Transforming Discipline into Strength – Adi Nair on Fitness, Mindset, and Personal Growth

Brad Minus: Welcome back to another episode of life changing challengers. I am really, really excited to have Adi Nair. with us today and he is a fitness coach. For lack of a better term, he's basically everything. Fitness, weight loss, nutrition, all of that thing all rolled up into one. 

You can already tell that his pecs are bulging out of his shirt. You can kind of see his his biceps pulled out of there. So the guys. The guy looks good. He talks to talk, he walks the walk and he, and he coaches people. We'll talk about testimonies and stuff a little bit later, but Adi, how you doing today?

Adi Nair: Doing good, Brad. Doing good. Thank you so much for that. Absolutely. Amazing introduction. 

Brad Minus: Oh, it's a pleasure is all mine, please. But first, Adi, can you tell us a little bit about your childhood? You know, like where'd you grow up? What was the compliment of your family and what was it like to be Adi as a kid?

Adi Nair: So growing up, I am originally from India, Mumbai. Coming from a middle class family, I believe you do not get all the privileges, but I was really privileged to have nice roof on top of my head. All meals prepared by my mother, or we would have it made. Clothes rolled, ironed up, always washed. I didn't have any problem.

The only thing that probably I had to do was go to school. Eat food and study. That is all. Play some games, probably go downstairs, play with the boys. That is all I did. That was the only problem that you would have was school and homework. Coming up to Canada is a difficult thing to do now because.

I think I was, I had a silver spoon in my mouth. I had all the amenities. Once you start living by yourself, you think it's really easy. You think, Oh, I can do whatever I want to do. Oh, my schedule is going to be so easy. Oh, I wouldn't have my mom to trouble me. But then as soon as you start living by yourself, like, so you got to cook, got to clean, got to do the laundry.

Okay. And over three years, you start realizing that, okay, things are difficult. You are, you're no longer a boy. You have to give up on certain things. And I think it's in the Bible. I'm not a Christian. But I heard somebody say that as soon as I started giving up the things that I did as a boy, I became a man.

And that's just the definition of it. You got to have the right habits. You got to have the right mentality and start moving towards the things that you want to have. So when I came to Canada, the first thing that I wanted to do was do all the things that I did get to do as a kid. Because I give this analogy quite a bit that if you starve a kid of a lot of things 

he's going to do the wrong things I'll give a great example with money For example growing up kids are not given a lot of money Why because they think parents think that they're going to go spend it on all the wrong things As soon as the kid gets a job The first thing he's going to do is buy all the wrong things because he didn't get to do it as a kid so when you're enclosed in a cage like this as soon as that cage is out and you get all this freedom when you Come to a different country You're going to do all the wrong things that you didn't get to do.

So I did everything wrong. I went outside, I did all the two, 3am parties. I drank, I smoked a lot. Once you realize that that is a dead end and it does not give you that much peace that you thought it would, because it is all instant gratification.

It is there for a second and then it's gone. You've got to chase it. It's a perpetual pleasure chasing. You just chase it. It's never enough. You need it every single day. After getting two Fs in my grades, about 10 grand in debt and losing a lot of things here, there, the other, I said, okay, so this is just a waste of time.

I've spent two years already over here and I've not accomplished anything that I wanted to try to decided to change everything. We'll go gym. We'll wake up early. We'll have a clean food. No vices, no drink, no smoke, no porn, no masturbation, no none of that, no chasing women. And you realize that this path is actually leading me to some kind of a purposeful result.

Something is improving. My body improved, the way I spoke improved, the way I walk, the way I look, the way I dress. Every single thing starts improving as soon as you start having discipline in one area, because it's got a domino effect. 

So I passed all my grades, became a great employee. paid off all my debt and started helping other people just the way I did it. It all starts with a small wake up and you can go work out, you can eat clean food, you read some positive stuff and you have no vices. That is all you need. And that's all the path that I needed to start helping other people.

And that's what I've been doing for the past couple of years. 

Brad Minus: Well, I love that. So I'm going to step back here a little bit and let's go back into your childhood. So, you said play with boys. I'm assuming that you've got, you've got brothers and sisters.

Adi Nair: Oh no, so I am a, I'm an only child. So I used to play with the boys, just downstairs, whoever would come down to play. So cricket is a big sport back home with the cricket football. But I was always into sports. I would play whatever sport was available because I was not a good student. Any opportunity to get out of class, I would take it.

Be it dance and sing and any, I'll just go. So whatever sport, sporting opportunity the school had, I would just go take it. I think 18 years of just playing all the sports just combined and went into the gym because once you started living alone, you got work, school, food, XYZ, you don't have much time to play sports.

So the only thing, all of it just combined into the gym. That's the only thing. 

Brad Minus: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I was, I wasn't a great student, but I was better than average and I was a horrible athlete. I like, I grew up wanting to be an athlete, tried everything. 

And I'm, I'm also part of the, only kid club. So I got there to, you know, up here in the, in the states, we call them the latchkey kids. When I was growing up, because basically it was like both parents worked. So you went home, you fended for yourself until mom and dad came home. And then, you know, and then life went on from there on.

And again, and you said like playing with the boys, I was the same way. I had friends all over the place and we would be like, Hey, we're going to play some football or let's go play some video games. And yeah, or I got a new board game actually back then. Let's try that, you know? So when, so you went through, you went through high school. Do they call it high school there, or do they call it secondary school? No, we call it high school. Okay, and then, you got accepted to, to what school in Canada? 

Adi Nair: So, University of Alberta. 

Brad Minus: University of Alberta. Oh, awesome. And that's where, is that where you are now?

Yes, absolutely. Oh, okay, awesome. Great. So University of Alberta and what did you, what'd you decide to study business? Okay, cool. I have an MBA myself. I got, I got you there. So I got a couple things in common there. Love it. So you said at first, you know, weren't doing very well. And then you, you went through the thing.

I did the same thing, you know, my freshman year, I pretty much blew up, blew apart and came back my sophomore year and. Got stuck into it, you know, went into it. So, I am with you there too, you know? 

Adi Nair: Sorry to cut you off. It's a common trend that 

Brad Minus: I found. 

Adi Nair: Every single person probably ends up just doing that.

