Hacking The Fat Man
What drives someone to contemplate ending their life at nearly 550 pounds, and what unexpected insight transforms that same person into someone who loses over 300 pounds? Drew Maness, an information security professional with 25 years of experience and former elite water polo player, takes you through his journey from rock bottom to remarkable transformation.
Drew opens his heart completely, revealing how he walked into a motel room in August 2022 with the intention of taking his life. Trapped in a body that caused constant, excruciating pain and believing he had exhausted every possible weight loss method, he had reached his breaking point. What happened next changed everything.
With raw honesty, Drew shares his breakthrough realization: what if he approached his body like a computer system to be hacked? This shift in perspective led to a revolutionary approach to weight management that finally worked after decades of struggling. His most powerful innovation? A cyclical diet framework that rotates different nutritional approaches throughout the week, preventing the metabolic adaptation that dooms most diets to failure.
The podcast delves into Drew's strategic use of supplements to combat inflammation, his experiences with GLP-1 medication, and the life-changing moment he realized his struggles weren't about willpower at all. This revelation freed him from the depression rooted in self-hatred that had plagued him for years.
Join Drew in his continued journey from 550 to see if he makes 175.
Hacking The Fat Man
Beyond the Scale: Life, Loss, and Finding Joy
The journey beyond the scale reveals profound truths about weight loss, psychology, and finding joy amidst life's most challenging moments.
When we think about cravings, most of us focus on willpower and restriction. But what if that approach actually strengthens our desire for forbidden foods? Drawing from behavioral psychology, I explore how our subconscious mind processes negation (spoiler: it doesn't), and why telling yourself "don't think about donuts" virtually guarantees you'll think about donuts. The solution? Freedom. Like a country dog with acres to roam who's perfectly content resting on the porch, giving ourselves permission to eat anything (within caloric limits) paradoxically reduces our psychological need to rebel against restrictions.
But cravings aren't just psychological—they're often your body's way of communicating specific nutritional needs. Chocolate cravings may signal magnesium deficiency, while salt cravings point to electrolyte imbalances. By understanding these signals, we can respond more intelligently to what our bodies actually need rather than mindlessly indulging.
The most powerful revelation came through profound personal loss. After losing two beloved dogs and a dear friend within a devastatingly short timeframe, I confronted mortality in ways that transformed my approach to health and weight loss. I realized that between today and my final day—whenever that might be—the only thing I truly control is how I feel. This clarity shifted everything: weight loss isn't the goal; it's merely a byproduct of creating a lifestyle that supports health, mobility, and joy.
Ready to transform your relationship with food and build sustainable systems that naturally lead to weight loss? Join me on this journey as I navigate the remaining 60 pounds of my weight loss goal, prepare for maintenance mode, and pursue activities like paddleboarding, scuba diving, and completing a triathlon—all while choosing joy every step of the way.
Discover daily tips and updates on the Hacking Fat Man journey. Follow on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for transformation deep dives and more insights.
Link to download the Hacking The Fat Man Diet, Schedule and Supplements
Hi, welcome to the third episode of Hacking the Fat man. First of all, happy Father's Day to everyone out there. Brief update, quick update still hovering at 230. My weight's bouncing a couple pounds here and there, but according to my scale, I've gained 6% muscle and I've dropped 6% fat over the last three weeks. So it's just my body reconfiguring itself Right now. It's not uncommon, it happens quite often, and so I just continue to do what I do. I know it's going to work. I know at some point I will have another big drop when my body is ready to do it Again. This isn't about necessarily the weight loss right, that's an end goal of it but it's about establishing a lifestyle, a process that I can wake up every day that will enable me to live that life, and we're going to get into that today on the podcast, before I get started or not before I get started, because I've already started At the end of last week's episode I read a question from my buddy, tom, asking me about cravings and how I handle cravings.
Speaker 1:And to answer that question there are cravings and there are cravings. And there are cravings and there are cravings and how I handle cravings. And to answer that question there are cravings and there are cravings and there are cravings and there are cravings, meaning there are a bunch of different types of cravings. There are a bunch of reasons why we have cravings. So I want to address the first one, because this actually kind of stumped me a little bit, because I don't necessarily have cravings. I get that oh pizza sounds good tonight, or lasagna or get those, but I don't necessarily have cream. I get the oh pizza sounds good tonight, or lasagna or get those, but I don't get. You know where? I wake up in the morning and I'm craving something and until I eat it, I you know I'm just going to be miserable. I don't get those much anymore, and a lot of it comes from the fact that I'm not limiting myself in my diet. Right, I literally can eat anything. That's what I'm trying to tell everyone is you don't have to limit and restrict your diet. Now, you should in certain cases, but that's because you want to do it, not because you're forced to do it.
