5 Weird but Effective Ways to Add Muscle | Mind Pump 2789

Key Takeaway

When building muscle, don't overlook unconventional methods backed by science. One powerful approach: spread your workout across an entire day - doing a few sets every 2 hours instead of one long session. This 'cluster day' technique, inspired by Soviet Olympic training, produces remarkable strength gains by keeping you fresh for each set while accumulating serious volume.

Episode Overview

This episode explores five scientifically-backed but unconventional muscle-building techniques that complement traditional training. The hosts discuss cluster days (all-day training sessions), blood flow restriction (BFR) training, super slow motion reps, overcoming isometrics, and post-activation potentiation - methods proven to build muscle but often overlooked. While these shouldn't replace fundamental strength training principles (progressive overload, high protein, consistency, sleep), they offer powerful tools for breaking plateaus, preventing injuries, and adding variety to advanced training programs.

Full Transcript

Transcript of 5 Weird but Effective Ways to Add Muscle | Mind Pump 2789 from Mind Pump Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

When it comes to building muscle, uh, the consistent is true. Strength train, eat high protein, be consistent with it, get good sleep, but there are some weird things you could do that have been shown, proven to add some muscle to your body, and they're weird because you don't do them all the time, but there's data supporting them, and we've seen them work ourselves. We have experience with them with clients and ourselves. So, we're going to tell you about these weird ways that actually build muscle. They really work.

Check it out. I live in the weird cell. Yeah. I I was actually looking at this. I'm trying to think of Oh, there's a there's a couple of these actually. You definitely do. definitely do. definitely do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's I I see three that Justin does. Yeah. I mean, we've all played with Well, the only No, the first one is I The first one is the only one that I feel like you really have done like truly tested. I've done like versions of this first one, but not like like how you have and it's on my list of I need to do this.

Yeah. Well, I want to be clear. The reason why they're weird is because they're not these aren't things you do all the time and they don't replace uh the staples. So, they're not going to replace replace replace interruptors. interruptors. interruptors. In other words, if you're not doing the the basics, the important stuff, uh then don't waste your time doing this stuff. Like, don't don't practice, you know, spinning, you know, backwards slam dunks when you can't dribble, right? You got you got to practice the basics because they give you the most output.

And you guys are laughing about the sport. It's like when you take my analogies and just bastardize them. I got you. I like it. It's my analogy. You bastardize. That's a thing. That's basketball, right? Never heard it. That's basketball, right? Described like that. All right. Here we go. GO SPORTS GO. GO. Here we go. Stick to your own analogies, bro. Listen. Listen. Just talk about mitochondria over there. Touch. All right. So, look. Here's here's one of them. And I've done this before and it's wild. And I I got this idea actually a long time.

I never really put it into practice until much later, but I got this idea uh by reading on uh how the Soviets train their Olympic athletes. Uh and then in general, the science of strength training is the best in Olympic lifting. They just they have the most science because countries compete with Olympic lifting uh and they spend a lot of money on it. It's the most scientific form of strength training. That doesn't mean mean mean lots of government funding. That's right. It doesn't mean you need to apply how they train because it's different than bodybuilding.

It's different than other forms of strength training. It's not appropriate for everybody. everybody. everybody. But they've invested so much money and time. I mean, the Soviet Union at one point was like they were all in all in. And they had athletes living in their labs essentially and they they produced like crazy athletes. Crazy. They dominated. Uh and it was because they just really apply the scientific method. scientific method. scientific method. Found out later they cheated a lot. But yeah. Well, I mean, look at And that's I'm I'm glad you brought that up.

cheating. You ain't trying. Athletes were using anabolics all over the place. When the iron curtain fell down, when the Soviet Union dissolved and their coaches came over here and went to other countries, you suddenly saw people saw people saw people all of a sudden there's explosion of uh Yeah. So, their training methods were remarkable. And one thing, one thing that they did was they would extend workouts workouts workouts for super long. Now, it's not because they did tons of exercises. It's because they would do an exercise and they take a long time in between and then they do another one and then they take a long time in between and then they go eat and then they come back and do it again.

And a lot of athletes were taking all that total volume and putting it kind of in one workout. Whereas the Soviets were doing this thing where they were having athletes in there for five or six hours or eight hours because they would kind of spread it out. And out. And out. And my idea was I wonder what would happen if I kind of took a high volume workout that I would do maybe that would take me an hour and a half or so. Yeah. and I just spread it out over a whole day.

Yeah. Like, what if I did a few sets at 9:00 a.m. and then I would come back at 11:00 a.m. and do a few more sets and come back again at 1 and did another few sets. What if I did this till like 5:00 p.m. And in between I would eat and in between I would rest, maybe a little stretching. Like, what would happen? Well, I'll tell you what happened. I got stronger. And it was wild. It was really crazy uh what I what I got from something like this.

So, this is something you can experiment with. And it's obviously not for everybody, but especially if you have a home gym, it's wild the strength gains that you get. Uh it's a fun experiment. I did it one time after you had mentioned it and it was like it was wild because you do um you do realize like you're capable of a lot of volume as long as you spread it out throughout the day because you can recover and then it it's interesting how much better you get at the lift because it's like if you allow for more rest in between like your body just responds and recognizes it more powerfully.

I want to brand these. I want to brand these. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I mean does there there's not really a name for this, right? Sal's workout workout workout cluster day. Cluster days. A cluster day. Because it reminds me of like a cluster set. Oh, sure. Done all through the day. Cluster day. Cluster day. Cluster day. And one of the things that like blew my mind about cluster sets was that ability to like the amount how heavy of a weight that you could do just by this these little break these little breaks.

Now, that cluster set is done in a short period of time. Yeah. It's like you wait 15 seconds and you do you do you do and so it's like the in my in my like kind of things like a cluster day. It's like it's the day you're doing you're not doing a lot of volume in these little work these little micro workouts or you know all day micro workout would be another thing you could call it. But I've I haven't done it to the extent that you have, but there was times uh and this was back when I was competing and training all the time where I would I'd have these workouts where I'd be I'd go to the gym three times like I would just I'd come in the morning and then I'd do a little bit of work and then I come out and then and I also walk cuz I was trying to move a lot at the time and then come back in the afternoon then come back in the evening and I just saw and I wasn't really adding a lot more.

It was I was breaking it up is what I was doing and it was awesome. It was It's super fun, dude. The The thing that blew me away, all three workouts, I felt so strong. Whereas, if I put all of it together, you know, when you're when you're especially if you're training as long as we've all been training, you when you get about 30 to 45 minutes into your workout, uh like you you feel like you're getting stronger for the first 20 to 30 minutes and then you feel like you kind of and then the back you feel you can feel it.

You can feel like around 40 45 minutes, an hour, an hour, an hour, especially with good intensity. Yeah, exactly. With good like you're you're you're tailoring off. This is where you the the old like finisher sets and exercises volume. Yeah. Junk volume comes in is because like those exercises and you tend if you do it right, you put the ones that are really important in the front and these less important exercises towards the end. You're not really whereas if I spread it out in the day like that, I could do all these major exercises and I feel really strong in all of them.

And when you think of the total time I'm working out, I'm working out as much or more time, but it's spread out. What's what's wild to me, here's what I experienced doing this. So mine look like this. I would pick two or three exercises and I would do three sets of each. So, typically it was two exercises and I do like squats and bench press or something like that. And I do the same exercises all day cuz the idea was like, let me get let me just see what I could do with these exercises.

And I would pick a weight that I could do five or six reps with that normally I do 10 reps with. So, that's the intensity. Okay. So, it's heavy but it's not like hard. And I do five reps, three sets for squat and then I go to bench and do three sets. What was weird is by the time I got to because so it would start at 9:00 a.m. then it would come back at 11:00 then I come back at 1:00. The when I got back to the 100 p.m.

and the 3 p.m. I was stronger. It was weird. It was like I was getting stronger as the day went on. And then as the day continued to go on then I didn't notice a little bit of fatigue. But by the end of the day I did all these sets of squat, all these sets of bench press and then I come back to do those lifts. Uh you know four or five days later I was like really strong. It was really really wild. It's a lot of fun.

Yeah. I did the same with that. It was two. It was just squat and overhead press and but like yeah it like you said it it just it it kind of ramped up. I just kept getting you know stronger stronger stronger and then slowly towards the end started kind of tapering off. The only thing was the downside was the I was pretty sore dude. Pretty damn sore knowing you probably went too hard. I definitely teetered over the threshold. threshold. threshold. Yeah. So next up is blood flow restriction training.

Uh, I don't see people talk about this anymore, but about 10 years ago, lots of people were talking about this. This is a super weird way to add quick muscle. It's really, really strange. And it was discovered years ago uh, by I think it was a physical therapist or scientist who noticed when he would sit on his knees for long periods of times, he would get oluded in his calves because he would his calves would get good blood flow and they'd get swollen. It'd be like swelling from it, like almost like a pump.

And so we started studying this and this became uh a physical therapy method. And so the way they would use it is if you have an injured knee, we can't put much load on your legs. Uh but we want to strength train still. So what do we do? How do we work around that? You can't put much load, but we want to strength train. So what they would do is they would use a device and you can use a knee wrap for this. And you tie it around the top of your thigh tight enough to cause occlusion.

So not so tight that you you you lose feeling, right? but tight enough to where you blood is not coming out like it did before. It's going in but not coming out as much. Then they would do some sets of an exercise like leg extensions. And what happens is because you can't get rid of the waste byproduct of the exercise fast enough, it it fatigues and and it starves the muscle enough to where the fast twitch muscle fibers of act as if they're lifting heavy weight.

And so it it's simulating heavy weight and you get similar results. Now, I experimented with this and I never added the fastest the it sucks, but the fastest half inch I ever added to my calves was adding BFR. It was like 3 weeks I had like a half inch to my calves from doing this. Pretty wild. Believe it or not, I used to be the skinny guy. There's nothing worse than being a dude and being called skinny, especially when you're trying to gain weight. Pack on some muscle and completely change how people see you.

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Go to mpvalentine.com. mpvalentine.com. mpvalentine.com. Here comes the show. We we've known this uh in physical therapy for a long time. It's been like I know that professional athletes in particular I think it started in hockey have been using this for a a really long time. It's and it's awesome for that. Like I think it's a cool like you like you've labeled this weird hacks to build muscle if you've never messed around with it. I saw the same things especially with calves. Um, but really really cool tool for trainers for uh rehabbing clients.

You know, how many times have you got a client fantastic for that for that for that that you know is fresh off of a knee surgery and gone through the rehab and now you're the one who's training them, you know, before it's like and you know, you're probably not a good idea to go backload, you know, them and load up a bunch of weight and squat right out the gates early on in this person's training, but I definitely can include them and do some exercises with that and really get this crazy pump and make it feel like they trained really intense with really light weight.

Super valuable. You pick really light weight. You do a lot of reps. You rest for 30 seconds. You repeat. Rest 30 seconds. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. And you would be surprised at how few reps you could do by the second and third set. And the fire that you feel there is no burn I felt in my life. Like occlusion. Blood flow resp. I was just facteing myself. It the origin of it was a doctor in Japan. Japan. Yeah. Japanese doctor. That's I I for some reason I thought it was Katu was his last name.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then it gets first introduced. Then Haki was You're right. Okay. Yeah. Then it was then it was hockey who they first started using and now now all athletes it's like a a known rehab strategy rehab strategy rehab strategy that they can do really even when the when the the the client is still recovering. You know what I'm saying? Because it's not a lot of risk because it's so low of weight and resistance. resistance. resistance. It works best on the extremities, arms and legs.

Uh and you you would add you know this to the end of one of your workouts in a week. Um, and it's crazy how and you get the most crazy pump you've ever had in your life. I I played with it a lot and I really liked it. Uh, to the but I I started and I saw such great results from it. I did the typical, you know, knucklehead trainer thing is like I started to it started to replace other things. No, you can't do that either.

And then what I realized was that it's awesome. It's good. It's not better than traditional strength training. And so what it it complements it really well. It'll add like 10 15%. It's best if you have restrictions like you said like for rehab or or in that regard or as novelty. novelty. novelty. Yep. Yep. 100%. Next up is super slow motion training. Now this was a method of strength training that came about during World War II. So during World War II, they were rationing metals, iron. You couldn't make dumbbells and weights because they needed it for the war efforts.

And so in the in the 1940s, there weren't a lot of gyms, but there were a few gems. This is when bodybuilding and strength training started to kind of grow. And so the gyms were stuck with like 20 lb dumbbells and like light barbells. And so what did the athletes do? They said, "Okay, well instead of, you know, two or 4 seconds on the on the descent and two or 4 seconds on the positive, what if I made it 30 seconds? What if I did a 30 second negative and a 30 second positive?" And this created super slow motion training.

And if you do this all the time, it's not great. But if you do it every once in a while, it's pretty awesome. It's really And you can do this with any exercise. Pick a really lightweight though. It's way harder than Well, there's an entire franchise that's across the country built off of this and they really they target advanced age people. people. people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh it's really safe. Yeah. That's what makes it this is a great way. You have a a client who's uh you know advanced age, so 70 plus, never really strength train.