I think by 30 or 40, you start picking yourself up because the first few years you do fuck up. 

Brad Minus: Right? Yeah. No. And that's exactly right. It's like you get back and you're just like, no, no, no, no. And then I can't, I can't live like this. I need to, I need to find that balance. And it's hard to find that balance.

Adi Nair: But 

Brad Minus: Did you do any sports while you're at, while you're at university of Alberta? Well, I guess you're still there. 

Adi Nair: Yes, but we, I could not play. I would not have much time to play. There was some drop in activities that you could go and just play for an hour or so.

So I did that in my first year, because I think you have, the course is not really difficult at that time. So you've got time to do like all the recreation stuff, but I did not represent the university in any sport. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. So yeah, the, usually there's intramurals or something like that. You can jump into little clubs here and there.

Yeah. So, and I imagine, Soccer is still a pretty good, pretty big sport up in Canada, correct? Yeah, cause then they've got Canadian football, American football, 

Adi Nair: and 

Brad Minus: then they've got soccer, which is football. 

Adi Nair: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: So I was confused when I came in, 

Adi Nair: was like, okay, no, you mean so. We call it table tennis as well.

Brad Minus: Did you find any places to play a little cricket in Canada? 

Adi Nair: Well, we used to play it on campus in the gymnasium. So I think they would have one day where you just play cricket.

So they would have like a, or maybe our friends bought the bat and ball. I don't remember. It wasn't my first year. I think we found a way to play it. And there are other clubs in the city of Edmonton where they play the sport and they're on the ground, but that's usually in the spring and summertime, not in the winter.

But I did not play much. I'll be very honest, a couple of days here. 

Brad Minus: I, well, I'll take this offline sometime because I'd love to learn. I, I've tried to watch it a couple of times trying to figure out how it all worked and it's miserable to watch, at first, you know, when you don't know anything, you're like, all right, wait, he hit it, but it bounced, how did that work and he not catch it and where is he throwing it?

Yeah, it's, it was confusing. So hopefully maybe you can school me in on that one, but okay, so the first year you found yourself into that freshman, you know, you found that freshman year where you're just like, Hey, you know, and I loved your analogy of you were like getting out of the cage, out of the basement, you know, you were sheltered, which you should be.

And I think most kids should be held like that, but just, and I think what's not happening is the parents kind of saying, you know, the parents that had been through that, it's like, Hey, listen. Your freshman year, you're going to want to do all this stuff and give you strategies to sit there.

Now you and being in Mumbai probably was a little bit different of a story, but I would think that should be a normal thing. 

Adi Nair: Well, I think it is a normal thing. The parents definitely tell you that do this, do that, say no to that. But I think I was a rebellious kid growing up.

To a degree, I wanted to do things which I didn't get to do. So I always knew that I wanted to do X, Y, and Z, but I've been told or forced to do A, B, C. So I'm not going to do A, B, C really well because why would I do that? I want to do X, Y, Z. And I always found a way to do what I wanted to do. It don't matter if I had to lie.

It don't matter if I had to hide it. I would do it because I wanted to do it. And even the gym, my parents didn't support me to go to the gym. They didn't give me the fucking money. I would go sell secondhand iPhones and my buddy told me that he could do this. I said, okay. And then we would do some together.

I would do some by myself and then I would have enough money to buy a six month cheap gym membership, which is close to my house. And then I'd go to gym three months in. I would have some results and my parents would, you know, then start saying, Oh, my son with the six pack. Oh, my son with the big bicep.

And I'm like, yeah, right. You could have supported me when I wanted to go, right. So that's what happens. But I'm not blaming anybody because as a society, you never get any kind of recognition for the process. You only get recognition for the result. So once you've got the result, people will be like, Till the time you have no result, nobody's talking about you.

As much as you want people to support you, nobody's going to do it. So I am not blaming or pointing my finger on anybody, I'm just saying, anybody who wants to get something done, always know that result is the only thing that matters. How do you get it? Don't matter. You got it? Matters. 

Brad Minus: And that's got to be changed.

Because you can definitely get to, the perfect body or so in the wrong way. I mean, we've been hearing about ozempic this whole time, right? People that are a little bit bigger and they're like, Oh, I take an ozempic. Oh, I dropped all that weight. And then they get off of it and they put it all right back on because they didn't start the habits to start with.

It's 

Adi Nair: true. 

Brad Minus: Very 

Adi Nair: Yeah. I never thought of it that way. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. So the process is, it's the journey. It really is the journey. So, and you had your own journey, right? You started in the gym and then you've grown while you were in the gym and that turned a corner just like you had mentioned in your intro.

So let me ask you this. Now, when you decided that you were going to go to the gym. 

Brad Minus: So basically you had done sports your whole, your whole life, in Mumbai while you were in high school and middle school. So did you, did you actually use, did you have knowledge of weightlifting before you came to Canada?

No, 

Adi Nair: no, no, not at all. But growing up, I would watch some movies and it would have like a guy in it who's all muscular, you know, and he did this one step in a movie where he just flicked his bicep. And I looked at the guy and said, I want to be able to do that.

That was it. So when we would play sports. I would do a bunch of pushups and I would run. I was an athlete as well. The first time I think I was able to like see my bicep, I was like, okay, so that was easy. That was not really difficult.

I always knew about the gym, but it was always so 16 17, you know, it's about the age I cannot go right now. I don't have the money. How would I pay for the gym membership? So I would do a bunch of push ups. I would do a lot of home workouts this and the other Whatever every youtube video I watched on how to build a good body using Home thing is, you know, you'd use a desk to just do dibs behind you.

You would use your arm to just pull like that. And you know, you get by stuff like that. Then I remember my parents walking by watching me like, that's an idiot. Look, look what he's doing. And I would be like, just give me some time. Just give me some time. I got this shit. It was, it always goes back to the initial thing that I wanted to do it.

I wanted to have a good body because I saw that actor habit. I just have to do it. Don't matter how I'll figure it out. But I had that mentality. As I said, I would go behind my, I'll go behind people's back. I would lie, but I will get the thing that I want to get. 

I've made too many mistakes in the first couple of months. I've had a lot of injuries, minor ones, not nothing that would put me in the hospital, but you know, the knee injury, lower back injury, pec injury. Because you don't like YouTube can teach you, but you still have to go and do this stuff and realize that, okay, this is not actually, okay, YouTube.

