O'Keefe: Yeah, you've been there. It's uh, yeah, it's humbling. I think that's a great word for it.
But, but on the other hand, you're still like doing so much more and so am I than the people sitting at home doing nothing. So I try to remember that and it's you against you. And some days are gonna be good and some days are not.
Mitchel Ashley: Look, I say to, I'll say to Angelo all the time, you know, I'd like to be faster, whatever.
He's like, Mitchell, it doesn't matter. You know, it just doesn't matter. You're running, I think my longest run to date is I think I did nine miles. And I certainly got slower as the miles went on. And, you know, he just said, but look at what you did. He goes, Mitchell, I guarantee you are in a small percentage of people who could get up from your chair and run nine miles.
Crystal O'Keefe: That's right. That's right. That's, that's facts. I mean, there are a lot of people that cannot do that. And it is awesome that you can, and so are you training for something specific at this times?
Is there something in mind that you wanna do or do you just do it for the love of it at this point?
Mitchel Ashley: I'm embarrassed to say that I just do it because I love it. That's, I would rather say I was training, but the reality is I don't train for anything. Uh, I just, you know what he, as I say, Angelo is a pusher, he's the dealer.
And now if I don't get exercises in a day, I think about it. I need to do something whether, yesterday was a miserable weather day here in New York City. I went to the gym, which the gym near my house, I don't love, but I still, I rode the bike. I did some work on the treadmill and it wasn't a great exercise day, but it was something.
There's a trainer that I bought for the bicycle, or actually, that I had, but I started using again and many a bad weather day. I'll just hop on that. And get an hour ride in, you know, which according to the app, I'm going through the streets of France, but reality, I haven't left the room.
Crystal O'Keefe: So is that Zwift?
Mitchel Ashley: Exactly.
Crystal O'Keefe: Yeah. That's, that's a lot of fun. Do you race other people when you're doing that?
Mitchel Ashley: Yeah, yeah. Yesterday I did, or no, today is today's Monday. Yes. Saturday I did the Richmond Time trial. And like every time there's a segment.
It's like you're nuts because here you are, you're pedaling harder. There's no one around you, there's no one to see you, and you're pedaling harder and harder, you're, you're clipped in and all that. And it's nuts. And I came in, uh, for the race. I came in 24th.
Crystal O'Keefe: Wow. That's pretty cool.
Mitchel Ashley: Yeah, I was thrilled.
Crystal O'Keefe: Now I'm surprised that doesn't motivate you to go race your bike somewhere. You've got lots of races up there.
Mitchel Ashley: You know what's funny is, I do all this. What I do for a living is very competitive. You try cases, you win, you lose. It's all about you. and your client and you're trying to win and what I do, I only make money if I am multiply successful for the client. So, there's a lot of reasons you want to win. So when I do the exercise, it's just totally to relax.
Crystal O'Keefe: That makes perfect sense. Races are not relaxing. That is true. They are not. Racing or competing for you would, would add to stress, not take away from stress.
Mitchel Ashley: It's true, like the ride from New York to Philadelphia was just an open ride. Yeah. Not a race. Not anything that I can do. I have no problem participating. I've done the Five Borough bike tour. I've done the New York Century ride. You know, those are great. They're just open rides and that I enjoy that stuff, but like an actual to-do the triathlons again, or even like 5Ks, which friends are trying to get me to do.
It's not, it's not really what I want.
Crystal O'Keefe: Yeah, well, I mean, it has to motivate you. I think that in of itself is one, it's great that you know yourself well enough to know that that's not gonna motivate you. And two, I mean if, I think that it's important to remember for everybody that we all have a different why.
We all have a different thing that drives us, and like some people, They wanna work out at home. Some people wanna go to a gym, some people can't stand biking, but they love running or vice versa. Um, and it's, it's not the same for everyone. There's, that's why there's so many different options. And so if just, you know, participating is that brings you joy, then that's awesome and that's what you should continue to do.
Mitchel Ashley: Yeah. And uh, it's funny because when Angelo and I, I mean now you know, it's December, and I find myself thinking about, you know, how's the year going to kick off and the plan for next year. And I said, a mile in terms of the running, I'm very happy with where I am. If I end up short of 400 miles because of, uh, the injuries I went through, I'll still end up around 380 miles for the year.
You know, I wanna set a goal next year for biking. Cause I think I slacked off a little this year in the biking and introduced swimming. And I said to Angelo, like, this is the drug addict, drug pusher thing in him that like, I need more and more. So I blame him for this. And I tell him this all the time.