Speaker 1:And that reminds me of a story. I believe this came out of Sunday school, but it was the story of a city dog versus a country dog, and it's about learning that if you give yourself restraints or restrictions that it automatically, subconsciously, creates this need to go against those restrictions. So if you think of a city dog, right, city dog lives in an apartment or lives in a small backyard and the second that door's open they're gone. Right, they want to go explore and see things because all they've known is this little area. But a country dog, if you think a country dog that's got no fences can go, have all these acres that it can go roam around, where do you find a country dog? Well, you find that country dog, usually sleeping on the porch, because it can go do anything it wants. It's fine and content where it is.
Speaker 1:And that's true for us, right, you give yourself limits and sometimes you're going to want to rebel against those limits, literally. This morning I had to not force myself but I wasn't in the mood taking my supplements because I have to do it every single day and I'm like you know what, I'm getting a little tired of it. I still ended up taking my supplements because, ultimately, I know how they make me feel, but sometimes it gets a little tough. So, by not giving ourselves limits, by giving us ourselves the freedom to go and eat whatever we want If I want a donut today, I'll have a donut. I just need to account for the calories. If you want ice cream, you can have ice cream. You just need to account for the calories. Now, and if I also know that if I continue to eat those things, or only those things, I'm going to feel horrible. So, anyway, give yourself the ability to eat anything, don't limit yourself, and you'll find that some of the cravings go away.
Speaker 1:The other thing about cravings is also how you're processing those in your head. Let me give you an example of this. According to psychologists and I kept the link and I can't find it, but there are psychologists out there that say this the subconscious mind doesn't understand, not. So let me explain this to you. Let me do it like this. Let's do an experiment. I want you to clear your mind, just blank. Just don't think of anything Good.
Speaker 1:Now I want you to not think about hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream melting on top. What just happened? You're thinking of hot apple pie. You have a vision of hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream waiting on board. I told you not to think about it. Don't think about it. Oh wait. No, you're still thinking about it. In fact, some of you now are starting to crave it. I'm starting to crave it. The body doesn't understand. Not, I don't want hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream. All the subconscious heard is you want hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream. So let me undo this for you and for myself, because I'm on my way to getting a hot apple pie and vanilla ice cream right now.
Speaker 1:So, instead of saying not, I don't want, say I'm good, I'm good, I have everything I need right now. Notice, I didn't say I don't need anything else or I'm not hungry, cause, again, the subconscious doesn't like or understand not, and hungry is kind of a ubiquitous thing. But no, I'm good, I'm satisfied, I have everything I want right now. Say it again I'm good, I'm satisfied. Now, where did those thoughts go for that? That I'm not going to say it again, again because I don't want to put it in your mind. But where'd they go? They're gone. You no longer want or need those things. So how you think about using your subconscious and helping your subconscious understand and communicating with it helps the cravings as well.
Speaker 1:The other thing about cravings and this is purely ZipBound the GLP-1s. It's impossible for me to get a bag of chips, start to eat it and then finish that bag. Zetbound just refuses to let me do that. My body just goes okay, you're done. You literally don't need to eat anymore. Stop it. So in that sense I am getting some benefit of it. But it doesn't stop the initial craving of I wanted chips. And if I limited myself oh Drew, you're keto, you don't get to have chips I will then continue to want chips. If I tell myself you can have them, but you don't. You know you can have them if you want Then my body goes okay when I want I can and it relaxes. So I hope that makes sense to people talking about cravings and and how to handle them.
Speaker 1:The other thing is the type of cravings that you have can also mean something. It's your subconscious or your body telling you that you need something. So this is from. This was on Instagram earlier this week from Dr Joss Axe. He says if you're craving chocolate, your body needs magnesium. That's a new one for me. I didn't know that Interesting that in the back of my mind. If you're craving salty snacks, your body needs electrolytes that I did know. And if you're craving sugar, your body needs blood sugar support. I understand what he's saying there with blood sugar support, because it's either elevated blood sugar or low blood sugar, and so you need to figure out what that is. I have always interpreted that, or initially heard it at first, was that if you craved sugar, specifically ice cream, that you're dehydrated or it could be a sign of being dehydrated. So when I get sugar cravings, I tend to add water and or electrolytes just to see if those sugar cravings go away. And if you're craving red meat, your body needs iron. And if you're craving fatty food or fried food, your body is telling you it needs healthy fats. So again, cravings, the type of craving you have, could mean something. Keep that in mind.
