Chronic Pain Causes | 5 Common Habits That Make Pain Worse | Mind Pump 2901

Key Takeaway

Chronic pain isn't always about the injury itself—it's often about hidden factors making it worse. Poor sleep amplifies pain perception, making minor discomfort feel unbearable. Start by tracking your water intake (aim for half to one gallon daily) and supplement with vitamin D and magnesium. Many people experience significant pain relief within days just from fixing these basics. The key insight: where you feel pain isn't always where the problem is—weak hips often cause knee or back pain through compensating muscles.

Episode Overview

This episode explores five surprising factors that worsen chronic pain beyond obvious movement issues: poor sleep quality, dietary inflammation and deficiencies, inadequate hydration, and dysfunctional breathing patterns. The hosts share practical strategies for addressing each factor and emphasize how chronic pain often stems from compensating muscles rather than the painful area itself.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Chronic Pain Causes | 5 Common Habits That Make Pain Worse | Mind Pump 2901 from Mind Pump Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Chronic pain sucks. But did you know that there's five common things that people do? These pain. And they're weird. They're weird things. You wouldn't even think that they'd make you hurt more, but everybody does at least one or two of them. We're going to talk about that today. Help reduce that chronic pain by fixing these. Let's go. This feels so on point with the way we all walked into. Yeah. This feels targeted. I had a lot of issues I was bringing into. Everybody everybody had some some Fourth of July uh stories to tell about how they they still on my fingers.

I actually don't think this is I don't think there's ever been a time where we've come in where I've heard every every single person in here including Doug go Doug go Doug go groaning groaning about their their chronic pain chronic pain chronic pain freaking hips man. Well, you know, you know why this is so important? Like we learned this as trainers. Like uh if we all learned independently that one of the ways that we became very successful or could become very successful was figuring out how to help people with chronic pain.

It was actually more important than figuring out how to get people to lose weight uh and build muscle. Those are all so important because that's why people hire you. [snorts] But as a good trainer, I figured this out halfway through my career was like, "Oh my gosh, when I get people to move better and feel better, they don't want to stop. the longevity and in lifers like you create lifers once you figure that out and and how to help people. Well, the challenge for trainers that are listening uh is that people typically don't come in not don't come in for chronic pain.

They come in for fat loss. fat loss. fat loss. That's right. That's right. That's right. But all of them almost almost all of them suffer from some sort of chronic pain benefit. pain benefit. pain benefit. And so when you're an early trainer, you hear the first main goal, I want to lose 20 pounds. And you focus just on that and you think that that's the the main thing. What you don't realize is not only do they want to lose 30 lbs, but they've also had this chronic nagging pain for 20 years.

That's right. That's right. That's right. And and as you get better, you realize that that's actually an easier solve than the 20 30 lb. 20 30 lbs requires some serious discipline, consistency, and behaviors that have to change forever for to get them to lose that 20 30 lbs. Where a lot of times when it comes to chronic pain, there's some habits that we can install right away or some movement patterns that we can address and I can start to alleviate. Yeah. And I think what Yeah.

And I think what it is is that people accept uh like certain types of chronic pain. Totally. I have bad knees. I have bad hips. I have bad low back. Becomes who I am. Becomes a part of their identity, which is really crazy. By the way, if you look at the data on why people stop working out uh or the the reasons why people aren't consistent. Um pain is near the top. It's one of the top three reasons why people will stop uh working out. So, this is a big one.

Okay. Pain is also a signal that tells you something's going on. Now, before we get into like some of these things that are weird that cause uh more pain, it's important to differentiate between pain that comes from an injury or acute pain versus chronic pain. So, acute pain is like you hurt yourself. So, hey, my knee hurts. Why does your knee hurt? I fell on it yesterday or my shoulder hurts. Or really, what happened? Well, you know, 3 weeks ago, I was playing tennis and I heard it pop and there's something going on in my shoulder.

That's acute pain. That's injury pain that requires rest. Okay. Then you have chronic pain. Chronic pain is like that nagging area that just bothers you. Sometimes it hurts more than others. I got low back pain. I got hip pain. I got knee pain. Oh, my right shoulder kind of always bothers me. And maybe you had an injury years ago, but the injury should be healed by now. And yet, every time you get into working out, every time you get into a particular exercise, you have to stop.

I can't bench press anymore. I can't deadlift anymore. or I can't do that thing anymore because of this pain that tends to come up. So that's the kind of pain uh that we're talking about here is that chronic pain, not that you had an injury because if you have an injury, you need to rest it, let your body heal. Now uh before we get into the weird things, let's talk about the the not so weird things that cause pain just very briefly. Movement pattern issues uh are a common cause of chronic pain.

Arguably number one. Yes. Yes. Yes. Almost almost always it's this. It's rarely the other ones. Totally. So, low back pain, chronic low back pain, and you go deeper and you figure out, well, you got poor core strength or stability, maybe some instability in your hips, you know, my knee pain, oh, maybe some ankle mobility issues, um, you know, shoulder pain, pain, pain, a lot of compensations happening. Yeah. So, you kind of figure this out and you figure this out through exercise, through mobility movements. We have two programs are really good at this.

uh Prime Pro helps you address uh the indivi individual joints and then map symmetry is just a workout program that just on its own because it's unilateral is so good at correcting issues. Uh so that's kind of like the like the main functional thing that's happening and the other part that that is important to understand is there's physiological stuff that's happening with pain. So we know that there are pain signals and receptors that receive it and we know something's going on. But then there's the experience of pain.

And the experience of pain we can't separate from the physiological aspect. Okay? We just can't. So the experience is like how are you literally perceiving this pain. So a good example is somebody who works out all the time and they work out real hard. They feel pain when they work out, right? You know what we would call good pain. Their legs burn or they're out of breath or the muscles hurt when they're working out. Uh they can uh really withstand this pain much more than the average person.

specific condition themselves. They have a different experience. In fact, many fitness people will find this kind of pain uh enjoyable. Um so experience makes a big difference and some of the stuff we're going to talk about today just changes the experience of the pain which makes the pain much more perceiveable. perceiveable. perceiveable. Would you put that under like the umbrella of the psychological part of it? it? it? Totally. You can't separate the two. Because I I think that's also I mean we've all probably experienced this before is you ever cut your finger and not looked at it?

Y and then you look at it and then all but then all of a sudden the pain comes which is so wild like there's to a point where you've probably also done this where you've done something and I've intentionally I'm not going to look at it. I'm not going to look at it for like 30 minutes. I'm going to avoid looking at it till like blood seeping out the sock or something. Oh, that's probably worse than I think it is. I used to train I trained a lot of uh doctors and surgeons at one point and I train and we had this great conversation on pain.

I don't remember why it started but he explained you know the the experience of pain and he said he gave me a great example. He said it's so weird s he goes we'll do a surgery a major surgery on a kid and we have to prevent them from jumping out of the bed and running around. He goes, "I'll do it on an adult and I got to give them max pain meds all the time because they're hurting so bad and the surgery's like way wasn't nearly as bad." And I'm like, "What do you mean?

What's going on?" He goes, "The kids don't even know they're supposed to." to." to." They have all those associations already built. built. built. That's right. They don't they don't know they're supposed to be in tons of pain. So, they have to stop them before they reinjure themselves. Whereas the average person is like, "I can't lift anything over five pounds. Please give me a Norcco. I need this before I can do anything." Super wild, isn't it? It's so so cool. I I remember this this uh I don't know if this connects but uh in in junior high I was in seventh grade and I got in this big fist fight with this kid and I'll never forget it was like a big deal and then it got broken up and I'm walking away you know trying to not get caught by the teacher and I remember looking down at my hands and they were bloody from I must have hit him the wall parking lot and no it wasn't church every time.

every time. every time. Yeah. And I but I remember being like I didn't even feel that happening, you know, and it was because in the moment moment moment adrenaline and everything, you're not looking at it. The experience, but the second I look at my hands, you better believe pain right away. Pain kicked in. We have to talk before you get into the five weird things. You have to talk about the the movement pattern issues, too, because this this is I literally I was on a phone call yesterday with a buddy of mine.

We were just talking about, you know, old man chronic stuff. He starts telling me like, "Oh man, I've got [clears throat] this." Out of nowhere, all of a sudden, now my my groin kind of thigh, quad area is hurting. And I was explaining to him that when you get chronic pain like that, it's almost always movement pattern issues, which means there's some sort of weakness or instability. And I said, it's normally somewhere in in the nearby joint, right? And the reason why I want I think we should talk more about this is because how how difficult it is for the average person to to piece this together because a lot of times, like I'm explaining to him, this is probably related to hip, your weakness and instability in your hip.

And so there's muscles that are overcompensating in the quad and the thigh that are that are now overworking and then you're feeling it cuz he's like it's so weird because when I when I work out it doesn't bother me. It's like once I get working out and stuff going it feels okay. It's like when I'm laying in bed at night I'm like well that's exactly exactly exactly telltale signs is that yeah when you're when you're stren when you're doing squats you're working on the hips and you're strengthening that that mobility and stability and strength in the hips.

when you're not it's overcompensating somewhere because there is weakness there and then now that muscle gets overworked that overworked is that chronic pain you're feeling and so a lot of times people connect like I have a bad knee or I have a bad low back and the bad and bad low back is is classic for this the low back is not a bad low back it's like the muscles surrounding the low back that are pulling on the low back but it's due to weakness in the hips or something else that's going on that's leading to that so a lot of times where the pain where you're feeling the pain isn't always necessarily the problem that it's the problem is somewhere else.

Totally. And it's it's because the overcompensation. overcompensation. overcompensation. Yeah. When you look at a joint, uh joints when they moved optimally. Okay. So, when the muscles that move the joints are doing what they're supposed to and it's stable. Uh joints don't deteriorate. They actually strengthen. You'll see cartage cartilage rebuild. They'll be hydrated. There's good fluid in there and there won't be pain. When the muscles are not moving uh the joint in an optimal way, then the joint starts to experience wear and tear. Uh not to mention when your body senses instability, what it does is it creates in it creates stability by tightening muscles around the joint and that tightness feels like pain.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So things are tightening up because the body's like this is not a stable joint. We're going to limit range of motion. Let's keep everything tight. And so it's trying to keep you from actually hurting yourself, but in the process uh it hurts. But that pain is limiting your movement, which is what your body's actually trying to do. Hey, let's limit movement. movement. movement. So, uh, no. So, correctional exercises is number one. But there are things that just make overall pain feel worse and they're important to talk about because they're real and we just don't realize it.

And I'll give you number one, poor sleep. So, poor sleep, this is well documented in the data, well documented. Poor sleep changes first off, we'll talk about it on a physiological standpoint, changes movement pattern issues, changes hormone profiles, and promotes uh inflammatory pathways. So, you just get overall more inflammation anyway. But it also does something else. It reduces resilience and changes perception. Okay, so good example of this is you get poor sleep, you're irritable, right? I'm just in a worse mood. So, my kids jumping on me to play normally, not a big deal.

If I'm sleep deprived, they jump on me. and now I'm irritated with him. Well, that's how your how your perception is with everything, including how your body feels. And so, cold feels colder, hot feels more intolerable, and the little bit of pain feels like much more, more, more, much louder. And this is what chronic poor sleep uh will do to the body, both from an inflammatory standpoint, but also from a psychological stand. Now, an interesting part about the poor sleep and talking about chronic pain is this also is one of the things that puts you at the highest risk for acute pain, for injury.

for injury. for injury. Yes. Yes, Yes. Yes, Yes. Yes, we were talking about this also this weekend, my buddies and I cuz we're talking about sports and athletes and trainers and they were asking me like questions like when we've we've interviewed some of these like, "Oh, did you ask him about why he got this injury?" I'm like, "Oh, that's like the biggest pet peeve of a of an of a coach of an athlete because that's not even like everyone thinks it's this trainer's fault because they did something wrong with their training to prep them." And I'm like, what they don't what most people don't realize is the number one culprit for injuries is bad sleep.

And here we have a bunch of these young 20-year-old athletes who are partying and drinking and going out and not sleeping. And the truth is that trainer could have been doing all the right things in their training program. That athlete goes and parties all night then goes up gets up on game day the next day and he blows something and then everybody wants to blame the trainer because the trainer didn't do something correct. And it's just like when when in reality nothing puts that athlete at higher risk than than poor sleep.

Yeah. They've done studies on this and like comparing it to like not warming up and it's worse. It's worse than not warming up. So going and jumping under a heavy squat right out the gates is safer for you from an injury standpoint than having really crappy sleep and having a workout. That's a Now now the question is why does that happen? Uh there's a few reasons that we can speculate but the main one is your CNS which requires sleep right? So sleep resets the CNS, gets everything moving properly.

Your CNS is off. And so the way that muscles fire and react and how pliable they are, which is all controlled by your CNS, isn't controlled very well. So you do a complex movement like run or jump or do a clean or a press or whatever, uh it's just not moving well. And so those muscles that are supposed to stabilize don't stabilize so well. Muscles that are supposed to be pliable, maybe stay tight, tight, tight, next thing you know, you hurt yourself. But poor sleep uh by the way is the number one hack for recovery.