Does not have the information. So what do I do now? You should just keep on doing it. Keep on doing it. And you realize that, okay, so maybe I can do it in this way. Maybe that works. Then you just start picking things up. What I used to do as a observer was there were a lot of trainers at the gym.

So I would just watch the trainer, train the client and I'd be like, okay, so he taught him in that way. I'm doing it in this way. Let me just try that. But that's all I did. And then trial and error until I made the button. So the reason I'm, I'm a good coach now is because I have made all the mistakes.

There are no many mistakes that I can make anymore. Right? So the other person, when I'm teaching somebody, I can tell them, do it in this way, don't do it that way. And then he says, no, but I want to do it in that way. Go ahead, go ahead and do it. Make the mistake. You will learn. You won't. It's not that you won't learn anything out of you'll just waste time.

You can always read, reroute yourself. We should make the mistake, reorder something, because once you've made the, you cannot, if you force people to not make the mistake, as I said, you're putting them in the cage. As soon as I am gone, the cage is gone. They're going to go make the mistake. So let, let people make the mistake.

No problem. It's going back full circle. I do not have any gym knowledge. I was just an observer. I made a bunch of mistakes and I could do it. Then I found myself just an action taker and not a big thinker. Because I feel people waste a lot of time just thinking about things and not doing it. I, on the other hand, is on the extreme of just doing the thing 

it is not always right to just be doing the thing because you can be doing a lot of dumb things and just be like, oh, that was actually, I should not have even done that. That's so dumb of me, but I did it anyways, so I, okay, I'll try this. That didn't work. I'll try this. That didn't work. I'll try this. That didn't work out.

Okay, so now I have two things that work. Lemme just do the two things. Okay, so this also doesn't work. So I've always given myself this analogy that life is a big MCQ test. You got A, B, C, D, E aid work. B didn't work, C maybe worked DA bit, work aid didn't work. So then try CD until some of it works out. So you just cancel out things.

That's great. Mistakes, trying to learn. 

Brad Minus: Well, you know what? The idea about that, you know, it's, what's good about that is that people that, get a trainer and I've been there, I've had trainers, I've had coaches, but they can sit there and they tell you exactly how to do it.

Hey, let's put this at this angle, make sure you push up. And this is the reason why, you know, this is the reason why that you don't do it this way, because you could strain this or pull this or, whatever. And they tell you the reason why. And I was always, that was me. I was always like, tell me the reason why.

I've got clients myself who like, refuse. They're like, don't tell me why. Just tell me what to do, what to, I'll go do it. I don't care about why. But for me, it was always a big why was because that solidified it in my head. Right? Yeah. The reason why I'm at it, when I, when I'm doing a, you know, a pushup and my arms are at 90 degree, they're at 45 degree angles.

They're not at nine, they're not at pulled out, they're not forward, is because I could pull my pet. You know, it's a possibility you put down, you go at 90, you go at 90, you go at, at, 45 degrees and you're getting only chest with very little tricep that's, and they tell me that I love that, that's great, but for you, I think it's even better because not only like, I can say to this, I can say to somebody, well, you want to do it this way because of this, right?

Yeah. But you could say you don't want to do this because of this. If you start to feel this, make sure you double check where your form is. Because you know what it feels like because you actually went through it versus, you know, people that have like gotten trainers, gotten, gotten more, gotten people that have gone behind them to make sure that they've moved their elbows and everything else.

You actually know what this is going to feel like. It's the same thing with me. When I started triathlon, I didn't have money for a coach just like you. You know, I didn't, and I didn't know how to swim very well. You know, I could swim to save myself, but I couldn't swim. Like competitively, but getting in the water and listening going, okay, well, listen, I need good body position.

What, what keeps me going? Slow hydrodynamics, study hydrodynamics, figure how that works. So in that way, I was similar to you as well. 

Adi Nair: Thing about swimming, sorry to interrupt, but I was my, when I started swimming, I think I was in grade one or something. And you learn by initially just putting your hands on the railing and you flap your legs behind.

One of the big guys that I was listening to at that time, he just took me and he put me right into the 16 feet area of the pool. And I just went in, I'm like, right. And then he picked me up and there were kids over there laughing at me. I was like, give me two months. And then I would just laugh at them, 

and then I learned how to do it. And then I would just beat all of them. Because once you are. Once you get laughed at and you've put the exact fear in front of you and you have faced it, nothing can stop it. What's the worst that can happen as of now? Nothing. I got drawn and people laughed.

Now, so I learned swimming that way and I loved it because you hate the guy when it happens to you, right? You hate the guy when he puts you in a difficult situation, like, whoo, but then you love the guy after two, three months, because you realize that he did something good for you.

So every bad thing usually leads to a good thing, which you don't realize it, because in the moment, the bad thing feels like a fucking bad thing. But over two years, three years, that bad eventually leads to something good. 

Brad Minus: Oh, yeah. Sometimes you can, sometimes that could happen in eight weeks when I was in the military and, I was at basic man.

Did we hate our drill sergeant? I mean, it's like every time all the way through and a drill sergeant because he pushed us even heavier than all the other drill sergeants because we used to get these, used to have your battalion flag. And he used to get these streamers, and the streamers would be for riflemanship, it would be for physical fitness, it would be for, you know, neurobiological chemical, and so there'd be these BIS tasks, and the best battalion that finished those tasks would get the streamer, and he was like, Absolutely.

A hundred percent just addicted to having every single streamer. Let me tell you something. I missed that guy. 

Adi Nair: As 

Brad Minus: soon as I left, as soon as I left and I went to the next school, I went to my tech school, which is basically, advanced school. I missed him.

None of the army was like that after that. Then I got put in with, with, it became co ed. And then all of a sudden I was like, I was, I was missing being back into that environment. So I get it. Cause we cursed him out. 

Adi Nair: I think I'm that friend over here with a lot of the guys. I'm not saying they should brag, but when they are on me, they're in shape as soon as I leave or I go someplace else, they go back to their old habits, which is the saddest thing.  

Eventually they get some result and they're like, thank you so much. But then I leave their company. I'll go someplace else back to their old habits again. 