You're trying to reverse or slow down osteoporosis. you're trying to do something like that, here's a really cool way to do that with low risk, right? Like uh you you we all know the benefits of building muscle from, you know, the big compound lifts, but you get 70-year-old frail client who's never lifted before. There's very high risk with doing some of these movements. Great way to start them is these, you know, isometrics or really, really slow movements with a little bit of resistance and safe and great way to build muscle.

average person. Here's where I see the benefit of this. One, novelty. That's always cool. But two, if you have trouble feeling a muscle, this is great. is great. is great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're doing a compound lift like a like a row or a press and you're like, man, I don't feel my chest. I don't feel it in my lats. Go real light. Make it a 30 second negative, a 30 second positive where you're just focusing on the muscle. You'll feel the muscle. One of the best ways.

Or like if you've been uh out of training for a long period of time, you're coming back in you know, just to provide you with a better amount of stimulus and intensity. I feel like is a great way to reconnect. I'm I'm doing this right now. So, um, one of my like I'm right now strength is ramped up. Uh, and I have been really fearful of moving past 80 lb dumbbell presses. Now, I started at like 50 60s, worked my way up. Oh, cuz you're picked and Yes.

Oh, yeah. And so now I'm at 80s and I'm I'm moving 80s really easy and I want to go 90 100 keep going and I'm just instead of doing that I'm moving the 80s really slow and so I don't want to because that's I reinjured it if those that followed my journey um barbell pressing after I had the tear. So I tore tore my pec minor um when I was wakeboarding and then rehabbed you know did all the things came back and then I was I was bench pressing it wasn't even I want to say it was like 185 barbell 185 barbell 185 barbell just wasn't ready and just reinjured it and so uh you know again I can feel it missing I again I can feel it missing I can feel it's not it's not right but I can also still do dumbbell presses and I've gotten strong again but and now I've ramped all the way up to 80 and now I'm at that place where I'm like, "Okay, I could go to 90 or 100.

I'm moving I'm moving 80s for a lot of reps." And I since I'm running out of reps now, I'm going, "Okay, let me slow down the tempo really slow." The two times I've used this for clients is one, I don't feel my lats. I don't feel my chest. I don't feel my delts. Go real slow and then we're able to really connect. The other time is, and I know you guys have seen this, right, and people have experienced this when you haven't worked out in a while and then you go to do an exercise and it's shaky.

Yep. Yep. Yep. It's like almost like your muscles are laughing. They're like D. This This is what I'll do with a client. So, we're doing a press and they're kind of shaking like, "Oh, I feel like I'm shaky. What's going on?" I'll go light and I'll go, "We're going to go slow." We do one set like this and the shaking stops and we connect and we go back to a normal normal press. Next up, uh, a form of an isometric lift called overcoming. So, overcoming isometrics is when I'm trying to lift something or press something or pull something that I can't move.

Yeah. I movable object. I This is actually my favorite form of isometrics. I mean, everybody's familiar with just holding a pose or a position. Um, but I feel like this is really a way to maximize your efforts and really ramp up uh the recruitment. You get way more recruitment this way, don't you? don't you? don't you? Oh, this is the advanced. This is the muscle building isometric. This one will really fry you if you This one right here, when you look at the data on isometrics, this is the one of all the contractions, all the ways you can lift.

If you were to try to get gains of strength or force production, this is the in three weeks or four weeks, like you're advanced. Let's say you're advanced. Uh I'm good. I'm strong. I haven't been able to add weight to my squat or whatever. If you did this for 3 weeks, you would see a 40% increase in your force. It's it's crazy how much you increase your force production in a short period of time. This is advanced, but this produces crazy short-term gains. So, if you've been like plateauing for a while, do a whole week or two of this with some of your main lifts.

Go back to your lift again and watch what happens. It's pretty wild. pretty wild. pretty wild. Yeah, it's it's awesome. Next is post activation potentiation. I love this, which is this has a lot of data supporting it. It activates more muscle fibers, increases neural activation, same thing. same thing. same thing. Builds more muscle. Here's what it looks like. You do an explosive movement first, then you go do your Oh, sorry. You do a heavy lift first. Yeah. Then you do your explosive movement. So the heavy lift recruits the central nervous system, gets the muscle fibers ready, then you move to something explosive.

So what it looks like is and you pick a weight that's 80 to 90% of your max. your max. your max. So you go do a heavy squat, one rep or two reps, rack it up, and then you wait 3 minutes, and then you do a jump. A jump. Yeah. And this is literally what I did to test out for vertical jump. Uh and it it works fantastic. You get a higher jump. And it's it's strange because I think you know for me it was like well this doesn't seem like logical because um you feel you feel yeah you're like in a grinding type of exercise but really it just it it gets everything lighting up and and recruited to now that's useful force that I can apply.

I I so I remember early on early certifications reading about this and understanding this but never really applying it or or seeing it. And I remember when I first uh realized the potential of it. Um and I had pull-ups had been in my routine for a while. So I had a good relative idea of like how hard a pull-up was and how many I could do and stuff like that. And uh I had just done a And uh I had just done a really heavy deadlift and I jumped up to do a pull-up just to kind of mess around.

And I went I went whoa like it surp surp surp it was I I was so strong and I felt so light. I had never felt that before and I went whoa I'm like oh that's what that is like and I up until that point read about it knew about it never actually really messed that much with it or applied it. Thought oh it's like you just like this uh you know niche thing that doesn't really apply to me. I don't really need to use it.

It's not something I care about. When I did that, it blew my mind. What a cool tool. You know the um what's the reverse called? called? called? So you can also do where you do explosive then go heavy. Yes. It's not called anything, but I've done that before. that before. that before. That's why we were getting confused. And I've used both techniques because that this is also really useful. Like uh I a lot of times when I was short on time on like priming and warming up and I knew I wanted to get into like some heavy squats, I would do a couple explosive jumps, just jump squats squats squats to get and it just kind of wakes everything up.

everything up. everything up. Maybe pre-activation potentiation. Yeah, I I'm pretty sure there is a there is a name for the reverse because the reverse is a tool also. You can use that before you go into a heavy grinding squat. do a couple quick jumps in the air like explosive just two two or three of them real quick and then go in there and it wakes that CNS up and so it's it's another way to kind of prime all those muscles cuz if you move them explosively and I've done it with bench press before where real light weight and and then I get under and then I load it with a really heavy weight and then I can and then you you're just better connected and so both work really well and are super cool to experiment with uh getting into your lifts lifts lifts I think especially if you're an advanced lifter besides the rehab applications for some of these.

If you're an advanced lifter, have fun with these. I know I know I know it's a blast and it's pretty cool. Uh the novelty alone makes a difference. So, So, So, yeah, it just shows you how many more options there are to explore. Uh there's so many things like you can do to train the body. the body. the body. Dude, I got to bring this up because I forgot to bring this up yesterday. So, you know that clip you sent me, Adam, of Jelly Roll and he was doing the um he's like a judge on a show.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Which show is that? Star Search, I think. Revamp Star Search. So there's this it's viral. It's going viral right now. So it's this clip and there's it's it's him. He's one of the judges and apparently the singer had just stopped and Jelly Roll who's this this artist is like he's like tearing up. He's very emotional. Now if you don't know who Jelly Roll is, um he's had a crazy story, hard life, becomes a Christian, talks about all the time, like huge change to his life.

The dude who finished singing also has the face tattoos and stuff. It's almost like it's like almost looked identical. And I get and so he's talking about uh how you know he's had a tough life. This is the singer. He was addicted to drugs. He finds Jesus. It saves his life. This the greatest thing whatever. So Jelly Roll is like, "Oh my god, this is crazy." And he picked Jelly Roll song to sing. So Jelly Roll then goes back and says, "Man, I was praying that I could have an opportunity to talk about God." So it's really cool moment, but here's what I'm bringing this up because there was like two seconds of of that clip that I noticed.

I'm like, Justin will for sure. Justin has this uncanny ability to notice evil people. He's got crazy discernment. Crazy. I love his discernment cuz he's always on point. So, there's like a I know you missed it. There's like a two second where the camera pans. camera pans. camera pans. Christy Tegan is one of the judges. Watch how uncomfortable she gets. They're mentioning Jesus and God and you can see her face like I told the demons in her didn't I didn't even I did not catch that.

Needless to say, I'm not a fan of her. I don't know much about her, so I don't even even even There's a lot of stuff about herb and John Legend and some of the posts they did in the past with their their just I don't know code words that mean something. something. something. There's ties. Yeah, it's all that kind of stuff. Be willing to go look into that. that. that. Like yeah, the like pizza. Now I want to go look back. Look at the clip. I totally It's worse than diddy kind of stuff.

Yeah, bad stuff, dude. Bad stuff. But it's funny cuz like I saw two seconds of her face. I'm like, "Oh, I got to show Justin." Cuz I know for sure right away when he's watching, he's like, "Oh, when you said something like, "Oh, Christy Tegan." Look at that demon. demon. demon. Yeah, she's burning inside right now. But as soon as they mention that, her face is like, "Why are you so That's weird." That's weird." That's weird." Yeah, dude. That's so weird. So hilarious. So hilarious. So hilarious.

Such a cool clip, though. It was such a such a cool clip. Yeah, it was powerful. Such a cool. I mean, I'm I'm tripping out, though. Like I I've been talking about it like the shift in in our culture. Yeah. Yep. And the shift in the media is just like I I don't know. I I I h I can't I struggle with uh how how I feel about it. it. it. Yeah, the media's fake. You you would think you know what it is. Uh I And Justin sent over something uh yesterday.

That was fascinating. The sound thing, right? And then like how our brain recognizes the patterns and it's like or it's it's like once you hear this weird sound, you get primed. Yeah. You get primed like that. Primed. Yeah. Then you hear it forever. So, there's a part of me that like, oh, this this is a good message and that's good. This is all good stuff, but it's just like I don't like feeling like I'm being primed, being primed, being primed, like they're trying to pull a fast one.

Yeah. And so, why? So, because I don't want to be this person who was the uh anti-woke, crapping on all this media content and everything like that uh two years ago and media's evil, bad, and then now all of a sudden I'm like, "Yay, media. Media's look at they're they're sharing all the the stuff that I like. It's like they don't give a [ __ ] about either one either one either one because now you're still being manipulated. manipulated. manipulated. Yes. I'm still being Yes. E either way you're getting manipulated.

And like how many people fall into that trap? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How many people fall into that trap of like you're like no they're not on your team? team? team? Yep. Yep. Yep. They're not on your team now. No. And the media is gone. Media just they just want to sell you stuff. That's a fact. That's 100%. But there's I'll tell you what, there's a verse for that because I brought this up to Chad because I was like, you know what, Chad? So Chad's a pastor.

I work with, you know, I work with him once a week or so and I'm like, man, I'm noticing like this stuff that's happening and it's getting more popular, but I, you know, I get I get really, what's the word? Like skeptical, you know, and it's like, you know, it reminds me of it's like when they remember when they had like uh, you know, Pride Month and they all these companies promoting Pride, but then you saw their their their Middle East ads. Yeah. Completely different. And Yeah.

Totally different. And everyone's like, "Oh, these companies support us." No, they don't. They're just doing what they If you really did, you'd support everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. Yeah. You would do that in Iran, but you don't. Right. So my my I so I'm skeptical with that. So he he he showed me a verse from Philippians and I'm not going to read the whole verse, but essentially it says it doesn't matter what the motives are because it's still it's still getting preached and it's literally in that verse.

So I'm like, "Okay, cool." So yeah, I don't trust media at all, but fine, fine. We still got good messages coming. Yeah. I mean, I mean, that's kind of the attitude I've had about it is just like, "Well, at least it's better stuff." You know what I'm saying? Propaganda or not. Yeah. Propaganda or not, it's like if we'll figure out how to monetize it, you know? know? know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to brainwash my son, brainwash him with good morals and positive things.

You know what I'm saying? It's like that's because that's what it feels like. It feels like they don't really care about, you know, anything other than eyeballs, attention, and that's that's really that's what that's really I got to tell you guys. So, speaking about like media and false or whatever, you guys know Mark Davis is the owner of the Raiders. the Raiders. the Raiders. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Of course. There's Bro, there's the funniest thing. You guys probably already know this, but I don't follow sports.

Not Not if it's new news. I don't how you coming up with this new What are you following? Nothing. It just shows up Tom Brady. No, dude. So So have you seen his girlfriend? girlfriend? girlfriend? Doug, look up Mark Davis girlfriend. So I'll just Is it crazier than Bill Belch's girlfriend? girlfriend? girlfriend? Yes, it is. And then you guys know what Mark Davis, you know what he looks like? Yes. He's like he's almost dead. He's old overweight, you know? He's got like a weird bull cut or whatever.