Everybody's like, "How do I recover faster? How do I get better sleep?" Nothing comes close to sleep. So the next one is diet. Diet will increase inflammation. Period. End of story. And it's it's it's crazy to me when I hear people argue against this that diet has no role. no role. no role. Like it's innocuous. Yeah. Yeah. Like, oh yeah, what you eat doesn't affect [snorts] joint pain. What? No. are first off uh I I can experience this myself very clearly and I do this with my clients as well but I'll just speaking from personal experience if I so this is for me now okay so if I eat a lot of garbage food uh especially things that are heavily processed but especially if I eat gluten the next day or two whatever joints I have that tend to be my joints that will hurt a little bit suddenly now are in a lot of pain suddenly left hip pain suddenly little bit of SI joint pain.

Why? Because it had gluten. It's like clockwork. clockwork. clockwork. It's the perfect recipe. And I think that's I could attribute a lot of that cuz, you know, over Fourth of July, there was a lot of drinking. For me, it's alcohol. It's like the the way that I'm like dehydrated, the way I'm like functioning the next day and lack of sleep. You know, you get the worst sleep. Uh if you've been drinking as well, too. Those all contribute uh to whatever pain or discomfort you had already.

It totally exaggerates it. Totally. Well, we haven't talked about this in a really long time. Uh we used to talk about it more when we when fasting was really popular and it was like the it was invogue to be talking about fasting all the time and we talked about all the benefits and why we used it. This is one of my favorite things to do with a client is to show them this way by cuz you mean somebody a lot of times people don't even realize that they're inflamed from the their diet.

They just cuz they're always inflamed. Yeah. They're always inflamed. They're kind of used to it. That's kind of just how their body looks and feels and moves. And I used to love to put a client on a 24-hour fast and you get the reports like, "Oh my god, I feel [clears throat] so good. My back pain." And they they feel chronic pain go down. They would feel so much better the way they move. And then that would enlighten them on guess what? There's probably something that we're eating that you're intolerable to that is causing low even if it's low-level inflammation, it's enough that causes this chronic pain.

And so this is such a sneaky one right here is that a lot of times because someone doesn't have an autoimmune or they don't have a massive allergic reaction to say gluten, they think, "Oh, it's totally fine." What they're not re registering though is that they're at this low state of inflammation all the time because they don't have a massive reaction to it, but they have a mild enough one that causes chronic pain because they're always inflamed. Totally. So yeah, there's a few ways this this this will happen.

one, well, fatty acid intake, uh, I mean, your body uses fats and fatty acids to make, uh, all of your inflammatory markers. And so, if your fatty acid profile is off, you will, uh, you potentially would create a pro-inflammatory state in the body. So, very commonly in western societies, like too many omega 6 and omega 9 fatty acids, too little omega-3s, right? So, you'll have a inflammatory inflammatory inflammatory uh, kind of profile that's pro-inflammatory. You need inflammation, by the way. You need inflammation. It's a signaler.

But if it's off, if it's too low, that's not good. But that's rarely ever the case. If it's too high, that's also not good, which is often the case. So fatty acid profile can do that. And then foods that your body has mild immune reactions to. So we're not talking about allergic reaction. I'm not even talking about a serious gut issue because you'll know that you'll eat something like, "Oh yeah, that throws me way off." But some foods just your body has this kind of low-level immune reaction to which causes inflammation.

And at the moment, that's me with gluten. Gluten used to really bother my gut. Doesn't anymore. I can eat gluten and I won't have any gastro issues. But I will feel inflamed the day after. I just feel more tight the day after. And I know it's because it's this kind of immune reaction uh that's happening. Next up, deficiencies. Both macro and micro deficiencies. So what's a macro deficiency? If your protein intake is too low, your recovery is going to suck, which is going to make you have increased uh amounts of inflammation.

I've had sever over the years, I've had many clients where they were either vegan or vegetarian, typically vegan or vegetarian, because they struggle to get uh enough protein where I had them supplement with protein and the first thing they noticed was less pain. Mhm. they just notice less soreness, less stiffness gone just from having more more more I find this really common when we talk about the macro, right? This uh really common with people that are trained like that workout. Uh and this is why I think we talk about protein so much because it's so common that people are not eating optimal amount.

I can't tell you how many times I just bump somebody's protein intake by 30 to 50 grams and all of a sudden they're not feeling the chronic pain and soreness because they're just overtrained, underfed for what what's going on. And that simple little tweak and fix made a huge difference. difference. difference. That's right. The other another macro would be like too low with fats. That'll make it hurt for sure. Less common these days, but back in the day, especially my female clients, they try to survive on 30 grams of fat a day and just couldn't figure out why they felt uh terrible.

Bump their fats up and they felt better. Um, and then you have micro uh deficiencies that cause pain. Magnesium, vitamin D, very common. It's very common. So, vitamin E especially if you're dark skinned, by the way. So, if you're African-American, you're African-American, you're African-American, uh the last uh bit of data I saw, 70% uh would be deficient, not just suboptimal, but actually deficient in vitamin D. One of the side effects or effects of vitamin D deficiency is pain, just chronic pain. So, vitamin D is a very common one.

Magnesium is another one. If that's too low, you'll start to feel kind of stiffness and achiness. This is an easy one to fix. So, if this is you, this is cool. just go take some vitamin D and some magnesium. And you'll notice within a week, I tell the story of my dad because this this one shocked me. Uh because my dad is always outside. So I was like, you know, if you're outside all the time, you probably don't have a vitamin D deficiency. And he literally is.

I mean, this is a you know, he's a retired Sicilian man. His small backyard is like wallto-wall plants and fruits and vegetables, and he's always outside. He's always doing things outside. Of course, we're dark skinned, but I didn't piece it together. And he was just because my dad has uh lots of pain just from hard labor since he was a kid. But it just kept getting worse. His back pain getting worse, his hip pain, he was complaining about it, but again, you know, my dad, you know, in his 60s, hard labor, so it just couldn't piece it together.

And sometimes that help him stretch. It would help a little bit, but it was always there. He did a routine blood test, deficient in vitamin D. Couldn't believe it. Uh took vitamin D and within a week, like pain was gone. And it was all because of that of that deficiency. The magnesium one can be huge too because if you're deficient in magnesium many times that also affects the sleep and then poor sleep it's just a cycle. So So So you're right. All of these affect the others, don't they?

Yeah. It's not just one. one. one. Yeah. So it's like that's such a that could be a I mean that was a big unlock for myself was the magnesium in my in my sleep. And so if you're you know kind of lowle chronic inflammation and you're this you know poor sleeper and then all of it could be connected to low magnesium. You have low magn you fix your magnesium all a sudden the sleep gets better all the inflammation goes down. So, all of it's connected. That's right.

Next is water intake. This one was an interesting for one for me to figure out later on for my clients. Uh I I didn't really talk about water with my clients ever. I knew it for myself, but I only knew it for myself cuz back in the day, bodybuilders would tell you to drink a gallon of water a day. And so, of course, you know, I want to be jacked. So, I'm going to do what the bodybuilders say uh within reason. So, I would just drink tons of water.

Never talk to my clients about water ever. Then I had this physical therapist that worked in my studio. I've talked about her before because she was so good. And I remember I I would hear her, and this happened multiple times. I'd hear her talk to her clients about drinking more water because of their pain. And the first time I heard it, I kind of dismissed it. But I heard it enough times to where the clients would come back in and report back and they'd say, "Oh my god, I feel so much better.

I think it's the water." After five or six times hearing this, I was like, "Is could this really be a thing?" Yeah. And sure enough, the clients that I had who kind of dealt with inflammation here and there, it's like, you know, let's track your water. Let's see if we can get you to drink more water. What happens? happens? happens? Pain relief. And it was like within a day. Uh, and so this makes a big difference for people who don't drink enough water. enough water. enough water.

Yeah. You know, I was on to this one a bit early when I was um in football and I was in sports and everything else. Like actually when I was in college was really where it was really apparent uh because the humidity and and so we'd have to get weight in and make sure uh you know that we were drinking adequate water and like you know having electrolytes with that so that way too we didn't like lose too much weight and so to the point where you get fatigued to the point where you lose energy you get pain but for me it was really like working at I don't know if you guys even I told you but like I I for for a minute there I thought I might do like athletic training.

training. training. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I was like working in in you know in the the lab and um I was like you know the running water and stuff. I was actually working with like the soccer team at first and then I quit that that that day after that. I was like I'm not going to deal with a bunch of these babies dude. Oh my god. Side note. Thanks Justin. Right in the middle of World Cup. All the soccer fans are crazy. Bunch of babies.

But uh so anyways, dude. There was yeah back to our we're back in the lab and there and uh that was the biggest complaint and and most of them were dehydrated and so yeah once we started kind of fixing all that it was like pain. Do you think there's anything more there than the obvious thing like obviously hydrating ligaments and tendons and bone being lubricates the joint joint joint is lubricating the joints. That's the obvious one. Do you think there's other things there like you flushing nutrients through more?

There's also that. Yes, there's also that. There's also that your muscles uh operate better when they're very hydrated versus when they're not. They're not they're going to have be more to they're going to have be more pliable, more reactive. Uh what do I mean by that? Getting a muscle to contract quickly and relax quickly is very important to prevent injury and pain. Muscles that don't do that want to stay tight and so you move stiffer. Water intake plays a big role. By the way, this is an easy one for everybody listening right now.

Like you if you start drinking, you know, half a gallon to a gallon of water every single day, you play with this. Just track it, try it out, watch what happens. You'll know within a day or two, uh, if this makes a big difference. And I I will I'll say this, it was a good chunk of my clients made a big difference. Probably 30% of my clients, I'm embarrassed to say, benefited from something that I didn't even talk about for the first 10 years of my training.

I wonder too if a lot of that is just because we have so many choices of fluid that people can drink now instead of water that they end up doing is you know is it well I think what it is is that you nobody's dehydrated to the point where they're like you know where you would measure them and be like uhoh you everybody drinks enough but what's enough and optimal are different right right right so enough so enough so enough and what's enough and optimal for the average person then enough and optimal for someone who's training even more if you're sweating definitely lastly is breathing breathing will definitely affect pain and people.

Now, let me explain. I'll tell you I'll give I'll give an experience that I had with this and when this was an unlock for me. So, again, years ago, this has got to be at least 20 years ago. Um, I was really into uh Brazilian jiu-jitsu and I needed to become more flexible and so I started to do uh yin yoga. Uh, so yin yoga is a form of yoga where you sit in a stretch for like five minutes. So you're not standing and it's literally passive sitting in these long stretches.

And so I'm in there and I'm doing it and I'm the big guy in there of course probably only I was the only dude in there. So the instructor of course singles me out and at one point she comes over to me and she's like stop holding your breath and I was like okay. So I started breathing. She said when you're holding your breath you're telling your body to stay tight. stay tight. stay tight. Tight. Yep. And I was like, of course, like when you hold your breath now, holding your breath to be tense when I'm doing a max lift, that's important.

It helps. Yeah, it helps you brace. But when what I'm telling my body to do when I'm holding my breath is to stay tense. Okay. So, you might be listening, you're like, I don't hold my breath all day. No, but you do this. You shallow breathe all day long. There's something called belly breathing and then there's something called shallow breathing. When you're scared or anxious or ready to fight, you take shallow breaths. And in the short term, it gives you more oxygen, can make you perform better.

But in the long term, it just tells your body, stay tight. I need to stay tight. I need to be ready. A belly breath is a full diaphragmatic breath where you fill the belly the belly the belly and you're breathing fully. That tells the body, we don't need to stay alert and we don't need to stay tight. This silly stupid one right here, I've had more than a few clients, this one right here, solved their pain problem just having the belly. It's so funny. were really good about uh you know in the fitness space u and and being a coach of like teaching people how to breathe the brace and how to like create that tightness cuz you know that's a big battle at first is being able to really get rigid enough to be able to like handle the load but you know as you get into it especially over the years you keep reiterating you keep you know doing the same thing over and over and over you get so tight and it's like we don't have that uh you know that other pathway a lot of times you have to go to like a yoga studio, you have to go to like somebody else that's a practitioner that's like really addressing the fact that like also you need to release, you know, you have to be able to breathe to uh relax.

So, you know, it's definitely not something common that's, you know, pushed. I feel like I this is what I had to learn to do to get the real benefits from even a massage. Oh, yeah. So, like you hold your breath. So people have a tendency uh especially if you're somebody like I remember when I first started like I only like Swedish massage which is like the real soft cuz I never felt like I got the relief from the like hard like real sports massage because they dig into you and you're like and the whole time you're bracing you're like that's an awful hour and a half.

Yeah. The hour everyone talks about how this how good this is. And I I remember when I would when when I first started dating Katrina she would she would coach me. She's like you need to breathe. You have to breathe through that. like you can't tense up and hold it or else I can't I'm not going to work anything. It's not going to do anything. It's just me me drilling my elbow into you and then you're going to be like this sucks, you know? And so I really had to focus on learning how to breathe through that.

And boy, what a night and day difference of the relief I would get from the sports massage, knowing how to breathe properly versus just trying to, you know, and you're trying to you're quiet. Your face is down and so and you don't a lot of times it's a stranger. You don't know who they are. So you're not like, "Ow, sorry, don't." You're just sitting there just you're tensing up and you need to relax in order for them to get in there and do the work. I remember this.

So I have two instances where this blew this is so this was one of the paradigm shattering moments of my training career was the breathing right here. F the first time I had a woman belly breathe for the first time with me because I had learned how to do it. So we're on the floor, her hand is on her upper chest, hands on her belly. I'm like breathe in deep. Rise the hand on your belly first. When that can't go up any higher, then you can rise the upper ch.