Brad Minus: So do you have any clients that you have trained that has kept the good habits and maintain form?

Adi Nair: I think a couple, but not, not much. I'll be honest, because I think usually what happens is if the diet plan and discipline and the workouts are so tight after two, three months, you, you, even if you leave. For a couple of days, if you break the discipline, it's where it goes really. 

So if, because you've done something for a very long period of time, you've got the proof in your mentality, that in your mind, that you could do the thing again, what happens is you've been out of shape for three years and you start a diet plan for three months. What happens as soon as a diet plan ends and you break the discipline, because you've done this for three years, you go back right into it.

You've not done this for a sufficient period of time that this habit compounds and becomes better. It does not happen. When done for so long, that is your default setting and you're trying to do an uncomfortable thing. As soon as you break off the discipline, you go back to your default set.

So you've got to be in that uncomfortable zone for six, seven, eight, one year for you to be able to make that as your new normal, that needs to become the default. And this is just something that's your past self. You can never go back to it. So this is a new norm, but for you to be able to do that, it requires more time.

Two, three months is not enough time. So you can teach them the discipline, you can teach them the habits. But I've found they usually leave it. They'll take a one week break, which will just end up becoming a seven month break. And then they have to slosh. But they know how to bring it back because they know what needs to be done in the next three, four months, because you'll hear them say, Oh, just give me three months.

I'll get back in shape. Just give me five months. I'll get back. I know what to do. They don't do it. It's difficult. Whatever, whatever excuse in the world, but that is their path. You cannot tell them to, you can't force them to go to the gym because as soon as I'm gone, they will go back to their default.

So I stopped forcing people to do it. 

Brad Minus: I get it. Yeah, I call it quicksand. You call it quicksand. If you like step into quicksand, you know, you start to sink. And unless you are very still, you're going to sink faster if you try to.

Adi Nair: Right. 

Brad Minus: So I call it quicksand. So it for, in my world, it either starts with an off season or it starts with an injury and they're like, oh, okay, well, you're right. I got this injury. I'm going to recover for the day. And then that day becomes two, that day becomes three.

And then maybe you'll do a small workout. You're like, Oh, I'm back at it. And then you're like, Oh wait, it's bothering me. And then a week turns to two, two weeks turns to three, three weeks turns to four, one month turns to two months, and now you've gained ten pounds, and you get back on your bike finally, and your power, your power metrics are off, you don't feel good, and the whole bit, now what you've done is you've taken something that you usually find pleasure in, and because you haven't been there for a while, now it's hard, And it hurts.

Now, anybody who knows anybody, anybody who's had a proper offseason, knows that, okay, this is too, my first two weeks are going to suck. But as soon as I get past the first two weeks. I'm going to be right back where I was and I'm going to be able to start performing after that. 

Adi Nair: And anybody 

Brad Minus: who's anybody who knows that in endurance sports, 

Adi Nair: I heard a great entrepreneur say his name is Wusi Thumbay Thumbayo, he's a South African entrepreneur. He said, if you are stuck on a highway and your car gets stuck and you don't have cell reception, you don't have. Gas in your tank, you start pushing your car to the nearest gas station, you put the car in neutral and you start pushing the car.

The initial 10 seconds is the most difficult because you got to start pushing the car, the tires have to rotate. But once the tires are rotating, you got the momentum. You just got to keep on maintaining the pressure. So the first 10 days, first two weeks, always going to be difficult. That was a great, unlock for me in my mind.

I said, okay, so anything new that I want to start the first 20 days is going to be hell. 

Brad Minus: Momentum. Yes. Yes. So it's that gathering of momentum. That's a great way to think about it is those first two weeks being, Hey, you're rocking the car. You're rocking it, trying to get those burn.

And then you'll finally get a couple inches, a little bit, a couple more inches, couple more inches. And then all of a sudden you'll start moving. And even if you have to go uphill, as long as you've got that momentum, you'll be able to just, you know, speed it up a little bit and you'll be able to get it up that hill.

So, yeah, that's a great momentum. For me, it's, so that's the positive aspect of it. My aspect was the negative. It's quicksand. It's like, you just keep digging yourself deeper and deeper and deeper until you finally are like, alright, I gotta get out of this mess. And it's twice as hard. The longer you wait, the longer that you say manana, manana, manana, meaning tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, the longer you start going tomorrow, the harder it's going to be the, the longer that, those, like what I say is two weeks, you know, if you, if you take an off season, whatever, two weeks, two weeks, but that two weeks turns to three and the three weeks.

So, you know, that you've got to stick it in your head going, okay, it hurts. It's not fun. But I got to stick it out until I get to that once I get past that first two weeks, I know things are going to start to get easier. And it's not that those two weeks stay that way. It's the first couple of days. And then the third day is a little bit easier for days, a little bit easier.

Fifth day, the following week's just a little, you know, gets a little bit easier on time. And then all of a sudden you're like, okay, now I can run. 

Adi Nair: Right. But that is once you have accomplished something. So, you know, I'll be very honest, something big.

That I realized when I started my discipline journey was that initially you're just looking for some kind of a result. We're all conditional people. We want some, if our conditions are not met, we don't want to do it. So once you, because I had the gym and I had built a body initially, I knew how difficult it's going to be in the beginning.

As you mentioned, day one, very difficult. Day two, a bit better. Three, four, it becomes a bit better, but it does not feel better. It is only in retrospect that you look back and say, Oh, I see what happened. So week one was very difficult, but in the moment it is very difficult because our result is not there.

We are all goal oriented people. We want that result as soon as possible, but we know it doesn't happen. That's why Jim was a great example for me because it took me six months to build an initial very good body. And then I had that mental framework in my mind. Okay, it is all going to happen in one month.

Even if I were to start coaching people, not one month, content creation, not one month, it's going to take years, years and years. But in the moment, it feels very difficult. It feels like ages ago. But when you look back, you're like, okay, yeah, I see. I see what Brad means. Okay. Right. So day two was difficult.

Okay. Yeah. Day 10 was a bit easier. Fair enough. So in 10 day increments, things are becoming easier by the day. 

Brad Minus: That's good. That's good. And that's right. And basically, you know, the examples we were setting was the fact that people that are coming back to it versus people that are just starting, you know, that is how it is absolutely.