Crystal O'Keefe: I think if he is to blame for something, that is an excellent thing for him to be blamed for.
Mitchel Ashley: I think so too.
Crystal O'Keefe: Do you feel like he had a lot to do with your food transformation or do you think it's like something you don't even think about anymore?
Mitchel Ashley: No, he had a great deal to do with it because now I think about what I'm putting in. I never really paid attention to Nutrition. But like it went hand in hand with the running.
You want to have a banana, okay. Eat at a half hour before you go for your run. It just went hand in hand with the nutrition went hand in hand with all the exercise and he really introduced it to me.
Crystal O'Keefe: What about how you feel compared to, like, before you did MetPro, when you would do a triathlon, compared to what you do now?
Do you feel any different? Is it the same?
Mitchel Ashley: Oh, overall I certainly feel better. There's no doubt about that just, every aspect of it, I feel better. Of course if MetPro could have turned me back into a brunette, that would've been good too. But that didn't happen.
Crystal O'Keefe: There are limits to the MetPro abilities. Yes.
Mitchel Ashley: But, oh, I mean, you know, you can't really tell you're looking at me. Podcast people wouldn't be, but I lost 35 pounds.
Crystal O'Keefe: That's incredible. Congratulations. That is, that is really, really awesome.
Mitchel Ashley: So my suits have been refit. My pants are different size. And I lost 35 pounds.
Crystal O'Keefe: We will have this video up on our YouTube channel, so eventually, so people will be able to see it. Uh, maybe not the same day that the, that they listen to the podcast. They have to do it in two separate places. But it is, there it is there.
Mitchel Ashley: Yeah. So, you know, we're working on still getting lower.
Because I still have a ways to go. Um, you know, you plateau a little in the weight loss thing and this time of year, it's not the easiest because it's December. There's a lot of things to go to. Yeah. But even in December, you know, we'll have real talks about, if Thursday's gonna be a bad day, bad night, what are you gonna do for breakfast and lunch?
And don't let a bad meal derail you completely. The next day get back. You know, and he'll say to me, you know, give me a clean day. Give me a clean day a, a clean day of eating in this week. Just gimme one.
Crystal O'Keefe: And that's motivating. Yeah. What about, um, has there been anything through this process that has surprised you?
Mitchel Ashley: I think the, the surprise. Angelo he really cares about what's happening. He does. You're not just a number, you're not just a customer, even though you are a customer technically. We really talk about what's going on. For me, he sets aside the time and he really is there for me.
Just for everything. And I think considering MetPro is, you know, a company and they're not even local to me, he has surprised me in how attentive he is to someone like me. It's great. Which is why, hey, I'm still a customer, I guess, but you know that it really was surprising.
Crystal O'Keefe: It's, uh, it is definitely a higher level of service than, most of us are accustomed to, especially these days.
I feel like that is something that has, as there's been labor shortages and stuff, it's really been difficult to find people like in most industries. And the MetPro coaches all definitely care. And Angelo I think leads us very well in that he teaches us how to treat people, and so I, I'm really glad that after all these years, you still feel it from Angelo. That's amazing.
Mitchel Ashley: Oh, he's, he's, he's terrific. I actually tried to refer him to a couple of people who also weren't local one's in Florida and one was in New Jersey and I told him, I said, look, I gave him your name and number and the email and all this.
I said, I know, you're not local to them, but I tell them, you are the best trainer I work with. And you're not local to me, but it works.
Crystal O'Keefe: It does. It works if you work it right.
Mitchel Ashley: But it, you know, look, especially in the early days, there were weeks were not good weeks. And I did not want to talk.
Crystal O'Keefe: How did you get back to talking to him? Because that is something that people will do. Shut down. It's a, it's a common defense mechanism. They don't wanna talk to their coach. What did you do to get past it?
Mitchel Ashley: Well, it's hard. It's easy to get past because he keeps calling you.
So eventually you pick up the phone, we speak now, we speak every Friday. If Friday would come and we don't get in touch for one reason or another, I mean sometimes it is a time difference issue, but, then he'll text me, he goes, I'm free anytime. Then, I'll call him on Monday and he can't pick up, and, he texts me, he goes, look, I'm tied up right now.
I'll get to you. And, but even in the early days, like if I had, he would, we would speak and I'd say, Angelo, it wasn't a good week I didn't even walk 10 minutes every day. But he does, he's not a drill sergeant type person. He's understanding, voice of reason and kind of the logical approach to get you to where you need to be person.