So she's sitting there breathing and she started crying and I remember looking around like uh oh what did I do? Uh but that's because she was holding on to so much and that told her parasympathetic system got activated she could finally release emotion. So that was the first one. The [snorts] second time is I had this guy that I trained and his back pain was really bad when he started me and we got it better but it was never like 100%. It was always kind of bothering him.

We always had to be careful, always had to do mobility, couldn't figure it out, whatever. And then I learned about breathing and I'm and I watched him and I said, "Bro, I think you're shallow breathing all day long." He had a stressful tech job. I think you're just shallow breathing all day long day long day long at work and that's making everything stay tight. I said, "Can you try this?" He started trying it and it was the last thing. It was crazy. And you're hunched over and I could see that happening to so many people just shallow breathing all day long.

long. long. In fact, if you shallow breathe all the time and you try belly breathing, it's going to feel really weird. It's very difficult. It's like this movement pattern you're not used to, but is pain totally away. Anyway, I got I'm going to change subject because I got to tell you guys the number one supplement because you guys know I have a big family family family and my family occasionally will listen to our podcast or they'll catch me on their algorithm and so they're always asking me questions about the products that we talk about.

So, like the number one one one product and supplement now that my entire family is like trying and raving about and everybody's talking about is the parasite cleanse from from from everybody's like everybody's like everybody's like interesting. They're on the parasite game. game. game. Everybody's like, "Let me I got to do this. I have this and let me try this." And then they're coming back and be like, "This is crazy. I feel so good." Or whatever. Or whatever. Or whatever. I got six family members. Wow.

I feel like it's we, you know, next time you I wish I would have had you stop and ask guests because the whole time we've had this podcast, they've gone through phases, right, where you talk about something and then all a sudden they all get on it or one is there normally because you talked about on the podcast or is there somebody who is in the family that influences it besides you cuz obviously you influence them with health and fitness but is there like a person whether it's your dad or your cousin or someone who takes it and they're like dude that thing that child talked about I took it and then they then there's this trickle down effect.

How does it normally unfold? So, usually it's me selling it cuz I know what what they need, who needs it. But the parasite one I didn't sell. So, so it my sister first sees the ad, reports back to me cuz she gets gut issues. And she's like, "Do you think this could be my thing?" I'm like, "Well, let's let's let's figure it out. Uh, you have a million animals. You're always outside in the dirt." I said, "You like sushi. You've never done it before. Maybe before.

Maybe before. Maybe let's give it a shot." So, she started it. She started talking about it. My brother started talking about it. And the next thing you know, I got other people. people. people. The crazy part is we do this with our pets anyways like systematically. Yeah. You're like it's like quarterly or whatever it is like because it it just happens all the time. They just pick them up and you know and then you're you're having to deal with it and it's like we're animals too and it's just weird that we don't associate that uh with humans.

I mean I always think of that study they talk about though we take care of our pets better than we take care of ourselves. like the the consistency that you'll give your your pet the medication, then give yourself the medication. medication. medication. Well, what's cool about the about uh Organifi is it's all natural. Yeah. It's not a it's not a So, it's not like you're taking an antibiotic to kill a lot of the ones that you would go to like a doctor. Make no make no mistake.

Uh the the the the drugs are like those are like bombs. Like you're going to kill everything. Make no mistake. But the natural stuff is really good. Useful and Useful and Useful and the natural stuff is very efficacious. Well, it doesn't hurt you to take it a couple times. A couple times. That's right. Do it every year. do it every year. I would do one of these parasite cleanses. You're not going to be worried about any potential, you know, you know, you know, and you always recommend to run back to back, right?

Cuz you said I'd say do one cycle, wait like 15 days, do another one. Uh just in case there's eggs that don't get touched or so gross when we talk about this eggs and bugs and stuff in your gut. I mean, I mean, it's gross, but a lot of people suffer from it. So, little inside you right now. right now. right now. Oh, so crazy. Subject switch. Subject switch. Subject switch. I got a guy to bring up for I got a guy to bring up for you, Justin.

So, do you know who Arthur Saxon was? Saxon was? Saxon was? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. old time old time old time strongman guys. So I have an article. Dude, article. Dude, article. Dude, I love reading about these like old times feats of strength, but then also like go down those but also like their training and diet. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, cuz you got to keep in mind like this is this is this is a long time ago. So he was born was born was born heavy cream like what was he?

Yeah. Heavy whipping cream and steak and egg. egg. egg. So first of all, this guy was born in 18 cigarettes. cigarettes. cigarettes. He was born in 1878. So, he was doing these feats of strength in the early 1900s, and I'll tell you his his one lift that was uh a world record for 120 years. So, remember he did he was had it held for 120 years. Yeah. I don't even know who broke it. I'd like to see. How often does like a lifting or any record last a 100 years?

That's wild. Is that him right there? Okay, that's him. Okay, so he's a German wrestler, also weightlifter. He was 510, 200 lb. Okay. So, obviously built, right? Now, just for people listening, this is before steroids existed. This is before creatine. There's no protein powder. You're just a dude built built built lifting weights and you got a job still because you have to support your family. Okay. Okay. Okay. Here's here's the lift that he did that was a world record for uh 120 years. In 1905, he did a bent press.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is a onehand press. Okay. above your body 370 pounds. That's so insane. On a barbell, you know, you know, you know what's so crazy about that? A long barbell is balance is balance is balance and balance that balance h balance a quarter of that. Put a 100 pound dumbbell. Try to hold it. A dumbbell, not a barbell. Well, no, a barbell. Try and hold just a barbell balanced above your head. Already you're in a fixed kind of tried our old time strength.

It's like that's you have to start just by balancing that overhead. Like in itself is a challenge like crazy. like crazy. like crazy. He also did almost 400. He also did something called the two hands. Anyhow, so he would do a bent press. This is all by the way recorded cuz he would do in front of an audience. He did a bent tried this lift. He did a bent press with 260 lbs. Then while he had it above his head, he would squat down and pick up a 110 lb kettle bell with his left hand.

Then he would stand up with 448 lbs and he'd have them both up over his head. What? What? What? Anyway, crazy. It's crazy. He's badass. Here's his diet. Let's hear. Let's hear. Let's hear. Some of it's awesome. Some of it's like, what's going on here? Breakfast. Breakfast. Breakfast. 24 eggs, three lbs of smoked bacon, and porridge with cream. So, how's breakfast? breakfast? breakfast? We were pretty close, by the way. You definitely had a cigarette. How many How many calories is How many calories is 24 Babe Ruth diet?

Dude, Doug, look up the macros and calories on 24 eggs. That's insane. About 1500 calories. I've done 10. That's the most I've ever done. done. done. 1500 calories. 1500 calories. 1500 calories. Then then dinner. So then that was it. Then he had dinner. Dinner was 10 pounds of meat. of meat. of meat. 10 lb 10 lb 10 lb 10 pounds of meat. It says here 10 pounds of meat. Wait, come on. There's got to be exaggeration. exaggeration. exaggeration. And then during his during the day, come on, S.

I mean, listen. Come on. This is I mean there's got to be there gota be some exaggeration here. You know, here's the problem. 10 pounds, dog. Come on. That sounds crazy. I for a guy who's only 5'10", 200 something pounds. something pounds. something pounds. He also did a one- arm ben press. Well, I mean, that's why you like, "Well, maybe look up Arthur Saxon diet and confirm." So, here's the problem. You're right. Cuz a lot of this some of this was witnessed by people and some of it is like, like, like, "Yeah, that's like legend stuff." Like he probably told people, "I eat 24 eggs a day." Cuz maybe one time he did.

I eat 10 pounds of meat in a day. Like cuz he did it one time. I mean, let me see what it says. It was famous for Yeah. It says he ate like ridiculous amounts of of eating. So I he was known for this. I don't know how accurate it is, but he was known for it. You wonder how many people do this that lived, you know, in his era. Arthur Saxons Saxons Saxons right there. 10 pounds of meat. Yeah. A massive 10 pounds of meat, dude.

Dude, there's no way, bro. I mean, that right there in calories. What's 10 pounds of meat, dude? dude? dude? That's over 10,000 calories by itself. It doesn't sound right. There's no way. Doesn't sound right. Yeah. 10 pounds and he's 510 to No way. It's not like he was a giant. It would be different if he was a or he was a a marathon swimmer. There's more, too, by the way. He would drink beer all day long. Yes. This is legend [ __ ] Don, get out of here with this.

Don't tell my Don't tell our audience this though. Some someone's like, "I'm on. I'm gonna go do the bent press." Everything I said, "Don't try. Don't try a bent press with 330 lbs. Don't eat 24 eggs for breakfast. Don't eat 10 pounds of that ain't real. There's no way." Yeah. No, it's 6,000 calories. 10 10 lbs of beef. beef. beef. 971 gram of protein. Yeah, that's insane. That's right. He's also, by the way, he's he's putting in super lean meat. 5% fat. That's not normal. Most meat is 8020.

Did Do they even have 95 95 back then? 8020 here. It's 11,500 g. g. g. Yeah, that's more like it. So, here's the thing with all of this. I said 10,000 calories. You're talking about 10,000 calories just in meat. Yeah, I know. And the eggs was another Sounds crazy. Here's here's the thing, though. I will say that the that these strong these strong men, these these bronze era kind of athletes there. I think where you want to find the truth is in the similarities. Like, what do they have in common?

They all ate a lot of eggs. They all had a lot of cream. They all ate a lot of a lot of lot of lot of meat. Yeah. All of them. I mean, that's to me that's the takeaway. Highfat, you know, eggs. Y meat like you know milk cream. milk cream. milk cream. Yeah. I mean that's that's all believable and I 100% agree and that is but his ben press was I mean he had an audience and they did say that's it. that's it. that's it.

370. 370. 370. That's insane. I mean even if that was half that it's still insane. Arthur Saxon used to also so so back in those days the way that they would make money is they would do exhibitions. So they would ask audience members to oh come lift this. Can you pick it up? Okay. You can't here. Let me show you. No. No. And they'd have challenges, but then they'd also, some of them would wrestle. wrestle. wrestle. And Arthur Saxton was one of those guys. He would challenge people to a match, make everybody say, "Uncle." Oh, he looks built for that, too.

Yeah. The way he Did we ever ask The way he Did we ever ask Robert Did Overs to do a big bent press for us? Who's the Who Who do we know that can do? He's one of the best pressers in general. He does the lock press is his main one. Yeah. Uh but yeah, he could probably Yeah. crush a bent press. Yeah. I don't think we ever I don't think we ever asked him. It' be interesting. He's the only He's so who the first person comes to mind.

Like if I could like you got one person to go do the heaviest bent press. You know, Robert's got to be one of the guys. His overhead press is insane. It's so funny. I was just talking about him uh this weekend. I was with a bunch of friends for the 4th of July. We had a bunch of friends. I haven't caught up with him in a long time. time. time. And uh they we were all talking about like what kind of results you can expect uh from strength training and what's the difference between some people that get great results or not?

How big of a role do steroids play? We were having this conversation. And I was trying to explain to them genetics. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they're like, it's people get it when you talk about other things like height. Like if I say 7 foot tall, right? Like that's so rare. It's crazy. But I'm like, you guys got to understand like people that these these people that do these crazy feats of strength like these athletes or whatever, they have genetics that are so rare. So, I was telling him about Robert Overbur and how we were hanging out with him and how he's just just if if aliens came on Earth and found us, they'd be like, "This is a different species." Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Than other people. Like this this is there's humans here and then there's whatever this is over here. Some kind of giant. That's how big this was the same conversation. I was having the same conversation. So that this is where this conversation led that I talked about with the athletes and injuries. I was explaining that to them too because they were again asking questions like, "Yo, why don't you ask the trainer this question and that question and I was talking about Koula and stuff like that." That's how this this all came up and I'm like, "Dude, their number one job is to just not let them get hurt." That's it.

That's it. That's it. You are not taking a Christian McAffrey and making him that much better. No, he is already genetically keep him keep him from getting hurt. Yes. And when he was probably 13, you saw it on the field when you was the people who got to watch him run around in in flag football. You see clips of him in high school. Insane, Insane, Insane, dude. You just you all of them are like that. If you were that tier, right? Obviously, it's a we're talking about a different example of someone who just barely made the league.

But if we're talking about the top echelon of NFL, NBA players, right, the elite elite, they were elite elite when they were little kids. They were they they they and that's the genetic piece and that's not to take anything away from their hard work and what they built on that all and the way they they've expressed that over years. That needs to be said though to a lot of parents out there. I think they're unrealistic. unrealistic. unrealistic. You guys need to calm down with your kid and then putting them in all these like travel teams and you know putting all these ideas in their head that they're going to go like if you know what what that looks like for real.

It's like it's pretty deflating once you get there and you're told this whole time like yeah you got skill. I don't know. Again, this is one of those things that's like controversial because it's like you know you want to promote like you want to promote like these ideas and like hard work will beat talent all day. like it's going to get there, but like reality sets in. Dude, let me just tell you from experience. You get to a point where genetics do play a factor. The hard work got you there.

there. there. Now all of a sudden, you got a guy that's like, you know, three, four inches taller than you and he's like insanely faster and he's like insanely bigger and stronger and you're like, "All right." "All right." "All right." Well, so when I was talking to this group of buddies, one of them So I was talking to this group of friends and one of them played uh college basketball. I don't think he was D1 though, but uh maybe two, but uh he's 67. Okay. 67.