And going for it. So, and that's the thing that I was going to, let's chat about that. Real quick. So let's talk about, a hypothetical person that coming to you, maybe they're, not horrible. Let's say they're 20 pounds overweight. Never really been to a gym before.

Maybe they did something in high school and now they're, I don't know, maybe in their twenties or thirties. And they're like, no, I want to, I want to, let's talk about, let's start with aesthetics. I want to look better. I want to have a, I want to have some ruffle of a six pack and I want to see my biceps and stuff.

Okay. What, what is your first, what is your, what's the first thing that you do with a, with a brand new client like that 

Adi Nair: diet food, what are you consuming? There's a lack of exercise. There's an excessive need of food. You've been eating way too much for the past two years.

You do have that 20 pounds X. You can just walk, do a couple of pushups. You'll be fine. Body wise. You don't need the bicep pain like every single person, but if you just want to look and be in shape, if you walk and eat clean food and rest seven to eight hours a day, you're fine.

The problem with that person would be too much processed food. Too much fat. Don't know what he's eating. So we got to make sure that we cut down on the food, cut down on the processed food specifically and make sure that he's doing at least some kind of walking. If you put him into the gym, what's going to happen is he can probably work out the first day, second day, but day three, day four is going to be very difficult for him.

He'll be very sore. So you can, what I would start off with is just cardio and food control. For the first month, just whatever you were eating, half that. Very simple. If you're having two cups of rice in your plate, one cup of rice, and you do that for a week, and then you change something. 

30 now go to the gym, eat like Adi and train like Adi. You can do it for day one or day two. You will fail on day three. You're trying to make big changes in a very small period of time. You have to make small changes over a very big period of time. So you take one week where you're on a specific macro, you're eating one cup of rice, oatmeal in the morning, having some fruits in the middle and having a cup of coffee.

For example, over the next few weeks, you start making tweaks in it. You reduce the oatmeal, you reduce the rice, you add more veggies, you add more fruit, you figure things out in that way. And then you start cutting down on the cardio. You go more into the gym. Leave the cardio.

No problem. But do some kind of a physical activity. It doesn't have to be the gym. It doesn't have to be every single day. But what happens is once you start seeing some results of your actions, you're like, I want it to be the best. I want to be, because this happens with the gym. Every single person knows it.

As soon as you get some results and you start posing and like, bro, I can be on the stage, man. I can be a natural body, but it happens. Every single person goes through it. What, because you feel that, okay, my efforts are paying off, but it only pays off in month four, month five.

It doesn't pay off in the first three months. So again, go full circle. The person will just have to cut down on his food, do some kind of physical activity, and that's it. So we gotta get his macros correct. But then when people hear macros, they say, I cannot have time to track my food. Don't track your food, man.

Just, that's why we'll just reduce the quantity of your food that you're eating. You have enough carbs, more of protein, and less of fat. That's it. So you have body weight, protein, whatever, sorry, muscle weight, protein, body weight, carbs, and less of fat. That's it have 2, 000, 2, 500 calories a day and you'll be fine.

Brad Minus: I get it. You know what? And that's exactly like my approach to, when I teach, I used to have this course that I taught, it was called zero to 5k basically taught people that weren't running, never ran whatever with no background to a 5k in eight weeks, right? And just what you're saying, it literally was just like that.

So what was the workout for day one? The workout was we would, I would show them the warmups. We'd kind of want to do these little warmups, but then it was walk for five minutes, jog at a conversational pace, basically saying that if you can't talk, you're going too fast. Right? So easy for three minutes, another five minute walk, another two minute walk, and then another five minute walk and they were done, right?

So that's what I did. And then for eight weeks, what it would do is we would increase the run part one minute. Every workout, basically going exactly what you're talking about, little changes. So they worked out three times a week, that was it. Five minute walk, three minutes, five minutes, two minutes, five minutes.

Then the next workout was five minutes, four minutes, five minutes, three minutes, five minutes. All the way up, because we would meet twice a week and then they would do one on their own. When we meet twice a week, when we got to the point where it was, I think it was, it was 15 minutes.

So it was 15 and 14. I cut out the five. I cut out the five minute, beginning the beginning 

Adi Nair: one. 

Brad Minus: I cut that five minute out and we did our warmups and then we started because we maintain that, that very slow pace just longer and longer and longer and longer. When they came back, if they, if they enjoyed it, they came back for my second course, which was stronger 5k.

Then we would talk about sprinting and doing some, you know, doing more hit workouts and stuff like that. That was a, you know, that's like the advanced spot, but it is exactly what you talked about. And then we would talk about food and I'll just put this out there, but you know, at first it was, okay, how many times are you eating potatoes a week?

All right. So two things you can do. One, take one of those potatoes, one serving of potatoes, go from white to sweet potatoes. Just make that one little change. You like spaghetti and you, and you have spaghetti pasta once a week or twice a week and say it's twice a week. One of those things use, spaghetti squash instead of noodles.

Those are those little changes that you're talking about, right? Small, little, incremental changes. 

Adi Nair: Over a long period of time, I'll be honest, but I hated running growing up. And I was a sprinter. I'd never liked running 400, 800 meters.

And when I came here to Canada, I wanted to see if I could run. It was cold outside. I would never run. I would just be a bitch about it. I'm like, I'll just go, I'll take the bus to the gym. And then I heard David Goggins say one time he ran 200 something miles in like an entire day and he did not stop.

And that distance was equivalent to one city and the other city. The distance is. pretty much equal in between. So he ran pretty much between both the cities. And in my head, I was like, if he can do that, I can run to the gym, right? I should be able to do that. And so David Goggins was my running motivator.

I started running to the gym. It was all so terrible, but that's what I did. Initially it was just go run to the gym. and then walk back. Then it was, take the bus to the gym, then run back because it was cold outside.

The quicker I can get from my house to the gym is the more warm I'll be, but I don't want to be freezing outside and make negative 40. But I always maintained my discipline since then. Negative 40, whatever the case, I would run to the gym, run back. That was my running idea. It gives you such a great high afterwards because once you get back home, you give yourself a pat on the shoulder and say, who did this?