Yeah. Anyway, Las Vegas owner Mark Davis sparked headlines after saying that his 26-year-old girlfriend, which you'll see, see, see, 26. 26. 26. His that's that's his girlfriend. That's him, bro. So, listen. He got interviewed and he goes, "Oh, no. She she had no idea I was a billionaire." Yeah. She was just like, "Look at this." He's like, he goes, he goes, "She just she fell in love with my smile and my personality. She had no idea I was a billionaire. Bro, he did not say that he did it.

did it. did it. Yes, he did. It's right there. Look, read that. Get out of here, bro. Dude, this is right up there with the the lawsuit about the guy's cuz he had too big. big. big. Yeah, like get out of here. Okay, that's got to be taken out of context. It has to be sarcasm. No, he got interviewed like from the No, come on. If Come on. That's got to be be be It's what he said. I don't know. What would you say if you're in his shoes and someone's calling that out?

You you you you poke fun. Yeah. Was he like tongue and cheek? It's totally That's got to be, bro. That's got to be like she No, she doesn't know I'm a billionaire. She fell in love with my smile. Like that's If some reporter is trying to trying to trying to make fun of me, I'm him, right? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Bro, come on. I I hope he doesn't believe that. Do some digging, Doug. I'm sure he is. You have to be the most delusional person on the planet.

You know, some people delude themselves to feel better. I mean, maybe. But I I bet you this is taken out of context and this is like him. like him. like him. It just cracked me up cuz I saw it and I was dying of laughter. There's no way. That's hilarious. Yeah, she's You just caught my eye. Has to be a joke. Your smile. I had no idea. I mean, it just it makes for it makes for a great meme and and conversation for sure. I was just like, "Wow." Wow.

"Wow." Wow. "Wow." Wow. I know. Isn't that hilarious? Anyway, I mean, okay, you're you're you Okay, you're you're that How old is he? He's How old How old is he? He's 70. 70. 70. He's you're you're 70 years old. Okay. A 26 year old. Yeah. Yeah. You're you're you're 70 years old. You're a billionaire. You don't Your kids are way grown by now. Okay. Fast forward, forward, forward, bro. She's his granddaughter's age. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Do you not like we just met at a Starbucks?

Starbucks? Starbucks? I'm just asking you. I'm asking you. When I date, your your wife doesn't exist anymore. She's moved on or she's passed away. Your kids are all grown. You're a single billionaire. Okay. And and 26-year-old That's Justin. That's Justin. That's Justin. What's your What's her name? My wife doesn't listen, so yeah, I'm definitely Find me a nice 20. Well, I mean, okay. Are you are you out at 70 years old shopping for another 70-year-old lady? 70-year-old lady? 70-year-old lady? I mean, okay, here's the deal.

What does he have in common with her besides the fact that she's young and he wants what are they going to talk what do they do besides sleep with have sex? Like what's he going to like what do you talk about? I mean, do you think that guy What would you talk about now at your age with a 26-year-old? You'd be like, "Oh god, bored. What are we talking about? What are we doing here?" Let alone a 70-year-old. Do you think he doesn't have a dinosaur?

You think he doesn't have enough hobbies and friends to talk to people and do this to fill that gap? Well, okay. Well, okay. Well, okay. I mean, I'm just No, I'm just I want you to think a little bit like a little broader here. Like you he's not You're trying to defend them is what you're doing. you're doing. you're doing. Um I mean, yeah, because I would probably be this guy if I would if I and I would and my wife listens to the show. She knows that.

Like I told her, if this doesn't work out, like it's like you're it you're my one. You're my one, man. This is Yeah. If it doesn't work, then it's going back to and it's yeah, it's five five girlfriends that that don't really care. You know what I'm saying? And I'll keep my friends and all other stuff like that. And just I mean, he's he's got plenty of stuff on his plate. He's got plenty of hobbies. He's got plenty of money. He's got plenty of stuff like that.

Like uh that's the probably part that he can't fill that gap. And and a a 70-year-old partner partner partner picks her up from school. They go on a date from school. She's 26. She's 26. She's 26. He reads her stories at night. That's funny. That's funny. That's funny. It's arm candy. I mean, I'd say he he he gets to walk into dinner and and say, you know, I got one of the hottest chicks at the at dinner with all his other buddies who, you know, know, know, I would almost like reference like Nicki Minaj or something.

I don't even know like a a artist right now that would be like ridiculous. She'd pull him to go watch, you know? I mean, Doug, you're approaching that age, would you? Would you date a 26y old? old? old? Uh, yeah. I mean, I I the politically correct answer is no. Of course not. But yeah, I mean, see, good man. But here's the thing. I'll agree with S, too. I mean, you probably don't have a lot in common. I feel like you I feel like that would be a headache, a nightmare, and Well, it depends on the person.

Drama really does. Depends on the person. She's a 26-year-old who was dating a seven-year-old. What do you think's there? think's there? think's there? Okay. Yeah, but what I What do you think's there? I mean, you can find a hot one with a personality. personality. personality. You could also find And she could be smart. S smart in the fact that like, listen, I I'm I am I'm happy with how he lives his life and does his thing. He gives me the freedom to do my thing. When we're together, we have a blast and stuff like that.

When I'm off doing my thing, I'm hanging out with my friends. Like, we have this murder. I guarantee he didn't just pick some random 26-year-old that was hot. I guarantee that that's not the only 26-year-old hot girl he could have married or hanging girlfriend with. He found one that probably was like, "Cool." Like, he's like, "Listen, I don't have to have convers 26-year-old conversations all day long. She comes to me at dinner. We have a great time. She looks amazing on my arm. She go we go to the boat and she's hanging out next to me like you know on the yacht.

You know what I'm saying? saying? saying? Not a lot about this. You know what I'm saying? And then and then when I want to go have play poker with the boys, she's not giving me [ __ ] She goes hangs out with her girls. I don't care. You know what I'm saying? Meanwhile, you have kids and grand house. Come on. Meanwhile, you got kids and grandkids. You got your grand you got your granddaughters coming up to you. You grandpa grandpa Adam. Who's this? Who's this? Who's this? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I went to school with her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She was younger than me when I was in class. class. class. Who is this? Oh, this is uh this is Papy's grand new girlfriend. Come on, bro. bro. bro. Yeah, you know, I guess uh that's that is one of the downsides for Okay, so okay, it gets it gets publicized because he's obviously in the space of me. Uh does this guy um you know bring does he marry her? Does he bring her around all his grandkids and stuff like that?

Or is this like his girlfriend? You know, it's like this is my girlfriend. like this and he does. I don't have to explain that to my granddaughter cuz yeah, you don't hide her. I'm sure she's totally built. I'm sure she's totally okay taking the helicopter to Bise with her friends while I go do family time with my grandkids. I'm sure she's not like why don't I get to go play with the grandkids. I got to go take the helicopter to Bise with my three three girlfriends, right?

I mean, don't you think that's how it goes down? I don't know. know. know. Yeah, probably. Yeah, probably. Yeah, probably. Yeah, I think it's like that. Probably not a helicopter to Bise, though. though. though. Probably a private jet. All right, I'm changing subject. We just lost every female listener. Adam, good job. Good job. Uh I got some studies, some more studies on uh probiotics. probiotics. probiotics. The studies on probiotics, on fat loss and muscle gain are starting to compile. It's wild. Meta analysis, meta analysis are showing across the board a positive effect on fat loss and probably through speeding up the metabolism.

How long until we start to see companies market it as a fat loss? It's coming. They're gonna 100% they're gonna start marketing probiotics as fat loss product. 100%. It's got more data. Probiotics have more data supporting them for fat loss than every fat loss supplement that's out there. Is that true? I can't think of a fat loss supplement that's got great data supporting. They don't exist. don't exist. don't exist. They don't exist. No. So, No. So, No. So, it's pure marketing. Yeah, dude. So, it's pretty cool.

I I'm I'm looking at there were 45 plus studies that were done to notice an association. All of them noticed a positive. positive. positive. It's kind of interesting why I wonder it would be interesting to talk to Seed, right? We've been working with ACE for a long time. They're the leader the leaders in the space. Curious to why they wouldn't do that if it's got such great, you know, how that's one of the touchiest things you you can advertise towards. towards. towards. Exactly. Advertising those claims is rough.

rough. rough. Yes. Um and they're, you know, they're probiotic. They're established. They do a good job. So, it's a good question. I don't know. But the day here's the thing that I was thinking, right? Uh metabolism. A big part of your metabolism, metabolism, metabolism, gut health, gut health, gut health, is your is is the bacteria in your gut. Yeah. of course that plays a big role in energy production and breaking food down and you know where it goes. Think of how many clients that we've had and our trainers right now have where they're doing a lot of the things right and but their progress is stalled so bad because they have some sort of gut issue that they're dealing with and then they solve their gut issue and all of a sudden bam they start building muscle bam they start losing body fat like it's so important I think I think it's more important than the the science has caught up to.

So here's So I've been using seed for a long time. Uh and it's like a staple and I love it. It really helps with gut health, all that stuff. You know what's really coming in value uh what's the value that I'm getting from it a lot right now is that I'm allow it's allowing me to push my calories and my protein intake without cuz sometimes when you start to push calories and protein, especially when you get past a certain point, it's the gut health, gut health, gut health, digestive issues.

digestive issues. digestive issues. That's what stops it. You hear this all the time like I go too high my barrier. Yeah. It it I can go I can utilize more of the food that I eat and the nutrients keeps me regular. It makes a huge difference. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, you guys know they have a multivitamin. multivitamin. multivitamin. Seed. Seed. Seed. Seed. Look them up, Doug. Look up their multivitamin. I know that. Yes. And I And and it's I I just got it. I've been using it.

So, I like Here's why I like seed a lot. A lot of their science goes into the delivery process, which is with probiotics. How do you keep them alive? How do you get them delivered to the right part of the body without them getting broken down? and all that stuff. So, they use that science with multivitamins. And when you look at nutrients, micronutrients, some of them get absorbed in this part of the digestive system, some of them get used in this part of the digestive system.

And figuring out how to get them where you want them to go is a big problem. Usually, you just throw them all at the body and whatever comes through comes through. They've used their science in the capsules uh that they use with with the probiotics. Also, with a multivitamin, multivitamin, multivitamin, so imagining multivitamin is in multiple capsules. capsules. capsules. That's right. So, one inside one with different discs. different discs. different discs. Oh, wow. Fascinating. Yep. Oh, wow. Oh, that's cool. that's cool. that's cool. Yeah. And I've been using it and Oh, wow.

I haven't seen it. Yeah. And I like it. Do we have any here? Do you know if we have it here? No, I bought it. I didn't want to wait for them to send me one, dude. Remember, they didn't send us a show how bought in you are, though. I mean, it's a product we get for free. You got you got to buy it. Oh, that's cool. You guys want to hear crazy stuff? You guys ever look up uh crazy patents that actually exist? You ever done?

I know you have. you have. you have. Yeah, all the time. There's some weird No, I have my pastime. It's like you looking up studies like I cannot relate to this conversation. Oh, there's weird things that have been patented before. patented before. patented before. 1965. Doug, look this up. Centrifugal force birth delivery or look that up. Birth birth delivery. Centrifugal force patent. 1965. What? What? What? A scientist lightning. That's how you know that's like cattle, right? You do that. The cattle come out. You swing them around like that.

I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. The baby cows, they get all that stuff out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. No. This was a table. Yeah. No. This guy invented a table that to help deliver babies where a woman lays on it and it spins. So the baby right there. Look right there. Yeah. Dude. Dude. Dude. Yeah. To birth facilitating the birth of a child by centrifugal force. It proposes. proposes. proposes. Hey, could you imagine someone in the middle of middle of middle of that lady is going to sign up for that?

Dude, you say it was tested on somebody to get it patent, isn't it? No, they don't have to test it. Oh, you can patent something and not have tested anything. You just have to have really good pictures. pictures. pictures. You just think that's going to be somebody thought that was a good Somebody thought somebody has this whoever invented this had never been around a real um child. Well, yeah. They were a childless couple that invented it. Oh, of course. Wow. Yeah. So, what if we spin?

How many times do patents happen just like a gamble? Like you're hoping that most Oh, yeah. Most of them. Is that what it is? It is. And a lot of them, I mean, they they do that to really just try to prevent any competition a lot of times too from Yeah. the technology. And Apple buys up a lot of them. If you go in and look, look, look, you'll note that there's a net right in front uh to catch the baby when it flies out. out.

out. What a net. Spit the baby out. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. I like how the diagram is boobs. What a ridiculous. Don't you remember we showed you that one patent at mouse trap that was with a pistol. Yeah, that was with a pistol. Yeah, you saw that one, right? It just It just It just Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, it's a m You put your gun on it and then if they if they if they And then the trigger hits and it just shoots. Hilarious. Hilarious.

Why go through all that money? Cuz it's expensive to to go all the way through. It is, isn't it? Such a blow. And to maintain internationals different from, you know, just they expire too, right? You have to renew you to renew them. Yeah, I went down all that cuz you know obviously I I had something. S did you see the clip? I shared a clip of Peter Aia and I think a hormone specialist, female hormone specialist doctor talking about uh testosterone for men and like the argument of that.

