Today I’m joined by Justin — a 42-year-old stay-at-home dad, former diesel mechanic, and garage business owner who's been working hard to build a lean, muscular physique without letting the rest of life fall apart.

He’s been shredded at 189, bulked up to 227, and now he’s trying to land somewhere in the middle — strong, athletic, and confident… while still keeping up with the demands of parenting, working out, and running a small business.

This conversation is about physique goals, time pressure

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

Today I’m speaking with Richard Golden — a longtime Ripped Body reader who’s undergone a dramatic transformation over the last decade.

Rich grew up with an identical twin brother who was lean, while he struggled with weight gain, body image issues, and cycles of yo-yo dieting. At his heaviest, he weighed over 230 lbs.

Now at 44 years old, he’s sitting at a lean and healthy 155 — and more importantly, he feels in control for the first time in his life.

We talk about how a painful breakup triggered a turning point, what he learned about sustainability after years of failure, and why he’s now chasing something new: not just maintenance, but mastery.

But can he push through the final plateau now that his health is not on the line — or will comfort hold him back?

Let’s get to it.

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

Today’s guest is Justin Maller — a world-class digital artist and tech founder based in New York. At 41, Justin just completed his first real bulk after years of hovering in maintenance and making no real physique progress.

We talk about what finally pushed him to commit, how he gained 30 pounds and made the biggest strength gains of his life, and why cutting back down now feels surprisingly difficult — despite having done it before.

This is a conversation about late-stage gains, body image rewiring, and what happens when you finally give yourself permission to grow.

Let’s dive in.

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

Michael opens up about his lifelong struggle with weight, starting in his early 20s when he hit 200 pounds, without any muscle. After the birth of his first son, he realized he needed to change — not just for himself, but to keep up as a dad. That was his first serious cut, and it sparked a 10+ year journey of self-education, strength training, and cycles of cutting and bulking.

He’s now stronger than ever but stuck in a long-standing all-or-nothing mindset, especially with weekend eating. During the week, he’s disciplined and in control. But when Friday hits, family time, baked treats, and decompression turn into overeating — not just for enjoyment, but out of habit.

Michael wants to set a better example for his four kids, especially his son, who’s now lifting and developing his own self-control. He’s wrestling with how to stay consistent, how to eat in a way that balances discipline with family joy, and how to shift from "perfect or nothing" to something sustainable.

He’s not just chasing fat loss — he’s trying to break a generational pattern before it repeats.

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

Alex opens up about his years-long battle with performance obsession, burnout, and a hidden addiction to Adderall. What began as a drive to "get the physique" spiraled into overtraining, under-recovering, and chasing a shredded look at the cost of his mental and physical health. A serious injury and a breaking point in his personal life forced him to confront what he was running from — and how much he’d been avoiding.

Alex shares how rebuilding his relationship with food, training, and himself has given him a new mission: to pursue sustainable progress, not perfection. But that doesn’t mean the struggle is over — he's standing at the edge of his next challenge: bulking. And with it comes old fears of bloating, body image, and letting go of his abs.

This is an honest conversation about identity, control, and learning to trust the process — even when it’s uncomfortable.

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

Ryan is stuck in a battle a lot of men never talk about: the fear that changing his body might change how he’s seen - by the world, by his family, and by himself.

He’s no longer chasing a six-pack for vanity. He’s chasing a bigger goal: becoming the kind of role model his daughters deserve.

But to do that, he has to wrestle down the old fears - of getting too lean, of looking "too small," of not being "enough."

This is a raw, vulnerable conversation about what it really takes to fight for growth when staying the same feels safer.

Ryan knows the man he wants to be. The question is: **can he stay in the discomfort long enough to become him?

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

It started with a moment of quiet shame: his girlfriend swooning over a Twilight actor’s abs while Sam sat next to her, skinny-fat and stuck. That moment sent him chasing change — first through generic magazine workouts, then into the hands of a “pro” coach who gave him abs, yes, but also exhaustion, rebound weight gain, and a deep sense of failure.

Sam rebuilt himself the hard way — through obsession, mentorship, and reps. He became the coach he once needed. But success brought its own trap: business mentors told him to prioritize profit over people. That wasn’t who he wanted to be.

In this episode, Sam shares what pulled him back to coaching for the right reasons, the personal loss that changed how he shows up for clients, and why empathy — not macros — is his real coaching superpower.

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

Today, I’m speaking with Danny Lennon.

Danny is the founder of Sigma Nutrition. He is the long-time host of the popular podcast Sigma Nutrition Radio, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Sports Nutrition Association, the global regulatory body responsible for the standardization of best practices in the sports nutrition profession.