Okay. 67. Okay. And so I I'm like this is perfect. I'll use him as example. So I said, "Let me ask you this." I said, "Uh maybe you've experienced this where you play a sport and you're the best in your high school and you're like, man, I'm awesome." But then you play another high school that's really good and suddenly you're like, "Oh my god, there's other good players." Then you make it to college and suddenly it's a whole another level. You're like, "Whoa, these people are way better than me." Then you go pro and you're like, "Okay, forget it." like this is a whole another level of like of human performance.

It's crazy like how many tears it is which just show shows the gap between someone who's just good versus someone who's like super athletic. Now that's not to say that hard work hard work is a wonderful skill to develop. develop. develop. Yeah. Period. Yeah. Period. Yeah. Period. It's going to translate to all kinds of other things. I just Yeah. I guess my caution is to like not put all the identity there, right? Like the hard work of it is the the the crux of like what you want.

I think what you're saying is so good and it needs to be said for a lot of parents. A lot of parents think what it is is I just need to get my kid in the best and they put him in all these camps. They do all this stuff and it's just like he I mean Katrina and I have this debate all the time when I see my son. It's like my son's not going to be or she's just like you don't know. It's always like [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] I absolutely know.

You can see I can see and and you I'll be around other kids like I told that story about the the what was it last uh summer or whatever. Actually, it was less than that. It was not that long ago when I told you Max got hit with the soccer ball. I mean, this kid is like half his size, but you could just see it. You know what I'm saying? He's got it. You know, he's just he's he's a year or two younger. He's got crazy footwork.

I mean, it's like I don't care. You can't convince me that his dad stayed up every night with him, you know, teaching him. It's like, no, he picked up a ball. I mean, your son's got it. Your son, you know, you know nothing about baseball, these sports, but all a sudden your son could just hit a ball. Like I mean some kids have just they have got it and again not to take anything away because you still have to develop that and and to keep doing it.

They got to have a passion for it to want to excel at it but there is definitely a genetics play a massive role in in that elite level. level. level. It's funny I just pulled up an article that they did this large uh study of 200 let me see if I can find it. Uh there were it was a six-month fitness uh study. Um and they I mean it was relatively controlled, right? So same routine, same diet supposedly. 287 people. Here's the difference in between those that were considered fast gainers and those that were that were considered average.

The hyperresponders gained about 30% more muscle. So they gained three times as much three two to three times as much muscle as the people in the middle. Average responders 5 to 10%. Low responders very little in six months. So most people fit in that average like like the vast there's like 90% of us are in the middle. 5% of us are low. 5% versus high and then of that 5% 1% of that 5% are what would consider would consider would consider let's say elite or crazy.

But most of us are in the middle and that's what you can kind of expect from you know from your strength training or from your workout. workout. workout. Anyway, I was uh this makes me think of uh just what I'm trying to do right now with my training because it's so different. I don't know if you I told Did I tell you guys over the last three or four weeks, I've only lifted weights like three times. I know. I was actually going to over the holiday I was going to call you and be like, "Hey, did you make sure to take today off?" today off?" today off?" Yeah.

I've only lifted a few times cuz I'm doing jiu-jitsu and I'm trying to get back into it. And oh, by the way, so when you first start doing jiu-jitsu and you don't move well, you get a lot of mat burns. I talked about this last episode. Like you rub too quickly on the mat. Yeah. mat. Yeah. mat. Yeah. And you get like And they they suck. And I got them on my elbows and my knees. And you know what? I'm going to put on them. Manukora.

them. Manukora. them. Manukora. Really? Really? Really? I'm going to put my neurora on them. I mean, it has healing properties. Healing properties for burns, for in for uh uh uh Oh, that'll be interesting. For skin. For skin. For skin. If I did that, my dog would lick it off. So, I'm going to walk. So, I'll take a shower afterwards. shower afterwards. shower afterwards. I'm going to put it on, throw a band-aid on, and let you guys know. I mean, if we're talking about like tribal days, right?

Like, it would be honey and aloe vera. What would you What would you use in nature? So, so there's there's a compound in manukora honey. Uh, and it, uh, so manukora is a type of manuka honey that's the highest amount of what this compound is. I can't remember. Maybe Doug, you can find it. There's a compound in there that's antimicrobial, antimicrobial, antimicrobial, promotes healing, and the studies on it on injury healing are ridiculous. Yeah. [clears throat] You have an injury. What is it? MGO. Yeah. Well, that's the the compound in there.

Yeah. Let me double check on that. And it's very very high percentage. you put it on burns or like skin abrasions, it'll heal way faster. Yeah. So, back to my my question. So, in nature, what would be the thing that they probably used or Oh, that's a good question. Like aloe and and and honey is the only thing that comes to mind like what else is kind of found in nature in in enough abundance you could put it on like burns and scrapes and and cuts.

I don't know. Yeah. I don't water it. No, that's you would put some sort of horse glue whatever like they would put to to um to close it. Close up Yeah. your wound. But that was Yeah, that was about it. Yeah. I don't know. I was also looking at by the way cuz I just started. So I'm not going to do this. Everybody calm down. But I was like, you know, I'm starting to get into it. Totally changing changing changing uh how I am around uh my workouts, by the way, now which is exactly what I was hoping for, which is pretty cool.

So I'm not even interested in trying to build muscle right now. My workouts are looking a lot like making me feel better. Yeah. Which is cool. It's exactly It's funny. I was talking to my wife about this cuz uh ate a bunch of garbage uh over the weekend cuz the holiday and uh today was a gym day. So, it's like the once a week I'll actually lift and I just felt so stiff. Now, normally, and you know this, Adam, if you're holding water cuz you ate garbage and you go lift weights, you get crazy pumps.

pumps. pumps. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, and so even though you're a little stiff, you kind of like the pumps. Yeah. I don't care about I don't want the pump. pump. pump. I don't want the pump and I don't want that in jiu-jitsu. I just want to feel better. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's like this new motivation to like change all of those things, which is pretty cool. I got to give you a cool since I got to give you a cool since you're on this kick right now.

So I took something from our um our our good friend Joe DeFranco. Uh he did you see he did this uh isometric lunge challenge thing that he did? No. No. No. Yeah. So I actually I was like so curious after I was like, "Man, can I do that?" I'm like, "I can't do that." Where you hold for a minute the basically a lunge position where your knee is just hovering off. you sit there for a minute. Yeah. And it actually got me thinking. I'm like, cuz we talk about the benefits of uh isometrics and even incorporated with priming for that.

So, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to do something. Uh one of my favorite things to do uh also is I love um walking lunges, especially when I'm very functional like I and I I big long strides. I'll even throw a little balance in between there just and it just I feel like it warms everything up. And I'm like, I'm gonna throw an isometric into every lunch. Yeah, I've been hearing a lot more about this, too. And I'm wondering if it's that Jay Schroeder, I don't know if you guys know this, okay?

He's like he's into like neural training and he does a lot of that stuff, but he uses isometrics quite a bit. And that that's like one of the is like the really long lunge. lunge. lunge. Okay. So, I' I've been doing this now for about two weeks and I have never felt so good getting into my squats and my deads. Yes. Wow. So, this is what I've been doing. So, what are you doing? You're getting into holding the I do walk I do locking I do walking lunges for 20 with 10 second holds.

second holds. second holds. So hold. So I go a stride knees hovering so it's just above the ground for hold for 10 seconds which is difficult in itself itself itself and then lunge again to the other side. Hold for 10 seconds. And so I walk. So that split stance that back leg stability, front leg stability, the torsion on the pelvis uh is really good. And then I'm holding it and then I'm holding an isometric for 10 solid seconds. seconds. seconds. I got to do that. And then I so I started like just the way this all evolved was I was actually just trying to see if I could do what what Joe was doing.

And about 30 seconds in I'm like shaking like a leaf like oh wow I want to see if I could build this up. So it started as that and then I was like oh you know that I felt so good after I did that. I felt like my hips and everything were all just woke up from that quick isometric. I'm like you know what I already love to do these walking lunges. I'm going to throw like a little bit of an isometric hold in the my priming to get ready for my and I went, "Oh my god, I felt so good going into my squat." And it normally takes me a I used to have to do a lot of 9090s and I got to do a lot of Miguel planes.

I do all this [ __ ] to warm up for my squats and deadlifts. And uh that that has just got me right into into into Oh, I'm going to try that. Yeah, it feels really good. I was looking at uh just because I'm, you know, I'm getting into it and I was not because I'm going to do this, but just I was looking into it and I'm like, if I were to compete again, what category would I be in with my age? Like category? No, it's masters four.

Oh, there's a higher level than masters. Well, because Yeah. Masters is 30, by the way. the way. the way. Oh, it is. Yeah. Well, you're talking about jiu-jitsu, bro. We're not talking about silver. Well, bodybuilding masters is uh 35, actually. I think I think masters is 35. So, Mast's 4 is 47, I think, to 51. So, immediate, first I'm like, you know, I'm not going to compete. You know, my cousins are like, you got to compete. I'm not going to compete. And then inside the back of my head, I'm like, maybe that would be fun a little bit.

I don't know. Let me look. And then I'm like, you know what? I don't want to get hurt. I'm like, wait a minute. I'm going to compete. What am I going to compete in? So, I looked it up and I'm immediately picturing the average 48-year-old. I'm like, oh, crush this. Then I remembered, wait, wait, the average then I remember self- selection bias. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The average 48-year-old that signs up for a jiu-jitsu tournament, he's been doing jiu-jitsu. Yeah. This this is a TRT, dude. This this guy's going to be all jacked and super fit.

Like, oh, it's not going to be easy. be easy. be easy. But there there was a split second where I just thought the average like 48y old guy, oh yeah, I'm totally going to compete. Wait a minute. No thanks. What is I think bodybuilding is 35. It's 35 or 40. I It might I can't remember. I know that. Uh, no. I think it's 35 cuz I think I remember when I was on my way out, I knew like one more year and I could do masters, I think, if I recall.

I could be wrong though. I could 35 or 40. Yeah. 35 is what? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, anyway, so there's that. But I got, dude, I got to tell you back to the inflammation thing. The reason why it inspired me to talk about this in the beginning episode, uh, I was weighing 215. So, I had dropped another 5 lbs. I was feeling good. Body was moving good. I probably will fall around 205 210 is probably where my body weight's gonna end up falling. But then I had this week where you know we're having alcohol.

I'm eating gluten higher than that. Listen. Yeah. Okay. I was 215 last week. Yeah. Okay. We're eating gluten. I'm having some alcohol. I'm not eating a ton, but it's foods that are swinging, swinging, swinging, bro. bro. bro. And this today, like I said, I went to the gym and I'm like, everything hurts. My hands hurt. 222. 222. 222. 222 on the Oh, look at that, dude. 7B swing. 7 lb swing in inflammation and water retention. water retention. water retention. Holy cow. Holy cow. Holy cow. That sucks.

That sucks. That sucks. I feel like that's you're I mean, we're so in the similar weight class right now, so I feel like I could totally I know what that does. Like, yeah, it's about right there. I can feel it. Everyone inflame inflame inflame just just just don't do that to me, bro. We can we can share training right now. I don't think he's going. No, you're not. You're Are you Are you You're nowhere near your heaviest right now, are you? No. No. No. No. Yeah, you're not.

You know, I I feel like heavier. Yeah, you've been way heavier before. I don't think he You're a lot fatter. When you get inflameing, this is how I feel. So, besides pain, I just feel stiff. That's like number one sign. Then the second sign, my eyes, dude. I feel like my eyes Yeah, dude. I feel like my eyes are puffy. Like they get like watery and I don't know. They just feel weird, dude. You know when you wake up in the morning and your eyes are kind of puffy?

It feels like that all day. Like what's happening right now? You have that too or no? Every day. Every day. Every day. My new one is my knuckles. Never had that before. That's like brand new. This is last 6 months. Uh like knuckles pain. knuckles pain. knuckles pain. Yeah. If I my if I get little like never I've always noticed my inflammation. I have like like like holding water in my kind of stomach area. My puffy face. I always talk about all of a sudden knuckle stuff like like it's because it's because I take the aura ring on and off to charge all the time and so there's times when it's like comes off right away and there's other times like oh it's not coming off today we're not charging it you say there's it's not even coming you know this this just makes me realize like not realize but I think it's important to talk about like uh if for people who work out consistently the number one consideration for good results if you're already consistent this is the number one consideration is recovery Y that's the number one consideration.

That's the thing right there that'll get you the best results is if you consider recovery and adaptation as the primary thing that you consider when it comes to workout intensity, frequency, diet, that right there will get you the best results. The problem is everybody who's consistent makes the workout the number one. I think this is why all our maps 15 programs have done so well with our audience because our our average audience obviously we have the whole gamut of age and range a big portion is our our age group or close to and I think a lot that consideration isn't taken in a lot a lot of it's focused on how hard of a workout can I do do do and honestly the 15 range just fits so much better it's more appropriate and I think people are seeing the same thing that I think we all noticed when we did it ourselves I was going like, "Oh my god, dude." Like, I must have been overdoing it.

Yeah, I was way overdoing it. Way overdoing it. It takes way le and again granted been lifting for 20 plus years. So, doesn't take that much to maintain that. In fact, and I think I was constantly get like and I really noticed it in the 40s like constantly nagging pain and hurting myself because always overdoing it's like what am I? the I've had way better results the last few years of the a more minimalist approach to my my training and focus more on the recovery and and and sleep and rest and fuel.