Did you see that? No. What did he say? Oh, I just I I thought it was I mean I shared it as if and I said it on the on the the post that if you've been listening to Mind Pump long enough, we've been talking about this and uh you theorized this a long time ago and and I think we've said it many times that you can have two uh two men that uh same age, same everything or a lot of things similar, right? Not exactly the same DNA.

It doesn't have to be identical twins, but two men that have uh 400 test levels and one of them feels great, builds muscle, all the things. And yet the other one could have all the symptoms of low testosterone. testosterone. testosterone. And Peter Aia is theorizing that a lot of that has to he thinks to do with androgen receptor density. Yeah, of course. And so and that's just and that the his ability to upregulate. They did a study, they did this one study to look at the um association between natural testosterone levels and the ability the your ability to build muscle.

So they took a bunch of men and they tested their testosterone and then had them do uh strength training and they wanted to see was higher testosterone associated with building more muscle. Now all the men were within a kind of in the range. Okay. It what was a stronger association was androgen receptor density. I thought they can't measure that. They can with muscle biopsy. Oh, they have to cut it out. No, they you can do a muscle biopsy while you're alive because that was uh what was one of the things Peter Tia was saying is I wish we had a good test.

That's not a good test. Like you can't take people in and remove a piece of their muscle. their muscle. their muscle. So what's unfortunate is that we we don't have a really and it changes when you strength train, you upregulate, you get more receptors. There's certain supplements that might do it or or ways of eating because he made this case. He's just like you you take the and so take that case of the two guys that are on 400. You give the guy who has all these terrible symptoms the added HRT to bring him up to say 900 or a,000 and he feels lifechanging.

You do that same thing for that guy who already felt amazing at 400, bring him up to 900, he feels no change. change. change. It's also why I think this is a total theory. I don't have any data to support this, but when you uh talk to bodybuilders or you look at the bodybuilding space, there's such a crazy variance between their tolerance of anabolic steroids. Like some guys will would take a bunch and they're fine. Everything feels good. Some like, "Oh my god, I go that point.

I got all these crazy side effects or or or worse." And I and I think it has to do with androgen. Like if you have more androgen receptors, you're going to utilize more of what you what you take. Whereas some guys it's like it's not getting used so it just turns into other stuff. It gets converted to other. I mean, I've seen I've seen crazy examples of that. Uh, you know, anecdotally speaking, and also my own personal experience where I remember meeting men's physique guys that were just taking grams of stuff and just horrible results.

Uh, personally, uh, I experimented with increasing my dose and the the highest I could really get without getting like terrible adverse effects was 500 milligrams, milligrams, milligrams, which uh, in the bodybuilding world is like a baby dose. Nobody takes that. Yeah. It's like what these some of these guys. So, and I I have found that like my body does really good on just a mild dose of it puts puts me at optimal level like that and I get no adverse effects. I start pushing those limits and 100% see all these bad and no better effects.

Yeah. And no better effects like get all the bad side effects from it. And and this is what I've seen with some of these pe with some of these other bodybuilders. Some of them that could though could push grams and the more they pushed the bigger they got and the stronger they got and it's just so there's there's definitely more there than just testosterone you know free testosterone levels that we don't know about. about. about. Do you know your androgen receptors go up as you get older as a man?

Up. Up. Up. Yep. They think it's because your testosterone levels start to decline and your body starts to raise androgen receptors. receptors. receptors. So yeah, there tends to be higher receptors. I mean, this would be uh this would would be have to have some sort of correlation to old man strength. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Wouldn't you think? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Could be. Could be. Could be. I mean I mean we we've we theorized that that well we theorized that and so that's probably paying a factor too.

But so is probably that cuz it's like real strength. Like if anyone's ever seen like old man strength, it's like yeah, go wrestle your uncle. It's like it's weird how it doesn't make sense. And like you can't think that he's has this that I mean he has some great CNS adaptation in his body. That's definitely part of it. there's probably something else there. And if you're saying that androgen receptors go up as you age, you know, he probably needs a lot less of the stuff to which I have also experienced in my own life as I've gotten older and I've talked about talked about the show that's I think it's one of the blessings of aging as a man that I've realized is that man, I just need very little uh uh volume in training to to obtain the results that I felt I had to work so hard for in my 20s.

Totally. Yeah. Speaking of results, did you you Doug, pull up the before and afters from Caldera Labs clinical trials. Check this. Caldera Lab, like all power to them. They spend money on clinical trials. Yeah. So, this is a skincare company um and they advertise to men, but they actually spend money on real studies, okay? So, they're not just like, "Hey, check this out." They actually did real studies and the studies show tremendous results. These are the before and afters from the studies. Click enlarge some of those, Doug, so so the guys can see them.

I mean, it's Look at that. Whoa. Look at that. That's after how many weeks? Four weeks. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. That's a four week difference. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you can visibly see the difference in his wrinkles and the health of his skin. skin. skin. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like we're talking about like typically that would be uh like Botox or something to produce something like that. And they have all these before and afters on their site. Well, this goes back to that the conversation we had the other day on uh Yeah, look at that.

Wow, that's so cool. They have all those n so over 90% of the people in the clinical trials saw it saw visible improvements after 4 weeks on their skin. I mean, they're killing it. it. it. There's a lot of cool stuff now that we can do naturally. Yep. To to really to fight anti or to you know know know well the way it works is it's just making your skin healthier and their products facilitate the microbiome in the skin. That's good. They don't strip your body of their natural oils and then make you pretty like they're literally working with your body.

So they've hit the they've really done it. done it. done it. Yeah, they've done it. I mean I've gone away completely. It's been I don't know how many years it's been since I've used any sort of the steroid creams or stuff like that from our psoriasis. I've moved completely all to all natural stuff and I I've had just as much success if not better than all that all those creams that I used to do. I regret the I feel like all the years that I did that I screwed myself because it would it would work so well and then it would come back worse.

Work so well then come back worse. Your body your body downregulates this receptor and then it starts to rebound and cause this other thing. Yeah. Have you ever seen people use steroid creams for their psoriasis or eczema and over years and years and years and years it they need to use more more more and then they get to a point when it stops working and they have to go off. So there's people that will post this. They're like I have to go off and then their skin gets so violent reaction reaction reaction violent reaction that'll last like 30 to 60 days and then start to come back and these poor people have to go through that whole process.

Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty wild. I mean I felt like I've I've experienced a mild version of that. That's what's happened to me is like it got worse after I did all that stuff. And then since it's been years now where I've used products like this, like this and GHK CU are like the the go-to things for for my psoriasis just to constantly use those. The Caldera product and that and that has kept it the same for I don't know how many years. Like it hasn't it's hard when you have psoriasis gets worse as you age.

Eczema can get better as you age. Uh psoriasis it gets worse. Um, and so it's just kept it at bay where I felt like the first few years I had it when I was using all those creams, it just exacerbated it. My daughter gets a little bit of eczema in the crook of her elbow if she eats eggs cuz she's got an intolerance to eggs. So, she thinks it's my three-year-old. She thinks it's called eczema because of eggs. I'm like, "Oh, that makes sense." So, I want to bring something up to you guys real quick because I would love your guys's opinion on this.

I I think this is so true and it's so incredible. So, Thursday mornings, uh, my church has something called Betterman. So, Betterman is this, it's this, it's this program, I guess you would call it a program that different churches will do. So, it's not just to my church, like lots of churches will do this, lots of people. And it's essentially bringing men together uh to be to help make them better men, better fathers, better husbands, better brothers, better sons. And of course, it's all based on scripture, but it's also based on, you know, coaching and psychology.

And it's really, really good. Well, anyway, today was day two and I love it and they were bringing something up. So, there's a quote in pro, in fact, I it's weird. I was wearing the shirt, uh, Proverbs 27:17, "Iron sharpens iron." And so, in this proverb, it says, "Iron sharpens iron as one man sharpens another." And so, what they brought what he brought up, and I think this is so true, is he said only a man can tell another man certain things and lift them up.

If you try to have your wife or your girlfriend or a woman say it to you, it just doesn't just doesn't hit the same. And that's think about that. Think about getting called out by your buddy versus if your wife did it and the difference you would feel. And they were talking about he was talking about data and how men need to have close male relationships because men lift each other up and really can push each other in ways that typically we don't receive uh from women just as well or we'll perceive it as being critical or make us feel weak.

feel weak. feel weak. Where does your where does your evolutionary mind go for that? Oh god. I mean I could easily come up with an evolutionary theory around that like like guys going off to hunt or go to war. Yep. Uh like you want to succeed at the hunt or war. We're not going to sit here. There's no time to Yeah. emotionally talk your way through. Yeah. Think about this way. It's just like matter of fact brass tax. Here's what you're doing wrong. Think about it this way.

Imagine we're at work and we're we're trying to build we've done this 10 years. We're building this business and and I'm doing something and one of you guys looks at me angrily, you know, but serious. And I I obviously respect you guys. You look at me like man, you're being a [ __ ] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Imagine if your wife said that to you, right? right? right? Way different. Well, you know what's interesting? Well, what's interesting about your saying that without how how wild is this? Your buddy can say that to you and it gets you fired up to go get your wife on the other hand says go slay that dragon for me.

Very different. Very different. Very different. And and that makes you go do that. Very different. different. different. That interesting. And if your buddy said go slay that dragon like I you would you wouldn't get me up for that. It would you calling me a a [ __ ] would get me more fired. more fired. more fired. Pick yourself up or what do you think you're doing? you're doing? you're doing? Quit being a [ __ ] Yeah, you could call me out like that and that would fire me up to up to up to or hey man, you're drinking too much, bro.

You need to cut that out. You know, you might be like, but you telling me go go slay that dragon for us doesn't fire me up. Your wife tells you to go do that. Very different. Very different. Very different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so they were they were talking about it was like blowing my mind because I'm like, man, that's so that's so true. Like your like again your buddy your buddy could come to you and be like, hey man, you're eating too much or you're you're drinking too much, dude.

and you know your wife coming to you, he drinking too much. She's like, "Come on, stop it. Don't tell me I'm trying to," you know what I mean? I mean, that's the last few years culturally just hasn't hasn't resonated with me at all. It's like every every sports team, every group of guys, everything I've ever experienced is just very cold delivery like this is you're fat, you know, or you're this. I'm like, "Ah, okay." you know, and you you move on and everybody moves on and it's like uh I know it's it's like harsh and it's it's sort of like something that we we've tried to, you know, we've tried to manage uh other people's feelings and and be a little more empathetic and I'm definitely I understand that, but at the same time amongst men, I I don't want to lose that.

That dude, my fav, one of my favorite YouTube viral clips of all time is the baseball dad coach with the youth boys. Yeah. boys. Yeah. boys. Yeah. And he's talking [ __ ] to all of them. It's like if your dad says it's okay, like he's like calling out all of them in that. That's Have you a clip I'm talking about, Doug? Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. That is one of the all-time greatest clips ever of that day. I've heard this before too that like uh like if your wife wants you to she has to lift the crown higher than you are so you can raise yourself to it which is very different very different very different but your buddies guys you respect I should say some random dude's not going to do this but guys they could kick you in the butt it's very different I take it you know I would receive it very different from a man than I would but my wife could lift me like no one else but it's a totally different thing so they were talking about how iron sharpens iron and they were talking about the data on how important it is that men have close male relationships and mentors.

And you see this throughout culture and history. And men are so isolated today where they have buddies at work and then they go home and then they're just at home. But you don't have those male friendships where you guys push each other. And I was like, man, that's so so true. true. true. I mean, you're pointing out one of the things and to Justin's point, what's wrong with our culture right now. I mean, this is the loneliest time men have ever reported that, right? And so it's like the importance of having other and it's not just other men but other good men right there got to be men you respect respect respect other men that you're not going to respect some you know somebody you don't respect like criticizes you you're not going to take I mean I tell I always tell our our young male staff and my my my nephews and uh that are like that are younger than me like you should be trying to seek out men in your life that you admire in every aspect.

Totally. Uh whether that be spiritual, whether that be physical, whether that be financial, not one guy that's got all of it. Yes. Like you you should have a specialty of all of them. Like now it's great if you have a guy that's got a great balance of all that that you could have as a major mentor. That's awesome. You have a unicorn if you find that. But easier to find is, you know, that guy that is just like he is just a financial genius. And so like that's what I I talk to him about.

And it's like or that guy that is just a spiritual genius or that like find that in other men and and and foster those relationships. I think uh the mistake I probably made when I was in my early 20s is I thought I needed to have like all these commonalities with like like oh like we like we were high school buddies like we need to have we need we like sports, we need this, we need to do all these things or and I needed to find other guys that were just like that when it's like dude no that's not the strategy.

I have relationships with other men that we only have a thing in common. Like that when we're together, all we talk about is business, right? Or all we do talk about is our spiritual walk or all we talk about is, you know what I'm saying? So, it's like you can you can build relationships and you don't have to have all these things in common. common. common. So, there's also tons of value in having an older mentor. So, a man has more experience than you who's done the things that you looked up to and then having someone younger than you that you mentor.