Nobody can do this. Nobody can wake up 5 30 and go to the gym. Nobody could run a negative. Who the fuck is going to do it? Everybody's a little bit like you have I have this bad self talk Maybe it's a ego thing, but it is ethical ego I don't think it's this bad ego trying to improve your own self talk and saying that who's going to do this?

Nobody i'm the best you have that mentality because you've got to have it. It's a competitive world outside Everybody's competitive. You got to know how you can improve yourself improve your self talk so that you can compete with this fucking People outside, man. They are tough people outside. 

Brad Minus: No, you're, you're, you're talking my language.

Goggins is my frickin, he is my hero. Because Goggins makes even the toughest athlete out there look like a wimp. You know, cause I mean, some of the things did you read, did you read both of his books? 

Adi Nair: No, I'm not. I just seen his work, man. I'll be very honest. I've not read any of his books. I just see the way he talks, the way he runs his work.

It just gives me, I get more out of that as compared to sit and read his book. 

Brad Minus: Okay. Here, I'm going to give you a little bit of a tip, don't read it, get it on, get it on audio because here's the thing, he's done something that as far as I know, I mean there's a million books in the world, a million audio books, I don't know, but he has done something that no one else has done.

Is it his wife? Well, hang on. So he, no, his, the writer, Adam, he actually narrates the story. He narrates the book, but he stops. He stops at certain point at points where they're like big moments and he goes and it's so funny because they break out and he's like, he's like Goggins man. Let's you need to let's unpack this a little bit.

And then David comes on and they do this little podcast. In between, and he kind of gives you what he was feeling during that time of the story and what he was doing and what he was thinking. He's the only Navy SEAL ever that went through buds three times.

So that just gives you one thing. I mean, seal, right. He's also been to ranger school and a Delta school. But he was after rangers after buds, he wanted to do something for veterans. And he decided he wanted to help the charity and he heard about Badlands. Now, the Badlands, race is, in California. It's 135 miles through Death Valley. It is actually the hardest ultra marathon you'll ever be, that you'll ever, like, run. So he contacts the race director. Now, he's never done any kind of distance at this point. He contacts the race director and he's like, Hey, I, listen, I'd like to, I'm a SEAL.

I want to be able to do this race, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, have you ever run a hundred miles before? And he goes, no, but I'm a seal. You know, I, I, I've been through buds and I, not only that three times, he goes, no, he says, I'm not letting you in this race unless you've done a hundred miles. And the race is like four weeks away or five weeks away or something like that.

The application deadline is three weeks away. And he's like, all right. He says, if you go and run a hundred mile race and you get through it, then I will, let you apply. He goes and you're lucky because in San Diego, there's a 24 hour race like this weekend.

So yeah, so that Goggins gets out there And he starts running and he gets about 30 miles in and things start to fall, fall apart. And so he keeps going. Now he knows nothing about running. He's telling me that his fuel is like Ritz potato chips and, and, and crackers and peanut butter and, and water and stuff.

So no idea how to fuel a race. This is like pre like runner, Goggins. So he keeps going around and it gets worse and it gets worse. He gets to the point where his shins are like. His shin splints are like tearing apart in him. So he takes duct tape and he duct tapes his shin to, and then to his, so his foot is in a door and a dorsiflex position, and he finishes it that way.

And he said that when he, like his girlfriend had to put him into the car and he was a mess, put him into the tub, he couldn't hold his mud. You know, he, you know, he, he ed all over himself and, you know, it was, it was blood everywhere and he used in bad shape. Two days later, he calls up the, the vice director and he says, okay, I did it.

He said, I ran a hundred miles in on 18 something hours. He goes, oh, you did it 18 hours. He says, oh, what'd you finish up with? He goes, no, I did the a hundred miles in 18th mile an hour. He said, so you stopped. He goes, what'd you do for the, he's like, what'd you do for the other six hours? Cause it was a 24 hour race.

It wasn't a hundred mile race. It was a 24 hour race. It's what Chris says. Chris is, is the guy who goes, what happened to the rest of the race? You didn't, you didn't do the other six hours. And he goes, no, man, I was, I was in bad shape. But in the book, he says, I knew I liked this guy. Because I mean, that was the whole thing.

And that's what kind of got him on the journey. He started to. Do all the right stuff and do this ultra marathon thing a lot. So yeah, definitely can't break me. I can't hurt me is the first is the first one that's, and, but, and then the second one is, did not finish. And that one they're both, but they're both the, the audio is done the same way.

The audio is fantastic. You read it fine and you read it and you'll get a great, you'll get good. You'll get great stuff out of it, but listening to it and then they break out of it. And then, you know, he had a heart problem, so he couldn't run, so what he decided to do, break the world record pull up. Oh, is that what he did?

24 hours of pull ups, he broke the record. It took him three tries. And the listening to him explain how it felt will tear you apart. It just tears your heart apart. The skin ripped off his hands and It was horrible, but the guy knows how to, I mean, the biggest thing about Goggins is he wanted to find out what his body, could do.

Because like I tell my people all the time, your brain will quit a hundred times before your body. Well, 

Adi Nair: no. 

Brad Minus: So, absolutely. I would highly recommend that, to listen to it while you're working out. 'cause you'll get something out of it.

It's great. Absolutely. So what are you doing now because you're still at this university. Are you just using the resources. 

Adi Nair: No, I'm actually graduating in April, so it's my last semester now. 

Brad Minus: Oh, fantastic. Excellent. And you'll graduate with a, BBA, bachelor's in business administration.

Adi Nair: Yes, but business administration all comes under that big window or big umbrella of batches of commerce. So it all comes, the degree would be a batch of commerce and you get like small majors or you'll be specializing in things. So I'm specializing in strategic management. 

Brad Minus: Awesome. We need people like that.

So that's great. Are you making the bulk of your money with your fitness business right now to get you through school? 

Adi Nair: Oh, no. So school is being an international student. You cannot make enough money to pay for your fees. So I'm lucky enough that my parents are paying me enough to pay the fees, but I do not take anything else for living expenses.

I either work or the coaching business does enough for me to pay for my necessities and other expenses. 

Brad Minus: Oh, fantastic. See God. Well, I mean, when the rest of us, when I was out there slinging pizzas, you know, you get to go to school and train people and, and you make enough that I would be, I'd be all over that.