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This is the best sleep system in the world. You got to try out. By the way, if you have an HS HSA or FSA, this may also qualify as a medical expense through True Med. So, go check them out and get up to $350 off the Pod5 Ultra. You got to use this link. Go to eightsleep.com/mindpump. eightsleep.com/mindpump. eightsleep.com/mindpump. Use the code mindpump. Back to the show. Our first caller is Candy from California. California. California. Hi Candy. Hi Candy. Hello. Hello. Hello. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to meet you guys.

I just found you a few months ago and so I'm all current, but I've went back and I noticed the old ones there's a lot more cussing going on. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Those are those those are those are nerves. Those are nerves when we first started right there. Well, I'm feeling it right now. We had to get out of our system. Sorry. scare you away. So, so how can we help you? Okay, so I'm going to read so I hit everything. Um, I'm 59 years old and I've been doing boot camp workouts and running for years.

The end of last year, I realized I was lifting the same amount of weights and was not getting any stronger. I realized that my body looked the exact same for the last 20 years. No matter what I did, I wasn't getting any different results. So, January 2nd of 2026, I decided to start weight training. So, I'm very new to just lifting. Um, both my daughters are engaged to be married, and it's important for me to look lean at their weddings. So, um, the first wedding's in September, so I felt like 9 months would be plenty of time to lean out.

Um, it's not like I had any really a lot of weight to lose. I just wanted to lean out. So, I reverse dieted myself from my, you know, 12-,400 calories to 1,800. And I had already been eating 125 grams of protein and taking five grams of creatine every day. So on January 22nd, I was 125 pounds. My body fat was tested just with a pinch test, but I was at 34% body fat. So I retested on April 17th after I'd been lifting and my weight stayed the same, but I was at 28% body fat.

So I was incredible. I was getting some difference. Um, and I feel like my workouts are great. I do three full body workouts on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. On Tuesday, Thursday, I walk four miles. And then I play about 8 to 10 hours of pickle ball throughout the week. Um, but here's where I'm stuck. Around late April, I started feeling really puffy, especially around my waist, which is a place I never have carried my weight before. And it happened suddenly. Um, then I gained a few pounds, which I'm only 5'2, so like 3 or 4 lbs is a full pant size for me.

Um, so I dropped my calories because I was freaking out to 1650 in May. Um, and then I just had my body fat tested and it's at 29%. So it creeped up a little. Um, I track everything meticulously. I stick to an AIP diet most of the time. I just struggle with my cal what my calories should be. I know I'm getting stronger, but I'm not looking the lean look I want for my daughter's wedding in September. So what am I missing? What advice, next steps for recmp at my age and my activity level?

Like I just am stuck. I don't know what to do. You uh first of all, you were killing it. You were absolutely to go from 34 to 28%. Is that what I heard? That's like a 6% body fat drop. And your weight stayed the same, which that's incredible body composition change. And your weight stayed the same, which means you built muscle. And what hap what what I don't know yet and maybe we can ask some questions to get the bottom of where the inflammation came from or the water retention or the the few pounds on the scale, but it did what it does to so many people and what it did to you is you overcorrected and you cut.

And what happened was you didn't get you didn't put body fat on from that cut. You lost muscle and so that's why your body fat percentage went up because because you cut. So you didn't that cutting calories didn't add body fat to you because and it looks like that sometimes at people cuz they're like, "Oh my god, my body fat percentage went up and I was reducing calories. This doesn't make sense." But body fat percentage is the ratio of muscle to fat to your overall weight.

And so what happened, what that tells me right away is you were at a really good calorie place actually. And we probably should have stayed there and looked other places on why are we holding water? Why do we have inflammation going on? Is it stress? Did I am I eating something that's causing some sort of inflammation? Am I doing a lot right now? Maybe between pickle ball and all train like there could have been a lot going on that was causing that kind of systemic inflammation and water retention and instead you overcorrected dropped the calories and the result was we lost that muscle that you did a good some of it not all of it but some of that muscle that you did a good job of building.

So just to explain what probably happened there. Um, do you know if when you that kind of subtle that weight did come on, was there was there anything going on in your life at that time that was out of the ordinary? I've tried to think of it. There's I feel like there was nothing different going on. I just my life is pretty I'm pretty like regimented. I'm pretty routine. I go to bed at 8:00 p.m. every night. I wake up at 4:00 a.m. every morning. Like I'm very even on the weekends, even on my days off, I still get up and go to the gym in the morning.

So, I I don't know what was different, but it just was weird because I don't carry my weight in my stomach ever. And it's just in my stomach. Like, I feel like my pants and stuff fit me in the thighs and everywhere. Okay. But it's just in my stomach. It's really odd. Yeah. So, so just to back up, Adam, yeah, you were doing everything right and you freaked out uh because you went up three or four pounds and weight fluctuations are not um super out of the ordinary, especially for women.

But what tends to happen, what makes this process difficult is uh people will start moving in the right direction, get some confirmation, something goes in a direction they don't want it to go, and they revert back to what they were doing before. your calories [snorts] are way too low for the amount of exercise and activity uh that you're doing. And they're also too low to cut anyway. So like typically, you know, the standard, you know, approach to lose body fat is you take someone's total calories and you drop them and that causes fat loss.

Yours are too low to do that with. So right right now you're at 1650. You know, where would I take you? 1,200. You know what'll happen? At 1,200 calories, you're just going to lose muscle. muscle. muscle. Y Y Y body fat percentage won't change and you'll feel worse. Uh, so you were moving in the right direction. Uh, direction. Uh, direction. Uh, like really good, too. 6% swing is crazy. That's really good. This is why we don't This is why I don't uh I don't let people weigh themselves.

Um, if they've never done this before, because it could be kind of scary. Even if, let's say, you gained four pounds and a lot of it was body fat, you were still better off than you were before and your calories are still high and you're feeling strong and you're still moving in the right direction. Uh, I I would not have cut uh your calories. So, what you need to do is you need to go back in the reverse and try to build into the body that you're looking for.

You don't have room to cut anyway. So, I would go back to 18, then I go up to 19, then I'd go up to 2,000. If you get to the point where you can get up to like 2400 calories and you're feeling good and strong, then you'll have some room to cut. Uh, but if you try to cut from 1,600, you're going to end up just kind of less muscle, not feeling as good. Someone who's as consistent as you are, sleep balanced like you are, strength training three times a week, and doing as much pickle ball as you are, we should be north of 2,400 calories before we cut.

Even being just 5'2, tall because you're you're an act you're active. active. active. You're moving a lot. You're doing Yeah. You're doing a lot. I mean, 8 to n 8 to nine hours a week of pickle ball plus uh strength training is very is is a lot of activity. Very active. Very You're a very active person, which is awesome. That's great. But we need to fuel that. and and and you were you were starting you were and you were you were starting to fuel it for the first time and your body was responding great.

You know what would help direct you, Candy? That might be a good a [clears throat] good uh kind of compass for you for you for you because you play pickle ball and you work out. Um if your performance is improving in those, you're moving in the right direction. right direction. right direction. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Like if your pickle ball is getting better and you feel faster and you got more energy more energy more energy and your strength training is is going great and you're getting stronger, don't question what's happening.

You're moving in the right direction. the the body you want will come from your improvements in performance. performance. performance. Okay. Okay. Okay. But like studying the mirror and the scale is going to keep moving. It's going to keep you in this kind of maintenance Yeah. place where you kind of maintain. of maintain. of maintain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the calories that I just don't know what to do with. Like I struggle with where they should be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Move them back up. I go right back up to 1,800.

Keep strength training. When everything settles, go back and go up to 1900 and work your way in. Here's what will probably happen. your your weight on the scale may go up, but you'll get leaner. Okay. Okay. Okay. Body composition is what is is really what matters. The scale doesn't tell us much. And I know we have kind of like a date in mind, right? So, we're trying to for the weddings and stuff like that. Have you cuz it's not a stressful thing. It's okay. You're doing you're you were in a really good place.

You really just had a an auto you just overorrected which is super common. super common. super common. It's great that we're talking and we caught you now and not six, seven months later or whatever. Have you considered having a coach take you through that process? So for when you have those I would love that. I just like and I was waiting to talk to you guys because I just there's so many coaches out there, but but but I just don't I don't want to give my hard-earned money to people that don't know what they're doing.

You know, we have good coaches. Yeah. Yeah, we have good coaches that we coach and train ourselves. Let me have someone call you and then you can see if that's something you want to do so they can kind of walk you through the process. Uh and it's really helpful. Um well for those because those things happen, right? We have those and having somebody who's kind of watching that and letting you know, Kenny, we're doing great. Don't worry. Stay the course. Or hey, let me adjust your calories a little bit.

This like allowing to kind of them to to get you there. That that that'll help out so much. So much. So much. So yeah, that's what I need cuz I weigh myself every single day, every morning. So I like if I start going up a couple pounds, then it does freak me out. Yeah, we'll probably the coach Well, we'll see what the coach does. But if I was coaching, I'd probably have you take your scale in take it out [snorts] less frequently. less frequently. less frequently.

Yeah, let's not weigh yourself cuz that's that's a Yeah, don't worry though. They'll take they'll take good care of you, though. So, that's their job. Their job is to to work. work. work. Just so you know, just to encourage you. Your body was responding really well. Really well. Really well. Really well. I know. It's so weird that it just stopped. stopped. stopped. It's not weird. That's just how it just happens. Everything was great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everything was moving great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then I have never purchased one of your plans because before I found you, I just bought something.

What would you guys recommend would be the best for me? me? me? Your coach is going to give it to you for free. Yeah. So, part of the coaching is So, part of the coaching is they'll take you through they'll actually not only put you on one of our match programs, they'll customize it specifically for your needs, especially since you're doing uh pickle ball and other things, they'll take that into consideration consideration consideration and they'll they'll adjust your programming based off of that. So, part of the coaching they they all included.

Okay. Yep. Okay. Yep. Okay. Yep. Okay, great. I have a couple more questions. Can I ask them? Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. And I'm sure the coach, I guess, now would help me with this, too. But, um, um, um, how quickly should I be progressive like increasing my weight because, you know, I kind of started from like doing the same dumbbells in boot camps for years. Yeah. And so I feel like every week I want to do more. And then sometimes I can, but then sometimes I'm like I notice my form's bad.

So now I have to go back down. And so how do I know when I'm not like being lazy and I should do more weight. You do more if you can with good form. So anytime you can do more with good form gauge for that. Yeah. So I think you're on point with that. That's a that's a great gauge for that. And there and you're going to notice it's totally normal. And again, this will be stuff that this is some of the great parts of having a coach cuz you'll talk back and forth about this like, hey, had my workout yesterday and for some reason I just I didn't feel strong and so I had to go back away.

Totally normal. And then you'll have other times where you're like, man, I just felt so recovered and so rested. And a lot of this could there might be interplay going on with an a correlation between when you do pickle ball, when you strength train, how our calories are, how you feel when you go and lift weights. That'll tell the coach a lot. It'll it would tell me a lot if I knew, oh, she you did pickle ball on Tuesday. We just did our full body workout on Wednesday.

Your feedback from me was, "Hey, this is how I felt. I didn't feel very strong." I'm like, "Okay, well, we might have needed to bump our calories on a day that you played pickle ball because we need to fuel all that activity." So, I might actually adjust your calories different on different days. So I might go, "Hey, on days that we play pickle ball, Candy, I want you to push your calories to here because we need to fuel that so that when you go to do your workout the next day, it's not hindered because you're so low and depleted." So this is this is stuff that they'll teach you on how to modify your nutrition and your training and your rest, recovery, all those things with your lifestyle.

That's part of what they and then when you walk away from all this, you'll be able to take that and go like, oh, cuz you love pickle ball probably and you'll be able to know how to maintain and doing things you love and enjoy and also building the body that you want. Okay, perfect. Um, and then I like I said, probably the trainer will tell me all this, but I had questions on how often I should change my workout because I'm doing like a four-week, three-day plan, and I I'm like on the third or fourth session of it.

So, I've been doing it for 12 to 16 months. Is it okay to just keep doing the same stuff? Yeah. So, there's certain exercises that you'll be practicing for most of your lifting career, lifting career, lifting career, but the programming will probably you'll probably want to change it every few months. months. months. Yeah. Some of the acute variables, they might shift up in terms of rep count or rest periods or things like that, but that's your coach is going to work with you a lot on that.

And we we kind of tailor that into our programs already just to kind of get ahead of it. But uh they'll teach you a lot of that kind of stuff uh when you work with them. Yeah. But it's typically every 3 to four months you're going to have kind of a different direction. But there's this you you'll be doing a lot of similar exercises because there's some exercises you just don't want to stop. Things like squats for example. Okay. And so it's it's early July, so there's no chance that I would be at a point where I could cut before uh end of September wedding at this point.

Well, don't don't leave it like this. Look at how exactly what happened to you. You increased calories, strength train, and your body fat percentage went down. Sal said it earlier. It's my my favorite thing to say right now. I feel like to so many callers is don't think about cutting into the body you want. Think about building into the body you want. want. want. You you're you're at a healthy weight. You're you're you're for your height, weight. I don't need to change your weight. I need to just put some muscle on.

on. on. Replace the body fat. Yeah. And so if we do a good if we do a good job, we should build muscle and simultaneously be losing a little bit of fat. Even though those So I don't want your scale to change that much, but I can change your I can keep going in the direction you were going where you went from 34 to 28, then to 26, then to 24% body fat, and you can never change on the scale whatsoever, but at 24%, I'll tell you right now, you will look radically different.

radically different. radically different. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. So, so think about building into the body that you want. So, we don't necessarily need to cut before September at all. We could build into the physique that you that you want. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. That's fair. Y Y Y All right. Well, thank you so much for all your help. I really appreciate it and I really appreciate you being great role models for other dads out there. Oh, well, thank you, Ky. We're excited. We're excited for you.