So, that's another thing. I tell you how. Okay, so I shared this with Doug. You guys, there's a um you should watch this cuz it it really kind of it really brought me back down to earth a little bit because I'm guilty of this. I think we're all guilty of this on this podcast podcast podcast of of talking about just the times right now and just how terrible it is and well all all this [ __ ] right? And you're probably the most guilty of this for sure.

You're like, you know, [ __ ] Chicken Little with sky always falling, right? right? right? Like this is depends. If we're talking about the business, that's business, that's business, that's okay. That's fair. That's fair. That's fair. fair. fair. We just said that earlier. Yeah, that's fair. Say something good about the business for on the right. It's fair. That's fair. There's a show on Netflix right now. I think it's called 1975. called 1975. called 1975. Look it. Look it up to either 1975. You guys should watch it. I have.

I have. I have. Have you watched it? Yeah. It's just everything that was going on in culture, the world, Hollywood. It was crazy. It was It was crazy. Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. It was crazy. I mean the oil oil embargo. Did it happen around that time? Yes. Oil embargo, the Watergate, the I mean there was there was so much assassinations, corruptions, uh divisions. divisions. divisions. The Cold War was crazy. Yeah. 1975. Uh break break down 1975. You know what the difference was? I'll tell you right now what the difference was.

difference was. difference was. Social media. Yeah. You didn't have media, bro. You know, if we had Instagram back then you Yes. Exactly. You would have gone if you could have seen the the stuff that was going on every day in your feed. Everybody would be worse than what they dude. People couldn't get gas on certain days. days. days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If your license if your license was in ended in an odd number, you can only get gas on Mondays and Wednesdays. So if you have no gas on Thursday, you got to take the bus to work.

I'm sorry. And you had to wait in a line and a long ass line. Some people would wait an hour. Well, and to you'd only get like like certain news that was uh national news. You wouldn't get like this state is experiencing this crazy thing that's happening this 247 news. They run out of stuff to say internationally even and it's like you know it it's just like now all the news that's negative we could have access to every single day that and so it was it was a good watch for me for that reason.

Like I I mean I just clicked it on. I clicked it on. It was like like kind of you know almost white noise for It wasn't like and I was and I'm watching I'm going oh my gosh like like like you know if this is way worse than what we're experienc and on every level the scare of the dollar that serial killers kidnaps war money politics cultural division I mean everything you could think of that we talk about today how it is so bad today housing interest rates like I mean all those things were way worse back and crazier.

It's just that like you said, we didn't have Twitter and Instagram to remind you a thousand times every day of every single thing. You know, my wife's done this week, God bless her, and I noticed a huge difference. And she she turns her all day. She turns her phone. I can't get a hold of her. In fact, if I want to get a holder, you know what I got to do? I got to get on our like security camera and talk through it to tell her I need to talk to her.

So, she takes her she breaks it all day. That's awesome. She's done it all week. And it's made for her. It's made a huge difference. That's why my my my car trip that I just got, it's one of my favorite trips when we when we drive for 8 hours for 3 days straight at those speeds. I'm I have two hands on the wheel at all times. times. times. I never touch my phone. It is it's it's in my glove box plugged in listening to music while I'm driving.

And it's the most it's one of my that's why I love it so much. I'm so hyper present and disconnected from the world and I and sometimes I I need something like that that that forces that cuz it's hard to discipline yourself to just that's so kudos to her to just break your phone on a random you know that's why I like using the sauna in the steam room. Yeah, you can't bring it in there. I I can't bring any because it'll break my phone. So I sit in there and I'm sitting.

It's the only time I really effectively do it. I just sit. I mean, I I just I just urge everybody to go watch that show because so much of what we talk about today is just this alarmist about how horrible and crazy and bad and do you know how many serial killers were in the 70s? Dude, can you imagine social media? Literally, name a thing that you talk about today about today about today worse worse worse that you that is so bad. Housing, economy, murder, cultural division, war, politic, corruption.

I mean, it was worse. worse. worse. I know it was. So that's why it's such a good exercise for everyone. And guess what? We're here. We made it. I know. We made it all the way to to 2026. And that was in I would say 50 years ago. Here's the difference. Uh that today a lot of our problems are self-inflicted psychological psychological psychological war that we're That's why I think it's such a good exercise for you. It's such a good exercise for exercise for exercise for What do you think would happen if everybody turned their phones off most the time?

Do you think we would see a radical change? Oh yeah. In in mental health, in connection, I think all the problems that we see today that we can label like loneliness, anxiety, depression, I bet you we'd see a sharp a sharp a sharp I think of what they're trying the school. So I guess they're trying to do that with schools, right? So according to the teacher that I was talking to. Uh yeah, my daughter's school does that where they break the phones. She has to put it in a fair day bag when she gets there.

They just started that. They So that Yeah. So if that I think that already we're going to see in our youth is a big difference. If they if they got to break their phones for the whole day of school, that could be a super powerful. powerful. powerful. You know what's crazy about what we're talking about right now is when we're going to hang up these mics, we're all going to get on our phones right afterwards. afterwards. afterwards. Yep. Yep. Yep. That's right. I just called you out.

Iron sharpen iron, guys. That's that's how crazy addictive this crap is. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that's the reason why we talk about it is I I'm I'm fully aware of the pool uh that it has, you know, and and I think there's because then there's the other side of this, right? Like I also recognize that our entire business is built off that. This was my talk yesterday. I got interviewed uh ironically. Um it was like a a menopause show, right? I picked you person.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was about like uh spousal like getting in shape and the challenge of that. And it ended up going down this whole direction. The direction I took it is like relationship health. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because if you don't first fix that and you don't have good communication with your partner and you can't come to your partner and say, "Hey, I I want to make 2026 the healthiest year of our life. Let's agree that we're going to cook our meals at dinner, you know, and and start trying to walk every day." And you can't have that conversation with your partner.

Like you're figuring out macros and figuring out the best of waste of time. You need to solve that first. And so I gave like my whole conversation for over an hour had we never touched macros and protein intake and and exercise selection. It was all about relationship hacks that I have found to connect me and my partner. You know, you know what data blew me away when I first read it years ago. And I first read it because of uh gastric bypass surgery. This is when it got kind of popular in the uh like early 2000s, late 90s.

And it's true, by the way, without gastric bypass. When you have a couple that's over both people are overweight, if one person dramatically improves their health, divorce rate goes up. up. up. I talked about this. I talked about on the show. the show. the show. A lot of people don't. That's a scary stat. stat. stat. Here's what I explained to them though. I said it's not what you think it is. A lot of people think it's, oh, that person got fit and they got the other people attracted that are looking to them.

It's not that. It's that one chose to grow and the other one didn't. That's right. That's right. That's right. And they grew and and and so replace that with anything, right? You could become a better person. and you can get whatever it is is that that one that that team okay because you decide when you marry someone that you are one you're a team right yes and so if you've agreed upon that and one of you decides to make this radical change of their life and that and towards being healthier and the other one chooses not to create a distance the likelihood that they and if they do I bet I wouldn't even argue the ones that just stay together stay together to stay together like that like you're saying that that the divorce rate is high it's like how successful is the marriages to just stay together even with that because you have a person who is they've grown apart and so yeah the whole talk was I don't want by the way I don't want that data to uh make someone encourage them then to leave their partner if they're in that stress because I've also seen this as a trainer when one person moves in this direction and the other person doesn't eventually sometimes it takes years but takes years sometimes it takes years but eventually it bleeds into the other partner and the rest of the family and inspires them it and it inspires them and if you do it lovingly not controlling.

You just do it and you just and you don't try to hammer them and force them to do it and you just do your thing. Eventually, I've seen it happen time and time again. You hang in there, you love each other, you love them anyway, they start to follow. So, I just want to Well, I mean, I know I agree again back to like what I talked so much about were all these little hacks on, you know, I talked about how I surrendered when Katrina and I got together.

I surrendered the calendar. I just said I don't I don't run the calendar. Like, you tell me where we need to be as a team and stuff like that. Like I think that's important. Uh uh uh listening to audiobooks together grows us together. Like getting a making sure that every other week that we get away without our son or it's like you do all that and that forces the the communication, the connection, the bond to each other. Then it makes the hey let's have let's eat healthier or let's cut out the drinking or oh let's do this thing much easier.

If you try and do that and you don't have that have that have that and that person also doesn't care about that. It doesn't land well at all. Arthur Brooks gave this great analogy. He said, uh, you know, he said, "Here's the issue with couples therapy." He goes, "You've got a glass with water and dirt in it and you'll go to therapy." And he just stir up the dirt. You just keep stirring it up. He goes, "What if you did this instead? What if you got a glass of clean water, which is fun together, and hanging out together, and you just poured it into the glass?" Eventually, what would happen?

It's like, yeah, 100%. 100%. Just connect and have fun together. together. That that is that is the foundation and I believe that's and I believe that's your path. If you're listening and you don't have a partner that is on the same health journey as you is fix the relationship first and work on that because that is going to be the foundation of getting that partner to want to do that with you. And if and if you try and do it without them or in spite of them turns into resentment all really really hard to do that.

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Go check them out. Go to organifi.commindpump. That's o rg an i fi.com/mindpump. Use the code mindpump. Get 20% off. Back to the show. This segment of the podcast is brought to you by Mindpump Fitness Coaching. This is the number one course that teaches trainers and coaches how to build sustainable sixf figureure plus businesses and careers in fitness. Look, it's roundt based. So, you can hear Adam, Justin, and myself teaching you how to build a better business, get more leads, close more deals, close bigger deals, and be more effective trainers.

By the way, our course is nationally recognized. In fact, it gives you 1.9 CEUs with or for your NASM certification. Find out more at mindpunfitnesscoaching.com. Our first caller is Scott from Ohio. Scott, what's happening? How you doing, Scott? Scott? Scott? What's up, Scott? Doing great. How you guys doing? Good. Good. How can we help you? Uh well, first let me tell you that you guys are uh role models well beyond fitness. Um and I appreciate everything you do. Um respect your opinions on a lot of matters.

Uh so I have a programming question. I turned 40 this year year year and I don't really have my question in front of me. It's been a hectic day with kids not being in school for basically three days this year. Um, I am Last year was like a resurrection for weightlifting with me and I dove right into Max Red Advanced and I really liked it. I saw gains all throughout and I noticed that my appetite was way up and I wasn't afraid to eat so I just dove right in.

Just let my body just kind of tell me what it was going to do. Uh, I finished that one up and it was packaged with old time which I jumped right into that and noticed uh some major imbalances from left to right and those kind of corrected themselves out throughout the uh program. Nice. Nice. Nice. And I finished that one up and I'm not really sure where to go with my 2026 goals. um turning 40, if I should maybe dial it back to maybe a 15 or if there's enough juice left in the tank to maybe approach uh a power lift if uh need be or recommend it.

Um so I'm just kind of looking at your advice of where I should go for to just cycle back the anabolic and uh old time. No, good. You seem to be in a good place. So you feel good. How's your sleep, energy, all that stuff? How you feeling? feeling? feeling? Uh sleep's pretty consistent. go to bed between 10, 11, get up 5 to 6. Energy is all the way up. Uh I uh average probably about 17,000 steps a day, I would say. I work on my feet.

Uh I have no problem there with energy. Um my diet's pretty consistent. I track that for a little bit. I'd say about a pound and a half to two pounds of protein. Uh I cook for a living, so I make 90% of what I consume. So it's very minimal. processed foods. Um, and like I said, I'm not afraid to eat. So, I'm probably north of 3,000 calories. Um, so nice. What nice. What nice. What What about time in the gym? Are you limited on time or is your time like can you go to the gym?

Not limited on time. I get the three days, three good to solid days a week and then I'm in there mostly seven days. Even if it's just stretching. Nice. Nice. Nice. Um, kind of like on my way to work, I just I make it a point to stop there just to have that consistency. Um, so there's no limitations there, you know. I mean, kids are with me today, but we did both the gym and work. So, let's bring your daughters to work day. All right. All right.

All right. Nice, dude. Let's do I think symmetry will be good next. And then if you feel good after that, go into powerlift. Okay. Okay. Okay. You used to have a uh you used to have a 600 lb squat. So, yeah. Um, holy [ __ ] Yeah. When I when I was 19, um, freshman in college, yeah, I was uh I hit it pretty hard when I was young. So, I started lifting probably 14 and a half to 15 years old. Uh, and I would say genetically it's there.

I mean, both my father and my brother, they don't even work out. They're just tanks. Um, so kind of lost it there for a while, but you know, life happens. Uh, so I wanted to pick it back up and kind of get back into it and kind of work on the long term now. term now. term now. Yeah, dude. I like symmetry next because, uh, you're probably seeing really good strength gains. You got obviously got a lot of potential. 600 lb squat at 19 places you in a special category.

category. category. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh and I I would want to go symmetry before powerlift because what we're looking at is injury prevention. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We want to reduce risk of injury. So the potential for for injury the joints. the joints. the joints. Yeah. It goes up as you get stronger. Um and and when you're looking at muscle memory like you So what you're you're tapping into is muscle memory. You had a lot of muscle and strength before. Building it back up is a lot easier than it is the first time.