In this conversation, we talk about the issues with interpreting research, and why, when someone is trying to persuade you of something, especially a fringe opinion, taking one or two studies they’ve linked to at face value can be a trap.

And given Danny’s background working with MMA fighters, we talk about weight-cutting, and how he makes evidence-based recommendations, despite limited research being available.

I’ve been listening to Danny’s pod for 8 years now. I consider him a good friend, and I hope you enjoy this conversation.

ABOUT THIS POD 🎙
At RippedBody.com, we are known for our no-nonsense nutrition and training guides. We teach you exactly how to achieve the client results you see on the site.

👉🏻 To get started, head over to RippedBody.com and enter your email address.

You’ll get the third edition of our Nutrition Setup Guide, and our email course teaching you how to avoid the 5 most common ways people screw up. We’d be honored to guide you. 🙏🏻

If you have any questions, hit me up in the comments in the articles. I've been answering daily for the last 12 years.

📖  Download our free Nutrition Setup Guide now.

👥 HOSTED BY

• Andy Morgan of RippedBody.com  (Instagram 👉🏻 @andy_rippedbody)

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

Today, I’m speaking with Eric Trexler. Eric has a PhD,  and is a pro bodybuilder,  coach, co-owner of the MASS Research Review, and a metabolism researcher at Duke University.

In this conversation, we talk about the physiological changes that happen when weight cycling (i.e. going through diet and bulk phases) and what this means for us when chasing our physique goals.

We’ve been friends for a number of years now, and it was great to catch up with him. 

In this episode, we discuss:

👉🏻 What Eric is currently researching at Duke University.

👉🏻 The physiological changes he experienced while dieting for bodybuilding shows.

👉🏻 The truth about starvation mode and metabolic adaptation.

👉🏻 How to help clients manage their fitness and health during busy seasons of life.

👉🏻 And more.

I hope you enjoyed our conversation. To keep in touch with Eric, feel free to follow him on his Instagram.

ABOUT THIS POD 🎙
At RippedBody.com, we are known for our no-nonsense nutrition and training guides. We teach you exactly how to achieve the client results you see on the site.

👉🏻 To get started, head over to RippedBody.com and enter your email address.

You’ll get the third edition of our Nutrition Setup Guide, and our email course teaching you how to avoid the 5 most common ways people screw up. We’d be honored to guide you. 🙏🏻

If you have any questions, hit me up in the comments in the articles. I've been answering daily for the last 12 years.

📖  Download our free Nutrition Setup Guide now.

👥 HOSTED BY

• Andy Morgan of RippedBody.com  (Instagram 👉🏻 @andy_rippedbody)

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Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)

Today I’m speaking with Sohee Carpenter.

I first met Sohee back in 2012, and at the time, she was a Stanford student studying human biology. Then she completed a master’s in psychology and is now finishing up her Ph.D. in sports science under my co-author, Eric Helms.

Sohee’s business is evidence-based training and nutrition coaching delivered with empathy and compassion. She has moved away from the “calories and macros for everyone” approach, and her coaching now focuses on behavior change tactics and habits, which comes from her own personal struggles in the past with disordered eating.

At some point, we’re going to come across loved ones who are struggling with disordered eating, and we’ll want to help but not necessarily know how. Sohee specializes in this, which is why I invited her on to chat.

In this episode, we discuss:

👉🏻 What led Sohee to develop an eating disorder when she was only 14 years old.

👉🏻 Why black or white thinking usually backfires and increases your risk of disordered eating.

👉🏻 How to spot red flags that may indicate eating disorders.

👉🏻 The strategies Sohee uses to develop a flexible mindset with her clients.

👉🏻 And more.

ABOUT THIS POD 🎙
At RippedBody.com, we are known for our no-nonsense nutrition and training guides. We teach you exactly how to achieve the client results you see on the site.

👉🏻 To get started, head over to RippedBody.com and enter your email address.

You’ll get the third edition of our Nutrition Setup Guide, and our email course teaching you how to avoid the 5 most common ways people screw up. We’d be honored to guide you. 🙏🏻

If you have any questions, hit me up in the comments in the articles. I've been answering daily for the last 12 years.

📖  Download our free Nutrition Setup Guide now.

👥 HOSTED BY

• Andy Morgan of RippedBody.com  (Instagram 👉🏻 @andy_rippedbody)

------------

Since 2011, we’ve helped 2,000+ busy men get lean, strong, and in control — without supplements, gimmicks, or sacrificing their lives to the gym.

👉 Get our Free 15-Day Transformation Kickstart Bundle

(Training program, nutrition guide, and 15-step course to help you avoid the most common mistakes.)