They're in great hands. hands. hands. All right. Thank you. Byebye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. There's a a very very common uh situation. Everything's going great. The scale says something I don't like, you know, overcorrect. That's why it can be uh so such a such a doozy on on the mind is the you know, just taking that scale out makes just to recap. Uh she bumped her calories uh 400 or 500 calories, lost like 6% body fat. 6%. 6%. 6%. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, while with eating more, which is a huge accomplishment, which I mean we could we didn't do the math real quick, but we could sit down and how much muscle she gained.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a significant amount of muscle. She probably lost 10 pounds of fat and gained to and gained 10. No, I would say like eight and eight or something like that. that. that. Yeah. Smaller smaller. Yeah. But that's radically different and amazing and exciting. And then you know and to your point you know that and I again we could sit here all day and try and guess what it was but uh all easily could have been a week where she overdid pickle ball. Didn't get as optimal sleep as she normally does.

Stressed out about something. something. something. Yeah. Stressed out something going on. Weddings getting closer. It could have been it could have been something she ate that was off the menu that wasn't normal that like a million things could have happened to retain three lbs on the scale. A million things. And then she corrected by and cutting calories. And then I know how many clients I've had that go, "This doesn't make sense. I I was up on my scale. I cut my calories dramatically." And then my body fat percentage went up.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You lost muscle. That's what happened. You were doing really good. Our next caller is Jessica from Massachusetts. Massachusetts. Massachusetts. Hi, Jessica. Hi, Jessica. By the way, hi everybody. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for coming. How can we help you? Well, okay. So, first, sorry, I'm probably gonna get nervous because I'm not I talk to 5-year-olds all day, not grown up. You can talk to us that way. Yeah, I was gonna say it's probably the same. So, it's not too different. Um, I just want to say thanks so much.

I have been an avid listener since my son was my first son was 3 weeks old. I found you guys and I credit all of my births, pregnancies, postpartums to your programming. programming. programming. Um, Um, Um, thank you. Awesome. It's been like the most the biggest blessing. So, I really appreciate it. But I wanted to ask you guys because I feel like right now the [clears throat] buzzword is reverse dieting dieting dieting and I'm not sure like everybody's talking about it and how they attribute it to their body recmp success and I'm not sure how to figure out if I need to reverse diet or if what I'm doing every day both physically and nutritionally is working.

um and if I should just stay like status quo if I'm like if that makes sense. And then how do you reverse diet and like how do you pick that number? Let's let's hear where you're at and then also your goal too because you look very healthy and fit already. So I'm just curious like what your what your goal may be and then where tell us where you're kind of currently at working outwise and nutrition wise. nutrition wise. nutrition wise. Okay. I'm nine months postpartum with baby number three.

Okay. And I am I use the mind pump program. So currently I just started again doing anabolic and I'm doing it three days a week and I do three days a week of conditioning training. [clears throat] Um which is kind of probably like your hit programish with a little bit of extra cardio worked in if that makes sense. sense. sense. Mhm. Okay. Mhm. Okay. Mhm. Okay. Um I kind of do my own thing. I guess it's like my time to veg out, not listen to my kids, and just kind of do cardio, but not like intense cardio, if that makes sense.

Um, so I do that. Nutritionally, I eat 1,00 1,742 calories. I aim for 132 g of protein per day. I aim for 56 g of fat per day, and I aim for 177 g of carbs. I hit 12 to 15,000 steps per day. It really depends upon honestly how much I'm chauffeurring my kids around and like kind of that the day, but like 12 is my daily goal and then anything other than that is just kind of gravy. Um I'm very active. I'm a stay at home mom to three kids five and under and two of them are boys.

So we are on the go quite a lot. I know. Um, and Um, and Um, and my goal, honestly, is just to be the strongest that I can be for my kids. I want to feel really good every day. And I I do, don't get me wrong. I do like for being 9 months postpartum with the third especially, I feel good. But if I'm being really honest, my husband was asking me this last night. I want to be slightly leaner. I know it shouldn't be all aesthetic based, but I want to be slightly leaner for as much as I lift and as heavy as I lift.

I want to see it sometimes a little bit more, if that makes sense, the definition. Um, but I don't feel like I can go lower than I currently am without I don't know. You're right. You're right. You're right. You can't. You're right. You can't. can't. can't. Jessica, do you mind if I go if I dig a little deeper? little deeper? little deeper? Sure. Sure. Sure. So, there's a couple things. There's a few things, and this is just based off of uh training people for for years and years.

And so when whenever I ask somebody what their calories are, when someone gives me really specific numbers for calories and macros, then I typically want to ask a little bit more questions. So that tends to tell me uh often times is that this person really has their hands wrapped around their diet and is really a source of control. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, so right out the gates, without even asking your your information on exercise, although I know all that, I'd say we need to eat more.

And I say you're probably afraid of eating more. [snorts] And I know this because you tell me you eat 1742 calories. Exactly. And 177 grams of carbs. Exactly. And all that. I will say I have a hard time, S, you are completely correct. Yes, I have an eating disordered background. Ed and I have definitely had a past. Um, and I think that's part of why reverse dieting is intriguing to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's okay. okay. okay. So, so the the idea around reverse dieting really is just we used to call it a bulk back in the day, but we changed the name because nobody wants to do a bulk inviting.

So, but basically what you do is you're you're giving yourself more energy and nutrients with the intent of improving athletic performance, strength, and building muscle. Okay. Now the side effect of doing that uh is typically a faster metabolism metabolism metabolism and so with when it and that helps with getting leaner. Okay. The other side effects of that are more energy, more vitality, more strength, more strength, more strength, more strength. What you're doing right now with all the activity that you're doing and the calories that you're consuming and probably the consistency of the calories that you're consuming is you're you're kind of redlining.

I feel that. Yes. So increasing your calories, you would notice a really nice improvement in energy and in just being able to do everything in life and you would build muscle just from bumping your calories. But there's an underlying thing here which is uh a reverse diet can also be very controlled very controlled very controlled uh or we can loosen it up a little bit and that's just something for you to think about later on. uh is okay, okay, okay, you know, you want to ask yourself, do you want to have a relationship with this where it's where you always have to watch it or do you want it to feel more relaxed like this is just how I live?

Uh and the only way to do that is to get away from the really super meticulous tracking. tracking. tracking. So, not logging every meal I eat, right? No, that would be the long clay. That would not be the next step, though. So, the next step for someone like you is I would have you go up to 2100 calories right out the gates. Uh, and I would stay there and enjoy your workouts and your strength gains. And when you're there for 3 4 weeks and you're feeling good, then I'd bump them up again.

Your activity level and your and everything that you're doing, you you pro you you probably could sit around 24 2500 calories. Okay. Okay. Okay. Oh, definitely. Oh, definitely. Oh, definitely. Yeah. And you probably could sit there and you'd probably get leaner with more muscle. muscle. muscle. I don't know what the weight on the scale would do. Uh if you're going to gain more muscle than you lose in terms of body fat, might go up a little bit, but you would be leaner and you'd be stronger, have more energy.

I'd also want to peer into the the three days of hit cardio style training/c cardio and probably make some adjustments there. adjustments there. adjustments there. How long are those workouts? Probably an hour. 30 minutes. 30 minutes. 30 minutes. Okay. 30 minutes too bad. No, I don't have an hour to work out really like in a That's good That's good That's good in a chunk anymore. anymore. anymore. That's good. That's good. Yeah, I can only work out for so long before they all come. Is it Is it weights and cardio then that you're doing in on those three days?

So, well, this is my type A personality. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I do just cardio, 30 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On Saturdays, I do a combination. Okay. So, I'd probably get rid of the Saturday. I'm okay with like the 30 minutes of like like what we call low in intensity steady state cardio. So like cruising on elliptical or whatever like that's running. that's running. that's running. Yeah. Like a moderate jog probably. And I wouldn't want you like pushing really hard on the cardio. But like moving cardio that's good.

Uh but I'd probably want your weight training to be the just your traditional maps. I don't want any extra weight training on top of that. Unless, yeah, you're open to doing more of the the trigger sessions with rubber bands or mobility uh in between as well. That would be a good option for you. Okay. So, like in on Saturdays, just sticking to my normal walks and Yes. Yes, that would be much better. This will allow us to focus on the strength days of really pushing strength.

If you if you do what S's saying by bumping the calories, we pull we pull back a little bit on the extra weight training and we focus on the three days that you're lifting the weight and really try and push the weight and get strong in those work. Like you should see strength increase just from that alone, just from pulling back a little bit on the extra strength training that you're doing, bumping the calories right away. We should start to move in the right direction. Yep.

Yep. Yep. Because that was my other I had like a side question because I've really plateaued like I just did all my PRs last week before I started anabolic so I could kind of see where I was at and I realized that like my I've plateaued very much so. Yeah, you're red lighting like salsa. You're redlining. You're doing you're doing the most you could tolerate uh and you're eating the least amount you can get away with with all of that calories will a 300 bump is not even is a conservative like getting up to 2100 calories that's 3 400 calories.

That's still conservative. still conservative. still conservative. Yep. Yep. Yep. If you did that right away and you were consistent with it and you did what Adam said with the workouts, by week two, you're going to see strength gains. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you'll feel good. Should I be keeping my protein then at like a certain number like that 130 range or should that be mostly bulk from like like like you could go up in fat. Your fats were low, too. I would I would push you and so easy because it's the 300 calories.

Uh a fattier cut of meat is what I would want you to do. Easy, easy way to bump those calories. So, my gonna love that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, like I don't know if what your typical meats are that you have. If you're a chicken breast person, a fish person. Okay. So, or if you're a filt man, I don't know. Like, so if you're a flametan, I'd go ribeye like that. Like an easy just I would I would want you to get fattier cut meats. If you do chicken, I go chicken thighs like you or have some a tablespoon of olive oil or enjoy some butter on that thing.

I would increase you through fats and protein. Uh based off of what you kind of told me where you're at, right? What were your fats at again? She was 50 56. 56. 56. Oh yeah. Oh, bump your fats. You're going to feel so much better. Yes. Yes. Yes. With more fats in even for like a woman that's like Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I know that sounds so cringey, but like you know, you know, you know, that's why I went that direction right away to you. I'm going to tell you something.

I'm going to have you back on in 60 days. Cuz if you do what we say, you're going to blow your mind. I don't think you realize you don't realize it until you get out of it once you bump those fats and those calories and cut the activity down a little bit. uh energy, hair, skin, libido, sleep, strength, everything's going to get better. Mood uh because right now you're eating like the bare minimum. And 56 grams of fat is I never let my female clients go below 65.

65. 65. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You need fats. Fats are essential. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. And it's it's such an easy thing for us to to get it that way, too. Just just that'll get take care of your calories. Just simply getting eating a little bit more fat. And I like going through the meat direction if you're already a meat eater. eater. eater. Yeah, just eat a healthier fattier cut and or% ground beef. Add a little bit add a little bit of butter, olive oil while you're making it.

So that'll help bump those extra 300 calories. Now the the steps later, which later you're going to have to get to this place is is to move away from so much control around everything, but that's later on. Let's have you do a successful bump in your calories and let you feel what that feels like. What what this looks like in the end is uh less having to move, okay? More strength, so much more calories that you don't ever have to track anymore because you eating more or less three or 400 calories in a day does nothing to your body.

body. body. You're eating healthy, but you're just not watching. You get up to a place where you're eating 2600 calories and oh on some days you might land at 22 on some days you land at 28 without tracking you can swing that much in calories and you'll be able to maintain your body your body your body just relaxed. just relaxed. just relaxed. That's what I would that would be my goal. I have a daughter and my goal is just to show her that that's a good goal.

I don't know. That's a very strong and healthy women should look and feel and act. Yes. Yes. Yes. So I need to get there. It's a great great motivation. Yeah. It's just literally what it'll look like Jessica. can get there is you're just going to eat and you for the most part you eat healthy because you know the foods that you that are good for you and you eat when you're hungry and you don't have to count everything and you work out because you enjoy it uh and you just feel great.

I I want you to promise me something though, okay? though, okay? though, okay? If if this does get really difficult because you seem very self-aware and honest is honest is honest is uh reach out and invest in outsourcing this to a coach if it gets hard because this is one of the more difficult things. uh uh of all the clients that was actually something I wanted to ask about as well if that was okay. 100%. 100%. 100%. Okay. How does that work? Is it all on virtual online phone calls?

So it's virtual. You also use text and message and they meet with you and they individualize everything individualize everything individualize everything through the process. Yes. Everything through this process and then they change it as you go along depending on of course what you're experiencing with results but also how you feel. Uh, and and the more honest you are with your coach, the better they can coach you. So, you're like, "Hey, I know you told me to bump calories, but this sucks. I don't want to do, you know, whatever." You just talk with them and they'll coach you through the the whole process.