Speaker 1:By not limiting ourselves, by increasing or allowing ourselves to eat every type of food or any type of food, it also reduces cravings. And then how we talk to ourselves about the cravings Again, we don't say we don't want something. We just say we're good, we're fine, and that will help the cravings. Again, we don't say we don't want something. We just say we're good, we're fine and that will help the craving go away. If you say you don't want something, subconscious doesn't understand that and it is going to go try and get that for you. So that is the topic of cravings. So I was going to spend this week this podcast talking about cravings and other pitfalls of dieting and how to overcome them. But in researching it I'll save that topic for later, maybe in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1:By the questions I've been getting on Facebook and even the question on cravings, I wanted to touch on something. So, first of all, to those that have reached out and asked questions, keep it coming. I love it. If I can answer, I will. I'm not going to pretend I have all the answers. Trust me, that's actually part of this is me discovering the answers or us discovering those answers together. I still have a long road on my journey. I consider myself halfway there. I still have 60 pounds to lose. Not only that once I get there, I have to learn how to then transition into maintenance mode. And then the final question is do I stay on Zepbound or do I try to go off of it? That's another two years as far as I'm concerned, but anyway, we'll get to that.
Speaker 1:But on the questions, I got a couple of questions of hey, I've lost weight, or I need to lose 40 pounds, or nothing is helping and nothing is working, and I wanted to take a step back and really drive this point home. You're kind of asking the wrong question, trust me. Trust me. I just said I need to lose 60 pounds. I understand that need, but you're only focusing on one thing, and that is the weight loss. What you're really saying is I want a lifestyle that enables me to be 60 pounds lighter and do the things that I want to do. Now that's a different thing that you're building right. If you want to lose weight, you can go lose weight. I've done it Again. I've lost now almost 1,300 pounds in my lifetime. It's not about just the weight loss. It's about enabling the system, your body, your lifestyle to support you in that measure.
Speaker 1:I think we've all heard the saying that if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. Something along that line I'm trying to incorporate that into my lifestyle is I want to bring love into everything I do. I want to love everything I have. You heard me talk about joy. I want joy in it, and the reason for that is if you do it from a place of joy, a place of love, then you're not working. It's not hard, because you're getting pleasure out of it. It's helping you meet a need, and that's what I am trying to build with this program that it becomes second nature, that it's just as easy as breathing, that I don't have those weird cravings, I don't have those things that made me 550 pounds. I just get rid of them, systematically get rid of them, and that is by my steadfastness. And this isn't a want, this is a need and of joy in my life. If it doesn't bring me joy, I take it out of my life. This is a hard requirement for me. I am unwavering for it.
Speaker 1:But I wanted to talk a little bit. I didn't do this in the first episode of the podcast One, because that was already a heavy episode alone, just talking about the summer of 22 and everything that went on there, and so I kind of left you with this impression that you know, I think the last time we were talking I was in March 23. I was down in San Diego and I had that epiphany about ZepBound that it was giving me the feeling of satisfaction, and then suddenly my life was perfect, my depression faded away, and that's not really how it happened. So I'm going to spend the rest of this podcast talking about what really happened there and why I am so adamant about joy in my life. So I'm going to take us back March 23. I'm down in San Diego.
Speaker 1:I kind of alluded that I had a slip in my diet where I ordered my two double quarter pounders with cheese, my two large fries and my two Diet Cokes large Diet Cokes and that it was work stress and everything else. Well, that's only part of it. There was some work stress. I was traveling, there were some other things going on, but on a personal level. So again, just reminding everyone, in January of 23, I went to my doctor for the first time in three years, had a physical found out I had an abdominal hernia and that I was too fat to operate on and that I needed to continue to lose weight. At this point in time I'd already lost about 100 pounds. A hernia surgeon put me on Zetbound to help about my weight. That happened Also in late January.