And what we want to do is be careful with how hard we push uh with in a particular direction. Symmetry is really good at building muscle, but it's it's even better at balancing the body out. It'll fortify your joints. You'll feel good. Old time strength was perfect. I'm glad you did that. that. that. Symmetry will be a great follow-up. Then you go into powerlift and you'll be hitting some some big numbers. Yeah. Good a good rule of thumb for a guy like you uh who has a lot of like potential to be moving a lot of weight is to kind of interrupt the the powerlift and anabolic type programs with a symmetry or an oldtimey always to like kind of performance or performance like to always toggle back like do powerlift hardcore go hard after those lifts and then come back to like a symmetry or old timing.

go after anabolic advance and then come back to like a performance like kind of toggle that that'll kind that'll that'll keep you uh from getting hurt like so someone like if you're my client with that much strength potential my biggest concern would be going too hard too fast in that direction uh and then in injury. So as long as we toggled back and forth in that we should continue to see gains both aesthetically strengthwise but then also making sure that we protect you all the way.

the way. the way. Okay. Is there any like certain rest periods between programs or is it when one ends you can jump into another? You go right into it cuz they take it's a good bridge program between now if you felt like you needed a break. There's no nothing wrong with taking a week or two off. So that's if you just feel a little burnt, burnt, burnt, but you definitely would do that if you were running programs like power lift followed up with powerlift again or powerlift and an followed by anabolic.

Those programs I would probably want like a D load week from you because they are so hard in that direction. But these ones going to symmetry or going to performance or going to oldtimey will interrupt that nicely for you. Awesome. Great. Awesome. Great. Awesome. Great. Yeah, we'll send you Symmetry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you guys. Right on, dude. Keep it up. All right. Keep it up, too. All right, Scott. Doug, just send him send him a a discount for powerlift, too, because that would be a good follow-up, I think, for for symmetry.

We should ask them what food he cooks. I saw him in a kitchen. I was going to ask him like what he what he did. Cooks. Bro, listen. You work in a kitchen. Oh, that's stress. that's stress. that's stress. You are moving constantly. Well, you say up to 22,000 steps a day. Yeah. So, I look at his notes. He says he's getting 20,000 average 22,000 steps a day. So, he's he's moving. I believe it, too. Oh, yeah. I've been in the back and I say, "No, cuz I worked in restaurants for a little bit." I know you did even more.

Oh, yeah. And it's just your mom. It'd be interesting to So when he when you listen to this Scott, uh we didn't say it, but at one point I he did ask and I wouldn't mind seeing what a MAPS 15 would do with someone like this cuz he's also got he's got the exathlete athlete background. It sounds like a killer at work like and so he might be surprised that scaling back on the the volume and intensity might see amazing results with less work, less work, less work, but it's worth experimenting with.

sounded like he got good result from like anabolic advance though which was interesting interesting interesting and and old time what he's tapping into is muscle memory. Yeah, that so that's my point. My point is is is you a guy like that with that much potential with had that much training before in strength you probably could have done any of our programs and he'd seen great he's going to see great results because of the muscle memory. So that's why I bring up the fact that he might want to play with a mass 15 program too just to see stress.

stress. stress. Yeah. I mean he's moving a lot. He's doing a lot and so maybe you know he does really well off of that also and surprises himself. So uh it's worth it's it's worth exploring. Our next caller is Alyssa from Michigan. Hi Alyssa. How you doing Alyssa? Hello. Good. How are you guys? Good. How can we help you? This is so weird seeing you guys like in person. Um okay so I'll just read my question. kind of long, so bear with me. It's kind of like a two-parter.

Um, but I am a '9s baby and grew up with processed foods and being told egg yolks are bad and carbs are bad. All of that, you know. I also grew up around yo-yo dieting. Ended up being overweight most of my school years. Fast forward to my 20s. I started lifting and became obsessed. I got my personal training certificate through NASM, finding my love of fitness as well. I counted macros to a tea for a few years, but with that, I was severely undereating. I'm about 5'7.

and my lowest I weighed was 125 lbs. Um, I ego lifted a lot and ended up hurting my L4 and L5, which kind of still affects me to this day. I know how to manage it for the most part, but I do avoid avoid barbells, squats, and deadlifts besides RDL's. Uh, macro counting became obsessive, so I stopped doing that and tried to eat clean. Since 2021, I gained a lot of weight from heavy drinking, being in a stressful relationship, and using a busy life as a constant excuse.

I got to my highest weight of 236. In 2023, I left my relationship, moved home, made a big career change, and got my life back together. When I started going back to the gym regularly, I was doing a class that was an all over body class, but I royally killed myself doing it ended up every day and ended up hurting myself. I started doing some other programming written by a trainer at the gym, which got better, but I still wasn't seeing the results I thought I should be, even though I was down 25 lbs at this point.

Fast forward to today. I found your podcast at the beginning of the year and binged. The last couple months I bought Muscle Mommy, Maps 15, and Muscle Mommy 15. I was running Muscle Mommy at first. However, uh at the beginning of the year, I started a new job. And the last two weeks of the month, I'm usually working 12-hour days every day. Um sometimes 10 hours on Saturdays. I do stand during my overtime, so I'm not sitting all day, but the rest of the day, I am sitting at a desk.

I walk during my lunches, whether it's outside or running to the gym for 20 minutes. I'm currently running Muscle Mommy 15. When I wrote this, I was on week 2 phase 2, but now I'm on uh phase 3, week 2. Um, I'm trying to get 10K steps in a day, if not more. I started semi-tracking my food again to make sure I'm hitting my protein goals. Um, and I will say, you are right. It is like being on steroids, actually hitting your protein goals. protein goals.

protein goals. Um, I am hitting around 2100 calories a day, roughly 160 to 175 gram of carbs, 68 to 80 gram of fat, and 175 to 185 g of protein. I'm eating a lot of meat now, lots of eggs, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese. I'm not 100% sure on my weight, but the last time I checked, I was at 210, and I am getting a DEXA scan at the beginning of February. Um, I'm trying to do everything the mind pump way right now. I'm not studying myself in the mirror, not constantly weighing myself, focusing on protein, even on off days, cut back on alcohol, and focusing on getting stronger, which I am.

I've never felt better. Um, and I can do the most weight I've ever done in RDL's and bench press right now, which is really awesome. Um, so I just kind of wanted to know firstly if I am on the right track. Um, am I doing enough? I'm not a busy mom. I don't have kids. I just work a lot and I'm a generally busy person. Am I eating enough? Am I eating too much? My mind is stuck in bad habits from years of body image issues and unhealthy eating habits.

How can I continue to also move forward with feeling like I don't need to track my food. I don't want to fall back into unhealthy habits. I want to live and enjoy my life the best and healthy way possible. And my other question also is, is it okay for me to be changing barbell squats from the MAPS programs to other squats because of my L4 and L5 issues? I'm definitely afraid to get back under a bar, and I'm wondering what I can do to build that back up eventually.

Yeah. So, the answer to the last question is yes, you can replace the exercises. Um, you're doing a great job. You're doing awesome. you're doing a really good job that just your your awareness and how you're posing the question. I think you know what the real challenge is. I think you have a clear I I learned this phrase the other day. I'm sure people have heard it before. It was the first time I heard it, which is a problem uh that is clearly defined is half the solution.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you've clearly defined what the issue has been uh with exercise and nutrition and all that stuff for you. We want to if we got to stop focusing on the result. That's number one. If we focus on the result, you're going to end up where you've ended up in the past. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You have to focus on the process. But we have to also go even deeper, which is focus on focus on focus on what causes the right process. Okay?

So, what's going to cause the right process is a good relationship with yourself, your body, exercise, and diet. So, I'll give you one give you I'll give you one step that I think you can take to move in that direction. Okay. I know you said you're drinking less, but I think step one would be to not drink. drink. drink. Okay. Okay. Okay. I don't think you have just based off what you said. So, I'm only basing off what you said to me. I don't think your relationship with alcohol is good.

And what you're trying to do is manage it. uh which is like I got this abusive boyfriend so instead of seeing him every day I'm going to see him three days a week or something like that right still still not good and so the potential's there so is that possible can you cut it out completely out completely out completely yes yes yes okay good okay good okay good I can yeah good so I'd start there um um um that alone is going to do wonders because because because uh and now you want to find alternate ways to comfort yourself or whatever reason why you you end up drinking find uh other ways to do uh to try to accomplish that and it's going to suck at first because alcohol is a great solution for a lot of things sometimes until it's not.

So, you know, find something else to replace that with. Uh the second thing is focus on your relationship to yourself and focus on enjoying the workouts for the sake of the workouts itself. That's going to move you in the right direction. right direction. right direction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, now I'm giving you this big general like answers. You probably already kind of knew what I was going to say. You're a perfect candidate. Muscle mommy group. Yeah. you or coaching. Either one. Either one. Either one. Yeah.

You're Yeah. You're Yeah. You're get her in. You should be in our muscle mommy group mommy group mommy group at least. At least at best. I would want you with one of our coaches. You're a perfect candidate. perfect candidate. perfect candidate. Uh you you've told us what your lifestyle looks like. Your responsibilities are work and yourself. You would benefit so greatly from having a guide and then being able to offset some of that trust and be like, "Okay, let me just follow what you're saying. Let me just do what you're telling me." Yeah.

And I within 6 months you would make such a radical transformation uh in your relationship to all this. Literally literally 6 months. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it could be amazing. Yeah. Because I'd always feel like I'm questioning like and that's how it's always been. You know, know, know, you're doing so good. You're doing so you're doing so good. I just want to encourage you just the way you ask your question, you're like perfect. perfect. perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're on the right path. You need somebody on that.

Yeah. But having the guide there is going to be gold gold gold because you're going to encounter a lot of this like am I doing the right thing? Am I going too far? What do I do here? Should I do more? That's a big question. A lot of that's going to pop up. Should I keep doing more? Should I push harder? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh and Uh and Uh and because it always feel and I hear people talk about it all the time on the podcast.

It always feels like you're not doing enough and you're someone who is, you know, used to overdoing it. That's right. right. right. If if you when you work with a coach that you trust, uh then you could just say, "Fine, I trust you." Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I'll trust you. And then I'll trust you. And then eventually, you don't you don't have to try to trust them. You just start to trust the process because you see you see you see uh what it's like. And our coaches are we we we handpick them.

So, they're they're excellent. But you'd be a great candidate for that. But Alyssa, you're totally totally totally Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. totally on the right track. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like you're doing phenomenal. It's going to be an awesome year. It's going to be an awesome year. I hope so. Yeah. I have been feeling amazing. Like the best and strongest I've ever felt. Like yesterday I did um the bench press and I got 125 for my top two sets for all five reps. Incredible. Incredible. Incredible. Yeah. Great job.

So that felt really good. You've already done the hardest part. You've got the momentum. You're doing the right things. You're heading you. This is the you're on the hardest part already. You already overcame that part that now the accountability piece and a coach who's just going to help guide you through this process just so you don't have any pitfalls. You're going to be you're going to be great. great. great. Yeah. Just by the way just by the way you're asking a question and identifying and all that stuff.

I'm like, "Oh my god, she's going to crush with a good coach." coach." coach." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. No, great job. And now the injury, the L4 L5 injury, do can you be more spe Can I have some details on that? What are we talking about? Yeah. So, um gosh, I don't remember the first time it happened, but I was deadlifting and I literally just felt it go Yeah. And so my L4 and L5 like popped out of place and my sacrum twisted. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Basically is how my cuz I went to a chiropractor and they told me you know what was going on cuz I couldn't even hardly walk like I to get up from like of a chair I had to like use my hands to walk up my legs. It was really bad. Um, and so I've just kind of been relying on a chiropractor. And then I kind of learned over time like you need to strengthen more of those like low back muscles and release more of your hip muscles cuz everything's like connected.

And I was told by one person, you know, well, you really tighten your hips and it's pulling. So when you're squatting down, it's pulling and that's what's making it pop out. And do you have like a herniated disc? Was there anything on imaging that you saw? Um there was no herniated discs or anything. I do have like a um x-ray of it of where and you can see how like the two little bones are like just they're not in line. Okay. This is a muscle issue.

This is totally fixable. totally fixable. totally fixable. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. No herniated disc, nothing like that. I've got checked a couple times. That's good news. Yeah. You you you I feel pretty confident confident confident the trainer is going to give you good mo our trainer is going to give you good mobility work for you to specifically address this. And it sounds like a lateral and rotational stability issue, uh, if I had to guess. So, yeah, I I'm pretty confident you'll be able to barbell exercise again with the right correctional exercise, which would be amazing.

Yeah, cuz I I miss getting under a barbell and I want to see how strong I am, but you know, I just I am like deathly afraid. By the way, this is an awesome goal to focus on for this year. Like, that is like we can solve that. We can get to the bottom of this and help you with that. Let's focus on that. keep doing what we're doing. Take the advice Sal said on the alcohol thing and I think you're gonna have a hell of a year.