But, we handpick our coaches, so they're all really good. Yeah. These are all trained by us. So, it's it's an extension of us. So, the the philosophy of how we reverse diet and the the psychological piece and all all that stuff is factored in when they're doing this. And they're adjusting it on a a weekly basis based off of the feedback that you're giving them. Um, and that includes how you feel and what's going on with performance and if things are changing or if there's new stressors like goals, whatever, all those things.

Uh, they're they're adjusting on the fly for you as you're going through that process. Um, and so, uh, incredibly valuable, especially for my female clients that are reverse dieting, especially if we've been challenged in that area before, because this is not, uh, with someone like you, it's not a discipline or consistency issue, which is most people's problem. Most people can't be disciplined, can't be consistent. And so that's a huge struggle for why a majority of people fail at getting in shape. That's not yours. Yours is getting out of your own way.

And that's really hard to do sometimes cuz you can't like logically make your way through that. Um, and so having that support. So just make that promise to me that if you feel that way to reach out and allow us to to support and help you through that. Well, but I want you back on in 60 days, Jessica. We'll follow up with you. Okay. All right. That sounds great. And is anabolic okay for me to like that's a good good good love it. Yeah. Love it.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Okay. Okay. It's my favorite one. So, yeah. Good. Good. Thanks, Jessica. All right. Can't wait to Thank you so much. I appreciate it. See you in 60. All right. All right. All right. Okay. Bye. Okay. Bye. Okay. Bye. Yeah. Just just uh I mean for the coaches listening, when you ask somebody their macros and calories, when the numbers come back super specific, you know, you know that Yeah. that she's counting every single calorie. a lot of attention attention attention and there's probably some stuff uh connected to it which is the control.

Uh but you know also uh you know big picture picture picture 1,700 calories with that much exercise is she's doing exactly the most she could do with that many calories out and that's why she's plateauing and feeling burnt out. Our next caller is Ruth from New Jersey. Hi Ruth. Hi Ruth. Hi Ruth. How you doing Ruth? Hello. Hey guys. Hey guys. Hey guys. How can we help you? Um I'm trying not to be nervous. Uh thanks for having me on. appreciate the time and the advice in advance.

Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Um, so I'll just jump in. Um, so I'm 55 years old. Um, and I have been chronic dieting for at least 15 years. Um, which always worked until it didn't. Um, so around 3 to four years ago, all the things that I used to be able to do to keep my weight stable stopped working and I just gradually found myself like 3 to four pounds above where I'm comfortable. So around a year and a half ago, I started meticulously tracking my food, even more meticulously, and being more regimented with my lifting and progressive overload, which didn't do anything other than bring my intake down to around 1,300 calories a day, which um I knew at some point I needed to reverse diet.

And I also knew that I needed somebody to guide me through that cuz otherwise I would chicken out. So I last September I started working with a coach um and we increased my calories really slowly gradually getting me up to around 1,800 a day and he dialed in my training um so that I was doing longer rest periods and pushing much heavier weight and he really encouraged me to go to failure which I don't think I ever really had done before. So everything was going pretty well in that my weight was stable and I felt like my strength with was increasing and I was getting, you know, some more definition.

But then this past March, um, I started having a ton of gut health issues and my weight started creeping up. It's gone up steadily, a half a pound a month since March, even though I dialed back my intake a little bit to around 1,700 um calories to try to manage some of the gut health stuff. So, at this point, I'm just feeling super uncomfortable in my clothes um and with how I feel, but it's kind of hard to distinguish what of that is the gut health issues and what's weight gain.

And you guys always talk about building into the body that you want. Um, and so I was trying to do that and was hoping that by reverse dieting and lifting heavier I would get to the point where that increase in muscle would result in better better body comp. But I just feel like I've kind of hit the ceiling on that. So, I guess what I'm wondering is how do I know if I just hit the limit of my reverse diet and maybe, you know, this is more than my body can handle?

Um, and also, I don't know, anything else you would recommend on how to try to improve my rec body recmp, maximize body recmp without triggering more GI issues. Yeah, that's the issue right there, Ruth. So, you moved in the right direction. and you're going in the right direction, but the gut health stuff is getting in the way. And if we don't figure that out or solve that, it's going to be very difficult to do any kind of a reverse diet because as you eat more, the GI issues get worse, right?

Is that that's what you experience? Okay. experience? Okay. experience? Okay. Now, you've had you've dealt with this before because you said it doesn't feel like SIBO. You know what that feels like? like? like? Yeah, I definitely I did have SIBO I guess two years ago. I worked with a functional um medicine doctor to treat the SIBO. I did the um the herbals and the this bifphasic diet um and that did address SIBO. This feels totally different than SIBO. Okay. And then in the past, how often or how many times did you deal with gut issues or was that the only time?

That was really it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, I would look at I would look at uh [clears throat] you can get tested for SIBO or you can just treat yourself for it because the herbal stuff is still quite effective. Have you ever been tested for parasite? No. And I know you've talked about that. Um I got a little scared away of the the parasite treatment because I didn't know I take other medication and it says you have to separate taking the parasite cleanse from that medication.

I just couldn't figure out how to manage that. But my doctor also my like regular doctor had suggested that there it might be like H pylori um could be which I don't know much about. Easy test. Easy test. Easy test. Okay, Okay, Okay, H pylori is an easy test. So I would get that test done and if you do have that you want to get rid of that because H pylori can cause a lot of problems and it's an easy solve as well. But we need to get to the root of the gut issues because we can't reverse diet.

we can't go into trying to build um because of the gut issues. And the harder you push in the gym, the probably the worse that they'll get. And you can cut your calories and you'll have a reduction in symptoms from the gut issues because you're you're obviously not you're feeding yourself less, but that's not going to benefit the goals that you have uh fitness wise. So, we need to get to the root of the gut. If it's H pylori, that's that's that's an easy fix. Um, so how would I know if it's parasites?

Can you test for that or do you just do the You can test for parasites. There's there's a few tests you can do. Um, sometimes they don't show up, but often times they do. That being said, uh, in herbal like like Organifi has got a good parasite cleanse uh, kit that's pretty efficacious. Uh, it's not like a pharmaceutical, but it's pretty efficacious. And efficacious. And efficacious. And that was the one that I looked at based on hearing you talk about it, but then I couldn't figure I I take thyroid medication and HRT and I have to take the thyroid on an empty stomach first thing in the morning, right?

But you have to separate the parasite stuff. Yes. Yes. Yes. From your medicine. Yeah. About 30 minutes. Figure that out. Yeah. Yeah. Take your thyroid. 30 minutes later, you could take whatever uh and you're going to be okay. Yeah. Because otherwise it it messes with the absorption [snorts] absorption [snorts] absorption [snorts] of thyroid. So if like you drink thyroid with like even if you drink it with electrolytes it would influence its uh absorption. So thyroid 30 minutes later you could take whatever. Okay. Okay. Okay. Uh but you could try it.

So you could test for parasites to know for sure or you could do the paras a parasite cleanse uh which because it's not a pharmaceutical I'm okay with people just taking it. It's not going to hurt you. Um and see what but the symptoms of parasites are repeated gut issues. It could be uh bloating. Uh it could be diarrhea. It could be constipation, irregularity. Could also be inflammation. It could also be just feeling a little general malaise. Um so the only way to know for sure would be to do a parasite test, but you could try the parasite cleanse without doing it to see if you notice an improvement.

But my whole point is Ruth, we have to see we have to get to the root of the gut issues before we push anything with body with nutrition in any direction. Uh, and so in the meantime, I would just eat in a way that feels okay and continue strength training, but reverse dieting is going to cause more gut issues. issues. issues. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's Yeah. That's not going to help. help. help. So, can I in your opinion, can I continue to gain and I'm really like my goal was with gaining muscle is partly to get more definition and look better.

Who doesn't want that? But it's more just about longevity and aging well and all of that. So can I do you think I can continue to gain strength even without being in a surplus? Well, without being in a surplus technically you have to be in somewhat of a surplus to gain anything. [snorts] Uh but you know 1,700,800 calories while strength training intelligently. Uh I think you'll be okay for a while. But I would regardless, you want to get to to to Well, I figure out the gut health stuff.

That's right. That's right. Just out of curiosity, have you uh tested body fat because you I'm looking at your shoulders and arms and you look very lean. You look fit. I Thank you. I h I did get um like a DEXA. DEXA. DEXA. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which said I was 23%. Quite honestly thought that I would be like maybe low 20s. But you are low. But I also didn't believe it because it said that I had like really low visceral fat. It said all my fat was in my arms and my legs.

And like if I look in the mirror, the opposite is true. Like I have lean arms and legs and all my weight is in my middle. So I kind of don't believe it. Well, yeah. Well, I'm telling you cuz I could tell just from the video that you I figured I had a feeling that you had just a little bit of a disordered view of yourself because you look really good. you look really good and you and if your goal is what you say it is, which is longevity and health, you're you're doing fine.

And the gut health is the main priority. There may be a lot of inflammation in the gut, too. You you've got good muscle. Trust me, at 55 uh post-menopausal, uh you've got great muscle on you. You've got a great physique. And 23% body fat is a a place I'd want you to be. 20 to 23. You don't want to get leaner than that. Yeah. 20 to 23 is about as low as I would want you to be. Ideally, Ruth, what we do, just to paint a picture for you, is you would kind of get to the bottom of the gut issues, solve that, then you feel good, you start reverse dieting again, your body fat percentage stays at 23, and you gain some muscle.

Yep. Yep. Yep. And and that's about it. And how do I So, and I'm I promise I'm not I'm not It's not that I'm super obsessed with the scale, but um but I'm feeling like my clothes are tight. I'm feeling uncomfortable. And I think the thing that was triggering me was that it was steady. Like steady half a pound every month. Like that can't be muscle. There's no way I'm gaining half a pound of muscle every month. Half Ruth. Half a pound of a month is nothing.

nothing. nothing. You could totally do that. Especially if you switch from group strength training to traditional strength training. You could shift in a night three to five pounds. pounds. pounds. No, she's talking about half a pound of muscle. muscle. muscle. No, no, I know. But she's saying she's saying on the scale she seen a half a pound go up a month. That's nothing. That's nothing. I mean, and especially somebody who's dealing with gut issues and has systemic inflammation going on. I mean, one day of of extra water weight will fluctuate.

will fluctuate. will fluctuate. Stop paying attention so closely. What are you doing? [laughter and clears throat] Half a pound. Yeah. Yeah. It's like It's like, you know what it reminds me of? It's like my I have I have family members month, not just half a pound. I have family members that that work in in investments and they're like, "Stop watching the stock market every 5 seconds. seconds. seconds. It's driving you crazy." Yeah. You're you're you're too meticulous. Take your eyes off of it a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But honestly, you figure out the gut stuff stuff stuff and then start going back on a slow reverse and just building muscle. You're fine. You're in a good position. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Let that be your northstar, though, is the gut thing. Like base it off of how you fix that for now until Just solve that because then the rest will come. You're in a good place. Yeah. It'll be hard to put to try to build while you're dealing with gut issues.

That makes That's a really hard barrier. barrier. barrier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. All right, Ruth. Thanks, guys. Thanks, guys. Thanks, guys. Let us know, though. I'd like to hear if you do find out if it's parasite or H. pylori. I would like to know. So, let us know. Reach. All right. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. All right. All right. All right. Bye. Bye. Bye. You got it. Doug, why don't you send her that link to the Organifi? Uh, so she knows which one it is.

Dude, I knew something was up. I know. I was like I I'm looking at her shoulders and arms and I'm like postmenopausal 55. postmenopausal 55. postmenopausal 55. She's got separation. She got separated. I know. I She got separation in her delts. I'm like, where's your body? I tell you what, you know, I know it's great, but you know, just for people listening, if you have gut issues, tr uh trying to accomplish a body composition goal with gut issues very hard. You got to solve that. What I'm curious too, S, is is she right on on that cuss, right?

And what's causing this stuff is she's pushing it. Mhm. is that she's I mean she's I think what happened is I'm guessing everybody I could totally be wrong but if she had SIBO before and maybe some gut issues before there might have been a parasite that she did not address solved the SIBO cuz parasites can cause SIBO and as she increased her calories she only got up to 1,800 calories all you know other weird symptoms came back um so there may there's something else that's happening I could totally be wrong wrong wrong uh but nonetheless like you know she should be able to eat 1800 calories without feeling gut issues.

That's not tons of calories. No, no, No, no, No, no, no. She should be able to eat, [snorts] you know, 500 more calories than that and feel okay. Our next caller is Angela from Washington. Washington. Washington. How you doing, Angela? Hi, Hi, Hi, Angela. Hello. Angela. Hello. Angela. Hello. You guys, thanks for taking my call. I've been following you guys for a few years and you've been a tremendous help um to me as like professionally and personally. Um, so through you guys I've helped a lot of people and I just really appreciate you guys so much.

Oh, thank you. How can we help you? Yes. So, I'm just going to read my little write up here. Um, I'm going to start with some background information about myself. So, in 2021, I changed careers and became a personal trainer, which inspired me to set a goal of getting into an athletic an athletic body fat percentage range for women. So between strength training 5 days a week, eating high protein and intermittent fasting, I went from 25 to 15% body fat within a year. However, I now believe that inbody machine was probably a little bit off.

So it was probably more like 28 to 18%. Give or take. So I followed the NASM OPT model of progressive overload, taking myself through all five phases, and I progressed pretty quickly. And then I got to my lowest body fat percentage, but I felt like it was too low. So, I upped my calories, averaging about 2500 daily, and hit at least 150 gram of protein every day, but I got stuck at 64 lbs of muscle mass. I'm 46 years old. I weigh 145, and I'm 5'6.