Speaker 1:Early February one of my dogs, leopold, who was my favorite dog. He came up limping on his right paw and we started noticing a bulge coming out of his elbow. So we took him to the vet. Leo was a little stocky guy, carried a lot of weight, really dense bone mass. I called it his superpower. The doc said he probably jumped and it might be a tendon or ligament or something in the elbow. So we let him rest, we kept him off it. I put him in a cage for a little bit and then a couple of weeks went by and no, he was still having problems. So we took him in for x-rays and everything and, long story short, it ended up being in March, as I was heading down to San Diego. It ended up being cancer. So that was weighing on me at the same time was part of everything going on with Leo and the cancer. And it wasn't just cancer in the elbow that he did have some spots in his lungs.
Speaker 1:And for those of us that have pets, I am a proud pet parent. They are my kids. I love them just as much as I love my kids Sorry, kids I do, but it was the first time I had to deal with someone I love, someone that close and realizing I have no control over anything. Now there are things I could do to help Leo, and we did. We tried. Yeah, that was the beginning of me realizing that the universe really doesn't care about me, that I am not in control of anything, and it could be a split second and I'm no longer on this planet or someone I love is no longer on this planet.
Speaker 1:Fast forward a couple of months. We're now at the end of May 23. And we've gone back and forth with the vet and the oncologist with Leo, whether it was bone cancer in the elbow or lung cancer. It's unusual for a dog to get both bone and lung cancer. It's actually kind of unusual for a dog to get both bone and lung cancer. It's actually kind of unusual for dog to get lung cancer initially. But what they were saying was, if it was bone cancer, the prognosis was six months. We're already three months into it or four months into it. And if it was lung cancer though, lung cancer could take longer and we could amputate the arm. If it was lung cancer in the elbow, we could amputate the arm and help save him and then do chemo and some other things for the lungs. So my wife and I decided to do that and I took the week off to have Leo operated on. The operation was Monday. I went and picked him up it's now Tuesday night when I brought Leo home, and I'm giving some context here just for the rest of the story It'll make sense here in a second.
Speaker 1:So that night a buddy of mine from work called me. His name was Ron Wetzel. Now Ron and I have known each other for 25, 30 years. We were part of Disney's first information security team. In fact, ron himself was the first security person Disney had employed, working at the Disney Internet Group back in the late 90s. And Ron and I had worked together over the years and he had fallen on some hard times and was looking for work. It's hard when you're in your mid-50s sometimes looking for work, people don't want to hire you because you're too old or too qualified or whatever. So I brought Ron into Activision and he was just about to join me on the BESA side, the business information security side. Actually I think technically he had already transferred over.
Speaker 1:Ron called me Tuesday night to check on Leo, check on see how Leo's doing. And as I was talking to Ron, he he sounded sick, he didn't sound well. Um, and I knew Ron had COPD and he. So I asked him what was going on and he said that, uh, he thinks he had COVID again. And I told him well, you know, knowing that he had COPD hey, bud. You know, if it starts getting too bad, go down to the hospital, get yourself checked in. He's like yeah, yeah, yeah, I will. So we said goodbye and sorry. That was the last I heard from Ron.
Speaker 1:A couple days later, work contacts me that Ron hadn't shown up for work. Not going to give you the whole story, but it ends up yeah, ron had passed away that night. Yeah, ron had passed away that night from complications he had just had dental implants and put in a couple of weeks earlier and it was a bacterial infection, that it wasn't COVID, it was actually a bacterial infection that went to his lungs. I know you're all wondering how this gets to Joy, but I'm getting there. Move forward.
Speaker 1:A couple of weeks, two, three weeks later, one of Leo's best friends was a dog we had called little bit. He was a rescue. I mean, we knew little bit had, uh, um, a heart murmur. Anyway, little bit, about three weeks after ron, little bit ends up, basically ends up having a heart attack. I didn't know what a dog having a heart attack sounds like, but I now do, do Never want to hear that again. But so Little Bit ends up passing away. So I've now lost Ron, I've now lost Little Bit and a week later, while we thought for the first couple of weeks after Leo's surgery, he seemed to rebound Actually we thought maybe we'd actually beaten it Three, almost four weeks later, all of a sudden he starts coughing, coughing, coughing. It ends up. It is just pure lung cancer and there's nothing we could do and we had to put Leo down.
Speaker 1:So within a period of a month I had Ron, little Bit and Leo and it broke me. I'm telling you right now. It crushed me. I literally shattered all the while trying to still lose weight and it actually it was that time period that I felt that death was swirling around me and I started to feel like maybe I'm not making it out of 23, that I still. I basically had to come to grips with death and I know this is getting really heavy, really quick, but it was starting to freak me out a little bit. And, trust me, the irony that less than a year earlier I was already ready to walk off the planet. Now I'm sitting here a year later worrying about death. That irony is not lost on me, but that's where I found myself and where I landed on.