Adi Nair: But I, it did not start like that. I've always wanted to do it because I think I started off as a dishwasher and I would tell myself while cleaning up, if I could do something with fitness to just make enough money to not be do this life would be great. You know, and the first time I made a thousand dollars a month, I was like.

Life is great. I felt like a millionaire because this is what I wanted to do. I was like, holy shit. I paid off all my shit doing the thing that I wanted to do. I didn't even work 80 hours and life was really good. But I started off as a dishwasher, then a busser, host, bartender, server. And I worked at the university in the procurement department.

And then I started doing online coaching. 

Brad Minus: Good. That's fantastic. Nothing is better than that. 

Adi Nair: Progressed a 

Brad Minus: I'm the same way. You know, I started teaching for free and then I got my first gig. What I was doing was running clinics in boutique running stores.

They were hiring me and I do an eight week clinic. There at the running store and then they would pay me, from there, I started getting private clients. And then before you know it, I have a roster of private clients. You got to just slowly build once you get your name out there.

But no, this is fantastic. So you're preaching here. You and I are on the same boat here. You want to get started. Small changes, right? 

Adi Nair: Small changes over a long period of time. 

Brad Minus: So for all of you that, that, that, you know, you've got that resolution or that goal, let's call it a goal.

The resolution doesn't never works. Yeah, that goal and be specific about it. You know, let's say you want to see your apps or you want to build a physique that you'd be proud of having that picture in your mind of what, how you want to do it. And the first thing you got to do is the small changes. 

Walk more, reduce your calorie intake and get cleaner. Walk even more. The biggest lesson that, I've started to learn more as a coach is that we all have our time that we go into the gym, right?

So in the morning, like Adi was saying, it goes to the gym, five thirty in the morning, goes to the gym, does what it's done, come back out. But it doesn't stop there. It will take you a lot longer to get where you want to be. If you basically do your hour in the gym, make sure you watch your intake and that's it.

You know, do your times and cardio and that's it. You got to keep moving. So standup desk, you know, make sure that you, you walk more than you, you do your walks, you know, get your, get your steps in. And it could just be walking. It doesn't need to be, it could be leisurely. Grab a girlfriend, take, you know, have a, have a conversation and say, well, instead of sitting around and coughing or going to a coffee shop, take a walk, go out and walk.

Adi Nair: Absolutely. 

Brad Minus: Absolutely. It's a constant thing, and that will bolster, you know. 

Adi Nair: Absolutely. I think one of the greatest things that I learned from a coach, he said, they always remember yesterday's wins and not today's wins. The biggest mistake I think we make is that we have a perfect day on Monday.

And then by the time Tuesday arrives, you're like, I didn't get my six pack. I don't want to go to the gym anymore because you don't do the small things that were longer than what a lot of people do I know you've seen a lot of people or in your clients, they will come up and say that I want to do all the big things.

You know, I want to do all the bench press. I want to do all the squats just on day one, because that's what they see on Instagram and YouTube. But they'll do that for three days and realize that I didn't get the desired result that I wanted to get on day four. So I'm going to quit. But that's why we say that we should do the small things over a long period of time.

So you get the result. But yesterday's wins are not today's wins. If you had a perfect day yesterday. It is gone. You got this day and you do the same thing today. You're counting on the wrong thing This is a indian saying we say that if the night is gone, whatever we spoke about is also gone So all the bad things that we spoke about yesterday is gone.

Leave it behind you. We got a fresh day Why don't you have that for the same winning mentality if you've had 10 wins yesterday? Have the same 10 wins today, have the same 10 wins tomorrow, and next week, what is so difficult about it? And I understand it's difficult because being in that position is very difficult.

In retrospect, we can always look back and say, Oh yeah, that's all I did. I just did like very small things, like five things every single day for a very long period of time. You will become a master in those five things. So that was a big lesson for me. To this day, I struggle with it. I've been doing it for a very long period of time. Let's not do it today. And then, Oh, no. Okay. So yes, this one's not today. The only way out is through. The only way out is through. The only way out is through. And then you just keep on pushing yourself. 

Brad Minus: There's a guy out there that has a program. We call it 75 hard. You heard about it? 

Adi Nair: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: But that's, a testament to what you're saying, right? Do little things. For a long period of time. So this is 75 days. And for those of you that haven't heard of 75 hard, basically, it's, maintain a specific diet for 75 days.

Work out twice a day. For 45 minutes, one of them has to be outside that is dependent upon your level. So for somebody just starting, this actually isn't bad, basically what it's saying is go for two 45 minute walks. And then start to build yourself up that way.

So this is a perfect way to do it. So don't think of that 45, those two 45 minute. You know, you're not going to be oddy, you know, where he's going to go to the gym and he's going to crank out, you know, 450 pounds on a brunch press and, you know, and, and, and killing it. And so you're not gonna be that.

You might be walking outside and maybe you're doing a yoga class or something. Maybe you got something online. You're doing a yoga class, right? So it doesn't have to be, doesn't have to be huge. And then the third thing is that you read a book, a no nonfiction, 10 pages of a book. You take a picture of yourself, profile and every single day.

And drink a gallon of water a day. The gallon of water is the hardest part. That was for me when I did it. It was, I think the rest of the 

Adi Nair: day was difficult for me. 

Brad Minus: Really? 

Adi Nair: Yeah. I was not a big reader. I was always forced to read. I never read, but water was something back home. We drink a bunch of water.

I think my dad used to drink so much water that whenever I would like is, so you learn how watching people. So because my dad would always have a bottle next to him and he would always fill it up as soon as it's over and he would keep on chugging the water. As a kid, I would watch and I'm like, okay, so probably I should, I should also do that.

He's my dad, right? So I, I picked off the habit from him. So we're drinking water is the easiest thing. I probably drink five or six. I really don't. I, I, this ball right here, it's a full bottle. It's got to get over it. Probably I drink it three times like that. But reading is a difficult thing, so difficult.

I hated reading so much. I think day 3 or day 4, I was like, nah, fuck this shit, I'm not doing it. I read it for 3 days, I'm not doing this. But then I kept on reading, kept on reading. The best thing is, I never stopped reading since. After 75, I kept on reading every single day for 10, 10, or whatever, 10 pages a day of non fictional, physical, no, personal development books.