Um, and in April of 2024, I started testosterone. I was actually pretty low. And then I only put on a whopping one pound of muscle before plateauing. So, in November of 24, I started HGH, and I put on three more pounds of muscle. I stopped food tracking, but I would guess I'm eating about 2,800 calories now. And I only do a 12-h hour fasting window. I eat tons of protein. I sleep well. Um, I've cut my workouts back to 4 days, so a 4-day split, one day of cardio, and then mobility and core every day.

I average about 8 hours of sleep and try to manage my stress. And um but about stress, I started my own business. I offer Pilates, corrective exercise, and soft tissue work. So because of that, I've had to scale back my workouts in order to not obliterate my health and wellness. Um cuz that'd be horrible for business. U anyways, I'm struggling with what my goal should even be right now. Um I've been in this progressive overload mindset for a while and I'm not sure if I've peaked.

um maybe I should just maintain right now, which I have no problem with setting other types of goals like mobility goals and things like that. But I have to say I do feel a little bit disappointed that this is like the best I ever got. I never deadlifted over 200 lb and I never got a full body weight pull-up. So maybe just have to let those goals go. [sighs and gasps] Um anyway, right now I'm sitting at about 20% body fat. So, I'm not in that athletic range anymore.

But, you know, at the same time, I'm grateful to God for my health and also for the privilege of being able to help others in my profession. I am truly a blessed person, but I could use advice about what kind of fitness goals I should be setting, what is realistic for where I'm at right now. And then I'd also like recommendations for cycling HGH. I've pretty much just been on it and I've only taken like a week off here or there. And then maybe there's like a peptide I could use instead.

It's really important to me to keep the muscle that I've already put on. And I'm also looking for, you know, anti-aging stuff. So, that's those are my kind of my two questions like what my goal should be and then what do I do about this? H Yeah. Good. Good question. Goalwise, you're there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're there. You've arrived. You're good. You're good. You're good. You've arrived. You've arrived. You've arrived. When When did you start your business? Uh my business started in January of 25. Oh, good.

Good. How's it going? Uh it's good. It's slow because I'm the only one doing like I have some other instructors that teach Pilates, but as far as the corrective program work, that's all me and all the advertising, which is almost none. Uh, all that other stuff. Um, and the stuff that I'm really not that good at, right? I never actually planned to start a business. Like, I was a stay at home mom most of my life. Like, I had no plans to do this. It's just that when I found um this like I just made me come alive and I love helping people.

Oh, that's so awesome. Great. Yeah, that's awesome. Brandon was awesome. Did you go through our course? Did you go through our trainer course? trainer course? trainer course? I did not. I went through Oh my goodness. I went through I took several NASM um certifications, but like right now I'm not doing the personal training anymore. Yeah, but totally different. So what we did was fill the gap that NSM didn't do. NASM does a great job of the the the actually hands-on personal training and coaching aspect. Ours is all about business.

business. business. Ah, Ah, Ah, so like right up your alley. That's why that's why I brought it up. I'm like you are like the perfect fit for really reaping the benefits of what we do is that we we looked at the I mean we weren't trying to compete with all the great national searchs out there. There's tons of great national certifications. What that we saw was man you know what they do is they educate all these trainers and then they just don't really focus talking about now how do you go build how they take all that knowledge and apply it and become very successful as a trainer and that's what we filled that gap.

So you love it. Angel, I got to tell you though, you're doing a phenomenal job. And so, you're at this you're at a place and and this is a place that fitness fanatics or those of us that work in the fitness industry eventually will reach. And I say that because a lot of people struggle with just getting to this place. So, typically typical person, we're chasing goals, fitness goals, strength goals, body fat goals, mobility goals, and this just gets the person to continue to progress and move forward and they have something to aim for.

But if they stay consistent long enough, okay, if they do it long enough and they figured it out, meaning they figured out like this is something I'm going to do for the rest of my life, well, you can't keep chasing goals forever. Uh if that were the case, I'd be bench pressing 5,000bs by now. Like at some point, uh squeezing for more goals isn't giving you more value or return. You're not getting more quality of life value. You're a business owner. You coach and train other people.

you obviously look like you work out and you're very fit, so you've gone very far. So the next phase, which is a very difficult one to switch into, is to do it because you just enjoy it. You do it because you love it. While you're like, I'm going to get better at this exercise or I'm going to get my deadlift up or you know what, I'm going to practice my pull-ups. But it's not life. Your life is your business. Your life is your family. And so, how can that complement what you're doing rather than making that this big goal?

And so, I know what it's like to build a business. I've owned businesses for for for years and years. Takes a lot of energy, a lot of mental energy, a lot of hours. You pour your heart into your clients in a similar space. So, you put a lot into the people you probably work with. And so, I would say your goals with I'm not worried about your consistency. I'm not worried about your diet. You're eating good. You're eating You're fueling your body, which is great. You're not undereating.

I would say have fun with it. What do you enjoy doing? And what that means is like, man, I'm stressed. What's going to make me feel good today? Or I feel like doing something that's different or I'm going to go do the thing I love uh that I love to do all the time, which is this thing. Just go and enjoy it and have fun with it. Uh and I think that's the next phase for you. Now, we can try to chase goals. Uh I can say, "Hey, you know, you want to get strong fellow maps powerlift and we're going to bump your calories." But and we can do that, but I'm just going to let you know that that's that's running.

It's uh it's running out in terms of how positive it's affecting you. So, you're getting kind of this place where you're like, what do I do? I have a goal for you. My goal would be this if I was you would be, how do I do as little as possible to maintain what I've done? In other words, I love where your calorie intake is. I love where your body fat percentage is. So my thought is what's the least I have to do in the the gym working out and all those things to maintain this healthy fit body that I built.

You'd be surprised at how little you need to do and and so that's what I would be playing with and and then my training would look like one way is to say it the way salad enjoy is I'm training to optimize my business life and the other are priorities I have in my life. So whatever else you got going on relationship wise, business-wise, things like that, my workouts are to complement that. It's like I'm going to train to make sure it's like I'm the sharpest I can at business.

I'm I'm able to spend time with those that I love. Like that's what my workouts are to fuel that because I think on the from the calorie, body fat percentage, aesthetic place, strength play, you figured you found it. You got it. Like you're in such a good place on all those levels and you've got this amazing business that you're working on building, which I know what that takes to build and scale. That takes a lot. And so I'm looking at my workouts. This is how I look at my workouts today because this monster is a big priority to to me and all of us is I'm doing as little as I can in the gym to make be a fit, healthy, strong dad.

I'm not chasing trophies anymore and trying to prove I can get down to 3% body fat or trying to hit Chase S and deadlift for 500. Like none of that stuff is a priority right now. Like it's just do what I little as I have to do in there to maintain what I work so hard to get at while I go focus on other goals in my life that are as important or more important right now. And I I feel like you're kind of there. What's What do you have the most fun doing with your workouts?

What's most fun for you? So, as you say that, I'm thinking if I'm being honest, I will, you know, head out of here out of my studio and go to the gym and then think of extra things to do at the gym to avoid coming back to dealing with the details and the running, man. Like, I hate it. And I would I love the gym. Like, I have friends. I'm happiest there. So, I will gladly find even if I'm just doing like, you know, I've already finished my workout and I'm just looking for extra little things cuz I really love it and it makes me really happy.

happy. happy. So, if I mean, I don't mind reducing intensity on things, but I actually really like being there. Oh, good. Then go there and have fun. And can I give you a little business advice? advice? advice? Yes. Yes. Yes. So, the stuff you hate to do, right? Because this is what entrepreneurship is all about. You do a lot of the stuff you you hate to do because you so you can do the stuff you love. Uh I I would find somebody to do that for you.

Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. You need to get in our course. You need to get you just need I don't even know how to delegate things like even if I hadn't this is all the stuff we talk about. This is everything we talk about right stuff that we talk about scaling a business business business big on big on big on it is it and I can tell just by what you've you uh becoming a good trainer right getting fit getting healthy getting educated and teaching others is a skill in itself that very few can get to.

you've reached that then being able to take that and scale beyond yourself is another skill set and then to scale that beyond that is another skill set and and they all require different things. This is all the stuff that we we talk about in the mentorship and coaching is helping people through whatever phase they're at in business. And this is what you you for sure need to get in the course and you need to get a part of the community cuz it's there's a there's other there's other coaches that are all trying to build a business like you that are all at different stages and so we've cultivated a community like that of other entrepreneurs that are all helping each other out.

Um you would benefit from that a lot. Get in there. I'll have I'll have I'll have I I'll have someone call you and talk to you all about it and get you set up. In the meantime, Angela, do you have uh because there's programs I know that we have that are beneficial to trainers. Do you have Prime Pro and Prime? And I did anabolic. Um it was hard. I think it was anabolic. It was a little hard for me to do full body. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Uh I just love doing splits. Yeah. How many days a week are you in the gym? Well, every day, but like I said, a lot of days I'm just doing I'm on the foam roller and I'm doing stretches and I'm doing my customized corrective routine. So, I do a lot of stuff where I like I I do pay attention if I'm overtraining. Okay. Can I give you a three-day split? Uh that's not a not a full body. As long as I can hit legs twice a week, I will do whatever you need.

Okay. Then I'll give you the other split that we have. We have a new program. new program. new program. Give her up or lower. I'm going to send you maps up or lower, but I'm also going to send you Prime Pro because that's going to be very valuable to you as a trainer. trainer. trainer. Okay? Okay? Okay? You like correctional exercise stuff, there's great movements in there that I think you can pull from. Okay? Okay? Okay? Okay. And then I'm going to have somebody call you about our just our community of coaches to help you build because seriously, if you find a way to have somebody do the stuff that you hate and the way I did it as a trainer was I had a client that I would trade that I trusted and like cool, I'll trade you.

All I need you to do is do my books for me cuz I hate doing that. Yeah. And it was like such a such an unlock. But well, but our our course has so much coaching in there for that kind of stuff. of stuff. of stuff. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then tips on the HGH cuz I'm so afraid to let go of it because not only did it give me that three lbs of extra muscle, but I noticed I felt like I healed faster, I looked better overall.

I felt so I'm afraid to go off this little fountain of youth, but I know you should stay on it forever. Yeah. No. Well, no. You don't have to go off age. go off HGH. Love HGH. No, people. Yeah. Now, look, again, I'm going to disclaimer, we're not doctors. Uh, but we interview doctors. Uh, no, if you're on hormone therapy, you don't you don't need to go off. You just stay on it. Uh, with HGH, I'm on the lowest amount. I'm on the lowest amount. lowest amount.

lowest amount. With HGH, the the lowest that you can get away with is better because higher starts to produce symptoms and and all that stuff. And so, if you're on the lowest dose and and you're you're working with a doctor, you just stay on it. it. it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And it's far it's better than the peptides that are like the precursors to that. So if you have a that. So if you have a direct line to the HGH, you have the best already.

best already. best already. So yeah, So yeah, So yeah, because I did start taking the NAD also. NAD is different and NAD is fine. If you feel energy from it, go for it. The biggest difference I notice on NAD is actually when I'm down. I notice a difference when I'm like when I just came off of being really sick or something, then I really feel NAD. Otherwise, I don't feel NAD as much. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. And for the HGH, people generally do cycling and and stuff like that.

Bodybuilders do, but that's not the that's not for longevity. Longevity, you can stay on it forever. Yeah. So, typically it's like you take whatever your dose is. You take it daily. You might take a day or two off a week depending on what your doctor tells you, but you just stay on it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yep. Yep. Yep. All right. All right. All right. Are you getting it from a doctor? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, good. I'm like, wait a minute. I need to ask this question.

She got someone telling her to cycle this. So, who's giving it to her? It's probably some bodybuilder. Thanks, Angela. Thanks, Angela. Thanks, Angela. Well, I do have bodybuilder friends that give me advice, so Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're going to give you bodybuilder advice. Just be careful. Yeah. Yeah. Seek that salt. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Angela. Thanks so much, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. Take care. Take care. Yeah, she's she's doing great, dude. But the whole chasing goals thing at some point is like you can't Yeah.

Did she tell us her age? I don't know. know. know. 46 or 47. She looks incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She looks incredible. Yeah, she's doing great. But, you know, it's like, oh, I got a new goal, but I also have a business, but I'm also And it's like, whoa, we got Well, you know what? I I heard we didn't dig into it, but I heard the the stress of the business and the exercise is a distraction from the stuff that, you know, and business can be that way.

You know what I'm saying? It's uh and you could tell she's actually I mean, her branding looks beautiful. I mean, you just tell like you I can see all her certifications like she's uh put a lot of effort into getting to where she's at now and then this trying to break through this next level. Very hard. very hard, can be very stressful, and when you love exercise, it can become a nice distraction from the things that we need to do. But if you want to be successful at business, you got to face at business, you got to face that.

You got to face it. All right, I know you like that episode. If you did, check this one out. One of the keys to fat loss is protein. It's true. If you're not eating a high protein diet, you're not going to burn as much body fat as you can. So, today's episode, we're going to talk about the smartest ways to use protein for fat burn and to build muscle. You got to watch this. I wish I understood this earlier in my career. I think it was probably was probably was probably almost 10 years in when I started to just focus on this with clients.

I knew it was important, but I don't know how important. Yeah, I also did. I knew what was important and but I also