And so he just kept on me. He said, look, let's, he goes, a habit takes, I forgot what it is, takes 30 days or 60 days to make a habit. So, let's concentrate on that little goal first. Let's make a habit of doing some exercise every day. And he's made the habit. So now he's, you find yourself that you can't not do it.
Your there whether, you know, there's days you can't get to the gym, you can't go out to run, whatever, but you can still do the app is the perfect thing, there's exercise plans on the app that you could just follow along.
And so, here I am, on my carpet, in my bedroom, following along with these people. Yes. I don't look like the people who are on the video. I will say that.
And sometimes it takes a few tries to actually do the exercises. They're describing but you do get it.
Crystal O'Keefe: So is there anything else that we haven't talked about you wanted to make sure that listeners got to hear about your journey or your time with MetPro?
Mitchel Ashley: No, I think I, I really think we covered it.
As I said, I came to them. Their ad really worked for me on Facebook. This concept of it's a concierge service that truthfully wasn't outrageously priced for what you get. And, it has just worked. And when you told me, or Angelo told me how long I've been with it, I was shocked.
Crystal O'Keefe: Yeah, it's a long time.
Mitchel Ashley: And it's worked. I mean, the years before Covid. I was losing weight and getting healthier. Covid really pushed that to much faster progress.
Crystal O'Keefe: That's awesome. I'm so glad that it did. Um, you know, and it's really cool that you were able to keep doing MetPro during that timeframe, and you were able to lean into it.
So many people, you know, had the opposite during Covid because whether they were home or not, they're just like, it was a stressful time and a lot of people didn't have that focus to be able to have a goal that they were working on. It was just everybody was adrift. So, some people responded to that by eating more and not eating healthily because they didn't.
It's like, I don't have to see anybody tomorrow because I can't go anywhere, so who cares what I look like? And, uh, you know, a year and a half of doing that can add on some pounds.
Mitchel Ashley: It's funny that you say that because, 9 outta 10 of my friends gained weight during Covid. I'm just, I was, I don't know.
It just, it just worked. Um, largely because I guess Angelo and I never were in a gym together, so talking on the phone just worked for me. The texting, the talking, and the app. Just make it work.
Crystal O'Keefe: That's a great tagline. We'll have to steal it from you.
Mitchel Ashley: Fair enough.
Crystal O'Keefe: Well, Mitchell, thank you so much for your time today. If listeners have questions, they want to find you, they want to reach out to you, would you like to share any where that they can find you?
Mitchel Ashley: Well, sure. I mean, I'm Mitchell Ashley, the Ashley Law Firm located in downtown New York City, 50. You can Google me, you'll get me. My number is 212-513-1300. When you get the receptionist, you could just ask for me and you'll get me. That's one of my taglines when I do my own Instagram show.
Crystal O'Keefe: Awesome. So, and that's every Monday night, right? If somebody wants to.
Mitchel Ashley: Every Monday at six, we're doing one this evening. Okay.
Crystal O'Keefe: So people can tune in to, to learn more about it as well.
Mitchel Ashley: Yes, yes. We talk about different areas of personal injury law. Tonight we're talking about some fire safety issues along with some new legislation. And I mean, as an odd, I do a lot of talks about safety issues. Months ago I did this whole story about Apple, the, the tags that they sell. Yes, so you can find your keys.
I did a whole story about it for safety reason, they could be quite dangerous. Uh, people can put one in your pocketbook for young women especially, and then that person could follow you home and um, so we did a whole story about that and I'm reiterating that because there was a bunch of stories on the news about it recently.
Crystal O'Keefe: I saw that. It's so scary. It's so scary that it's that easy. It's that easy. And, and they're so small that they could go undetected. It's very scary.
Mitchel Ashley: Yeah. Yeah. That was part of the pro, don't leave your bag unattended, all sorts of things.
Crystal O'Keefe: Well, I think that'll, that'll be a good one to, to tune into. So thank you for sharing that.
Mitchel Ashley: You're welcome.
Crystal O'Keefe: Listeners, that is all for this week. You can find all the MetPro Method episodes anywhere you get podcasts, or you can go to metpro.co/podcast. Please be sure to follow and rate and review that lets other people know what they can expect from the show.
And you can also learn more about MetPro at metpro.co. I'm your host, Crystal O'Keefe, and I'll be back next week. Until then, remember, consistency is key.