And when New Year began, a lot of my buddies said, let's do it again. I'll do it. So I'm doing it with four other people right now. And we're on day two and I know I'm going to finish it. No problem. Diet would be a big thing because I think I had a bit of sugar over the holiday season.

So I'm not going to have sugar. 

Brad Minus: So you know how I got into that habit of reading. I'll tell you a little secret. Morning, your morning constitution. 

Adi Nair: Morning 

Brad Minus: constitution. When you take your morning shit. You okay. I don't know. That's when I get my 10 pages done. All right. All right. That's a little secret just to tell you you're in there.

There's nothing to nothing to look at. You know, you got Blake Wallace. I can sit there get my 10 pages out of the way. So anyway, TMI TMI, right? But anyway, yeah, and then I same thing. You know, then all of a sudden it became 10 pages. Then it was 20 pages because I would read 10 pages before I went to bed.

And then it was 30 pages because I just got into the book. But again, little 

Adi Nair: by little, by little, by little, right? You took it up a notch. I don't think I've done it yet. I've still, I've been on 10 because again, my default is not to read. I've been only reading for a year now. So I have to do the same 10 pages for at least three years.

So that becomes a default. And then I get increased to 15 and 20. Because I know for a fact, if I do 22 today, I'm not doing 20 tomorrow. 

Brad Minus: You know what? It also depends on the book. 

Adi Nair: Book has got you. This is very true. 

Brad Minus: If the book's got you, you're like, Oh wait, I just got done with that chapter.

I want to see what happens. 

Adi Nair: Oh wow. I read five lectures. Exactly. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. It also depends on the books. A lot of those books that you read and you're just like, and then you're, you're like me, right? I'm sure you're like me. You're like, okay, I started it.

It's not great. It's 10 pages a day. I'll get through it and I will take it as much as I can. If the book's not good, if the book's good, different story. So, but anyway, Adi, you gave us a lot of great information and I think for the new year, you were like the perfect person to have on now, unfortunately, this is not going to go live until February, but, at least we're going to have some great, great ideas that people can get when they're starting on their new fitness journey, or if they just want to change.

What I was saying is basically, you know, looking at what you want to look like or what you want to be, go after it in small increments and then, doing the hard things, starting with health. is going to help those bigger things that you have on your life. Go ahead. I'm a big preacher of doing things, doing hard things like, you coming up with, with a new, like a big giant physical, physical challenge that you've never thought was possible.

And then you work towards it. Now, again, starting slow, working your way up to it. And then by the time you get to that challenge, you're ready to take it on. When you finish that challenge, you will be changed. And it'll, hit on every piece of your life. And you'll be so basically think about it.

You know, somebody that jumps out of an airplane for the 1st time 20 30, 000 feet, you know, and they they drop for, you know, for a minute. And then at 4000 feet, they pull the ripcord. Right? Well, after you've done it that 1st time and you get down to the ground and you lived and you've survived. And 1st of all, it's a beautiful feeling when you're up there.

Now, look at the next obstacle that you've got. Okay. Like you go home and okay. You've got this big project at work and you get a little bit, let's say you get a little bit frustrated. Well, what do you do? Go back to that and go, Hey, I jumped out of a plane at 40, 000 feet and I lived to tell about it.

I can't get over this obstacle. This is nothing. 

Adi Nair: That's the broke it is, you know, when you don't have the money to buy food, when you don't have the money to buy a gym membership and all those kinds of things that you've survived through all that, and then this problem comes on and like, I can do it, but you should just start comparing to your past.

So the past was really, really more difficult. And now this is, this is a problem. It's not that it's not a problem, but it's not as bad as it used to be. I still got a roof on top of my head. I got all my food. I got all the gym. I got all. I got it all. This is just one problem that's come in front of me. I should be able to solve it.

And that's absolutely right. You start comparing to your past problems. You realize that, Oh, this is easy. I can do it. It's all just your perception. 

Brad Minus: 100%. And what you just said about thinking about, Hey, you know what? I've been through this. I got over it. I've been through this.

That's where gratefulness comes in. And that's a whole other episode that we can have. But 

Adi Nair: I think that's more of a proof that you've gone over difficult stuff. So when the new difficult stuff comes along, you're like, I can do it because I've done them the best. 

Brad Minus: Exactly. 

So Adi, I really, really appreciate you joining us here today. For all of you out there, listen, I'm going to put all of this stuff in the show notes. You'll have it, Adi has gotten a air fitness. wordpress. com and you'll see, he's got some photos of himself that you'll be envious to look at, but he's also got some great testimonials read the testimonials because they're remarkable. Everybody that's given them are specific. So it's a, it's a quick website, which I love cause it's nice. It's clean and it gets you. And then he's got a questionnaire that you can fill out before you talk to him.

He's also on Instagram, at Nair fitness, or underscore. Underscore near fit, near dot fit. And then if you go to there, then he's got his link in his bio. That's got all of his other things, but you got to take a look at his pictures, man. They're pretty awesome. So take a look at that.

That'll be in the show notes. 

Adi Nair: No, I believe YouTube is not our fitness as always. 

Brad Minus: And then, now your fitness on YouTube. So check that out as well. And I'll have that in the show notes for you. So, if you're look, if you're watching this on YouTube, please go ahead and hit the like and subscribe and hit that notification bell.

So you always know when a new episode is dropping, if you're on Apple or Spotify and you're listening to this, hey, write a comment and let us know, you know, if you've got a question or leave a review and you know what? It doesn't even have to be a good review.

It can be a bad review because I'm always looking on having ways to evolve this podcast. And as you can tell, this is one of those pieces of evolution that we've gotten, because we've. We've kind of gone into a different, on a different angle here. So this is great. And Adi again, thank you.

Thank you very much. We appreciate it and appreciate everything that you've been doing for your community and keep on, you know, keep on doing what you're doing. Congratulations. Ahead of time for, finishing up your semester and graduating. And, hopefully we'll talk to you again real soon.

Adi Nair: Thank you so much. 

Brad Minus: Thank you. And for the rest of you, really appreciate you hanging out with us today and we will see you in the next one.