Yep. We're gonna have a hell of a year. We'll have some call. We'll have some call. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right, Alyssa. Good job. Thank you so much. I appreciate you guys. guys. guys. Looking forward to checking in with you. Yes. Thank you. You got it. I love I love when we heard that from Scott. And by the way, I told that to my wife. She's like, "You never heard that before? I've heard that a million times." times." times." I It's so true. A problem well defined is is halfve is halfold.

Half solved. So, you know, and I knew this is I know this is a trainer. You guys do too. Like when you hear someone come to you and they're like, "Listen, I know I have a bad relationship with this. I know I tend to overdo whatever." It's like I get the chills cuz I'm like, "This is going to be great." That's the hard part. Getting a person to understand that stuff. It can take a lot of time. Yeah. But if they know right out the gates, it's like, "Let's go." Our next caller is Natasha from Hawaii.

Hi, Natasha. Hi, Natasha. Hi, Natasha. How you doing, Natasha? Hello. Hello. Hello. Hi, guys. Wow, life coming at you quick. It's really you. Hi. How can we help you? you? you? Um, I just want to say I've been listening to you guys for many, many years and I've learned a lot from you. So, I just wanted to start off by saying thank you very much for giving me your time this morning. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, just so I don't ramble on, I'm going to just read my question.

So, it's related to looking like I lift. So, I've been strength training for about eight plus years between three to five times a week consistently. I've used programs from you guys, Jordan Scene Norton, Mike Israel. I've had personal nutrition and training coaches multiple times over the years. I myself got certified as a nutrition coach and personal trainer just because I love doing this stuff. So, I'm confident I've been doing the most important things correctly like protein intake, consistency in the gym, hitting high intensities, recovering appropriately, and I just don't feel like I look like I lift.

So ultimately my question is where might I be going wrong trying to get that more defined look? Because even though I don't want to look like a bodybuilder, I do want to look like I clearly lift weights because I do. So is it just genetics? Is it too much body fat? On a DEXA from November, I was at 28.7% body fat. Is it my hormones? I am on the hormonal birth control pill, so my natural estrogen levels are pretty low on labs. So, I'm just trying to figure out what more I can do, if anything, to get that more athletic look.

athletic look. athletic look. Gotcha. Gotcha. So, uh I don't have pictures of you, but nine out of 10 times when I have someone who works in fitness, fitness, fitness, uh who is telling me that they know what their protein intake, their calories, is telling me they've been working out for eight years, and they say, "I don't look like I lift." 90% of the time, it's because they don't see themselves accurately. That's 90% of the time. Do you Let me ask you this. Do you think there's a greater percentage of body dysmorphia in the fitness space than there is in the average population?

Yes, of course. For sure. Now, let me ask you this. Do other people think that you look like you work out? out? out? See, that that's part of it, too. I don't get a lot of com Not that I'm looking for those kinds of comments, but it it's not like people say that to me often. It's more if they maybe like squeeze my arm or something, they can feel my muscles, but I don't get a lot of comments about them being able to just visibly see my muscles.

Yeah. But if I were to ask somebody that knows you and I said, "Hey, does Natasha look like she work out?" What do you think they would say? I honestly don't know. I honestly don't know. And I'm All right. All right. All right. I'm not sure. Okay. Okay. Okay. But I just I feel like there's just certain areas on my body that that aren't developing the way I would think they would after all my training. Good. We're getting more specific. What areas? areas? areas? What areas we talking about?

Uh delts, Uh delts, Uh delts, glutes, even my biceps a little bit. I I'm a strange girl. I like upper body lifts. I I like I would prefer to have bigger delts and biceps. I'm not as it the legs. I mean, sure, I would like great glutes. No, of course. But it's not as important to me. I prefer that my arms look more defined. Okay. I'm glad you're getting more specific cuz sometimes when someone says, "I don't look like I lift." And then they and then they start to say, "Well, here's the areas that I'd like to work on, right?

We're getting a little bit more specific." Uh, and you do you have followed our programs and all that. And you got your body fat tested. You said you're at what? 28 28 28 28 28.7. 28.7. 28.7. Okay. So, you typically if you were if you were to drop like 2 or 3%, you'd probably be really satisfied. Um, and there's two ways to do that. One is obviously calorie deficit. The other is to build a little bit of muscle. Um, how what are your calories are at now?

How how are they now? What does your activity look like? And what are your calories at now? So, I'm I'm basically maintaining right now at about 2,200. So, not super high as far as maintenance, but um my protein is about 140 grams a day. My average. My average. My average. That's good. When's the last time you did a reverse diet? Um I did one about a year ago. I was in a reverse diet study with Bill Campbell. Um, so I did that about a year ago, but now I'm I'm kind of hovering around 10 to 15 pounds more than my most comfortable weight.

So I haven't I haven't wanted to do that at this time. What was your experience with the reverse diet? reverse diet? reverse diet? Uh, it was pretty good. I I lost about 9 lbs and then they reverse dieted me up, but I my calories never got very high to be honest. I think they maxed me out at about 2400 before I started putting back on some pounds. Okay. What's your activity level throughout the day? Do you ever track your steps? Do you know how much you're moving?

moving? moving? I do. Yeah, I average about 10,000 steps a day. I lift four times a week and then every Sunday I try to do like a three mile run just for cardio. Oh, you move. You sound fit. Yeah, we need to we definitely need to increase calories and we need a reverse diet for sure. That's a lot of activity uh for that low of calories for someone who's lifting that consistently and also moving that many steps and then also running. So we we should be able to get your calories up and and reverse diet.

I think that's uh would probably be the greatest challenge right now is coaching you through the process of like increasing knowing that maybe the scale might go up a little bit and you're and that and mess with your head a little bit. But that's what we need to do is to build some muscle right now to build that metabolism to then take you back down to your 2200 calories and you actually lean out from that because we don't have a lot of runway at 22 and all the activity you're doing.

Yeah. Where would we end up? Yeah. I mean I I could drop you down to 1900 calories and you could lose a couple pounds and maybe a little but maybe a percent of body fat but then you're eating 1,900 calories. You're doing all that activity and you're not going to like the way you feel. So the move is to reverse diet. focus on getting strong. Don't weigh yourself and mess let yourself get in your own way. Um, and I mean I if if this is you obviously have the knowledge and the experience and so um you know I don't know if you're listening to the show right now and I'm coaching Karen who is a brilliant trainer has knows all she knows more than me but I'm coaching her.

Okay. So uh and it's not because uh she doesn't know what to do. It's for that accountability piece to help her stay out of her own head. And we're doing the same thing. We're I'm reverse dieting her right now. And I've got her at calorie she's never seen before. And she's constantly texting me how she feels and I'm saying, "You're doing a great job. You look great. We're doing good. Keep going." And I she knows that if she didn't have me saying that, she would go back the other direction.

If you think you're somebody like that and you know that about yourself, you would probably get a lot of benefit from having an outside person taking you through that reverse diet and just reminding you you're doing a great job. Cuz that's what we need to do. I would want to get if you were my client, I'd want to get you all the way up to like 2,800 calories and then I'd want to stair step you down and we would lean out into the low 20 20 percentile body fat or wherever you want to stop at.

But going from a cut right now where you're at is just it's not sustainable and you won't be happy. And you're active. And how do you feel with your activity? Do you feel healthy, strong, stamina good, mobility good? Yeah, I feel great. Honestly, I have great energy and I sleep really well. Like everything is super good. Like I feel great. I just wish that that I looked more tone. That's it. You know, as you're moving your arm and I see your arm, I could 100% tell you work out just from on.

So here's the deal. deal. deal. Uh, I would do a reverse diet. I would switch you to a different program with way less volume. Uh, because you're probably so consistent that I bet you benefit from reduced volume. I think MAPS 15 might be your go. I think it'd be a great program for you to go into, which would be really scary for someone like you because you've been working out for so long. You'll know it's working if you get stronger. By the way, if you do mass 15 and your lifts start going up, like keep going.

going. going. So, I'll do you have that pro? Can I send that to you? That'd be great. I don't have that one. I'm going to send that to you and I think you should bump your cal. If you want to slowly do it, that's fine. Bump them 100. I don't care. But let's go max 15 and let's slowly get your calories up and then just see how strong you get. And I I bet you'd be surprised. Just remember what I said about the the part that like why Karen's got me too.

It's not it's not a lack of you don't you don't strike me as a person who has a lack of knowledge in this. Uh but like her know that you can get in your own way. And I agree completely. Okay. Are you opening to working with a coach again? Yeah, I'm always open to working with coaches. I just I I just finished working with a strength coach, so I'm kind of deciding where to go after that. But trust me, being able to eat 2,800 calories and not gain a ton of weight would that's like the dream.

Like I would love that. You could get there. You absolutely can get there. get there. get there. You are more than active enough to get there. there. there. Totally. Tell me about your lifts. How strong are you? See, that's that's the other thing. I I feel like I have like a a high floor but a low ceiling because even with my strength, I feel like I should be stronger after all these years. But my my one rep max on bench is 135. My deadlift is 235.

My squat is 200. Stop. Those are great numbers. Those are great. great. great. Yeah. Are you comparing yourself to like a powerlifter? Come on, dude. Well, no. Like I said, I I know I know I am stronger than the average 41year-old woman. Like I know that. I just feel like I could be stronger. I just I mean I've been doing this for a long time and I can't believe I can't hit higher numbers than that. Natasha, you're 41. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I am. I am. I am.

You look great. I can tell on your arms when you're next to other 41year-old women. women. women. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How different do you look? Um I don't I mean Get out of here. I don't know. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Yeah. I mean, I have more muscle mass in them, I will say. Yeah, you do. Listen, Yeah, you do. Listen, you're your calories are too low, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. For sure. And look, and you could get your hormones tested if you want to see if that makes a difference.

I know you said you're on birth control. 41. You could if you did if you're open to hormone replacement therapy. That sometimes makes a big difference with women, especially supplemental testosterone. Um, so you could also look in that direction. That can some that can make a big difference sometimes. Make a huge difference. Uh but uh I'll have a coach call you, but I'm also going to send you Mass 15 and reverse diet. That's that's what I would do if I was training you. That's exactly what I would do.

would do. would do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I trust you guys. I really appreciate all the advice. I will listen and thank you very much for the program. All right. And your delts look good through your shirt. You got crazy standards. You're doing great. I like you guys more than ever now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. No, you're doing great. But I also understand the the the the what you're asking. And it's and it's it's a fair question. And if I was coaching you, we would do it.

But what we're saying is how you do it. It's what it is is you're not feeding yourself enough. You are you are very active, that much training, that much steps, and that much movement movement movement for that low of calories for someone who's at that strong, too. So, which tells me you you're moving weight in the gym. So, you have a high you have a lot of volume you're doing. Uh you you are definitely not eating enough. And we got to get we got to slowly get it up to that.

And the ways to do that is to cut back on the volume by going to like a max 15 slowly increase. Get rid of the scale because it's going to [ __ ] with your head. Okay? So, and that this is the coaching part that I where I like I would urge you to do that just for that reason. Not because you don't know, but because I I like I have to talk to Karan every week. You're doing great. Yes. I I know you feel that way. I know.

But you're doing perfect. I like what I see. I like where we're going. That's it. That's literally like I'm not breaking any studies down to her. I'm not getting it's like it's just me reminding her she's doing a great job. That's that would be coaching you right now. And so uh just consider that or if you don't do it on your own like we're saying consider that because I think that's all that you're missing to unlock that if you want to get down to 21 22% body fat.

See separation. You've got plenty of muscle. It's it's that leaning out a little bit. And we're not in a place calorie-wise to to cut to lean out. That's just that's where you're at right now. So we can get there. there. there. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Sounds good. Thanks for calling in. Of course. Of course. Of course. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, you got you got you got that's it. It's It's so tough. Uh God, fitness people are the hardest with this, man. It's like I don't look like I work out.

Everybody else is like, "You look like you work out." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh and it's just the standard. And I get this like like the other day, I'll just This is straight. That's how I felt. Adam sends us a video of this dude uh bench. Was it four? Did he get up to four plates? four plates? four plates? Yes. Four plates. He did a four plate bench for plate, brought it down, sits up with it, and then lays back down and does it again. Now, I've been working out since I was 14 years old.

Why aren't you comparing yourself? Very easily I could look at it and go, I don't feel like I work out. You know, it's like, come on. Who are you comparing yourself to? But yeah, calories like you got to feed the machine otherwise it's going to it's going to be limited. It's just not going to go any further. Well, that really sounds like this. I mean, this is it. She's at 10,000 steps a day. She also told us too that she was also running on top of that.

She's got lifts. She's fit, healthy. People, okay, you don't have like you don't you don't have to just be uh people think sometimes volume like, oh, super set, lots of exercises, seven days a week. Like Like Like if she's moving 200 lb squats and 135 lb bench press, she's got decent volume in her workout. So, she's the weight makes adds up. Yes. And so, she is and she's training 4 days a week. So, she's doing a lot. And at 2200 2,200 calories and she and she's at 28% body fat.