Speaker 1:This was and hopefully this helps some of you. There is nothing I can do about that. That is the human condition that is out there. There is a day waiting for me. I have no idea. It could be today, it could be tomorrow, it could be 10 years, 20, hopefully 30 years from now, but it's coming for me. Nothing I can do about that. Do about that.
Speaker 1:The only thing I can control between now and then is how I feel and how I let other things feel, and what I mean by that is losing Leo and losing Little Bit and losing Ron crushed my soul. But that was my decision to let it crush my soul. I didn't want to think of Leo and feel sad and this huge loss, and he wouldn't want that. He'd want me to feel happy about it. So I purposely, every time I thought about him a little bit, even Ron, I think of the good things. I thought of the good things, and so that learning to reconfigure my mind to allow the goodness into it and not obsess about the loss, because the loss, that's just me, right, that's. I control that Again, making that decision. From now until I die, I control what I feel.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what I want to feel. I want to feel joy, I want to feel happiness. I want to feel safety right, and I was. I want to feel happiness, I want to feel safety Right, and I was assuming it was all coming from the outside. It's not, it's coming from inside. It's coming by how I choose to interpret things and I have control over all of that. So when I say I want joy in my life, I am not kidding. I'm deathly serious when I say I want joy in my life, that my diet and where I'm heading needs to bring me joy. 100,000% is what I'm trying to get to there. Happiness Moving on.
Speaker 1:So now, right behind me you can't see it if you're just listening to the podcast, but behind me on the video is a Google Home device and it is constantly rotating through pictures of my dogs. They bring me happiness and joy. Whenever I look at actually that's, I think, a little bit right there. I can't see, but whenever I see a picture a little bit or I see a picture of Leo pop up on there, I just think of all the good times. I don't think about my loss, that the fact that they're not here and that pain. Instead, I just think of them, you know, licking my face and running around and barking and all the quirks that they had, and it brings me happiness and it totally freed me up from that depression and loss. So, yeah, that is why I say about bringing joy is I have no idea how much time I have left on this planet. No one does. All I can do is choose how I feel between now and then and how I go into that, and I plan on doing it with love and joy Flat out, that's just. It's non-negotiable as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1:So that was this week's episode of Hacking the Fat man. We talked about cravings and how to deal with them, how to talk to ourselves about cravings. The fact that we give ourselves permission to eat anything we want, as long as we stay within the caloric limits that we've set, tends to reduce cravings, because your body doesn't. As I said, I can have a donut if I want. I just don't feel like having one right now. I can't even think of the last time I ate a donut, but if I had told myself I couldn't, what we're saying every time, the subconscious doesn't understand. Not, you don't get to have donuts, drew. Right now, my subconscious is I want a donut, and it would continue to do that if I kept that conversation going. So instead I say I'm good, I'm satisfied, I'm happy, and it just disappears.
Speaker 1:We also talked about why we want to put joy in our life, and to again drive this point home is the weight loss, and where you want to go is secondary. It's not the primary thing that you're actually building. What you're really saying is I want a lifestyle that enables me to be 40 pounds for me, 60 pounds less that, to be active and to be 175 pounds with the 10% body fat. That's kind of the picture I'm developing for myself right now. That's the life I'm building and I still have a lot of work to go the 60 pounds. I'm in no hurry to get to the 60 pounds because I'm making sure that it is my everyday routine that is supporting it. It's why I'm not getting frustrated with the plateaus, and I still have a whole bunch of work left in front of me.
Speaker 1:Not only do I have to get the 60 pounds down, I have to learn to get into maintenance mode and keep that weight and increase my activity. I want to paddleboard, I want to go scuba diving, I want to actually run a triathlon or do a triathlon. Well, how's my diet going to change, trying to accomplish all those things and still maintain the weight, or at least keep it at the weight I want, while achieving those goals. So I still have a whole lot to learn. I hope you come along with me for the ride as we learn them together. I don't have all the answers. I'm not going to pretend to tell you I have all the answers. I'm just going to give you how I've thought about it and what I'm working on right now. So anyway, thank you for joining me. I really appreciate all of you and we will see you next week for Hacking the Fat man. Cheers, bye.