It totally it's totally fair for her even though she's looks great, doing great, all the things to say, hey, I I man, for everything I do, I should be 21% body fat and that's totally reasonable, but the pathway to get there is is related to nutrition. It's not her programming. It's not that. Here's first off, a woman that can bench press 135 lbs is in the 1% of strength. That is not common. I've trained a lot of people. It's impressive. Uncommon. If I see any woman benching the the the big wheels and over 200 lb in squats and deadlifts incredible 235 deadlifts, she said.

So, she's doing phenomenal. Here's the other thing. A woman with muscle at 28% body fat fat fat almost always looks amazing. I know we say that most women are happy in the between 20 to 25%. But if you're strong and you got muscle and you're up to 28%, you know what you look like? You look like you got nice curves. Well, and also don't Hey, don't don't forget this too. I every client I ever had that was on birth control and they come off, they it look like they lose two to three pounds of water.

She's also 41, so there could be, you know, uh hormone replacement therapy could definitely make a difference. A little bit of testosterone makes a big difference often times. So that that could also make a difference. But, you know, like what I've seen I've I know I've worked with women who who are in the high 20s body fat, but we're also strong. strong. strong. They just look amazing. Yeah. You know. You know. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Our next caller is Ava from Missouri. Ava, Ava, Ava, how you doing?

Ava, how are you? Hello. Hello. Hello. Hey. How's it going? Good. Good. Good. Uh, so it's Eva. I don't I usually don't correct people, but I've followed you guys for years. It's pretty crazy to be sitting here talking to you. Um, Um, Um, nice to meet you. How can we help you? You, too. Um, happy belated birthday, Justin. If so, I don't forget. Appreciate that. We did. We forgot. That's all right. All right. Um, no present. Yeah. I don't I don't announce it. So, yeah. Birthdays are just they're overrated.

overrated. overrated. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Um, Um, for sure. for sure. for sure. All right. I'm going to jump into this. So, I'm I'm 5'9, about 146 lbs. Um 51 years old. I've lost 125ish pounds and kept it off about 5 years now. years now. years now. Wow. Wow. Wow. Um I had labram and bicep uh surgery 8 months ago. Lost a ton of muscle. Um trying to rebuild that. I love So, I do a lot of backpacking when I can. Uh I do I love the TRX um Concept 2.

I average about 6,000 steps a day. Um I I'm trying to up that, but like it's hard with my job. Uh see, I have MAPS starter, MAPS 15, MAPS 1540 plus. I try to hit my protein target. Like that's big for me. Um I take fish oil, creatine, the uh Legion gummies, magnesium citrate, vitamin D3, biotin, tart cherry gummies, and I just got my first uh seeds order yesterday in the mail. So, I'm excited for that. for that. for that. Yeah. So, um you know, my big goal is long-term health.

I want to stay healthy, protect my joints, and be able to hike and chase grandkids around someday, hopefully. Um I I just really would love your advice on what I should be focusing on. I tend to like um information overload. So, I've I've stopped following everybody but you guys and like Lane Norton. Man, it's crazy. I I've drank so many uh jugs of Kool-Aid over the years, you know, keto, keto game, street parking, ripto. Like, I've I've done it all. So, I'm just like I need these guys to just like set me straight.

I love it. You actually look incredibly healthy and and sound sound very healthy. You did a great job. How did you lose all that weight? What'd you do, you do, you do, man? man? man? Well, a a big calorie deficit, which looking back, I'm like I knew better, you know. I went I spent thousands of dollars being like a primal health coach. Fell for that. And u not to coach people just because like I love information. I just love learning stuff. Um so a calorie deficit, which I knew better.

Um and just like a a ton of backpacking, backpacking, backpacking, but I lost a lot of muscle because I wasn't hitting my protein because I had to keep my calories so low, you know? It's just It's just It's just Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Well, good job. Mistakes. Well, good job. You're in a good place. Uh, thank you. you. you. Yeah. And how often are you backpacking now? now? now? When I can. Um, every other weekend, but like I I hike every week. Okay. And how long are your hikes and how often?

how often? how often? Uh, 10 miles, maybe 12 miles, something like that. Uh, when I backpack, it's usually like uh 40 plus miles. Pretty pretty hard. Pretty strenuous. Ozark Mountains. Wow. Mountains. Wow. Mountains. Wow. Um, yeah. I I have a gym in my basement that, you know, I have a a squat rack, TRX, treadmill. TRX, treadmill. TRX, treadmill. Oh, you're bands. No, you're good. Listen. Okay. So, every other week you do the hiking when you can, which is the 40 mile one. And then every week you're backpacking.

Uh, which is like you say like 10 miles and that's like once, right? Once that week. Yeah. I try. Not every week. I try. I try. try. try. So, you're you're going to live in the MA in the mass 15 protocol. That's your programs always. and we have enough of them where you just cycle through compliments. compliments. compliments. That's your strength training. Hit your protein targets and enjoy your hikes. And I would say the only place I would change anything is on those weeks where you're not getting those hikes, try to get your steps up.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just get your steps up throughout the day. So, you know, or your treadmill get a good little incline hike on the treadmill if you have to. have to. have to. That's it. And don't over the treadmill. I'm sure Yeah, I imagine you do. do. do. Especially somebody who likes to do it outside. Yeah. And don't overthink anything. Just we have now we have Mass 15 muscle mommy, mass 15 powerlift, the original Mass 15, we have Mass 15 performance symmetry strong.

Those are your programs. Just cycle through them. Yep. That's it. Don't overthink it. Just cycle through. That's your strength training. Okay? And then the rest of the stuff you do, just go have fun. Hit your protein targets and you're good. good. good. You're good. You're good. You're good. Okay. I have a question for you. Um, as far as like the concept, too. I really like that. Um, so the treadmill is just so boring to me. But I do I throw in my backpack that I that I go backpacking with and it's got about 20 lbs in it.

15 to 20 lbs. Um, and I I'll get on the treadmill with that. But on the days that like can I substitute some of the mileage, you know, my steps, daily steps with the concept too, like how would I guess with meters or Yeah, that's fine. Just time. Okay. Okay. Okay. You just do it for time. Uh, and and because we're talking about steps, it's a low intensity. Mhm. So if the intensity goes up, then the time's going to go down, right? So if you're like, okay, if I were to do 4,000 steps, that would be like a 45minute walk.

Then I'll do a 45minut low intensity concept, too. But if it's high intensity, you're looking at 15 15 20 minutes. 20 minutes. 20 minutes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And uh one more quick question if I can. I can. I can. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um so I have a lot of food noise still from being, you know, I've always been heavy. I yo-yo dieted. I fell for the whole, you know, health at every size thing. Like I even that I'm like, I'm going to be fat and happy.

Um, it got me. All right. But, um, so I I was thinking about micro doing with like trappepide just just for the food noise. I heard like that can be beneficial. What's your What's your What's your on that? We've had experts on the show that have talked about uh the benefits of doing those things. It is it is a medication. medication. medication. Uh, and some people, especially when they're healthy, are very sensitive to it. it. it. Very. Very. Very. So, even a micro dose for some people just shuts down.

Yeah. Where do you have any idea where your calories are at right now? Uh it's a slippery slope when I try to track, but um I probably too low. They're probably about 1,800. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah. So then I that that's the reason why I asked cuz that you're you're not someone who I think would be a candidate for that. Um I wouldn't want you cuz what what what can happen even on a micro dose. So, I don't know if you remember when I went through the whole process and and and shared my whole journey, like even a micro dose would would tamp my calories down a lot.

And if you're only if you're at 1,800 and it tamps it down even the slightest bit, putting you down into 15, 1600 calories with the amount of activity you're doing, I I don't want you eating more calories. calories. calories. Do you know why you have food noise right now? right now? right now? Um, you know, I I really don't. Other I've just always been I know why you're overweight. I know why you have food noise. Your calories are too low. Yeah, you're hungry. No, probably. No, probably.

No, probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you're hiking 40 miles every other week and then every other week 10, plus you're plus you're lifting. 1,800 calories is low. That's why you have food noise. food noise. food noise. Yep. Yep. Yep. You got to eat more. What should you be at? Like I I would listen, I would bump you up to two to start with, and you're probably going to end up in the in the low to mid 2000s with that activity. And you just you could do it controlled and slow just if you're if you're afraid, but bump it up.

And what you'll notice is you're stronger. You're just going to be stronger when you work out and have more energy. energy. energy. Okay. Okay. Okay. But 1,800 calories is too low. Yeah, you're low. You're 5'9. Didn't you say you're 5'9, too? Is that what you said? 5'9? 5'9? 5'9? Yes. 59? Yes. 59? Yes. 59? Yeah, you're you're tall, too. Yeah. Yeah. You're not a little tiny tiny little thing. You definitely No, I'm not. You definitely you definitely need more calories. And that's what you what you hear right now is your body trying to tell you like, "Hey, feed me.

We we we're doing a lot of shit." By the way, you know, when you're when you if with a lot of activity and calories that are not sufficient, you also run the risk of things like osteopenia, and you'll see this in people that strength train even because their calories are just not sufficient. So, uh yeah. Yeah. Feed yourself a little bit. You know, if you don't want to track what it can look like is when you feel hungry, hungry, hungry, have a high protein meal uh that's whole foods that you go for.

So, like, oh my god, where's that I got that food noise again. But you've got a pre-made 300 calorie or 200 calorie high protein meal. Eat that. Yeah. Yeah. I try to do that. I try. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I think you're just probably afraid of food because of all the weight that you had lost. For sure. Yeah. For sure. I get it. But you But you need a fuel though. You need to feel cuz Sal's right. You're not You're active. You're active. Yeah. I know.

I know. We're talking about some days where you're not getting six things up, but someone who hikes as long as you hike and and move in. your your your height. You need to be up you need to be up there. Mid 2000s is where I'd want to get you up to. And you have Mass 15. Doug said you have Mass 15 and Mass 1540 plus. Let me send you another one. So, let's see. Which one should we send your fellow 15 performance? 15 performance? 15 performance?

Uh yeah, because of the hiking. I'm going to send you Mass 15 performance. Be good. Be good. Be good. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. You got it. Yep. You got it. Keep us posted. I'd like to hear how this journey goes for you. Start Start reversing those calories up a little bit. bit. bit. I'll do that. Thank you, guys. All right. See you. Yeah, once she said her calorie. I'm glad you asked. Yeah, that's really from her activity, strength training, high. I mean, I can see on her, she she looks she actually looks pretty health.

I mean, really healthy and lean. And I knew I remember hearing her say 5'9. So, she's tall. she's tall. she's tall. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a lot of activity. And like And then saying, "You need you don't look like someone who needs and and then when she said the cow, oh god, no. Definitely no." Yeah. That's not food noise. That's just normal. normal. normal. That's your hunger. That's your body. Your body's like, "We just did a [ __ ] 40 mile hike. I need about 8,000 calories." calories." calories." My calories are low.

I got a lot of food noise. noise. noise. No, think about that. A 40 a 40 mile hike. Uh I mean, I'm just trying to in my head do some quick quick back of the napkin math. The amount of calories Oh my god. Just to support the hike alone, right? And so the next day, too. Yeah. Even a 10 mile hike is a Well, yeah. I mean, 40 miles, that's substantial. that's substantial. that's substantial. That's a long hike. That's a long hike. Yeah. How long are you hiking?

That's like a like a like a That's an all day hike, That's an all day hike, right? It seems like it might even be two days. two days. two days. Give me Give me a two. Give me Give me a two. That's a two day hike, bro. You're hiking a lot for 2 days. Yeah. You're talking you're you're talking about your body needing like 10 20,000 calories 20,000 calories 20,000 calories like that it just needs to do the thing you just did. And then if you go back and then you go right to eating 1,800, your your your body's going like, "Yo, we're way behind.

Help me out." Yeah. So, is that what are you doing? Are you Did you look it up? I mean, I just know people who uh you probably chat GBT real quick. Well, bro, walking a marathon would take you 7 hours. Six. I mean, so, and that's a marathon. That's walking flat surface. Hiking. Yeah. That's 2 days. She's hiking in and back and and and getting there late camping and then hiking out and only eating 1,800 calories. Way low. Way low. So, so way way low. That's why I'm like, wait a second.

This is She's beyond low. beyond low. beyond low. Yeah. 2 to 4 days. Oh my god. 20 miles per day. Oh my god. Yeah, dude. Dude, she needs to be She needs to be mid to high 2000s consistently. consistently. consistently. Consistently. Consistently. Consistently. Yeah. Big time. That's That's what's going on right now. And Oh, yeah. That's And her poor poor poor body. That's not food noise. That is like I We're starving. Yeah. Help help us out. All right. I know you like that episode. If you did, check this one out.

Walking. It's one of the best things you could do for your health, bar none. But there's a better way to approach it. Yes, you can just walk, but if you follow the right protocol, it's far more effective. Let's talk about talk about talk about walking. I can't wait to hear your walking protocol. walking protocol. walking protocol. Well, there is a Well, there is a protocol. So, and I'll start with the first thing, right? Cuz just first off, uh let me start with this. One of the reasons why walking um is such a great form of just activity is because it's low risk of injury.

Now some